“What happened?” Creadean asked.
“It’s nothing like firing a bow.” Risavis noted. “The pressure on a bow builds as you pull on it and releases when you do. All the force happens all at once with his weapons. My wrist just wrenched too hard, despite my bracing.”
Creadean nodded, “We’ll have to find a way to overcome that if we are ever to use them alongside him.”
She looked at my larger weapons, “They bite harder?”
“Yeah, but they rest against your shoulder so the force is there instead of your wrist.” I explained.
“Good observation. A broken or dislocated shoulder could be much more problematic than an injured wrist on the battlefield.” Creadean noted.
It seemed strange to me that they couldn’t handle the recoil. Most people I knew might take a bruise at worst from a nasty recoil they weren’t prepared for, and that was with people who were mostly inactive. It was a serious reminder that I was not dealing with other humans. From what I understood, their bone and muscular density and makeup were far different from mine or the people I’d known on Earth. Creadean wasn’t comforted by the fact that the force would be redirected to her shoulder, she was worried. A broken collarbone, or a fractured shoulder, would cause no end of trouble if that was the result of them attempting to fire one of my rifles.
“Are all of your people so able to handle the recoil on such weapons?” Creadean wondered, carefully feeling the bones in Risavis’s hand and wrist to verify no fractures.
“Well, like I told Durithana, the heavier the weapon the more recoil it absorbs. Some will also have padding at the back to help absorb the force, or other means of bleeding the force of the recoil out…” I thought, “But in general, yes, most people on my planet can handle the recoil of guns like this without injury.”
“Such durability must be a great asset.” Creadean noted with some jealousy.
“That’s what my people would say about your speed and agility.” I countered.
“Fair.” Creadean conceded. “Not to offend, but your blade work does look painfully slow and graceless.”
I winced, “It’s a fair assessment. Compared to what you can do, I must almost seem to be moving in slow-motion.”
“Did I not just say you appeared slow? Your words are sometimes quite confusing.” Creadean replied with a sideways glance.
I almost explained, but how do you explain ‘slow motion photography’ to someone who has never seen a camera or a video.
Amura remained silent through the whole thing, watching with interest and curiosity but keeping her thoughts to herself.
Risavis’s wrist was declared whole. She would just need to take it easy for the rest of the day to let it recover. I didn’t realize how much of a scene we were making until I went to resume my shooting and suddenly there was a flurry of arrows as the other elves tried to avoid being caught staring.
I had an idea. I finished my shooting then headed back to Durithana’s workshop. It looked like she had even more assistants than before. I recognized the elves who had helped her, but now she had two additional smiths and an additional mage.
“Master Thomas!” Durithana laughed. “I know we work fast, but not that fast. I told you the experimentation would take time.”
“I know, I just thought of something I wanted to show you… A potential idea to help you with your brainstorming.” I assured her.
“Ooo, I like the sound of that. Xenthalor, bring the young Master some parchment.” She directed, and the new mage jumped to it.
As I sketched I began to explain.
“See, as you may have guessed, as you increase the caliber… the size of the pellet… the recoil rapidly becomes unmanageable even for someone like me. So we will attach them to certain vehicles.” I explained. “Now, early models were just like this, cannons we called them, but we’ve refined them quite a bit. I wasn’t directly involved with the artillery, so I can’t give you as precise of details, but I can give you sketches.”
I drew the rough design of a howitzer.
“That could work, or if you went smaller, you could mount it on a stand like this, on a simple cart.” I explained, trying to sketch what a gunner’s seat would look like on the back of a cart instead of atop a humvee.”
“That would solve the recoil problem, assuming you could make the stand sturdy enough.” One of the smiths noted. “But that is a lot of metal… How are our supplies looking?”
“Well, frankly, I’m not sure we have enough spare metal to make something of this size.” Durithana confessed, tapping the sketch of the howitzer. “The stand we might be able to manage…”
I stepped back and let the smiths debate the merits of their options.
“Well, that ought to give them plenty to work with.” I muttered under my breath.
“Yes! Thank you!” Durithana called from the huddle.
I chuckled to myself, I kept forgetting how good their hearing was.
I returned home as the light began to fade into dusk. Another full and good day. I cleaned up and took another bath. I’d worked up a sweat at the range and even if the residue of my shots didn’t actually stick around, I still felt dirty again.
I slipped into my bedroom, made sure my clothes were prepared for the following day and my weapons were on hand should anything happen, then laid back on my wonderfully comfortable bed and doused the lights.
I was surprised when a slim figure slid into my bed with me. I hadn’t even heard the door. I needed to do something so anyone couldn’t just slip in unannounced while I slept. I’d been lucky in that Amura had decided against slitting my throat or stabbing me, but you never knew what others might plan.
“Did I startle you?” I recognized Narusil by her voice, and to my pleasure I felt her bare breasts press against my arm. As her body fully pressed against mine, I could tell she was wearing her underwear, but nothing else..
“A little.” I chuckled. “Everything okay?”
“Yes, I get a little nauseous each morning, and I am constantly running to the water closet. But everything seems good… I just wish there was something I could do to feel the closeness with you again. I’m so happy to be carrying your child, but… I almost wish I’d gotten more than one experience with you before it happened.” Narusil quietly confessed.
She was jealous. The other matrons who had made love to me a week ago had gotten a second round today, but she was pregnant.
“You know, just because you’re pregnant doesn’t mean we can’t still do… things.” I offered. It had been a couple of hours since I’d had my fun giving Diamiutar exactly what she wanted, I was down for another round.
“But… I can’t seem to… well…” Narusil struggled. “I can’t seem to get my body to cooperate.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
Narusil took my hand and guided it into her undergarments. I understood and started to explore. None of my matrons had ever been anything but soaked and excited, but Narusil was almost dry outside and on the inside, there was moisture, sure, but not enough to lube her up for sex.
“Ah. I see.” I accepted.
“I want to give myself to you, but… How can I do that when my body won’t prepare itself?” She lamented.
I chuckled, “Well, there is a way…”
“Really?” Narusil perked up.
I had no idea how an elf would react, but the idea was in my head, and my johnson had gotten notice.
“Well, a common thing back where I’m from is called oral sex.” I started gingerly.
“Mouth sex?” Narusil replied, “Why would you use that term? Is kissing not an adequate term?”
“Well, you see, there is kissing, and then there is oral sex. They are different. An example would be like when I made love to Diamiutar earlier, I licked, and sucked on her vagina as part of pleasuring her…” I tried to delicately explain.
“OH!” She gasped. “Mouth… sex… As in mouth to sex.”
Now she was curious.
“Could you teach me how this is done?” Narusil asked.