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Archmage, Part 5

Several hours later, I come to. I feel that unsettling disorientation after having just woken up, not remembering quite where you are or what's just happened, but in a couple of moments it all comes back to me. Everything that happened... a while ago... it seems like time moves much, much slower here than it does even in Shariykah's private sanctum; everything is slowed to a veritable standstill. I look over to see the sun still shining in the window, still at the same point in the sky.

I'm brought back to matters at hand by my beloved Shariykah stirring behind me. I now realize she's hugging me from behind, muttering incoherent complaints, probably about my stirring. I decide to let her sleep, and lay back into her embrace, closing my eyes once more. I find myself thinking what I'd do without her. I'd certainly not be giving head like I did last night...

Last night, that was fun. It was not without repercussions, though, as my behind is aching like never before. The somewhat salty taste still lingers in my mouth. I stroke her velvety arms lightly. Still they're damp, as if she's just towel dried after a swim or a shower. That'll never get old.

I'd do it all again just for her. Not just the alternative sex, but the whole paradigm-shift of lifestyle that I'm going through just to be with her. As we lie here together, I feel her love for me, as I'm sure she can feel mine. All I wonder is if she still has...

"No," She mumbles, "It disappeared about an hour ago."

I quietly ask her, "Are you reading my thoughts again?"

She manages a more coherent thought, "Maybe... Can't we just sleep, at least for another hour or so? It's hard to ignore your thoughts, you know... A soon-to-be archmage's thoughts aren't exactly hard to hear, especially when you're spooning with them."

I consent, "All right, it's not like we're in a hurry."

-o-

The following weeks are met with progression. Whereas most college students would have their free time taken by tedious study, my new form comes with a near-photographic memory. As I go through my classes I have no problem understanding concepts and memorizing factoids with not so much as a second glance. This makes my biology class a cinch, looking over the taxonomies of most of domain Animalia and locking them into memory without a second thought. It still feels kind of weird when we have to dissect a snake and point out all of its organs... I wonder if my heart is three-chambered now, like other snakes. I guess I'll feel it next time I meditate.

After classes on the week days I spend time with my family, not wanting to completely estrange myself from normal life. I still do things like take out the trash, help cook dinner, etc. I guess even wizards have to mow the lawn from time to time... Shariykah comes over all the time, and both my parents and my brother have all taken great liking to her, almost accepting her as a member of the family. However, the real fun begins at about ten, right when I'm supposed to go to sleep.

Every day, I take the key to my sanctum and step through to the time-stopped paradise. There I meet Shariykah, and we engage in magical exercises for roughly a day. During our practice sessions, I learn many new tricks and techniques.

I'm taught how to read minds, however tapping into memories is still beyond me. I apparently have to read their minds, and then find the parts of their brain where their memories are stored, then decode the electrical synapses... that'll take a while to iron out. The mind reading part is easy, it's kind of like... listening to somebody whispering to themselves, only they don't know they're doing it. It gets easier the closer you are to somebody, but once you're good enough you can do it from pretty far away.

I begin to learn how to teleport, but I still want to get the theory down before I try it in practice. I have to become aware of my entire being, and while still focusing draw enough energy to force my body to be at a location of my choosing. If you break focus, and you lose awareness on one of the bones in your hand, it becomes very easy for bad things to happen.

Learning how to heal wounds takes a long time for me to do... it still takes about two hours for me to heal a stab wound. It's fairly simple, just pull the wound back together, dissipate foreign entities, reconnect all severed tissues and repair all broken structures. It becomes tedious when one's focusing on repairing twenty sweat glands, fifty motor neurons, hundreds of blood vessels, the muscle itself... You get the idea.

Some days Thaddeus is there when I enter my sanctum, and we spend some time learning alchemy as well. The thing about alchemy is it's really hard to tell when you've made a potion correctly, especially if it's not a commonly made one. The only real way to tell is to either magically identify it, which takes hours, or be lazy and take a swig of it.

During one of our training sessions, I try to make a potion of gender-shifting. I feel so clever, planning to walk up to Shariykah as a woman and have another night of exotic fun... Apparently I'm not good enough at making potions yet, sadly. Just after I take a swig of the potion, I start heaving violently and run to the toilet to throw it up. The thing about getting a potion wrong is that it'll have completely unrelated and unpredictable results. Four hours pass and I'm pretty sure that there's something growing inside of me, and I can't concentrate hard enough to tell via meditation or magic.

"Are you sure you don't want to try this potion?" I look up to see Thaddeus holding another beaker full of a glimmering violet opaque substance. "It's guaranteed to at least make you stop vomiting," There's a concerned frown on his face.

"Nah, I think I'm going to wait it out... Oh, my god..." I manage to mutter, and seconds later I start coughing up a grand total of 8 bumble bees. "I think I still need some practice..."

He laughs as he opens a window. They don't attack him for some reason, and I don't really question it. I just want to and find a quiet place to lie down for a while. I don't think that colony left any eggs or anything, and once I regain my composure I find that there's no sources of life other than my own coming from inside me.

-o-

Because school has become a snap for me, and the fact that I don't need to study almost at all beyond the class, I still hang around campus for the social aspect of it. I get to know all of Shariykah's friends at school, several girls and a gay man, all of them with a great sense of humor. When I talk to them the guy makes the occasional pass at me, and I somewhat uncomfortably wave it off. The other girls, however attractive and funny they may be, don't seem to be my type. That is to say, immortal, at the very least... or a shark, or any of the other things I love about Shariykah.

I find it funny that nobody's the wiser that I'm not even a human. Every now and then I forget that I'm a snake, and at one point knock a student coasting by on a skateboard down with my tail whilst I was talking with somebody else. He isn't too banged up, though, so I decide to slowly walk away as he tries to figure out what tripped him.

The change in my day-to-day actually isn't much, once I come to think of it in a physical aspect, because with my abilities to reform furniture with a thought there's no real difference in any outlet of my life. I eat a little less, dress a little warmer, and I have to buy scale wax instead of lotion, but other than that it all begins to fall back into a routine.

-o-

I'm sitting at home in front of my computer about two weeks after the whole herm-lesson scenario when I get a phone call from Dave; his identity is given away by his custom ringtone of the Indiana Jones theme. I whip out my old piece-of-crap cell phone and flip it open.

Casually, I answer "Hello?" It's a little more annoying handling a cell phone when a jaw is half of your face and your hears are more of a hole in your head, but I manage.

A forcedly calm sounding voice that almost pierces my ears rings though the earpiece. "Hey, man... um, you wanted me to tell you if anybody's talking about you behind your back, right? Well, I've been talking to some people at school, and whenever you come up they say they feel weird around you... People are beginning to think you're creepy man."

"Okay, okay," I say with a sigh, "I think I know what's going on. I'll get right on it."

"You sure, man? People will be avoiding you before long, if you keep this up."

Confidently, I say "Trust me; I know what I'm doing. As I said, I'll get right on it. I'll see you later."

Somewhat resignedly, he ends "All right, dude, good luck." I hear the phone click on his side, and I close my eyes as I try to think of what to do. I have an idea about what's going on, but I want to consult Shariykah before I do anything about it. With so much drama going on, I think I'll take her to a movie before any serious discussion ensues.

The music that starts playing before she picks up has changed from Malchik Gay to Resistance by Muse... As I ponder her good taste in music, she picks up the phone.

I hear her exuberant voice answer the phone, "Hey there, lover boy. What's up?"

Casually, I reply "Nothing much, although I'd thought I'd treat you to a movie in a little while. Are you up for that?"

She inquires, "Ohh, I'd love that. It's been a while since somebody treated me to a Wednesday movie. What are we going to see?"

"Anything you'd like... even a horror movie if you want to." In truth, I do kind of hope she doesn't want to, regardless of any life lessons learned.

-o-

It's seven o'clock in the late afternoon as we're walking out of the movie theatre, and I'm still a little pale from that movie. Only Shariykah could've convinced me to come to a movie that scary, but I'll do it a million times for her. She, however, was completely unfazed by the movie from beginning to end. She was the only person who broke out laughing when the main character walked in on the love of his life that happens to have been grizzly murdered in her own home. I still somehow felt more secure having my arm around her during the movie, but that only made me feel more like a little kid holding on to mom's dress the more I think about it.

She turns to me and asks cheerfully, "How'd you like it?"

Sarcastically, I reply "Fantastic. I want to watch it three more times before it leaves theatres."

As we get into my dusty old car, she patronizes me further, "Aww, was my little snake scared? I'm sorry." She leans over and kisses me on the end of the snout.

I recoil with indignation. "Well, sorry if I have some hang-ups about casually accepting brutal murders. They're not really my thing." I smile and continue with a smirk, "I still love you, though, even if you are a little psychotic. Anyway, I wanted to ask you about something."

We pull onto the street and head to the highway. "I was wondering about my aura. Do you think that I could be tainting other people's aura with mine if I'm not careful? I mean they still wouldn't notice that easily what with the mask and all, but if I'm feeling bored and tired do you think that'll bleed off onto them?" My head tingles for a moment. An image of an 18-wheeler pops into mind, but I shake it off.

She's staring into space as she ponders. "Hmm... It's possible. I think I handled that pretty early on though, but that's because when I was raised if people thought I was a sorcerer or something I'd probably have been executed. I hid it right off the bat. I'm sure you could figure it out though, maybe you can use it for something." She reaches over and rubs my thigh, still gazing past me out of the driver's side window.

As I drive my car through the intersection, I hear the piercing sound of a horn blasting. Looking to my right, I see that there's that same 18-wheeler about 3 yards from the passenger's seat going no less than 40 miles per hour, Shariykah begins to swivel around, hand still on my thigh. Time seems to stop as I stare at it... until I realize that it has.

I'm sitting here in the middle of an intersection with a frozen visage of Shariykah sitting in the passenger's seat, birds flying from the bushes having been startled by the screaming of pedestrians and the horn alike. I look at the crossing signal and see that the 18 wheeler is indeed running a red light, and that the side of the trailer has a truck-driver's school logo on it.

Confused, I try to figure out what's happened, but I come to a conclusion. Both the love of this shark-woman next to me coupled with the fear death of both of us must've caused a massive adrenaline rush. Several parts of my brain must've gone into overdrive, and my mind and soul immediately used all of my energy reserves to make a time-stop. I have no clue of how much time I have before it wears off, and there's only one thing I can think of: the safety of my lover in the next seat.

I close my eyes and clear my mind. I take a deep breath and with every inch of my mental strength I pull all of the remaining energy from the earth and air that my body can withstand without bursting into flames, or some other horrific anomaly. I open my eyes for a moment, and everything's changed slightly.

The birds have moved a little, Shariykah's head is now wide eyed and looking at the truck that's now about one and a half yards away from us. I don't have much time, so I look around quickly. I quietly thank the Goddess that there are no other pedestrians or cars in the intersection. I do what I'd sworn I wouldn't, at least not yet.

I concentrate harder than I ever have before. I feel everything. I feel Shariykah's slowed heartbeat, I feel her every feature, every cell in her body. I feel my own, as well. I can see them all; focus on all at once, all of my organs, internal structures. I feel both of our nervous systems, all of the subtle differences in the neurological layout in our brains. Every minute detail is there. Strange as may be, I feel the car too: the air inside of it, all the parts of it, the fluids and their chemical composition, the slowed churning inside of the engine block... and then I force it.

I force it all to somewhere else. I use the first place I think of which is the front of Shariykah's house. I don't know why that "Popped in there", but it did. I used every inch of my being to brutally push myself, Shariykah, and the entire car through a fold in the fabric of space-time to the front of Shariykah's house.

-o-

The car thuds violently to the ground as I set it about three inches above the street, and Shariykah looks stunned. As I'm still heading about forty miles an hour in a now residential zone, I slam on the breaks. As we stop, I pull up to the curb about four houses down from Shariykah's home.

I turn off the car, and just sit there. I sit staring forward, and don't move at all. I don't know if you've ever time-slowed and mass teleported before, but it takes a lot out of you. That, plus the whole you-and-your-love-almost-died thing doesn't make for a well-rested, focused outlook.

After a time, I turn and glance at Shariykah, and see that she's staring into infinity, clearly as stunned as I am. I lift up my hands and look at them, and I see that they're shaking. I don't care who you are, but if you've just almost got broadsided by a Mac Truck and lived to tell about it you're not going to feel well for the first couple seconds.

I reach out and put a hand on Shariykah's lap. She slowly turns to me. "Did you..." She can't finish her sentence, but I can read her mind to see what she's thinking.

"Yes, I did. We're safe." I close my eyes and reach out with my mind to scry where we were almost hit. I can see the truck and the driver are save, having hit nobody after us. However, I do see he's extremely confused and probably going to contact the authorities. It won't matter, though. Nobody could've gotten my license plate that fast.

"Everything's okay now. We're all right." I reaffirm to her, and lean over to give her a peck on the cheek.

She turns to me, and somewhat absently manages to say "You... did you just teleport all of this in about a half second?"

"Yes..." I state, "...but that doesn't matter right now. What matters is that we're alive and you're safe. I don't know what I'd do if something were to happen to you."

She doesn't say a word, but instead leans over and kisses me straight on the lips. Softly, she says "Thanks. You saved my life. Nobody's even tried to do that in so long. I love you so much."

The fact that I've known her for only about two months, accounting for time warps, goes through my mind. I hope this will last. Either way, I return her kiss on the tip of her snout and say, "I love you too... Everything I've done has been for you. Sure, it helps others, but I don't know if I'd that kind of drive or heroism without you there."

We get out of my car, and I walk her back to her house. We're both kind of shaky from the adrenaline still coursing through our veins so we walk arm in arm, supporting each other on the path forward. By the time we get to her house, our energies seem to be more or less replenished and our bodies have filtered out the adrenaline. After becoming more or less normal, my mind drifts back toward other things.

Shariykah unlocks her door, turns to me, and asked with a rejuvenated smile "Don't you want to come in? I can make some tea."

I consider turning her down to get some rest, but I figure "What the hell. Normally after having the shit scared out of me I'd go crash for about three hours, but tea sounds good."

She beams at me and says "All right." She disappears inside, and I just stand outside. I take a deep breath, refreshed that I'm not dead. However fast it may have happened, I ponder what could've, would've happened had I not reacted as quickly.

I gaze to the clouds, astonished by the beauty of the pink clouds of the twilight sun. I wouldn't be able to see those clouds, had I failed. Nor would Shariykah, come to think of it. Life is so fragile no matter who you are. A smile spreads across my face as I realize that with the powers I am developing, I can give others this amazing feeling; the knowledge and appreciation that every day is precious.

"Well, are you coming in?" I turn to see a familiar face poking out of their door, a playful smirk on her face. "Wow... I think you were right. Your aura's bleeding happiness right now, and relief. That'd be able to get into the minds of others if they're around you, I can guarantee that."

I nod, and begin to contain my aura through manipulative practice. "Better?"

"Well," she says, "it may not be a bad thing depending on what you're feeling and who you're around. Anyway, could we take this inside?"

"All right... how could I say no to a face like that?"

-o-

She watches me as I take my first sip of piping hot tea. "Do you like it?"

I don't generally drink tea, but I sure as hell know that it's not supposed to taste lumpy. I force a smile as I taste her "Special brew", as she called it. It tastes a lot like sugared eggs, and I'm not sure how to respond.

I forcedly swallow a mouthful of the stuff, and cheerfully say, "It's... different. What do you put in it?"

"Protein powder. The stuff's a godsend; I put it in most of the stuff I eat so I don't have to cook as much to get the same amount." My goofy smile stays locked in place, and I find myself at a loss for words.

She seems upset as she says, "What, you're telling me you haven't noticed how much I eat when I'm at a restaurant? You've bought me dinner at least twice a week since you've met me..."

I put my hands up defensively, "I know, I just didn't think anybody anywhere took protein powder in their tea." She crosses her arms and childishly sulks. I sigh, and stare at the cup. I mentally grab hold of all of the dissolved powder, revert it to powder form and dehydrate it again after pulling it out of my cup.

"There. Nothing lost, where's your container?"

She pouts as she walks up to me with the open tin. I continue, "I appreciate the offer, I really do. I'll end up not eating for a week if I have that much in one go, thanks to your changes to my metabolism."

She telekinetically takes the amorphous mass of the vile powder and puts it back into the container, and I go on, "Anyway, I have an idea. I think I can make a machine in my sanctum that is connected to myself, an unseen connection that will recreate any books I come into contact with or speak the name of, or some other mode of detection."

I pause for a reaction, but Shariykah just sits there sipping her lumpy tea. "Well, if we want to help the population, I thought we could make that same machine utilize any surplus energy we choose to send to it, and it would concentrate it onto the works, somewhat like a lens. If my training's worth jack shit, I think I can make it so that the energy induces not quite euphoria, but instead a sense of concentration, interest, and eventually accomplishment. We could make it so others who read the same book will feel great about doing it, and spread education among the intolerant or apathetic. What do you think?"

She sits there for more than a minute, just gazing into my eyes. Just as I begin to feel awkward in the silence, she finally cracks a smile. "I think that I'm going to get your final test ready. We'll get to work on that, but be ready for the unexpected."

I nervously look at her. "Uhm... This doesn't bode well. Don't I get a hint?"

Her reply is her wonderful, yet completely unenlightening, toothy smile.

I muster some confidence, figuring that if she thinks I'm ready I must be able to handle whatever she throws at me. "Oh, well. I'm going to go meditate or something. See you tomorrow."

I give her a hug and a kiss, and start heading out. Smugly, she calls "Have fun!" as I walk out the door. Letting out the sigh, I set off for home.

-o-

Three days go by with no word from Shariykah. I try calling her, meeting her at school, even dropping by her house unannounced; nothing works, and she's gone completely incommunicado. I've tried to use magic to get ahold of her, but all attempts end up muddled and confused, most likely jammed.

I let out a deep sigh as I sit at my desk, completely at a loss. If she doesn't want to talk to me, then I guess I should give her some space. I get up, and head out to my car. The sputtering old piece of junk is hardly holding together anymore, but it can still get me out to the local gorge, a good place to be alone.

The hike up the path is serene. I observe the fragile net of life that's grown all around, taking in the genius of nature. I trudge up the path to where Shariykah and I first joined as one in our act of restoring clean air to the city, among other things. I smile as I take in the verdant surroundings. After a time, I reach out and contact Thaddeus with my mind as I'm standing on the patch of perfect grass that I remember so well.

"Hello, you called for me?"

"Hello, Thaddeus." I turn to see his beaming face. "Have you seen Shariykah?"

"Hmm..." He cradles his chin in his hand, "I can't say that I have. Then again, she does that from time to time: just goes off and disappears for a while."

"Well, how about that project I started setting up? Did you make any progress?"

Thaddeus begins inspecting a young sapling of a tree. Examining the branches as he absently replies, "Yes, I stayed overtime and finished it. It only took a couple of months."

With a certain sense of surprise, I simply state "Wow." I walk over and touch the tree, pulling nutrients and the local life force into it.

"With your idea and our project, those who are complacent and ignorant will find a drive to educate themselves now, so we'll wait to see what happens."

The tree is growing, thriving and flowering; it's twice the height it was a moment ago. I take my hand away. "So you have no idea where she could be?"

He turns to me, "No, I'm sorry if it doesn't help. It's never long that she's completely gone, though, so I'm sure she'll get ahold of you soon. If you'll excuse me, I have business to attend to."

After shaking his hand, he promptly disappears. I hang my head and breathe out a sigh of defeat. Where could she be? Oh, well. I'll just find a way to preoccupy myself. I walk briskly back to my car.

-o-

Several days pass, and there's no word of Shariykah. In my spare time that she usually practices with me, I'm instead mastering another one of my ideas. I'm perforating my aura with a feeling of calmness and focus, bleeding that off onto those around me when I'm in class. It's too early to see what the end result will be, but I think it'll end up benefitting everybody involved. When I'm not in class, it's instead a feeling of happiness, to be subconsciously redirected by those around me as fun or contentment.

I'm not sure if people realize or not what's going on, but people seem to like being around me. They get things done better, they feel better... but none of them catch on. My group of friends grows and grows as I become the life of the party, pulling together groups that would otherwise never have associated with each other. There's still that lingering worry though, and I try to hide it from everybody.

Days go by, and I begin to show stress. My friends are catching on, my family is catching on, and they're all asking me what happened to Shariykah.

It's Friday, and I'm whiling away the time by playing one of the new Fallout games when my cell phone suddenly spouts that silly generic jingle that I've picked out to identify Shariykah calling. I flip open the phone only to be greeted with static. That's kind of... odd... I reach out and try to contact Shariykah, not expecting much. I feel her for the first time in a week, but something's off. Her generally vibrant aura seems a bit cold, somewhat distant.... It's hard to explain. It'd be a good idea to head over there, so I jump into my car and am off to her house.

-o-

Something's not right here. I pull up in front of her house and am greeted with a presence of resigned contentment fading into oblivion, something I generally only feel coming off of the terminally ill and dying. I begin heading up the small concrete path through her now patchy lawn toward her front door, and every step I take feels heavier than the last.

She called me, so she must be ok... the static's kind of foreboding, and I'm feeling completely estranged in what used to feel like a very familiar area. I take a deep breath as I'm slowly walking up this path, but the feeling of contentment is all but gone, replaced by this kind of deteriorating emptiness. The presence is so overwhelming as I walk up to the door that I actually start seeing the house begin to decay before my very eyes: chipping paint, wooden shingles falling apart, the house falling into to a state of dilapidation. It must be an illusion. I take the door handle and pull it open.

This can't be real. The entire house has fallen to shit; it's as if nobody's lived here for decades. I can feel the power here mix with my worry and fear to contort the area into some kind of madhouse. As I look through her kitchen I'm seeing blood on the floor and bones scattered in the corners of all the rooms. I've had enough of this bullshit.

Summoning all of my power, I fundamentally shift the powers in play to the neutralized earth energy. God damn, there's a lot of it. What the hell is causing all of this? The illusions of the bones and blood are gone, the house restored to a more or less normal state, albeit with a tremendous sense of emptiness about it. As I make my way to her bedroom, I call out "Shariykah? What's going on here? Are you ok?"

I see her door is slightly ajar with a note taped to it.

Y_ou have about ten minutes to deal with the situation._

I mutter to myself, "What the hell?"

I open the door to the most horrible sight I've ever personally seen. I suppress my gag reflex that I didn't even know I still have as I wonder what the fuck she was thinking.

Shariykah is hanging naked from the ceiling by her neck on a cord of razor-wire, her face pale as it's completely drained of blood. That same blood is still drying all the way down her body in streams from where the razor-wire had gouged her neck. I stand staring at the large pool of blood that's collected under her feet, watching the pendulous motion of her lifeless body, the smell of death and the hint of putrid decay beginning to perforate the air.

Appalled and astonished, I fall to my knees. Why she would do something like this? Is this some kind of sick tradition to send somebody off to be the next archmage? Is there some ceremony I missed? I look at the paper that's still in my hand, and her words flow through my mind.

_ Be ready for the unexpected_.

Is this her idea of a final test? What do I do with this? Ten minutes to do what? I could try to.... Well, I resolve to do what I can in spite of the mental trauma... I'll deal with that later. The first thing I do is conjure to mind a set of wire cutters, and then manifest them as reality. I stand under her bloody body and hold it against me as I cut the wire holding her up. Jesus, this is wrong. The body is still warm, and the compression of her falling into my arms causes another gush of blood to flow out from the wounds in her neck. I set her body down on her bed and proceed to cut the wire off of her neck and, more disturbingly, pulling the barbed blades out and off of her.

I close my eyes, and it's so damned hard to focus under this pressure. I've got what, five minutes before her soul's gone or something? I hope to the goddess that I can get her working again in that time. I clear my mind and draw up power, and focus on her body. I try to feel her anatomy, and I discover that she'd managed to break her neck on top of it all. Her tissues are beginning to decay, her cells have all died from lack of oxygen, and the whole ordeal forced a stroke upon her, much of her grey matter destroyed. I need more time.

I stand up and channel energy into this entire house. It feels like an eternity, but it probably only took a minute. Time manipulation on this world is much different than a sanctum; it's fickle, lasting a fraction of the time. I probably still only have about thirty minutes in my perspective, or so I assume.

I walk back to her body and look at all of the blood. I can't fight past the cellular degeneration even at this rate, that wasn't the cleanest wire, and she's probably been here for at least ten minutes before I got here. I have to do something...

I try for what should be impossible. Disturbing as it may be, I pull all of her blood out through her wounds and off of the floor and the streams on her body. Decayed and degenerated as it is, I put both the blood and her body in a sort of localized temporary time-stasis, much easier to maintain than a full house. I'm already strained as is, but to top it off I pull all of the heat out of her body, leaving every part of her at well below freezing.

As this sphere of blood is floating next to me, I focus on it, everything about it: the cells, the plasma, the platelets, antibodies, and everything else that goes with it. Using months and months of practice through use of those time-dilated sancta, I pull all of the foreign bodies and pathogens out of the blood and rebuild the cells piece by piece. Stretching the limits of my supernatural capabilities, I repair, rehydrate, and oxygenate all of her blood and freeze it there in the air.

I turn once more to her body; my heart is pounding. I hope to god this all works. It looks so wrong, she looks so horrible... maimed, drained, and frozen. I delve into her cellular structure as well, magically manipulating all of her tissues and eradicating or removing the harmful bacterium feeding therein. Once the tissues are in order, I repair all of her wounds save for one into her jugular. I piece together and reconnect the shattered spinal cord and neck, vagal nerve and carotid artery. Having the hemorrhaging blood drained from the brain, I get to work on putting that back together.

Thank the gods that I have a near photographic memory and I detected her neural patterns and brain configuration back when I teleported the car after the movie. I remember most of it, and logically reason out the rest. I gain confidence as I feel that I'm doing it right, almost having her entire brain rewired correctly.

I look at my watch and see that I have only five minutes left in my perceived time. Shit. I finish the brain, and use the still-severed jugular as an entrance point for the blood and feed it in, spreading it through her circulatory system. Her body appears to be in working order, so I heal her wound on her neck. Her body is still in stasis; all her tissues and brain should be together, so I take off the time stasis, thaw her to body temperature, and...

Nothing.

She's lying there, motionless. I don't know what the hell to do, I try giving her CPR but it doesn't seem to work. Her brain's working, but she's just not... doing anything, her heart's not pumping... Shit... How is she not alive? Wait...

Oh, god. I look above the door I walked in from. There's a sigil above it that she was in prime position to stare at as she died. It must have something to do with it. There's got to be something else. The ambient power of her body still has residual memories, and they're actively restoring her memories, and I do my rest to read them. Something about the sigil keeping her soul in this house... That's got to be it, I have time to find her soul and reconnect it to her body.

It's still present. I can feel her subtle, amorphous energy here. I didn't notice it here out of panic, but it's clear now. The soul's fading though, atrophying like mine was when I first changed. Soon it will be gone, because she's not trying it seems... just letting herself drift away...

I use my power to guide and coax the soul over to the body, but it just sits there. Body and soul reunited, yet disconnected. At this point, my powers are exhausted. I've simply expended too much, and I don't know what the hell I'm supposed to do, except pray...

I sit next to Shariykah's body and put my hand on her face, feeling the warmed blood that's so lifeless, just an empty vessel... I've finally had too much of all of this. I walk to the foot of the bed and stare up at the sigil.

"Wh-why? I've done all I can, I don't know how to do this! I can't do this, damn it!" Tears are falling from my eyes as I look from the foot of her bed over to her closed eyes, as if she's stuck in an eternal, dreamless, breathless sleep.

I look up, and say quietly, "Please, help.... God, goddess, please help... I'm dedicating my eternal life to everybody else, just please help me this once... Please, gods!"

I can't move now, not because of some emotion or revelation, but I'm literally frozen except for my eyes as I see two entities enter the room... or were they already there? It's hard to tell, there's a... I think he's a man, it's hard to tell. The other is same, but a woman, having the same kind of indistinguishable features. I know now what's going on; these are the god and the goddess, thought-based entities that encircle all of mankind's nature through male and female qualities... They simply are, and it seems they've deemed my prayer worthy of direct intervention.

The man walks past me to one side of the bed, both the most extremely important and prominent figure in the room, and yet somehow intangible. The woman walks to the other, with the same dominating presence. I regain some control of my body, the same way if you knew you could only move in super-slow-mo, and get close enough to watch. Each reaching out over her bed, they instantly condense her entire being into one beautiful, brightly-glowing orb.

These deities hold it above her chest. I can see a ghostly outline of her body based as if the orb were its heart, and gradually lower it into her. The two figures press it into her, and the ghost-essence matches the supine position that Shariykah has on the bed. Her eyes snap open as she comes to, and the god and goddess are nowhere to be seen. I smile, and say thank you.

I sit down on the bed next to Shariykah in her full nude glory and give her a kiss on the end of the snout. I rub my scaled palm against her cheek as she turns to face me. "I guess you pass then. I didn't think that I'd be so... disconnected though. My sigil didn't work as well as I'd thought. You were just supposed to fix..."

"Shhh..." I say, putting a finger up to her mouth, "You should rest, your soul has very little energy, and you need to recuperate for a while."

She pulls my head in for us to kiss. Feeling her tongue, her glorious live tongue, is the most gratifying feeling I think one can have, to have resurrected a dead lover. Our kiss intensifies, and all our cares and fears simply melt away. The gentle passion of our tongues in each other's mouths, loving and gentle, surpasses any kiss I've even heard of.

I pull away slowly and say, "I'll never leave you, Shariykah. I hope resurrecting you is proof enough... I love you."

Shariykah kisses me on the end of my snout. "I love you so much, the things I'd do to keep you..."

I grin, and coyly ask "You know what's good for a weak soul? Something that has some 'Oomph', if I recall."

She looks down at herself, then back to me. "Well, I guess I'm already ready." We both laugh as I take off my clothes. I can see that she's beginning to become wet, the glistening lubricant sliding down onto the sheets.

I'm already erect, both hemipenes standing at full mast as I slip off my boxers. She looks down at them, then to me as I make my way up her body. I gently stroke her leg and plant a soft kiss on her calf as I progress, another on her inner thigh. She says, "I love you," as she gently grips my head and pulls it to her slit, and that's when the scent hits me. There's no mistaking how bad she must want me, her pheromones hitting my nose like a ton of bricks.

Hardly able to contain myself, I give her delicious clit a gentle tickle with my bifurcated tongue before continuing up. I plant a gentle kiss on her naval, and then one on each of her smooth, voluptuous breasts. I suck each nipple just for a moment, tasting the beginnings of her delicious breast milk that I love so very much.

Finally, I'm lying directly over her as I plant a kiss on her beautiful mouth; just a peck at first, it soon evolves into a passionate, intimate kiss. I never tire of her tongue. It's strong and vivacious, and the taste hints ever so slightly of the sea. I softly break the kiss and gaze deeply into her beautiful eyes.

Softly, she says "I'm ready."

I guide both my hemipenes to her entrance as she wraps her legs around my back. My eyes close as I let out a deep guttural moan as I press both lengths into her tight, warm, clenching depths. She breathes in sharply as she feels me penetrate her, bucking her hips into mine. I can feel our mutual love radiating as I finally hilt myself fully within her, both of us enraptured by that final point when scale and damp skin meet. We remain there for a moment, a moment which feels like an eternity, simply savoring our unity.

I begin to slowly slide myself out of her. As my eyes open they're met by the lustful gaze of Shariykah, who's beginning to exhale deeply as only my tips remain within her. Shariykah lets out a moan as I firmly thrust myself back into her fully; I grunt as her tight, hot depths have just the right friction on my cocks.

For several minutes we keep this up, pressing into her again and again, trying to maintain some self-control as we both not only have sex but make love, in every meaning of the word. It's probably odd that I'm not scarred from all that's happened, but it's so amazing to be looking at her beautiful tooth-filled smile again. I can feel my energy pouring into her from all points of contact, especially the deep thrusting, carnal connection we have.

Still I undulate myself into her, both of us voicing our moans to whoever might hear us. I massage her breast with one hand as I support myself with the other, leaning over her with her legs still wrapped around me. It must be driving her crazy, having those sensitive nipples being rubbed and massaged by my comparatively coarse, scaled hands... Each time I squeeze I see a glistening drop of milk begin to form that's too small to even trickle off of her breasts.

As I slowly fuck this beautiful shark I lean down and tickle the tips of those breasts with my tongue, tasting that sweet milk. She moans loudly as I do this, my teasing clearly effective. She arches her back into my mouth, and I'm rewarded with a small mouthful of the stuff. I swallow it eagerly, and lean back up as I begin to let go.

The intensity builds as I pound harder and harder into her, softly grunting with each thrust. She gasps softly each time I press fully into her, my reptilian endowment rubbing her in all the right ways. She wraps her arms around me and drags me down into the most intense, passionate, forceful kiss we've ever shared as she's now almost hanging off of me as I rut her as the pressure inside builds to a critical point.

I pull from the kiss and hug her hard. Our heads are over each other's shoulders as I push myself into her harder than before. I let out a loud moan of with release as wave after wave of reptilian cum bursting into her depths in enough pent-up volume that some trickles out between the two shafts.

The feeling of me depositing my semen into her must be too much for her as she jams her hips into mine until it almost hurts. Her mouth opens, speechless as she cums harder than I have ever seen her. Her eyes are closed with ecstasy as a torrent of her lubricants wash out most of my semen between the two hemipenes buried so deep within her. She finally lets out a deep sigh, relaxing back onto the bed beneath her. She's so deliciously hot that I don't want to pull out of her, but I have something else in mind.

"Feeling better?" I ask her. I can already see her usual aura returning still weak compared to its former glory.

She smiles, yet replies "It's still probably going to be a couple of days before I'm back to normal. After all, you can't really generate this from inside me."

I smile at her knowingly, before retorting "Not so fast, I want to try something."

She asks, "Oh?" whilst smiling quizzically.

Sliding back down her curvaceous frame, I say "You'll see soon enough," before planting a kiss on the nipple of each of her bountiful breasts.

I find myself staring at her still-wet slit. Most of my semen's been washed away by her climax into the sheets below, but a quick flick of the tongue affirms there's still some there. I feel her hands move down to my head, pressing it into her crotch. I'm willing to be she won't be expecting this, though.

Covertly, I channel energy into her body to make her more elastic as I press the end of my muzzle into her vulva.

"What're you...? Ooooohhh..."

I press my entire muzzle into her depths, continually upholding this spell to make her able to comfortably accommodate almost anything. Little does she know she won't even have to worry about her figure with the spatial warp I'm also putting on her. I can't see anything anymore as my entire head is now inside of her warm passage.

I can feel her juices running as I firmly continue my journey. I flick my tongue out and drink as much as I can as I my shoulders are gradually engulfed by her vagina. Her cervix abruptly bonks against the end of my nose, but with persistent pressing it relaxes and gives way to her womb. Everything around me still has the tinge of fishiness around it, wholly delightful to every one of my senses as she still spasms around my upper body.

More and more of my body slides into her, and I can feel and hear the indicators that she's climaxed countless times during this slow journey inward. The inside of her womb is dark yet wonderful in every way. It's soft, has Shariykah's intoxicating scent, and is close to her. As I pull my legs and feet up into her I can feel her climax one more time before going limp on the bed.

I spend some of my energy to have my blood continually re-oxygenate itself, eliminating the need to breathe. The rest of it I pour into Shariykah to restore her. I can feel her light breathing and hear her heartbeat in this perfect darkness, returning power to her crippled state. I gradually begin to drift off as I can lightly still feel her running her hands over her magically flat belly.

I drift to sleep listening to her calming heartbeat and the continual gentle massage of her womb's muscles, leaving my naturally generating power to sustain us both. I hear her words echo telepathically into my mind: "I can see even now, you're going to be one of the greatest mages to walk the earth... thank you."

I fade completely away into sleep, dreaming only of my love for Shariykah and the eternity I'll spend with her.

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Vote and comment please :)

Also, I'm sorry for the wait. College classes happen, family drama happens, and responsibilities can hit like a truck. Unfortunately all did so at once.

I hope you enjoyed the story :D

Special thanks to Toumal for helping me make this story :)