Bloom into Spring Chapter 4

The next day Primrose awoke slowly. She stood up and stretched, her body ached all over. After rubbing the small of her back for a moment, her eyes widened as she realized she was naked. She quickly looked around herself and saw Malik sleeping peacefully on the floor, his cock flopped out of his pants. Memories from the night before flooded her psyche. She did that. Her entire life she had abstained from all sexual contact just to fuck some random dude she never even properly spoken to. Her first impulse was to run away, but she controlled her fear. She slipped into her dress, grabbed her sword, and sat down across from Malik...

Malik woke up and leisurely sat up to see Primrose pointing her sword in his face. "Well, good morning to you too," he said with a disarming smile like an old friend having a chat. The way he scans his surroundings without losing his care-free smile made Primrose believe that this wasn't the first time he's woken up to a weapon being pointed at him.

"What did you do to me?" Primrose asked. While she waited for him to get up, she concluded that he must have used magic to make her have sex with him. Some sort of wizard pheromone, that intoxicated her to the point of madness.

Malik chuckled," Um, if anything, you were doing all the work last night, sweetheart."

At that, Primrose sprang up and pushed him to the ground and pressed the blade to his throat," That can't be what happened!" she screamed," You must have used your powers or something. Just admit it already."

Malik lost the smile, he swung his legs around, sweeping Primrose's legs from under her and causing her to fall on the floor, and then he stood up," You don't get to push this on me, okay. I don't do stuff like that. Everything that happened you were in control of. Honestly, even if I was the kind of scum that would use my powers to do sick shit like that, I barely had the energy to keep my eyes open last night, let alone cast any spells."

Primrose stayed on the forest floor," I won't get mad. Just tell me you did it. Please." her voice broke on the last word.

Malik sighed," Listen, I have pride of my own. If you're ashamed of sleeping with me, that's fine, but you're equally responsible for what happened." he said. Primrose shrank into herself.

Malik walked a little to the left, dug through some bushes, and pulled out a bundle of clothes and a plain sack. He threw the bag at Primrose and pulled on some clothes.

Confused, Primrose opened the sack. It was full of dried meat and biscuits," What are these for?" she said.

Malik plopped down next to her and grabbed some of the food," For eating. We could both use a bit of breakfast." he said, taking a bite of dried meat.

Primrose threw the sack back at him without taking any of his provisions, "I have no need for your charity. Let us part as strangers and hope fate ordains for us to never meet again." she said.

"You often meet your fate on the road you take to avoid it," Malik said, not even looking at her, calmly making a sandwich with the jerky and biscuits.

Primrose didn't say another word; she just turned and walked away from him. As she walked, she started feeling a weird pulling sensation that made her want to go back. For a moment, Primrose had a terrifying thought that she made some sort of emotional connection with this strange wizard, so she started running away. As she got farther away, the tug became actually physical pain in her stomach. It felt like she was on fire; she clutched her stomach in pain and fell down. The pain lasted a few minutes then subsided suddenly.

Primrose looked up and saw a sweaty Malik leaning against a tree," Damn woman, how did you get this far! I thought I would die over there." he said between gritted teeth and rubbing his stomach.

"What did you do to me?"Primrose growled at him, trying to stand up, but her legs were still weak.

"Its more what you did to me, sweetheart. You were a virgin," Malik said accusatory before sitting down at the tree.

"Until recently I was a maiden knight of the Surrexerunt Exercitus, I was directly under Dame Cornelia-" Primrose closed her eyes tight before taking a deep breath and shaking her head," What the hell does that have to do with anything?"

Malik ignored her question, "When I was being burned alive, I noticed that you knew that wizards can't lie. What else do you know about wizards?" he asked.

"Just the basics. You all get your powers from a pacific emotion. The most common ones are; happiness, sadness, anger, fear, disgust, and lust. There have been different kinds, but they are scarce, which is saying something considering the rareness of wizards in the first place. You can tell what kind of wizard a person is by looking at their mark, which appears after a person enters... pubescence on a random part of the party. The wizard's designated emotion gives them the power to bend the laws of nature to their whims. Without a constant supply of that emotion the wizard will not only lose their powers, but they will also waste away and die. Am I missing anything?" Primrose said.

"Wow, that's pretty much everything. You're just missing one thing."Malik said.

"Really, and what is that?"Primrose said a little exacerbated about the situation. She needed time and space to process what she had just done.

"Lust wizards need to have physical contact of the sexual kind to survive, you know that. So we either go to whorehouses or make friends with the local tarts. Do you know why we would choose those people in particular?"Malik asked.

"Cause its easy."Primrose snapped, getting tired of this runaround.

Malik, sensing her annoyance, put his hands up in defense," Nope, you see, lust wizard have an extra curse placed upon us. Should we ever have sex with a virgin, we bind ourselves to them for the rest of our lives. We cannot "rise to the occasion" for anyone other than them if you get my drift." he said.

It took Primrose a long minute to understand what he was getting at. She imminently started scurrying away from him, but Malik quickly grabbed her ankle, "Wait, wait, wait, no need to run away. We can talk this out."

Primrose considered kicking his hands away, but that seemed too undignified, so she stopped fighting, and once Malik let go of her ankle, she once again sat down opposite him, "There is nothing to talk about. I will not have sex with you again, and I sure as hell not going to be some sort of lust battery for you. I am-was a Pink knight." she said.

"Well, I'm a wizard. I can give you plenty of nice things if you do, though. Gems Coins-" Before he could finish his sentence, Primrose held her sword to his throat with a look of pure fury on her face.

"I am not some sort of prostitute!" she shouted.

"No, no, no, sorry, of course, you're not. That was wrong of me." Malik said, quickly backtracking. After a few tense minutes, Primrose lowered her sword to the ground.

"Listen, we'll both die if you don't agree to this, it's a two-way street," he said a little desperately. He wasn't used to having so much resistance. The women he dealt with typically just needed a come hither look and some empty honeyed words.

"Allow me to make something very clear to you, Malik. What happened last night was a mistake brought on by exhaustion and a mental break down. If what you are saying is true, then all that's left for us to do is die. I hope you can make peace with whatever god you worship."

"What are you trying to say here?"Malik asked, unable to understand this girl's stubbornness.

Primrose sighed," I would rather die than sleep with you. Do you really need me to dumb this down any more for you?" she asked. Malik stared at her for a moment then nodded dumbly. Primrose stood up and was about to walk away again, but Malik grabbed her again.

"Wait, wait if you stay with me, we might be able to sever this connection without having sex," he said.

"Really? Then why didn't you say anything earlier?" she asked incredulity.

"I thought I could talk you into sleeping with me. Soul bonds don't go away if you both ask nicely and light a candle, you know and just having sex is the easiest way to deal with this situation," he said.

Primrose decided there was no harm in hearing him out, so she sat back down, "Okay, so what is this "other way" you want to try?"

"Well, if we can make it to my birthplace before a month passes. I believe I can prevent us from dying."

"How exactly will you do it," Primrose said.

"There's an ancient ritual that if we perform it together at the highest point of Mt. Annapuna it should save us," he said.

Primrose thought a minute, something about it just didn't feel right to her, but she seemed to be stuck with him no matter what, so she might spend her time trying to end this curse.

"Let's do it," she said at last.

"Really?!" With hopeful excitement, Malik said," You do know that I won't be able to use my magic to help us on this journey to make sure don't tap out all my powers before we get to the mountains."

"My unit could march over 15 miles a day, and no offense, the fact that you can't use your magic willy nilly is actually a comfort to me. Let's do it. Unless you have an avid death with." Primrose said, standing up.

Relived, Malik stood up too, and Primrose put out her hand.

Malik stared at it, confused, so Primrose spoke up," In the Rose Kingdom, a handshake is a show of trust and friendship. Since we'll be traveling together for next month, let's be cordial with each other. "She said, keeping her hand out. Malik smiled, then shook it awkwardly then dropped it.

"So, are you going to drop the spell that caused all that pain?" Primrose asked.

"That really wasn't a spell. We cannot be more than half a mile apart from each other. It's standard soul bound stuff." Malik said with a chuckle.

"Oh well, sorry for not knowing all the little intercessions. It's my first time, after all." Primrose said sarcastically.

In these spirits, they set off to the west towards Raniti.