The night is quiet and full of splendor. The emptiness of sound and any movement is eerie as the hero is in the middle of a military encampment but it bothers him not. In fact, the silence is an after-effect of the spell cast by the person with him in the tent.
The sultry figure takes in the naked image of the hero. It is visceral, raw and efficient. It is nothing like the crude bulky physiques of the brutes who are all bark and no bite. She covers the hero's body with her sight, as if she was looking for something. She sighs every time she sees a new scar beginning to form.
'His body…it's too much. What kind of hell does he have to go through to get so many wounds?'
She slides her finger against his chest. Her warm touch causes the hero to flinch but he doesn't stop her.
"Artesia." He calls for her with his raspy voice.
Her attention, stolen by his voice, is directed to his eyes.
The hero cups her chin with his hands and he raises up her face. Artesia feels a hot streak of electricity run up her body at his gaze. His passionate eyes feel as if they could burn a whole through her naked body.
His dark eyes look at her golden eyes with the intensity of the midday sun. But he isn't looking at her, he is looking through her.
As Artesia was losing herself in her thoughts, the hero's voice brings her back to reality.
"You really do look like her." He says, as he gently runs his hands through Artesia's hair.
The magician scoffs and shakes the hero's hand off her head.
"Should you really be talking about another woman at this very moment?" Artesia stands abruptly, her eyes forming two half-crescents as she notices the hero's attention captured by her chest's sudden movement.
"You know I can't help it. She was the love of my life." He states with certainty. "She was."
The hero's melancholic voice struck a chord in Artesia's heart. But she resolved herself and pushed for an advantage.
"The sex is good. Really good. But can you at least look at me for once?"
The hero scoffed with derision. "I do look at you. You're beautiful."
Artesia rolled her eyes at his half-handed comment. "You look beyond me. You look at the woman who I resemble." She slowly wiped her sweaty body with a towel. "You do realize that even just glancing in my direction is enough for most men, right?"
Artesia continued to clean herself up. "I do know what they want. What all men ultimately want. But I have given my all to you." She abruptly stopped and she looked at the hero's face. "Everything. Heart, body and soul."
The magician slowly wiped away the sweat in her arms. Deliberately slowing down knowing that the hero was watching her every movement.
"I'm not asking for much, Arthur. All I'm asking for is some of your attention. At least look at me when we're together like this."
The magician slowly lowers her body as she picks up her clothes scattered on the ground. The hero's eyes glued to her plump buttocks.
"You do have the most outrageous body in the world, Artesia" The hero jests. "And I do love you too, in my own way." The hero looked up seemingly nothing and added, "but I cannot give my all to you – not until I finish my mission"
The heartrending sadness in the voice of the hero almost broke the magician's heart. 'He is shouldering too much. What man is made to carry this burden is beyond me – but he is doing so every single day.'
The magician hugged her shoulders to keep the cold at bay and walked to the hero's side.
"That is all I ask, Arthur."
The hero gazes into the magician's eyes and he sealed her lips with a kiss.
The intensity of the kiss made the magician lose her breath and her body hot.
The magician breaks from the kiss as she smiles at the hero. She covered his body with her own in a tight embrace.
After a short while, the man and the woman went their separate ways. The hero to the bath beside his tent and the magician back to her own abode, a few feet away from the hero's tent.
Everybody in the army knew that Artesia Von Anellise was the hero Arthur's lover. She dressed and conducted herself gracefully but even the most patient man wanted Artesia – but no one dared approach her.
It's not her otherworldly beauty – seemingly shared by Arthur's diseased childhood love – that keeps other men at bay. It's not just her status as the Princess of her Elven nation that prevents men from approaching her but it is her achievements as a warmage of the highest degree.
Her proficiency in the lethal and precise art of magecraft is second to none in the world and her cold and calculative heart can take lives without missing a beat.
It is said that a month of conventional warfare can take as many as tens of thousands of lives but the magician Artesia can kill as many as that in the blink of an eye.
While her beauty is enough to ruin a nation or two, it is her own abilities that make the men respect and fear her – and possibly the reason why none of the rowdy men even spared her a second look, at least openly, as she made her way back to her tent fully in the nude.