Hello there!

This chapter will be a bit different.

Emotions… Eeeeww… Character building… Yuck!

Plot? NOOOOOO!

“Start killing things!” I can hear you yell at me.

Don’t worry, dear reader. Your thirst for blood will be quenched eventually!

We enter the tavern-room and the first thing I see is a couple of men having a bit of a tussle over one of the waitresses.

So that is what she meant with that statement.

The two men are luckily wearing leather armour, so I think the amount of injuries will be kept to a minimum. The ragged looking men are eventually broken up by a towering giant of a man. He isn’t a half-elf like us. He must be a bear? A bear man? I can’t see much fur since most of it is hidden underneath his clothing, but what I can see is the massive amount of chest hair sticking out of various rifts in his tunic.

I ask Sera what kind of race he is, and apparently it is called Urs. All I know is that the man could probably throw me across the room.

We walk over to a vacant table while chuckling at the two men being dragged out of the tavern by the scruff of their necks. A young pretty waitress comes over and asks if we want something to drink or eat. I just look at Sera, and she seems to take my hint.

Yeah… let the lady to the communication needed…

“Well… Some warm food and a couple of tankards of mead would be nice”, Sera tells the young lady.

I think the sight of me is rather unusual, because the girls seem to glance over at me from time to time. There are some emotions in her eyes I can’t seem to pick up, but I decide to not let it worry me.

What I can see is a group of men looking at Sera like the men in the arena would look at me. They seem to want to attack her.

“Sera… Why does those men want to attack you? Have you seen them before?”

Sera looks over at them for a quick second before chuckling to herself.

“No, Akif. They don’t want to attack me. What you are seeing is lust. It is a look you must get used to seeing when you travel with beautiful women”.

“Aah… So no killing them then…”

“Nope! No killing.”

I continue to carefully watch the men, but my focus is broken by a birdsongy laughter coming from Sera.

“You don’t have to worry. If they come over here, let me deal with them. Men like them are easy to fend off”.

“Thank you. I am sorry for being so useless. I can read emotions like worry and fear. I know what happiness is and other basic emotions. I am like a blank sheet when it comes to other more advanced emotions”.

“Don’t worry, Akif. You just haven’t seen what they look like yet. You know, that waitress looked at you with the same eyes”.

“With what eyes? Lust?”

“Yeah…”

“Why would she do that?”

“*cough* Well… You are a handsome man, Akif. A very handsome man”.

“Am I? What makes me handsome?”.

“That… is something we can discuss later, Akif. Actually! It is better if I show you what I mean, but that isn’t until later. I need to get to know you better for that”, she tells me with a grin.

I decide to leave Sera with her thoughts when the food arrives. Steaming vegetables and a good slab of meat arrives. I have some issues with the cutlery though. We didn’t use knives and forks when I was living in the slave barracks. Only spoons. I have only seen other people use them, but I don’t think I can replicate what they did. I look over at Sera with begging eyes.

Sera looks shocked at me when she realizes I haven’t used a knife and a fork before and subsequently erupts in a hearty laughter.

I look down at the metal cutlery with embarrassment, but it is quickly broken when she stands up and walk behind me.

She takes her own cutlery with her, and leans over my back. She starts fondling with my hands to show me how to properly hold it, and uses her own cutlery as example. I am very distracted by the pair of breasts subtly rubbing on my back, but I try my best to focus on something else than the sensation. Her breath in my ear sends unknown emotions throughout me, though.

It is as if I want to touch her?

Something has changed in me. When we hugged I didn’t use to feel this way.

“Uuumm… Sera… Something inside me has changed”.

“Ooh?”, she replies with a questioning expression.

“Yeah… When you lean over my back, the sound of your breath in my ear and the feeling of your soft chest made me feel unable to concentrate on what you were showing me. I have never felt this way before”.

She becomes red as a tomato before settling down and starts explaining. She never moved away though.

“You remember the look of lust, Akif? What you are feeling is lust”.

“Soo… lust makes me unable to concentrate?”

“Not necessarily… This is something I REALLY shouldn’t be asking, but how is everything going on in your pants?”

That question is pretty easy to answer. I can feel the thing between my legs has grown, and is currently sliding down my left thigh.

“It is big, and is sliding down my left leg”.

I hear a quip coming from her and she slowly stands up and walks back to her seat. Now that she is sure I can eat properly, I think she decided to go back to eating.

She settles down – still beat red, and tries to avoid eye contact while I wolf down my food.

Shit… this food is fucking delicious!

“This food is delicious!”, I exclaim as I continue eating. I can see the pleased expression on the Urs – man’s face, and I give the man a small nod before eating.

Sera takes small bites of food, but for some reason keeps drinking tankard after tankard of mead.

After the 4th one is finished, she exclaims;

“Phew… now I can have this conversation with you”.

“Have what conversation?”

“The conversation where I tell how the birds and the bees work”.

“Birds? You mean the tweet tweet kind?”

“Yes… those…”

“Ok… I believe the birds eat the bees? Pretty good stuff those insects. You just have to get used to the crunching texture”.

She coughs violently at that remark.

Somehow… I don’t think that is what she meant.

“Not exactly what I mean, Akif. Wait… Didn’t my father feed you enough food?”

“Weell… there were some nights I became hungry, and I didn’t have anything else to eat. I ate a couple of lizards as well. With some Pyrokinesis those lizards became pretty delicious after a while”.

She looks at me with sympathy and worry.

Sera`s POV

What kind of life has that man been living? Eating bugs and lizards because he didn’t get fed enough? And here I was complaining to my friends that my father’s cook never made anything delicious…

“Aah… I am sorry, Akif”.

“Why are you sorry? The bowl of stew we got each day was enough for us to live on. No one died of hunger, you know? I was just a bit hungrier than the rest. I was training my telekinesis, remember?”

No one died of hunger? It feels like my father was raising an animal, not a man. Haah… He has sooo much to learn… You don’t eat food because you have to... you eat it because you enjoy the flavour.

I look over at the man sitting across the table. He seems to be curious about what I am thinking, but doesn’t say anything. He takes a drink from the tankard of mead while keeping his eyes on me. A smile erupts on his face after he has gulped the whole tankard down.

“Sera! I want more of this! This is delicious!”

He looks at me with pleading eyes. Eyes that makes me unable to say no. I motion over to the young waitress to grab another couple of tankards.

Well… I have had like 4-5 of them, so one more for him shouldn’t be too bad.

It feels like his dark brown eyes can stare straight into my soul. He has a deep scar searing a path from his right forehead, and down to his right cheek. It is amazing he didn’t go blind when that happened.

His wide jaws, and chiselled chinbone makes him look very determined, but gentle somehow. It isn’t the features that makes him look that way, but the way his eyes look at me. His nose is round, but has a slight cut on the base as a result of a dagger that once found its way there.

He is a very handsome man. Wide muscular shoulders hidden underneath the leather tunic he is wearing. Rough hands and arms made for physical work. Underneath his tunic I can see the shapes of his chest – abs and all.

God damn it he is hot… I just can’t take my eyes away from him.

He never had any armour on except for the slightly padded leather pants he was wearing. “It makes it hard to move around” he told my father when the discussion of armour came up. My father came back angry after that, but since he had a fight the next day he didn’t get the usual 20 lashings.

I have seen a side of my father I never thought I would experience. With slaves he is ruthless and takes out his anger on them, but with me he is kind and gentle. And here I was crying in the lap of this gentle soul after my mother had died. A man that has lived through things I can’t even begin to imagine.

That didn’t stop him from being pleased with his life however. He even asked my father to be my guard. He really doesn’t know anything except the life in the arena, does he?

“The light in my eyes”, huh?

My thoughts are broken by a soft nudge on my arm.

“Sera? Are you ok?”

“Aaah! Yes… Sorry about that! I just had some thoughts to sort out”.

He looks at me with sad and worried eyes again.

“Is it your father? Do you miss him?”

“I… I don’t know, Akif. I think I am finally accepting the change in my life. One thing you need to know, Akif. I will take care of you. I will teach you everything my father didn’t. Everything will be fine. Just let me show you. The only thing I ask is for you to never leave my side”.

He looks back at me with a cute smiling face.

“I will stay with you for as long as you want me to, Sera”.

God damn! He is cute! When he does that I just want to jump him! Ride the man until the sun goes down...

“The first thing you can teach me is the birds and the bees”

I cough violently again from that statement.

He really doesn’t know anything, does he? I wonder what the other guests will think if they hear what he is saying.

“Ok… To make this simpler; The feeling of lust is what you feel when you are physically attracted to another person. It means that the person feeling that way wants to spend time with that person”.

Ok… now here comes the hard part.

“The feeling you were feeling earlier means you want to have sex with me. That is what the birds and the bees mean. It means to have sex”.

He looks at me intently, and nods his head indicating he understood.

“Sex is what someone has when they want to have a child”.

He looks away for a bit while thinking. He returns his eyes back at me. His dark brown eyes intensely look at me while saying;

“I want you to have my child then”.

Holy shit… That came out of nowhere! Well… it didn’t… but still! We are only 19 years old for god’s sake!

“*cough* For the next topic… Lust may also come with another set of emotions. Not always, but sometimes. A man can feel lust, and not feel the other emotion. The same goes for a woman. The emotion is called romantic love. Not the way you would feel about a parent, but the way you feel about someone you want to spend the rest of your life with”.

A flash of sadness rushes over his face when I say that.

“I don’t remember my family. They were all killed when I was young. I know I had a father and mother, but I don’t remember how they look”.

Good job, Sera! Now you made him sad. Good fucking job…

“Aaah… Yeah. Forgot about that. Ok! Let’s put it this way! Since you feel lust for me, what else do you feel?”

He stops to think again. This time it is longer. He doesn’t look in my eyes as he starts talking.

“I… Think… Maybe… I want to see you smile. When I see you smile I get this warm emotion in me. It feels good. And every time I see you my heart starts racing. It is not something I think about, but now that I remember it, I felt that way ever since the first time I saw you. I… Just want to be close to you”.

“I also get very sad when I see you are sad. It makes my heart hurt, if you know what I mean? I just want you to be happy. I like seeing you smile. I like the feeling I get when I see you smile. I will never let anyone hurt you. I want to protect you. That is why I asked your father if I could become your guard”.

He loves me? Is that what he is telling me?

“I think you are very beautiful, Sera. I like being around you. I like smelling your hair when we ride, I like the warmth of your body. I like everything about you”.

I really need to be careful now. This can go to hell VERY quick if I don’t do this right.

He looks back at me with a small smile on his face. A slight blush can be seen creeping up on him, but all of that disappears as he notices the focused face I am making.

Now he looks at me with concern.

“Sera? Is that weird? Am I weird?”

“No, Akif. I think you were explaining the feeling of love. I am not sure, but I think that is what you were telling me. That is the emotion I was talking about. We have known each other for years, and I think that is what my father was saying when he asked you if you have built up some feelings for me”.

“That is why I told him that I didn’t know what the feelings I had was. I told him that it might be something romantic or brotherly love. I never actually felt those feelings before now. I just heard the other gladiators talking about them. They say that when a man helps another man, it is because of brotherly love. I never got that help though… Love was talked about when they were remembering their homes. I don’t know what it was they were thinking about, but they were very sad”.

Aaah… so that is what he heard it. I was surprised when he spoke of those feelings.

“You were acting very differently with my father than you are now. Why is that?”

“I just said whatever I thought he might like to hear. The only think I know is that I want to be with you. I remember thinking it when I was wondering about my future”.

He wants to be with me… He is a good man. A very good man.

“So… you being with me makes you happy? That is why you asked?”

He beams a smile at me before nodding.

Well… I want to be with you too, Akif.

The waitress comes with another tankard of mead, and places it in front of us. I can see her staring at him again with a slight blush on her face, but he seems oblivious to her. He looks aimlessly around the tavern-room while thinking about something. She seems slightly sad at his lack of interest, so I just give her a small smile before she heads off again.

“Sera? Am I stupid?”

Where did that come from?

“No? You aren’t stupid, Akif. Why do you ask that?”

“Is it normal for women to explain to other men what love is?”

Haah! Nope! They should however!

“No. It is not. That doesn’t make you stupid. It just means you haven’t experienced it before. I told you before that I will teach you everything my father didn’t. Honestly, I think you are very smart! You managed to convince my father that having you as my guard will decrease the chance of me being attacked. I just need to teac…”

Fuck… What the hell, Pappy? Did you know he would be like this? Did you know that he wouldn’t know what to do? Did you count on him being available for me? I know you can lie like a master. Did you know that we were friends? Are you going to use is innocent ignorance for your own good? You said he has quite a lot of political influence. Are you thinking of using that somehow? I’m not going to let you do that, pappy.

“Sera? Are you ok?”

“Aah! Yes! A thought just hit me”.

“Is something wrong?”

“No… Everything will be fine, Akif”.

We finish our mead before going to the room. I can feel the alcohol working as I stand up and almost falls to the ground.

Shit… I really am drunk…

Luckily Akif is there to rescue me from an otherwise very embarrassing situation. I can feel his rough hands around my waist, and his worried eyes look down at me.

I try to walk on my own, but I can feel the world spinning around me as I walk. I can’t seem to walk in a straight line, so I grab his arm and wrap it around my waist again as we walk towards the room we got.

The double bed looks very inviting right now, so I strip of my dress, and jump into bed. I close my eyes and wait for him to enter.

However, he never does that. When I look up to see where he went off to, I see him laying in a corner.

He is naked like me, and it must be freezing for him to be laying there on the wooden floor without anything. I can feel a tear flowing down my face as I look at the scars littering his naked body.

He must have been through so much pain.

I get up and walk over to him. With a gentle hand I start cuddling his hair.

He seems to have fallen asleep, but when I start touching him he jumps up like a scared wolf ready to attack. I grab his frightened hands, and drag him to bed.

He seems unwilling at first, but after I give him a hard look, he gives in.

I make him lay down first, and cuddle myself close to him. It feels good to share the blanked with someone else.

Yep… He is a good man.