My Servant Is An Elf Knight From Another World

Magic was in the air.

As of late, I've been liking that word less and less. I hear magic, and I start envisioning only hours of grueling, mind-numbing trial-and-error processes, feel the searing stabs of knives and needles as I wear myself down to the bone trying to reach some arbitrary finish line a million miles away, running haphazardly and tripping clumsily in shoes still much too big for me to fill.

But this wasn't that.

This was a gentler magic—a kindly, less abrasive kind. Engulfing and enveloping like the tenderness of a warm hug. I could feel it everywhere: in the music playing onstage, the flamboyant and exuberant blur of tunics and gowns spinning all around. And most prominently, I could feel it in her…

In the look of her eyes, the touch of her hand. Through her strides, I'd follow, and with every pivot and twirl, it felt as if we were floating, flying; light, nimble steps effortlessly gliding across the square.

I could count on one hand the number of waltzes I've ever partaken in and even less on how many I've managed to one-two'ed my feet to properly… and even now I'm sure I'm only barely scraping by with a passing grade with my current performance. Yet that didn't matter overall, because even every minor misstep and tumble felt just right.

That's just how things are with Ruria. It doesn't matter if I'm wrong, clueless, or just flat-out inept… one way or another, she'll always make me seem like I knew what I was doing the whole time. Whether that'd be summoning a fictional entity to reality, cleansing a parasite from a man's soul… or doing my best to keep my steps along to the rhythm of hers.

To her, with her, I was perfect.

"My foot," she whispered, hiding a wince behind a smile as I looked down to find my shoe grinding hers hard into the ground.

Well, almost perfect.

"Sorry," I quickly shifted my leg back to the large cobbled tile by her foot, which I somehow managed to miss. I tried to ignore the fire in my cheeks that the persisting look of amusement in her eyes continued to stoke even hotter.

Of course, Ruria being Ruria—the woman went ahead and turned a throbbing mushed foot into something charming and adorable; another endearing quirk of little ol' me to smile and giggle lovingly over.

"You dance better sober, you said?"

"Better than drunk, I meant," I muttered back. "Not better as in… better."

The song took a turn in tempo, and in turn, so did we, as did everybody. Ruria picked up the pace, her movement ever as graceful and nimble, while I just did my very best to keep up and not look like I was being flailed around like a ragdoll.

This dance was quite different from the waltz I participated in back when I was champion at the Asteria convention. There, surrounded half the time by fair maidens adorned in plastic gems and dauntless heroes of every shape and size wielding aluminum swords and cardboard bows, all I had to do was slowly spin a couple of times and voilà that's a dance.

But here, Ruria had my legs and feet doing all sorts of things it was never made to do. So many stops, turns, forward-lefts, backward-diagonals—it seriously felt like I was playing musical twister.

"I could whisper. You know—left foot forward now, right foot back—that sort of thing…" She grinned wider again, after taking a spin that had me careening like a truck that took too sharp of a turn on a wet road. "…then again, not like anyone's watching to judge you."

"And if they could?" I asked as we meandered around and right through a couple practically ensnared in each other's embrace. "Do I even dare hope for an average grade at best?"

Ruria pulled a face and I sighed.

"That bad, huh?"

"Matter of perspective. Not bad at all to me," she said in a soft cheering tone. "You think I'd be happier if it turns out you can actually dance as well as you wish you do?"

"Uh… I would think so?"

"Okay, let me put it this way… tell me, you've had sex with us… hm, how many times would you put it roughly? I'm including rounds, of course."

It felt almost like a punch; the sound of her words with some brass knuckles strapped onto it. Like, I'm pretty sure I'm within my rights in filing an assault charge on her for that alone.

"Not answering that one," I immediately said.

"Why?" Ruria prodded. "Did you already lose count?"

"No! Yes! I-I mean, no—I just—why the hell would I be keeping track of something like that?"

"You're making me stray from my point," she said, shaking her head quickly. "What I'm trying to say is: you're already far more experienced than me when it comes to that aspect of a relationship. Where to stroke to make me gasp, where to pinch to make me moan, how to keep rhythm, when to quicken the pace—"

"And?"

"I'm the kind that much prefers discovering and experiencing new things together," she said. "I think it makes things all the more special that way. Like now, our first-ever actual waltz. Can you tell I'm enjoying myself quite a bit here?"

There was no need to answer that one. The only other time I've ever seen her this gleeful and giddy was when she got drunk on herself. And while I don't think she's at that level yet here, I'd still wager to say that we're at an extremely close second.

"Except," I said. "This isn't exactly new for you, is it? Look at you, you dance like you were made for it. And being a woman with such… special charms, not exactly that far off, am I?"

Ruria took my point with a tiny sigh and a nod. "The things men would say and do just for the chance to hold hands with a pretty face."

"That's hardly fair. Especially if it's your hands and face on offer," I snorted. "Anyway, that kinda proves the point. Love my shit dancing all you want, but it doesn't count as being a first for you, sadly."

"Counts," she said, a scarlet softness in her gaze making the smile she had all the more lovelier a sight. Then, between the gentle lead and lull of violin strings, Ruria leaned closer inwards and placed her head against my chest. I felt my breath stop as hers flowed free. "It's the first time I'm actually enjoying myself doing it, after all."

I was losing it.

My senses, my rationality. Not that I haven't already been losing it for some time now, resisting in vain against the euphoric zaps and volts of her touch, her warmth… even the way she'd been looking at me, talking to me… just another knife relentlessly whittling thin my poor psyche. Then she just had to go and say what she said in the way that she said it and that was that.

Suddenly, just looking and touching and talking wasn't enough anymore. Go ahead, call me easy, call me weak, I am what I am… and what I am is just a man.

"I can feel that, you know?"

Ruria peered up at me from below, the same smile still on her lips, only now it seemed much, much more devious. She stopped us in place, splintering us cleanly off from the synchrony of the other couples. All around us, a swirl and blend of nimble movement, while she just peered at me, and I blinked back.

"Feel what?" I asked.

"You," she expanded. "What you're feeling, what you're thinking. Don't you remember I can do that? How every look you give me, every lustful thought you have of me… I feel every single bit back tenfold."

If I had been blushing, if I was turning red from embarrassment, then I couldn't feel it at all from how hot I already was. From the very start, she had been aware of every urge and impulse I had of her, and in turn, it exacerbated her own. Just an endless loop of one another's growing lust and desire.

It'd be funny if it weren't also so goddamn scary.

"Yet you went and kept poking and prodding at me anyway," I said, slowly feeling my hands move with a life of its own and falling around her hips. Then without my volition but with all of my blessing, they held onto her tighter. "I'm guessing that's all on purpose?"

"Think I'd do this all by accident somehow?" she queried.

"Accidents happen."

"Oh, and just who do you think you're talking to?" she said, voice teetering on a laugh. "You know me, do I seem the accident type? You know very well that I know exactly what I'm doing."

There's that urge again, that carnal instinct within rapidly clawing its way into dominance. For me, it was simply unbearable. And as for her…?

"What do you want exactly?" I asked, my voice crushed and constricted by everything layered above it.

Ruria, as always, simply kept her smile. "You ask that… as if you don't already know."

And she was right. I did.

"There'll be time for that," I managed to squeeze the words out from the lump in my throat. I shot my eyes elsewhere, focusing on any empty space that didn't have a single bit of her in it. "Y'know, later…"

Alas, it seems that that was the wrong thing to say.

The next thing I knew, her hands were on my head, forcing my stare onto hers. In her eyes, within the dark glint of red, I saw a dangerous hunger.

"That's what I was planning at first," she said, her lips just a single nudge from a kiss. "But you know what? I'm starting to think later's a little too late for me."

It struck me then that if I was over here on the brink of losing all sense of logic and reason… then on her end of the loop… for her case…

Oh boy.

"Ruria…" was all I managed to say before I got zapped again; her hands gliding, almost dragging themselves across my skin, down my neck, fingertips resting against my chest. I shuddered. "J-Just… if you could just—"

"Wait?" She finished my words. I could feel my shirt being tugged. "Told you already, that was the original plan. Except I can't wait now. Not anymore."