She looks him over before continuing.
Arc awakens surrounded by darkness. Looking around, he frowns. Casting a Light Spell he spies the darkened surroundings and Auriel snuggled up to him. She is shivering slightly. Smiling sleepily, he muses to himself.
“Kinda chilly on this mountain.”
Sighing, he pulls her close and Blinks them both to the ground below. Slowly getting to a sitting position he turns and calls forth his gauntlet to open a portal. Turning to Auriel, he picks the still sleeping demon up and walks though the swirling energies. Laying her on the bed Arc scooches in next to her and covers them both with a blanket as Auriel sighs contentedly in her sleep. Slowly but surely she again latches onto Arc.
“Thank you for the evening, Auriel.”
Leaning over to her, he presses his lips to her cheek eliciting a small giggle from the sleeping demon. Laying back Arc closes his eyes and falls asleep. Sometime later he is awakened by strange movements nearby. Opening his eyes Arc frowns and looks around.
“What the…?”
Pulling the covers back he spies Auriel on top of him. Feeling a wet sensation dripping down his leg he looks past her to see the sleeping young demon slowly rubbing her genitals against his thigh.
“Oh boy…”
Patting her face gently, he calls out to her softly.
“Auriel?”
Slowly opening her eyes, Auriel looks to Arc.
“Where… are we…?”
“My room in the castle. Um… are you okay?”
Auriel smiles sleepily. “Yes, I’m…”
Suddenly realizing the position she’s in, Auriel smells her own arousal. Smiling, she looks down at Arc.
“Thank you.”
“What for?”
“Doing what you did.”
She puts a claw on her belly and giggles happily before continuing.
“I do hope I’m pregnant.”
“Auriel, you’re…”
“Can humans have more than one young at a time?!”
“Um… yeah, but…”
“Then I hope we get one of each! Oh, I can’t wait to tell my father the news!”
“Auriel?”
“Yes?!”
“You’re not pregnant.”
Auriel appears confused. “How do you know?”
“Because we didn’t do what you think we did.”
“We… didn’t?”
Arc shakes his head. “No.”
Auriel looks away, clearly embarrassed. “Oh… uh… I’m sorry. You see I was just so excited by the smell of my own…”
“It was an honest mistake.”
“Are you sure we didn’t do anything?”
“Very, yes.”
Auriel smiles slyly. “Want to?”
“Not right now, no.”
“Are you sure? I can feel something hard pressing against my…”
Arc blushes profusely. “Sorry!”
Auriel giggles happily. “No need to apologize. It’s a natural reaction to a… a near miss mating session.”
Arc groans. “Somehow that made it sound worse.”
“Sorry. I wasn’t sure how else to word it.”
“Yes, well… um… we should probably get cleaned up now.”
Auriel sits up and looks away nervously. “Yes. Demon discharge is quite pungent for some reason.”
“Uh… want to shower?”
“With you?”
“I… guess we could do that. If you really want to.”
Auriel nods. “That I would.”
Carefully rolling off of Arc, Auriel does her best to keep her damp dress from making contact with the bed as Arc stands and helps her up. Leading her to the bathroom Auriel closes the door as Arc gets the water going. Setting the temperature, he turns back to her standing there nervously.
“You ready?”
“Arc?”
“Yes?”
“There’s… something I’ve wanted to do for a long time. Well, something else I mean.”
“What is it?”
“Just watch.”
Taking a deep breath, she stands there motionless for a moment before reaching behind her and giving a slight tug. With a few motions from her shoulders the dress slides down her body and lands at her feet in a heap on the floor fully exposing her body.
“Auriel?”
Auriel smiles sheepishly. “I just wanted you to watch me do that. It… was kind of a fantasy of mine.”
Arc blushes slightly. “Oh. Um… you look really pretty.”
Auriel does a little twirl. “Do you like what you see?”
“I do think you look… very nice like that, yes. But why don’t we get showered off? I suppose both of us could still use some more sleep.”
“Okay.”
Taking off his formal jacket, Arc hangs it up on the back of the bathroom door. As he turns around Auriel begins unbuttoning his dress shirt. She looks up at him as she does so.
“Sorry. I just want you bare like me.”
Allowing her to continue, Arc’s shirt falls to the floor as he unfastens his trousers. They too fall to the tiles and lay in a heap along with his undergarments. Taking her claw in his hand Arc leads Auriel over to the shower and the pair step inside. Auriel looks to him sheepishly as they do so.
“Sorry.”
“For what?”
“That I stink.”
Arc smiles. “It’s fine. Truth be told I don’t think I smell any better down there right now.”
Auriel giggles as her eyes roam downward. “Yes, I smelled that too.”
Arc blushes slightly. “Sorry about that.”
“It’s not your fault. After all, your body was just reacting to stimuli.”
“Well, now that we’re both here… I did want to say something to you, Auriel.”
“What is it?”
“Thanks for last night.”
“We should both be thanking Twilight for that. After all it was her idea.”
She giggles as Arc sprays her down with the shower nozzle.
“But this part was all you!”
A short time later they sit down on the tile floor of the shower and let the steam flow over their bodies. Arc turns to Auriel.
“I never thought a date would be this much fun.”
Auriel grins. “I never thought I’d get this far with anyone.”
Arc turns to her. “Relationship-wise or sexually?”
“Yes.”
They laugh together as Auriel lays her head on Arc’s shoulder.
“Oh, it feels so good to laugh. Not sure why we all don’t do it more often.”
“When I retire we’ll be doing it a lot more.”
“I’ll hold you to that.”
“Please do.”
They are silent for a time as the sound of the water running continues to fill the air. Eventually Auriel turns to him.
“Arc?”
“Yes?”
“I’m… sorry about jumping to conclusions earlier.”
“About us having sex?”
“More in regards to being pregnant.”
“It’s okay.”
“I don’t think we’ve ever properly talked about that.”
“Kinda have.”
“Well, I don’t remember it.”
“The conversation wasn’t that long.”
“Then why don’t you tell me what it is that you want?”
“As far as having children?”
“Yes.”
Arc closes his eyes and looks up at the ceiling for a moment before speaking.
“This… is one of those things that Lily and I always had in common.”
“Lily?”
Arc nods. “Yes. We both agreed that we’d like to have kids one day so that we could give them the life we never had.”
“I… I’m sorry, Arc. I didn’t realize you two were that close.”
“We’re not. Well… kinda are, I guess. When things like that came up it was always implied that it would be us having our own separate families.”
“You weren’t attracted to her?”
Arc shakes his head. “No. I mean, she is really pretty and all. But I viewed her more like a little sister.”
“I can understand that. She is very nurturing.”
“That she is. While it may seem kinda strange, Frank, Shelly, and I kinda looked up to her as a mother figure for the longest time.”
Auriel sighs. “That’s… really sweet.”
“Auriel?”
“Sorry. It’s just that… I never actually had anyone like that in my life.”
“You said that you spent a lot of time alone in Vengeance’s library before we met. Wasn’t there anyone else there?”
Auriel shakes her head. “No. The demons of high enough rank to be allowed in there weren’t much for such things.”
“Did you ever talk to anyone in the palace?”
“Just my father at mealtimes.”
“That must’ve been hard on you.”
“In retrospect it was, yes. But at the time I didn’t know there was such a thing as real friendship.”
“You can’t miss what you never had.”
Auriel looks to him, confused. “I beg your pardon?”
“Think about it. Let’s say something happened between us that caused you to go back to your father permanently. Would you miss what you’ve experienced here in Equestria?”
“Very much so, yes. But as you said, now I’m aware of such things.”
“And now I’m aware too, Auriel.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Back when I was trapped in Tartarus I went to Vengeance with Ember.”
Auriel gasps. “You did?!”
Arc nods. “Yes. We needed some materials that couldn’t be scrounged for normally.”
“How did you manage to get them?!”
“By hiding our faces and pretending to be demons. One night, as we were staying in a rather seedy hotel you and your father walked through the streets.”
Auriel sighs. “My father insisted on doing that. Partially to get me out of the palace. The other to show me off to potential mates.”
She turns to him before continuing.
“What did you… think of me?”
“Honestly?”
“Always.”
“I actually thought that you were the queen. Ember quickly corrected me though.”
“Good. That and I’m assuming you got away safely.”
“We did. After pulling off quite the con job to a debt collector.”
“How?”
“By convincing him that Ember was actually you.”
“That worked?!”
Arc nods. “Somehow, yes. After all, she was almost totally covered and about the same height and build as you were.”
“Not that anyone there would have questioned it too much.”
“Your father’s wrath?”
“Exactly.”
“That experience allowed me to meet and befriend a demon woman named Ester along with her newborn child, Rebme.”
Auriel raises an eyebrow, confused. “Rebme? That’s a very peculiar name.”
“She named them after Ember.”
“Oh?”
“Her blood helped to strengthen an antibiotic that saved the little one’s life.”
“That was very generous of her!”
“Yeah, well… it gave us both a new perspective.”
“It did?”
“Up until then neither of us had met, let alone talked to, a demon. We both learned that they weren’t all what we were led to believe.”
“We’re not all vile creatures, I suppose. Yet I also admit that we do have a large number of bad eggs.”
“That I do know. On the way to the shop Ember and I were stopped by a pair whom tried to extort us.”
“Oh my! Were either of you hurt?!”
“Nah. Ember beat the stuffing out of them though. I was able to stop her before she went too far fortunately.”
“That’s good. My father doesn’t like disturbances like that.”
Arc puts a hand to her cheek. “Back then I never thought I’d ever get to meet you face to face.”
Auriel giggles. “Like this, no less.”
They share a laugh together before Auriel speaks.
“Tell me something though. When you broke into the control room of the Malice Cannon did you recognize me?”
Arc shakes his head. “No. I couldn’t see you well enough during your walk through the streets for that.”
“But I saw you.”
“You did?”
“Yes.”
“But I didn’t even see you look my way.”
“Demons have impressive peripheral vision.”
“Why didn’t you turn me in then?”
“In truth, I didn’t really know what exactly I saw back then. At first I thought you to be just another demon and pretty much put the matter out of my mind.”
“But…”
“Your stature, poise, and proportion didn’t match up. But demons are a very diverse culture, so I assumed you to simply be inebriated with off posture or perhaps even heavily deformed.”
Arc chuckles. “Thanks.”
“It’s the truth.”
“Can I ask you something?”
“Anything.”
“I don’t look like other demons, right?”
“Not at all.”
“Then what about me do you find attractive?”
“You forget that I myself don’t appear like other demons either, Arc. That and I’m also half human.”
“Humor me then.”
“Your willingness to do what was right while still holding to a moral code, for starters.”
“The time at the Malice Cannon?”
Auriel nods. “Yes. After all, as I told you once before, it would have been much easier to kill me or at the very least allow me to die in the explosion of my creation. Then I never would have been able to help demonkind again.”
She looks him over before continuing.
“But let me turn the question around.”
“What do I find attractive about you?”
“Yes.”
“Well… your shy personality is very cute to me as is your smile and unique eyes.”
“Anything else?”
“If I’m being completely honest here… I’ve always thought your tail was very… endearing.”
“My tail?”
Arc nods. “It’s more… what’s the word… pronounced than a pony’s would be.”
Auriel giggles. “Well, I am bigger. Kinda.”
“Taller anyways.”
“Did the fact that I can make children for you have anything to do with it?”
Arc shakes his head. “Not at all. You’re more than that to me, Auriel.”
Auriel puts a claw on her belly and smiles. “Part of me is happy about that. But the other part wants nothing more than to be used by you and impregnated at once.”
“You’re not an object to be used though, Auriel.”
“Neither are you. Which makes me more than a little embarrassed regarding my behavior in bed.”
Arc chuckles and takes her claw in his hand. “Well, I won’t tell anyone if that’s what you want.”
Auriel looks away nervously. “I would appreciate that, yes.”
“Then that’s what we’ll do.”
Auriel smiles and lays her head in his lap as she looks away from him.
“Thank you, Arc.”
“Getting tired?”
“A bit, yes.”
“Want to head back to bed now?”
Auriel shakes her head. “Right now I just want to enjoy the moment.”
“Alright. But just for a bit longer.”
Leaning back against the tile wall, Arc lays a hand on her head. Gently stroking it he muses to himself.
“How did I ever get so lucky?”