Chapter Text
Since the dawn of time, humanity has looked to the stars.
For guidance; that the navigators of old may steer their vessels through the night. For truth; that the diviners may trace the path of destiny through their glimmering eyes. For beauty; that the broad of soul could find their own meaning in the gloaming sky.
And suppose they were–
Beautiful, wise, and all the truth of the cosmos, squeezed into flecks of light.
Suppose they rained down when humankind needed them most. When sleep crept over our ancestors, and it cradles us in our ships of steel today, we do so under the blanket of stars. As many as the stars, so too numbers the eyes of those gazing upon them, slowly drifting into rest.
Perhaps it’s not a stretch to say that the stars are the guardians of our dreams. They watch over us when we sleep, and we hang plastic toys of them in our children’s bedrooms. We wish upon them when they streak across the heavens.
They are our wishes. We create stories about them, we sing of their unknowable radiance. They are fairies, daemons, and tombstones. We discover them, we adopt them. Each new star we find is a step further into the endless expanse of space. Each one, a reminder of what it means to discover, to hope, and to dream.
We’re quite silly, aren’t we? Humans, that is.
We crawl upon the earth on our hands and knees, digging in the dirt and mud for gold, silver, and jewels that we can weigh in our palms. What touches the skin may not touch the soul.
When we lie down, spent; when the life that birthed us returns us to the other shore, we cannot take our wealth with us. What we bring is the memory of stardust.
We are so busy fighting for dirt that we forget to turn our gaze to the heavens. But we don’t have to look far to find treasure. We just have to remember where to find it.
May we never forget the gift of the stars.
May the cosmic cradle forever nurture our beautiful dreams–and, of course, let us wake from them, rested.
May this journey lead us starward.
As the last note of her story sank into silence, they returned to reality; that of the crisp cabin air suffused with mingling hints of sweetness and mint. She laid a hand on his forehead, pulling him back from the brink.
“...you’re feeling very relaxed now, aren’t you?”
“Nn… mm,” Caelus forced his eyes back open just as they blinked shut. “Y-yeah.”
Did he pass out? He could’ve sworn he heard everything the Memokeeper had said, but as to how she’d looked saying it, his mind was drawing blanks. Perplexed, he found his cheeks flushing warm.
Black Swan only giggled.
“Maybe a bit too relaxed. Was my voice that soothing to your ears?”
A personal question. The answer tumbled from his lips before it could go through his brain.
“Um, yes.”
She smiled down at him, the candlelight reflecting in her eyes.
“Here’s a lesson for you, young Nameless. Giving one-word answers can come across as being overly blunt. Especially to a lady.”
“Oh. Sorry,” he scratched his head, but caught himself this time. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
“However,” Black Swan continued, running her fingers through his hair, and stroking the back of his hand. “I don’t… dislike boys like that.”
She didn’t elaborate further and simply contented herself with letting the statement hang in limbo until it blew away with the scent of autumn flowers. Her hand stayed on his head, the silken tips of her fingers caressing him. Caelus swallowed the lump in his throat.
If he didn’t have a sense of duty, he would have languished in this snapshot of paradise–rather than asking the Memokeeper to continue with her itinerary for the evening.
Sorry, that was a lie.
No sense of duty could possibly make him remove his head from Black Swan’s lap.
He would be bluffing if he said this wasn’t the best view in the whole damn Express. With her hand on his head, his head nestled on her soft thighs, and her plump bosom obscuring his view of her face, this felt like an elaborate ritual to drive him towards some sensory overload. It was partly why he didn’t notice her slip a glimmering card out of the shadows of the air.
“In any case, you seem ready. Close your eyes, young Nameless.”
He shut them without knowing what for–and hissed as something pressed against his chest. Sauna-hot and soda-cold all at once, it sank into him like a coin in a fountain. He gasped and tried to look, but Black Swan laid her hand over his eyes.
“Shhh,” she soothed him, even as her hand drove the sensation ribs-deep. “Bear with me.”
Pain could not make him cry out. It felt like he was being stabbed, kissed, and bathed all at once. He grabbed the Memokeeper for support as his vision swam between the galaxies. He felt his lips part, but no voice emerged. Fire and springwater flowed down to his extremities. Black Swan’s hand stayed where it was, pushing, caressing, and restraining.
With the snap of a distant star, it was over as quickly as it began.
“That was a bit more turbulent than expected,” the Memokeeper breathed. “Are you alright?”
Mentally, it still felt like he was spinning on a manhole cover down a moss-caked hillock. Physically, he was a seal in a tub being massaged. Where were these incredibly specific sensations coming from? But by any stretch of the imagination–
“Y-yeah,” the Trailblazer huffed. “I’ll live… I think.”
“You will,” Black Swan assured him with a smile.
“What… did you do to me?”
Earlier that evening, as the crew of the Express had been winding down from their adventure in Penacony, Black Swan had beckoned him over. She had made him an offer that Himeko and Mr. Yang probably wouldn’t have approved of–that of collecting some memories from the Express. Specifically, from him. As a Memokeeper, she couldn’t join the Express as a full-time crew member, and due to the elusive nature of both parties, most Memokeepers never crossed paths with the Nameless. That made them, in the shifting eyes of the Garden of Recollection, a rare and valuable resource. Or, for a more humanizing turn of phrase, excellent business partners.
"You're talking like a member of the IPC..."
"Insinuating that debt collectors aren't human? Shame on you, Caelus."
But Caelus had been quick to agree, especially when Black Swan stated that the procedure would take place in her room.
There is such a thing as subtext, and reading between the lines. Black Swan did not leave any room for interpretation when she told him:
“Come alone. And come quietly.”
He’d been surprised and charmed to get the privilege of listening to a bedtime story from a Memokeeper, all while enjoying the queenly luxury of her lap pillow. But the odd burning sensation in his chest was now raising more questions. If he wanted to be set ablaze during foreplay, he could just go back to Firefly on Penacony.
“...nothing permanent,” Black Swan cooed. “I’ve embedded an empty light cone into your body. It’ll help with the process of collecting memories.”
“Ah, um. Alright,” Caelus allowed himself to be comforted by her dulcet tone. “And… what sort of memories are you looking for?”
In response, she only laughed and shook her head.
“Memokeepers don’t look for memories, young Nameless. We find them as they are, like flowers in fields afar.”
That raised a specter of doubt in him, because this evening’s appointment looked very orchestrated.
“Are you sure you’re not looking for something tonight?”
To which she replied, “Are you sure you’re not looking for something? You seem awfully ready to take.”
Black Swan bit her lip, indicating downward with her eyes. Caelus followed her gaze, only stopping when he encountered a pair of hands stuck to the Memokeeper’s breasts, squeezing so tightly they looked as though they wanted to tear right through her dress.
It took a few seconds more for Caelus to realize those were HIS hands. He’d seized her during his trance, and his mind hadn’t even thought about letting go.
“Oh! Um, I’m sorry–”
“Shh. Don’t be.”
She laid her hands over his, keeping them exactly where they were. That meant trapping Caelus against her. Ordinarily, he would have been physically strong enough to break free of her clutches, but he wasn’t any damn good at holding onto his moral compass when the assailant was sexy.
“Don’t fight it,” the Memokeeper whispered, guiding him to squeeze. “This is your body’s natural response to the light cone… which means it’s a memory worth treasuring, no?”
She was right. Black Swan could read him like a book, and knew where all the dog-ears were. The adrenaline rush from having something hot stuffed into his body by the Memokeeper only made him want to return the favor.
This marked the second time a purple woman had made him feel like a prisoner on his own train.
“The others–”
“–won’t hear about this,” she assured him. And then, with a dusting of slyness, “Unless you scream too loudly.”
“You make it sound like you won’t be doing any screaming,” Caelus goaded her.
He no longer needed her encouragement to keep fondling her pillowy tits through her dress. He could feel the tips of her nipples teasing him beneath the fabric. It was good to know he wasn’t the only one raring to go. For all her serenity and enigmatic smiles, Black Swan was just as needy.
“I’m not much of a screamer,” the Memokeeper giggled, sliding her hands down his broad chest. “You’ll find that I… well, it wouldn’t be any fun if I told you now, would I?”
She leaned down over him, licking her lips. It might have just been his imagination, but after the hot throbbing of the light cone faded away, his whole body felt more sensitive. The scent of candles mingled with hers. The cheekiness of her fingers slipping under his shirt to tease his abs made him tremble, and he let his erection swell in his pants. It hurt, but he knew waiting would make their memories even sweeter.
And speaking of sweetness–
Their lips met. Not with a bang, but with a whimper. Caelus had half-expected Black Swan to ravish him like a starving animal, but she was gentle with him. She sighed against the Trailblazer as they tasted each other, her fingers tensing against his abs. He worked up the courage to touch her in return. With the Memokeeper’s lips firmly keeping his attention, blindly fumbled with the cups of her dress until he slid them aside.
“Mmh… you can’t wait any longer, can you?” she purred into his mouth.
As if she wasn’t just as guilty.
But the smoldering golds and lavenders in her eyes told the truth. She was slipping–even at the cost of her elegance–into his embrace.
They leaned in for another kiss. Caelus was the one to groan this time. Black Swan’s other hand tousled the bulge in his pants, but she made no move to free him. Only teasing, teasing, teasing the Trailblazer as she let her breasts squish into his chest. More fervor. More passion. The heat between them mounted with every passing moment, and Caelus grabbed her more roughly, pawing at her tits to vent his frustration.
“Mmm… ahh…”
They came up for air eventually, and Black Swan’s face was flushed with ardor. Caelus knew he looked the same.
“It’s always so refreshing,” she licked her lips, reminding herself of his taste. “Gathering these kinds of memories…”
“You do this often?” Caelus’ world still swam before his eyes. The Memokeeper’s fingers fiddled with his belt buckle, as though caught between whether to progress, or preserve the dream as it was.
“Who can say,” Black Swan murmured.
With a body like that? He had a few guesses.
But she didn’t leave him time to dwell on it any longer. The purest of memories were ones that came from raw emotions, and Caelus was definitely emotionally invested in rawing her as soon as he could. Black Swan turned the page of their tryst, and, rather than returning her lips to his, hefted one of her breasts onto his face.
“This is what boys like, right?”
Caelus was too busy kissing her underboob to reply. Perhaps owing to the Memokeeper’s liminal existence, her body wasn’t wholly human. Something about her skin felt ethereal–like a butterfly’s wing spun from silk. He dove to understand, shoving his face up into her cleavage. Sucking, licking, and kissing Black Swan's luscious body, trying to see what sort of noise he could squeeze out of her.
“Mm…” she hummed, shivering in bliss. “My, my. You are ravenous, young Nameless.”
With a body like that? She couldn’t have made herself more obvious.
Caelus let himself get greedier, but held back from roughness. Savoring the sweetness of her skin, and circling his tongue around one of her nipples was heavenly–and he felt that if he danced inelegantly, the entire dream would just fall apart. Black Swan invited that sort of patience, that sort of pining that made his heart and loins flutter with heat.
And she knew it.
She knew he was struggling to hold back, and struggling with how slow she was taking it all.
Though she was letting Caelus take charge, the two of them ultimately danced to her tune. A minute of luscious service to her cleavage was enough for her to decide he deserved a reward. She raised his shirt with one hand, and glided lower with the other.
He damn near yelped into her tits as he felt her undo his trousers. The next thing he knew, his cock greeted the cold night air, and then the sultry caress of her gloved fingers. He tried to sit up, but Black Swan held him down, sandwiching him between her tits and thighs.
“Shh…” she wrapped her hand around his shaft. “Don’t fight it.”
How badly he wanted to fight. How badly he wanted to throw Black Swan down on the bed, fuck his way into her inhumanly soft body, and flood her with his seed. He wanted her screaming–no, singing his name as he plowed her pussy. He wanted to growl in utter triumph as he filled the Memokeeper with enough raw memories to last an Amber Age.
“Ghh…!”
His chest pulsed hot. Black Swan caressed the spot where she’d inserted the light cone, humming in approval.
“...what rich emotions,” she breathed, sounding almost afraid. “But all in due time. Sate me… and I will let you be sated.”
He nodded breathlessly into her breast, occupying himself with feasting on their sweetness. Her softness embraced him from above and below, and the stiffness of his cock ached needily in her grip as she began to stroke him. Technique was far beyond his care now. He craved release.
But the Memokeeper never got straight to the point; Penacony would have been a much shorter adventure if she had.
Not being able to see her jack him off only compounded his arousal. He felt her slide her hand down from his tip, her fingers tracing eddying circles on his flesh. He felt her cup his balls and squeeze, as though testing the waters. She slid her hand back up, toying with his crown as she did so. It was an intricate three-step dance, and it was one she turned into a steady, determined rhythm.
“B-Black Swan…” Caelus groaned. “Nngh, f-fuck…”
“Does it feel good, young Nameless?” she picked up the pace, pumping him with a touch more vigor. “Tell me.”
“It…” he caught himself blushing harder, suddenly aware of how juvenile he sounded. But a heavy stroke from the Memokeeper forced his confession to tumble out.
Y-yes, it does…!”
“Do you enjoy being taken like this?” her other hand pressed down on his chest, where he could feel himself sweating buckets.
“Yes…” Caelus swallowed his embarrassment. It was embarrassing to say it out loud. The Memokeeper giggled again, but the breathlessness in her laugh betrayed how much she wanted to be the one getting serviced.
“Good boy–”
His whole body jerked so hard he nearly bowled her over. Black Swan yelped, barely maintaining her balance as she helped him lie back down.
“M-my, my. Do you like being praised?”
“Yes…”
Caelus’ head was spinning. He’d nearly blown his load right then and there. The only thing keeping him anchored was the devil-tight grip of his other hand on the bed, holding onto something that wasn’t this sumptuous siren.
Naturally, Black Swan plucked said hand off the bed and guided it to her other breast. Caelus helplessly grabbed her, and whined into her sopping-wet cleavage.
“Black Swan… I can’t– h-hold on.”
It was taking a great deal of conscious effort to keep his voice level. Perhaps the Memokeeper sensed that she could only stretch a performance out for so long before the movement approached tedium.
“I won’t keep you, then,” she panted, cupping the back of his head to bury him even deeper into her tits. “Don’t… fight it.”
Caelus could feel his cock throbbing harder and harder in her grasp. He couldn’t keep his hips from bucking up into her, nor his legs from shuddering with arousal. Black Swan kept him close, cuddled him so affectionately and softly that it seemed an entire galaxy away from the lewd, sloppy noises that filled her bedroom.
“Nngh… gffk–!”
He tried to call her name. Smothered as he was, he could only moan like an animal, groping desperately at Black Swan’s luscious body like it was the only thing keeping him anchored to the bed. With how much he was jerking in her embrace, she may as well have been. Her pumping hand coaxed him to the brink, slick silk sliding over sticky skin–and he didn’t have time to warn her.
“Mmmfgh–!”
With a guttural cry, his resilience crumbled, and Caelus blew his load. Thick, virile ropes of seed burst from his cock, carrying with them all the pent-up frustration of the Trailblazer. In his high, Caelus bit down on Black Swan. The Memokeeper yelped, but didn’t halt her ministrations. She kept jerking his spurting shaft, even as he gripped her so hard he thought he might bruise her. Each practiced pump of her slender fingers coaxed forth another shuddering spurt of cum. He felt some of it splatter back onto him, but he was already fading.
Caelus’ chest burned hot. His head throbbed with the intensity of his climax. The sweat that pooled around their bodies made the sheets cling to them both. Black Swan only slowed down once his cock was unable to even muster a spurt of fluid. It trembled in her grasp, and she comforted it with a chaste kiss to his tip.
“N-ngahhh…!” Caelus, caught off-guard by the extra burst of stimulation, seized up with a moan. But he had no more seed to give the Memokeeper.
She let him fall back into her lap when it was all done, a sly smirk playing at her lips.
“...so spirited,” she murmured. “You’ve surprised me, young Nameless.”
She was toying with him, obviously. Caelus managed a nervous smile, silently marveling at the way his load still dripped down Black Swan’s face and cleavage. She’d directed his cumshot right at herself–and that was definitely deliberate. His aching cock swelled with need at the sight of the disheveled Memokeeper’s beautiful, doll-like features stained with his seed, but he couldn’t stay hard. He let out a hiss of frustration at how his erection ebbed away, along with the sensation in his legs. He needed rest.
“And… well done,” Black Swan tapped his chest, where his shirt, pulled halfway up his chest, still clung to his sweaty body. A warm, bluish glow pulsed beneath the fabric. “It seems we’re done for the evening.”
“What?” he lurched upright, only to crash into her obtrusive chest box.
“One-word responses,” she purred.
“I- I mean,” Caelus collected himself, laying his head down on the Memokeeper’s lap so the world would stop spinning. “I thought… we were going all the way.”
Black Swan didn’t reply immediately. Instead, she hummed, studying the Trailblazer’s sweaty and saliva-slick face. She cast her gaze to her own body, now soaked with the evidence of their tryst; bruises, bite marks, and sticky seed. Her hand still cradled his softening cock, feathering her caress down to his balls.
“Hmm… I didn’t say that, though. Did I?”
Caelus flinched. She hadn’t.
The idea that he would actually get to sleep with the Memokeeper was one spawned from his own mind, rather than her mouth. Aeons–and her mouth looked so tempting, too. The kiss she’d delivered to his shaft at the very end was a devious, utterly unfair tease.
Black Swan tapped his chest, and the patch of warmth shivered forth. With a splintering of light and wind chimes, the Memokeeper held a glowing card between her fingers.
“This light cone is ready for safekeeping. Thank you, young Nameless.”
She tucked it away, snapping the memory out of the material plane with a flick of her wrist. But she didn’t chase him away just yet.
With the haze of lust falling away, Caelus heaved a sigh.
“...could we, though?”
“Hmm?”
“Could we go… all the way?” he mustered his courage.
“My, my,” the Memokeeper tilted her head. “Whyever for? I already have the memories I need.”
That shook his resolve–but Caelus pressed on, determined that he knew a little more about Black Swan than she was willing to tell him about herself. Or maybe he was delusional.
“Yes, but…”
It was his turn to direct her gaze. This time, downward, to where her cum-stained hand still cradled his cock.
“...what about the memories you want?”
At his provocation, the Memokeeper’s eyes widened, and she withdrew her hand at last. She examined her glazed fingers with ardent curiosity.
“You seemed to be enjoying yourself just now,” he continued, running a finger along the plush cup of her underboob. “Are you really content with stopping here?”
“How bold of you,” Black Swan touched her sticky fingers to her lips, licking his issue off the tips. “And what makes you so sure?”
“You said you wanted to be sated– I’m sure that doesn’t come from just storing memories in a light cone.”
The Memokeeper hummed a low, musical tune. She didn’t disagree with him.
“Well?” Caelus brushed a finger over the pebbly nub still teasing him from under her dress. “Am I at least a little warm?”
“Mm–hahh…my, my…” Black Swan tensed up with a moan. “You are quite persuasive. The opportunity of having your memories personally collected by a Memokeeper is something few ever experience. Fewer still experience it twice.”
Caelus swallowed, feeling his pulse quicken.
“Is that a yes?”
“I haven’t agreed to anything just yet, young Nameless,” Black Swan kept her veneer of mystery firmly in place. “But, I foresee that I’ll have tomorrow evening to myself. Maybe I shall prepare a more… ah, purposeful blend of candles and aromas.”
“And remember to soundproof the room,” he added.
“For your screams?” she smirked coquettishly.
“For yours.”
“We shall see,” Black Swan hummed. “We shall see indeed.”
“Same time tomorrow, then?”
In response, Black Swan leaned down to kiss him. There was no light cone this time, nothing for her to collect–it was just her lips, and her curves, squishing deliciously against the Trailblazer’s broad body. He grunted at her flagrant display of passion, reaching up to pull her close.
Her tongue met his lips, and he let her in, wrestling tenderly to challenge the Memokeeper. They sucked on each other’s lips, tasted the sweetness of their spit, and separated with a shared, breathless gasp. It was all too soon for Caelus, but he steeled himself by knowing she was just teasing him still. Tomorrow, he swore. Tomorrow, he would repay her twice over.
“Tomorrow, yes,” Black Swan panted, licking up the string of spit that hung between them. “And could you do me a favor?”
“Come alone, and come quietly?” Caelus flashed a cheeky smile.
“No,” she frowned. “Please get off my lap. My legs are going numb.”