Center Worlds - Spark
A Warrior's Welcome

Palace Lounge, Tara -3 BA

Ryo sat back and closed his eyes, just being there, able to breathe, not having any real pressure. It was an unfamiliar feeling. He opened his eyes to see a Lady, no a Lari’Sota sitting opposite him.

“Hello.” She said in a quiet sing-song voice.

“I do not require company, thank you,” Ryo said by means of dismissing her.

“They called me Mistress Tya, Commander.” She said, leaning forward slightly.

Ryo looked at her. “Who did?”

“The girls, my Lord. I am their palace mother. I raised the Ladies Aya and Kya.” She said, then leaned back and looked at him with deep green eyes. Ryo realized this was the woman whom he had enjoyed the dancing and company of the previous eve.

Ryo shook his head. “Kya is not a Lady of the Clan.”

Tya chuckled. “She is much more Lady than you know, my Lord. She decided to not pursue her Clan heritage in favor of becoming Aya’s companion. That young girl has dedicated her entire life to taking care of your daughter.”

Ryo gazed at her. Tyo was right, this one did bear a superficial resemblance to his long-dead Lya. The face was similar, the body proportions, even the voice, different, but still similar.

Tya watched him as he examined her, then with an impish smile said “Do you wish me to rise and do a slow circle so you can better see me, my Lord?”

Ryo blinked. “I am sorry, I meant no disrespect, Lady.”

Tya got up and walked over. “May I sit beside you?”

Ryo didn’t nod or refuse, so she sat down, carefully folding her legs under her gown in almost the same way Lya used to.

“You miss her a great deal, my Lord. I can see it in every movement you make. The way your eyes search mine, and look me over, seeking familiarity.” Tya said, resting a slim hand on Ryo’s forearm.

“I loved her, I still do. Lya was my life, and she was taken from me.” Ryo said flatly.

“Then you went to war. You fought many battles and had many victories. Suffered losses yet again. You fought for the honor of the lost Lady of your Clan. You won that war, My Lord. Why do you not celebrate?” Tya asked him, leaning closer so he could smell the delicate scent of her body.

“I do not wish company, Tya.” Ryo said, gently pushing her back.

Tya looked at him, then put her hands on his cheeks and made Ryo look at her.

“I raised your daughter, Lord Camelin. To do that properly I was required to study you and the departed Lya Desinlo. I am not her, I will never replace her, however for you to properly know your daughter, you had better learn to know me.” Ryo looked into her eyes as he listened to what this woman said. She had been a mother to his Aya for more than fourteen cycles.

“What are you doing, Tya?” He asked her after a few moments of silence where he continued to be aware of both her soft scent, and the warmth of her close to him.

She laughed. “I am going to seduce you, my Lord. Then I am going to talk with you as to how you can become the parent to an eighteen-cycle teenager with a penchant for practical jokes and a desire for life that will not be contained.”

“I told you I did not wish company,” Ryo said again, but not with as much conviction as he had felt earlier.

“I know you do not wish it, my Lord. That does not mean you do not want it, nor does it mean you do not desire it.” Tya said, leaning over and giving him a gentle kiss on the lips.

Ryo inhaled the soft scent that he had not smelled in a very long time. Tya was not his Lya, he knew that, but he felt stirrings in his body that he had pushed down and held at bay for ages. Maybe too long.

Tya smiled as his hands tentatively placed themselves on her hips, and she gently shifted her weight so she sat on his lap, facing him. She could sense his nervousness, and also the slowly growing desire.

She kissed him again. “You are the Commander of the entire Combined Fleet. In the charge of over a hundred thousand officers and a million soldiers. Yet, you are trembling. My Lord, are you afraid of this, of me?”

Ryo swallowed with a dry mouth and suddenly at a loss for words.

She slid her arms around him and immersed him in the soft fragrance of her hair as he felt the warm embrace of this woman who had replaced his Lya and raised their daughter to be the woman of the Court she now appeared. The scent tickled his mind, a fragrance he had not smelled since his Lya had been taken from him. This woman had the same scent.

Tya signaled and the room attendants vanished, silently closing the doors and locking them so there would be no disturbances. She sat back up on Ryo’s lap and looked at him.

“Do you realize that I met the Lady Lya?” She said, gently caressing his chest through the formal tunic.

Ryo shook his head.

“You recall that after the birth of your first daughter, the Lady came to Tara for almost a full cycle to learn the ways of the palace and how to act in a society thirteen hundred cycles out of date with her own? I was her guide and assistant. That is why I was chosen to raise Aya. I knew a great deal of the Lady Lya and little Aya felt at peace with me.” Tya explained as she unbuttoned one of the fasteners and slipped her hand under Ryo’s tunic to run it over his bare skin.

“I am unsure,” Ryo whispered.

“I am not, my Lord,” Tya replied into his lips as she kissed him again, then dragged her fingers through his thick salt and pepper beard and down his chest.

“Do you remember how to undress a woman, my Lord?” She asked him in a voice tinged with amusement.

Ryo raised an eyebrow but did not respond as she deftly undid the remaining fasteners and opened his tunic so his broad chest was visible. Tya traced his major muscle groups, noting long-healed injuries here and there as she let her fingertips and nails gently trace lines in his skin.

“You are strong, My Lord. You are our Fleet Commander. A very important man in the military.” She kissed him, then began to gently kiss his neck and chest.

“You have just finished a war. Allow me to give you the only appropriate warrior’s welcome that the Palace can give to one such as yourself.” She said, then sitting back, crossed her arms, and lifted the bodice of her dress up and over her head, exposing her full white breasts to his gaze.

Ryo remained frozen, truly at a loss for word or action. Part of him wanted her with a desire that was hard to contain. This was not Lya, this would never be Lya. How could he betray his Lya’s memory by lying with another woman?

“You are not Lya.” He managed to say, weakly, as desire inflamed his body.

Tya kissed him, then placed one of his hands firmly around her full breast so that he gripped it and could feel the weight of the globe.

“I am not the Lady Lya, my Lord. She is gone. I do not feel that she would have wanted you to be alone for so very long, Ryo Camelin.” Tya said, then pulled his tunic off fully so he was bare from the waist up as she was.

“I also know, my Lord and Commander.” Tya said, hands busy at the fastener to his pants, “How she enjoyed you, and how to best give you the pleasure which you have denied yourself for such a very long time.”

Ryo opened his eyes after a short rest and looked over at Tya as she casually slipped the bodice back on, covering her chest. She had already cleaned both of them up and disposed of the evidence of their quick coupling. He lay back, then chuckled softly.

She stopped what she was doing and leaned over the back of the couch so she could see him, upside-down. “What is so amusing, Lord Ryo?”

“I have not been intimate in so long I had forgotten what it was like.” He said, then reaching up, pulled her head down, and kissed her.

“I want to thank you, Tya. That was much more than I expected or even imagined.” He murmured against her lips.

“I am here for you, Lord Ryo. I am at your pleasure.” She replied softly.

“You are Lari’Sota, I am not your only partner.” He said, gently releasing her.

She looked at him, then came around the couch and straddled his legs so she could sit on his lap again. His hands now automatically went to rest on her hips.

“I may be Lari’Sota, Ryo Camelin. But I am not a common whore. We enjoy many pleasures here at the palace. I am one of the few who have Right of Refusal. I choose my partners, not the other way around.”

“You’re like young Kya then?” Ryo asked.

Tya nodded. “When the Lady Aya was brought to us, we held days of discussion as to how to proceed. Nobody had any idea what to do with a girl so young, who the Emperor had told us explicitly, would be raised at the palace, but not be exposed to the, shall we say, baser events that occur here regularly. I was assigned to be her surrogate mother, and told specifically by the Emperor himself, that no man or woman would have me unless I specifically allowed it. I could choose.” She kissed Ryo, then let her lips trail up his face and gently caressed his nose before sitting back.

“It did not take long before I was being pursued by a Clansman who decided that he just had to enjoy me. I was still nursing Aya at the time. The medical team had given me a treatment that allowed my breasts to generate milk for the young Lady as she was still not fully weaned when Lady Lya had been killed. The young clansman came up to me one day, while I was sitting in the gardens with Aya, and told me to come with him, that he had a need.”

She shook her head at the memories. “He was so young, so foolish, so full of pride and hubris. I showed him the babe in my arms, barely 4 cycles old, still wrapped in bandages and dressings from the injury. He told me, put it down, I have a need, you will serve me.”

“I said no, This child has a much greater need. He reached down and grabbed the young Lady from my arms and raised her above his head as he meant to dash her down onto the stones, then he stopped. I saw standing behind him was the Emperor himself. The young clansman had paused because he had felt the point of a dagger in his side.

“Give the child back to her mistress, unharmed.” That is all the Emperor said.

“The clansman obeyed, and then the Lord Emperor grabbed him by the back of the neck and bodily threw him a good ten mets down the path. “Go back to your Clan, and you tell all the other advisers, that if somebody has been granted Right of Refusal, the Palace will protect them. You, good sir, are not permitted back here.”

Tya looked at Ryo, whose eyes had widened slightly at the telling. “Don’t you see, Lord Ryo. You have much respect at the palace. The Emperor himself made laws to ensure that Lady Aya would be raised properly, without the interference from the mess that can so easily occur here. He has personally defended her time and again against everybody who has tried to oppose or disturb her.”

Ryo took one of Tya’s hands and gently kissed it. “I am curious to know who the clansman was, Mistress Tya.”

She shook her head. “It no longer matters, my Lord. That was so very long ago. He was young, and he was foolish. He learned the error of his ways, at the hand of Emperor Masilec.”

Ryo looked at her. “He is dead?”

Tya nodded. “He challenged the Emperor to a duel right then. He demanded the right to defend himself on the field of honor. The Emperor grabbed a pistol from one of his guards and shot the man in front of us. He then told his people to clean up the mess and apologized to me for disturbing my peace and tranquility. I understand it took a month for the Palace to finally settle down Clan Veritas from the insult.”

“The young man was from your Clan?” Ryo asked, surprised.

Tya smiled, then gently got up from his lap and walked to the dispenser. “A drink, my Lord Ryo?”

Ryo rose and buttoned his tunic, then walked over to stand behind her and she felt his hands and his lips nuzzling her neck. “I think more than a drink, Mistress Tya. You have awakened something in me that I thought long dead. You and I should explore this together.”

Ryo walked down the corridors with Tya holding on to his arm, she was not his Lya, but this felt right. After so long, a part of him was waking up again, and it wanted a companion, Tya filled that need in him, and he felt more at peace than he had for a very long time.