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“Ereyek,” Tobi says softly as Harok slides a finger inside him. It’s dry and it burns. Tobi yelps and says, “Ereyek!” again, pointing to the dish of oil beside the bed. “Oil.”

Harok laughs again. “Oil,” he echoes as if this word is very amusing. He pulls his hand back and takes a moment to do as Tobi asked.

When Harok’s oiled finger slips into him, Tobi keens with pleasure. He shifts to take more of Harok’s thick finger inside him.

Harok sighs and kisses Tobi, deeply on the mouth then on his chin, his neck. He worries there, licking, sucking at the bite mark on the soft flesh where Tobi’s neck and shoulder join. At the same time he fucks Tobi with his fingers. Tobi writhes on the sheets.

Harok slides a second finger into Tobi and Tobi cries out. Harok’s fingers are big and it's a little too much, a little too fast. But Harok is greedy for him. He can feel it. Pain sparks through him as he is opened, but the pain is sweet, twisting into pleasure, mixing with the intense feel of Harok’s teeth nipping his flesh. Harok’s fingers drag and move inside him, stretching wider and wider until he gasps, hips bucking up from the bed. Harok chuckles and twists his fingers again, finding that spot inside Tobi that makes his breath hitch and the pleasure build. Harok focuses his attention there and the feeling rises and rises. Tobi moans, “Oh, please.” He wants more. Three fingers.

“Oh, please,” Harok echoes back, sliding his fingers deeper.

Tobi groans. He realises he has the words. He can ask for three, “Tal,” he says. “Please, tal.”

Harok makes a humming sound of delight and Tobi feels the overwhelming, almost too much, feeling as Harok adds a third finger.

Harok only moves his finger once or twice before Tobi realises that he cannot hold on. He cries out as he spends, his cock jolting between their bodies, just from Harok’s thick fingers inside him.

Harok makes another growling noise. Approval of Tobi’s fast, eager rush to pleasure. His desire. He withdraws his fingers from Tobi’s body and trails them through the warm seed on Tobi’s belly.

Tobi is still gasping, shaking from his spend, as Harok’s fingers slip into Tobi’s mouth. He tastes himself, sharp and sour. He gasps. He may not care much for the taste of spend, but he still sucks Harok’s fingers clean, moaning and cooing with want as Harok’s eyes burn into his own.

“Kushessa ai elizzia,” Harok murmurs, spreading Tobi’s legs with his free hand.

Tobi thinks, even in his deep haze, so soon after spending, that this must mean something like: my darling slut. He wonders if Harok realises he understands.

Harok keeps his fingers in Tobi’s mouth as he fucks into him. It feels good to be filled doubly so. Tobi’s whole body seems to pulse. He is over sensitised, overwhelmed, lost in feeling. He cries out over and over as Harok takes him hard. Tobi never would have believed it possible, but as Harok fucks him his cock twitches, growing roused again between their bodies, as Harok’s thick dek drags against the pleasure spot inside Tobi’s hole again, he feels a second spend building. It comes upon him even more unstoppable than before and he spills seed on his body again just before Harok spends too with a great roar.

Tobi gasps and pants as Harok stills inside him and holds and kisses him through the last tremors of pleasure. He feels so good. His whole body alive, more alive than it has ever been. Harok’s love making is so sweet.

Sweeter than he has ever known.

As more days pass, Tobi spends time every day learning Ambolk in the library with Lymok. He starts fetching Baby from the stables and bringing her with him, taking his lessons with her curled at his feet.

Lymok is a good teacher and Tobi works hard. He spends his free time seeking out anyone who will speak with him in Ambolk as he goes about Urynwud with Baby. He learns the words he finds most useful quickly. Honey. More honey. Mead. Bread. The bark tea he likes so much is called zakol. He learns a few words so he can ask the stablegirl about Baby when he collects her from her cage each morning. A word for meat and something that might mean food or eat and another that either means happy or calm or some combination of both.

Tobi spends his late afternoons napping in Baby’s straw, especially if he is particularly worn out from his night in Harok’s bed, or exploring more of Urynwud if he is not. He quickly confirms that he is not allowed out of the walls of the main building of Urynwud. The guards that follow him spring into action if he goes anywhere near any route that would take him beyond its perimeters. Urynwud appears to be well defended. Even the grove that adjoins the stableyard has an iron fence around it with a single gate and high watchtower, with two guards permanently stationed watching the forest.

Tobi enjoys helping in the stable by grooming the horses. The stablegirl’s name, he learns, is Sami and her matronly overseer, who makes the occasional appearance, is named Jer. Jer is wary of Tobi at first, and seems unsure if Tobi is permitted to spend so much time in the stables, but she warms to Tobi in time. Tobi discovers she likes moonleaf and has Lymok bring him a pouch one day so he can give it to Jer as a gift. Everyone warms to Tobi in the end. He likes to make Sami laugh. He brings crusts of bread and rinds of cheese to the stables and lures out some of the rats. He begins a project of teaching them to do tricks and solve puzzles for their treats.

Harok has a new horse. This one even larger than Tamello, who seems to be happily retired, the wound on his neck well healed. The new horse is a formidable black mare called Embox which Tobi learns is the Ambolk word for obsidian. Embox is soon very fond of Tobi, who whispers to her in Ibian every time he sees her. Although Embox is a difficult beast with most people. Including Harok who spends hours each day riding her through the forest.

As the days pass, Tobi uses his old skills to impersonate the Solwen. He can mimic Mereli and Lymok and Sami’s voices quite well. He can even do a reasonable impersonation of Harok, which makes Harok look at him with a strange expression that Tobi thinks might be amusement.

Soon he can communicate with his guards. He learns their names. Cel and Ador, who are brothers. Lok, the young woman who is only fifteen summers and Olladin with the long black beard, who is their leader.

One day he finds an old pack of Archaneum cards in the library and when Lymok says he can have them, he practises a few card tricks he learnt from the magicians at Copperhead Circus and even teaches his guards how to play archa with him — the fast loud racing version Tobi prefers. Lok, in particular, is very taken with the frantic, exciting game.

One long sunny afternoon he sits with his guards in the grove, that Tobi has learned is called the zhilvar, Baby at his feet. After they finish a raucous game of arca, Tobi says in Ambolk, “The cards also tell…” he pauses, “tomorrow,” he says, finding the Ambolk word for the next day and then gesturing with his hands to signal further on. The future.

The guards look at each other. “Mariand?” Cel says.

“Sho,” Tobi says back. He thinks mariand means something like ‘the future’. “Mariand.” He pulls out the twelve cards that show the Sidusia. He spreads them out in a row and says in Ambolk, “Card,” then points at the sky and says, “moon.” Trying to convey that each card represents a moon of the year. Then he hands the rest of the cards to Cel and makes a gesture to Cel to shuffle them.

With more gestures and words of Ambolk, he gets Cel to lay out a card face down against each of the sidu cards and points out things in each one that tell what will happen to Cel over the next twelve moons. Cel explodes with laughter when he gets the love card against Gi, only a single moon hence.

After that Tobi ends up telling the fortunes of all his guards and as word spreads he even finds himself doing it for many Solwen who approach him and say, “Mariandcards.” Fusing an Ambolk word and an Artemian one. Tobi even ends up fortune telling for many of the Green Women, the Verilissia, who he had thought might find this Artemian heresy, but it seems the Amber Forest is quite tolerant of faiths other than their own. Some of them seem quite fascinated with the deeper meanings of the cards and Tobi ends up bringing some of the Verilissia to the library one morning so Lymok can help him explain more of the signs and symbols on the cards.

Tobi had been taught card reading by Old Mother. But he does not believe arca cards can really tell the future. His mother had once explained that men see in the cards what they want to see and if something predicted comes true it is either a mere coincidence or that being told something will happen makes them more likely to pursue it.