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This episode was actually written after number five, as something of a prequel.  In five's introduction, a king rattles off a list of the founding members of the Sisters of Order.  This story deals with the only two members of that organization that readers wouldn't recognize from previous episodes, and also serves as the origin-story for the organization itself.  Also worth noting is that it's set in the kingdom of Dengar, and if you remember some of the dialog in episode 3, you'll recall that they talk like Yoda there.  That made this something of a challenge to write.  Nothing excessively bloody in this episode, but anally-inclined lesbians are always fun.", "writing": "Fantasie Eviscerotique\n\nEpisode 4.5\n\nby Adrian VanWormer (Kathalla at FA and IB)\n\nChapter 1\n\n\tThe town was very dark, this time of night. This close to the border of Unicorn Vale, there was little concern for military security, as there were strong fortifications but a few dozen leagues away to the north and south, while the kingdom’s peaceful heartland was to the west and no threat would ever come from the east so long as the nation as a whole behaved itself. Thus, the guards patrolling the ends of the three main roads were fairly token, and the town’s own nature as the hub of local farms, providing food to half a dozen nearby holdings, meant that even its ‘upper’ class had little to fear from criminals of any sort, as bulk shipments of grain or vegetables were hardly likely to attract thieves.\n\n\tEveryone knew these things. Everyone happened to be ever so slightly wrong.\n\n\tThe tiny window of the large house’s storeroom made very little sound as it opened, and a slim black figure flowed through it the next instant, feet first. One hand kept the top-hinged window from falling closed again as the shape froze in place, nostrils flaring as it searched for any hint of a living body’s scent or even the slightest noise... The only sound to be heard for that long moment, though, was the scratching scamper of a lone mouse, so the intruder’s free hand reached up to lift down the shuttered lantern that had been left on the outer sill. Feeling around the sides for the etched-in markings, they opened the hinged cover on the side with the stained lens, the light of the candle inside dimmed and lent a faint red tinge as it was finally freed to illuminate the rows of free-standing shelves. That shuttered, filtered lamp, called a burglar’s lantern for good reason, cast only as much light as its owner wished, and it didn’t take much to start examining those shelves’ contents as the figure moved silently between them.\n\n\tOnce at the other end of the room where they could verify that the door was closed, and out of the central aisle’s line with the window to avoid even the minuscule risk of a passer-by spotting the glow, the intruder closed the shutter and opened the one on the other side, the brighter light finally outlining their form as it reflected from nearby candlesticks and wineglasses. Blunt, white teeth flashed in a silent grin as the equine muzzle lifted, her free hand’s black fur dipping into black clothes to pull out and shake loose a black bag, and she set the lamp on a free shelf as she started filling the sack with just the six candlesticks of the two dozen stored there that had less of a gleam. They were satisfyingly heavy as she lifted each one down then pulled another cloth out of her clothes to follow it into the bag and keep it from clinking against the next one, and it took an effort to keep from letting her excitement force her to rush the job and make a noisy mistake. This was her biggest heist yet, but she’d guessed completely correctly so far; it had been long enough since the house’s owner had thrown a party that warranted the ‘good’ decorations to store them, so here amidst the brass their silver had been steadily tarnishing, and likely wouldn’t be missed for some time to come. They also hadn’t bothered, in so peaceful a community, to waste money warding a mere storeroom. In addition to the lamp, she carried a small crystal that would detect any other enchantment within twenty feet, and it had glowed faintly near the other end of the house where the owner’s office was, but these sticks were probably worth even more than the coins in the strongbox, and nowhere near as well guarded. Less than three minutes after first slipping in, she was blowing out the lamp and easing it and her bag through the window before climbing up to squeeze through herself. It was almost time for her ‘traveling merchant’ contact to come through town again, and she’d be tying one of her black rags to a fencepost at the entrance to her farm to signal him that she had something worth buying, whatever excuse it took to justify his stopping there. That same ‘merchant’ was the one who’d supplied her with the lamp and crystal, as well as the bible that had changed her life, and all they had cost her was her soul.\n\n* * *\n\n\t“How is he today?”\n\n\tThe serf carrying a food of tray down the hall paused at the cracked-open door and shook his head sadly, “Same as yesterday and the day before, ma’am. Six months it’s been, but two the chirurgeon said for recovery. My thought... ma’am, all we serfs think, as well as he’ll get, by now he has.”\n\n\tLaria sighed, nodding, “My thanks you have, for your concern.”\n\n\tThe man nodded back then turned to continue toward the master bedroom, and the filly’s eyes narrowed at the fresh welt just visible above the rear neckline of his crude shirt. She closed her door and sat down on the edge of her bed with a scowl... it was just so unfair! The accident itself had taken enough from her family when it happened. The winter rain had been heavy enough to make visibility difficult, so no one had seen the hill-side road’s erosion in time to avoid it, and the entire cart had slipped sideways then rolled. Laria was still in the midst of her final growth spurt, and it had probably only been her slight frame that had saved her from injury. Her parents had been less fortunate. Bruised and battered, she’d staggered through the rain to the nearest farm, one of their own immediate neighbors, to summon help, but by the time they’d cut the horses free of their harness, put down the one with a broken leg, and levered the cart off of the two bodies... her mother was dead, and her father was staring blankly into space, not even moving to clear his eyes of the mud and the blood from a scalp wound. The healer who kept the nearby farm folk healthy had been called the moment they knew they had a survivor and he was warm and dry, and diagnosed Varton with a cracked skull. He swore that the man would regain at least some of his wits, and he had... but, the healer cautioned her, there was no telling just how far he’d come back. He was, after these months of recovery, only most of the man he’d been. A stranger talking to him for the first time would swear he was normal, with a clear mind and wit, but anyone observing him over a longer time would come away with a very different opinion.\n\n\tSomething was wrong with the part of his mind that made judgments, and his memory had some problems too. Anyone insisting on something firmly enough, with enough repetitions, could convince him of almost anything, and the merchants who bought the farm’s crops had learned quickly that if they insisted on dealing with him and him alone, they could cart away fresh grain and vegetables at a fraction of their fair value. The spring harvest was over and the summer grains were almost ripe, but the family was down to a fraction of the cash reserve they normally enjoyed at this time of year... and by ‘the family,’ she meant the serfs too. They and their families had served this farm for generations, and making sure they were well-housed and -fed had been the first consideration of any budget ever since her great-grandfather had bought the property from its previous citizen. It was far easier in the long run to make the farm prosper with the serfs’ active advice and cooperation... which their current hired overseer seemed to have forgotten. Everyone knew that the last few months had seen a decline in their fortunes, a greater loss than could be explained by the family matron’s death, but that man seemed convinced that serfs were inherently shiftless and lazy, and that any problem had to be their fault. A typical bully, he knew only one way to ‘correct’ the situation, as evidenced by that welt, probably one of a great many, on the house-servant’s back.\n\n\tAnger at the morning’s more recent events helped the filly drag her mind out of the depressing past, and she lunged from the bed, snatching a blouse and breeches from her closet and only barely reining in her anger enough to keep from tearing anything as she pulled them on. She stepped into the pair of soft-soled ankle boots that were only barely adequate for farm-work, but with a bit of lamp-soot were perfect for her... hobby, and stepped out of her room and down the hall.\n\n\t“A pleasant morning to ye, ma’am, and but a moment it will take for yer breakfast,” the plump brown bear bustling between counter and stove greeted her.\n\n\tThe matronly serf didn’t have a malicious bone in her body, and mothered everyone, regardless of rank or age, impartially. She’d been a great comfort to the young filly from the day her birth-mother had died, and her smile was warm as she murmured, “Thank you, Grella, and good indeed that smells!”\n\n\tGrella clucked in faint disapproval as she deposited a large bowl of oatmeal, loaded with dried cherries and apples, in front of the girl, then added a small saucer with two small honeycakes that must have come out of the oven less than five minutes ago. “Far too thin you are,” she chided as she turned back to check the larger pot where the field workers’ early lunch was just getting started. “The same was your mother, but you I’ve gotten at earlier; some meat on your bones I’ll put if it kills me!”\n\n\tLaria restrained herself to an indulgent smile rather than the smirk the notion actually deserved. She actually ate quite a bit, but so long as she was following the exercise regimen from her bible, it was highly unlikely she’d ever grow fat. Her slim frame was progressing toward whipcord and bone, her muscles growing ever firmer without getting noticeably larger, for just the sort of compact strength and agility she sought. Still... the reminder brought to mind one of the warnings from the same book, one about visibly standing out, so she reached for a pitcher of rich cream to add to her cereal. Perhaps a slight layer of fat might not be so bad... and it certainly gained Grella’s covert approval as she caught the motion out of the corner of her eye.\n\n\tBy the time her citizen finished eating, the serf had brought the cauldron to a low boil and added carrots to start softening, and finished preparing the heap of neatly-cubed potatoes that would soon follow them. Before she could start on the celery, which would be added at the last minute for its texture, a quiet cough made her look up.\n\n\t“Grella...” Laria half-sighed as she stood and brushed cake-crumbs away, “has Oleron again your people been beating? Hide the pain well did his face, but on Thurl’s back a mark I saw. Too thin that mouse’s fur is to hide such.”\n\n\tThe bear stole a half-guilty glance at the young woman, technically the mistress of the house since her mother had died, then straightened up with a sigh, “Yes, ma’am. But mess not with the likes of him! ‘tis no more than two, mayhap three times a day that under his lash someone falls. Sturdy folk we are, and take it we can. But, young miss! The way at you he looks... ‘tis a growing girl you are, and noticed he has. Out of that one’s reach I’d take worse than a beating to keep my daughters!”\n\n\tLaria strode purposefully over and gave the serf a tight hug that would have scandalized anyone from town, “Like a mother to me you’ve been since last winter... but stand idly by while abused were my mother and her friends, I couldn’t either.” She relaxed her grip and leaned back to smile at the older woman, one hand busy behind the bear’s back, “Try I must, however hopeless I suspect the effort to be.”\n\n\tGrella nodded, conceding both her motivation and her right as a citizen to do as she pleased, then turned back to the counter as the filly walked away. Frowning for an entirely different reason, then, she started lifting piles of celery, bowls, even a nearby loaf of bread, searching... She was sure the knife she’d been about to chop celery with had been right there!\n\n* * *\n\n\tAs quietly as she’d slipped into the stable by the back door, a nicker of greeting sounded almost immediately, and the filly had to smile as she stepped over to the stall. “Never could I surprise you, Socks,” she chuckled as she reached up to stroke the horse’s nose. He’d been the last colt thrown by the mare who’d broken her leg in the accident, but he was nearing his full growth, and he’d been hers since the day of his birth. She’d already been getting a bit large for the aging pony she’d first learned to ride on, and her mother had approved the new match the moment she’d seen his fur, as black as her daughter’s save for the gray socks he’d been unimaginatively named for.\n\n\t“Here now, Miss,” a voice rumbled from the front of the stable, “Try men with two legs before cuddling up with four, shouldn’t you?”\n\n\tA faint smile flickered across her face before she turned, but it had held no humor or kindness. “To stop and say hello to Socks first, I came, but ‘twas you to meet I meant. One friendly touch with the more intelligent of you two I needed before deal with your arrant stupidity I must, Oleron.” His greeting hadn’t been the first piece of mild innuendo he’d thrown her way, but as always she pretended not to know what he could be talking about.\n\n\tThe short, slightly overweight wolf frowned as he padded between the stalls, most of them empty as the horses were already out working the field, “Not your place is it to your betters insult, young woman. Answer I do to your father alone, but his duties I might assume in disciplining any who rise above themselves if himself he cannot.”\n\n\tLaria stood her ground firmly and shook her head, “Saw I did that ‘discipline’ upon Thurl’s back, and it was about just that which I wished to speak. Loyal and hard-working are our serfs, and cause for even a harsh word almost never do they give. Far too fond of your whip are you, and slowed by pain its workers being, the last thing this farm needs. Aye, diminished my father has been, and know I do that, like the greedy buyers of produce, advantage you’ve taken of it, about ‘discipline’s’ need to lie. Forget you do that people too are serfs, and their needless suffering I cannot watch for long before consequences must there be. For you.”\n\n\tMidway through her little speech, Oleron had stopped a few feet away and folded his arms, one lip curling more and more in a sneer. At her final, implied threat, he blinked once then laughed, “And believe you over me, your father would? Twelve years I’ve worked here, and good service and good advice I’ve given since barely talk you could.”\n\n\tLaria’s eyes narrowed, “Surprised you might be, what he’d believe. Never have I lied to him. Would those twelve years’ stability you’d risk, on the bet that that detail his injury made him forget? A fool’s bet that would be.”\n\n\tGrudgingly, the wolf nodded; he hadn’t considered it from quite that angle before, and she just might be right... but then another idea occurred to him, and he smiled slowly, “Perhaps... your father we need not involve at all. Willing I’d be, even eager, to my whip throw away and with words alone the serfs oversee... in trade fair for some... consideration. Nearly fifteen you are, a woman grown, and for a woman’s duties ready.” The glaring smirk she gave him in reply was not what he expected. Incomprehension, perhaps, but what he’d hoped for was fear, for her to retreat with a disbelieving shake of her head even as the growing realization of the inevitability of his conquest showed in her eyes. Frowning, he took another step forward, reaching for her arm; there was more than one route to the satisfying rush of power over another, after all.\n\n\tThe filly waited until his hand was inches from her arm, then spun away even as her other hand caught his wrist. A grunt of surprise escaped as he was stopped in place, her grip painfully tight and her arm even stronger than his. His greater weight, he realized a moment later, could be a countervailing advantage. Bracing his feet, he started pulling instead of pushing, and if she didn’t let go he’d lift her bodily off the ground, without the leverage to effectively resist.\n\n\tThe hand behind Laria’s back finished unfastening the button of her blouse’s sleeve, the wooden hilt of a kitchen knife dropping into her waiting fingers, and she let herself be almost drawn from her feet before letting go and slashing at his face. He jerked back in surprise, of course, but she’d expected that, and landed almost exactly the cut she’d aimed for, splitting the pad of his nose open. Even as he yelped in pain, she brought the blade down again, the flat even with his body as she slipped it between his breeches and his belt. A quick twist and a tug were all it took to cut that band, and as his pants tangled around his knees she gave him one, simple shove to knock him flat.\n\n\t“Yes,” she mused coldly as she slipped the knife back into her top and fastened the button, “perhaps to my father we should speak. To see you try I’d like, to explain why in the barn with his daughter and your pants down you were found. To claim that wanting it I was, difficult might be if cause I had to bloody you.” Leaning closer as the rumble of other voices neared, several serfs having heard his cry, she whispered fiercely, “And never would you I choose to want. Far too small are your tits, and a strange and ugly shape is your vagina. Not my type are you, and never here I was.” Before the curious serfs could quite make an appearance, she darted back down the aisle and ducked behind the last stall, where she could slip through the door with minimal chance of being seen.\n\n* * *\n\n\tA shout from one of the serfs tending the herb garden between the house and the road made Laria’s and Grella’s heads pop up from where they’d been cleaning the lunch dishes, and the filly grabbed a towel to dry her hands. She dipped an abbreviated curtsy to her father where he sat, just staring into the hearth-fire as he so often did when nothing more active held his attention, “Da... that traveling merchant it must be, for right the time is for him. Prepared a bag of fruit and bread for him, I did, as often he stops for road food here. In good coin and fascinating tales he pays, too.”\n\n\tVarton blinked out of his haze, and nodded with a smile, “Then off you go, lass.”\n\n\tThe grinning sprint of a star-struck teenager, eager to hear of lands beyond her small community, was the purest acting, but very easy given her genuine anticipation and pleasure at the visit. The somewhat portly vulpine was a familiar sight throughout the entire earldom, always with some trinket or oddity to sell from beneath the tarp over his wagon-bed, and he’d been on the same route for so long that even the fussiest of guards or even inquisitors had stopped bothering to give his wares more than a brief glance. Even Laria could only guess at what he carried now that he was a known, safe quantity and could do business in earnest as a traveling fence. “Fresh produce for the road, sir?” she called for the benefit of a few watching serfs as she neared and held up a large canvas sack.\n\n\t“Always!” he grinned jovially, “and ‘tis glad for your fond greeting I am, lovely miss.” He didn’t miss the subtle signal from the hand holding that bag; amidst the otherwise-firm grip, her middle finger was arched and its tip stroked the cloth, so he added, “Room in my cart I should make for that,” and looped his mule-team’s reins around a horn on the bench to turn and rummage through the nearest bundles under his cart’s tarp. He’d only been teaching this girl the trade in brief contacts over three years, but he’d been impressed by her judgment and skill ever since they’d met. He’d shortchanged her father for a new weather vane, and she’d almost managed to pick his pocket of exactly the difference between actual and quoted prices. If she was signaling that she had something of unusual value, he believed her, and he’d almost certainly need the coin-stash he was digging out.\n\n\tGiving one more girlish giggle for cover, she hefted the bag onto the cart’s foot-rest and murmured, “Candlesticks. Poor the styling is, so broke one I did to make sure... Pure silver they are, and twelve pounds they weigh. Untraceable they are, too, if the simple effort to melt them you make. My oath to Karnaal you have on this.”\n\n\tThe fence’s eyes widened, “And not a word nor whisper did I hear in Barleyfield. Damned good you are, young lady. Half their weight in silver coins I’ll give, and happily.” It took mere seconds to join six small, dense pouches with a string of strong twine; trades by coins’ weight rather than denomination weren’t common, but still happened often enough to keep a few prepared. “Here,” he said more loudly as he lifted the finished bundle out of the cart bed, “some tasty sweetmeats did I get from a confectioner in Vivenge, but my teeth they’re starting to make ache. The lot you can have with my blessing.”\n\n\tLaughing again as she tucked the pouches into her shirt, she practically gushed, “My thanks, Mister! Luck and prosperity on the road my family wishes you!” Her voice dropped for a final murmur, “And my thanks, Priest.” She hadn’t bothered to weigh those pouches, even an estimate by hand, as the merest suggestion that she couldn’t trust him would be taken highly amiss. If there was one thing The Night’s Embrace made very clear, any thief who worked in His name would deal with scrupulous honesty where their fellow worshipers were concerned.\n\n\tAt his nod and final wave, she headed back for the farm, seeming to notice the black cloth wedged into the fence and flapping in the breeze for the first time as she passed. With perfect casualness, even a hint of annoyance, she tugged it free and jammed it into a pocket as if the signal that had made him stop in the first place was nothing even remotely special. Taking up his reins again and giving the mules a flick to get them moving again, he hid another nod of approval for the filly. Pickings for thieves might not seem very rich, here, but the profit he was taking home right now suggested that such was not the case when someone with her natural talent started looking around.\n\n* * *\n\n\tLaria’s eyes opened in the darkness as her father’s snore finally started, clear and steady through the wall their rooms shared. She needed no light as she slipped out of bed and rolled back a rug near that wall, finding the knothole in a short floor-plank and poking a finger through to lift it free. That hidey-hole had held the candlesticks for a few days, and now hid the small fortune (by local standards) she’d gotten for them, along with the proceeds from earlier, smaller thefts, but its contents were somewhat secondary now. Her bare breasts flattening against the floor, she reached in even farther, marginally past the wall itself, to find and free the board separating this stash from the nearly identical one her father still fondly believed was a secret known only to him. The small sack she pulled through clinked faintly, and another soft rattle escaped as she tilted it to concentrate the coins it held in one corner, but she knew the sound wouldn’t carry. Reaching into the bag, she started counting to herself as she picked up each coin to feel and mentally weigh to identify its metal, then dropped it in the other corner of the sack to evaluate the next. The total was as disappointing as she’d feared; their spring harvest must have gone for no more than a quarter of its fair price if this was what was left after half a summer’s worth of expenses.\n\n\tStifling a sigh at things she couldn’t immediately change, she instead opened one of her own six bags and carefully, quietly poured it into the stash. That would just about make up the difference, and her father’s memory was problematic enough that he probably wouldn’t even notice when he opened the bag to find just what should have been there. She’d have to think up another plan soon, though. One season, only, might pass without comment, but if the farm kept operating as well as ever when they couldn’t have enough money from just what the cheating merchants had paid, someone would start to ask questions. As she replaced her father’s bag, the board beneath the wall, and her own stash’s lid, a few vague sorts of options filtered through her mind, but all of them had drawbacks. She needed sleep now, but it wouldn’t be an easy one. There were still choices to be made, first and foremost among them being just what she’d sacrifice or endure for the man who’d raised her and the serfs who’d been so much a family to her all these years.\n\nChapter 2\n\n\tA lone traveler on foot was rare enough in this part of the earldom that Stalya took a few basic precautions, making her way in carefully-planned increments with the help of a map that had traveled much farther than she, always by night to keep from spooking anyone at the farms she’d passed. The border-crossing itself had been the first of those little journeys through the short nights of summer, but also one of the easiest given that the priest who manned the ‘Touch the Wall’ tourist attraction tended to drink himself to sleep with each day’s proceeds. There were no facilities to host tourists who wanted to linger, so they tended not to once they’d seen the ‘impenetrable’ spiritual wall that she’d simply walked through.\n\n\tScent alone had been enough to tell her when she was close to Barleyfield, the only real town near the border, so she’d called it an early night and caught a quick nap up a tree a hill or two away. Now, as the sun rose, she took a moment for a well-balanced stretch on her branch, snagged the pack hanging from another, and climbed down. It would be nice to have a breakfast that wasn’t grass; it was certainly handy to be a species that could live on that, when she had a long way to travel and no carrying capacity but her own back, but the taste left something to be desired. She paused with a faint frown as a thought occurred... this was a farming town, not a major city. She had a rough cloak she could put on over her leathers, but the circlet on her brow would still stand out. Pulling her small, polished metal shield out of its hiding spot, a concealed slit to its own pouch in the side of her backpack, she used it for a mirror as she reached up toward the finely-wrought links of gold encircling her head. Its centerpiece appeared to be a large sapphire, but that was simply part of the illusion. The stones on the edges of the golden circle around that ‘gem’ were real, though, and she touched one twice. The first time, the metal brightened to silver and the stones, real and otherwise, suddenly looked like garnets, but the second touch settled them as bronze and agates, respectively. The workmanship was still more than a little on the fine side, understandable enough given its origin, but the equine face distorted by the shield’s curve looked quite a bit more ordinary and unremarkable, now.\n\n\tSlipping her shield back into place and making sure her sword, hilt and scabbard made from what had once been the same piece of wood and with no guard so it looked like a polished stick where it poked out of her pack, could be drawn easily, she donned her cloak and shouldered the pack, then headed back toward the road and the town that lay just out of sight. There was no proper palisade, just a wooden hut to mark the village’s border and a single, bored-looking guard whose ears perked up just a bit as she neared. He simply nodded in greeting as she passed, clearly seeing her as more of a momentary break in the tedium of his watch than a threat, and she kept going until she spotted the large inn this sort of town tended to boast. At harvest time, a great many traders would be visiting, some to buy produce and others to sell the farm-folk whatever they cared to spend their sales’ proceeds on, which explained the large stable and nearly an acre of fenced yard to hold carts and wagons. That was actually a good sign for her mission; land clearly wasn’t going for any major premium, even here in town, which suggested that a sudden, rapid expansion wouldn’t be held up by greedy landlords.\n\n\tStepping into the inn proper, Stalya checked one more, important detail, the smell of the place, and it was better than she’d expected. The only thing even mildly objectionable was a bit of dust; the floor of the common room she was stepping into was a bit stained, but the staff obviously had a trick or two to keep spills from stinking, and the scents emerging from the kitchen and rising from the plates of those already gathered for an early breakfast was more than good enough to make up for a bit of common dirt. An ermine in a low-cut dress and carrying a pitcher paused in her rounds as someone other than one of her regulars stepped in, and the equine asked as she glanced around, “Does this place use an open pot or do I order something from you?”\n\n\tThe wench blinked at that dialect, “A long journey you must have had, by your speech... Only when busier than this do we put out a pot; porridge or a fine potato chowder I can fetch for you, and of drinks we have almost everything.”\n\n\tThe white ‘horse’ perked up, licking her lips, and replied, “The chowder, please. I’ve had my fill of plain porridge lately, and anything would be better than the grass I saved money with on the way here. To drink... well, it’s also been a while since I’ve had a good cider, and a sweet drink goes best with a savory bowl.”\n\n\tNodding, the server paused only to fill one other diner’s cup from her jug, “But a moment it will be, ma’am. Two local coppers will be the chowder, and a farthing a mug is cider.”\n\n\tStalya nodded back as she settled onto a bench at a sparsely-populated table, still licking her lips, though hopefully no one would realize it was from the way that girl’s bosom had bobbed along with her quick, shallow bow. Opening the purse hooked to her belt, she fished around for the right coins, making sure of each one’s stamp, even the partial one from the farthing’s former life as part of a whole penny. Her superiors had only managed to scare up so much Dengarian coin; almost half of what she carried was Drachathian, and she even had a few Atherian marks and one gold imperial from Vivenge. Carrying any of her own homeland’s currency had been out of the question if she wanted to remain relatively anonymous. Even the dimmest guard could do basic math, and it wouldn’t be hard to add up her shape, her white fur, a coin stamped with a unicorn, and a circlet that would register on any decent magic detector, right where a horn should be.\n\n* * *\n\n\tIt had taken Laria two days to refine her frustratingly-nebulous ideas into a set of realistic possibilities, then another to think each one through to one or more logical conclusions, depending on just how others’ reactions went. In the end, it seemed that the plan with the most potential benefit for her extended ‘family’ also involved the greatest personal sacrifice for her. There really hadn’t been much choice, in the end; Oleron had been shaken and humiliated by their confrontation, but seemed to be gradually losing his fear and gaining a desire for revenge in its place as events faded in immediacy. It was as much to avoid offering him a target as to get her planned course started that she begged a ride to the next farm from the latest merchant to stop by and cheat her father out of several bushels of good cider apples. It burned, inside, to have to pretend she didn’t know what he’d just done... ‘Hard times all over,’ her ass! The price of those apples hadn’t changed more than two farthings per bushel in the last five years. Her only real regret as she thanked him and hopped down from the bench, two miles later, was that the ride hadn’t been long enough to get him started rambling about his home and family life; a few details, extracted from such a conversation, might have helped in her planned visit to the man’s house in the near future, but she was confident enough in her own skill to live without.\n\n\tMost of the serfs at work near the farmhouse looked up and nodded or waved, recognizing her as someone the serfs at her own farm always had praise for when they gossiped across the fence. She returned those greetings graciously, even as she mentally reviewed her proposal’s wording.\n\n\tThis farm’s citizen looked up from his book of accounts as the house-serf who’d answered the door led her into his study, “Well, unexpected this is...” Looking suddenly worried, the cat leaned forward in his seat, “Your father... alright is he?”\n\n\t“Just fine is Varton, Rellar,” she assured him, privately grateful at the conversational opening he’d left, and she amended that as she took the seat he was gesturing toward and set aside the small pack she’d worn here, “or, as fine as can be. Heard you have, of our troubles?”\n\n\tRellar looked hesitant... then nodded sadly, “Impossible they seemed, these rumors of cheating, as my friends I’d always thought those men were, all farmers’ friends. Too many of them, though, have I heard snickering into their ale. Each visit to the inn, my suspicions has raised just a bit more.”\n\n\t“An offer I have for you,” Laria told him, her expression serious. “One more time would I like to see my father fooled... by you.” The feline simply raised both brows, but didn’t immediately object, so she went on, “To buy our farm I’d like you to offer. Well-convinced the merchants have him, that times hard are; with that emphasized, agree he probably will to eighty castles, and supply the money in cash I will myself.” It had been centuries since the one-ounce silver coins had been stamped with a picture of an over-proud king’s new palace, but the name had stuck.\n\n\tThe landowner’s eyes widened somewhat; while still only half the price an established, productive farm should cost, that was a lot of money. The rest of her proposal, as much as he disliked deceiving a friend and neighbor, didn’t sound too disagreeable... “Afraid to ask, I am, where that much silver you got. Also... simple your plan sounds. Too simple. What have you told me not?”\n\n\tHis guest smiled, “That you thought to ask, proves for this the right one you are. The source of the money I will not say, save to hint that gone will I be afterwards, so any suspicion upon me alone should fall. Two conditions only have I...” and her eyes softened, “the first being that my father you take care of. Understand he will not, the sudden loss of his daughter, but cast out I’d never wish to see him. His comfort, our serf Grella can see to, and still time to cook have.”\n\n\tRellar nodded, looking sympathetic, “That comfort, and to the cheating an end... these I suspect your true reasons are. Though it cost you his love, for him you do this, also from love.”\n\n\tLaria nodded sadly, then those deep brown eyes hardened, “And my second condition is that fire Oleron you do. Understand we both do, that happy serfs the most productive are, but beating them he’s been, more and more of late. Also, an improper suggestion did he offer me, and very near he came to forcing me when, naturally, decline I did.”\n\n\tA very feline growl rose in the normally-gentle farmer’s throat, and he nodded firmly, “For that alone, your plan I’d follow. Had he succeeded by force, and word my ears reached, an accident he’d have.”\n\n\tSmiling as things worked out even more perfectly than she’d hoped, the horse leaned down and opened her pack. Instead of the usual meal or two of food the small, strapped bag typically held, it had only a few muffling rags padding the single large pouch she’d consolidated her one-pound packets into, and it clinked as she set it on the small table by her seat. “Not all castles these coins are, but a true weight you’ll find. Treat well my serfs, for loyal to that land they’ve always been. Pack to leave I will when home I get, and the morning after you visit, gone will I be, never to return.”\n\n* * *\n\n\tThe knock on the door was unexpected, so Stalya took her sword and buckler with her as she moved to answer it, setting them on the washstand to the side of the door where they’d be out of sight while it was open, then lifted the latch. The owner of the inn was there, looking uncomfortable about the pair of guardsmen with him, “Your pardon I beg, ma’am... but a burglary there was last night, and in town is but one stranger, you. Check these men must, though in your room all night you’ve been, and told them I did.”\n\n\tThe filly blinked, then nodded and stepped out of the way, “I was planning to leave this very morning, and was still packing, so most of what they’d have to look through is already spread over your fine bed. That should make things easy for them.”\n\n\tEven as the two soldiers stepped inside, the one with an officer’s brass rather than a trooper’s pips mused, “Foreign we were told you are, and your speech this confirms... but far too light is your fur. Even in shadows, seen you would have been, so a dead end I suspect this to be.”\n\n\tHis enlisted man nodded as he nudged the folded clothing in her open pack, checking for anything solid without messing up the garments themselves, then looked under the shirts she’d been about to add and the bed’s pillow, then the bed itself. As he moved to open each of the empty drawers of the inn’s dresser, he shook his head, “Nothin’. ‘nless the size of that bust the guy was exaggeratin’, and a lot smaller it is, here it ain’t.”\n\n\tThe officer nodded, and bowed, “Our profound apologies you have, ma’am. Our duty it was, and free to go you are.”\n\n\tSomewhat bemused, Stalya nodded back, “I fully understand duty, good sirs, and I’ve never blamed a soldier for what it requires. Thank you for not making a mess out of my packing.”\n\n\tAs all three men filed out and closed the door behind them, she had to chuckle to herself at how they’d missed the obvious shield right behind her. The sword, when sheathed, looked innocent enough that they could be forgiven for overlooking it, but her briefing about Dengar had included warnings about some rather strict limits as to who could own arms and armor, so even that small a buckler should have gotten her into trouble... if the guards hadn’t been so focused on the notion of statuary instead. The quality and deportment of those guards was one of the things she’d come to evaluate in the first place, so she could only be grateful for the surprise inspection once it had passed. They certainly seemed adequate, starting an investigation by first eliminating the obvious to thin the herd of suspects, and the brevity of the search had seemed to stem from a desire to keep from infringing on citizens’ basic right to privacy any more than they had to.\n\n\tMoving back to the bed, she resumed her interrupted packing, topping the bundled clothes with a bag of rather dense, but surprisingly soft, bread that would sustain her better (and far more enjoyably) than grass as she moved further into the kingdom. She still wanted to observe a few of the local farms, just to see what conditions were like for the serfs, and eventually she’d need to talk to the local earl, if not the king. It would be pleasant to travel by day for a change, now that she’d be moving along the road from a known town rather than sneaking across a border, but it would be even more pleasant if she could start the journey with another bowl of the rich chowder the inn’s kitchen made. Her belly rumbled at the mere thought as she finally shouldered her pack, sword and shield back in place, and stepped out of the room.\n\n* * *\n\n\tStalya paused, two miles out of town, as something tripped a mental alert from her training and previous experience, and she gazed slowly around, focusing on nothing in particular as she waited for the reaction to clarify... there! It was a scuff in the road’s dirt that had attracted her attention, and she frowned as she took a closer look. It was, she realized several moments later, a partial hoofprint, but she could make out the flat indentation of the rear of the shoe, and it was at the wrong angle for anyone coming up or down this road. Glancing up, she noticed a few bent and broken blades of grass and leaves of other plants, not a stark trail by themselves but certainly leading in the general direction of a small forest. Someone not following the road had obviously crossed it, and, mostly for her own curiosity, she started quietly slipping through the grass as well, following the trail that grew ever more obvious once she knew it was there to look for. It was still too early to say whether whoever had made it had been trying to be stealthy, but if they had been they’d done a good job, at least against anyone who hadn’t learned their tracking from the Elite.\n\n\tThe campsite she found in the heart of those woods was a bit more obvious. A few sticks of well-seasoned wood were still stacked near the remains of what had been an almost smokeless, very hot fire, and no effort had been made to hide or bury a cheap tin frying pan that seemed to have a golden sheen to it, a pair of heavy iron tongs... and the sculpted granite bust of a badger. The statue was of rather ugly stone, and its eyes had geometric indentations, the various details combining easily into a clear story of just what had happened here. This was where the thief the guards were after had taken the stolen bust, which had once sported gemstones for eyes and a layer of gilding, but the gold had been melted away, held over the fire with the tongs to drip into the frying pan, then, presumably, poured into something else to cool, harden, and depart. Trampled brush and broken twigs bespoke where a horse had stood throughout the whole process, and from there the tracks she’d followed south across the road turned west. A hand held over the remains of the fire could feel warmth without any need to dig through the ashes, so she guessed the burglar to be no more than two hours ahead of her... and horses, unlike bipeds, had to stop to eat rather than take food on the run. A smile grew on Stalya’s muzzle as she settled into a lope along that trail; this couldn’t compare to the time she’d led a major ambush on a large group of bandits, but it would certainly be more fun than she’d expected to have on her trip west, and capturing a thief along the way could only improve her bargaining position when she met the earl.\n\n* * *\n\n\tSatisfaction still warred with regret as Laria rode west, aiming to skirt another farm before rejoining the road far past where anyone would be searching for tracks. She’d succeeded in her basic goals; the farm had a new owner, her father no longer in charge so the opportunistic merchants would be disappointed the next time they came to swindle him, while he’d still enjoy a comfortable life, attended by serfs who felt genuine affection for him, under an overseer who hadn’t used his whip in years. Rumors, likely started by Rellar, had already started to circulate about Oleron, and it was highly unlikely anyone would hire him as more than a basic menial from now on, his high post having been lost in disgrace. As genuinely good as that all was, she couldn’t help but feel a deep pang whenever she considered the price she’d paid. Those candlesticks had been safe enough a target when she’d stolen them from an associate of one of the greedy produce-buyers, not someone who’d practiced their deceptions personally, but she’d made herself an obvious target when she’d taken that bust from someone who had. Rellar could honestly tell people she’d given him the money for the farm, and it wouldn’t change a thing; her disappearance at the same time as the newer burglary had already clarified the situation, and the worst the officials could do would be to confiscate just those eighty castles from her father, which would still leave the farm’s original savings that she’d restocked, not that he had any great need of money in his effective retirement.\n\n\tIt was the separation that was hardest on her... She truly loved her father, and would miss the stories of his youth that he could still tell with moving detail even if he had trouble naming what he’d had for breakfast by the time lunch rolled around, these days. For his safety, and despite the pain her departure would cost him, she had to make it a clean break, and that’s why she’d broken several of the rules of successful thievery mentioned in Karnaal’s bible, deliberately burning her metaphorical bridges forever.\n\n\tIt was nearing mid-afternoon when Socks tossed his head and nickered as they passed between two of the large stands or very small forests that dotted the area, and she looked around even as she stroked his mane to calm him. She had more practice than most, spotting anything that might be out of place very quickly, but for the life of her couldn’t see anything that could cause her horse’s reaction. It was almost certainly a scent too faint for her own nose to make out, and the sound was very similar to how he usually greeted her before she’d come into view... Checking Grella’s vegetable knife where it was tucked into the back of her belt, she simply gave her mount another caress and continued onwards, all senses alert.\n\n\tDespite her caution, it came as a complete surprise when a voice murmured conversationally, “Halt.” As calm as it was, it also sounded quite firm, and the rounded spine of a blade suddenly pressing against her throat seemed like a fairly good reason to obey, Socks stopping almost instantly as he’d been picking his way over some fallen branches anyway.\n\n\tThe creak of another branch drew her eyes upward, and they widened at the sight of a woman dangling amidst the leaves by the grip of crossed ankles, a fold of her cloak caught between her knees to keep it from inverting entirely. The hand that wasn’t holding a short, oddly-featureless sword reached for another branch, and by that pivot she swung easily down to land, blade still poised to strike.\n\n\t“Thank you,” her fellow equine said with a smile, “for making a dull trip somewhat more interesting. I don’t know the official procedures around here, but I suppose you should consider yourself under arrest. As an obvious foreigner, I was questioned about a missing bust this morning... but imagine my surprise when I actually found it, minus its more valuable components. I happen to have some experience in law enforcement, back home, and I need the best reputation I can cultivate in my brief time here, so I thought a little volunteer work for the local constables couldn’t hurt.”\n\n\tLetting go of the reins and keeping her hands well to her sides, Laria shook her head sadly, “A prisoner you have, and laws I broke... but of justice you will see none when punished I am. More complicated than it seems, this situation is.”\n\n\t“Perhaps... but perhaps not. I can see that you have more to say, but it’s just as obvious that both of us know I wouldn’t believe a word from a known criminal.” She gestured with her sword, “Please, dismount and lead your horse; there’s a small clearing ahead that would serve well as a camping spot, and I’m a bit tired after chasing you all day. I strongly advise you to cooperate; if you run off, I’ll just have to catch you again, and I will catch you, but I can’t promise you won’t get hurt in the process. This good an ambush spot is hard to come by.”\n\n\tThe black filly’s mind raced as she considered the situation, but there were really very few options. This woman’s lazy confidence bespoke a matching competence, and left very little doubt that she could, and would, do exactly as she claimed. Finally nodding, Laria mentioned, “Toward you I’ll be turning as climb down, and from the back of my belt my knife you may wish to take. My only weapon, that is, but for your comfort perhaps elsewhere it should be.”\n\n\tHer captor nodded, then blinked as she moved, “A kitchen knife?” She collected it with her free hand and shook her head, “I’m not sure this even counts... This country seems to be just a little paranoid about who’s armed with what, but even a serf could have this.”\n\n\tLaria bared her teeth in a gallows grin as she took up Socks’ reins from in front of him, “Tasted the blood of my foe, it has. A man whose interest I returned not will a scar forever wear, since forcing me he tried.”\n\n\tThe white horse’s gaze softened just the tiniest bit as she nodded, “Then it is a blade worth respect, as is its former bearer. Please, now, let’s get moving to where I can finally get off of my aching feet for a while.”\n\n* * *\n\n\tBoth equines were surprised by the other one’s equipment as they moved in cautious cooperation to set up a small camp. What the white one had assumed was a crude sleeproll tied to the back of Socks’ saddle turned out to be a compact, one-person tent, and its owner explained, “On lamb-watch, when pregnant are the sheep but trouble they might have, one less used to rough sleeping than the shepherd a night with the flock might have to spend. Past is the spring lambing, though; miss the tent they will not, but another they can afford easily, after...” She broke off and shook her head, “Ma’am, again upon we touch the story you’d believe not from a criminal’s tongue.”\n\n\tThe vigilante nodded even as she took two rolled bundles out of her pack, one a thin, tough blanket she laid out on the ground, and the other unrolled to a surprisingly large sheet of gauze that she draped over a branch above the blanket and turned into a tall, narrow tent of sorts with a few tacks from her backpack’s pocket. She caught the wide-eyed gaze of her ‘prisoner’ and nodded again, “If you’re thinking this would be useless in the rain... you’d be right, but for summer nights like this it keeps the bloodsuckers off of me, as far as bugs go. Oh, and you needn’t keep calling me ‘ma’am.’ Only my platoon, back home, did that. My name is Stalya.”\n\n\t“And Laria mine is,” the younger woman nodded, then blinked and giggled as she realized, “Short of ‘stallion’ by letters one?”\n\n\tStalya rolled her eyes with a faint smile, “It’s not spelled the same, but... My parents wanted a son, but then I showed up, and they’ve always had very odd senses of humor... Perhaps that’s one reason I joined the militia; even one letter short, I wanted to show I could compete with the real stallions at their own game.”\n\n\tHer junior was chuckling, though there was understanding in the sound, as she picketed Socks at a low branch with grass beneath and spread some grain for him to eat, then topped it with two fresh carrots from her other saddlebag. From there she also took a pouch of pre-mixed spices and starch along with several potatoes, dropping both into her small iron pot for convenience as she unhooked her waterskin. “For dinner, how sounds soup to you? Cut the potatoes you’ll need to, while the only knife you hold.”\n\n\tOne brow high, the mare shrugged, “It sounds better than the travel-bread I’d been planning on. Damn, other than that proof I found that you’re a thief, you’re a girl I could really get to like. I wish I could trust...” She broke off, then suddenly changed the subject, “Are you religious?”\n\n\tLaria blinked, then nodded with a visible reluctance.\n\n\tBrightening, Stalya asked, “Then I can trust you, with the proper precautions... Please swear by your God that what I’m about to show you, you’ll keep a secret until I choose to reveal it to others myself.”\n\n\tThe black filly’s confusion started to fade, and she nodded a bit more happily, “Your secret I’ll keep until given away it is by you, in Karnaal’s name.”\n\n\tEven as she fished a small, hinged wooden box out of her pack’s rear pocket, Stalya murmured, “As you probably guessed, I’m not surprised by which God you swore to. You’re obviously very good, and you’d have gotten away clean if practically any traveler but me had found what little trail you’d left.” She started working with something very small around her ears, fingertips probing, gripping, pulling, and into the empty little box she dropped a pair of stud earrings and their clasps, their brushed silver almost white, that had been effectively invisible in even short fur. Next, she touched her right fingertip to the right-hand of the four small ‘agates’ of her circlet’s pendant, canceling its disguise and letting it return to the gold and sapphires it was actually made of. “This is my secret,” she mused, her voice serious despite the somewhat amusing widening of eyes her companion had suffered when metals and stones had suddenly changed color. “I’m a scout for a foreign power, here to explore possible treaties and relationships with Dengar as a nation, but... well, the problem is we’re very recognizable, without a little help from a certain wolf I know.” She lifted the circlet free, the silver wires that had linked it to her earrings, simply to keep it in place on her head even when she’d been hanging upside down, finally coming into view... but so did eleven inches of spiraled, pearlescent ivory as the central ring and its illusory sapphire slid up its length.\n\n\tLaria’s eyes were huge as she stared at the unicorn. She’d occasionally dreamed of getting to meet one of them, knowing that they were just across that shimmering border she could see in the distant east each night of the new moon when nothing else competed with its faint glow.\n\n\tStalya had to chuckle at the girl’s wonder as she took the shield out of her pack and set it aside, then moved the pack closer to her companion so she could stretch out on the grass, laying her head on the reasonably-comfortable bag of clothes. “Not many people know just what our horns can do,” she explained. “They either think them mere decoration, or ascribe all sorts of strange powers to them, such as magically curing poisons or increasing men’s virility,” and she had to roll her eyes at that particular myth. “They do have certain benefits, though, beyond meaning I’m never really unarmed if I decide to spear someone with the thing... If someone’s touching my horn, I will always know if they’re lying, or whether they harbor the slightest ill-intent toward me. Please... touch my horn and tell me this story you’re so certain I won’t believe.”\n\n\tThe black filly hesitated; oh, how she’d wanted to tell someone her tale, someone she could trust, but those legends... Though she’d never lain with a man, her own fingers, for the last two years, had occasionally been used for things that ran rather counter to the concepts of innocence or virginity. The part of her that could still think, though, under the wonder and surprise, pointed out to the rest of her mind that she’d just been told that those tales didn’t know everything, so with only a faint hint of nervousness, she sat down nearby and laid her palm on that white forehead, touching the base of the horn, and began, “That understand fully you might, a long way back I’ll have to go... Eight I’d just turned, in town with my mother while the equinox market we shopped, and a good price on some pretties we’d seemed to get. Barely had we gotten home, though, when open the bag we did to find that from one brooch the journey had rubbed the gold paint; not even thinly gilded was it! Remember I did, that merchant’s promise of quality, and realized I did that from us they’d stolen with words alone. Wished I did to punish such, and obvious to me was the thought to from them steal in return, but useless it would be to try from ignorance and caught be. Two years did I teach myself with nary a farthing taken. Watch I would, observe, think, how this price too good seemed to be, how that man his possessions protected. In the woods I’d wander, practicing stealth until a deer could I touch unseen. Through the fields I’d run, one hour first, then two, then more, so if chased me did the guards, endurance I’d have.”\n\n\tStalya nodded, her horn and the beginning of her mane each brushing that palm, “For your age, you were obviously a very intelligent young girl. Almost anyone else would have tried something much sooner, and almost certainly failed and been caught.”\n\n\tLaria giggled ruefully, “Oh, caught I’ve been twice now. But that first time, for my good turned out to be.” She went on to explain how, another year after she’d actively started pilfering a few things from those who deserved it, a passing merchant sought shelter from a late-summer storm at their farm. He’d also sold them a few trinkets and useful items, only to follow it by a shell game of sorts, various denominations of coin kept in several pockets as he made change for the purchase and kept changing his mind about which coins to use. The filly’s self-tutoring, though, in what things cost and mentally juggling sums quickly, spotted the final shortfall, and even though she’d never before tried to pick a pocket, she made the attempt then. It wasn’t her fault that the man had had his pockets’ outer rims lined with felt, the stiffly-short fibers aimed to offer more friction against a hand on its way out than one going in. He’d caught her by the arm, a very strange smile on his face as he turned it palm up while her parents still weren’t watching, the very reason she’d chosen that moment to try, and pried her fingers open to count the coins therein, finding exactly the amount his con game had just earned.\n\n\tTo her vast surprise, he’d simply chuckled almost inaudibly, closed her fingers around the coins again, and told her to check her pony’s stall once he and his cart-mules had left. That had been how she’d gotten The Night’s Embrace, the forbidden bible of Karnaal, God of Thieves.\n\n\tShe had to gather herself, then, as she moved on to describe the accident just last winter, its immediate cost, and just what had been happening to her farm in just the last few weeks, leading up to her final heist and her present company. “Assure you I do,” she finished with a hint of injured pride, “that had not a target I’d wanted them to have, though to be tracked so well I expected not, something else I’d have taken, and for days or weeks the loss would have been discovered not.”\n\n\tStalya nodded faintly as she digested the tale, the afternoon sun they’d set up camp to now half-set, “From another kingdom entirely, I’ve heard a distantly similar tale, about a year ago, how someone working for the greater good resorted to some rather nasty means to that end. You, it seems, are similar... Yes, you’re a thief, but you leave behind a community that’s much better off for your efforts, save, of course, for a few individuals whose own choices didn’t particularly deserve much goodness in turn, and can certainly afford the loss.” Sitting up and breaking the spell, though that hand’s protracted touch had hardly been unpleasant to her, she pulled the kitchen knife out of her belt and offered it back, hilt first, “Here. You’re no longer my prisoner, as it ill-behooves me to punish someone who’s as honorable in her own way as I am, just for protecting her family and friends. Also,” and she smiled a bit sheepishly, “I seem to have a black thumb where cooking’s concerned... Even just peeling or slicing potatoes, I’d probably screw something up, so maybe you’d better make the soup you were offering.”\n\n\tThe sudden reversal of her fortunes came as a surprise, even though on one level she knew it shouldn’t have been. Telling her story to someone who knew it was true could only change things for the better, unless that person was too wicked or callous to let simple truth get in the way of how they’d decreed things must be. ‘Wicked,’ though, was a concept her young mind rejected utterly when paired with the vision of this beautiful unicorn before her. “To work I’ll get, if firewood you’ll gather, m—Stalya,” she finally said with a smile.\n\nChapter 3\n\n\tThe unicorn was as tired from the chase as she’d claimed, and the filly hadn’t gotten much sleep while running away from home with a side-trip to steal that bust, so they’d both curled up in their very-different tents shortly after dinner. As the sun rose anew, the strangeness of close canvas walls and hard ground, compared to her bed, jerked Laria awake in a near-panic, but the quiet sounds of her new companion also rising served to remind her of where she was, and she slipped back to a lazy half-doze for nearly half an hour before a thump came against the side of her tent.\n\n\t“Wake up, lazybones! There’s a hole behind your horse’s tree you can use for your morning leak, but I wasn’t planning to stick around here forever.”\n\n\tLaria stretched in place, yawned, kicked the far end of the tent to knock loose one of the two gathered sticks that held it up, and took the other one out as she crawled through the flap. “A good morning I wish you too, Stalya,” she murmured as she moved first to her saddlebags for a change of clothes and to feed the young stallion his breakfast. Her ex-captor had obviously had a similar idea; instead of the light leather armor she’d had under her cloak yesterday, she’d already changed to a cream satin blouse and a long maroon skirt, and the younger woman had to mentally kick herself for going back to sleep and missing the chance to peek out from the tent flap while she’d been dressing.\n\n\tWhen she’d gotten back from using the privy hole, yesterday’s shirt and breeches draped over one arm, Stalya was eating some of the journey-bread from her bag, so she fished three large apples out of her own supplies, giving one to Socks and biting into the second herself. Between bites she straightened out her collapsed tent, folded it in half, and rolled it up, and was just tying it back onto the saddle, her breakfast just a pair of cores discarded where a little light reached so their seeds might eventually make a new tree, when her companion cleared her throat.\n\n\t“You’re running away, with good cause,” the unicorn began, “while I need to go deeper into the holding, too. This area just west of the border is already prime for the use I’m here to investigate... It’s good farm land, but not fully utilized, so the Vale would love to establish trade here for the bulk of our food so more of us can focus on art and manufacture. I still need to feel out the local politicians, though, and make sure that some of the stories we’ve heard about the treatment of serfs are exaggerations, as we couldn’t morally trade with folk who were committing abuses of those who actually worked to make what we’re trading for. For all these reasons, I think a local guide would be quite useful, so I propose that we keep going on together.”\n\n\tLaria nodded, “Forty miles it is on this road, told me merchants have, to Hallan’s Stand reach. Unimpressed, the current earl was, to farmland inherit, so always west look his eyes; from the east to enter, very easy I’m told is.”\n\n\tThe mare smirked, “Somehow, I think he’ll change his mind about that with the quantity of produce we’ll be buying... Speaking of which, though, since you’ve got a good horse I’m thinking that we should stop by one of those farms for a few more supplies. Just as part of my mission, I’d meant to approach one anyway, but since I can’t carry much I’d been planning to live mostly on grass along the way. To be honest... I’d rather not.”\n\n\tThis fetched a knowing smile from the younger woman who she was starting to think of as a friend, thief or not, “Well trained is Socks; rider, packs, or cart, comfortable he’ll be, but little did I wish to steal from my old home. Money I have, and cooking I enjoy, so supplies we shall get, then together to journey on. The gold and gems from that bust I still need to fence, and to find a buyer my bible tells how.”\n\n\tOne brow quirked, Stalya mused, “Just from curiosity, I’d be interested to see that bible sometime... but I’m guessing you’re restricted in just whom you can show it to. It might surprise you, given my species, that I’m not actually a Maliite. My parents were some of the first traders to venture into new lands when the Vale’s border with Drachath was opened, and my mother was already pregnant. I was born in a small-town inn between Wheathaven and Rajai, and they never got around to promising me to their Lady on my behalf. My other unique claim to fame is that I was the first girl to enlist in the Vale militia... I knew what I was good at, as I’d always been something of a tom-stal, and I’m presently a lieutenant in the Elite, a relatively small portion of the overall force, with this mission serving as my test to make captain.”\n\n\tLaria had to chuckle, “A soldier... a good soldier... No wonder it is, now, that to catch me you managed.”\n\n\tAs the girl turned around and bent over to pick up the pot from last night’s supper, briefly tightening her breeches over her rump, the lieutenant had to think to herself, ‘Oh, I haven’t yet... as much as I’d like to catch that.’\n\n* * *\n\n\tHer illusion-circlet back in place, in its silver and garnet mode to match her lower-upper-class garb, Stalya fought to keep her expression properly regal over her internal amusement as Laria introduced her to the farmer as a foreign investor in a mining operation, scouting out sources of food for her workers and fodder for their draft animals. The dialect could be hard to follow when the girl started dropping hints that even a slight discount on travel supplies might be remembered favorably when deciding with whom to place larger, future orders, but she caught the gist of it. That filly might follow Karnaal, not Sliisthar, but it was a potent reminder that even a good thief could benefit from being able to glibly lie their way out of trouble.\n\n\tOnce coins had changed hands and they were leading Socks, now sporting a couple more large bags joined by a rope over his saddle, back toward the road, the unicorn asked, “As much as I enjoy saving money, that was a slightly better price than my best guess at wholesale, and we didn’t exactly get it honestly. Was there an actual reason for your deception, or do you just like stealing?”\n\n\tLaria shook her head with a chuckle, “Worry not; deserved it he did. You saw not the serf at the stable. When Socks I led there to wait while deal we did, on a crutch and in splints the stable-man moved. Kicked he was by a horse, my guess is, but released from duty he’d have been at my farm. Not like the overseer who I bloodied is this citizen, as beat his serfs he doesn’t, but a bit more mercy he could show. Had content and unpained all serfs been, dealt with him more fairly would I have.”\n\n\t“A follower of the God of Thieves... whose own profit is never her first concern. My country has a bad history with Karnaal’s bunch, as they were stealing our citizens, even our children, before Malia let in Sir Ferrl and his family to find and stop them, but you’re a woman of honor despite your religion. My superiors may be shocked at the notion, but I think you’re someone I can very much call a friend.”\n\n\tThe filly had to laugh, stepping around to lead Socks from in front as they turned onto the road, “On occasion has my fence asked why more I didn’t steal... but learned well from that bible I did, that things unlikely to be missed the best targets made. A priest he is, and when my family he cheated our first meeting was, so ‘my’ kind’s common habits I’d already guessed, and knew better than to mention morality I did. Complain my God has not, though, so reason to change I see not.”\n\n\tStalya nodded with a smile as she stepped up to walk side by side, eyes flicking to watch for danger from long-trained habit, “Definitely friends, then. It’s not actually as unique as you might think, for fairly decent people to follow the dark side of the pantheon... That knight I mentioned, who Malia invited through Her Wall, was actually a devout Kathallic. He’s still a very respected figure, locally, and one of our better wizards; he’s the one who made my circlet and its many-layered illusions, and I was honored to meet him.”\n\n\tNodding her understanding, Laria walked for another few minutes, pondering the journey and her friend’s (and what a concept it was, to be friends with a unicorn) mission, then mentioned, “One small town more, there is between us and the earl, but complain did a merchant lapine; for omnivores or more is the inn’s stew. Stop in the square should we plan to, from our own bags to have lunch.”\n\n\tThe unicorn grinned, “And that’s exactly the kind of useful advice I appreciate having a local guide for. Thank you for it, and we shall.”\n\n* * *\n\n\tThe sun had nearly set when they walked through the east gate of Hallan’s Stand, Stalya wearing her cloak again so only the mid-range illusion of her circlet offered any of the cues about social class to observers, and at her friend’s suggestion she made the arrangements at the inn they’d chosen, regarding Socks’ stabling and the storage of their gear, while Laria went to investigate the market square that would still be active for another couple hours by the light of lamps and the occasional torch.\n\n\tShe browsed casually, just another shopper in the evening crowd, until she came across a booth whose table had apparently suffered a cracked leg, bound up in rough cloth to keep it stable... but, through the gaps in the once-white, dirty fabric, she could see a second layer of cloth, and it was black. Stepping closer, she peered over the evident potter’s clay plates and mugs, murmuring, “Of home these remind me; kin I have that similar dishes make.”\n\n\tThe badger’s eyes narrowed very slightly at her faint emphasis on the word ‘kin,’ and he nodded amiably enough, “More I have, and better, within my shop. Inside might you care to step?”\n\n\tIt was no surprise when he slid the door’s locking bar closed the moment they were inside, and without a word she reached into her shirt and pulled out the scorched wooden bowl she’d poured the molten gold from that bust into, then produced the pair of rubies from its eyes from a pocket.\n\n\tThe fence turned up a lantern and held up the stones, one by one, to examine in the brighter light, “Very nice these are... Enormous they are not, but of unflawed stone they are. Of the gold, nearly an ounce you have, and easy to move it is. Four grand crowns will I offer.”\n\n\tLaria nodded; four one-ounce coins were a fair deal for gems that would have to pass through at least one more set of hands, at a fair profit, before they could be retailed without suspicion, plus the usual even half-value for raw, precious metal, “A fair bargain you strike, and regret I do that passing through I am, so our only transaction this will be.”\n\n\tHer fellow thief grinned, “Regret it do I, too, if things like this you can... acquire. One moment I must take to your payment fetch; around you should glance, and something choose to with my compliments take, that the guards wonder not at your visit’s brevity or hands’ emptiness.”\n\n\tHer purse slightly heavier and with a new teacup, basic enough in shape but with a flawless, finely polished white glaze, the filly walked back to the inn, spotting her white-furred friend in the smoky common room easily enough, already enjoying a hearty vegetable stew with fresh bread and butter on the side.\n\n\t“That cup’s... not what I expected you to come back with,” Stalya mused after a sip of cider. “How did your actual goal turn out?”\n\n\tLaria shrugged, letting just a brief twitch of her muzzle suggest the smile she’d rather have given, and said softly, “Perhaps three coins in ten of fair value I got, but unusual this was not for rubies, as retail them the fence himself cannot. Content I am with the total, and at an inn like this for weeks it would keep me, were I down to settle, time in plenty to plan my next job.”\n\n\tThe unicorn nodded, looking faintly impressed, “I hadn’t really thought about it... but even with a very God supporting your kind, it’s no great wonder that I haven’t heard more outcry over their activities. Though you show great skill in the brief times of your actual work, you don’t have to do that work often to live a comfortable life.”\n\n\tHer friend swallowed a quick spoonful of the stew while she spoke, and grabbed a slice of bread to start buttering as she mused back, “Truth there is in that. Far better it is to, very infrequently, one valuable thing take, than discovery to risk by lesser things pursuing more often. Knew this I did even before that priest I met.”\n\n\tThe next step in their plans, getting in to see the earl, was clear enough to remain unspoken, so the only bits of conversation once they’d settled in to eat were along the lines of compliments to the inn’s cook and brewmaster. Stalya did, however, comment as she led the way down the hall to a ground-floor room, “I’m still playing the role of a fairly middle-class citizen, tonight. In keeping with that, our room has only a single bed, though its size is adequate for two, and I felt it was worth the risk to pay a bit more for the one with a private bathing chamber. Will any of that be a problem?”\n\n\tThey’d reached the room in question as she’d asked, and the filly shook her head as they stepped inside, “As well as I you play your roles. Cousins we probably seem to the staff, as vary greatly can equines’ fur even within one family. Had any other room you asked for, suspicion you might have... raised,” and she hid a wince at the faint delay in her correction. ‘Aroused’ had occurred as the first logical verb, but in such close context with the concept of sharing a bed she’d had little choice but to make a last-second substitution.\n\n\tThe unicorn nodded, looking a bit relieved, “Good... I’m glad you don’t have any objection to the situation, particularly since the variety of clothes I brought along for just those ‘roles’ you mentioned meant that I couldn’t pack a night gown. The privy will see only its assumed use, then, as there’s little point to using it as a changing room if I’ll be stark naked all night anyway.”\n\n\tIt took every ounce of Laria’s self-control to keep from blinking, shivering, or showing any other reaction beyond a normal, conversational tone as she replied, “In an inn we are, warmer even than a tent in summer. The same way I’d hoped to sleep, as more comfortable it would be, unless offend you nudity might.”\n\n\tStalya nodded, half to herself, as she sat on the bed and started untying the laces of her blouse, but her mind was busy. There hadn’t been a single word or other event she could specify as an overt clue, but she had a feeling... Deciding then and there to decisively test her suspicion, she pulled off her top as the corner of her eye paid very close attention to her companion’s face, which flashed through one panting breath to a resolutely-closed muzzle, presumably before she could start to drool. Turning on the bed to face her directly, she half-whispered, “Laria... I think we’ve both been stepping as carefully around a certain issue as we might through a field of horse-apples. Along that theme, I have a confession to make... though not, most likely, the one you’re hoping for, or the one I’ve been hoping you hoped for. There’s a reason that very few people realize my kind’s horns can sense truth or intent, and it’s because allowing someone to touch us there... is an intimacy. It was an... impropriety, to ask you to, and in effect I forced that intimacy on someone innocent of its implications. I... enjoyed your touch, and it’s not the only intimacy I’d like to share with you, but for my own honor I must be more open about it this time.”\n\n\tLaria had blinked several times as she spoke, but her smile grew throughout the explanation and offer, and her voice was husky as she replied, “When first that touch you asked, the old legends stark in my mind were, and feared I did that my lack of a hymen would such a touch corrupt. No man, though, have I been with, merely my own fingers, but thoughts of men, early on, found I unsatisfying. Flashed in my mind did memories, did glimpses, of baths shared with women grown, of breasts large and small, of hints peeking between thighs’ shadow... and far greater did my pleasure grow. Advantage of me you took not, as welcome your slightest touch would be, and to force the willing you simply can’t.” With little ado, she unfastened the ties of her own shirt and breeches, and left them and her ankle boots behind as she moved toward the bed.\n\n\tThe unicorn’s mouth went dry as she watched the girl move, muscle shifting under skin in a way her martial training had given her a great appreciation of. As might be expected from her athleticism, her breasts were small and pert, but so were Stalya’s own, and she’d never felt any special lust for larger teats. Still half-disbelieving that she had permission to, her gaze dipped down to the rounded swell of the girl’s equine mound, and she felt her own loins heat as she took in the just-visible edges of protruding, faintly moist labia. Shaking herself free of their spell as their owner sat down next to her, her neck protesting the angle as her eyes had dragged it along, she hastened to stand up and doff her own skirt and sturdy shoes, tail held slightly to one side once she’d undone the skirt’s tie around its base, and the gasp behind her when she bent over was very satisfying to hear.\n\n\tStalya smiled as she straightened up, admitting, “Just this morning... you bent like that to pick up the pot. I... enjoyed the view while it lasted, through snug breeches, and my only regret is that it took me so long to put together the clues. I still can’t say what tipped me off, things were so subtle, even subconscious... but I’m glad we know now, and won’t have to feel guilty about the occasional peek.”\n\n\tRising from the bed, there was mischief under the lust in her voice as the filly pulled her friend into a hug, “Or the peck occasional,” and, some part of her feeling greatly daring, kissed her.\n\n\tHer turquoise eyes sinking closed, the soldier leaned into the thief’s touch, breasts pressing against each other and heads tilting as the ‘peck’ evolved almost immediately into something else entirely, mobile equine lips and thick tongues exploring wetly, four hands roaming two backs and four rumpcheeks. Stalya leaned slightly forward, her newfound lover following along with the suggestion, and they stepped in unison before the backs of black knees hit the bed and they tumbled onto the sheets with a pair of happy giggles.\n\n\tSomething brushed Laria’s ear as she wriggled in that grasp, and she blinked, reaching out to empty-seeming air... only to encounter the smooth ivory of her friend’s horn. That circlet, evidently, merely rendered it invisible, and her eyes widened in wonder as she stroked a gentle fingertip down its unseen length.\n\n\t“Ooh,” Stalya nickered huskily, “the intentions I’m picking up from you now... and truth, truth that shines like a diamond...” Her breath caught in her throat as the other black-furred hand wormed between them, stroking down her belly and over her own mound, and she managed a hissed, “Yes...” and to spread her knees a few inches before the first touch against her inflamed petals rendered speech impossible. Through that touch at her horn she could feel an echo of her lover’s own wonder as one finger traced the contours of her sex, then two delved gently inwards, and her hips rocked forward to welcome them in. It had been too long since a woman had touched her like this; her duties and assignments, in the year and change she’d been an officer, had kept her away from the Roxanite temple in Silkmane, the only place where she didn’t need to probe, guess, and suffer the occasional embarrassing rejection to find out if a fellow female shared her tastes. That passing thought, barely recognizable under the lust fogging her mind, spawned an urge of its own, and she reluctantly pulled away from that upper touch, nuzzling her way down Laria’s neck and chest to wrap her broad lips around one breast, her tongue stroking the rigid nipple between them.\n\n\tThe filly gasped, already in bliss from the fulfillment of so many of her young mind’s fantasies, at that warm muzzle, her back arching even as her fingers bottomed out. Her free hand stroked wonderingly through the satin-like white mane before her, even as her fingers gently withdrew, the warm evening air seeming starkly cool in contrast to the embrace they’d enjoyed a moment before, and she wasted no time in easing them inwards once more, this time just a bit closer to the stiff, fleshy ridge along the upper reaches of that passage where she knew from her own experience a mare was most sensitive. The hands behind her moved downwards in response, teasing their way between her rumpcheeks and stroking gently against the protruding bulge of her anus, and even as she reflexively pressed back, she had to force herself to speak, “N-not clean am I, there... the p-privy we should have used.”\n\n\tStalya straightened up to look her in the eyes, “Yes... we should have, and we will next time.” The fingers between her own thighs had grown still as they spoke, which was the only reason she could speak, “It’s rare enough to find a female lover... but even rarer to find one that likes attention there. I... I do too.”\n\n\tLaria nodded, more questions rising in her mind, but it wasn’t the right time for them. Instead, she slipped her fingers free and brought them to her muzzle to taste... and her eyes widened, then shut completely as she suckled them clean. She’d tasted herself, of course, but as similar as unicorns might be to mundane equines, there was a sweetness and mildness to those juices that bespoke subtle differences. Unable to resist, she twisted around on the bed to nuzzle between those thighs directly, and they parted in welcome as she wrapped her mobile lips around the faint protrusion of her lover’s mound and immediately licked, firmly and to the limits of her tongue’s reach.\n\n\tThe white mare only barely restrained a full-throated nicker as she was penetrated by that thick tongue, and all she could do for the first long minute was bite her lip and enjoy it. Her pleasure was rising fast, and she knew just one more bit of stimulation was all it would take... then sought it, taking advantage of her lover’s shift to nuzzle her own way between black thighs, finding the dark-fleshed treasures therein and savoring their scent for the brief instant she could restrain herself before diving in. That snug passage twitched around her tongue as she swirled it inwards, and before she’d quite bottomed out her own sex did the same, only harder and longer, her breath coming in ragged pants as her peak rolled through her and she did her utmost not to scream.\n\n\tShock and lust warred in Laria’s mind as she felt and tasted her lover’s enjoyment. Far too many idle fantasies had filled her growing years, but this wasn’t fantasy. As much as she was enjoying doing the things she’d wistfully dreamed of, it was something else entirely to have those things done to her, and the tongue within her was, almost immediately, causing the sorts of sensations her fingers had managed only with the most slow and careful of build-ups before. Mindful of her own memories of sensitivity, she eased off a bit as the flesh between her lips winked and dribbled, lapping shallowly and avoiding the upper ridge, but even as she waited for things to settle down so she could dive deep once more, she brought a hand up to start gently, carefully stroking the volcano-shape between white rumpcheeks. With the earlier talk of the privy, she knew better than to try penetrating it, but it was a thrill in its own right just to touch, and she teased a fingertip at its very pucker as her tongue went back to work in earnest, licking deep and pressing firmly upwards with each withdrawal. The newly-rising tension in the warm body against hers fueled her own pleasure in ways she’d never imagined, and it wasn’t long before she had to yank her head back and shove her face into the mattress to muffle a cry as her mind seemed to explode with a peak like she’d never known.\n\n\tStalya dipped one hand between her own thighs, the other resuming its teasing of the filly’s twitching anus as she worked fingers and tongue in unison to draw out her lover’s climax and finish her own second one that she’d nearly been to before that talented tongue had to pull away. That second peak would have been less incandescent than the one she’d gotten purely from another’s fingers and muzzle, but the satisfaction inherent in the pleasure she was eliciting, the taste and scent of a young woman’s liquid joy, more than made up for the over-familiarity of her own fingers’ touch.\n\n\tWhen the unicorn finally withdrew, Laria flopped onto her back and just lay there panting, eyes closed. She could feel the bed shifting as her lover moved upon it, and when she opened her eyes a minute later, there was Stalya, smiling at her. “Thank you, dear,” the mare murmured huskily, an echo of her pleasure still in her voice. “It’s been over a year since I’ve enjoyed that sort of thing, and my mission will be far more pleasant as long as you’re along, and for however long you wish to stay with me after.”\n\n\tThe filly gave a hoarse chuckle, “Me you thank? My... my first time that was, and better far than I’d imagined. That like that you could make me feel... that you I could give pleasure... so much better than my fantasies was. This night I’ll forever treasure.”\n\n\tEyes wide, Stalya could only shake her head in wonder, “You were so certain of your desires... and you carried them out to such good effect, that I’d never have guessed you were truly a virgin, fingers or no, as you were at least as good as some Roxanites I’ve slept with. We will have to do this again, and for longer, when we’re somewhere with thicker walls than an inn’s, or out camping between towns with no other soul in miles...”\n\n\tDraping one arm across the older woman’s shoulders, the filly pulled her close for another long, slow kiss, then murmured, “With you I’ll stay, for as long as have me you will. For your asking my heart itself is, and too my body.”\n\n\tThe unicorn smiled, “If we make it to the end of my mission and are still this good of friends, I just might ask for your heart... but not until I’ve finished my duties and checked back in with General Julara. Too much depends on just where I’m to be sent next, or whether any known follower of Karnaal, however honorable, would be welcome in my homeland.” She brought up one finger to gently stroke that black, short-furred nose, “All I ask is time... time to find out if it’s even possible to keep you at my side forever, and I can’t promise what I don’t know whether I’ll be able to give. If the worst occurs, that I’m assigned back home and they deny you entry, then I’ll save up my leave, and, once a year, come back here to find you. That much, I can promise even now.”\n\n\tGlancing up, Laria reached over to grab the pillows at the head of the bed, feeling disinclined to move from this comfortable embrace, then tugged the far side of the sheet over to cover them both. “Dreams of unicorns I’ve had,” she whispered, “their grace, their beauty... but better than hope I’d dared, the reality is. The candles out will burn themselves; all I ask tonight is that hold me you do.”\n\n\tMindful of her invisible horn as she lifted her head to accept the pillow, Stalya relaxed down and smiled, “Gladly, lover,” as she pulled her close.\n\nChapter 4\n\n\tThe middle-aged feline at the herald’s lectern looked up at the two equines walking closer down the red carpet of the castle’s entrance hall, but his intended greeting was interrupted as one of the guards gestured in hand-code, and the pair flanking the door moved to block it.\n\n\t“Halt!” the detachment’s officer demanded. “Neither of you do I recognize, and our magic detector you just triggered.”\n\n\tBoth fillies had worn their very finest clothes to this meeting, the unicorn in a silk dress, almost a gown, the exact color of her eyes, and her friend in a white shirt and gray, knee-length skirt, both of fine linen and accented by a borrowed black belt with a silver buckle. As they halted at a polite distance, Stalya reached up to touch her circlet, “It probably reacted to the illusions in this.” She moved her finger just a bit, touching the bottom sapphire for several seconds, and the tiny trigger-crystal embedded in her fingertip convinced it to deactivate entirely. Every eye in the room widened as the air rippled and her horn appeared, “This, though, is reality, which I’ll prove shortly by removing the circlet and stepping through your detector again. I am here as a representative of my government, with plenipotentiary power, to negotiate a possible third opening in the Wall and some very significant potential trade between our nations. I’m sure you can understand why I may have wished to be... discreet on my way here.”\n\n\tThe herald shook himself free of surprise first, and nodded, “Been I had, as you neared, about to inform you that near its end morning court is. Knew that already, you must have, intending a private audience to request. Send a page I shall to that meeting arrange,” and he caught the eye of one of the two young men in livery on a nearby bench, needing only to give a nod to send the well-trained messenger on his way.\n\n\tStalya had anticipated this sort of initial reception, so had unfastened her earrings before leaving the inn. Sliding the central ring of the circlet up over her horn, she handed it to the guard lieutenant and, with a gesture to follow her, led Laria back down the hall for a few yards before returning.\n\n\tThe armored lupine nodded as he offered the jewelry back, “One stone only in the ceiling did glow, as the signature of your accreditation it detected, but the second, less sensitive one did not. Cleared you are for entry if consent the earl should.”\n\n\tNodding, she slipped the circlet back into place but didn’t reactivate its magic, noting, “I hope wearing this as it is isn’t a problem... as I rather like the way it looks on me.” At a faint giggle of agreement behind her, she indicated the filly with a hand, “This is Laria, a citizen in good standing from a farm-owning family in this very earldom, whom I’ve recruited for her local knowledge, and to proofread any treaties we may draw up as I’m less familiar with the local dialect.”\n\n\tThe wolf chuckled faintly, “Your speech alone, this shows. As no title has she, a guard too will the meeting attend. If privacy with the earl you need, step out will she have to.”\n\n\tThey waited for several more minutes with no sign of the maneuvers and decisions everyone knew were taking place behind the scenes, but the page finally returned, bowing, “If follow me you will, ma’am...” just as the rumble of conversation on the other side of the throne room doors started to grow, suggesting that the court was about to make its way out. Rather than get lost in the rush, both ladies stepped lively down that side-hall.\n\n\tThe equines guessed that it was the earl’s private dining room they were led to; it was tastefully decorated, though fairly minimally, centered around a table that couldn’t seat more than four bodies. The man already rising to greet them, across that table, was a gray rabbit, common enough in breed but adorned with a silver crown and a cape of shimmering gray satin edged in royal purple, going well with both his fur and his regal bearing, consciousness of his position showing in every nuance of the graceful, shallow bow he offered, and his voice was surprisingly rich as he greeted the unicorn, “Your Excellency... Welcome you to Hallan’s Stand I do.” The door behind him was still open, and servants moved back and forth, carrying covered dishes to set on the table while one lingered to set out plates, cups, and gilded silverware.\n\n\tStalya’s brows rose as she curtsied back, “You do me honor, your Grace, but I’m not an ambassador yet.” She fished a folded sheet of parchment out of her sash and slid it across the table as she took a seat, “I’m an officer in my nation’s military, and thus a diplomatic representative, but on only an ad hoc basis until whatever agreements we come to can be ratified by your king. This document represents my government’s statement of intent to pursue formal diplomatic relations, and charges me with the initial contact and negotiations, but given our nations’ lack of previous diplomacy I expect none of the prerogatives an actual ambassador would enjoy.”\n\n\tThe earl nodded as he sat down, reaching for the document to break the seal and start reading, “Traveled did I... I traveled to Atheria and Drachath in my teens, and managed to accustom myself to their backwards speech. If it would make you more comfortable, I’ll do the same this day, though forgive me if I backslide occasionally. Your entire arrival, to say nothing of what I’ve heard of your proposal so far, has come as a great shock, and I doubt it’s the last surprise I’ll receive today.”\n\n\tChuckling softly, the unicorn rolled her eyes, “Just once I’d like to have a conversation in this kingdom that doesn’t involve any implication that I talk funny... but I suppose we’ll just have to see how things work out. If I end up staying for any length of time, I’ll start making an effort to habituate myself to the local dialect.”\n\n\tEarl Hallan’s Stand smiled faintly, “I suffered the same complaint, myself, at the more... rural inns my traveling parties occasionally stopped at. When you combine dialectic differences with a farmer’s rougher speech, frequently we couldn’t understand each other at all. Now... what is your goal here?” As he had a free moment in the formalities, he pulled the covers off of a few dishes and started loading his plate; even the most solemn meeting couldn’t change the fact that it was time for lunch.\n\n\t“We unicorns,” she began, “tend to excel at whatever we set our hands to... but the current openings in Malia’s Wall are adjacent to fairly large commercial centers in Atheria and Drachath. A great deal of our potential is being wasted, simply because of the portion of our population still working on farms.” She pointed at her circlet, “These sapphires were cut by one of the better jewelers I’ve ever met, but he has to treat it as a hobby, spending most of his day raising beets and turnips. He’s still a unicorn, so they’re very good beets and turnips, but he shouldn’t have to grow them himself. Thus, we’d like to create a third route into the Vale, at the point you already have a tourist attraction at, and see the farms around Barleyfield expand, with us as their biggest customers. I passed through that community on my way here, as the larger part of my mission is simply to determine the feasibility of the rest of my proposal, and I was favorably impressed by what I saw.”\n\n\tThe rabbit nodded and swallowed a bite, “We have two more major clusters of farms in the earldom, north and south, but they focus more on raising meat animals. Barleyfield is our finest supplier of grain and vegetables, including most of what went into this meal here. Please, help yourself if either of you need refreshment.”\n\n\t“Thank you, but we ate before coming here. Still, that smells like an excellent vintage in your own glass, so I’ll have just a sip or two I suppose...” At his inviting nod, she poured a half-serving of wine into the glass the servant had set out for her then glanced to her friend, who shook her head, before going on, “Another aspect of my investigations was to make sure that the serfs who actually work those farms were being well-treated, and for the most part what I saw was acceptable. Our other two trading partners both practice the institution of slavery, so we’re obviously not too picky, but even in those kingdoms we keep an eye out to make sure that abuses are kept to a minimum, with punishments that fit the transgression. I personally heard of a serf overseer being fired for beating serfs who’d committed no crime, which is part of the positive impression I carried with me from my journey, but I also encountered one instance where a stable attendant was being required to work while a broken leg was still healing. I believe that the only real condition of any potential treaties would be to see legislation put in place to prevent that sort of thing in the future.”\n\n\tThe rabbit nodded again as he thought that through, “There are land owners with the lamentable habit of driving their serfs to the limits of their endurance... and some of them have influence at the highest levels, and they’d resist any notion of treating ‘mere serfs’ as valued employees rather than livestock that can follow simple orders. The economic implications of your proposal, though, simply cannot be understated. I will have to write a letter of introduction, including a recommendation of support, to the king himself, so no lesser functionary gets in your way to let their narrower world-view interfere. The economic booms in Drachath and Atheria have not gone unnoticed, and I’d be but the first beneficiary of the increased trade and the taxes it will bring. The king himself, of course, will get the lion’s share, so the first priority will be to make sure he realizes it.” He tilted his head, then, giving her a somewhat odd look as he dropped back to his native dialect, “Or, perhaps, the second priority it will be. The first, of course, must this test be; a seeming unicorn arrives, and high status claims, while of illusion magic in possession. A way to tell for sure the legends offer.”\n\n\tStalya paused, midway through her second sip of wine, then spat it back into the glass as she realized what he must be hinting at, “The legends... are just that, legends! Stories! They were made up by bards with too much time on their hands when none of my kind were seen for nearly a thousand years! If you think my horn means I’m immune to poison, you’re in for a disappointment, and a great deal of trouble when I fail to report. Your misplaced belief may have just guaranteed that no traders but an army crosses the Wall, seeking vengeance.” A sudden wave of dizziness washed over her, and she had to grab the table to keep her balance.\n\n\tLaria, behind her, reflexively moved to catch her, only to be restrained by a strong grip on her shoulder. “Don’t,” the guard said, simply and firmly.\n\n\tThe earl looked like he was starting to realize the extent of the mistake he’d just made, his tone half-conciliatory as he mused, “I don’t think you had enough to kill you outright... The other half of the dose was on your plate, after all, and you had just the one sip of wine, but I’m told it’s fairly powerful stuff.” As one guest looked on with fury in her eyes and the other’s mouth worked soundlessly before she collapsed against the table, spilling her wine, he told the guard, “The high-security cell in the basement they’re to be taken to. The other guards and the herald, that they were never here you’re to tell. Their next emissary, with surprise we’ll greet, negotiations from there to begin anew.”\n\n\tThe soldier nodded, shifting his grip to both of the filly’s arms as she started to struggle, and his boot thumped twice at the door to summon the hall guards and help him carry and drag the prisoners out.\n\n\tLaria kept up her ineffective struggles as she was led deeper into the castle, her mind racing. There was an audible wheeze to the breath of the body two guards carried, right behind her, but at least she was breathing, and that’s all that kept the filly from collapsing in grief then and there. They were approaching a stairwell, running both up and down, and it would probably lead to the promised jail... but just ahead, a half-open door cast a brighter wedge of light on the carpet than the lamps lining the hallway did, and she gathered her strength as they got closer. Her ‘struggles’ had seemed frenzied enough, but that was just to fool the guard into underestimating her; just as they were about to turn to go downstairs, she twisted her arms’ full strength against the man’s thumbs, the weakest part of any grip, and burst from a slow tread to a full sprint, heading for that light. A pair of maids shrieked as the door to the guest room burst open with a loud bang against the wall, but she didn’t even slow; dodging the chair in front of the room’s mirror, she hit the window full-speed, arms in front of her face to protect it as the glass shattered.\n\n\tEven as the guards’ cries rose behind her, she stole a glance down and curled up into an aerial ball, wincing in anticipation, before hitting the hard stones of the street. Something snapped with the impact, her right arm suddenly on fire with agony... but there were no pedestrians or other guards there to stop her, the window having faced the alley between two walled, upper-class estates, and she sprinted down that path to freedom with all her might.\n\n* * *\n\n\tHeltan finished moving his booth’s wares into the shop proper, hefted the pack of things his real customers had sold him that day, and locked the door. It had been a reasonable day, if not as good as the one before when that young filly had turned up with some seriously impressive swag, and he was looking forward to a good book and a few mugs of ale back at his ugly-looking home, though the comforts inside would surprise anyone who’d seen its shabby exterior. He was only two streets away from the market square when a hiss from an alley made him pause.\n\n\t“Kin... Sanctuary!”\n\n\tHe winced in involuntary sympathy with the sheer pain in that quiet voice, and stepped closer, only barely restraining an exclamation as that very filly he’d been thinking about stepped out of the shadows, a pack dangling from one hand while her other arm was held close, its wrist clearly broken.\n\n\tThe badger nodded, joining her in the alley as he murmured, “Follow me. Not far it is to the temple... Just who to piss off did you manage? Not in ‘work clothes’ do you seem to be...”\n\n\t“Not at work I was,” that pained voice replied. “A companion I have... had. The first unicorn emissary to Dengar, she was. Meeting the earl we were, but unsure of her claims he was. Too many stories has he read; to ‘test her claim,’ poison her he did, and imprison me as an inconvenient witness he tried to.”\n\n\tHeltan winced, “Above my head, this is... Politics we try to avoid, but kin you are, and sanctuary your right is.” He paused at the back door of a tavern and knocked a rapid, staccato pattern that was missing a crucial beat somewhere in the middle. A board slid aside to show a pair of eyes behind a slit, and he said simply, “Sanctuary, with injury.”\n\n\tLocks rattled as the door opened, a black mink standing out of the way, his back to the former entrance of the actual tavern, now a brick wall. On the other side, a well-lit staircase led down, and Laria stepped inside and moved down on her own. It was unsurprising when the fence didn’t follow; he had his own business to attend to, and minimal inconvenience to others was another of the principles of kinship outlined in the bible.\n\n\tThe filly found herself explaining her situation again to the local high priest while an acolyte set and splinted her wrist, the former’s pendant of a fist around a coin gleaming golden in the spacious, well-lit temple far underground. Just wearing that necklace in public, in practically any city in the world, would see him arrested by the first guard to spot it, she knew.\n\n\t“Bribed the stableboy I did, after our stuff I’d fetched,” she concluded her tale. “Our bulkier bags in the loft he’ll hide, and my horse he’ll move from stall to stall each day.”\n\n\tThe vulpine priest nodded, “Praiseworthy skill and judgment you’ve shown, in your escape, in the swag your fence passed on, and in your precautions. Vanished from the earl’s eyes you have... but what then? In the politics of the situation the church cannot involve itself, so limited is the aid we can offer.”\n\n\tIn response, Laria pulled the ‘stick’ from her salvaged pack, set it on the table between them, then fished around in a deep, hidden pocket for the crystal given to her by the first priest she’d ever met. It was glowing. “Know what this is, you do,” she observed, “but this...” and she set the stone down to grip the stick with her good hand, her thumb pressing up to bare an inch of blade. “The unicorn’s sword this is, and what magic it has I know not. If into the castle I can sneak, though, and into her hands get this... perhaps a chance we’ll both have.”\n\n\tThe fox tilted his head, considering, then asked, “And what cause have you to go there at all? Local help, you said she described you as. Whatever its magic, worth a great deal that sword probably is, and to live comfortably for years it might let you.”\n\n\tBefore the filly could voice the angry retort his suggestion deserved, a voice that was no voice at all interrupted, its tone smooth, almost oily, as it seeped into both souls, *Forget My teachings, you do. Bad for business is war, and if disappear the unicorn does, for revenge will her people march. Great My kin’s losses were, the last time for vengeance the barrier they crossed. Would that you see again come to pass?*\n\n\tThere was no mistaking that voice... Though she’d never expected to, Laria had just heard her very God. Even as the priest bowed his head in penitent acknowledgment, she said softly, “To your question answer... love my cause is. Just last night, my very first lover she became, and friends we were before. My life I’d rather lose than her.”\n\n\tHe may have been a thief, and a priest, but at his core the man was still a fox, and he had to smile, “Imagine I can... Not for thin tongues are equines known, and good at what they do it’s said unicorns are.” Straightening, he nodded firmly, “Help you I can. Some drugs we have, that your pain might distract you not, and which guard to bribe we know. As far as the basement storeroom that could get you; from there, on your own you’ll be.”\n\n\tThe filly nodded, her young face deadly serious, “Far enough that will be. By Karnaal I swear, free will I see her or trying I’ll die.”\n\n* * *\n\n\tOne of the side-effects of the narcotic-laced shot of brandy the acolyte who’d patched her up, clearly the temple’s medic, gave her was that everything seemed preternaturally bright as she eased her way down the stairs. To guess, it had left her eyes dilated to their most sensitive, and she also surmised that some thieves used it to better see in the dark; she was certainly getting more detail out of the dimly-lit basement’s environs than she was used to, so perhaps it was worth the slight light-headedness the drug also caused.\n\n\tThe corrupt guard’s standard bribe, just to have a chat with a ‘random’ passer-by while facing away from the door he presided over, had been three of her four grand crowns, or over half her total funds including her savings in silver. So far, it seemed to have been worth it; the earl was no king, having only so many guards to go around, and with every entrance to the castle already watched, there was no need to waste another soldier at the door between the storerooms and the dungeon proper, commonly used by servants bringing prisoners their meals. Had it been any cell but the high-security one that she needed to get to, the rescue would have been far simpler, as the standard cells had heavily-barred, ground-level windows that a sword and a copy of the cell doors’ standard key could be slipped through... More than one thief had let themselves out with that sort of help. As things actually were, though, Laria forced herself to move slowly and logically, oiling the heavy hinges of the servants’ door and its latch as well, then spreading a pouch of clean sand on the floor before opening it with no squeals, no scrapes, just a hiss even she could barely hear.\n\n\tEven this long after midnight, the room the short hallway she was in opened into had several lanterns burning, and she could hear a man’s breathing right around the corner. She could also see four cells, very little light making it to their far walls, but it was enough to spot which one didn’t have an even darker half-circle near the ceiling. On that one’s crude bench a white form, still wearing her turquoise dress, tossed restlessly with the after-effects of whatever that poison had done to her. There was a larger bucket next to the usual chamberpot on the cell floor, and the air was flavored with a hint of vomit.\n\n\tLaria closed her eyes for a long moment, throttling the rage that woke at thoughts of how her lover had been treated. When she could control herself again, she eased her way along the wall on the side the breathing was coming from. It wasn’t quite steady enough to suggest that the guard was asleep, and she paused, pondering... That confrontation with Oleron had been the closest thing she’d ever had to a serious fight, but she knew there was a big difference between humiliating a bully and taking down an armed, armored, combat-trained soldier, and she pummeled her mind, trying to think up some way... only to notice, later than she probably should have, that the restless shifting had stopped. A stab of panic shot through her at the thought that her friend had finally succumbed to the poison as she stared, then realized... the unicorn’s eyes were open, and they were looking right at her. She couldn’t see that face well enough to be certain, but somehow she knew that it was smiling. Reaching over her shoulder, she pulled the sheathed sword out of the back of her black shirt, and those distant eyes widened, then narrowed as the filly mimed a glance toward the guard she couldn’t see and shrugged.\n\n\tStalya was a bit unsteady as she half-rolled off of the bench, catching herself on one hand and painfully levering herself up to a kneel. She’d never been so sick in her life as when she’d first woken up after passing out in the earl’s dining room. The hours since then had alternated between restless nightmares and waking to throw up again, first the inn’s fine breakfast then mere acid and bile, and it had taken a long moment to realize she wasn’t simply dreaming again when she’d spotted that dark, familiar figure in the hall’s shadows. It was almost impossible to believe, that Laria was here but not a prisoner herself, and when the horse had held up her own sword, her heart seemed like it would burst. Ruthlessly, she crushed her surging joy and forced herself to think along the tactical lines she’d been trained in... Obviously, the girl needed a distraction. Several rather unfeasible plans flitted through her mind, and she finally had to settle on the simplest. Staggering to her feet, she stepped over to the door and reached through the bars, humming softly to herself as her fingers moved as if she were holding a lockpick.\n\n\tThe half-awake guard blinked, then rumbled, “Hey now, stop that and the pick drop!” as he started across the room, drawing his sword.\n\n\tTucking the sword back into her shirt, Laria waited until his third long stride, then rushed from behind and leapt. She struck him hard enough to stagger even his weight, wrapping her bad arm around his throat, but before his free hand could come up to pull it away, the kitchen knife in her good hand came around, just over the neckline of his chainmail shirt, and both bodies tumbled to the ground as she stabbed through at least one carotid artery and his very neckbone’s soft cartilage. The filly wrinkled her nose as she climbed back to her feet; the pants his nerveless hindside had just filled with shit didn’t exactly improve the smell of the jail, but she ignored it as unimportant as she padded the rest of the way over and passed her lover her sword without a word.\n\n\tStalya’s voice was a bit rough from stomach acids as she whispered, “Thank you!” The brief commotion hadn’t woken either of the prisoners occupying two of the regular cells, and she didn’t want to risk changing that now, as they just might try to buy some clemency for their own crimes by calling for other guards. The sword half-unsheathed, she paused and asked, “Is there a quick way out of here? This is likely to be a little loud...”\n\n\tHer lover nodded jerkily, “To a storeroom the door I came through leads, and a stair outside it has. Beyond that one guard is, but bribed he’s been, so a bit slow giving chase he might be. A short sprint it is to the keep’s side gate... fit to run are you?”\n\n\tThat lovely face twisted in a grimace, “I’ll have to be... I could really use another day or two of rest, but in the Elite we’re trained to ignore our bodies’ complaints at need, to do what must be done. Get ready to run, and I’ll be right behind you.” Drawing her sword the rest of the way, she slipped the slim blade between the door and the wall, took a two-handed grip and a deep breath to gather her focus, then swung straight down with all her might. Iron clanged in protest as the sharp folded steel cut right through the tongue of the lock, and to her satisfaction the black filly was already running for the hall as the door swung open, and she sheathed her sword as she followed along.\n\n\tThey were halfway through the storeroom when the prisoners the noise had woken up spotted the guard in a pool of blood and started screaming, and they hardly slowed as the outer door Laria had left not quite latched banged open. A surprised snort came from the side as the mentioned guard jerked out of his half-doze, and they’d nearly reached the outer gate before he started ringing his alarm bell and yelling, “Jailbreak! Prisoners escaping!”\n\n\tBy then it was too late. In peacetime, the night guards were few and far between, and it would take at least a minute for enough to gather to pursue with the numerical advantage standing orders dictated. That didn’t keep them from trying, of course; five minutes after they’d stopped there, a force of at least half a dozen marched in double-time past the refuse bin the equines had hidden behind, set into a nook in the wall of one of the well-off estates.\n\n\tOnce the sound of boots had faded, Stalya turned to gaze upon her savior, arms spreading for a hug, then froze as she spotted her splinted wrist. “You’re hurt,” she whispered. “What happened?”\n\n\tLaria could only smile, despite the painkillers that chose that moment to start wearing off, her wrist throbbing, “At that meeting... not my place it was to speak, so my warning you misunderstood. Declining wine I was not; trying to keep you from drinking it, I was. Unconscious you were when a break for it I made...” She giggled despite the pain, “Quite a break it was, when through a window I went. My wrist I broke too when the street I hit, but see to our stuff at the inn I first did, then my fence to find and the hidden temple be guided to. Told me they did how to get in, who to bribe, and the rest you know.”\n\n\tNodding solemnly, and mindful of that wrist, the unicorn pulled her into the embrace she never thought she’d share again, whispering, “Thank you... It doesn’t say enough, but it’s all I can say. During one of my more lucid moments, I heard the earl discussing me with the guards... and I think they were going to kill me, since the poison hadn’t, just to support the claim that they’d never seen me, to any other unicorn who came looking. We need to get out of this city... I think we should head for Dengaria and the king, as the treaty’s more important than one foolish noble who’d heard too many tales as a child.”\n\n\tThe filly nodded her agreement, “Wake up the stableboy we shall, for the supplies he hid, and out the east gate we can sneak before dawn, then work our way around we can. Cheaper the bribes at the gate than at the castle are, so afford them I still can.”\n\n\tGlancing out from their hiding spot, there were no guards in view that Stalya could spot, but there was a narrower alley that she thought led the right way, so she nodded and stood up, “Good. Once we’ve both had some rest and I’m not feeling so queasy... I’ll really thank you, by at least doubling what we did last night. Eat your veggies on the way, dear, because you’re going to need the energy... Even before that, though, let me know whenever you just need a hug. You killed a man, tonight... and that’s never easy to live with.”\n\n\tSwallowing hard, Laria managed a faint smile, “Perhaps trauma I should pretend, if to touch me it urges you...”\n\nChapter 5\n\n\tThe earl’s official influence ended five miles west of his holding’s seat, set near the border as it was, but the couple kept to as deep of wilderness as they could find until reaching the far side of the neighboring barony, just in case their descriptions had reached that far. That brought them to the Duchy of Dengaria, a title held by the king where he ruled from the city of the same name. The guards and inquisitors, there, considered themselves separate from, and above, those of the lesser holdings, so once more the mismatched equines traveled openly, an upper-class foreigner and her local guide.\n\n\tIt took nearly two weeks to reach the capitol proper, but at least they’d been able to stop at the duchy’s first major city and find a healer for Laria’s wrist. Even with periodic stops to change some of Stalya’s outkingdom coins for local, both their purses were a bit light as they entered Dengaria, the circlet packed up and the gate-guards staring openly at the unicorn’s horn. Their only stop on the way to the palace was to find a stable for Socks and storage for their packs, though they didn’t bother seeking lodging. Instead, her sword tucked into her sash, Stalya strode through the public entrance and up to the junior herald guarding the door to the outer gathering hall short of the throne room proper.\n\n\t“I need to see the highest kingdom official you’ll let me,” she told the man, “with a Truthstone or mage present, on inter-governmental business. I’d like for the king to attend, too, as I have a treaty to propose, but,” and she gestured at her horn with a faint smile, “I’ll understand if you decline on that point, as it’s impossible to call any unicorn ‘unarmed.’ At the very least, the king should be informed that Unicorn Vale is seeking diplomatic relations.”\n\n\tThe herald nodded and extended a hand, “What I can do, I’ll see... Your credentials, please?”\n\n\tStalya shook her head, “That’s why I asked for the Truthstone. I first visited another noble in this kingdom, as the proposed treaty affected his holding the most, but... there was a misunderstanding that you’d very much want magical confirmation of when I explain it. He had my accreditation and plenipotentiary document, but trying to get it back when I left without his leave was... contraindicated.”\n\n\tSeveral nearby guards looked nervous at that admission, but the experienced (it would have been impolite, however accurate, to call him jaded) functionary simply nodded again then turned to the senior end of the bench of waiting pages, “A guest room this one is to be given, that that weapon in her belt she might leave behind, while a meeting I arrange.” He glanced briefly at the other equine, then addressed the pair more directly, “Your local guide I assume that to be, by her garb. Checked for weapons she’ll be too if attend in your company she does, but welcome enough she’ll be in case misunderstandings you need her to clarify. Three hours or more it will take me to a meeting arrange, and another page I’ll send when a firm time we have, that prepare you might.”\n\n\tThe room the senior page led them to was, as might be expected in the king’s palace, fairly luxurious. Without their luggage, though, very little of the fine furniture was of any use to the pair. As the door closed and she looked around, Laria suggested, “Three hours, the herald said... though just in case, in two we should be ready. Still, time that leaves us, so a thought I had.” She gestured at the doorway to the room’s attached bathroom, “The privy we should use, then this most comfortable bed make use of, and finally a bath to take with none the wiser save the maid the sheets are changed by.”\n\n\tHer innocent, even boring, expression and tone failed utterly to fool her friend, and Stalya simply smiled and turned around, “Untie me, please?” with a gesture at her gown’s back.\n\n\tThree minutes later the water-flushed privy’s tank was refilling from the roof cistern, and two naked bodies mock-wrestled on the finely-embroidered bedspread. They’d had time, comfort, and privacy enough to make love perhaps one night in four since leaving Hallan’s Stand, but the novelty still hadn’t worn off; despite knowing full well that she had permission, even welcome, to touch or taste just about any part of the pale, athletic body squirming in her grip, Laria still felt daring with every ‘liberty’ she took, and thrillingly naughty to look at a bit of private flesh and, instead of simply dream wistfully of it, reach out and touch it. Of course, her lover was hardly passive in the matter, so the parallels with her fantasies hit a snag every time white fingers or pink tongue sought out her sensitive places in return. The wrestling match, punctuated by yips and giggles, finally settled down to the position they’d both found most convenient and comfortable when a soft mattress was available, on their sides with muzzles between each others’ thighs.\n\n\tAs much fun as their very first time together had been, subtle shifts as they learned each other better were gradually making it even better; for instance, Stalya now knew exactly where to put her mobile lips to not simply enfold, but squeeze and part, her lover’s mound, easing her thick tongue’s entry into a passage that had never known a stallion’s girth and was still pleasantly snug, and when she swirled it around the sides, gathering flavorful nectar, the point of contact was just that much more distinct and pleasurable to her lover. As soon as those walls started to tremble under her tongue’s caress, she slipped a finger past her own lips to gather a bit of slickness then, very lightly, stroke its tip in a tiny circle around the furless central pucker of the bud between her rumpcheeks.\n\n\tAs light as it was, that first extra touch made Laria’s sex clench, not just quiver, and she gasped happily against the treasures at her own muzzle. That pleasure... was practically forbidden, at least by omission; other than a very few, exceptionally dirty jokes she hadn’t been supposed to hear, it was never even spoken of as a possibility where she’d grown up. The last time they’d made love had also been the first time she’d penetrated the unicorn there, with just a single finger to the second knuckle, but there was one detail that even the mare didn’t know... She’d guarded that finger from rubbing on anything afterwards until she could, with a certain trepidation, test the ‘it’s okay so long as we’re clean’ concept by tasting it. The slickness of an empty rectum, to her surprise, had not actually had an objectionable flavor, so her plans this afternoon took a slightly different track than her lover was probably expecting...\n\n\tOne finger eased between those pale pink labia peeking out from pure white fur, followed by a second, then a tightly-grouped third, and as a group they twisted back and forth as they sank deeper, spreading the sweet slickness of the flesh surrounding them, then shifted to a straight, rhythmic thrusting, the dip between two of those digits cupping the sides of the unicorn’s clitoral ridge and stroking it, slowly and affectionately, with each penetration or withdrawal. This left her muzzle free for other things, and she eased it back, lipping at rumpfur in passing until she found the bulge she sought. Her lips held very loosely around it, she gave it two slow licks to make sure everything was properly moist, then pressed her blunt tongue’s tip against the very center and, slowly but firmly, pushed.\n\n\tStalya’s eyes fluttered open, her tongue losing its rhythm as she gasped, and it was all she could do to simply lip at the treasures before her as she felt herself being stretched open. That tongue was thicker, and smoother, than any finger, and even with her marginally greater experience she’d never felt quite its like... but it was good. Her anus twinged reflexively at the unaccustomed penetration, but she forced it to relax, giving a low moan of appreciation to encourage her lover before finally diving back into her sex tongue-first. Just to return the favor, her own finger started pressing a bit more firmly into the dark brown flesh where black fur ended around the filly’s own pucker, though that single digit was all she intended to use, and it teased mainly at the outermost, sensitive crinkles for nearly a minute before the pressure finally allowed just her first knuckle to slip in.\n\n\tRhythm on both sides was intermittent at best, both equines having to pause now and then to let another surge of pleasure roll through them before tension could arise anew... and neither forgot the pressure of time. The air was heated, infused with scents of lust, and the bedspread quite moist in several spots, when they finally pulled away with a few last, wistful licks at droplets and dribbles, and both women giggled around their own fingers as they watched the other suckle themselves clean. “That bath should we have,” Laria spoke first. “The boiler we’ll heat not; to cool off we need, and the window we should open lest that page with the smell we surprise.”\n\n\tStalya chuckled, nodding as she moved to examine the window, finding several of the small panes were hinged, but none would provide enough of an opening for a body to climb through. She nodded to herself; that made sense, for security, though her mood switched promptly to amusement as she saw what looked like a gardener staring at her standing naked in the window. She gave him a jaunty little wave, opened a few panes to let fresh air in, and headed back to where her lover was already filling the tub with lukewarm water from the sun-heated cistern, the tub more than large enough for both of them. Naturally, they completely failed to behave themselves in the water, but they didn’t make too much of a mess, and were reasonably clean by the end.\n\n\tProperly dressed again, they occupied themselves with some of the books provided for guests’ entertainment, punctuated by the occasional snort or mutter of, “Foolishness!” since Stalya had found a collection of legends about unicorns. Eventually, about three and a half hours after the meeting with the herald and late enough that they were starting to wonder about supper, a knock came on the door.\n\n\tA junior page was accompanied by a palace guard sergeant, the former bowing, “Now will the officials see you. Guide you to them I will.”\n\n\tThe room they were led to was... faintly ominous. A shallow, curved table faced a single large chair with a polished green hemisphere of jade on each armrest, but those arms also had rings embedded to support ropes or straps. Flanking the door they’d come through were several tiers of benches, currently empty. It looked like a formal tribunal chamber, and the judicial branch of the kingdom’s government being called ‘inquisitors’ wasn’t particularly comforting a thought in that setting. Four guards stood against the far wall, the page and his escort not having remained, and the table was occupied by a muscular, lupine priest of Tarragh, a slim vixen in a mage’s robe, and a well-dressed stallion with no visible indication of rank or role.\n\n\t“A High Inquisitor, maybe even Grand, I think he is,” Laria murmured softly. “Careful you be.” At her lover’s reassuring nod, the filly retreated to one of the lower-most benches.\n\n\tAs the unicorn settled into the chair and laid her palms on the stones, the priest spoke first, “Aware are you... that your companion a follower of Karnaal is?”\n\n\tStalya nodded, her expression serious, “Yes, and I’ve talked to her about it. Unicorns have no need of Truthstones, under the right circumstances. Her hand was on my horn as she told me a reasonably comprehensive version of her life’s story, and no one can successfully lie with that touch, should the unicorn permit it. Thus I can tell you, honestly enough for your own Truthstones to verify, that she’s never stolen anything from someone who didn’t deserve it. Thief she may be, but she has honor.”\n\n\tWolf and horse glanced to the vixen, all six eyes a bit wide, but the mage could only nod to verify that the stones were working perfectly as they stayed a steady green.\n\n\tThe palomino equine spoke next, “Your name, your rank, and your mission tell us now.”\n\n\t“I am Lieutenant Stalya of the New Unicorn Vale Militia Elite. In context, the last word was more important than the my strict rank; the Elite are not a standard military unit, and anyone accepted into them as even a private would make an above-average officer in any more conventional chain of command. I am charged to evaluate your kingdom, specifically the portion around the town of Barleyfield in the Earldom of Hallan’s Stand, to determine whether we could trade with them for food in bulk, thus allowing many of our own artisans who must presently work in fields to feed our nation to instead return to their more specialized tasks. This evaluation, the area passed. The farms are productive, there’s more good land to expand them onto, and the serfs, generally, are treated well enough that moral issues shouldn’t cloud the matter, though after seeing one man required to work while still in pain from an injury, I must place the condition of new legislation, guaranteeing a certain fairness in when and how serfs are required to work, upon any formal treaties we may come up with. That is the last piece of my mission; to, if the other conditions are met, seek diplomatic relations with your nation and an agreement to allow a new opening in Malia’s Wall on your border through which to conduct trade.”\n\n\tNone of the three showed any overt emotion or other reaction, and the wolf asked, “Of what nature your... disagreement with one of our nobles was?”\n\n\t“Earl Hallan’s Stand heard too many stories as he was growing up. In the room I was assigned, here, I think I found exactly the book he referred to, ascribing frankly ridiculous powers to unicorns and their horns. Under the misconception that unicorns were immune to poison, and by his admission, he decided to test whether I was a ‘real’ unicorn, and the glass and plate provided for my refreshments were coated in a deadly poison. I’d had only one sip of wine when he revealed that fact, which proved too mild a dose to kill me, but I was rendered unconscious and I was very ill when I awoke in a cell of his jail. I saw and heard him, later, discussing my case with some of his guards, and the topic was ways to make it seem like I’d never been there and they’d never seen me, so they could pretend ignorance if and when any other unicorn came looking for me. I cannot say for certain without upsetting your Truthstones, as he was careful about his wording, but I believe his implied intent was that I should be murdered and my body disposed of.”\n\n\tBrows high, the horse across the table asked, “And escape you did how? Alive you obviously are...”\n\n\tStalya lifted one hand to gesture at the filly behind her, but returned it to its stone before she replied, “Laria and I had only recently become lovers... but our affection was true, and strong. She swore on her God that she’d see me free or die trying. With the help of her criminal contacts, she penetrated the castle and killed the one guard watching me that late at night. She’d brought that seeming ‘stick’ that was in my belt, which is actually a short sword of the world’s finest folded steel, with which I cut the iron lock of my cell. Only two other swords its like exist to the best of my knowledge, and they’re carried by someone whose name you might recognize... Brigadier General Dame Elaria of the New Unicorn Vale Militia Elite.”\n\n\tHis two companions frowning faintly, there was instead a faint smile on the stallion’s face. “Know that name indeed, we do... though promoted she’s been since last we heard. The highest politics of Dengar... unusual are. Below the ranks of duke or Grand Inquisitor, few the king’s identity know.” He half-bowed across the table, “King Juraniel I, I am. Ten years past is the scandal with Elaria and Talaya, and two years after did fruit it bear, and from power the old king did fall.” Glancing to his companions, his voice was firm as he instructed, “And fall too shall the earl. Treaty or no, ambassador or no, beyond the bounds of politeness with any diplomat did he step, sheer stupidity from, and to cover his faults compound the crime he did.”\n\n\tThe priest rumbled, “Agreed. A lack of honor he’s shown, and unfit for his post he is.”\n\n\tThe vixen finally spoke up in a surprisingly melodious voice, “The truth she’s spoken, and when speculations she offered, name them she did. Her testimony I accept.”\n\n\tTurning back to his guest, the king was smiling again, “Long have I sought, myself, basic protections the serfs to give, and close I’ve come, but always a vote or two short I’ve been. The economic implications of the trade you seek, those votes might finally buy. Document or no, diplomat or no, by decree as ambassador I recognize you. Noble ranks your nation uses not, but suffice your military standing will while my backing you have.”\n\n\tFaintly flushed, Stalya bowed her head in gratitude, “Thank you, your Majesty. My next promotion was contingent on this mission’s success, so when the dust settles I’ll be a captain, which may further comfort those nobles who don’t know how the Elite works, and might take exception to a ‘mere’ lieutenant as a diplomat.”\n\n\tThe king nodded once more, then raised his voice slightly, “Citizen Laria. Approach and the chair take.”\n\n\tBoth ladies blinked, but the unicorn gave her friend an encouraging smile as they passed each other to trade seats.\n\n\tThe priest’s voice was serious as he asked, “Killed a guard, your companion said you did. Two questions have I... necessary was it, and kill him how did you?”\n\n\tSettling her faintly-sweaty palms on the Truthstones, the filly thought for a long moment before answering, “Necessary in the context of my oath it was. To disable a man in armor, I have the strength not, yet my love’s freedom I could not attain while live he did. Seen me she had, but he hadn’t, so pretend to pick the lock she did, to his attention attract. My wrist I’d earlier broken, escaping when to arrest me the earl tried, as a witness most inconvenient I’d have been. For the guard’s back I leapt, my bad arm around his throat grabbing, and my good hand through his neck a kitchen knife stabbed. He suffered not.” She couldn’t see, of course, how Stalya’s eyes widened, then clenched shut around sudden tears, as she called her ‘my love,’ not ‘my lover,’ without a hint of reaction from the Truthstones.\n\n\tA hint of respect showed in the wolf’s eyes as he turned to the king, “Ambiguous the situation our law makes... ‘Defense of others’ I’d call this, as illegal the imprisonment was so official sanction covered it not.”\n\n\tThe horse nodded, then asked, “And how of the unicorn’s intent feel you, for serfs’ rights?”\n\n\t“Her opinion and mine the same are,” Laria replied without hesitation. “Twice has that knife tasted blood, and an overseer who whipped serfs without cause the first time was. He lives, but a scar he’ll forever have, and his job he has not, as my final gift to the farm where grew up I did. Complex and sad is that tale, and matter not to the kingdom at large does it, but to that community to return it would for me unwise be.”\n\n\tSmiling faintly, the king mused, “Perhaps... but perhaps not. A champion will the serfs need, when passed is the new law. The rank of High Inquisitor I grant you. If reaches our ears does word of any fresh abuse, see to it you will, with what skills you have. Rumors will I see spread, that citizens know... if mistreat their serfs they have, and if from their homes things start disappearing, a warning should they consider it to be. If those warnings they heed not, sterner action may you take, in proportion to their abuse, up to the taking of their lives if just you think it to be.”\n\n\tEyes very wide at his decree and suggestions, the filly could only nod, “My thanks you have, your Majesty, and my good service I pledge.”\n\n\tNodding absently, the king touched something under the edge of his side of the table then turned his chair half-around. A moment later one of the rear doors opened and a bull with the badge of the seneschal and finer clothes than his monarch entered. “A modest but defensible building near the palace you must find,” his liege directed. “From crown funds purchase it, and a bonus in compensation for the inconvenience you may pay its present tenants, but within two days do I want it available, suitably furnished, to as the Unicorn Embassy serve. To them will it be deeded, and their territory will it be.” He glanced back to the ladies, both looking a bit shocked by the pace of events, “Your government you may contact, by magic if such you have, by royal courier if recognition signals you can give, or in person if needed. Your guest room you may keep until prepared the embassy is, or if travel you must then ready by your return will it be.”\n\n\tStalya stood up from the bench and bowed deeply, “I do have a means of communicating with them... but, to avoid the sort of attention I might have gotten by carrying powerful magic with me, along the way here, it’s limited to one fairly short conversation. Wagons of good building and paving stones and the masons to lay them, though, have been waiting for weeks just out of sight across the Wall, and they will get to work on the border crossing and improving the local roads for high-volume trade by tomorrow morning. You have my and my government’s thanks for your quick and realistic grasp of the opportunities we offer, and I look forward to a long and rewarding relationship between our nations.”\n\n\t“On behalf of all Dengar, my thanks you have as well, for letting not one fool two nations’ interests taint,” the king bowed back from his seat. “Release you I do, and within an hour a page will to court supper call you both.”\n\n* * *\n\n\tSettling onto the bed, Stalya drew her sword and set it on the bedspread that had been changed during their meeting, the base of its hilt touching the tip of its scabbard, a combination that would never occur during normal use.\n\n\t“Anyone else would get a stiff lecture about interrupting my supper,” a feminine voice sounded from thin air a moment later, “but I’ve been looking forward to your contact for days now. Report, Lieutenant.”\n\n\t“Mission accomplished, General. We have no specific treaty, yet, but we have the king’s personal agreement to enact legislation to correct the only, minor flaws I found in the local situation, he’s formally recognized me as ambassador despite losing my documentation along the way, and he just ordered his seneschal to find a good building for our embassy and buy it for us out of the crown’s private funds. Unless you order otherwise, I will accept that post, and on a personal level I ask that you let me if I can be spared from other duties, because I found someone along the way who would be... less than popular in the Vale, for religious reasons, but I love her anyway.”\n\n\tLaria’s jaw dropped at the words she’d never expected to hear, and she wept with joy as she hugged her friend from behind, burying her face in that so-soft mane.\n\n\tThe rabbit at the other end of the magical link could hear the other woman’s reaction, and her voice was surprisingly gentle as she replied simply, “Request granted, Captain Stalya. Expect the arrival of your embassy staff within two weeks, and may your new job and new love both bring you joy.”\n\n\tThe volume of that projected speech was already starting to fade slightly as the limited power in the hidden crystals began to run out, so the mare didn’t waste time wiping her own misty eyes before replying, “Thank you, ma’am, and goodbye.” She nudged her scabbard to end the spell, then twisted in Laria’s grasp to hug her back, murmuring, “I’ve met some soldiers for other nations, and one of them taught me an old saying... It doesn’t apply to my militia, as we’re too small to be entirely conventional, but it went like this... Privates can’t marry, sergeants may marry, and captains must marry.” She leaned back to lift the filly’s gaze with a hand at her chin, “Whether I must or not... will you marry me? Any local Roxanite priest will happily perform the ceremony for the asking, I’m sure.”\n\n\tSmiling tremulously, there was only one thing she could say to that... “My heart, for the asking I told you was yours. Ask you did, so forever it shall you have, my captain.”\n\n\tStalya giggled at the emphasis, “Let’s not go playing games with rank, High Inquisitor! Still... this whole situation reminds me of other events. A supposedly evil man solved and stopped a minor atrocity, a girl your age killed a king before he could drive his country to ruin, and here we have you, a thief making sure serfs all over Dengar see a better tomorrow... I may have to send a few discreet letters, as it might be useful to the entire world, in the long run, to organize people like us, who work for the good of the common man, whatever it takes, not just in ways that are legal. Do you think you could do something like that? If you get word of some sort of ‘abuse,’ even if it’s not against the serfs, by someone who conventional law enforcement cannot touch, would you steal or kill to stop them?”\n\n\tWiping her eyes on a sleeve, Laria’s expression was serious as she nodded, “Know I would you do. Quote old words I can too. ‘For evil to triumph, but nothing the good need to do.’ This... organization, simple would our oath and mission be, to turn a blind eye not.”\n\n\tThe unicorn nodded as she moved to re-sheathe her sword and set it aside, “It will take months, possibly years, to contact everyone with similar attitudes and the skills to make a difference, and quite a few governments too, as it wouldn’t hurt to have royal pardons waiting if we have to break laws to do good... but it can all wait ‘til later. We need, in this order, to have supper with the local nobility, fetch the rest of our gear from storage, and, first thing in the morning, get married.”\n\n\tHer fiancée smiled broadly, “Know I do, how a ring to weave from strands two or three from tails like ours. Would you my blackness wear, while the touch of your white I savor?”\n\n\tStalya’s eyes were misting up again as she nodded happily at the suggestion, “We’ll have to see if some wizard or other craftsman knows how to make that sort of thing durable and permanent... because a ring like that would mean far, far more to me than gold or diamonds. I’d never take it off.”\n\n\t“Promise that not, love!” Laria giggled. “Awkward it would be, should slip off it does when inside me your fingers are! And about that to think I shouldn’t, or to dinner we’ll never get.”\n\n\tChuckling, the unicorn hugged her once more as she nodded, “Good point, oh wise little thief... who stole my heart.”\n\nThe End\n\n", "writing_bbcode_parsed": "Fantasie Eviscerotique

Episode 4.5

by Adrian VanWormer (Kathalla at FA and IB)

Chapter 1

\tThe town was very dark, this time of night.  This close to the border of Unicorn Vale, there was little concern for military security, as there were strong fortifications but a few dozen leagues away to the north and south, while the kingdom’s peaceful heartland was to the west and no threat would ever come from the east so long as the nation as a whole behaved itself.  Thus, the guards patrolling the ends of the three main roads were fairly token, and the town’s own nature as the hub of local farms, providing food to half a dozen nearby holdings, meant that even its ‘upper’ class had little to fear from criminals of any sort, as bulk shipments of grain or vegetables were hardly likely to attract thieves.

\tEveryone knew these things.  Everyone happened to be ever so slightly wrong.

\tThe tiny window of the large house’s storeroom made very little sound as it opened, and a slim black figure flowed through it the next instant, feet first.  One hand kept the top-hinged window from falling closed again as the shape froze in place, nostrils flaring as it searched for any hint of a living body’s scent or even the slightest noise...  The only sound to be heard for that long moment, though, was the scratching scamper of a lone mouse, so the intruder’s free hand reached up to lift down the shuttered lantern that had been left on the outer sill.  Feeling around the sides for the etched-in markings, they opened the hinged cover on the side with the stained lens, the light of the candle inside dimmed and lent a faint red tinge as it was finally freed to illuminate the rows of free-standing shelves.  That shuttered, filtered lamp, called a burglar’s lantern for good reason, cast only as much light as its owner wished, and it didn’t take much to start examining those shelves’ contents as the figure moved silently between them.

\tOnce at the other end of the room where they could verify that the door was closed, and out of the central aisle’s line with the window to avoid even the minuscule risk of a passer-by spotting the glow, the intruder closed the shutter and opened the one on the other side, the brighter light finally outlining their form as it reflected from nearby candlesticks and wineglasses.  Blunt, white teeth flashed in a silent grin as the equine muzzle lifted, her free hand’s black fur dipping into black clothes to pull out and shake loose a black bag, and she set the lamp on a free shelf as she started filling the sack with just the six candlesticks of the two dozen stored there that had less of a gleam.  They were satisfyingly heavy as she lifted each one down then pulled another cloth out of her clothes to follow it into the bag and keep it from clinking against the next one, and it took an effort to keep from letting her excitement force her to rush the job and make a noisy mistake.  This was her biggest heist yet, but she’d guessed completely correctly so far; it had been long enough since the house’s owner had thrown a party that warranted the ‘good’ decorations to store them, so here amidst the brass their silver had been steadily tarnishing, and likely wouldn’t be missed for some time to come.  They also hadn’t bothered, in so peaceful a community, to waste money warding a mere storeroom.  In addition to the lamp, she carried a small crystal that would detect any other enchantment within twenty feet, and it had glowed faintly near the other end of the house where the owner’s office was, but these sticks were probably worth even more than the coins in the strongbox, and nowhere near as well guarded.  Less than three minutes after first slipping in, she was blowing out the lamp and easing it and her bag through the window before climbing up to squeeze through herself.  It was almost time for her ‘traveling merchant’ contact to come through town again, and she’d be tying one of her black rags to a fencepost at the entrance to her farm to signal him that she had something worth buying, whatever excuse it took to justify his stopping there.  That same ‘merchant’ was the one who’d supplied her with the lamp and crystal, as well as the bible that had changed her life, and all they had cost her was her soul.

* * *

\t“How is he today?”

\tThe serf carrying a food of tray down the hall paused at the cracked-open door and shook his head sadly, “Same as yesterday and the day before, ma’am.  Six months it’s been, but two the chirurgeon said for recovery.  My thought... ma’am, all we serfs think, as well as he’ll get, by now he has.”

\tLaria sighed, nodding, “My thanks you have, for your concern.”

\tThe man nodded back then turned to continue toward the master bedroom, and the filly’s eyes narrowed at the fresh welt just visible above the rear neckline of his crude shirt.  She closed her door and sat down on the edge of her bed with a scowl... it was just so unfair!  The accident itself had taken enough from her family when it happened.  The winter rain had been heavy enough to make visibility difficult, so no one had seen the hill-side road’s erosion in time to avoid it, and the entire cart had slipped sideways then rolled.  Laria was still in the midst of her final growth spurt, and it had probably only been her slight frame that had saved her from injury.  Her parents had been less fortunate.  Bruised and battered, she’d staggered through the rain to the nearest farm, one of their own immediate neighbors, to summon help, but by the time they’d cut the horses free of their harness, put down the one with a broken leg, and levered the cart off of the two bodies... her mother was dead, and her father was staring blankly into space, not even moving to clear his eyes of the mud and the blood from a scalp wound.  The healer who kept the nearby farm folk healthy had been called the moment they knew they had a survivor and he was warm and dry, and diagnosed Varton with a cracked skull.  He swore that the man would regain at least some of his wits, and he had... but, the healer cautioned her, there was no telling just how far he’d come back.  He was, after these months of recovery, only most of the man he’d been.  A stranger talking to him for the first time would swear he was normal, with a clear mind and wit, but anyone observing him over a longer time would come away with a very different opinion.

\tSomething was wrong with the part of his mind that made judgments, and his memory had some problems too.  Anyone insisting on something firmly enough, with enough repetitions, could convince him of almost anything, and the merchants who bought the farm’s crops had learned quickly that if they insisted on dealing with him and him alone, they could cart away fresh grain and vegetables at a fraction of their fair value.  The spring harvest was over and the summer grains were almost ripe, but the family was down to a fraction of the cash reserve they normally enjoyed at this time of year... and by ‘the family,’ she meant the serfs too.  They and their families had served this farm for generations, and making sure they were well-housed and -fed had been the first consideration of any budget ever since her great-grandfather had bought the property from its previous citizen.  It was far easier in the long run to make the farm prosper with the serfs’ active advice and cooperation... which their current hired overseer seemed to have forgotten.  Everyone knew that the last few months had seen a decline in their fortunes, a greater loss than could be explained by the family matron’s death, but that man seemed convinced that serfs were inherently shiftless and lazy, and that any problem had to be their fault.  A typical bully, he knew only one way to ‘correct’ the situation, as evidenced by that welt, probably one of a great many, on the house-servant’s back.

\tAnger at the morning’s more recent events helped the filly drag her mind out of the depressing past, and she lunged from the bed, snatching a blouse and breeches from her closet and only barely reining in her anger enough to keep from tearing anything as she pulled them on.  She stepped into the pair of soft-soled ankle boots that were only barely adequate for farm-work, but with a bit of lamp-soot were perfect for her... hobby, and stepped out of her room and down the hall.

\t“A pleasant morning to ye, ma’am, and but a moment it will take for yer breakfast,” the plump brown bear bustling between counter and stove greeted her.

\tThe matronly serf didn’t have a malicious bone in her body, and mothered everyone, regardless of rank or age, impartially.  She’d been a great comfort to the young filly from the day her birth-mother had died, and her smile was warm as she murmured, “Thank you, Grella, and good indeed that smells!”

\tGrella clucked in faint disapproval as she deposited a large bowl of oatmeal, loaded with dried cherries and apples, in front of the girl, then added a small saucer with two small honeycakes that must have come out of the oven less than five minutes ago.  “Far too thin you are,” she chided as she turned back to check the larger pot where the field workers’ early lunch was just getting started.  “The same was your mother, but you I’ve gotten at earlier; some meat on your bones I’ll put if it kills me!”

\tLaria restrained herself to an indulgent smile rather than the smirk the notion actually deserved.  She actually ate quite a bit, but so long as she was following the exercise regimen from her bible, it was highly unlikely she’d ever grow fat.  Her slim frame was progressing toward whipcord and bone, her muscles growing ever firmer without getting noticeably larger, for just the sort of compact strength and agility she sought.  Still... the reminder brought to mind one of the warnings from the same book, one about visibly standing out, so she reached for a pitcher of rich cream to add to her cereal.  Perhaps a slight layer of fat might not be so bad... and it certainly gained Grella’s covert approval as she caught the motion out of the corner of her eye.

\tBy the time her citizen finished eating, the serf had brought the cauldron to a low boil and added carrots to start softening, and finished preparing the heap of neatly-cubed potatoes that would soon follow them.  Before she could start on the celery, which would be added at the last minute for its texture, a quiet cough made her look up.

\t“Grella...” Laria half-sighed as she stood and brushed cake-crumbs away, “has Oleron again your people been beating?  Hide the pain well did his face, but on Thurl’s back a mark I saw.  Too thin that mouse’s fur is to hide such.”

\tThe bear stole a half-guilty glance at the young woman, technically the mistress of the house since her mother had died, then straightened up with a sigh, “Yes, ma’am.  But mess not with the likes of him!  ‘tis no more than two, mayhap three times a day that under his lash someone falls.  Sturdy folk we are, and take it we can.  But, young miss!  The way at you he looks...  ‘tis a growing girl you are, and noticed he has.  Out of that one’s reach I’d take worse than a beating to keep my daughters!”

\tLaria strode purposefully over and gave the serf a tight hug that would have scandalized anyone from town, “Like a mother to me you’ve been since last winter... but stand idly by while abused were my mother and her friends, I couldn’t either.”  She relaxed her grip and leaned back to smile at the older woman, one hand busy behind the bear’s back, “Try I must, however hopeless I suspect the effort to be.”

\tGrella nodded, conceding both her motivation and her right as a citizen to do as she pleased, then turned back to the counter as the filly walked away.  Frowning for an entirely different reason, then, she started lifting piles of celery, bowls, even a nearby loaf of bread, searching...  She was sure the knife she’d been about to chop celery with had been right there!

* * *

\tAs quietly as she’d slipped into the stable by the back door, a nicker of greeting sounded almost immediately, and the filly had to smile as she stepped over to the stall.  “Never could I surprise you, Socks,” she chuckled as she reached up to stroke the horse’s nose.  He’d been the last colt thrown by the mare who’d broken her leg in the accident, but he was nearing his full growth, and he’d been hers since the day of his birth.  She’d already been getting a bit large for the aging pony she’d first learned to ride on, and her mother had approved the new match the moment she’d seen his fur, as black as her daughter’s save for the gray socks he’d been unimaginatively named for.

\t“Here now, Miss,” a voice rumbled from the front of the stable, “Try men with two legs before cuddling up with four, shouldn’t you?”

\tA faint smile flickered across her face before she turned, but it had held no humor or kindness.  “To stop and say hello to Socks first, I came, but ‘twas you to meet I meant.  One friendly touch with the more intelligent of you two I needed before deal with your arrant stupidity I must, Oleron.”  His greeting hadn’t been the first piece of mild innuendo he’d thrown her way, but as always she pretended not to know what he could be talking about.

\tThe short, slightly overweight wolf frowned as he padded between the stalls, most of them empty as the horses were already out working the field, “Not your place is it to your betters insult, young woman.  Answer I do to your father alone, but his duties I might assume in disciplining any who rise above themselves if himself he cannot.”

\tLaria stood her ground firmly and shook her head, “Saw I did that ‘discipline’ upon Thurl’s back, and it was about just that which I wished to speak.  Loyal and hard-working are our serfs, and cause for even a harsh word almost never do they give.  Far too fond of your whip are you, and slowed by pain its workers being, the last thing this farm needs.  Aye, diminished my father has been, and know I do that, like the greedy buyers of produce, advantage you’ve taken of it, about ‘discipline’s’ need to lie.  Forget you do that people too are serfs, and their needless suffering I cannot watch for long before consequences must there be.  For you.”

\tMidway through her little speech, Oleron had stopped a few feet away and folded his arms, one lip curling more and more in a sneer.  At her final, implied threat, he blinked once then laughed, “And believe you over me, your father would?  Twelve years I’ve worked here, and good service and good advice I’ve given since barely talk you could.”

\tLaria’s eyes narrowed, “Surprised you might be, what he’d believe.  Never have I lied to him.  Would those twelve years’ stability you’d risk, on the bet that that detail his injury made him forget?  A fool’s bet that would be.”

\tGrudgingly, the wolf nodded; he hadn’t considered it from quite that angle before, and she just might be right... but then another idea occurred to him, and he smiled slowly, “Perhaps... your father we need not involve at all.  Willing I’d be, even eager, to my whip throw away and with words alone the serfs oversee... in trade fair for some... consideration.  Nearly fifteen you are, a woman grown, and for a woman’s duties ready.”  The glaring smirk she gave him in reply was not what he expected.  Incomprehension, perhaps, but what he’d hoped for was fear, for her to retreat with a disbelieving shake of her head even as the growing realization of the inevitability of his conquest showed in her eyes.  Frowning, he took another step forward, reaching for her arm; there was more than one route to the satisfying rush of power over another, after all.

\tThe filly waited until his hand was inches from her arm, then spun away even as her other hand caught his wrist.  A grunt of surprise escaped as he was stopped in place, her grip painfully tight and her arm even stronger than his.  His greater weight, he realized a moment later, could be a countervailing advantage.  Bracing his feet, he started pulling instead of pushing, and if she didn’t let go he’d lift her bodily off the ground, without the leverage to effectively resist.

\tThe hand behind Laria’s back finished unfastening the button of her blouse’s sleeve, the wooden hilt of a kitchen knife dropping into her waiting fingers, and she let herself be almost drawn from her feet before letting go and slashing at his face.  He jerked back in surprise, of course, but she’d expected that, and landed almost exactly the cut she’d aimed for, splitting the pad of his nose open.  Even as he yelped in pain, she brought the blade down again, the flat even with his body as she slipped it between his breeches and his belt.  A quick twist and a tug were all it took to cut that band, and as his pants tangled around his knees she gave him one, simple shove to knock him flat.

\t“Yes,” she mused coldly as she slipped the knife back into her top and fastened the button, “perhaps to my father we should speak.  To see you try I’d like, to explain why in the barn with his daughter and your pants down you were found.  To claim that wanting it I was, difficult might be if cause I had to bloody you.”  Leaning closer as the rumble of other voices neared, several serfs having heard his cry, she whispered fiercely, “And never would you I choose to want.  Far too small are your tits, and a strange and ugly shape is your vagina.  Not my type are you, and never here I was.”  Before the curious serfs could quite make an appearance, she darted back down the aisle and ducked behind the last stall, where she could slip through the door with minimal chance of being seen.

* * *

\tA shout from one of the serfs tending the herb garden between the house and the road made Laria’s and Grella’s heads pop up from where they’d been cleaning the lunch dishes, and the filly grabbed a towel to dry her hands.  She dipped an abbreviated curtsy to her father where he sat, just staring into the hearth-fire as he so often did when nothing more active held his attention, “Da... that traveling merchant it must be, for right the time is for him.  Prepared a bag of fruit and bread for him, I did, as often he stops for road food here.  In good coin and fascinating tales he pays, too.”

\tVarton blinked out of his haze, and nodded with a smile, “Then off you go, lass.”

\tThe grinning sprint of a star-struck teenager, eager to hear of lands beyond her small community, was the purest acting, but very easy given her genuine anticipation and pleasure at the visit.  The somewhat portly vulpine was a familiar sight throughout the entire earldom, always with some trinket or oddity to sell from beneath the tarp over his wagon-bed, and he’d been on the same route for so long that even the fussiest of guards or even inquisitors had stopped bothering to give his wares more than a brief glance.  Even Laria could only guess at what he carried now that he was a known, safe quantity and could do business in earnest as a traveling fence.  “Fresh produce for the road, sir?” she called for the benefit of a few watching serfs as she neared and held up a large canvas sack.

\t“Always!” he grinned jovially, “and ‘tis glad for your fond greeting I am, lovely miss.”  He didn’t miss the subtle signal from the hand holding that bag; amidst the otherwise-firm grip, her middle finger was arched and its tip stroked the cloth, so he added, “Room in my cart I should make for that,” and looped his mule-team’s reins around a horn on the bench to turn and rummage through the nearest bundles under his cart’s tarp.  He’d only been teaching this girl the trade in brief contacts over three years, but he’d been impressed by her judgment and skill ever since they’d met.  He’d shortchanged her father for a new weather vane, and she’d almost managed to pick his pocket of exactly the difference between actual and quoted prices.  If she was signaling that she had something of unusual value, he believed her, and he’d almost certainly need the coin-stash he was digging out.

\tGiving one more girlish giggle for cover, she hefted the bag onto the cart’s foot-rest and murmured, “Candlesticks.  Poor the styling is, so broke one I did to make sure...  Pure silver they are, and twelve pounds they weigh.  Untraceable they are, too, if the simple effort to melt them you make.  My oath to Karnaal you have on this.”

\tThe fence’s eyes widened, “And not a word nor whisper did I hear in Barleyfield.  Damned good you are, young lady.  Half their weight in silver coins I’ll give, and happily.”  It took mere seconds to join six small, dense pouches with a string of strong twine; trades by coins’ weight rather than denomination weren’t common, but still happened often enough to keep a few prepared.  “Here,” he said more loudly as he lifted the finished bundle out of the cart bed, “some tasty sweetmeats did I get from a confectioner in Vivenge, but my teeth they’re starting to make ache.  The lot you can have with my blessing.”

\tLaughing again as she tucked the pouches into her shirt, she practically gushed, “My thanks, Mister!  Luck and prosperity on the road my family wishes you!”  Her voice dropped for a final murmur, “And my thanks, Priest.”  She hadn’t bothered to weigh those pouches, even an estimate by hand, as the merest suggestion that she couldn’t trust him would be taken highly amiss.  If there was one thing The Night’s Embrace made very clear, any thief who worked in His name would deal with scrupulous honesty where their fellow worshipers were concerned.

\tAt his nod and final wave, she headed back for the farm, seeming to notice the black cloth wedged into the fence and flapping in the breeze for the first time as she passed.  With perfect casualness, even a hint of annoyance, she tugged it free and jammed it into a pocket as if the signal that had made him stop in the first place was nothing even remotely special.  Taking up his reins again and giving the mules a flick to get them moving again, he hid another nod of approval for the filly.  Pickings for thieves might not seem very rich, here, but the profit he was taking home right now suggested that such was not the case when someone with her natural talent started looking around.

* * *

\tLaria’s eyes opened in the darkness as her father’s snore finally started, clear and steady through the wall their rooms shared.  She needed no light as she slipped out of bed and rolled back a rug near that wall, finding the knothole in a short floor-plank and poking a finger through to lift it free.  That hidey-hole had held the candlesticks for a few days, and now hid the small fortune (by local standards) she’d gotten for them, along with the proceeds from earlier, smaller thefts, but its contents were somewhat secondary now.  Her bare breasts flattening against the floor, she reached in even farther, marginally past the wall itself, to find and free the board separating this stash from the nearly identical one her father still fondly believed was a secret known only to him.  The small sack she pulled through clinked faintly, and another soft rattle escaped as she tilted it to concentrate the coins it held in one corner, but she knew the sound wouldn’t carry.  Reaching into the bag, she started counting to herself as she picked up each coin to feel and mentally weigh to identify its metal, then dropped it in the other corner of the sack to evaluate the next.  The total was as disappointing as she’d feared; their spring harvest must have gone for no more than a quarter of its fair price if this was what was left after half a summer’s worth of expenses.

\tStifling a sigh at things she couldn’t immediately change, she instead opened one of her own six bags and carefully, quietly poured it into the stash.  That would just about make up the difference, and her father’s memory was problematic enough that he probably wouldn’t even notice when he opened the bag to find just what should have been there.  She’d have to think up another plan soon, though.  One season, only, might pass without comment, but if the farm kept operating as well as ever when they couldn’t have enough money from just what the cheating merchants had paid, someone would start to ask questions.  As she replaced her father’s bag, the board beneath the wall, and her own stash’s lid, a few vague sorts of options filtered through her mind, but all of them had drawbacks.  She needed sleep now, but it wouldn’t be an easy one.  There were still choices to be made, first and foremost among them being just what she’d sacrifice or endure for the man who’d raised her and the serfs who’d been so much a family to her all these years.

Chapter 2

\tA lone traveler on foot was rare enough in this part of the earldom that Stalya took a few basic precautions, making her way in carefully-planned increments with the help of a map that had traveled much farther than she, always by night to keep from spooking anyone at the farms she’d passed.  The border-crossing itself had been the first of those little journeys through the short nights of summer, but also one of the easiest given that the priest who manned the ‘Touch the Wall’ tourist attraction tended to drink himself to sleep with each day’s proceeds.  There were no facilities to host tourists who wanted to linger, so they tended not to once they’d seen the ‘impenetrable’ spiritual wall that she’d simply walked through.

\tScent alone had been enough to tell her when she was close to Barleyfield, the only real town near the border, so she’d called it an early night and caught a quick nap up a tree a hill or two away.  Now, as the sun rose, she  took a moment for a well-balanced stretch on her branch, snagged the pack hanging from another, and climbed down.  It would be nice to have a breakfast that wasn’t grass; it was certainly handy to be a species that could live on that, when she had a long way to travel and no carrying capacity but her own back, but the taste left something to be desired.  She paused with a faint frown as a thought occurred... this was a farming town, not a major city.  She had a rough cloak she could put on over her leathers, but the circlet on her brow would still stand out.  Pulling her small, polished metal shield out of its hiding spot, a concealed slit to its own pouch in the side of her backpack, she used it for a mirror as she reached up toward the finely-wrought links of gold encircling her head.  Its centerpiece appeared to be a large sapphire, but that was simply part of the illusion.  The stones on the edges of the golden circle around that ‘gem’ were real, though, and she touched one twice.  The first time, the metal brightened to silver and the stones, real and otherwise, suddenly looked like garnets, but the second touch settled them as bronze and agates, respectively.  The workmanship was still more than a little on the fine side, understandable enough given its origin, but the equine face distorted by the shield’s curve looked quite a bit more ordinary and unremarkable, now.

\tSlipping her shield back into place and making sure her sword, hilt and scabbard made from what had once been the same piece of wood and with no guard so it looked like a polished stick where it poked out of her pack, could be drawn easily, she donned her cloak and shouldered the pack, then headed back toward the road and the town that lay just out of sight.  There was no proper palisade, just a wooden hut to mark the village’s border and a single, bored-looking guard whose ears perked up just a bit as she neared.  He simply nodded in greeting as she passed, clearly seeing her as more of a momentary break in the tedium of his watch than a threat, and she kept going until she spotted the large inn this sort of town tended to boast.  At harvest time, a great many traders would be visiting, some to buy produce and others to sell the farm-folk whatever they cared to spend their sales’ proceeds on, which explained the large stable and nearly an acre of fenced yard to hold carts and wagons.  That was actually a good sign for her mission; land clearly wasn’t going for any major premium, even here in town, which suggested that a sudden, rapid expansion wouldn’t be held up by greedy landlords.

\tStepping into the inn proper, Stalya checked one more, important detail, the smell of the place, and it was better than she’d expected.  The only thing even mildly objectionable was a bit of dust; the floor of the common room she was stepping into was a bit stained, but the staff obviously had a trick or two to keep spills from stinking, and the scents emerging from the kitchen and rising from the plates of those already gathered for an early breakfast was more than good enough to make up for a bit of common dirt.  An ermine in a low-cut dress and carrying a pitcher paused in her rounds as someone other than one of her regulars stepped in, and the equine asked as she glanced around, “Does this place use an open pot or do I order something from you?”

\tThe wench blinked at that dialect, “A long journey you must have had, by your speech...  Only when busier than this do we put out a pot; porridge or a fine potato chowder I can fetch for you, and of drinks we have almost everything.”

\tThe white ‘horse’ perked up, licking her lips, and replied, “The chowder, please.  I’ve had my fill of plain porridge lately, and anything would be better than the grass I saved money with on the way here.  To drink... well, it’s also been a while since I’ve had a good cider, and a sweet drink goes best with a savory bowl.”

\tNodding, the server paused only to fill one other diner’s cup from her jug, “But a moment it will be, ma’am.  Two local coppers will be the chowder, and a farthing a mug is cider.”

\tStalya nodded back as she settled onto a bench at a sparsely-populated table, still licking her lips, though hopefully no one would realize it was from the way that girl’s bosom had bobbed along with her quick, shallow bow.  Opening the purse hooked to her belt, she fished around for the right coins, making sure of each one’s stamp, even the partial one from the farthing’s former life as part of a whole penny.  Her superiors had only managed to scare up so much Dengarian coin; almost half of what she carried was Drachathian, and she even had a few Atherian marks and one gold imperial from Vivenge.  Carrying any of her own homeland’s currency had been out of the question if she wanted to remain relatively anonymous.  Even the dimmest guard could do basic math, and it wouldn’t be hard to add up her shape, her white fur, a coin stamped with a unicorn, and a circlet that would register on any decent magic detector, right where a horn should be.

* * *

\tIt had taken Laria two days to refine her frustratingly-nebulous ideas into a set of realistic possibilities, then another to think each one through to one or more logical conclusions, depending on just how others’ reactions went.  In the end, it seemed that the plan with the most potential benefit for her extended ‘family’ also involved the greatest personal sacrifice for her.  There really hadn’t been much choice, in the end; Oleron had been shaken and humiliated by their confrontation, but seemed to be gradually losing his fear and gaining a desire for revenge in its place as events faded in immediacy.  It was as much to avoid offering him a target as to get her planned course started that she begged a ride to the next farm from the latest merchant to stop by and cheat her father out of several bushels of good cider apples.  It burned, inside, to have to pretend she didn’t know what he’d just done...  ‘Hard times all over,’ her ass!  The price of those apples hadn’t changed more than two farthings per bushel in the last five years.  Her only real regret as she thanked him and hopped down from the bench, two miles later, was that the ride hadn’t been long enough to get him started rambling about his home and family life; a few details, extracted from such a conversation, might have helped in her planned visit to the man’s house in the near future, but she was confident enough in her own skill to live without.

\tMost of the serfs at work near the farmhouse looked up and nodded or waved, recognizing her as someone the serfs at her own farm always had praise for when they gossiped across the fence.  She returned those greetings graciously, even as she mentally reviewed her proposal’s wording.

\tThis farm’s citizen looked up from his book of accounts as the house-serf who’d answered the door led her into his study, “Well, unexpected this is...”  Looking suddenly worried, the cat leaned forward in his seat, “Your father... alright is he?”

\t“Just fine is Varton, Rellar,” she assured him, privately grateful at the conversational opening he’d left, and she amended that as she took the seat he was gesturing toward and set aside the small pack she’d worn here, “or, as fine as can be.  Heard you have, of our troubles?”

\tRellar looked hesitant... then nodded sadly, “Impossible they seemed, these rumors of cheating, as my friends I’d always thought those men were, all farmers’ friends.  Too many of them, though, have I heard snickering into their ale.  Each visit to the inn, my suspicions has raised just a bit more.”

\t“An offer I have for you,” Laria told him, her expression serious.  “One more time would I like to see my father fooled... by you.”  The feline simply raised both brows, but didn’t immediately object, so she went on, “To buy our farm I’d like you to offer.  Well-convinced the merchants have him, that times hard are; with that emphasized, agree he probably will to eighty castles, and supply the money in cash I will myself.”  It had been centuries since the one-ounce silver coins had been stamped with a picture of an over-proud king’s new palace, but the name had stuck.

\tThe landowner’s eyes widened somewhat; while still only half the price an established, productive farm should cost, that was a lot of money.  The rest of her proposal, as much as he disliked deceiving a friend and neighbor, didn’t sound too disagreeable...  “Afraid to ask, I am, where that much silver you got.  Also... simple your plan sounds.  Too simple.  What have you told me not?”

\tHis guest smiled, “That you thought to ask, proves for this the right one you are.  The source of the money I will not say, save to hint that gone will I be afterwards, so any suspicion upon me alone should fall.  Two conditions only have I...” and her eyes softened, “the first being that my father you take care of.  Understand he will not, the sudden loss of his daughter, but cast out I’d never wish to see him.  His comfort, our serf Grella can see to, and still time to cook have.”

\tRellar nodded, looking sympathetic, “That comfort, and to the cheating an end... these I suspect your true reasons are.  Though it cost you his love, for him you do this, also from love.”

\tLaria nodded sadly, then those deep brown eyes hardened, “And my second condition is that fire Oleron you do.  Understand we both do, that happy serfs the most productive are, but beating them he’s been, more and more of late.  Also, an improper suggestion did he offer me, and very near he came to forcing me when, naturally, decline I did.”

\tA very feline growl rose in the normally-gentle farmer’s throat, and he nodded firmly, “For that alone, your plan I’d follow.  Had he succeeded by force, and word my ears reached, an accident he’d have.”

\tSmiling as things worked out even more perfectly than she’d hoped, the horse leaned down and opened her pack.  Instead of the usual meal or two of food the small, strapped bag typically held, it had only a few muffling rags padding the single large pouch she’d consolidated her one-pound packets into, and it clinked as she set it on the small table by her seat.  “Not all castles these coins are, but a true weight you’ll find.  Treat well my serfs, for loyal to that land they’ve always been.  Pack to leave I will when home I get, and the morning after you visit, gone will I be, never to return.”

* * *

\tThe knock on the door was unexpected, so Stalya took her sword and buckler with her as she moved to answer it, setting them on the washstand to the side of the door where they’d be out of sight while it was open, then lifted the latch.  The owner of the inn was there, looking uncomfortable about the pair of guardsmen with him, “Your pardon I beg, ma’am... but a burglary there was last night, and in town is but one stranger, you.  Check these men must, though in your room all night you’ve been, and told them I did.”

\tThe filly blinked, then nodded and stepped out of the way, “I was planning to leave this very morning, and was still packing, so most of what they’d have to look through is already spread over your fine bed.  That should make things easy for them.”

\tEven as the two soldiers stepped inside, the one with an officer’s brass rather than a trooper’s pips mused, “Foreign we were told you are, and your speech this confirms... but far too light is your fur.  Even in shadows, seen you would have been, so a dead end I suspect this to be.”

\tHis enlisted man nodded as he nudged the folded clothing in her open pack, checking for anything solid without messing up the garments themselves, then looked under the shirts she’d been about to add and the bed’s pillow, then the bed itself.  As he moved to open each of the empty drawers of the inn’s dresser, he shook his head, “Nothin’.  ‘nless the size of that bust the guy was exaggeratin’, and a lot smaller it is, here it ain’t.”

\tThe officer nodded, and bowed, “Our profound apologies you have, ma’am.  Our duty it was, and free to go you are.”

\tSomewhat bemused, Stalya nodded back, “I fully understand duty, good sirs, and I’ve never blamed a soldier for what it requires.  Thank you for not making a mess out of my packing.”

\tAs all three men filed out and closed the door behind them, she had to chuckle to herself at how they’d missed the obvious shield right behind her.  The sword, when sheathed, looked innocent enough that they could be forgiven for overlooking it, but her briefing about Dengar had included warnings about some rather strict limits as to who could own arms and armor, so even that small a buckler should have gotten her into trouble... if the guards hadn’t been so focused on the notion of statuary instead.  The quality and deportment of those guards was one of the things she’d come to evaluate in the first place, so she could only be grateful for the surprise inspection once it had passed.  They certainly seemed adequate, starting an investigation by first eliminating the obvious to thin the herd of suspects, and the brevity of the search had seemed to stem from a desire to keep from infringing on citizens’ basic right to privacy any more than they had to.

\tMoving back to the bed, she resumed her interrupted packing, topping the bundled clothes with a bag of rather dense, but surprisingly soft, bread that would sustain her better (and far more enjoyably) than grass as she moved further into the kingdom.  She still wanted to observe a few of the local farms, just to see what conditions were like for the serfs, and eventually she’d need to talk to the local earl, if not the king.  It would be pleasant to travel by day for a change, now that she’d be moving along the road from a known town rather than sneaking across a border, but it would be even more pleasant if she could start the journey with another bowl of the rich chowder the inn’s kitchen made.  Her belly rumbled at the mere thought as she finally shouldered her pack, sword and shield back in place, and stepped out of the room.

* * *

\tStalya paused, two miles out of town, as something tripped a mental alert from her training and previous experience, and she gazed slowly around, focusing on nothing in particular as she waited for the reaction to clarify... there!  It was a scuff in the road’s dirt that had attracted her attention, and she frowned as she took a closer look.  It was, she realized several moments later, a partial hoofprint, but she could make out the flat indentation of the rear of the shoe, and it was at the wrong angle for anyone coming up or down this road.  Glancing up, she noticed a few bent and broken blades of grass and leaves of other plants, not a stark trail by themselves but certainly leading in the general direction of a small forest.  Someone not following the road had obviously crossed it, and, mostly for her own curiosity, she started quietly slipping through the grass as well, following the trail that grew ever more obvious once she knew it was there to look for.  It was still too early to say whether whoever had made it had been trying to be stealthy, but if they had been they’d done a good job, at least against anyone who hadn’t learned their tracking from the Elite.

\tThe campsite she found in the heart of those woods was a bit more obvious.  A few sticks of well-seasoned wood were still stacked near the remains of what had been an almost smokeless, very hot fire, and no effort had been made to hide or bury a cheap tin frying pan that seemed to have a golden sheen to it, a pair of heavy iron tongs... and the sculpted granite bust of a badger.  The statue was of rather ugly stone, and its eyes had geometric indentations, the various details combining easily into a clear story of just what had happened here.  This was where the thief the guards were after had taken the stolen bust, which had once sported gemstones for eyes and a layer of gilding, but the gold had been melted away, held over the fire with the tongs to drip into the frying pan, then, presumably, poured into something else to cool, harden, and depart.  Trampled brush and broken twigs bespoke where a horse had stood throughout the whole process, and from there the tracks she’d followed south across the road turned west.  A hand held over the remains of the fire could feel warmth without any need to dig through the ashes, so she guessed the burglar to be no more than two hours ahead of her... and horses, unlike bipeds, had to stop to eat rather than take food on the run.  A smile grew on Stalya’s muzzle as she settled into a lope along that trail; this couldn’t compare to the time she’d led a major ambush on a large group of bandits, but it would certainly be more fun than she’d expected to have on her trip west, and capturing a thief along the way could only improve her bargaining position when she met the earl.

* * *

\tSatisfaction still warred with regret as Laria rode west, aiming to skirt another farm before rejoining the road far past where anyone would be searching for tracks.  She’d succeeded in her basic goals; the farm had a new owner, her father no longer in charge so the opportunistic merchants would be disappointed the next time they came to swindle him, while he’d still enjoy a comfortable life, attended by serfs who felt genuine affection for him, under an overseer who hadn’t used his whip in years.  Rumors, likely started by Rellar, had already started to circulate about Oleron, and it was highly unlikely anyone would hire him as more than a basic menial from now on, his high post having been lost in disgrace.  As genuinely good as that all was, she couldn’t help but feel a deep pang whenever she considered the price she’d paid.  Those candlesticks had been safe enough a target when she’d stolen them from an associate of one of the greedy produce-buyers, not someone who’d practiced their deceptions personally, but she’d made herself an obvious target when she’d taken that bust from someone who had.  Rellar could honestly tell people she’d given him the money for the farm, and it wouldn’t change a thing; her disappearance at the same time as the newer burglary had already clarified the situation, and the worst the officials could do would be to confiscate just those eighty castles from her father, which would still leave the farm’s original savings that she’d restocked, not that he had any great need of money in his effective retirement.

\tIt was the separation that was hardest on her...  She truly loved her father, and would miss the stories of his youth that he could still tell with moving detail even if he had trouble naming what he’d had for breakfast by the time lunch rolled around, these days.  For his safety, and despite the pain her departure would cost him, she had to make it a clean break, and that’s why she’d broken several of the rules of successful thievery mentioned in Karnaal’s bible, deliberately burning her metaphorical bridges forever.

\tIt was nearing mid-afternoon when Socks tossed his head and nickered as they passed between two of the large stands or very small forests that dotted the area, and she looked around even as she stroked his mane to calm him.  She had more practice than most, spotting anything that might be out of place very quickly, but for the life of her couldn’t see anything that could cause her horse’s reaction.  It was almost certainly a scent too faint for her own nose to make out, and the sound was very similar to how he usually greeted her before she’d come into view...  Checking Grella’s vegetable knife where it was tucked into the back of her belt, she simply gave her mount another caress and continued onwards, all senses alert.

\tDespite her caution, it came as a complete surprise when a voice murmured conversationally, “Halt.”  As calm as it was, it also sounded quite firm, and the rounded spine of a blade suddenly pressing against her throat seemed like a fairly good reason to obey, Socks stopping almost instantly as he’d been picking his way over some fallen branches anyway.

\tThe creak of another branch drew her eyes upward, and they widened at the sight of a woman dangling amidst the leaves by the grip of crossed ankles, a fold of her cloak caught between her knees to keep it from inverting entirely.  The hand that wasn’t holding a short, oddly-featureless sword reached for another branch, and by that pivot she swung easily down to land, blade still poised to strike.

\t“Thank you,” her fellow equine said with a smile, “for making a dull trip somewhat more interesting.  I don’t know the official procedures around here, but I suppose you should consider yourself under arrest.  As an obvious foreigner, I was questioned about a missing bust this morning... but imagine my surprise when I actually found it, minus its more valuable components.  I happen to have some experience in law enforcement, back home, and I need the best reputation I can cultivate in my brief time here, so I thought a little volunteer work for the local constables couldn’t hurt.”

\tLetting go of the reins and keeping her hands well to her sides, Laria shook her head sadly, “A prisoner you have, and laws I broke... but of justice you will see none when punished I am.  More complicated than it seems, this situation is.”

\t“Perhaps... but perhaps not.  I can see that you have more to say, but it’s just as obvious that both of us know I wouldn’t believe a word from a known criminal.”  She gestured with her sword, “Please, dismount and lead your horse; there’s a small clearing ahead that would serve well as a camping spot, and I’m a bit tired after chasing you all day.  I strongly advise you to cooperate; if you run off, I’ll just have to catch you again, and I will catch you, but I can’t promise you won’t get hurt in the process.  This good an ambush spot is hard to come by.”

\tThe black filly’s mind raced as she considered the situation, but there were really very few options.  This woman’s lazy confidence bespoke a matching competence, and left very little doubt that she could, and would, do exactly as she claimed.  Finally nodding, Laria mentioned, “Toward you I’ll be turning as climb down, and from the back of my belt my knife you may wish to take.  My only weapon, that is, but for your comfort perhaps elsewhere it should be.”

\tHer captor nodded, then blinked as she moved, “A kitchen knife?”  She collected it with her free hand and shook her head, “I’m not sure this even counts...  This country seems to be just a little paranoid about who’s armed with what, but even a serf could have this.”

\tLaria bared her teeth in a gallows grin as she took up Socks’ reins from in front of him, “Tasted the blood of my foe, it has.  A man whose interest I returned not will a scar forever wear, since forcing me he tried.”

\tThe white horse’s gaze softened just the tiniest bit as she nodded, “Then it is a blade worth respect, as is its former bearer.  Please, now, let’s get moving to where I can finally get off of my aching feet for a while.”

* * *

\tBoth equines were surprised by the other one’s equipment as they moved in cautious cooperation to set up a small camp.  What the white one had assumed was a crude sleeproll tied to the back of Socks’ saddle turned out to be a compact, one-person tent, and its owner explained, “On lamb-watch, when pregnant are the sheep but trouble they might have, one less used to rough sleeping than the shepherd a night with the flock might have to spend.  Past is the spring lambing, though; miss the tent they will not, but another they can afford easily, after...”  She broke off and shook her head, “Ma’am, again upon we touch the story you’d believe not from a criminal’s tongue.”

\tThe vigilante nodded even as she took two rolled bundles out of her pack, one a thin, tough blanket she laid out on the ground, and the other unrolled to a surprisingly large sheet of gauze that she draped over a branch above the blanket and turned into a tall, narrow tent of sorts with a few tacks from her backpack’s pocket.  She caught the wide-eyed gaze of her ‘prisoner’ and nodded again, “If you’re thinking this would be useless in the rain... you’d be right, but for summer nights like this it keeps the bloodsuckers off of me, as far as bugs go.  Oh, and you needn’t keep calling me ‘ma’am.’  Only my platoon, back home, did that.  My name is Stalya.”

\t“And Laria mine is,” the younger woman nodded, then blinked and giggled as she realized, “Short of ‘stallion’ by letters one?”

\tStalya rolled her eyes with a faint smile, “It’s not spelled the same, but...  My parents wanted a son, but then I showed up, and they’ve always had very odd senses of humor...  Perhaps that’s one reason I joined the militia; even one letter short, I wanted to show I could compete with the real stallions at their own game.”

\tHer junior was chuckling, though there was understanding in the sound, as she picketed Socks at a low branch with grass beneath and spread some grain for him to eat, then topped it with two fresh carrots from her other saddlebag.  From there she also took a pouch of pre-mixed spices and starch along with several potatoes, dropping both into her small iron pot for convenience as she unhooked her waterskin.  “For dinner, how sounds soup to you?  Cut the potatoes you’ll need to, while the only knife you hold.”

\tOne brow high, the mare shrugged, “It sounds better than the travel-bread I’d been planning on.  Damn, other than that proof I found that you’re a thief, you’re a girl I could really get to like.  I wish I could trust...”  She broke off, then suddenly changed the subject, “Are you religious?”

\tLaria blinked, then nodded with a visible reluctance.

\tBrightening, Stalya asked, “Then I can trust you, with the proper precautions...  Please swear by your God that what I’m about to show you, you’ll keep a secret until I choose to reveal it to others myself.”

\tThe black filly’s confusion started to fade, and she nodded a bit more happily, “Your secret I’ll keep until given away it is by you, in Karnaal’s name.”

\tEven as she fished a small, hinged wooden box out of her pack’s rear pocket, Stalya murmured, “As you probably guessed, I’m not surprised by which God you swore to.  You’re obviously very good, and you’d have gotten away clean if practically any traveler but me had found what little trail you’d left.”  She started working with something very small around her ears, fingertips probing, gripping, pulling, and into the empty little box she dropped a pair of stud earrings and their clasps, their brushed silver almost white, that had been effectively invisible in even short fur.  Next, she touched her right fingertip to the right-hand of the four small ‘agates’ of her circlet’s pendant, canceling its disguise and letting it return to the gold and sapphires it was actually made of.  “This is my secret,” she mused, her voice serious despite the somewhat amusing widening of eyes her companion had suffered when metals and stones had suddenly changed color.  “I’m a scout for a foreign power, here to explore possible treaties and relationships with Dengar as a nation, but... well, the problem is we’re very recognizable, without a little help from a certain wolf I know.”  She lifted the circlet free, the silver wires that had linked it to her earrings, simply to keep it in place on her head even when she’d been hanging upside down, finally coming into view... but so did eleven inches of spiraled, pearlescent ivory as the central ring and its illusory sapphire slid up its length.

\tLaria’s eyes were huge as she stared at the unicorn.  She’d occasionally dreamed of getting to meet one of them, knowing that they were just across that shimmering border she could see in the distant east each night of the new moon when nothing else competed with its faint glow.

\tStalya had to chuckle at the girl’s wonder as she took the shield out of her pack and set it aside, then moved the pack closer to her companion so she could stretch out on the grass, laying her head on the reasonably-comfortable bag of clothes.  “Not many people know just what our horns can do,” she explained.  “They either think them mere decoration, or ascribe all sorts of strange powers to them, such as magically curing poisons or increasing men’s virility,” and she had to roll her eyes at that particular myth.  “They do have certain benefits, though, beyond meaning I’m never really unarmed if I decide to spear someone with the thing...  If someone’s touching my horn, I will always know if they’re lying, or whether they harbor the slightest ill-intent toward me.  Please... touch my horn and tell me this story you’re so certain I won’t believe.”

\tThe black filly hesitated; oh, how she’d wanted to tell someone her tale, someone she could trust, but those legends...  Though she’d never lain with a man, her own fingers, for the last two years, had occasionally been used for things that ran rather counter to the concepts of innocence or virginity.  The part of her that could still think, though, under the wonder and surprise, pointed out to the rest of her mind that she’d just been told that those tales didn’t know everything, so with only a faint hint of nervousness, she sat down nearby and laid her palm on that white forehead, touching the base of the horn, and began, “That understand fully you might, a long way back I’ll have to go...  Eight I’d just turned, in town with my mother while the equinox market we shopped, and a good price on some pretties we’d seemed to get.  Barely had we gotten home, though, when open the bag we did to find that from one brooch the journey had rubbed the gold paint; not even thinly gilded was it!  Remember I did, that merchant’s promise of quality, and realized I did that from us they’d stolen with words alone.  Wished I did to punish such, and obvious to me was the thought to from them steal in return, but useless it would be to try from ignorance and caught be.  Two years did I teach myself with nary a farthing taken.  Watch I would, observe, think, how this price too good seemed to be, how that man his possessions protected.  In the woods I’d wander, practicing stealth until a deer could I touch unseen.  Through the fields I’d run, one hour first, then two, then more, so if chased me did the guards, endurance I’d have.”

\tStalya nodded, her horn and the beginning of her mane each brushing that palm, “For your age, you were obviously a very intelligent young girl.  Almost anyone else would have tried something much sooner, and almost certainly failed and been caught.”

\tLaria giggled ruefully, “Oh, caught I’ve been twice now.  But that first time, for my good turned out to be.”  She went on to explain how, another year after she’d actively started pilfering a few things from those who deserved it, a passing merchant sought shelter from a late-summer storm at their farm.  He’d also sold them a few trinkets and useful items, only to follow it by a shell game of sorts, various denominations of coin kept in several pockets as he made change for the purchase and kept changing his mind about which coins to use.  The filly’s self-tutoring, though, in what things cost and mentally juggling sums quickly, spotted the final shortfall, and even though she’d never before tried to pick a pocket, she made the attempt then.  It wasn’t her fault that the man had had his pockets’ outer rims lined with felt, the stiffly-short fibers aimed to offer more friction against a hand on its way out than one going in.  He’d caught her by the arm, a very strange smile on his face as he turned it palm up while her parents still weren’t watching, the very reason she’d chosen that moment to try, and pried her fingers open to count the coins therein, finding exactly the amount his con game had just earned.

\tTo her vast surprise, he’d simply chuckled almost inaudibly, closed her fingers around the coins again, and told her to check her pony’s stall once he and his cart-mules had left.  That had been how she’d gotten The Night’s Embrace, the forbidden bible of Karnaal, God of Thieves.

\tShe had to gather herself, then, as she moved on to describe the accident just last winter, its immediate cost, and just what had been happening to her farm in just the last few weeks, leading up to her final heist and her present company.  “Assure you I do,” she finished with a hint of injured pride, “that had not a target I’d wanted them to have, though to be tracked so well I expected not, something else I’d have taken, and for days or weeks the loss would have been discovered not.”

\tStalya nodded faintly as she digested the tale, the afternoon sun they’d set up camp to now half-set, “From another kingdom entirely, I’ve heard a distantly similar tale, about a year ago, how someone working for the greater good resorted to some rather nasty means to that end.  You, it seems, are similar...  Yes, you’re a thief, but you leave behind a community that’s much better off for your efforts, save, of course, for a few individuals whose own choices didn’t particularly deserve much goodness in turn, and can certainly afford the loss.”  Sitting up and breaking the spell, though that hand’s protracted touch had hardly been unpleasant to her, she pulled the kitchen knife out of her belt and offered it back, hilt first, “Here.  You’re no longer my prisoner, as it ill-behooves me to punish someone who’s as honorable in her own way as I am, just for protecting her family and friends.  Also,” and she smiled a bit sheepishly, “I seem to have a black thumb where cooking’s concerned...  Even just peeling or slicing potatoes, I’d probably screw something up, so maybe you’d better make the soup you were offering.”

\tThe sudden reversal of her fortunes came as a surprise, even though on one level she knew it shouldn’t have been.  Telling her story to someone who knew it was true could only change things for the better, unless that person was too wicked or callous to let simple truth get in the way of how they’d decreed things must be.  ‘Wicked,’ though, was a concept her young mind rejected utterly when paired with the vision of this beautiful unicorn before her.  “To work I’ll get, if firewood you’ll gather, m—Stalya,” she finally said with a smile.

Chapter 3

\tThe unicorn was as tired from the chase as she’d claimed, and the filly hadn’t gotten much sleep while running away from home with a side-trip to steal that bust, so they’d both curled up in their very-different tents shortly after dinner.  As the sun rose anew, the strangeness of close canvas walls and hard ground, compared to her bed, jerked Laria awake in a near-panic, but the quiet sounds of her new companion also rising served to remind her of where she was, and she slipped back to a lazy half-doze for nearly half an hour before a thump came against the side of her tent.

\t“Wake up, lazybones!  There’s a hole behind your horse’s tree you can use for your morning leak, but I wasn’t planning to stick around here forever.”

\tLaria stretched in place, yawned, kicked the far end of the tent to knock loose one of the two gathered sticks that held it up, and took the other one out as she crawled through the flap.  “A good morning I wish you too, Stalya,” she murmured as she moved first to her saddlebags for a change of clothes and to feed the young stallion his breakfast.  Her ex-captor had obviously had a similar idea; instead of the light leather armor she’d had under her cloak yesterday, she’d already changed to a cream satin blouse and a long maroon skirt, and the younger woman had to mentally kick herself for going back to sleep and missing the chance to peek out from the tent flap while she’d been dressing.

\tWhen she’d gotten back from using the privy hole, yesterday’s shirt and breeches draped over one arm, Stalya was eating some of the journey-bread from her bag, so she fished three large apples out of her own supplies, giving one to Socks and biting into the second herself.  Between bites she straightened out her collapsed tent, folded it in half, and rolled it up, and was just tying it back onto the saddle, her breakfast just a pair of cores discarded where a little light reached so their seeds might eventually make a new tree, when her companion cleared her throat.

\t“You’re running away, with good cause,” the unicorn began, “while I need to go deeper into the holding, too.  This area just west of the border is already prime for the use I’m here to investigate...  It’s good farm land, but not fully utilized, so the Vale would love to establish trade here for the bulk of our food so more of us can focus on art and manufacture.  I still need to feel out the local politicians, though, and make sure that some of the stories we’ve heard about the treatment of serfs are exaggerations, as we couldn’t morally trade with folk who were committing abuses of those who actually worked to make what we’re trading for.  For all these reasons, I think a local guide would be quite useful, so I propose that we keep going on together.”

\tLaria nodded, “Forty miles it is on this road, told me merchants have, to Hallan’s Stand reach.  Unimpressed, the current earl was, to farmland inherit, so always west look his eyes; from the east to enter, very easy I’m told is.”

\tThe mare smirked, “Somehow, I think he’ll change his mind about that with the quantity of produce we’ll be buying...  Speaking of which, though, since you’ve got a good horse I’m thinking that we should stop by one of those farms for a few more supplies.  Just as part of my mission, I’d meant to approach one anyway, but since I can’t carry much I’d been planning to live mostly on grass along the way.  To be honest... I’d rather not.”

\tThis fetched a knowing smile from the younger woman who she was starting to think of as a friend, thief or not, “Well trained is Socks; rider, packs, or cart, comfortable he’ll be, but little did I wish to steal from my old home.  Money I have, and cooking I enjoy, so supplies we shall get, then together to journey on.  The gold and gems from that bust I still need to fence, and to find a buyer my bible tells how.”

\tOne brow quirked, Stalya mused, “Just from curiosity, I’d be interested to see that bible sometime... but I’m guessing you’re restricted in just whom you can show it to.  It might surprise you, given my species, that I’m not actually a Maliite.  My parents were some of the first traders to venture into new lands when the Vale’s border with Drachath was opened, and my mother was already pregnant.  I was born in a small-town inn between Wheathaven and Rajai, and they never got around to promising me to their Lady on my behalf.  My other unique claim to fame is that I was the first girl to enlist in the Vale militia...  I knew what I was good at, as I’d always been something of a tom-stal, and I’m presently a lieutenant in the Elite, a relatively small portion of the overall force, with this mission serving as my test to make captain.”

\tLaria had to chuckle, “A soldier... a good soldier...  No wonder it is, now, that to catch me you managed.”

\tAs the girl turned around and bent over to pick up the pot from last night’s supper, briefly tightening her breeches over her rump, the lieutenant had to think to herself, ‘Oh, I haven’t yet... as much as I’d like to catch that.’

* * *

\tHer illusion-circlet back in place, in its silver and garnet mode to match her lower-upper-class garb, Stalya fought to keep her expression properly regal over her internal amusement as Laria introduced her to the farmer as a foreign investor in a mining operation, scouting out sources of food for her workers and fodder for their draft animals.  The dialect could be hard to follow when the girl started dropping hints that even a slight discount on travel supplies might be remembered favorably when deciding with whom to place larger, future orders, but she caught the gist of it.  That filly might follow Karnaal, not Sliisthar, but it was a potent reminder that even a good thief could benefit from being able to glibly lie their way out of trouble.

\tOnce coins had changed hands and they were leading Socks, now sporting a couple more large bags joined by a rope over his saddle, back toward the road, the unicorn asked, “As much as I enjoy saving money, that was a slightly better price than my best guess at wholesale, and we didn’t exactly get it honestly.  Was there an actual reason for your deception, or do you just like stealing?”

\tLaria shook her head with a chuckle, “Worry not; deserved it he did.  You saw not the serf at the stable.  When Socks I led there to wait while deal we did, on a crutch and in splints the stable-man moved.  Kicked he was by a horse, my guess is, but released from duty he’d have been at my farm.  Not like the overseer who I bloodied is this citizen, as beat his serfs he doesn’t, but a bit more mercy he could show.  Had content and unpained all serfs been, dealt with him more fairly would I have.”

\t“A follower of the God of Thieves... whose own profit is never her first concern.  My country has a bad history with Karnaal’s bunch, as they were stealing our citizens, even our children, before Malia let in Sir Ferrl and his family to find and stop them, but you’re a woman of honor despite your religion.  My superiors may be shocked at the notion, but I think you’re someone I can very much call a friend.”

\tThe filly had to laugh, stepping around to lead Socks from in front as they turned onto the road, “On occasion has my fence asked why more I didn’t steal... but learned well from that bible I did, that things unlikely to be missed the best targets made.  A priest he is, and when my family he cheated our first meeting was, so ‘my’ kind’s common habits I’d already guessed, and knew better than to mention morality I did.  Complain my God has not, though, so reason to change I see not.”

\tStalya nodded with a smile as she stepped up to walk side by side, eyes flicking to watch for danger from long-trained habit, “Definitely friends, then.  It’s not actually as unique as you might think, for fairly decent people to follow the dark side of the pantheon...  That knight I mentioned, who Malia invited through Her Wall, was actually a devout Kathallic.  He’s still a very respected figure, locally, and one of our better wizards; he’s the one who made my circlet and its many-layered illusions, and I was honored to meet him.”

\tNodding her understanding, Laria walked for another few minutes, pondering the journey and her friend’s (and what a concept it was, to be friends with a unicorn) mission, then mentioned, “One small town more, there is between us and the earl, but complain did a merchant lapine; for omnivores or more is the inn’s stew.  Stop in the square should we plan to, from our own bags to have lunch.”

\tThe unicorn grinned, “And that’s exactly the kind of useful advice I appreciate having a local guide for.  Thank you for it, and we shall.”

* * *

\tThe sun had nearly set when they walked through the east gate of Hallan’s Stand, Stalya wearing her cloak again so only the mid-range illusion of her circlet offered any of the cues about social class to observers, and at her friend’s suggestion she made the arrangements at the inn they’d chosen, regarding Socks’ stabling and the storage of their gear, while Laria went to investigate the market square that would still be active for another couple hours by the light of lamps and the occasional torch.

\tShe browsed casually, just another shopper in the evening crowd, until she came across a booth whose table had apparently suffered a cracked leg, bound up in rough cloth to keep it stable... but, through the gaps in the once-white, dirty fabric, she could see a second layer of cloth, and it was black.  Stepping closer, she peered over the evident potter’s clay plates and mugs, murmuring, “Of home these remind me; kin I have that similar dishes make.”

\tThe badger’s eyes narrowed very slightly at her faint emphasis on the word ‘kin,’ and he nodded amiably enough, “More I have, and better, within my shop.  Inside might you care to step?”

\tIt was no surprise when he slid the door’s locking bar closed the moment they were inside, and without a word she reached into her shirt and pulled out the scorched wooden bowl she’d poured the molten gold from that bust into, then produced the pair of rubies from its eyes from a pocket.

\tThe fence turned up a lantern and held up the stones, one by one, to examine in the brighter light, “Very nice these are...  Enormous they are not, but of unflawed stone they are.  Of the gold, nearly an ounce you have, and easy to move it is.  Four grand crowns will I offer.”

\tLaria nodded; four one-ounce coins were a fair deal for gems that would have to pass through at least one more set of hands, at a fair profit, before they could be retailed without suspicion, plus the usual even half-value for raw, precious metal, “A fair bargain you strike, and regret I do that passing through I am, so our only transaction this will be.”

\tHer fellow thief grinned, “Regret it do I, too, if things like this you can... acquire.  One moment I must take to your payment fetch; around you should glance, and something choose to with my compliments take, that the guards wonder not at your visit’s brevity or hands’ emptiness.”

\tHer purse slightly heavier and with a new teacup, basic enough in shape but with a flawless, finely polished white glaze, the filly walked back to the inn, spotting her white-furred friend in the smoky common room easily enough, already enjoying a hearty vegetable stew with fresh bread and butter on the side.

\t“That cup’s... not what I expected you to come back with,” Stalya mused after a sip of cider.  “How did your actual goal turn out?”

\tLaria shrugged, letting just a brief twitch of her muzzle suggest the smile she’d rather have given, and said softly, “Perhaps three coins in ten of fair value I got, but unusual this was not for rubies, as retail them the fence himself cannot.  Content I am with the total, and at an inn like this for weeks it would keep me, were I down to settle, time in plenty to plan my next job.”

\tThe unicorn nodded, looking faintly impressed, “I hadn’t really thought about it... but even with a very God supporting your kind, it’s no great wonder that I haven’t heard more outcry over their activities.  Though you show great skill in the brief times of your actual work, you don’t have to do that work often to live a comfortable life.”

\tHer friend swallowed a quick spoonful of the stew while she spoke, and grabbed a slice of bread to start buttering as she mused back, “Truth there is in that.  Far better it is to, very infrequently, one valuable thing take, than discovery to risk by lesser things pursuing more often.  Knew this I did even before that priest I met.”

\tThe next step in their plans, getting in to see the earl, was clear enough to remain unspoken, so the only bits of conversation once they’d settled in to eat were along the lines of compliments to the inn’s cook and brewmaster.  Stalya did, however, comment as she led the way down the hall to a ground-floor room, “I’m still playing the role of a fairly middle-class citizen, tonight.  In keeping with that, our room has only a single bed, though its size is adequate for two, and I felt it was worth the risk to pay a bit more for the one with a private bathing chamber.  Will any of that be a problem?”

\tThey’d reached the room in question as she’d asked, and the filly shook her head as they stepped inside, “As well as I you play your roles.  Cousins we probably seem to the staff, as vary greatly can equines’ fur even within one family.  Had any other room you asked for, suspicion you might have... raised,” and she hid a wince at the faint delay in her correction.  ‘Aroused’ had occurred as the first logical verb, but in such close context with the concept of sharing a bed she’d had little choice but to make a last-second substitution.

\tThe unicorn nodded, looking a bit relieved, “Good...  I’m glad you don’t have any objection to the situation, particularly since the variety of clothes I brought along for just those ‘roles’ you mentioned meant that I couldn’t pack a night gown.  The privy will see only its assumed use, then, as there’s little point to using it as a changing room if I’ll be stark naked all night anyway.”

\tIt took every ounce of Laria’s self-control to keep from blinking, shivering, or showing any other reaction beyond a normal, conversational tone as she replied, “In an inn we are, warmer even than a tent in summer.  The same way I’d hoped to sleep, as more comfortable it would be, unless offend you nudity might.”

\tStalya nodded, half to herself, as she sat on the bed and started untying the laces of her blouse, but her mind was busy.  There hadn’t been a single word or other event she could specify as an overt clue, but she had a feeling...  Deciding then and there to decisively test her suspicion, she pulled off her top as the corner of her eye paid very close attention to her companion’s face, which flashed through one panting breath to a resolutely-closed muzzle, presumably before she could start to drool.  Turning on the bed to face her directly, she half-whispered, “Laria... I think we’ve both been stepping as carefully around a certain issue as we might through a field of horse-apples.  Along that theme, I have a confession to make... though not, most likely, the one you’re hoping for, or the one I’ve been hoping you hoped for.  There’s a reason that very few people realize my kind’s horns can sense truth or intent, and it’s because allowing someone to touch us there... is an intimacy.  It was an... impropriety, to ask you to, and in effect I forced that intimacy on someone innocent of its implications.  I... enjoyed your touch, and it’s not the only intimacy I’d like to share with you, but for my own honor I must be more open about it this time.”

\tLaria had blinked several times as she spoke, but her smile grew throughout the explanation and offer, and her voice was husky as she replied, “When first that touch you asked, the old legends stark in my mind were, and feared I did that my lack of a hymen would such a touch corrupt.  No man, though, have I been with, merely my own fingers, but thoughts of men, early on, found I unsatisfying.  Flashed in my mind did memories, did glimpses, of baths shared with women grown, of breasts large and small, of hints peeking between thighs’ shadow... and far greater did my pleasure grow.  Advantage of me you took not, as welcome your slightest touch would be, and to force the willing you simply can’t.”  With little ado, she unfastened the ties of her own shirt and breeches, and left them and her ankle boots behind as she moved toward the bed.

\tThe unicorn’s mouth went dry as she watched the girl move, muscle shifting under skin in a way her martial training had given her a great appreciation of.  As might be expected from her athleticism, her breasts were small and pert, but so were Stalya’s own, and she’d never felt any special lust for larger teats.  Still half-disbelieving that she had permission to, her gaze dipped down to the rounded swell of the girl’s equine mound, and she felt her own loins heat as she took in the just-visible edges of protruding, faintly moist labia.  Shaking herself free of their spell as their owner sat down next to her, her neck protesting the angle as her eyes had dragged it along, she hastened to stand up and doff her own skirt and sturdy shoes, tail held slightly to one side once she’d undone the skirt’s tie around its base, and the gasp behind her when she bent over was very satisfying to hear.

\tStalya smiled as she straightened up, admitting, “Just this morning... you bent like that to pick up the pot.  I... enjoyed the view while it lasted, through snug breeches, and my only regret is that it took me so long to put together the clues.  I still can’t say what tipped me off, things were so subtle, even subconscious... but I’m glad we know now, and won’t have to feel guilty about the occasional peek.”

\tRising from the bed, there was mischief under the lust in her voice as the filly pulled her friend into a hug, “Or the peck occasional,” and, some part of her feeling greatly daring, kissed her.

\tHer turquoise eyes sinking closed, the soldier leaned into the thief’s touch, breasts pressing against each other and heads tilting as the ‘peck’ evolved almost immediately into something else entirely, mobile equine lips and thick tongues exploring wetly, four hands roaming two backs and four rumpcheeks.  Stalya leaned slightly forward, her newfound lover following along with the suggestion, and they stepped in unison before the backs of black knees hit the bed and they tumbled onto the sheets with a pair of happy giggles.

\tSomething brushed Laria’s ear as she wriggled in that grasp, and she blinked, reaching out to empty-seeming air... only to encounter the smooth ivory of her friend’s horn.  That circlet, evidently, merely rendered it invisible, and her eyes widened in wonder as she stroked a gentle fingertip down its unseen length.

\t“Ooh,” Stalya nickered huskily, “the intentions I’m picking up from you now... and truth, truth that shines like a diamond...”  Her breath caught in her throat as the other black-furred hand wormed between them, stroking down her belly and over her own mound, and she managed a hissed, “Yes...” and to spread her knees a few inches before the first touch against her inflamed petals rendered speech impossible.  Through that touch at her horn she could feel an echo of her lover’s own wonder as one finger traced the contours of her sex, then two delved gently inwards, and her hips rocked forward to welcome them in.  It had been too long since a woman had touched her like this; her duties and assignments, in the year and change she’d been an officer, had kept her away from the Roxanite temple in Silkmane, the only place where she didn’t need to probe, guess, and suffer the occasional embarrassing rejection to find out if a fellow female shared her tastes.  That passing thought, barely recognizable under the lust fogging her mind, spawned an urge of its own, and she reluctantly pulled away from that upper touch, nuzzling her way down Laria’s neck and chest to wrap her broad lips around one breast, her tongue stroking the rigid nipple between them.

\tThe filly gasped, already in bliss from the fulfillment of so many of her young mind’s fantasies, at that warm muzzle, her back arching even as her fingers bottomed out.  Her free hand stroked wonderingly through the satin-like white mane before her, even as her fingers gently withdrew, the warm evening air seeming starkly cool in contrast to the embrace they’d enjoyed a moment before, and she wasted no time in easing them inwards once more, this time just a bit closer to the stiff, fleshy ridge along the upper reaches of that passage where she knew from her own experience a mare was most sensitive.  The hands behind her moved downwards in response, teasing their way between her rumpcheeks and stroking gently against the protruding bulge of her anus, and even as she reflexively pressed back, she had to force herself to speak, “N-not clean am I, there... the p-privy we should have used.”

\tStalya straightened up to look her in the eyes, “Yes... we should have, and we will next time.”  The fingers between her own thighs had grown still as they spoke, which was the only reason she could speak, “It’s rare enough to find a female lover... but even rarer to find one that likes attention there.  I... I do too.”

\tLaria nodded, more questions rising in her mind, but it wasn’t the right time for them.  Instead, she slipped her fingers free and brought them to her muzzle to taste... and her eyes widened, then shut completely as she suckled them clean.  She’d tasted herself, of course, but as similar as unicorns might be to mundane equines, there was a sweetness and mildness to those juices that bespoke subtle differences.  Unable to resist, she twisted around on the bed to nuzzle between those thighs directly, and they parted in welcome as she wrapped her mobile lips around the faint protrusion of her lover’s mound and immediately licked, firmly and to the limits of her tongue’s reach.

\tThe white mare only barely restrained a full-throated nicker as she was penetrated by that thick tongue, and all she could do for the first long minute was bite her lip and enjoy it.  Her pleasure was rising fast, and she knew just one more bit of stimulation was all it would take... then sought it, taking advantage of her lover’s shift to nuzzle her own way between black thighs, finding the dark-fleshed treasures therein and savoring their scent for the brief instant she could restrain herself before diving in.  That snug passage twitched around her tongue as she swirled it inwards, and before she’d quite bottomed out her own sex did the same, only harder and longer, her breath coming in ragged pants as her peak rolled through her and she did her utmost not to scream.

\tShock and lust warred in Laria’s mind as she felt and tasted her lover’s enjoyment.  Far too many idle fantasies had filled her growing years, but this wasn’t fantasy.  As much as she was enjoying doing the things she’d wistfully dreamed of, it was something else entirely to have those things done to her, and the tongue within her was, almost immediately, causing the sorts of sensations her fingers had managed only with the most slow and careful of build-ups before.  Mindful of her own memories of sensitivity, she eased off a bit as the flesh between her lips winked and dribbled, lapping shallowly and avoiding the upper ridge, but even as she waited for things to settle down so she could dive deep once more, she brought a hand up to start gently, carefully stroking the volcano-shape between white rumpcheeks.  With the earlier talk of the privy, she knew better than to try penetrating it, but it was a thrill in its own right just to touch, and she teased a fingertip at its very pucker as her tongue went back to work in earnest, licking deep and pressing firmly upwards with each withdrawal.  The newly-rising tension in the warm body against hers fueled her own pleasure in ways she’d never imagined, and it wasn’t long before she had to yank her head back and shove her face into the mattress to muffle a cry as her mind seemed to explode with a peak like she’d never known.

\tStalya dipped one hand between her own thighs, the other resuming its teasing of the filly’s twitching anus as she worked fingers and tongue in unison to draw out her lover’s climax and finish her own second one that she’d nearly been to before that talented tongue had to pull away.  That second peak would have been less incandescent than the one she’d gotten purely from another’s fingers and muzzle, but the satisfaction inherent in the pleasure she was eliciting, the taste and scent of a young woman’s liquid joy, more than made up for the over-familiarity of her own fingers’ touch.

\tWhen the unicorn finally withdrew, Laria flopped onto her back and just lay there panting, eyes closed.  She could feel the bed shifting as her lover moved upon it, and when she opened her eyes a minute later, there was Stalya, smiling at her.  “Thank you, dear,” the mare murmured huskily, an echo of her pleasure still in her voice.  “It’s been over a year since I’ve enjoyed that sort of thing, and my mission will be far more pleasant as long as you’re along, and for however long you wish to stay with me after.”

\tThe filly gave a hoarse chuckle, “Me you thank?  My... my first time that was, and better far than I’d imagined.  That like that you could make me feel... that you I could give pleasure... so much better than my fantasies was.  This night I’ll forever treasure.”

\tEyes wide, Stalya could only shake her head in wonder, “You were so certain of your desires... and you carried them out to such good effect, that I’d never have guessed you were truly a virgin, fingers or no, as you were at least as good as some Roxanites I’ve slept with.  We will have to do this again, and for longer, when we’re somewhere with thicker walls than an inn’s, or out camping between towns with no other soul in miles...”

\tDraping one arm across the older woman’s shoulders, the filly pulled her close for another long, slow kiss, then murmured, “With you I’ll stay, for as long as have me you will.  For your asking my heart itself is, and too my body.”

\tThe unicorn smiled, “If we make it to the end of my mission and are still this good of friends, I just might ask for your heart... but not until I’ve finished my duties and checked back in with General Julara.  Too much depends on just where I’m to be sent next, or whether any known follower of Karnaal, however honorable, would be welcome in my homeland.”  She brought up one finger to gently stroke that black, short-furred nose, “All I ask is time... time to find out if it’s even possible to keep you at my side forever, and I can’t promise what I don’t know whether I’ll be able to give.  If the worst occurs, that I’m assigned back home and they deny you entry, then I’ll save up my leave, and, once a year, come back here to find you.  That much, I can promise even now.”

\tGlancing up, Laria reached over to grab the pillows at the head of the bed, feeling disinclined to move from this comfortable embrace, then tugged the far side of the sheet over to cover them both.  “Dreams of unicorns I’ve had,” she whispered, “their grace, their beauty... but better than hope I’d dared, the reality is.  The candles out will burn themselves; all I ask tonight is that hold me you do.”

\tMindful of her invisible horn as she lifted her head to accept the pillow, Stalya relaxed down and smiled, “Gladly, lover,” as she pulled her close.

Chapter 4

\tThe middle-aged feline at the herald’s lectern looked up at the two equines walking closer down the red carpet of the castle’s entrance hall, but his intended greeting was interrupted as one of the guards gestured in hand-code, and the pair flanking the door moved to block it.

\t“Halt!” the detachment’s officer demanded.  “Neither of you do I recognize, and our magic detector you just triggered.”

\tBoth fillies had worn their very finest clothes to this meeting, the unicorn in a silk dress, almost a gown, the exact color of her eyes, and her friend in a white shirt and gray, knee-length skirt, both of fine linen and accented by a borrowed black belt with a silver buckle.  As they halted at a polite distance, Stalya reached up to touch her circlet, “It probably reacted to the illusions in this.”  She moved her finger just a bit, touching the bottom sapphire for several seconds, and the tiny trigger-crystal embedded in her fingertip convinced it to deactivate entirely.  Every eye in the room widened as the air rippled and her horn appeared, “This, though, is reality, which I’ll prove shortly by removing the circlet and stepping through your detector again.  I am here as a representative of my government, with plenipotentiary power, to negotiate a possible third opening in the Wall and some very significant potential trade between our nations.  I’m sure you can understand why I may have wished to be... discreet on my way here.”

\tThe herald shook himself free of surprise first, and nodded, “Been I had, as you neared, about to inform you that near its end morning court is.  Knew that already, you must have, intending a private audience to request.  Send a page I shall to that meeting arrange,” and he caught the eye of one of the two young men in livery on a nearby bench, needing only to give a nod to send the well-trained messenger on his way.

\tStalya had anticipated this sort of initial reception, so had unfastened her earrings before leaving the inn.  Sliding the central ring of the circlet up over her horn, she handed it to the guard lieutenant and, with a gesture to follow her, led Laria back down the hall for a few yards before returning.

\tThe armored lupine nodded as he offered the jewelry back, “One stone only in the ceiling did glow, as the signature of your accreditation it detected, but the second, less sensitive one did not.  Cleared you are for entry if consent the earl should.”

\tNodding, she slipped the circlet back into place but didn’t reactivate its magic, noting, “I hope wearing this as it is isn’t a problem... as I rather like the way it looks on me.”  At a faint giggle of agreement behind her, she indicated the filly with a hand, “This is Laria, a citizen in good standing from a farm-owning family in this very earldom, whom I’ve recruited for her local knowledge, and to proofread any treaties we may draw up as I’m less familiar with the local dialect.”

\tThe wolf chuckled faintly, “Your speech alone, this shows.  As no title has she, a guard too will the meeting attend.  If privacy with the earl you need, step out will she have to.”

\tThey waited for several more minutes with no sign of the maneuvers and decisions everyone knew were taking place behind the scenes, but the page finally returned, bowing, “If follow me you will, ma’am...” just as the rumble of conversation on the other side of the throne room doors started to grow, suggesting that the court was about to make its way out.  Rather than get lost in the rush, both ladies stepped lively down that side-hall.

\tThe equines guessed that it was the earl’s private dining room they were led to; it was tastefully decorated, though fairly minimally, centered around a table that couldn’t seat more than four bodies.  The man already rising to greet them, across that table, was a gray rabbit, common enough in breed but adorned with a silver crown and a cape of shimmering gray satin edged in royal purple, going well with both his fur and his regal bearing, consciousness of his position showing in every nuance of the graceful, shallow bow he offered, and his voice was surprisingly rich as he greeted the unicorn, “Your Excellency...  Welcome you to Hallan’s Stand I do.”  The door behind him was still open, and servants moved back and forth, carrying covered dishes to set on the table while one lingered to set out plates, cups, and gilded silverware.

\tStalya’s brows rose as she curtsied back, “You do me honor, your Grace, but I’m not an ambassador yet.”  She fished a folded sheet of parchment out of her sash and slid it across the table as she took a seat, “I’m an officer in my nation’s military, and thus a diplomatic representative, but on only an ad hoc basis until whatever agreements we come to can be ratified by your king.  This document represents my government’s statement of intent to pursue formal diplomatic relations, and charges me with the initial contact and negotiations, but given our nations’ lack of previous diplomacy I expect none of the prerogatives an actual ambassador would enjoy.”

\tThe earl nodded as he sat down, reaching for the document to break the seal and start reading, “Traveled did I... I traveled to Atheria and Drachath in my teens, and managed to accustom myself to their backwards speech.  If it would make you more comfortable, I’ll do the same this day, though forgive me if I backslide occasionally.  Your entire arrival, to say nothing of what I’ve heard of your proposal so far, has come as a great shock, and I doubt it’s the last surprise I’ll receive today.”

\tChuckling softly, the unicorn rolled her eyes, “Just once I’d like to have a conversation in this kingdom that doesn’t involve any implication that I talk funny... but I suppose we’ll just have to see how things work out.  If I end up staying for any length of time, I’ll start making an effort to habituate myself to the local dialect.”

\tEarl Hallan’s Stand smiled faintly, “I suffered the same complaint, myself, at the more... rural inns my traveling parties occasionally stopped at.  When you combine dialectic differences with a farmer’s rougher speech, frequently we couldn’t understand each other at all.  Now... what is your goal here?”  As he had a free moment in the formalities, he pulled the covers off of a few dishes and started loading his plate; even the most solemn meeting couldn’t change the fact that it was time for lunch.

\t“We unicorns,” she began, “tend to excel at whatever we set our hands to... but the current openings in Malia’s Wall are adjacent to fairly large commercial centers in Atheria and Drachath.  A great deal of our potential is being wasted, simply because of the portion of our population still working on farms.”  She pointed at her circlet, “These sapphires were cut by one of the better jewelers I’ve ever met, but he has to treat it as a hobby, spending most of his day raising beets and turnips.  He’s still a unicorn, so they’re very good beets and turnips, but he shouldn’t have to grow them himself.  Thus, we’d like to create a third route into the Vale, at the point you already have a tourist attraction at, and see the farms around Barleyfield expand, with us as their biggest customers.  I passed through that community on my way here, as the larger part of my mission is simply to determine the feasibility of the rest of my proposal, and I was favorably impressed by what I saw.”

\tThe rabbit nodded and swallowed a bite, “We have two more major clusters of farms in the earldom, north and south, but they focus more on raising meat animals.  Barleyfield is our finest supplier of grain and vegetables, including most of what went into this meal here.  Please, help yourself if either of you need refreshment.”

\t“Thank you, but we ate before coming here.  Still, that smells like an excellent vintage in your own glass, so I’ll have just a sip or two I suppose...”  At his inviting nod, she poured a half-serving of wine into the glass the servant had set out for her then glanced to her friend, who shook her head, before going on, “Another aspect of my investigations was to make sure that the serfs who actually work those farms were being well-treated, and for the most part what I saw was acceptable.  Our other two trading partners both practice the institution of slavery, so we’re obviously not too picky, but even in those kingdoms we keep an eye out to make sure that abuses are kept to a minimum, with punishments that fit the transgression.  I personally heard of a serf overseer being fired for beating serfs who’d committed no crime, which is part of the positive impression I carried with me from my journey, but I also encountered one instance where a stable attendant was being required to work while a broken leg was still healing.  I believe that the only real condition of any potential treaties would be to see legislation put in place to prevent that sort of thing in the future.”

\tThe rabbit nodded again as he thought that through, “There are land owners with the lamentable habit of driving their serfs to the limits of their endurance... and some of them have influence at the highest levels, and they’d resist any notion of treating ‘mere serfs’ as valued employees rather than livestock that can follow simple orders.  The economic implications of your proposal, though, simply cannot be understated.  I will have to write a letter of introduction, including a recommendation of support, to the king himself, so no lesser functionary gets in your way to let their narrower world-view interfere.  The economic booms in Drachath and Atheria have not gone unnoticed, and I’d be but the first beneficiary of the increased trade and the taxes it will bring.  The king himself, of course, will get the lion’s share, so the first priority will be to make sure he realizes it.”  He tilted his head, then, giving her a somewhat odd look as he dropped back to his native dialect, “Or, perhaps, the second priority it will be.  The first, of course, must this test be; a seeming unicorn arrives, and high status claims, while of illusion magic in possession.  A way to tell for sure the legends offer.”

\tStalya paused, midway through her second sip of wine, then spat it back into the glass as she realized what he must be hinting at, “The legends... are just that, legends!  Stories!  They were made up by bards with too much time on their hands when none of my kind were seen for nearly a thousand years!  If you think my horn means I’m immune to poison, you’re in for a disappointment, and a great deal of trouble when I fail to report.  Your misplaced belief may have just guaranteed that no traders but an army crosses the Wall, seeking vengeance.”  A sudden wave of dizziness washed over her, and she had to grab the table to keep her balance.

\tLaria, behind her, reflexively moved to catch her, only to be restrained by a strong grip on her shoulder.  “Don’t,” the guard said, simply and firmly.

\tThe earl looked like he was starting to realize the extent of the mistake he’d just made, his tone half-conciliatory as he mused, “I don’t think you had enough to kill you outright...  The other half of the dose was on your plate, after all, and you had just the one sip of wine, but I’m told it’s fairly powerful stuff.”  As one guest looked on with fury in her eyes and the other’s mouth worked soundlessly before she collapsed against the table, spilling her wine, he told the guard, “The high-security cell in the basement they’re to be taken to.  The other guards and the herald, that they were never here you’re to tell.  Their next emissary, with surprise we’ll greet, negotiations from there to begin anew.”

\tThe soldier nodded, shifting his grip to both of the filly’s arms as she started to struggle, and his boot thumped twice at the door to summon the hall guards and help him carry and drag the prisoners out.

\tLaria kept up her ineffective struggles as she was led deeper into the castle, her mind racing.  There was an audible wheeze to the breath of the body two guards carried, right behind her, but at least she was breathing, and that’s all that kept the filly from collapsing in grief then and there.  They were approaching a stairwell, running both up and down, and it would probably lead to the promised jail... but just ahead, a half-open door cast a brighter wedge of light on the carpet than the lamps lining the hallway did, and she gathered her strength as they got closer.  Her ‘struggles’ had seemed frenzied enough, but that was just to fool the guard into underestimating her; just as they were about to turn to go downstairs, she twisted her arms’ full strength against the man’s thumbs, the weakest part of any grip, and burst from a slow tread to a full sprint, heading for that light.  A pair of maids shrieked as the door to the guest room burst open with a loud bang against the wall, but she didn’t even slow; dodging the chair in front of the room’s mirror, she hit the window full-speed, arms in front of her face to protect it as the glass shattered.

\tEven as the guards’ cries rose behind her, she stole a glance down and curled up into an aerial ball, wincing in anticipation, before hitting the hard stones of the street.  Something snapped with the impact, her right arm suddenly on fire with agony... but there were no pedestrians or other guards there to stop her, the window having faced the alley between two walled, upper-class estates, and she sprinted down that path to freedom with all her might.

* * *

\tHeltan finished moving his booth’s wares into the shop proper, hefted the pack of things his real customers had sold him that day, and locked the door.  It had been a reasonable day, if not as good as the one before when that young filly had turned up with some seriously impressive swag, and he was looking forward to a good book and a few mugs of ale back at his ugly-looking home, though the comforts inside would surprise anyone who’d seen its shabby exterior.  He was only two streets away from the market square when a hiss from an alley made him pause.

\t“Kin...  Sanctuary!”

\tHe winced in involuntary sympathy with the sheer pain in that quiet voice, and stepped closer, only barely restraining an exclamation as that very filly he’d been thinking about stepped out of the shadows, a pack dangling from one hand while her other arm was held close, its wrist clearly broken.

\tThe badger nodded, joining her in the alley as he murmured, “Follow me.  Not far it is to the temple...  Just who to piss off did you manage?  Not in ‘work clothes’ do you seem to be...”

\t“Not at work I was,” that pained voice replied.  “A companion I have... had.  The first unicorn emissary to Dengar, she was.  Meeting the earl we were, but unsure of her claims he was.  Too many stories has he read; to ‘test her claim,’ poison her he did, and imprison me as an inconvenient witness he tried to.”

\tHeltan winced, “Above my head, this is...  Politics we try to avoid, but kin you are, and sanctuary your right is.”  He paused at the back door of a tavern and knocked a rapid, staccato pattern that was missing a crucial beat somewhere in the middle.  A board slid aside to show a pair of eyes behind a slit, and he said simply, “Sanctuary, with injury.”

\tLocks rattled as the door opened, a black mink standing out of the way, his back to the former entrance of the actual tavern, now a brick wall.  On the other side, a well-lit staircase led down, and Laria stepped inside and moved down on her own.  It was unsurprising when the fence didn’t follow; he had his own business to attend to, and minimal inconvenience to others was another of the principles of kinship outlined in the bible.

\tThe filly found herself explaining her situation again to the local high priest while an acolyte set and splinted her wrist, the former’s pendant of a fist around a coin gleaming golden in the spacious, well-lit temple far underground.  Just wearing that necklace in public, in practically any city in the world, would see him arrested by the first guard to spot it, she knew.

\t“Bribed the stableboy I did, after our stuff I’d fetched,” she concluded her tale.  “Our bulkier bags in the loft he’ll hide, and my horse he’ll move from stall to stall each day.”

\tThe vulpine priest nodded, “Praiseworthy skill and judgment you’ve shown, in your escape, in the swag your fence passed on, and in your precautions.  Vanished from the earl’s eyes you have... but what then?  In the politics of the situation the church cannot involve itself, so limited is the aid we can offer.”

\tIn response, Laria pulled the ‘stick’ from her salvaged pack, set it on the table between them, then fished around in a deep, hidden pocket for the crystal given to her by the first priest she’d ever met.  It was glowing.  “Know what this is, you do,” she observed, “but this...” and she set the stone down to grip the stick with her good hand, her thumb pressing up to bare an inch of blade.  “The unicorn’s sword this is, and what magic it has I know not.  If into the castle I can sneak, though, and into her hands get this... perhaps a chance we’ll both have.”

\tThe fox tilted his head, considering, then asked, “And what cause have you to go there at all?  Local help, you said she described you as.  Whatever its magic, worth a great deal that sword probably is, and to live comfortably for years it might let you.”

\tBefore the filly could voice the angry retort his suggestion deserved, a voice that was no voice at all interrupted, its tone smooth, almost oily, as it seeped into both souls, *Forget My teachings, you do.  Bad for business is war, and if disappear the unicorn does, for revenge will her people march.  Great My kin’s losses were, the last time for vengeance the barrier they crossed.  Would that you see again come to pass?*

\tThere was no mistaking that voice...  Though she’d never expected to, Laria had just heard her very God.  Even as the priest bowed his head in penitent acknowledgment, she said softly, “To your question answer... love my cause is.  Just last night, my very first lover she became, and friends we were before.  My life I’d rather lose than her.”

\tHe may have been a thief, and a priest, but at his core the man was still a fox, and he had to smile, “Imagine I can...  Not for thin tongues are equines known, and good at what they do it’s said unicorns are.”  Straightening, he nodded firmly, “Help you I can.  Some drugs we have, that your pain might distract you not, and which guard to bribe we know.  As far as the basement storeroom that could get you; from there, on your own you’ll be.”

\tThe filly nodded, her young face deadly serious, “Far enough that will be.  By Karnaal I swear, free will I see her or trying I’ll die.”

* * *

\tOne of the side-effects of the narcotic-laced shot of brandy the acolyte who’d patched her up, clearly the temple’s medic, gave her was that everything seemed preternaturally bright as she eased her way down the stairs.  To guess, it had left her eyes dilated to their most sensitive, and she also surmised that some thieves used it to better see in the dark; she was certainly getting more detail out of the dimly-lit basement’s environs than she was used to, so perhaps it was worth the slight light-headedness the drug also caused.

\tThe corrupt guard’s standard bribe, just to have a chat with a ‘random’ passer-by while facing away from the door he presided over, had been three of her four grand crowns, or over half her total funds including her savings in silver.  So far, it seemed to have been worth it; the earl was no king, having only so many guards to go around, and with every entrance to the castle already watched, there was no need to waste another soldier at the door between the storerooms and the dungeon proper, commonly used by servants bringing prisoners their meals.  Had it been any cell but the high-security one that she needed to get to, the rescue would have been far simpler, as the standard cells had heavily-barred, ground-level windows that a sword and a copy of the cell doors’ standard key could be slipped through...  More than one thief had let themselves out with that sort of help.  As things actually were, though, Laria forced herself to move slowly and logically, oiling the heavy hinges of the servants’ door and its latch as well, then spreading a pouch of clean sand on the floor before opening it with no squeals, no scrapes, just a hiss even she could barely hear.

\tEven this long after midnight, the room the short hallway she was in opened into had several lanterns burning, and she could hear a man’s breathing right around the corner.  She could also see four cells, very little light making it to their far walls, but it was enough to spot which one didn’t have an even darker half-circle near the ceiling.  On that one’s crude bench a white form, still wearing her turquoise dress, tossed restlessly with the after-effects of whatever that poison had done to her.  There was a larger bucket next to the usual chamberpot on the cell floor, and the air was flavored with a hint of vomit.

\tLaria closed her eyes for a long moment, throttling the rage that woke at thoughts of how her lover had been treated.  When she could control herself again, she eased her way along the wall on the side the breathing was coming from.  It wasn’t quite steady enough to suggest that the guard was asleep, and she paused, pondering...  That confrontation with Oleron had been the closest thing she’d ever had to a serious fight, but she knew there was a big difference between humiliating a bully and taking down an armed, armored, combat-trained soldier, and she pummeled her mind, trying to think up some way... only to notice, later than she probably should have, that the restless shifting had stopped.  A stab of panic shot through her at the thought that her friend had finally succumbed to the poison as she stared, then realized... the unicorn’s eyes were open, and they were looking right at her.  She couldn’t see that face well enough to be certain, but somehow she knew that it was smiling.  Reaching over her shoulder, she pulled the sheathed sword out of the back of her black shirt, and those distant eyes widened, then narrowed as the filly mimed a glance toward the guard she couldn’t see and shrugged.

\tStalya was a bit unsteady as she half-rolled off of the bench, catching herself on one hand and painfully levering herself up to a kneel.  She’d never been so sick in her life as when she’d first woken up after passing out in the earl’s dining room.  The hours since then had alternated between restless nightmares and waking to throw up again, first the inn’s fine breakfast then mere acid and bile, and it had taken a long moment to realize she wasn’t simply dreaming again when she’d spotted that dark, familiar figure in the hall’s shadows.  It was almost impossible to believe, that Laria was here but not a prisoner herself, and when the horse had held up her own sword, her heart seemed like it would burst.  Ruthlessly, she crushed her surging joy and forced herself to think along the tactical lines she’d been trained in...  Obviously, the girl needed a distraction.  Several rather unfeasible plans flitted through her mind, and she finally had to settle on the simplest.  Staggering to her feet, she stepped over to the door and reached through the bars, humming softly to herself as her fingers moved as if she were holding a lockpick.

\tThe half-awake guard blinked, then rumbled, “Hey now, stop that and the pick drop!” as he started across the room, drawing his sword.

\tTucking the sword back into her shirt, Laria waited until his third long stride, then rushed from behind and leapt.  She struck him hard enough to stagger even his weight, wrapping her bad arm around his throat, but before his free hand could come up to pull it away, the kitchen knife in her good hand came around, just over the neckline of his chainmail shirt, and both bodies tumbled to the ground as she stabbed through at least one carotid artery and his very neckbone’s soft cartilage.  The filly wrinkled her nose as she climbed back to her feet; the pants his nerveless hindside had just filled with shit didn’t exactly improve the smell of the jail, but she ignored it as unimportant as she padded the rest of the way over and passed her lover her sword without a word.

\tStalya’s voice was a bit rough from stomach acids as she whispered, “Thank you!”  The brief commotion hadn’t woken either of the prisoners occupying two of the regular cells, and she didn’t want to risk changing that now, as they just might try to buy some clemency for their own crimes by calling for other guards.  The sword half-unsheathed, she paused and asked, “Is there a quick way out of here?  This is likely to be a little loud...”

\tHer lover nodded jerkily, “To a storeroom the door I came through leads, and a stair outside it has.  Beyond that one guard is, but bribed he’s been, so a bit slow giving chase he might be.  A short sprint it is to the keep’s side gate... fit to run are you?”

\tThat lovely face twisted in a grimace, “I’ll have to be...  I could really use another day or two of rest, but in the Elite we’re trained to ignore our bodies’ complaints at need, to do what must be done.  Get ready to run, and I’ll be right behind you.”  Drawing her sword the rest of the way, she slipped the slim blade between the door and the wall, took a two-handed grip and a deep breath to gather her focus, then swung straight down with all her might.  Iron clanged in protest as the sharp folded steel cut right through the tongue of the lock, and to her satisfaction the black filly was already running for the hall as the door swung open, and she sheathed her sword as she followed along.

\tThey were halfway through the storeroom when the prisoners the noise had woken up spotted the guard in a pool of blood and started screaming, and they hardly slowed as the outer door Laria had left not quite latched banged open.  A surprised snort came from the side as the mentioned guard jerked out of his half-doze, and they’d nearly reached the outer gate before he started ringing his alarm bell and yelling, “Jailbreak!  Prisoners escaping!”

\tBy then it was too late.  In peacetime, the night guards were few and far between, and it would take at least a minute for enough to gather to pursue with the numerical advantage standing orders dictated.  That didn’t keep them from trying, of course; five minutes after they’d stopped there, a force of at least half a dozen marched in double-time past the refuse bin the equines had hidden behind, set into a nook in the wall of one of the well-off estates.

\tOnce the sound of boots had faded, Stalya turned to gaze upon her savior, arms spreading for a hug, then froze as she spotted her splinted wrist.  “You’re hurt,” she whispered.  “What happened?”

\tLaria could only smile, despite the painkillers that chose that moment to start wearing off, her wrist throbbing, “At that meeting... not my place it was to speak, so my warning you misunderstood.  Declining wine I was not; trying to keep you from drinking it, I was.  Unconscious you were when a break for it I made...”  She giggled despite the pain, “Quite a break it was, when through a window I went.  My wrist I broke too when the street I hit, but see to our stuff at the inn I first did, then my fence to find and the hidden temple be guided to.  Told me they did how to get in, who to bribe, and the rest you know.”

\tNodding solemnly, and mindful of that wrist, the unicorn pulled her into the embrace she never thought she’d share again, whispering, “Thank you...  It doesn’t say enough, but it’s all I can say.  During one of my more lucid moments, I heard the earl discussing me with the guards... and I think they were going to kill me, since the poison hadn’t, just to support the claim that they’d never seen me, to any other unicorn who came looking.  We need to get out of this city...  I think we should head for Dengaria and the king, as the treaty’s more important than one foolish noble who’d heard too many tales as a child.”

\tThe filly nodded her agreement, “Wake up the stableboy we shall, for the supplies he hid, and out the east gate we can sneak before dawn, then work our way around we can.  Cheaper the bribes at the gate than at the castle are, so afford them I still can.”

\tGlancing out from their hiding spot, there were no guards in view that Stalya could spot, but there was a narrower alley that she thought led the right way, so she nodded and stood up, “Good.  Once we’ve both had some rest and I’m not feeling so queasy... I’ll really thank you, by at least doubling what we did last night.  Eat your veggies on the way, dear, because you’re going to need the energy...  Even before that, though, let me know whenever you just need a hug.  You killed a man, tonight... and that’s never easy to live with.”

\tSwallowing hard, Laria managed a faint smile, “Perhaps trauma I should pretend, if to touch me it urges you...”

Chapter 5

\tThe earl’s official influence ended five miles west of his holding’s seat, set near the border as it was, but the couple kept to as deep of wilderness as they could find until reaching the far side of the neighboring barony, just in case their descriptions had reached that far.  That brought them to the Duchy of Dengaria, a title held by the king where he ruled from the city of the same name.  The guards and inquisitors, there, considered themselves separate from, and above, those of the lesser holdings, so once more the mismatched equines traveled openly, an upper-class foreigner and her local guide.

\tIt took nearly two weeks to reach the capitol proper, but at least they’d been able to stop at the duchy’s first major city and find a healer for Laria’s wrist.  Even with periodic stops to change some of Stalya’s outkingdom coins for local, both their purses were a bit light as they entered Dengaria, the circlet packed up and the gate-guards staring openly at the unicorn’s horn.  Their only stop on the way to the palace was to find a stable for Socks and storage for their packs, though they didn’t bother seeking lodging.  Instead, her sword tucked into her sash, Stalya strode through the public entrance and up to the junior herald guarding the door to the outer gathering hall short of the throne room proper.

\t“I need to see the highest kingdom official you’ll let me,” she told the man, “with a Truthstone or mage present, on inter-governmental business.  I’d like for the king to attend, too, as I have a treaty to propose, but,” and she gestured at her horn with a faint smile, “I’ll understand if you decline on that point, as it’s impossible to call any unicorn ‘unarmed.’  At the very least, the king should be informed that Unicorn Vale is seeking diplomatic relations.”

\tThe herald nodded and extended a hand, “What I can do, I’ll see...  Your credentials, please?”

\tStalya shook her head, “That’s why I asked for the Truthstone.  I first visited another noble in this kingdom, as the proposed treaty affected his holding the most, but... there was a misunderstanding that you’d very much want magical confirmation of when I explain it.  He had my accreditation and plenipotentiary document, but trying to get it back when I left without his leave was... contraindicated.”

\tSeveral nearby guards looked nervous at that admission, but the experienced (it would have been impolite, however accurate, to call him jaded) functionary simply nodded again then turned to the senior end of the bench of waiting pages, “A guest room this one is to be given, that that weapon in her belt she might leave behind, while a meeting I arrange.”  He glanced briefly at the other equine, then addressed the pair more directly, “Your local guide I assume that to be, by her garb.  Checked for weapons she’ll be too if attend in your company she does, but welcome enough she’ll be in case misunderstandings you need her to clarify.  Three hours or more it will take me to a meeting arrange, and another page I’ll send when a firm time we have, that prepare you might.”

\tThe room the senior page led them to was, as might be expected in the king’s palace, fairly luxurious.  Without their luggage, though, very little of the fine furniture was of any use to the pair.  As the door closed and she looked around, Laria suggested, “Three hours, the herald said... though just in case, in two we should be ready.  Still, time that leaves us, so a thought I had.”  She gestured at the doorway to the room’s attached bathroom, “The privy we should use, then this most comfortable bed make use of, and finally a bath to take with none the wiser save the maid the sheets are changed by.”

\tHer innocent, even boring, expression and tone failed utterly to fool her friend, and Stalya simply smiled and turned around, “Untie me, please?” with a gesture at her gown’s back.

\tThree minutes later the water-flushed privy’s tank was refilling from the roof cistern, and two naked bodies mock-wrestled on the finely-embroidered bedspread.  They’d had time, comfort, and privacy enough to make love perhaps one night in four since leaving Hallan’s Stand, but the novelty still hadn’t worn off; despite knowing full well that she had permission, even welcome, to touch or taste just about any part of the pale, athletic body squirming in her grip, Laria still felt daring with every ‘liberty’ she took, and thrillingly naughty to look at a bit of private flesh and, instead of simply dream wistfully of it, reach out and touch it.  Of course, her lover was hardly passive in the matter, so the parallels with her fantasies hit a snag every time white fingers or pink tongue sought out her sensitive places in return.  The wrestling match, punctuated by yips and giggles, finally settled down to the position they’d both found most convenient and comfortable when a soft mattress was available, on their sides with muzzles between each others’ thighs.

\tAs much fun as their very first time together had been, subtle shifts as they learned each other better were gradually making it even better; for instance, Stalya now knew exactly where to put her mobile lips to not simply enfold, but squeeze and part, her lover’s mound, easing her thick tongue’s entry into a passage that had never known a stallion’s girth and was still pleasantly snug, and when she swirled it around the sides, gathering flavorful nectar, the point of contact was just that much more distinct and pleasurable to her lover.  As soon as those walls started to tremble under her tongue’s caress, she slipped a finger past her own lips to gather a bit of slickness then, very lightly, stroke its tip in a tiny circle around the furless central pucker of the bud between her rumpcheeks.

\tAs light as it was, that first extra touch made Laria’s sex clench, not just quiver, and she gasped happily against the treasures at her own muzzle.  That pleasure... was practically forbidden, at least by omission; other than a very few, exceptionally dirty jokes she hadn’t been supposed to hear, it was never even spoken of as a possibility where she’d grown up.  The last time they’d made love had also been the first time she’d penetrated the unicorn there, with just a single finger to the second knuckle, but there was one detail that even the mare didn’t know...  She’d guarded that finger from rubbing on anything afterwards until she could, with a certain trepidation, test the ‘it’s okay so long as we’re clean’ concept by tasting it.  The slickness of an empty rectum, to her surprise, had not actually had an objectionable flavor, so her plans this afternoon took a slightly different track than her lover was probably expecting...

\tOne finger eased between those pale pink labia peeking out from pure white fur, followed by a second, then a tightly-grouped third, and as a group they twisted back and forth as they sank deeper, spreading the sweet slickness of the flesh surrounding them, then shifted to a straight, rhythmic thrusting, the dip between two of those digits cupping the sides of the unicorn’s clitoral ridge and stroking it, slowly and affectionately, with each penetration or withdrawal.  This left her muzzle free for other things, and she eased it back, lipping at rumpfur in passing until she found the bulge she sought.  Her lips held very loosely around it, she gave it two slow licks to make sure everything was properly moist, then pressed her blunt tongue’s tip against the very center and, slowly but firmly, pushed.

\tStalya’s eyes fluttered open, her tongue losing its rhythm as she gasped, and it was all she could do to simply lip at the treasures before her as she felt herself being stretched open.  That tongue was thicker, and smoother, than any finger, and even with her marginally greater experience she’d never felt quite its like... but it was good.  Her anus twinged reflexively at the unaccustomed penetration, but she forced it to relax, giving a low moan of appreciation to encourage her lover before finally diving back into her sex tongue-first.  Just to return the favor, her own finger started pressing a bit more firmly into the dark brown flesh where black fur ended around the filly’s own pucker, though that single digit was all she intended to use, and it teased mainly at the outermost, sensitive crinkles for nearly a minute before the pressure finally allowed just her first knuckle to slip in.

\tRhythm on both sides was intermittent at best, both equines having to pause now and then to let another surge of pleasure roll through them before tension could arise anew... and neither forgot the pressure of time.  The air was heated, infused with scents of lust, and the bedspread quite moist in several spots, when they finally pulled away with a few last, wistful licks at droplets and dribbles, and both women giggled around their own fingers as they watched the other suckle themselves clean.  “That bath should we have,” Laria spoke first.  “The boiler we’ll heat not; to cool off we need, and the window we should open lest that page with the smell we surprise.”

\tStalya chuckled, nodding as she moved to examine the window, finding several of the small panes were hinged, but none would provide enough of an opening for a body to climb through.  She nodded to herself; that made sense, for security, though her mood switched promptly to amusement as she saw what looked like a gardener staring at her standing naked in the window.  She gave him a jaunty little wave, opened a few panes to let fresh air in, and headed back to where her lover was already filling the tub with lukewarm water from the sun-heated cistern, the tub more than large enough for both of them.  Naturally, they completely failed to behave themselves in the water, but they didn’t make too much of a mess, and were reasonably clean by the end.

\tProperly dressed again, they occupied themselves with some of the books provided for guests’ entertainment, punctuated by the occasional snort or mutter of, “Foolishness!” since Stalya had found a collection of legends about unicorns.  Eventually, about three and a half hours after the meeting with the herald and late enough that they were starting to wonder about supper, a knock came on the door.

\tA junior page was accompanied by a palace guard sergeant, the former bowing, “Now will the officials see you.  Guide you to them I will.”

\tThe room they were led to was... faintly ominous.  A shallow, curved table faced a single large chair with a polished green hemisphere of jade on each armrest, but those arms also had rings embedded to support ropes or straps.  Flanking the door they’d come through were several tiers of benches, currently empty.  It looked like a formal tribunal chamber, and the judicial branch of the kingdom’s government being called ‘inquisitors’ wasn’t particularly comforting a thought in that setting.  Four guards stood against the far wall, the page and his escort not having remained, and the table was occupied by a muscular, lupine priest of Tarragh, a slim vixen in a mage’s robe, and a well-dressed stallion with no visible indication of rank or role.

\t“A High Inquisitor, maybe even Grand, I think he is,” Laria murmured softly.  “Careful you be.”  At her lover’s reassuring nod, the filly retreated to one of the lower-most benches.

\tAs the unicorn settled into the chair and laid her palms on the stones, the priest spoke first, “Aware are you... that your companion a follower of Karnaal is?”

\tStalya nodded, her expression serious, “Yes, and I’ve talked to her about it.  Unicorns have no need of Truthstones, under the right circumstances.  Her hand was on my horn as she told me a reasonably comprehensive version of her life’s story, and no one can successfully lie with that touch, should the unicorn permit it.  Thus I can tell you, honestly enough for your own Truthstones to verify, that she’s never stolen anything from someone who didn’t deserve it.  Thief she may be, but she has honor.”

\tWolf and horse glanced to the vixen, all six eyes a bit wide, but the mage could only nod to verify that the stones were working perfectly as they stayed a steady green.

\tThe palomino equine spoke next, “Your name, your rank, and your mission tell us now.”

\t“I am Lieutenant Stalya of the New Unicorn Vale Militia Elite.  In context, the last word was more important than the my strict rank; the Elite are not a standard military unit, and anyone accepted into them as even a private would make an above-average officer in any more conventional chain of command.  I am charged to evaluate your kingdom, specifically the portion around the town of Barleyfield in the Earldom of Hallan’s Stand, to determine whether we could trade with them for food in bulk, thus allowing many of our own artisans who must presently work in fields to feed our nation to instead return to their more specialized tasks.  This evaluation, the area passed.  The farms are productive, there’s more good land to expand them onto, and the serfs, generally, are treated well enough that moral issues shouldn’t cloud the matter, though after seeing one man required to work while still in pain from an injury, I must place the condition of new legislation, guaranteeing a certain fairness in when and how serfs are required to work, upon any formal treaties we may come up with.  That is the last piece of my mission; to, if the other conditions are met, seek diplomatic relations with your nation and an agreement to allow a new opening in Malia’s Wall on your border through which to conduct trade.”

\tNone of the three showed any overt emotion or other reaction, and the wolf asked, “Of what nature your... disagreement with one of our nobles was?”

\t“Earl Hallan’s Stand heard too many stories as he was growing up.  In the room I was assigned, here, I think I found exactly the book he referred to, ascribing frankly ridiculous powers to unicorns and their horns.  Under the misconception that unicorns were immune to poison, and by his admission, he decided to test whether I was a ‘real’ unicorn, and the glass and plate provided for my refreshments were coated in a deadly poison.  I’d had only one sip of wine when he revealed that fact, which proved too mild a dose to kill me, but I was rendered unconscious and I was very ill when I awoke in a cell of his jail.  I saw and heard him, later, discussing my case with some of his guards, and the topic was ways to make it seem like I’d never been there and they’d never seen me, so they could pretend ignorance if and when any other unicorn came looking for me.  I cannot say for certain without upsetting your Truthstones, as he was careful about his wording, but I believe his implied intent was that I should be murdered and my body disposed of.”

\tBrows high, the horse across the table asked, “And escape you did how?  Alive you obviously are...”

\tStalya lifted one hand to gesture at the filly behind her, but returned it to its stone before she replied, “Laria and I had only recently become lovers... but our affection was true, and strong.  She swore on her God that she’d see me free or die trying.  With the help of her criminal contacts, she penetrated the castle and killed the one guard watching me that late at night.  She’d brought that seeming ‘stick’ that was in my belt, which is actually a short sword of the world’s finest folded steel, with which I cut the iron lock of my cell.  Only two other swords its like exist to the best of my knowledge, and they’re carried by someone whose name you might recognize... Brigadier General Dame Elaria of the New Unicorn Vale Militia Elite.”

\tHis two companions frowning faintly, there was instead a faint smile on the stallion’s face.  “Know that name indeed, we do... though promoted she’s been since last we heard.  The highest politics of Dengar... unusual are.  Below the ranks of duke or Grand Inquisitor, few the king’s identity know.”  He half-bowed across the table, “King Juraniel I, I am.  Ten years past is the scandal with Elaria and Talaya, and two years after did fruit it bear, and from power the old king did fall.”  Glancing to his companions, his voice was firm as he instructed, “And fall too shall the earl.  Treaty or no, ambassador or no, beyond the bounds of politeness with any diplomat did he step, sheer stupidity from, and to cover his faults compound the crime he did.”

\tThe priest rumbled, “Agreed.  A lack of honor he’s shown, and unfit for his post he is.”

\tThe vixen finally spoke up in a surprisingly melodious voice, “The truth she’s spoken, and when speculations she offered, name them she did.  Her testimony I accept.”

\tTurning back to his guest, the king was smiling again, “Long have I sought, myself, basic protections the serfs to give, and close I’ve come, but always a vote or two short I’ve been.  The economic implications of the trade you seek, those votes might finally buy.  Document or no, diplomat or no, by decree as ambassador I recognize you.  Noble ranks your nation uses not, but suffice your military standing will while my backing you have.”

\tFaintly flushed, Stalya bowed her head in gratitude, “Thank you, your Majesty.  My next promotion was contingent on this mission’s success, so when the dust settles I’ll be a captain, which may further comfort those nobles who don’t know how the Elite works, and might take exception to a ‘mere’ lieutenant as a diplomat.”

\tThe king nodded once more, then raised his voice slightly, “Citizen Laria.  Approach and the chair take.”

\tBoth ladies blinked, but the unicorn gave her friend an encouraging smile as they passed each other to trade seats.

\tThe priest’s voice was serious as he asked, “Killed a guard, your companion said you did.  Two questions have I... necessary was it, and kill him how did you?”

\tSettling her faintly-sweaty palms on the Truthstones, the filly thought for a long moment before answering, “Necessary in the context of my oath it was.  To disable a man in armor, I have the strength not, yet my love’s freedom I could not attain while live he did.  Seen me she had, but he hadn’t, so pretend to pick the lock she did, to his attention attract.  My wrist I’d earlier broken, escaping when to arrest me the earl tried, as a witness most inconvenient I’d have been.  For the guard’s back I leapt, my bad arm around his throat grabbing, and my good hand through his neck a kitchen knife stabbed.  He suffered not.”  She couldn’t see, of course, how Stalya’s eyes widened, then clenched shut around sudden tears, as she called her ‘my love,’ not ‘my lover,’ without a hint of reaction from the Truthstones.

\tA hint of respect showed in the wolf’s eyes as he turned to the king, “Ambiguous the situation our law makes...  ‘Defense of others’ I’d call this, as illegal the imprisonment was so official sanction covered it not.”

\tThe horse nodded, then asked, “And how of the unicorn’s intent feel you, for serfs’ rights?”

\t“Her opinion and mine the same are,” Laria replied without hesitation.  “Twice has that knife tasted blood, and an overseer who whipped serfs without cause the first time was.  He lives, but a scar he’ll forever have, and his job he has not, as my final gift to the farm where grew up I did.  Complex and sad is that tale, and matter not to the kingdom at large does it, but to that community to return it would for me unwise be.”

\tSmiling faintly, the king mused, “Perhaps... but perhaps not.  A champion will the serfs need, when passed is the new law.  The rank of High Inquisitor I grant you.  If reaches our ears does word of any fresh abuse, see to it you will, with what skills you have.  Rumors will I see spread, that citizens know... if mistreat their serfs they have, and if from their homes things start disappearing, a warning should they consider it to be.  If those warnings they heed not, sterner action may you take, in proportion to their abuse, up to the taking of their lives if just you think it to be.”

\tEyes very wide at his decree and suggestions, the filly could only nod, “My thanks you have, your Majesty, and my good service I pledge.”

\tNodding absently, the king touched something under the edge of his side of the table then turned his chair half-around.  A moment later one of the rear doors opened and a bull with the badge of the seneschal and finer clothes than his monarch entered.  “A modest but defensible building near the palace you must find,” his liege directed.  “From crown funds purchase it, and a bonus in compensation for the inconvenience you may pay its present tenants, but within two days do I want it available, suitably furnished, to as the Unicorn Embassy serve.  To them will it be deeded, and their territory will it be.”  He glanced back to the ladies, both looking a bit shocked by the pace of events, “Your government you may contact, by magic if such you have, by royal courier if recognition signals you can give, or in person if needed.  Your guest room you may keep until prepared the embassy is, or if travel you must then ready by your return will it be.”

\tStalya stood up from the bench and bowed deeply, “I do have a means of communicating with them... but, to avoid the sort of attention I might have gotten by carrying powerful magic with me, along the way here, it’s limited to one fairly short conversation.  Wagons of good building and paving stones and the masons to lay them, though, have been waiting for weeks just out of sight across the Wall, and they will get to work on the border crossing and improving the local roads for high-volume trade by tomorrow morning.  You have my and my government’s thanks for your quick and realistic grasp of the opportunities we offer, and I look forward to a long and rewarding relationship between our nations.”

\t“On behalf of all Dengar, my thanks you have as well, for letting not one fool two nations’ interests taint,” the king bowed back from his seat.  “Release you I do, and within an hour a page will to court supper call you both.”

* * *

\tSettling onto the bed, Stalya drew her sword and set it on the bedspread that had been changed during their meeting, the base of its hilt touching the tip of its scabbard, a combination that would never occur during normal use.

\t“Anyone else would get a stiff lecture about interrupting my supper,” a feminine voice sounded from thin air a moment later, “but I’ve been looking forward to your contact for days now.  Report, Lieutenant.”

\t“Mission accomplished, General.  We have no specific treaty, yet, but we have the king’s personal agreement to enact legislation to correct the only, minor flaws I found in the local situation, he’s formally recognized me as ambassador despite losing my documentation along the way, and he just ordered his seneschal to find a good building for our embassy and buy it for us out of the crown’s private funds.  Unless you order otherwise, I will accept that post, and on a personal level I ask that you let me if I can be spared from other duties, because I found someone along the way who would be... less than popular in the Vale, for religious reasons, but I love her anyway.”

\tLaria’s jaw dropped at the words she’d never expected to hear, and she wept with joy as she hugged her friend from behind, burying her face in that so-soft mane.

\tThe rabbit at the other end of the magical link could hear the other woman’s reaction, and her voice was surprisingly gentle as she replied simply, “Request granted, Captain Stalya.  Expect the arrival of your embassy staff within two weeks, and may your new job and new love both bring you joy.”

\tThe volume of that projected speech was already starting to fade slightly as the limited power in the hidden crystals began to run out, so the mare didn’t waste time wiping her own misty eyes before replying, “Thank you, ma’am, and goodbye.”  She nudged her scabbard to end the spell, then twisted in Laria’s grasp to hug her back, murmuring, “I’ve met some soldiers for other nations, and one of them taught me an old saying...  It doesn’t apply to my militia, as we’re too small to be entirely conventional, but it went like this...  Privates can’t marry, sergeants may marry, and captains must marry.”  She leaned back to lift the filly’s gaze with a hand at her chin, “Whether I must or not... will you marry me?  Any local Roxanite priest will happily perform the ceremony for the asking, I’m sure.”

\tSmiling tremulously, there was only one thing she could say to that...  “My heart, for the asking I told you was yours.  Ask you did, so forever it shall you have, my captain.”

\tStalya giggled at the emphasis, “Let’s not go playing games with rank, High Inquisitor!  Still... this whole situation reminds me of other events.  A supposedly evil man solved and stopped a minor atrocity, a girl your age killed a king before he could drive his country to ruin, and here we have you, a thief making sure serfs all over Dengar see a better tomorrow...  I may have to send a few discreet letters, as it might be useful to the entire world, in the long run, to organize people like us, who work for the good of the common man, whatever it takes, not just in ways that are legal.  Do you think you could do something like that?  If you get word of some sort of ‘abuse,’ even if it’s not against the serfs, by someone who conventional law enforcement cannot touch, would you steal or kill to stop them?”

\tWiping her eyes on a sleeve, Laria’s expression was serious as she nodded, “Know I would you do.  Quote old words I can too.  ‘For evil to triumph, but nothing the good need to do.’  This... organization, simple would our oath and mission be, to turn a blind eye not.”

\tThe unicorn nodded as she moved to re-sheathe her sword and set it aside, “It will take months, possibly years, to contact everyone with similar attitudes and the skills to make a difference, and quite a few governments too, as it wouldn’t hurt to have royal pardons waiting if we have to break laws to do good... but it can all wait ‘til later.  We need, in this order, to have supper with the local nobility, fetch the rest of our gear from storage, and, first thing in the morning, get married.”

\tHer fiancée smiled broadly, “Know I do, how a ring to weave from strands two or three from tails like ours.  Would you my blackness wear, while the touch of your white I savor?”

\tStalya’s eyes were misting up again as she nodded happily at the suggestion, “We’ll have to see if some wizard or other craftsman knows how to make that sort of thing durable and permanent... because a ring like that would mean far, far more to me than gold or diamonds.  I’d never take it off.”

\t“Promise that not, love!” Laria giggled.  “Awkward it would be, should slip off it does when inside me your fingers are!  And about that to think I shouldn’t, or to dinner we’ll never get.”

\tChuckling, the unicorn hugged her once more as she nodded, “Good point, oh wise little thief... who stole my heart.”

The End

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