Only a couple of days later, another group appeared heading towards the tower. However, Ada did not notice them until they were quite close because they were coming from the West.

The West: from which no interloper or traveler had come for decades, the very reason this tower was built, the direction of the nearest ocean, the mysterious and captivating West.

She did not usually check in that direction, but she was glad she had. She arranged herself at the biggest window in the tower, which had been built for this exact purpose, and she watched them. Too eager and nervous to wait for them to get much closer, Ada scurried around for her spyglass which she’d left near one of the southern windows but knocked aside in a lust-addled trip downstairs, and finally returned to the western window for a closer look.

It had looked like they were wearing strange armor, but as Ada lifted the spyglass, she realized that they weren’t wearing anything at all.

There were five of them, each riding a horse, each completely shirtless, though they did wear trousers.

One had a broad chest and narrow waist, another was thicker throughout, two had breasts and ample curves, and the last had a lanky, athletic build.

She watched, unable to do anything else, as they grew closer and closer and came more clearly into view.

They were all ochre and bronze like they spent long days in the sun, some with darker hair and some with lighter, each with bold black tattoos ringing their arms. The two broad-chested ones had beards and long hair, the other three had clean faces. Two of those had long hair, but one of the ones with breasts kept theirs short. Two men and three women?

Their horses weren’t entirely normal either. What had at first appeared to be ornate saddle blankets were actually scales, tealish and running down the fronts of the horses’ faces and across their backs. One of Ada’s books on the ocean had hinted at this — these were a cross-breed of horse and hippocampus!

As intrigued as she was by everything about this group, her eyes kept drifting back to the man at the front. He was smaller than the other man but still surely taller and broader than Ada. He had a medium-length beard and his long, black hair was tied up at the crown of his head and flowed behind him like a midnight waterfall. Even from this distance, Ada could clearly see the muscles of his chest and arms, which rippled like ocean waves.

She was just about ready to swoon. Her arousal was rising to meet the beautiful, mysterious visitors. Ada fought to keep focused.

So, these were folks from the sea? Were they descendents of the legendary marauders? Or had the western politics changed in the intervening years?

Ada sputtered around the tower. What to do? Make them dinner? Pretend to be asleep? Pretend to be tied up? What should she say when they asked about the dragon? Would they even know about the dragon? Why were they here?

Ada had plenty of plans for how to deal with people – but none of them involved actually talking to them.

They were nearly at the bottom of the tower.

Ada looked down. She was still totally naked. Well, if nothing else, she was going to get dressed. Her sex ached for attention, as if the very fact that she knew that it was not the right time to be touching herself was exactly what made her want to touch herself. But she couldn’t exactly greet these visitors as a dragon, could she? Or should she?

Ada’s thoughts started to melt into a lecherous haze and her hand crept towards her aching desire as she thought that maybe it was bet to be a dragon after all, given that the visitors could be dangerous…

A firm knock at the front door interrupted her thoughts and made the decision for her.

“Um. Coming!” she yelled. She wished that she were coming, but instead she hastily threw on her frock, neglecting any undergarments, scurried down the stairs, and clumsily unbolted the door. 

And there they were, the five sea folk standing in front of her, shirtless, all wearing black trousers, their scaled horses standing loyally behind, sniffing at the grass.

“Hello,” Ada said. She gulped.

She tried to look evenly across them but her eyes were pulled irresistibly to the man at the front. What she had not been able to see from the spyglass was that he had kind grey eyes that crinkled as he smiled at her. Ada thought the floor might have dropped out from under her because she felt like she was falling. 

“Hello,” he said. “I… heard you have a dragon problem?” His voice was rich and warm, a slight lilting accent that sent quivers down Ada’s spine.

“Um, yes,” was all she could say.

“I have to, um, ask, since it’s important tactically — is there really a dragon?” He glanced around the space inside, eyes casting up towards the staircase behind her.

Ada flushed bright red. She squeaked something resembling a “yes”.

“Oh, no, I didn’t mean to doubt you,” he said quickly, truly apologizing. “It’s just, I was shocked to not see it on the way in. The dragons where I come from make themselves known, with no prejudice. I know this land can be fond of their fairy tales, so I wanted to be sure.”

“Yes, indeed, usually Iiiiiiiii, it does that, but, um, it’s asleep. And you have miraculous timing, good, um, well, how would you be called?” She wanted to hear his name, to burn it into her memory, to write it on her skin. Gods, when did she become such a helpless romantic?

“I’m ser Pasco. This is ser Forte,” the larger one, “Mam Missa,” the long-haired curvy one, “Mam Teoda,” the short-haired curvy one, “and Mam Sendia,” the slender one with long hair. She had no breasts to speak of, but a feminine face and a perky step.

“And I’m mam Ada,” Ada said.

“Nice to meet you, Ada,” Pasco said.

The way he said her name. Ada. Not ‘Your Majesty’. Not ‘Your Royal Highness’. Just, Ada. He turned her name into a song.

“N-nice to meet all of you,” she stammered as she realized their eyes were all on her. She’d forgotten all their names, except for his. Pasco. But, looking to them instead of him hardly solved her problem. The other man was thick, viscerally masculine. The two curvier women looked quite different from each other and were both a bit taller than Ada so that their large breasts were at her eye level and gods she just wanted to touch them. And the slender woman with the flat chest had such a pretty face, Ada just wanted to kiss her.

“May… we rescue you now?” Pasco said. “If our timing has indeed been miraculous then I would hate to press our luck.”

I can think of something else to press, Ada thought, imaging her hand on his trousers, his thigh between her legs.

Oh this is bad. She was a total mess. She was sweating, her heart was pounding, her arousal was aching. But what would they do if she turned into a dragon in front of them?! Well, she could probably escape, but she wanted very much to go wherever they were going, to see wherever it was that they had come from, to learn why ever it was that people from the West, of all places, had come to her tower.

“Rescue sounds… good,” she said. “Let me just… um, grab some things real quick. You can come right in.” She wanted to grab his dick and have him come right in her. Ada was hearing innuendo in her own words. What a mess. And she turned to see that the tower, too, was a total mess. The chairs were shredded, there was a streak of dragon slick on the floor that had not entirely dried from the day prior, and shed scales, and clumps of mud, and claw marks.

If they noticed the disarray, they didn’t say anything. Perhaps they assumed that the dragon had prowled into the tower after her and that it might be a frightening topic for her.

“Is there time?” Pasco asked as he and the other four stepped inside.

“Y-yes, the dragon… sleeps in a cave. It should be… quiet for a bit.” It wasn’t actually a lie if you permitted the metaphor that Ada’s quivering sex was the cave. The dragon surely did lie in wait, right inside.

Ada jogged up to her room and gathered her favorite books. She was sorely tempted to rub one out — well, rub two out in rapid succession — to provide herself some relief before she descended again, but she dare not risk the apparent arrival of the dragon. 

She was sure that Pasco would charge up and spear her, though her logic wasn’t quite right because her scales were impenetrable. Her expectation of penetration was likely more about the penis-in-vagina variety.

With her dearest books stacked in her arms, Ada took a moment to evaluate the small room where she had slept for these past six months. She felt more fondly towards the bare little space than she ever had to any of her lavish chambers or plush beds.

Loathe as she was to leave all the other books behind, she knew that they would want her to go out and have the kind of adventure that their pages described.

Ada took a deep breath, clutched her books to her chest, steeled her will, and stepped outside.