Ruven fell...

"Flee, Bethtali!" Oshin cried. "Leave this place!" The man he'd clubbed pulled a dagger [Interact] and [Strike: 18 vs. AC 16, 3 P] stabbed up at him, opening a horrible gash in his leg. He [Strike: 3 vs. AC 16] lunged again, but to no avail.

Across the path, Bethtali desperately adjusted herself in the saddle and clumsily kicked her heels into Nightwind's sides [Command an Animal: 5 vs. Will DC 17]. "Nightwind! Please!"

The horse, though, reared with a furious whinny. Turning, it galloped toward the man who'd shot its master [Gallop] before rearing back and [Strike: 19 vs. AC 15, 8 B] kicking the surprised man in the head, sending him toppling backward. Oshin, seizing his opportunity, [Strike: 23 vs. AC 15, 7 B] lunged desperately and clubbed down the last bandit. They caught their breath in the sudden silence for a moment, then Oshin urged his horse forward toward Ruven. As he leapt down, he saw...

--Is Ruven alive? He's at dying 2 (thanks to being crit)...
Recovery Check, DC 12
1d20=1 - Wow. Nope.

The huge man lay still and silent on the ground - the sword no longer singing, its blade now matte steel and nothing more. Even before he checked his pulse, Oshin knew.

"Ruven is dead," he called to Bethtali, who had just managed to clamber down from Nightwind.

"...Oh," was all that she could say. Hesitantly, she crossed the forest trail toward the dead man she had met just two days prior, when she was gifted to him for an evening's entertainment. She shivered as she looked down upon the man - now a corpse - and hugged herself. She knew not how to feel for the man who had saved her life and captured her in one fell swoop. Oshin cleared his throat.

"I am...sorry, if that is the right word."

"I do not know what would be," she murmured.

"He was...did you..." Oshin hesitated, then asked, "Would you like a cloak?"

His words stirred Bethtali out of her stupor. "I...I have one." As Nightwind clopped up next to her, looking mournfully down at his master, she opened the saddlebag and pulled out the robe that the nyktera had gifted Ruven for her. Wrapping it around herself, she closed her eyes and imagined the simple wrap that her mother had gifted her for her last birthday. She heard Oshin gasp and, when she opened her eyes, saw that the robe - though it felt as it ever had - now had the appearance of the wrap she remembered. For the first time in two days, she was fully clothed.

Oshin seemed decidedly more comfortable looking at her now, though he was battered and clearly weary - a cut on his leg oozed blood. "We should leave this place," he said. "We can build a cairn for him, but...we should not tarry long. We are in the territory of Brax, and now I am but one man and badly injured besides."

"Yes," she said softly. "Let us bury him and...and go."

It took them over an hour to build Ruven's cairn - to lay out his massive body and pile rocks about it until he was covered. In the top of it they thrust the Way of Hunger, testament to his might, and about it they laid out the men that he and Oshin (and Nightwind) had slain. When they were done they said the prayers they knew - for they knew none of Kal-Dranor - and Oshin helped Bethtali into his saddle before swinging up behind her. He was a complicated man, she thought as they rode back out of the valley, Nightwind trailing on a lead behind them. I shall miss him in some ways... She snuck a glance back at the saddle on the black stallion behind them, then blushed and turned her eyes back to the front.

That night they made camp in a concealed cave among the hills, and though she knew little of how to dress a wound she insisted that Oshin let her try. She bandaged him as best she could with scraps from his headwrap, and when she saw him stirring it felt natural for her to lean in, open his breeches, and give him wordless thanks for slaying the bandits who surely would have considered her a prize. So used was she to Ruven's way that she was startled when she found her chin lifted once he was fully hard, and Oshin's lips pressed tentatively to hers. She kissed him back, and gasped as his tongue plunged into her mouth.

"Your mother taught you well," he said when they broke apart, panting slightly. His cock gleamed, rock-hard, in the firelight between them.

"I had...another teacher, too," she murmured. "Shall I...?"

"Of course," he said eagerly. "If you will have me, I will mount you and fill you with myself. It is the least I can do in thanks for your kind care and all - I suspect - that you have suffered."

Bethtali stared at him, uncomprehending, for a moment. Then, with a shy smile, she undid the clasp of her gossamer robe and pulled it off. Turning, she bent forward, stretching her arms out on the ground before her and canting her hips to present him with her naked, dripping sex. Her heart thudded in her ears as she felt him run a hand over her ass, and felt the tip of his cock stroke her lower lips. She cooed in pleasure - in relief - as he slid himself into her, filling her in a simple, easy way.

"Your cunt is heaven," Oshin gasped as he began to fuck her. "You'll make someone a fine brood sow one day." Bethtali blushed and gasped at the compliment, and gripped the cold earth floor as she arched her back to take him deeper.

Oh, she thought, Oh, Ruven. If only you had lived - I could have felt what it was like to know you in this way. To know you in the way that women are meant to know a man - to submit to you as a ewe does to a ram. Not the strange, unnatural lust you had for me, my mouth, and spilling your seed wantonly across my face... She gasped as Oshin, leaning forward, grasped one of her swaying breasts with his hand, rolling her nipple between his fingers and making her ache with pleasure. But oh...though you were strange, and exciting, wonderful and terrible in equal measure...I must admit that I have yearned for this. This - this is real and meaningful. You were a windstorm across the hills, Ruven, and now, at last, all is settled into its proper place. She moaned, content, as Oshin fucked her harder, until he spent himself in her aching quim as they gasped together under the starlit night. And over the pass, in the next valley, the cairn sat still and silent, mounted by a mighty blade.