20 comments/ 82558 views/ 100 favorites A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 01 By: TaLtos6 ***I had wanted to write a special piece for my 100th posting. It began simply enough, as most of my poor offerings do, with an idea and me sitting down to begin. Well, I liked it so much that I just kept going, and it's turned into something far more than I'd ever envisioned. So here I am, and instead of my 100th posting being the tale that I had in mind, it's going to have to be the prologue for it. Just a word to readers though; by all means invest in the characters, but this spans a tortured globe and there are many, so if the focus leaves some that you like for a while, most of them make other appearances before the end. Be advised though that life here is still a contact sport, and not everyone makes it to the end alive. Looking back, I'm a little surprised at the range of character types that have found their way into this, so if you're not a fan of one sort, keep going, I've probably got something that you like in one of my characters, lol. I have tied a few places and historical events into this, but only as signposts in a work of fiction and fantasy. This tale is set on Earth some four hundred years from now, but technology has crumbled away for the most part, though it still exists after a fashion here and there and I've tried not to paint you a bleak post-apocalyptic world. Instead, I offer a view at a world that is recovering and has become a green place once more where some surprising creatures thrive. The technology changes from one group to the next, but we're mostly back to hack and slash - or swashbuckling, if you like that better. If you like to think in terms of couples, then this might be looked at as several tales, but it works toward the final end always. Where I've left a couple for a time to move the others ahead, I've tried as much as I could to do it so that I could read it myself and apply a 'The End' right at that point for that pair or group, so that it didn't feel to me to be hanging. 0_o ----------------------- Prologue The telling of it wasn't like one of those tales which begin along the lines of "Once upon a time." That's how fairy tales begin, and fairy tales usually have at least something of a happy ending for someone. This began more like a war story, and a lot of those start something like, "So there I was..." Either way, things changed markedly for mankind and their fellow travelers on the spinning ball known as Earth after a set of events some four hundred years ago now. Astronomers had long predicted the arrival of a comet and that if there wasn't an actual collision between, then it would be a very near thing indeed. As it happened, it was the very near thing. Everything on Earth - every plant and tree, every living organism and inanimate object, travels at over thirteen thousand miles per hour as the planet hurtles along through its orbit. Since it's been going on for longer than any of us have been alive and it never changes, we don't notice it, having no nearby points of reference anyway. We're all conceived as the result of a hopefully happy act of sex somewhere, we live our lives and then we pass on -- all while traveling at that same constant velocity the whole time. On that fateful day as the comet passed by the Earth, there was enough of an impact in terms of the gravitational pull of a large object hurtling by only a few thousand miles away that it was felt on Earth as a shift which resulted in the loss of over a billion and a half of its human inhabitant's lives. It was something like living on a table where someone had suddenly moved the tablecloth back and forth once. It wasn't like an earthquake and given the mass of the planet, it wasn't even a very large shift, though some of the effects were the same; it just moved several inches in one direction and then back again to roughly the same spot a few seconds later. But compared to that slight and small shift, the most violent earthquake would be thought of as gentle. With the shift, the tectonic plates on which we all live moved a little and from that, the real earthquakes began seconds afterward and the aftershocks went on for weeks. The majority of the world's buildings didn't survive it. One sixth of its human population didn't survive the first week either. Tsunamis occurred all over the world anywhere from minutes to hours afterward. The loss was incalculable. And that was only the beginning. The state of the world's weather systems changed somewhat, though they did return more or less to normal within a few years. But societies were upset by the effect, the social order evaporated in many places as billions of people everywhere sought to go on living in a world where, for example, the economies faltered and failed, diseases such as cholera ran rampant and unchecked in places where they had been considered eradicated for so long. Wars began over dwindling food and petroleum stocks. Billions more starved. And the global pandemic so long predicted chose that time to come to pass as well. But that hadn't been the only thing changed. It was as though the shift had caused something else to change. Man came into contact with creatures which were, up to that point thought to be the products of the imaginations of writers and storytellers. There really were elves, it seemed, all manner of them. It caused a few issues, since to them, we were the ones who had made a sudden appearance and not the other way around. Though most of the breeds considered mankind to be a collection of benign dolts who were to be humored if one was feeling charitable, there was one type which gave humans a reason to avoid them at all costs, showing humans all that they needed to know about why the Drow ought to be left alone. It happened seldom that dark elves ventured forth on the surface of the world at night, but the mere sight of one usually meant that one's death was not far off, because if one of them had allowed themselves to be seen, it almost always indicated that their being seen was unavoidable and quick murder was the remedy for that. Other creatures appeared with the elves, and though it was a stretch, we all called those ones goblins. But there was more to come. Other races from other worlds began to appear over time. In the case of two of them, it was a rather eventless thing, since for the most part, they left humanity alone. Beset with all sorts of ever-changing problems, humankind couldn't even come up with an appropriate name for them which we could all agree on. We just called them demons. It was a little odd, given that they weren't particularly malicious to us. It was just the word used most often because that was how the things looked to us, and so it just stuck. There was a third race which also made its appearance, and the trouble was that it was almost impossible for humans to tell one kind from the other. Most people thought they were the same thing. But where one was slightly benevolent or just ignored us, the other was murderous to humans wherever they appeared, howling and raging as though completely mad, most of them. All of this changed many things. What had once been a commerce-driven world reverted rather quickly backward, skipping the industrial phase altogether and becoming an agrarian one again. Very few people manufactured things now, since there was no way to distribute the products, and there was no longer any form of universally accepted currency, other than base metals, gold, silver and copper. The horse experienced a re-emergence as the most valuable asset that many people could have. Man was back to being a tiller of the land to keep himself and his family alive, since the next step was to go back to being a hunter-gatherer once more. But all of that had occurred over four centuries ago now. The much-humbled and reduced human race was still struggling to stay alive. In a place somewhere in what had once been the American Mid-West, for example, the mess had gone on now for two days. Almost all of the humans in the town were dead, the few remaining alive had hidden themselves in places where few of the demons would think to look -- or perhaps it was because their bloodlust was nearly sated. Arriving here unwanted and full of fear, the twenty-seven individuals had looked around themselves and felt their madness rising. None had wanted to be here. None had done anything but mind their own business on the plane where they belonged. Suddenly, they were here, and the humans had attacked them on sight out of fear. It all brought out their rage. It summoned the madness from within them all. After seeing the first of their kind fall to the arrows, it pushed them over the edge. They were close enough to it anyway. All that was left now was a ruined village. A few of the demons were fucking mindlessly in the street here and there, since it seemed to be the only thing left for them to do. A slightly older female looked off into the distance and saw a dark speck out there. She wasn't certain, but it seemed to be getting larger. She looked away, wanting only a little fresh meat and a place to sleep. She'd think things through tomorrow after resting. She had no idea where to go or which direction she ought to travel in, but that didn't matter anymore, did it? She was here -- far from her home and her family. She walked off down the street, stopping to look down at the still-warm body of a young human male. She smelled their blood everywhere, but this one couldn't have been dead for more than a few minutes. They tasted best to her like that, not that they tasted all that appetizing to begin with, but it was an easy meal. She grunted and figured that she ought to eat, so she tore a little of his flesh off and began to eat it while she thought. While she was at it, she saw his genitals and had another passing thought, remembering her male back home. Back home. It was a concept that she'd now have to struggle with, doubting that she'd never see him again. She crouched and began to gorge. She had no idea where she might find fresh food after this. After a few minutes, she felt the hopeful advances of a male as he ran his fingers over her sex from behind a little roughly. She looked back, her eyes gleaming at him. He looked good enough, she thought. Maybe they could pair up as they traveled, looking for a way out of this insanity. At least as a pair, he'd be strong enough to keep the rest off her ass. He looked big enough and he seemed to be a little older too. That likely meant that he knew the value of a female like herself and the way that she could make him feel. So why not? She asked herself the question and had no answer against it. She was alone here with a pack of strangers. They were her kind but she didn't know any of them. She could do as she wanted. She was already wet for him, and if he stayed with her they might stay alive a little longer. She took it as a good sign and nodded to him that she accepted him. He was obviously a successful male if he'd lived this long. She shifted to position herself a little better for his access and moved her tail aside as she raised her hips for him. The motion brought her face close to the warm body before her. She groaned as she felt herself being mounted and she lowered her face against the meat there. She opened her mouth and chewed off the soft bits of this dead one's masculinity, hurrying to get it down before her want rose any higher. She knew that she'd be too busy bucking back as she howled to want to eat any more. At least she had this for the moment, she thought as she felt her lust rising. This male knew a thing or two about doing this. She could tell and he felt so thick and hard inside of her. She listened to the soft slap of his hips against her bottom and felt the weight of his balls as they nudged her with every stroke. Her breath hissed in and out through her teeth. So good. She was vaguely aware of the screams of a few of her kind from behind her. They sounded a little odd, but then they'd all been shrieking their lungs out in their blood fever, hadn't they? She grunted as she pushed back, getting into the feeling now. She really hoped that this male would keep her. She liked him already. But the screams grew louder and before she could grow alarmed over it, her new male stood behind her, thrusting once before he stopped. She wondered about it. He couldn't have finished this quickly, could he? But then he was gone -- out of her and she heard him fall. She spun her head around and saw a stranger. He was tall and he wore clothes, so he must be one of the humans. She felt her anger at being interrupted rising like steam inside her. She didn't think about just how this one had killed the male, she just knew that she hated him. She drew her arm back and bared her teeth. But then everything went black and she felt herself slowly drifting home. --------------------- Shaevre was awakened by a crew member very politely. It surprised her a little, being a far cry from the manner that she was a little more used to in her previous career. Back then, it had been 'hurry up and wait', a lot of getting prepared for something which usually ended up as a hell of a lot of waiting, endless stretches of boredom punctuated by heart--pounding, ear-splitting, tendon-snapping periods of what amounted to sanctioned murder on a large scale. Back then, she remembered -- and not all that fondly, it was sleep whenever you could, and if they needed you, the best wake-up that you could hope for was a nudge against your foot and when you opened one eye, it was to see who it was that you wanted to kill for waking you if this was someone's idea of fun. But it usually wasn't. Most often, it was somebody barking that your section was next. You'd yawn then, and it would be your turn to wake your group, give them about three minutes to check their gear and then it was time to bellow yourself, hustling them forward to the ramp with a loud "Eyes open, ears up, and nobody forget their count! You'll need them for payday. You're paid for what you kill, so guns up!" She stretched and nodded as she got up from her seat, "How long until we disembark?" "You've got over one period, fighter. Lots of time to come forward and have a hot drink with the flight crew. This one's a beauty to see on the way in and it's not to be missed. Don't worry, we're light on this run for passengers. There's only you to drop here," he smiled a little wolfishly, and she returned the grin. "This run's mostly just a resupply drop for us, one skiff-load down and back up," he said, "What are you going to be doing here, if I can ask it?" She shrugged, "My first duty assignment contract. I have to pull security on the Merren outpost, but there's a bonus in it and I get light duty rotation out of it. There's one of their rangers here and he has a little one." She smirked, "I get to be her bodyguard. I really hope she's not one of the more exalted ones. I've got no patience for those shits and their kids can't be better can they? It's a living, I guess," she said. "You're not long out on the roads," he said, "Everything about you says military service. What unit, if the memory isn't too fresh?" "Forty-third EB, First company," she said as he guided her forward, "Section lead, Meg gunners, plus a few specialties." The crewman stared, "You're a Death hound then." She nodded, "I've only been out for half a cycle. There's not much fighting these days, and even a Death hound's got to eat. That's why I'm working the Diplomatic Corps now." She looked down curiously at the pawed hand that he offered, but she returned the handshake. "I've only ever met one before," he nodded with a little bow, "and you're far better looking. It's a bit of an honor for me to meet you." "Thank you," she smiled, "But I consider it an honor to still be breathing. It kept me fed, but I've got a little hearing damage on the left side from wearing a communicator and it's a little worse on the right from the noise of the barrels and the ejection port. I'm just starting to have dreams where I'm not lugging the thing around everywhere anymore. Now if I can just have one dream with a nice male in it where I don't hear that fucking gun scream when he opens his mouth to speak to me, I'll be happy." He led her farther forward and she was shown to a jump seat on the flight deck and it felt really nice to her that they'd show her this much consideration. Back home, nobody gave much of a fuck if you were a veteran, unless the news was full of doom and gloom and the possibility of an invasion. Then you were popular, she smirked to herself. After getting belted in, she saw the night side of the world that she'd hired on to live on for the next while. From here, it didn't look all that much different from any of the other shitholes that she'd been sent to. Then again, this time she wasn't going down to fight. That was a big plus for her right there. She looked over at the form in the other jump seat across the aisle from her and her jaw began to drop. It was her overall commander, Arrax. He was ex-mil as well after a distinguished career as an old Death hound himself, though he'd been long out of the unit during her time. Still, he'd been a walking legend to her then, she'd read everything that there was published about him. She'd just never thought that he'd be this ... ruggedly attractive to see him in the fur. "It's a lot better-looking on the light side," he smiled to her, "and you may close your pretty mouth, fighter, "he grinned, "Though I can say that it's an honor to still get looks like that these days. I thought that you'd like a look at the place as we come around for the low orbit descent," he said, "You'll be here for a while, I think, not that the duty befits someone like you. But I know the ranger here and I've met the girl. You won't have any trouble." Just them, they came above the horizon and she gasped, staring, "It's so ... blue and shiny, like a plaything, a --" "The human children here call them marbles," the commander said, "this view gets to me every time." "A big shiny blue, ... marble," she said a little uncertainly. "You'll see that it's a lot greener lower down," he smiled. As she rode the skiff down to the planet, she saw that Arrax had been right. There was beauty everywhere that she looked and where it was green, it was almost green enough to hurt. As they rolled over the top of the low mountain, she could see the outpost up ahead. It looked well cared-for and she heaved a sigh of relief. Some of the Merren outposts that her kind staffed for them had to man the walls day and night to keep whatever was outside -- outside. That didn't look as though it was going to be an issue here. As the shapely ex-fighter bent to shoulder her bag of gear, he noticed the looks that she got from the crew members on the ramp and smiled. He had the same thoughts as they did, and he found himself wondering a little. But then he tossed the notion and smirked to himself. With her background and experience, Shaevre could eat these males for breakfast and not in a good way. He liked her a great deal and she looked so good to him as she stood tall and adjusted her gear on her shoulder and picked up her bag. She was muscled and her coat shone in the daylight of this world all the way down her long legs to where her clawed feet gripped the decking a little. Aside from the memory of the bitch that he'd loved so much long ago, Shaevre was the most lovely Xer that he'd ever seen. "Will you be staying long, Commander?" she asked, trying not to look too hopeful. Sadly, no," he said, "I'll only be here until they offload the supplies and then I must go. That will leave me about enough time to make an appearance and scare the shit out of the worthless turds which pass for a Xer contingent here." He sighed with a smile, "I love my job." A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 01 ----------------------- Cha'Khah Dreile opened her eyes, choking in the dust left behind from the explosion. Her chest felt as though it was on fire and all things considered, she felt lucky to be still able to draw breath at all. Her ribs felt as though she'd been thrown against a boulder or, perhaps it had been the other way around. She wasn't sure anymore. With the innate ability of her kind, she looked around in the dusty darkness for her companions. Their 'guide' was there, bent over someone who it had had been her duty to guard and report on. The mage was injured, hurt by the very blast that he'd decided to help along. The guide was administering aid of a kind that the Drow female was unfamiliar with, never having seen anything like it before. It was said that the mysterious male was a visitor who'd journeyed to the underground Drow city to seek teaching in magic. That alone should have brought him nothing more than his own death for the impertinence of the request -- at best. At worst, it should have brought him only a lifetime in slavery -- especially if he'd been human. But that wasn't what he was -- at least not completely, and he'd arrived looking like something else which had intrigued the matron of House Dreile enough to grant his request, assigning him to the Lesser Mage Vadren to be taught, while it had been his task to try to find out more about the stranger. It had fallen to Cha'Khah to report on them both. She was the commander of the detachment of Dreile soldiers assigned to his small mansion anyway. But an odd thing had happened one evening. As different from him as they were, and as distrustful as they naturally were of each other, the two Drow -- the cruel and ruthless young female fighter and the youthful and secretly very proficient and powerful male mage both harbored deep disillusionment over their roles and fates in Drow society. Cha'Khah was a blooded and proven fighter and had a bit of uncharacteristic magical ability for a female -- especially one who hadn't been chosen for clerical training due to her low birth and distant relation to the matron of the family. But she'd always been the sort to make the most of the cards that she'd been dealt and it showed. Her ability with any sort of weapon surpassed that of the house weaponmaster, but even though she was female, the role fell to a nearer relation to the high seat of the family -- and a male at that. All that she could look forward to was a fighter's life, ready to give her last breath for rulers who didn't care a whit about her or whether she lived or died. She'd never wanted to become a fighter, but nobody had ever asked her what she wanted. You had to make your living at something, Cha'Khah had decided, and if all that she could be was a fighter, well then, she'd own that role. And she did, though quietly enough to keep any jealous daggers out of her back. Vadren Dreile was a very distant cousin to the warrior, and as a male, he would always live at the beck and call -- and whims - of any of the house's higher females, his own sisters, most of them, and of course his aunts and his mother. His only saving grace was his ability at magic, most especially the specialization of combat casting. He was a little famous for it, but it bought him little. He was third from the top of the heap between the mages in the house and no matter what he did, he would always be known there as the Lesser Mage Vadren. While he loved what he did, he also loved fighting and took every opportunity to learn what he could wherever he might avail himself of it. The house had many male soldiers, but few other than Cha'Khah knew that he could likely beat any of them in a fight, female or male -- including the vaunted weaponmaster. She knew that because she'd taught him most of what he knew herself in exchange for his teaching her his own arts. As was typical for what they were, it had begun with their discovery of each other's talents and desires. That had led to a long series of bartering deals between them. It had gone on for years, but it yielded a completely unforeseen benefit. In a society where females ruled over males very harshly, and males with any sort of talent kept it hidden to the best of their ability, the two had become fast and solid friends. They might not agree on something, in fact they seldom did, and they could argue the moon down before they settled things between themselves. But while each one threatened the other with either physical or magical harm, they never meant a word of it. What had happened on a night when the strange male had been allowed by them to stay behind after hours was that they'd had a bit to drink -- all three of them, and it had come out that the two Drow had both expressed a hidden desire to see the world above. The trouble with that was that Drow hate sunlight, and there were always their duties to attend to. Vadren's pupil told them of a few of his travels and it had whetted their interest even more. As far as duties, he'd said, all that it would cost them to get at least a look outside was a little of their rest. With respect to the sunshine, he'd suggested a few trips in little increments to get them acclimatized to being on the surface. He pointed out that they wouldn't be the first Drow who'd ever gone topside. There had been others before them, or he'd never have learned where to go to ask. He took them outside often after that and the three became trusted traveling companions between them. But it came to a point one night when they knew that they had to make a decision. The day was coming when the matron would remember the visitor and want to do something about him. On top of that, their travels only made the two Drow want to leave the underground behind them forever. They both felt that another day in their rigid lives would be more than they could bear. But it had become known that they left some nights without permission, and a trap had been set. The plot became known to Cha'Khah almost as soon as it was laid. They were to be apprehended by the gate guards as they returned, but since few ever came and went through the gate to the surface, the guards chosen were hardly worth the name. The guards now lay dead not far off. Other than the 'crime' of killing the guards -- and that was arguable in a place where a little murder was ignored for the most part, especially if it was done quickly and above all, well, the main thing was a trap set in the mansion. The plan had been that if the trio couldn't be apprehended by the guards, they were to be caught while disoriented in the dust after the blast in the mage's home. Well they were disoriented now, since Vadren had augmented the charge and his home was now a ruin. Their own plan had been to use the explosion to get away unnoticed. "Help me get him outside again," the visitor said to the fighter, "then you'll both need to make a decision. I'm not going back inside after that." It was still dark when they emerged out onto the surface. The two dark elves looked at their friend, "What now, Azrael?" Cha'Khah asked, "What is this decision?" "I can get you both far away from here. You'll have to live with me, at least to begin with," he said, "I live underground too -- sort of, anyway. So they'll never find our bodies among the others back there, and you'll have your chance at a different life. Decide now -- or soon, before the rest of the house soldiers think to come here to look." "How far can we get with Vadren in this shape?" the female asked, wanting to kick the mage for this. "Never mind," their companion replied, "you both decide and we're gone far from here in an instant." They both knew that their lives were worthless in the city now, and so they nodded their assent. After a few words from their friend, they stared around themselves in wonder while they stood in the darkness of another place altogether. "Let's get Vadren over here where he can lie down and rest a little," their host said. "What is this place?" Vadren groaned. "My home -- such as it is," Azrael smiled, "strictly speaking, we aren't underground as far as the surface is concerned. We're inside a mountain." "I feel this," Cha'Khah said looking around, "I do not know what all of this is around us, but the structure, the cave looks as though it has the marks of the dwarves to it -- yet it does not carry any of their stink." "There were never any dwarves here," Azrael said, smiling, "and though you are now faced with all manner of choices in your lives, there is at least one that you've made. You're free," he smiled. "I wish to say one thing," the female said as she looked at Vadren. "Imbecile!" she exclaimed as she slapped his face, "I am only lightly injured, but I am still hurt. I wore my armor, Vadren. Where is yours, and why didn't you wear it?" Vadren looked at her and took it for what it was. Cha'Khah was upset because he'd been injured, cracking a few of his ribs. "I took it off, dear cousin," he smiled, "you know how I love a challenge." She looked as though she was about to beat him to death, even though she was relieved to see that his sense of humor was unaffected. "It's here," Azrael said grinning, "He left it outside and I took it along when I brought us all here." "And just how did you manage all of that?" Cha'Khah wanted to know, "I thought that you came to the Drow to learn magic." "I did," he laughed, "and I learned much, for which I am very grateful. But I never said anything to indicate that I had none of my own to begin with. Let's see to Vadren, Cha'Khah. Then we'll see about a meal. We have a lot more to talk about now. You both need new occupations to carry you thought this new life of yours. As it happens, I do have a few suggestions." -------------------------- The former province of British Columbia, two years later He walked up the wooded slope -- as he'd been walking up this and others much like it for the past day and a half. It had been eight long years, but he'd decided finally to go back home, mostly to see if there was any home left to go to, really. As he walked, he thought back, deciding that it was time to move on past all of the hard feelings and find out what or who might be left of his strange family -- and the important word here was strange. He thought about her again. This journey was giving him far too much time for it, the pointless emotion-stirring and the way that it raised feelings in his heart which shouldn't have grown there in the first place. But they had nonetheless, and when every molecule of your being desires something and it turns into a need after a time, it's bad enough, but when it's found to have been mutual for so long, and then it turns into a requited thing, ... He shook his head again as he walked. It should never have happened and that's all that there was to say. But it did, no matter what they'd said they wanted or didn't, and it tore them apart in the end. Not that he'd looked all that much, but he'd never found anyone to take her place in his heart. After that one final terrible day, she left, and he hadn't seen her since. He left the next week and this was the first time that he'd even been anywhere near the place. Maybe it wasn't even standing anymore, he thought, and if that were the case, then he was in for one long uncomfortable night before he walked a long road back. After Rachel, he hadn't ever really wanted anyone. It had been almost eight years and he still hurt for her. He was headed home to the place where he'd been born and raised. Throughout her pregnancy his mother had seen visions. They suggested a life of struggle for her unborn child, and though he would often brush up against evil, he would remain untouched by it, sometimes dispersing it in the process. It was how she came to choose his name, having read a lot of the bible that she'd found one day. Azrael was the name that he'd been given on the day of his birth nearly thirty years ago. Tall and muscular, he wore his white-blonde hair in a long braid when he traveled, which was often. Perhaps it had been too often, he thought, but he knew that it couldn't be helped. He often smirked when he thought about it. It was hard to pin down what he was -- even to himself. From the one that he'd always thought of as his father, he'd learned a lot of how to live off the land and the ways of the nature spirits. But he'd been born with something else, coming to him from his mother, or so he'd been told. He possessed a great deal of ability to use what many today would term magic. His mind was just the sort of inquisitive and thoughtful bundle of nerves and synapses to make use of it all, and his parents had seen it in him early on, just as they'd seen it in his sister. He wondered if his father still lived there in the large log cabin far from anything and about as protected at anything can be, from a magical point of view. If it were almost anywhere else on Earth, he could have been there in only a matter of moments, but this place -- these woods for miles around the range of mountains here had been warded and made purposely indefinite to the seeking sort of mind of one like him by his mother. A sorcerer or cleric could never feel this place enough to just show up. If they wanted to be there, they had to walk the ground like anyone else. Sadly, it also prevented him from traveling there quickly as well. The late morning sunlight combined with the late spring season brought the temperature up fairly quickly whenever he walked across any open areas where the wind wasn't blowing. It would cause him to sweat and attract the mosquitoes and deer flies. But as soon as he was back in the shade again, he would feel the chill in seconds. It was getting near noon when he arrived at the stream, the place where he'd made thousands of trips up and down the slope from here hauling water for most of his childhood. He thought that he could use a little refreshment and stopped to drink and wash. At least the cold could prove to him that he was still alive, and he'd grown tired of feeling the grit of this trip on the back of his neck. It wasn't until he was almost done that he had the thought that he'd seen footprints on the shore in just that one place, that one spot there he'd squatted to fill his water jugs all those times. They hadn't looked out of place because they looked just as his did back then. But this wasn't back then, was it? So whose footprints had he seen? He stopped washing himself suddenly, feeling the presence of something or someone who might be a plausible cause for the relative quietness of the birds. His whole life long, until he'd left, the birds in these woods had been his friends -- especially the chickadees. They'd been his hopeful companions on countless walks when he'd gone looking for firewood. A turned-over branch or two, and they knew that they had something to eat in the grubs and insects which he'd uncovered for them. He thought about a possible threat to him, and decided against it. What he felt was small and had problems of its own - big problems, he knew in an instant. He became aware that he was being watched, but a little thought told him that there wasn't a malevolent feel to it. He pulled his clothes on a little quickly anyway and looked around, sensing more than seeing. He felt youthful worry with a touch of fear, but there was also a lot of wonder in it. He felt for some sort of an idea about alignment and he noticed that there seemed to be not so much a statement as there was a seeming to want to be doing the right thing. So, this was a child then, he thought as he closed his shirt. What was a child doing here? "It's a little rude to watch somebody like this. If there's something that you have to say to me," he smiled, "why not just say it now since I know that you're here. If not, then I'd ask for a little privacy while I wash. Before you get to thinking that I'm just a nutty guy who talks to the birds when he's bathing," he said to the trees, "I know roughly where you are," He swung his head around and looked right at a large bush nearby. "Don't I?" He felt the confusion now and knew that this person was struggling with what they'd been told about strangers. He wondered. Unless a town had sprung up here in the middle of the mountains, this kid had to live where he was headed himself. It wasn't until he knelt to tie his bootlaces that he knew the child had come to a decision. He looked up and saw a boy of about seven maybe, looking very nervous and standing well out of reach. "You should back off a little more," he said with a friendly smile to the boy, "You'll feel a little less scared then." "I'm not scared," the boy said in a slightly defensive tone which said that he was -- at least a little. "My mother's sick. She needs help. I don't know what to do." Azrael grinned in understanding, "And she told you not to talk to strangers that you might see. She told you to go to her and tell her first, didn't she? But if she's sick, then you're stuck, since she'd be stuck herself. " The boy watched him shrug. "I guess it all depends on what's causing the sickness, how bad it's gotten, and then there's that other thing, ... It all depends on the mom." He wanted to laugh a little at what he saw in that face as he began to walk up the slope again. "Don't worry about it, kid. That's what my mother used to tell me too. Is she in the cabin up there?" The boy was amazed, "How did you know about that?" "About the cabin?" he smiled, "Trust me, I know it. That old cabin is a lot older than the two of us. What's your mother's name, my young friend?" he asked, wanting now to know who it was who had taken up residence. "Rachel, sir," the boy replied. The man felt something in his chest begin to free-fall. He suddenly began to accept something on the spot which swept aside the features that he'd seen. Right now, those features were telling him things in no uncertain terms. He looked over, "Rachel Wannamaker?" His small companion only nodded and they started to walk again without much in the way of conversation between them. The man wondered why whoever Rachel was living here with couldn't help. Then again, maybe there were any of a lot of reasons. The boy ran ahead, saying that he had to tell his mother. If his mother was awake, he knew that she'd likely be angry at what he was doing, but he didn't think he'd had any other choice. He just knew that he had to do something while he still had a mother at all. The man knew that he was as close to his birthplace as the next little rise of the forest floor and across the dark glade. The old log cabin was large and solid, made from huge trunks. Most of the timbers had only been roughly squared. The whole thing sat in the shelter of a thick grove of tall trees, most of them well over a hundred feet tall. Growing the way that they had, the forest floor below them was always a dark and slightly gloomy place. The site had been carefully selected long ago. There would never be a sunbeam shining in through a window, it was true, but it would always be well-hidden and most important of all, it would be well-protected and sheltered from the weather. A side benefit was that the creatures of the forest all knew that this was here and came here themselves. Sometimes a meal was standing right outside the window, just feet away from the porch. She opened her eyes at her son's worried touch on her shoulder. He was trying to tell her something, but she was still half-asleep; the fever kept her tossing and it never allowed her to really rest. She felt both heavy and light-headed at the same time and she could feel the infection coursing through her veins as every lymph node in her body felt as if it were swollen and on fire. A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 01 Finally, she began to understand what he was saying, that he'd brought someone to help. But she knew that no one could help. She looked at the bandages on her arm, soaked through again, and they were almost the last of the ones that she'd boiled clean. She struggled to a sitting position with a lot of difficulty. "I told you never to --" Her voice faded as she stared at the shape in the doorway. He tried to put on his best smile, ignoring the smell of her festering wounds. "I was passing by," he said with a shrug. The nearest village was days away, over pathways which were once paved roads, long ago reclaimed by the forest. He didn't know if there was still even a doctor there. The boy looked from one to the other and had a strong sense that they knew each other. In the silence, once she knew that he was no illusion brought to her by the fever, Rachel Wannamaker stared at her brother and finally burst into tears. ---------------------------- Asia Minor She opened her eyes in total darkness. It took her several minutes to know anything. All that she had were fragments - shards and remnants of memories. So many memories. She lay on her side, blinking in the small space where she'd been hidden long centuries before. It required some thought to plan her small experimental movements, until at last, she lay on her back. She sought for the most recent events that she could recall, but things seemed to come to her in the reverse order of what she wanted. It had begun in the heart of the Alborz Mountains. A visionary cleric had sent for aid in helping to establish his empire. She knew little of the philosophy at the time, but then she hadn't really cared. It wasn't her business to care. She'd only been the emissary who had been sent. As always, she was only the weapon. She recalled journeying back there. She'd been there once before, helping the Deylamites resist against the influx of the Islamic hordes. They'd been defeated, but their defeat was certainly sweeter than the bitter and costly victory won by the Arabs. They left the field in an orderly way and held their heads high. When they returned much later, armed with her teachings and assistance, they'd captured Baghdad itself. After that, she'd trained and taught the fighters of the Deylamite warlords until they alone could withstand and repel the Varingian Vikings. Her pupils were in high demand as mercenaries all over the Caspian region and fought as far off as Turkey, Egypt and even Spain. The Deylamites had by then slowly converted to a flavor of Shi'ism, though some of the well-known warlords among them were Zoroastrian in their beliefs. None of this mattered to her. When she met the cleric at the ancient stronghold of Alamut, he told her of his vision. He was a widely known Isma'ili scholar and missionary who had taken Alamut as his own and was busy building his influence throughout the region. She'd tried to look enthusiastic, and she was, though she was not in it for the same reasons as he was. He was founding his empire, after all. She was following orders. He wanted superb and fanatical soldiers -- and she created them out of the hopeful warriors that he provided to her for the purpose. It would have been correct to use the term Fedayin -- The Men Who Accept Death. It was a five-tiered secret society with the cleric in the top position of Grand Master. With Salamut captured and a great library begun there, she could plan from a military perspective while he studied palmistry, mathematics and alchemy. Her new students were carefully selected. They were the only ones who saw her if she allowed it at all. She often trained naked or very nearly so, and that required a rather strong sense of their faith if it was to be effective. Any who could not devote themselves to anything other than staring at her or trying to seduce her were simply never seen again. But no one ever saw her face, since she wore a dark blue shawl wrapped tightly over her head, showing only her eyes. He remained at Salamut for the next thirty-five years. He aged in that time. She didn't. Though the Persians who were in effective control over the populace were Sunni in their religion, the fighters were a threat, and they were Nizan Ismailis. One after another, the warriors took many mountain fortresses and held them for their own purposes, their influence spreading throughout the area. These fighters were as new weapons to their leader, who used them to order assassinations of influential individuals as he saw fit, from powerful generals to politicians. None of them were thugs, and they all had to take the time to know their target and his or her language and customs as though they were their own. There were reasons which suited singular, often public murders better to their cause than military operations. The region was already fractious enough for one, and armies were expensive. As well, the sudden death of someone important in a public place added a rather intimidating effect, and of course, that was where she had fit in. By the time of their zenith, any quiet and successful murder with political overtones was attributed to the group, who weren't averse to taking contracts on both sides of disputes or wars, as long as the gold was pure enough. When the cleric died, they carried on stronger than ever, and a new Grand Master emerged. Some of the operations were moved to their stronghold at a different fortress and she went along, moving her operations with them. As their star had faded over time, she'd done as she'd been instructed and hidden herself away to rest and wait. The Grand Masters and the rest of the warriors were long gone now, defeated long ago. But she was still there, in a tomb deep within the walls of the fortress. She became aware of a pebble which was bothering her bare shoulder blade and she shifted inside the crypt. She wasn't dead and never had been. She'd only been resting on the instructions of her master in faraway Palmyra. She was not needed for the time, she'd been told, and was to hide herself away until she was called once more. Well, she decided, as the rest of the tiny bits of her recollections fell into place, she was being called now. She rather hoped that she was needed. It felt good to her to be needed. It took a bit of time, but she sought for the tiny fissures and cracks in the stonework which surrounded her. Time was something which she had a great store of, after all. When she found what she sought, she began to pass through the tiny fissures as a mist until at last she stood in the ruined passageway in the middle of a long dead fortress. She wondered a little about it, but it had been over a thousand years, so she expected that much would have changed. She walked to where she knew that her weapons were hidden and spent the next hours excavating a little carefully. What she found left to her by the passage of time wasn't worth her effort. The noises of it attracted a few individuals. It seemed that a band of thieves now used the fortress as a hideout. She killed most of them quietly and held the last two of them against one of the walls with her mind while she sifted through their thoughts as she worked. There wasn't much of value to be gained by it, other than learning their speech, but the clothing of the smaller one might be of some use. They stared at her lovely nakedness, but could say nothing. When she had what she'd come for, disappointed in the rusty pitted things that she'd found, she turned to face them, allowing them to speak if they desired it. "You," she said, indicating the smaller man, "Remove your clothing and lie down on your back." The other one said, "Go on, lad. It's not as though you'd get the chance at a beauty like her ever again. Remember what I taught you." "Forget what he taught you," she said with a little annoyance in her voice, "He knows less than you, and has only known the love of his own fist because he cannot afford a whore in the town. Just do as you have done before with other girls for me, and I will thank you for it." The blustery one against the wall felt the insult and planned to make her pay for it if he got the chance. "She probably wants you to warm her up for me afterward," he said to cover how he felt. She knelt down and smiled at the young man while she reached to take him in her hand, stroking and kneading a little. She half-turned her head toward the other one, "Oh, probably, ..." She looked up as she wet her lips and began to lick and suck a little to get him harder for her. When she saw that he was as ready for her as he'd ever be, she just moved herself and mounted him. As she rode him, he saw only her and did his best for her, wanting to please a woman such as this one. He was too far in his own pleasure and bliss to notice it when she finished the thought that she'd only paused. "Not," she sighed as she felt him harden even more and knew that his seed would be hers in another moment. She had no use or need of it, wanting only to feel it come to her and feeling thankful that this man could give it to her. His companion stood still pressed against the wall with little trickles of his blood oozing from his ears and his eyes. His mouth hung open in a twisted way and his tongue lolled out of his mindless head. She gave her temporary lover a night that he'd never forget, and in the dim light of the pre-dawn, they stood together, looking out over the plain below. "Rashid," she said, and it startled him, since he couldn't remember telling her his name, "I wish to thank you for this loving between us. It may be some embarrassment to you, but I require your clothes. Hide yourself away and come back tonight. In the hall where we lay together, there is a hidden place across from where you saw me working. Seek there carefully with a small pick, and you will find enough riches for the rest of your life. Hide it, since it is not large, and go then to the village there and past it to the one two villages beyond on that road. There is a pathway to a hillside on the right. It leads to a wooded hill." "I think that I know this hill," he said. She pulled his head close and kissed him softly once for a moment, "Good. On the far side of that hill, you will find a family of herders. They have several daughters, but you should ignore the thoughts and words of them all and go to the next hillside. There, you will see a young woman. Her name is Fatimah, and she is for you. She is the youngest and has no prospects of inheritance and is looked on by her sisters jealously for her beauty. You do not even know her, but this does not matter. Take her hand and ask her to marry you. She will be astonished, but she will agree. Go back to her family and give them a third of what you have, but have it ready before so that they do not see the rest. Tell them that you are from far away and that you are taking Fatimah to your home. She will be upset, but not overly so for she is not stupid and will be smitten with you. It will not be the thought of her leaving with regret which upsets her. It will be that her family would agree so quickly and this will drive her farther into your arms. Her family will offer you their oldest daughters in Fatimah's place, thinking that you might pay more. You should look gracious, but a little insulted. Take Fatimah and be on your way then, and you must go to where you were born. Everyone is gone there now, but if you do all of this and live there as an honest man, you and Fatimah will be happy there and grow old together." Rashid nodded and thanked her. "But who are you and why do you do all of this for me?" "I am no one that you would know or have heard about, and I wish that you do not tell of what we did, for it would not do you any good at all. You are one of very few who have ever seen my face, so take it as a quiet honor which I do not give often. I like you," she smiled, "and I needed a male. You need to know nothing more. I am not giving Fatimah to you. I only know of her. You will earn her love yourself. You should go now, before there is too much light to see you by. You are naked, after all." "Thank you," he said with a polite bow, "I have never known such joy. Thank you and bless you." She smiled and kissed him one last time, before she reached down and when her fingers came up again, he could see the wetness of their fluids. He watched as she sucked her fingers, licking them carefully until they were clean. "You already have," she smirked a little as she ignored the way that he's hardened again as he'd watched her. "Go now." He left her and began to walk. She put on his clothing and with a beckoning motion, her other belongings were engulfed in a dusty gust of swirling wind and disappeared. She smiled as she turned in another direction and began to walk toward where the ancient city of Palmyra once stood. -------------------------- She stood in the red glow of the dusk as she surveyed the ruined cityscape. She could have been here in a minute, but she'd wanted to walk and learn of what had passed and what was happening now. She'd heard much in her travels. Everywhere that she looked, all that she could see were collapsed buildings and rubble where once a busy city thrived. What still stood were only corners of buildings or lonely archways leading to nothing where once there were lush gardens and neat and efficient causeways. Even she was a little shocked to see what wondrous Palmyra had become as she picked her way through the ruined streets and made her way to the temple. It still stood, but she couldn't say what still held the stones up as she searched in the gathering darkness. Finding what she sought, she slipped into an alcove and passed through into the stones as a mist, leaving Rashid's clothing outside where it had fallen. The watcher raised his head and stood as she approached along the passageway and descended the steps. She'd always liked this one, though he was the one that she knew the least, and had trouble now remembering anything about him, other than her recollection of admiring his body long ago. That had not changed, at least. She decided to play it as though her memory of him was spotty, which of course, it was. "The greatest servant has returned, "he smiled benevolently. "Who are you?" She asked in Aramaic, "I know you not." "Nor I you, very much," he sighed a little wearily, "Time wears us and everything around us to dust." "I was summoned," she said. "Yes," he said, "I was the one." "Where is --" "Passed, from this earth," he said, "long ago. There were several of us here waiting as you slept. We watched and discussed the signs which we saw. The others have gone. But now it is the time for some answers for you," he said as he indicated a seat in the chamber. At a thought from him, the dust slid off onto the floor and though the stone was no longer shiny and gleaming, it was at least clean. The pair sat opposite one another in nakedness. "I am all that is left," he said, "and I have long waited for this day. What has happened is that mankind rose to greatness several times in many places each and fell once more. Each time, they rose a little higher, until they reached to each other across the world itself." "I have not seen this," she said, "It is much as it once was, though the buildings have changed." "True," he nodded, "a heavenly body passed by the world and it changed much. A sickness ran its deadly tentacles around the globe. Man is diminished and returns slowly. They may never come back to where they were. This happened four hundred years ago, and it became clear to us all that we are no longer needed. There are no great civilizations among them. While they are like this, there is nothing that we wish to do anymore, and nothing to help or raise for them. As well, there are now other creatures here, and we have no wish to see who it will be who rules. Everything has been for naught. We have grown tired." She sat with the images running into her mind from his and wondered about the strange creatures that she saw, these winged things which often killed humans when they came into contact with them. Oddly enough, as she watched, she became aware that they did not consider humans as enemies. She'd have to think it through later. "Just tell me who it is that I must slay and I will begin to set things rightly once more for you," she said after a moment, "You are my master and I will obey." He looked a little uncomfortable then. "That is the other matter and the main reason for my call to you. For you to begin it now, it would take even you some long time to begin to make an impact. There is only me here, and I have no wish to wait. I seek only my own passage into my destiny and have no interest in remaining here any longer. You were taken as a young one of what you are and we have taught you and provided for you as we could. In return, you have always served us well. But there is nothing to serve anymore." He swept his arm around the chamber, and she saw all manner of weapons. "Take what you will and then leave. You are no longer needed by us. What you do not take will vanish into the nothingness from whence it came." "I have desires," she said. "Speak then, loyal servant," he smiled. "I wish to know everything," she said, "After so long, I wish to finally know what this was all over and why. If I am to be left here to wander, I wish for more abilities, and, ... " She looked down for a moment, and hesitated . There would never be another time to ask if she didn't do it now, she thought. "I was mated by my first master and it gave me more strength for my tasks. Over the time, I received this from him and the others several times. It may have meant little to ones so powerful, but to me, it often made all the difference. You are the last and most powerful, yet you have never mated me. I humbly ask to have you place your essence inside of me this last time while I have the chance, so that I may wander lost, but not feeling it so much." "A reasonable last request from our greatest servant," he said, indicating the bed. Over the next three days, she took all that she could from him. She knew that he couldn't impregnate her, but she wanted it anyway for the ability which always came to her from this. The knowledge that she sought came to her whenever they were slow about it. She felt cheapened to hear it. She had always thought that the purpose that she served was to help mankind to rise. She was used as a teacher or if necessary, she swept aside the armies of one nation so that another would flourish. She wasn't human, not completely anyway, she'd been told, but she felt some empathy toward them, and she was not what her masters were. Now after ages, she learned the reason for their aid. It was to cause man to multiply. They had been treating the Earth as though it was a gigantic barn full of fat cows. They ate little of man's flesh, but his blood was another matter. Man was to be little more than a supply to slake the thirst of their kind at some point in the future. It was nothing more than prudent planning on their part and there were other worlds like Earth where they did the same things. What had happened to man was that his cataclysms had taken longer for him to recover from than the attention span of those who she'd worked for and they'd gone elsewhere. He told her once in the middle of it that she would never feel this diminish if she took someone for herself to love, if she could find someone like that fairly soon. She'd objected then, saying that it would only cause her pain to see this person grow old and die, but he told her that there were ways to prevent it. "Only have a care in your choice, "he told her, "I do not know if it would be for better or worse on this world anymore, but a man taken as a mate by you may have secret desires to rule. It would be up to you to decide then." A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 01 When she had all that he could give to her one evening, she rose up and looked down on him. "I have what I sought," she said, "I give you my thanks, lord. What will you do now?" "I will go to where we all came from and go to my reward there, whatever it may be. You said that you had wishes. I have armed you with weapons which cannot be bested if you choose wisely. I have filled you over and over and even you have finally said that it is enough." He looked at her curiously, "What else is there?" "Three things, "she smiled affectionately at him, "Firstly, I have forgotten my name. Tell it to me if you can, or give me another so that I can add it to whatever sense of purpose that I find in me." "You have had several names and were known by many more," he said. "I give you one which you should already have heard. I call you Dhakhete." Her eyes opened wide at the sound of it. "Dhakhete? I am Dhakhete?" she thought for a moment, "I was a queen for a time, was I not?" "A great warrior queen," he smiled, "The most mighty ruling queen of the Kingdom of Armak, as it was known to its people. Like only a few before you, you ruled alone, taking many consorts. It was a time when your efforts were not required singly, but as a ruler, before you were brought by us. They never knew, these humans, who it was, and they never settled the truth between them, spinning legends over half a dozen civilizations and weaving you into them to give their kings more credence of greatness. If all of the kings who wanted to prove their greatness with their lies had ever known you as a wife, you would have had a hundred husbands." "No," she smiled, "I would have killed each liar as soon as I learned of it." "You faded after that when you left it all behind you because we needed for you to be elsewhere then, but while you ruled, you took the teeth of many wars to your enemies and settled all disputes to the favor of your land and its people. Your name was known by all, and any who saw you leading you army into battle never forgot the sight of it, neither friend nor foe." "I ruled a great city," she said, "I ruled an empire. Small, but still it was mighty." She smiled a little proudly as the memories returned to her, "My armies were vast." "You were the Kandake," he nodded, "And you ruled Armak from your seat at the Island of Meroe, another legend which they have not really fully found yet, and given the way that they themselves are diminished now, I doubt that they ever will. What else do you wish to know?" She leaned down and kissed him softly before she eased herself backward and lay beside him again. She reached over and took the wondrous maleness there into her hand after a gentle caress and squeeze of the testicles which had pleased her so much as they'd supplied what she'd been filled with over and over. She lowered her head and opened her mouth to take him in. She sighed to herself in dreamy pleasure, enjoying this so much. She was going to miss this. It took a little while, but he responded and she made love to him with her mouth, determined to get one last gush from him and to worship him a little more. When she had the last of it, she licked everything that she could find and asked something which she'd held in her heart for so long. "I am a female," she said a little humbly, though she had no reason to take that tone, "Is there no way that you might feel a little love for me in your great heart, lord? You tell me to seek for one for myself, yet I lie here with all that I could ever want or need. If it is your wish, you could rule here and I would find happiness as well as joy -- all the reward that I would ever want for everything that I have ever done for you all. We could grow to love each other, even if you had no want to rule. Rule me, Lord," she said earnestly, "If you could love me, I would be happy and do anything for you. Please think on this for a moment." It hurt her when he shook his head, though to his credit, he did manage to look at least a little regretful. "Such a thing would bring me great pleasure and joy, I think," he said, "but it would prevent me from going back to where I belong. If I stayed, I would never know what waits for me there." "But," she said, "think of me. I have no such place for me. I am not needed, you said, and so I am to wander, am I not? Come and rule me," she said seriously, "All that I am is yours forever." "I cannot, "he said. "No," she said, "you only will not. Am I not enough for you that you'd leave me here? In all of the time that I have done the bidding of you all, not one of you has thought me worthy of your love. You have all had me for your pleasure, and not one has bitten me to allow me inside your circle, why?" "What you are cannot be brought into our realm. It was decided long ago," he said, "I waited only long enough to be sure that this fall would not pass soon. Four centuries and more is enough for me to tell. I must go, or --" "Or what?" she asked, "You would be trapped here with the djinn that you all took as your servant and weapon for all of this time? Did you not think that I might find happiness all by myself, and seek out a djinn for my heart, as should have happened? Instead, I fought for you, killed countless thousands for you and worked tirelessly in my tasks. Did you all think that I would labor for you only for the teaching and nothing more? You offer only bones to me with no meat left on them by the time that I stand with my hand out." Her eyes narrowed, "You led them all and I changed a world for you." He looked a little nervous for a moment, knowing that he didn't have enough of his strength to leave now. He needed another few moments before he'd have that back. She nodded, sensing his thoughts, "I knew this," she said, "That was another reason why I suckled you. I wanted to be sure that I took the last for a while, so that we could have this talk between us. You have answered the second thing and you refuse my heart. It is a dangerous thing to do to a female who offers all that she has, though it means nothing to you. This brings us to the last thing." She smiled, "You all used me and thought that more power was what I craved. I needed it, but only to do more for you. I have wanted to have one of you for my own for all of this time. Which one was not of importance to me for I knew that I could come to love any of you. But you no longer have need of me," she nodded as she rose above him and saw the beginning of his fear. "You are the only one of them left here," she smiled, "and you will never go to your reward." She held him down and his famous teeth shattered while he screamed. She slew him then by tearing his throat out and she watched his weak soul leave him as he bled to wander aimlessly in the dust forever. "You will wander too,"" she smiled, "for I know enough that you cannot ever leave the way that I will when I pass or the way that the humans do." She set his body alight with a thought to make certain that he would never rise again and laughed as the spirit wailed in despair at how she heated the flames to whiteness. The wondrous body was ash in a minute. She picked up all of the weaponry with a sweep of her arm from across the chamber. A second later, it was with her as she swirled against the flow of oxygen seeking to come in from outside to replace what was being consumed to burn his body as she passed through the stone. Once outside, she listened for a moment to the first of his soul's impotent sobbing before she turned away. All that he was, was there, inside a crumbling building. Even if nothing happened, it would disperse into the air slowly over time. She raised her hand and the stones shattered as she completed the ruin that time had begun. She heard only one small cry as the breeze blew the last of him away and the sunlight did the rest. Now he could not even haunt anyone, never mind seek to control them. A fitting end to something worthless. "Dhakhete," she said to herself, remembering the sound and the way that it felt to her as though she were trying on an old but much-loved coat which she'd just rediscovered. "Dhakhete. ... Dhak-HET-eh." She tried it a few more times and grinned. She decided that she liked it. Dhakhete it would be then, she nodded to herself as she walked off into the night. ----------------------------- Sothern Pacific Coast, North America Monnie Aldergrove was looking for a man. It sounded ludicrous in her head when she put it that way, she thought. She hadn't been looking for a man in years. Raised in the religious conservatism of the prairies, a girl didn't specifically look for a fellow so much as she might hope that one of the local boys that she'd gone to school with might express an interest. That would please most of the parents in any of the upstanding families in the rather isolated community. It was what they wished for as the 'correct' way, in the narrow view taught by their reverend, who was just the same as the one in the next town and so forth. The only alternative for a girl to hope for was that a suitable boy might come over the low hill from the main road and settle. The problem with that was that he'd forever be a newcomer and never quite gain the trust of the others around the place. That hypothetical girl might find her heart's delight in that stranger and they could share their lives working some piece of land for themselves to raise a family of their own. But though that man's children would be accepted by everyone there -- since they'd be born there, after all, he never would. He'd be an outsider until the day that he died. Small places are just like that. Small places where the people take heed to the minister's sermons teaching distrust of strangers every Sunday are even worse. And all of that pre-supposes that the girl is upright herself and not a slattern, Monnie thought. Well, she'd been there -- upright and all. It was where she'd been born. She'd found her man in the stranger who'd ridden toward town one night in a blizzard -- the kind that the prairies have always been a little famous for. He and his horse had been half-dead when he'd ridden up the path from the road. But to Monnie, he'd been a godsend. And of course, there'd been many reasons for that. Monnie had always been a little bit different. Nobody ever said anything about it -- at least not within earshot of her, but Monnie's mother had been a big woman, over six feet tall and built like a Viking -- a male Viking, to be exact. The man that she'd married came from a family in the area, but the truth be told, he was more of an orc than anything, long-armed and pretty rough-looking in a suit as he sat in the family pew on Sundays. That was where Monnie got her slightly greenish skin and a lot of her build. The rest, her size and her immense strength, she'd gotten from her mother -- along with her flaming red hair. From an early age, she'd noticed that she could influence and even change the things around her in her unimportant little life. Nothing huge back then, she supposed, but she'd been born with some sort of ability. Only her mother knew of it, having made the discovery by accident one day, and she swore her little girl to secrecy out of the rather justified fear that her daughter would be burned as a witch -- especially if Reverend Schottke caught wind of it. All that Monnie knew was what her mother had told her in a private moment when she was about twelve. There had been others in her mother's line who'd had abilities something like hers. Their way of life precluded any others even hearing of it. Ignorance has always bred fear, and ignorant fear can cause otherwise fine and peaceful folk to require a scapegoat for any of the many possible ills which might befall the community or the members in it. And so Monnie had always done her best to suppress what she'd been given, for fear of being denounced. Well, that was before her father and brothers had been murdered, only three of the casualties of a long night of horror when a trio of demons had come through. After that, Monnie's mother and her aunt had banded together and they worked the farm as best they could. At first, that left Monnie alone to care for her great-grandmother when her school day was done. The ancient crone had outlived her own children and no one knew what kept the old girl going. Monnie found out though -- or at least, she learned enough to form her own opinion. Old Hattie took every opportunity to teach Monnie. Coming from where they all had, the old woman was more righteous than anyone herself, but she took what had come to them as a sign from above that the reverend would never understand. That was how Monnie learned. Hattie had warned her that if she was 'true', then she'd better get a move on if she wanted children herself, correctly predicting the way that the women of this family with any of this talent always seemed to 'go dry'. It was her way of telling Monnie that they all lost their ability to conceive at a fairly young age. She told Monnie that it was just the price that had to be paid for the gifts. That hadn't made things one bit easier for Monnie. When she was a girl, she'd always been a touch on the heavy side. Her mother and any other woman in the community termed it being 'big-boned'. But their way of life had never allowed her to get really large. She was just a bit on the plump side unless one asked Monnie. She called herself fat. As she came into her own, the baby fat had left her to be replaced with the odd way that she was built and the muscle that came along with that. She wasn't fat anymore, though it was still the way that she saw herself. There was an odd way that men and boys in a farming community had of referring to young females. Monnie knew of it, the same as any girl did, hearing the term now and then. It could be spoken in a tone of admiration for a girl's prettiness and usually was. A lovely young thing would be referred to as "a fine-looking filly". Nobody ever referred to Monnie in terms like that. She knew why, of course. They meant the word as though the young woman that they might be speaking of was a thoroughbred or a quarter horse, and that was why it was never said of Monnie. She was built more like a Belgian or a Clydesdale. In horse terms. Monnie was one big draft horse, and in a very quiet way, it made her a little proud, since she could work most men into the ground and barely break a sweat. The downside of that was the huge and very strong heart that drove it all would likely never find many interested stallions. If she could have collected all of the lonely sighs which had come to her when she had the thought, Monnie knew that she'd likely have had a hurricane in her pocket. When she was old enough for more than the few chores of a child, Monnie became just another female on a farm where the women ran the place alone out of necessity. The years passed and Monnie's hope of a boy expressing some sort of interest began to fade, since none of the boys that she'd grown up with had found enough to base a want on, she surmised. She was heavy and plain, she'd told herself, never mind weird. The time passed, and the hard, unending labor of doing the regular work of farmwomen as well as that of the men began to kill them off. Monnie's aunt wore out and perished first. It wasn't long afterward that her mother took sick the next winter and died. Finally, Hattie must have decided that it was time for her to release her white-knuckled grip on life as well, but before she'd allow her own spirit to pass, she made certain that her great-granddaughter was fully cognisant of her abilities. None of that helped Monnie all that much, other than little things here and there. She was all alone on her family's farm at the age of twenty-one. The arrival of Artemis Jones changed all of that for her. She'd basically dragged the large man in out of the howling wind and snow, setting him in front of the kitchen wood stove while she fought her way back out to get his poor horse into the shelter of the barn. Once she'd gotten a little life back into him, he just stayed. Art was a cleric, but not anything like the fool reverend. Art had abilities and knowledge of his own. He'd traveled all of his adult life in a wandering way, learning lore to add to his knowledge of what might have happened during and before the dark times of long ago. To hear him talk of it, the human race had once held mastery of this world, but something had happened. He just didn't know what it might have been. They had long and earnest discussions between themselves night after night as they brought that old farm back to life to a point where it could support the two of them. They taught each other every spell and incantation they knew. Monnie had told Art that she was too old to bear him any children, and anyway, she'd stopped ovulating for some reason. He didn't care, he told her. That he had Monnie was more than enough for him and they almost always managed to share a little love between them most nights, no matter how dog-tired they were. But that came to an end as well after five years of hard work and joy. No one in the village knew it, but Artemis Jones had saved most, if not all of their lives. He stood up after dinner one night and told Monnie that there were demons coming. She'd felt it herself after he'd taught her how. As he'd begged her to do, Monnie had waited among the trees in the orchard as he met them head-on. There were seven of them and it took every one of them to lay her man low. Five of them had perished at the hands of Artemis and the last two were injured and weak when she walked out of the orchard and cast her righteous spells to smite them down. Monnie buried the love of her life there in the orchard. She left the demons to rot. About a week later, she put the farm up for sale, accepting the first offer that came. With some of the money, she bought a coach which could be drawn by two horses and outfitted it as the mobile home that she now sat on, driving her horses as she searched for one man. Art had told her of him, calling him the Cold Warrior, though he'd said that the man was more of a wizard than a warrior, and he'd also admitted that he had no idea about the 'cold' part. It had come to him over years of dreams; one man who'd lived a long, long time -- far too long for it to be natural, hundreds of years, in fact. This man, Artemis had said, was the one responsible for the appearance of the demons. All that he knew was that he lived to the west and made his home inside a large dead bird which never flew. When he wasn't there, he was in a large and ruined city a good distance away. That was where Monnie Aldergrove was headed now. It had taken her a few years of wayward travel as she'd stopped here and there to heal a child or to help a farmer with a sick horse or cow. In a community very similar to the one where she'd been born, she's been accused of 'witchery' by the local minister. Unfortunately for him, he'd chosen to use the spectacle of her burning to preach his vapid notions as he threw the first torch onto the kindling at her feet. At that point, after a lifetime of hearing idiots preach to their faithful, always managing to make them believe that they were needed while doing little real work themselves, Monnie had lost patience for it. To the amazement of everyone present, she suddenly stood in the minister's place, while he found himself securely bound to the stake in hers with the flames already licking at his clothes. She shouted the minister's own words and thoughts to him, louder than he could manage, and when he pronounced her as 'the devil', she'd called him an idiot and walked off after causing the flames to shoot up high around him. A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 01 As he shrieked, she picked up his holy book and handed it to a woman there, telling her that they needed no minister to guide them. They only needed to be able to read, and they could guide themselves. The woman stared at Monnie who nodded, saying, "You read this and think. If you've got a brain at all, you'll see just how much cowshit he's poured into your ears. Most of what he's told you isn't even in here at all." That had been months ago. Today she sat on the bench of her coach and pulled back on the reins to stop her horses at the crest of the ridge as she contemplated the vista below her. Monnie was about to stare thirty years of age in the face and she used the moment to take stock. She never gave it a thought, but though she was all alone in the world, she was independent. She might not be everyone's cup of tea and she never thought of herself as remotely pretty, but she was striking in her appearance at just over six feet of solid farm-bred and built muscle, covered as she was in her slightly greenish skin and all topped off with her now deep red hair. She might not ever have a man again, and the predicted "drying-up' of her ovaries had happened just as her grandmother had foretold, but Monnie didn't carry one wrinkle or grey hair. Like anyone, she had no idea how much time she had on Earth and living on the road as she did brought her a few more uncertainties, after all. Still, she smirked a little; life could be a strange thing. Here she was looking down on the miles of the ruin of what had once been a great city, it was said. Now it was home to the ghosts of its inhabitants and they outnumbered the living here by many to one. Lozenjellis, it had been called. That was about all that she knew of it, other than knowing two more things. The man who caused the demons to appear in places everywhere came here sometimes. Monnie Aldergrove had come here to kill him. A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 02 *** To remind the readers who may not have seen the prologue, the world has gone through some extraordinary changes in the last 400 years to this point. There are people around, but none of them drive fancy cars, and the richest might own an oxcart or two. There are other creatures too and that brings about interactions between them all. Some of them don't even know what they are underneath, but for those who do, finding somebody for yourself is often a huge issue. These two are on a mountain with no one around for miles and it's days to walk to the nearest town. They've got a dead and broken family, a history that can't be changed, and a seven year-old reason to make it work. It's like that because I needed them to have this history, that's all. O_o -------------- Book of the Mountain Clan, Part 1 The former province of British Columbia He walked across the room and knelt by the bed. Rachel put her uninjured arm around his neck and wept as he held her head against his and gently stroked her white-blonde hair for a few moments, just breathing her in and hoping that his heart wouldn't explode. She was burning up with fever. He tried to speak to her when he thought that he might have it together. "What happened to your arm?" "I was skinning a doe that I'd hung, and a bear showed up," she sobbed, "I guess I didn't get away fast enough for him. I lightning-ed him, but they've got tiny minds. I did my best but it got infected. I never was much good at casting on myself. Why did you come?" "Doesn't matter," he said, "You need to rest, and your boy and I have a lot of work to do in a hurry if you're gonna get better. What's his name?" She lifted her head and looked into his green eyes, trying to wipe her tears with her blankets. "He answers to 'Jesse'." Azrael looked at her for a moment, "I understand. What's his name?" He saw her look down for a second. As her eyes came up to meet his, she said, "Sariel, his name is Sariel." He didn't know why it took him by surprise, but then he guessed that it really shouldn't have. "Alright," he looked at the boy who quite obviously didn't know where to look for the moment since his mother had given up the name that she said was never to be told to strangers, "Sariel, I'd like for you to get some clean towels if you know where there are some, and some soap. Your mom needs a cool bath to get her temperature down. I'm gonna need for you to be a big boy for the next little while, ok?" The boy nodded, and Rachel protested that the old water pump which drew water up the hillside from the stream hadn't worked for years, but Azrael just brushed her objections aside with a smile and walked out of the room. Sariel walked to his mother's side, "I saw him down the hill and he was coming up. He was washing in the stream, and I know I'm not s'posed to talk to strangers. I thought he could help. I'm sorry if I did something wrong." Rachel smiled, "You didn't do anything wrong, Baby. You brought the only man who can maybe help me. I can't be mad at you for that. Can you help me get these bandages off?" Sariel nodded and began to do his best. "You know him, don't you?" Rachel nodded, "I haven't seen him since before you were born, and there was a long time when I thought that I never wanted to see him again because we used to have these huge fights before I left. Well, "she smiled weakly after a moment, "I used to have huge fights AT him, trying to get him to see things my way back then. It doesn't matter anymore. I guess. The fact is that he's here and we need him. He's a whole lot late, but he's here. I actually might get better now -- I hope." "Who is he?" the boy asked as her unwrapped the last of the bandages, "What's his name?" Rachel sighed in weariness as she laid her head back onto the pillows that her son had pulled up for her. "It's a long story and I can't tell you everything yet," she said, "not until we see if I'm going to make it. You were right to get him. I wasn't getting any better, Sariel. I was just trying to put a good face on it. But I hope I'll be ok soon. I feel a lot better just seeing him again. You've been doing a wonderful job nursing me, but you're still only a little boy. There's some things that I know that he can do to help with my arm. For now, the most important thing for you to know -- since you asked, is that his name is Azrael Wannamaker." The boy's eyes opened wide and he stared at his mother while his jaw began to drop. "I know," she smiled, "I told you that name so that you'd know. I never thought that you'd ever meet him back then. He's your father." --------------------- It turned into a long day of many surprises for Sariel. He watched as this stranger who he was related to worked over a well-rusted lump at the back of the building. He didn't even know what it was, but after about a half an hour, the man stood up and with some strange words, the thing began to hum loudly for a few seconds. The man added more water into a pipe from a plastic canister and then the machine hummed again and water began to run from a pipe before Azrael closed a valve. The boy walked behind him inside the house, and in another few minutes, rusty water flowed out of a fixture into the old bathtub. When it ran clear, Azrael plugged the drain and they stood watching it fill. "What's it for?" Sariel asked. "It's so that you don't have to wash in the stream," Azrael laughed, walking to Rachel's bedroom. "I don't know if getting you into that tub will be a problem for him," he said to Rachel with a little concern. "He's seen his old mother naked before," she smirked, "I'd have thought that you'd know me better than that, Azrael. I'm raising my kid here for a lot of reasons. For one thing, we're part demon, aren't we? They'd hunt us and kill us if they knew. So I had to find a safe place to have my child and raise him without feeling as though I'm always holding my breath in fear and worry that we'd be found out. From what I see when I go there, I swear that all those people do is watch each other for something to tattle to the reverend about. They must burn one of their neighbors about every other week as a heretic. That's no way for a kid to grow up. We had enough trouble ourselves, didn't we? It's just as lonely as it ever was here, but there are benefits. One of them is that he can grow up and not be like the idiots in the town. I won't have him turning into one of them and losing consciousness if a woman so much as lifts the hem of her dress to get a pebble out of her shoe." He helped her out of the bed carefully and carried her to the bath. "I thought you said that that the water was going to be cool," she grimaced, "this feels like you just hauled it out of the stream." "It is cool," he smiled, "it's actually lukewarm. Ask Sariel if you don't believe me." "I know," she said, "I'm just complaining. It's the fever that makes me wonder why I don't hear the chunks of ice rattling around against the sides. Now you men just leave me be a little while. I'll call you when I'm ready to get out." Azrael nodded and went to change the bedding. Azrael lit the stove and boiled a huge pot of water. That was for the laundry. Another pot was to boil the dressings once they'd been washed. Sariel asked to help and they hung the clothes and the bandages out to dry together. While Sariel found some vegetables out in the garden in the meadow, Azrael found his old bow. ---------------------- "Mom never lets me watch while she does this," the boy commented as his father dressed out the mountain hares that he'd shot. It amazed him how quickly he went. It was as astounding as how fast he'd gotten them too. He never missed. He only raised the bow and they had a rabbit. "It's not pretty," Azrael said, "but I'm sure that she'd teach you this one day anyway. It's something that you need to learn sooner or later. I need to get some meat into her, and rabbit is pretty mild. You can't even live on it all by itself, since there's not enough in the meat to keep you fed, no matter how many you eat. You can starve to death eating rabbit until you can't move. A deer would be better, but I'm in a hurry and she doesn't need something heavy like that. These'll make a nice stew though, with those carrots and the other greens you brought from the garden. And this way, there'll be a few less hares to eat what you grow before you have a chance to eat it." "How do you shoot them so quick?" the boy asked. "You don't get many chances for a second arrow," Azrael chuckled, "once they know someone's hunting them, they disappear. You need to be quick if you want one." While the stew cooked, Sariel watched from the doorway as Azrael knelt on the floor by the bed. He saw little to indicate that anything was going on, but he heard his father mutter quietly, pausing here and there for a few seconds. It was during those moments that the boy felt himself feeling better strangely. But perhaps the biggest surprise to Sariel the whole day was the way that his mother's face looked as she lay there with her eyes closed. She looked completely rested and asleep. It was like looking at her before she'd been hurt. When Azrael stood up, she reached for him with the arm which had been so hurt and swollen an angry color of red before. It looked almost completely better. He bent down and kissed Rachel's forehead standing up with a smile. Before she could speak, he shushed her, "You just rest, Rachel. I'll send my executive assistant to come for you when it's time to eat." "Come on, Sariel," he said laying his hand on the boy's shoulder, "Your mom needs to sleep, and I know you need to ask me a thousand things. We've got a little time now." "How'd you do that, fix my mom's arm?" he asked, "That was like magic." "Uh-huh," Azrael smiled, "but I don't have much for splitting firewood, so I'll have to do that the hard way, come on." --------------------------- It was long past dark as they sat in the main room together before the crackling stove. Though it was the time of year when the days are the longest in terms of daylight hours, how many hours one would receive depended on where one was. They were in the Rocky Mountains and the day grew darker there earlier, since the sunset was behind the next mountain and not the horizon. As well, the old cabin was in that dark grove. It was only nine o'clock, but Sariel was out, lying on the couch with his head on his mother's thigh sound asleep. It had been a very long day for the seven year-old with a lot of things to be done, helping Azrael to get his mother healing well. To Rachel, it was like a miracle, since it was the first day in almost a month since she'd really been out of bed for more than a trip to the outhouse and even those had been looking like they were coming to an end, as weak as she'd gotten. The fever had broken, thanks to her brother's abilities and the fact had to be faced, he'd saved her life again. She didn't want to think of trying to count all of the other times. "We need to talk," she said quietly. "I want to hear about what's happened to you, and I know that you have questions. What I can say, Azrael, is that I know everything now at last. I've known for some time. I'll go first, if you like." Azrael looked away from the stove where he's been lost watching the patterns of the flames for a little while. "Sure," he said, "I'd be happy to hear it if you've figured it all out. What happened to Dad?" "Let me go back before that," Rachel said, "You and I grew up thinking that Dad was our father. But he wasn't, Azrael. He was a father to us, and he always did his best for us, but there was no biological connection. He was just a man with a lot of heart and he taught us the ways of his people, just as Mom did. The truth is that Mom was with another man once, only he wasn't really a man. He was a demon. As far as I can tell, he was one of the ones that rip everyone and everything around them apart, so I guess we were pretty lucky. He tried to actually live here as a human. But it didn't work out, and not long before we were born, he felt whatever it is that they have inside him rising, I guess -- from what Mom told Dad and then he told me much later. At least, he did love Mom and he left before he got too bad. I don't know where he is now, or if he's still alive. That's the official version," she said, "but I'll also tell you about something that I heard from Dad a lot later that has always made me wonder ever since. Mom knew Dad anyway, and she moved in with him here and they placed the wards and the charms here so that our real father couldn't ever find us if he had a mind to. You and I were born and they raised us where we might have a chance to grow up and not be found out. Then Mom got that sickness that Dad said killed off so many humans. He told me that most people living today are immune to it, but that something like a pregnancy can change things. You and I were almost seventeen when she finally caught it good after a trip to town. That's the part that you already knew about. You just didn't know why it was that our skin is a little lighter than theirs was, the differences in our eye colors, all of those things. We got that from our real father, along with the things that we always have to hide from people. We learned some things from Dad and Mom, Azrael, but most of what we can do came from that person -- whoever he was, and not from Mom as we were told.." She looked at Sariel and smiled at him asleep there. "Well that all worked, I guess. But there is that part of us, isn't there? I won't go over it again, but I knew who I wanted when I got older. I just had to convince you. We had our big fight, and I left to see the world and if you didn't want me, then I'd find someone who would. That's what I told myself, anyway." "That's not right, Rachel," he said sadly, "I wanted you. I just couldn't get past what we were doing -- even as we were doing it. It won't do either of us any good now, I suppose, but I left after you did, and it wasn't long before I realized that you were probably right. It was just too late then. You were gone, so I went looking for ways to gain in my ability. It was always a little fantasy to me that I'd find some way one day to be able to tell where you were. I wanted to see you at least and tell you." He looked down and shrugged, "Not that it would have made the slightest difference by then. When I found something like that, I looked everywhere for you, but I never got the faintest feeling of where you might be." "You never looked in the right place," Rachel said, "I was right here, so the only way to know was to do as you've done and come here." Azrael looked up, "Here?" His sister nodded, listening to her son's breathing to be certain that he was asleep, "I was going to just give in to the drive, you know? I just wanted to find me a man. At first, I wanted to find someone special, but that's a long search, isn't it? Then I just settled for finding a long line of guys to fuck me. I'd close my eyes and pretend that they were the one that I wanted." She looked away at the flames in the stove for several minutes. "The worst part was that none of them were even any good for me to use to imagine with after a little while. I'd never find that special one -- not ever, and I knew it." She looked over and smiled a little sadly, "Because I'd already had that special one and I'd left him behind for all of the right reasons -- unless you asked my heart. I didn't last very long, out in the big old world all alone. Less than a month and a half later, I was losing everything I ate as fast as I could get it down. I was pregnant before I ever left. So I came back here," she said with a sigh. "Dad took care of me, and I had our son." She looked at Azrael -- straight into his eyes as she continued. "And he is our son, Azrael, yours and mine. One look says it all. I've been watching you when I could. I know that you've seen your own features in him. If you have even the slightest doubt, you just need to see him when he's a young boy demon. You'll be looking at yourself -- a mirror image of when you were his age." Azrael nodded, "I've already seen, Rachel, he showed me. I didn't say anything, because I didn't know if you'd said anything to him, but you're right. We were at the stream washing off from lugging firewood and he asked me if it would be ok if he just swam in the pool for a while. I said it was fine with me, since he's been working really hard to help me all day. I sat on the bank for a few minutes while he sat in the pool and we talked, since he wanted to hear about the places that I've been. In both of his forms, there isn't any doubt in my mind." Rachel nodded, smiling, Well, we were raised and loved by two humans, but that's only part of what we are, isn't it? How many times did we do it, brother? How many times did we do it looking human like this, and how many more times did we go off into the woods to just be the other way that we are? It was incredible both ways, but you know how we always ended up, don't you? We'd always wind up fucking like crazy and howling to each other. The only way that it really felt right was when I had you inside me with our wings around us looking into the black eyes that we loved to see." She laughed, "We must have looked like something out of those old horror stories that Mom liked to read -- all teeth and tails and claws. But you were the most beautiful thing I've ever seen in my life and I know that you felt the same way about me. That was why I wanted us to be ourselves. I just didn't see that you were right too. So we were both right and so wrong at the same time. Looking back, I think that if we could have gotten past ourselves, we might have had a chance, and just lived here the way that I wanted to. But I don't want to even get near that old fight anymore. Dad was happy for a while. I lied to him and told him that Sariel's father was a man that I picked up in an inn one night just after I left. It seemed like a good enough lie and he accepted it. But then my baby started to switch forms, just like we did when we were infants, I guess. I think that was the end of him, now that I look back on it all. He went into town and came back with the things that we needed, but he also came back with a lot of that cheap booze that they make there. The next time that he went, he came back with almost no food and material to make his own still. I couldn't say anything, but winter was coming and we needed food. So he stayed drunk and I went off to hunt by myself. Six months after that I saw him as he was trying to play with Sariel, but Sariel kept switching back and forth and laughing his little butt off. Dad had a look on his face like he wanted to take a shovel to him and I blew up. He didn't mean to say it, but he'd been drinking hard as usual and it sounded to me like Dad killed our real father. I tried to get him to repeat it and explain, but her never would, and it changed things between us. Dad went out and lived in his still after that. I found him at the bottom of the hill by the old road in the ditch. He'd been dead about a day by then, but I could still smell the booze. I buried him by the road not far from where he landed. Anyway, I've just been living here ever since, raising Sariel." She smiled down at her son's face. They didn't speak for a few minutes, and the boy's breathing shifted as he woke up and looked around. "I guess somebody's had a long hard day making his mother better," Rachel said softly, "Come on, I'll get you to bed, Sweetie." Sariel nodded, not really with it, and he walked off after saying goodnight to Azrael, who looked into the flames for a few more minutes until she came back, handing him a mug of tea. A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 02 "I guess I want to apologize," she said, "Sorry for doing exactly what Mom did with your name. I named him Sariel for a reason, but I'd guess that you already know that. He answers to 'Jesse' when he's around humans. He's a wonderful boy, Azrael. He's polite and thoughtful. He always wants to help me, and I've found that he can learn at an amazing rate -- just like somebody else that I know, and like that person," she smiled, "he has a lot of potential and power locked away inside of him. He looks just like his amazing father. I lost my heart to him the very first time that I laid eyes on him, and I fall in love with that little boy about every half hour, give or take five minutes. So," she said, as she sat down beside him, "It's your turn now to tell me what's gone on in your life. Go." "When I left here," he began, "I just went as fast and as far as I could. There's not a lot to tell about most of my life, Rachel. There are a lot of artifacts left by humans long ago. Some of them knew what they were doing magically. I looked for things that I thought that I'd need; artifacts and books. Sometimes, I'd come across someone who might be looking for something that I'd found or knew of, and if the money was right, I'd get it for them, or just sell it if I had it. It led to a few adventures, I guess. After a while, I thought about finding a place for it all. I wanted a place where I could keep everything protected and safe, and also, I wanted, ... " He thought about it, seeking the words as Rachel found the end of his braid and toyed with it a little. "I wanted a place where I could lock myself away if I wanted that, and also I got to thinking about what I left behind." "I can feel that you don't have anyone in your life," she said, "I'm a little surprised, to tell you the truth. I might be your twin sister, but I'm also a woman and I'd think that you'd have a long line of broken hearts behind you." He shook his head, "No. There's only the one. I have exactly two friends, but I'm not in a relationship. I've only ever really broken one heart and that was by being human about something. I don't know who I thought that I was fooling, other than myself. I did learn a few things, though. We're not the only ones. We're just the worst ones, that's all." "What do you mean?" she asked, untying his braid and beginning to set his long hair free. "I know there are others, but I've never seen any, and the only ones that I've ever heard of are supposed to be like animals, something like whoever our real father was." He smirked, "Something like that, I guess. But I've found out that there were humans here before us for a long time. Then these others began to show up. They're demons as well, but they're a little different from us, and there aren't very many. From the legends that I've heard and read about, they're quite civilized. There's a third type, and they're, ... allies, I guess you might call them, allies of the other type. Anyway, they're more rare than we are, and they try to kill us every chance that they get. Because they're so civilized, I guess. I've never met the third type, but I have met one individual of the civilized demons. We talked for a time, and he told me that he'd seen enough to know that I wasn't like most of the ones that he finds. They call us 'Red' demons, though he didn't say why. But he did tell me that it was his job to hunt them down and kill them. I guess that I was just too human for him to need killing, which was lucky for us both, I guess. I think that I could have killed him if I'd wanted to, and anyway, he hadn't been sent for me. He said that he is sent where these red demons appear to kill them. He was on his way home when I met him." "What did you do?" Rachel asked. "I did the civilized thing," Azrael smirked, "I bought him a drink, since we were at an inn. Then I left. That was another reason that I had for looking for a place for myself. I wanted a place which was as impenetrable as possible; a regular fortress. I found it too. It was murder trying to get inside, but I've lived there ever since. The only thing missing was the other part of myself." "You're going to have to speak a little plainer to me, Azrael," she smiled at him as she ran her fingers through his hair to get the last of the braiding out, "I've been here for a long time, but our son hasn't always been the sparkling conversationalist that you met today. Do you know what that can do to a woman's mind?" she chuckled. "We've always been so much like one another," he said, "so you might imagine how it today felt for me. I came here mostly to see if the place was still standing. The best that I might have hoped for was that I'd find Dad still living here, and maybe he could tell me if he knew what had happened to you and it would have been a miracle if he could have told me where you might be. I guess that I had a hope that at least you'd found someone for yourself and that you were happy." He shook his head, "I never thought that I'd find you here. I'm very happy that I could help you. I never thought that I'd have a son, Rachel. You've done an incredible job raising him the way that you have." He looked down and took her hand, looking up at the fresh, clean bandage that he'd applied and thanking the stars that he'd come when he had. Another day and he was fairly certain that she'd have been beyond what he could do. "I guess that I'd like to offer you and Sariel a change of scene. I live inside a mountain. It was hollowed out hundreds of years ago, and there was a command post build right inside it. The humans of that time were afraid of another place using huge bombs and missiles to attack them -- just as they were ready to attack that other place the same way. I guess it was a big long stalemate that was supposed to be like that between them. The place is large inside, and I've spent a few years just cleaning it all up. The humans have forgotten about it, and there's nothing inside it to interest them anymore anyway. But it's a comfortable and safe place to live, if you're a person who is a little like something else -- something which might be feared by humans and hunted by others something like yourself. And you wouldn't be alone there either. I've found that I can make quite a comfortable living seeking things for others now and then, if they can pay my price. But it can be rather challenging to do it all alone, and it takes five times longer to get anything done. I live there with a pair of like-minded individuals, and we've found that a little company on the road can help a lot. They have their own reasons to want to be away from the place where they came from. I don't know how you feel about me, but I want you to live there with me. Sariel would love it, and we'd be safe there. It's a little closer to people, but they don't know what's there. Maybe we could get him into a school there." "Who are the others?" she asked. "They're a couple of Drow that I met in one of their cities underground. Believe me, they know how it feels to be shunned or feared by others the same as we do. I think you'd like them -- once you got used to the way that they argue and fight all the time. It used to drive me crazy, but they never mean it and now I find it quite entertaining and there's nobody better to have at your back when you need somebody there." "I've never seen one. I don't know anything about them, other than humans hate them," Rachel said, "I guess that puts them one step up in my book already. But I've got to think about Sariel." "I know that," he said, "I don't think there's any reason for concern, other than not knowing them, but you can't live up here alone forever can you? I can't see how that would be good for Sariel. Besides, he'd have all sorts of opportunities to learn from a couple of quite capable individuals. One of them is a mage and the other is unbelievably good at any kind of fighting. I'm sure he'll drive them nuts with his questions and anyway, the place is huge inside. I doubt that he'd get tired of poking around. I know I haven't yet. They're not there now, or they weren't when I left. They went off looking for a little adventure, though I'd guess that's not the right way to say it. They were after a set of wands for the mage that we'd heard of." "How would we live there, Azrael?" Rachel asked him, "Are we supposed to live like a couple of adults who have a child between them? I know that I was the one who said that it didn't matter back then, as long as we had each other. But things have changed, haven't they? You're the father of that little boy, Azrael, and right or wrong, you're also his uncle, aren't you? I haven't told him about any of that. He only knows that you're his father. I guess that I need to know what you have in mind." He sighed, "I don't know about what to tell him yet, "Azrael said, "I can say that I would love to be a part of his life -- not that I've earned that right. I'm saying that I want you in my life in some way -- and if I need to leave it up to you to decide what you want, then that would be fine with me." He looked down after a moment. "No it wouldn't. But I'd live with whatever you decided," he said looking up. "If you found a man of some kind that you wanted, I'd be alright with that, I guess. I just want to know that you're alright, especially now that I know about my son. We haven't lived like one for a long time, but we are still a family. I guess that I'm saying that I'd like it if we acted like one. He probably doesn't need it, but after today, and knowing what I do now, well I'm prepared to step up, and I'd let you decide how you want me to play it." She reached to touch his face. "You are the worst liar in the world, Azrael, and you always have been -- at least to me. I'm the same as you are, remember? It sure wouldn't be fine with me, living in the same mountain -- or wherever that is, knowing that you're in love with someone else. I'd probably want to kill them, not that I would. So try this again, and I'll give you another chance to get it right this time. Tell me one more time what you want, and you don't have to earn the right to be Sariel's father. You already are his father. The only thing that you need to earn is his love. But never mind him for the moment. This is about us. We should define us before we complicate things again. If you're trying to say that you'd want to be my partner, then say it and I'll give you my answer. But you have to say it this time, not me. I did that already. We'd both never find somebody who is human and could live with us as we are. We'd for damn sure never find another one like ourselves, and I don't want to try -- especially with a demon of any variety anymore. I think that I only want the one that I had before, but he has to say it the right way. We've both lived alone long enough to know that we could do it, but it's not what we really want in our demonic little hearts is it?" He thought about it for a moment. She was right as she'd always been. For what they were -- both kinds, it was wrong, though more from the human side of things. But they had loved each other so much at one time that parting was like leaving yourself behind. They'd never find someone, and the truth of it was that they had never really wanted to. He'd tried a few times, and most of those attempts had really been non-starters that had started and died away almost right afterward. Every time that had happened, it had cost him a year or two of upset and unhappiness, knowing that it was hopeless. "What I would want to say is that I want you to accept me as your male," he said quietly, though she could see that he was in earnest, "I'd accept you as my female and we could go from there. But I think we need to be a little careful. If it were up to me, I'd probably just say, 'let's do it', but we've been apart for so long and there's Sariel to consider as well. At this moment, I don't think that it would be wise to ever tell Sariel that we're related -- though in the other form it will probably be pretty obvious to him, I would think, but then I don't know if he's ever seen any others. It's still wrong somehow inside me, but I've gotten over that and I think that we need each other if we're going to do this right for our son." She nodded with a soft smile, "I still want to be your female -- it's all that I've ever wanted to be. But we're a little cursed, aren't we, Azrael? I've cried all of my tears and I've felt all of the shame that I thought I could over what we'd done. But then I stopped to think. None of them care anyway. They don't even know us or who we are, do they? All that I know was that I was miserable without you. It sounds to me as though you weren't exactly hopping from one set of arms to another. So as far as what you said goes, I'll accept you as mine right now, since I've already lived the alternative and I don't like it as much as I think that I could be happy with you. For just the chance at half of what we had before, it's worth it. You're like me. I hear you, but I don't have any real reservations about the kind of father that you'd be. For now, let's not tell Sariel about us, other than we were together once and we're trying to do it right this time. I do have other conditions though. You have to live here with us until just before the winter. We'll have a better idea then, and if we still agree, we can go to your damn mountain and I'll be happy to leave here forever, though our son will need to want that too for me to agree. Seeing the way that he was looking at you, and how you made him a part of everything, I don't think that you'll have any trouble. While you were out getting the pump to run again and then heating the water with your hands for his bath, he was bursting to tell me everything that you did together. There is another thing," she said quietly, "though I don't think that it'll be a problem either. You've saved my ass I don't know how many times when we were kids and as we grew. You did it again today. I knew that you wouldn't say anything, but I also know that if you hadn't come today, I'd probably be on my way out tomorrow or the day after. So I've come really close to leaving Sariel all alone in the world at the age of seven. It's not a pleasant thing to consider. I think that's what this family thing is all about at its heart, so that if something happens to one parent, the kids stand at least a chance because they still have one parent left. We might not be what's normal, and by human standards what we did was wrong, but I've never minded. I was happy then. I think we can be happy again, and there's the reality of one thing; what's done is done, and no matter what, we made a child between us. We're his parents, and we have to see to it that he lives long enough to grow up, right?" "Agreed," Azrael said, and she knew that he meant it. "What's in my heart is a lot of thanks and hope," she said, "so I'd be happy to sit here and just breathe air with you, but I'm also still weak and I'm feeling tired. Why don't you damp the fire down and help me to bed? I'll need help to get this dress off anyway or I'd just rip it when I got fed up." "You'd rip your dress?" He was a little astounded. He knew his sister and she'd always been the kind to want to keep her clothes well. But Rachel gave him that look of hers. He hadn't seen it in years, but she'd always had this way to combine a smile and a smirk into one expression when she'd been kidding him about something. "Look at it from my side," she chuckled quietly, "It might have taken years, but I think that I've finally gotten you to see things my way, though maybe not for the very same reasons that I had then. We're all we've got, and as bushed as I am, coming back from feeling so sick for so long, I'm looking at the chance to go to bed with you again. We can't do a whole lot, and we'll have to learn to be quiet like regular folks, but for a chance to hold you to me and know that it'll be alright from now on, Honey, I'd tear the door off its hinges if I couldn't get it open. We already know the answer, but let's go see how much we still love each other. What are you laughing about?" she asked. "Well first off, I don't think that I really stood much of a chance here if I'd had objections -- not that I have any this time. I agree with everything that you said. But you're saying that you might not be up to much, and that makes sense. I wouldn't even have the thought of it tonight, since you still have a way to go to be completely better. But there's another thing." "Another thing?" Rachel asked. "Uh-huh," he chuckled again, "I'm happy that you still want me," he said, "and I haven't felt this good inside for a long time -- about eight years, I think. But have you walked up this mountain lately?" "Yes," she said, "well, not in the last two months. I did just after the spring thaw, why?" "How long did that take you, Rachel?" "Well, it takes about two days, with a nap in the old cedar grove about halfway." He smiled, "I did it in a day and a bit, but I didn't stop. I just kept walking in the dark. I'm a little tired too." "Oh," Rachel said, looking a little surprised, "I guess we might only be able to do it one time then, huh?" "You haven't changed a bit," he smirked. "Come on, just something slow?" she said with that pout that he liked. --------------------- It was later that night, when they lay holding each other that he heard it. It was a soft little sound that she made in the way that she sighed when she was happy lying against him. He opened his eyes and saw hers looking back. For what they were, there was no true darkness. They could see well enough to read a book in almost pitch blackness. It was that dark where they were, but the only thing they read were each other's smiles. She kissed him softly and moved to settle against him. "I win," she said in the same cheery tone that she'd always chosen whenever she'd bested him at anything when they were children. -------------------------- He found his father waiting for him when he'd gotten up and come back from washing his face. "Mom said to go to the henhouse for a few eggs," he said, "Wanna come?" "Sure," Azrael smiled and they set off together, Sariel carrying the bag of feed and Azrael lugging a jerry can of water for the hens. The old chicken coop was out at the edge of the grove by the meadow. It was the standard affair with a ring of chickenwire fencing around it. A few hens and the rooster were out. The boy spread feed for them and asked Azrael if he could fill up the low trough for them. "I can't," he said, "the fence and the gate are warded to protect the chickens out here. I'm afraid that you'll have to do it." Sariel smiled a little impishly, though he was just a bit disappointed that his father hadn't fallen for it. "How did you know?" he smiled, "I was gonna stop you before you touched it or anything. Can you tell or something?" Azrael nodded, "I can see it a mile away, though I don't need that to tell. It's always been warded. It's the only way that you can keep chickens up here this far from the house. They wouldn't last a night out here by themselves. Trying to trick me into getting a blast, were you?" Sariel laughed a little, "Yeah, I guess I was." He stared at the tiny ball of lightning there in his father's hand. He hadn't even seen how it got there, never mind how it could be held like that. He could tell what it was though; his mother could make them as well. Azrael's eyes shone a little, "Shall we see just how fast a seven year-old can run?" The boy's expression changed instantly, "Please, ... no, ..." His father's face changed back to a good-natured expression as the ball snapped out of sight. "Sariel, my young friend," he grinned, "You shouldn't ever challenge me like that. I think we have the same sense of humor. Besides, "he said as he laid his hand on the boy's shoulder, "Do you really think that I'd do that to you? Can you just see me running around all through the woods and the meadow here while your mother throws them at me afterward? Have you ever seen her throw one?" A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 02 The boy laughed as he nodded. "Then you know that she's somebody that I fear," he grinned, "How crazy do you think I am, huh?" It brought the desired response and they laughed about it and joked over it all the way back. Over breakfast, Rachel explained that the adults had obviously been a pair a long time ago, since Sariel was the result and that they'd decided to get back together. "I never thought that something like this would ever happen," she said, "at best, I thought that one day, we might leave to live somewhere else a little closer to people. I thought that if I was really lucky I might find a boyfriend, but then you and I would both have to be so careful that he never found out what we also are. But your father is the same as us, Sariel, so we don't have to hide anything." She looked at Azrael a little pointedly, "Especially since he was ready to just toss a lightning ball around in the meadow." ------------------------- Over the next week or so, Rachel healed almost completely, though she was just getting back to really feeling like her old self. With Azrael around, she found that her heart now had the ability to step out from the purely defensive mindset that she'd unconsciously adopted from living in a remote place alone with a boy and always having to worry. She wasn't a weak person by her nature, but living there had caused the two of them to live more like fearful mice, always wondering who might be coming up the hillside. Now she was happy, and though she'd had a concern about how her two boys would find their roles as father and son at the outset, she'd seen that it had been groundless. Sariel had just seemed to take to his father in an instant, and Rachel now had the time to devote to regaining the abilities that had begun to wither in her from lack of use. Just a little more time, and she planned to speak to Azrael about beginning to teach their son how to use whatever he'd been given. It was time for him to learn more about whatever he had and how to use it. He could fly well, but other than a few simple things, he knew little of what he might have inside him. As far as the two adults went, it was as though they'd never been apart. They just fit together, smiling and laughing, trying their best for each other and wanting to make up for all of the lost time. The difference was that they had been apart, and each one had changed in little ways so that even though they'd been so close in the past, they were now finding that there were enough of these little changes to make it seem as though there was an element of newness to the relationship that they both enjoyed. It was a little like falling all over again. It came as a bit of a moment when she was talking to her son, telling him that while things might be a little different now, she still loved him so much. She noticed that while she had a slight fear that Sariel might have had an objection or a worry or two, that didn't seem to be the case at all. He was standing with her and listening, but he was looking out of the window, watching as Azrael worked at stretching out the hide of a mountain sheep so that one of them would have something warm to wear later in the year. "You know," she said with a little smirk, "I thought that you might have a bit of trouble with Azrael and I being back together again. You never knew him. I was a little worried. You are listening, aren't you?" "Hmm," he nodded as he watched Azreal work, seeing the wings, the horns and the tail, so very like his own. Mostly, he was a little fascinated with his father's size and the strength which came from the muscles on his body. "He's my father and I like him a lot," Sariel said quietly, "I know he loves me. I can tell. Will I look like him one day when I grow up?" Rachel wanted to laugh. She'd been worried, and Sariel was more interested in something much more basic to a little boy's mind. "Well," she smiled, "You already do look like him, just smaller because you're seven. But yes, I imagine that when you're all grown up, you'll look like him, and you'll be just as handsome. You already are, you know." "Just handsome as a kid, right?" he asked as he looked up. "Just as handsome as a kid can be," she smiled. "That's good," he said as he walked to the door to see if he could help. Rachel grinned to herself as she watched the two of them, her men at work, she supposed. She thought back to the previous evening when Azrael had taught his son that he didn't always need to have to stop if he had a sudden need to adopt his more human form. "It can be a problem then, can't it?" he'd smiled, "What do you do, if you're here like that, and you hear humans coming up the hill? What if you're too far away to change so that you look like them and are nowhere near your human clothes? They lose their minds to see us as we are like this, and they always wear clothes unless they're washing. So what do you do then, son?" Sariel had thought about it for a moment, "I always just hide in the woods. There's nothing else that I can do then." Azrael grinned at his son's expression as he'd stared, seeing his father as a human and wearing clothing in an instant. "How did you -- " That was when Azrael began to teach the boy something very useful for what they were, how to create the illusion of clothing out of thin air. "They sure won't keep you warm on a cold day, but you won't have to hide in the forest then." Sariel's first attempts had been a little torture to his parents, not wanting to laugh, but other than one particularly funny case where he'd forgotten about his tail, the boy had it in a few minutes. "I can't believe that I forgot about showing him that," Rachel said later, long after Sariel was asleep. "I understand why, Rachel," Azrael whispered as he got to his knees in their bed and she lifted her legs for him. They groaned quietly as he entered her again and they smiled at each other. "You only forgot that he'd reached an age where it was possible for him to do it. You've had your hands full for so long just trying to keep the two of you alive up here." "I suppose," she sighed as he began to thrust slowly, "but right now, it's not my hand that's full." She raised her legs a little higher and he pulled her a bit closer as though she weighed nothing. "I love you," he whispered. "And I love you," she smiled, and she reached up to touch his chest. A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 03 ***We continue with the lives of a small family of part-demons living in the Rocky Mountains. In this chapter, I introduce two important characters. The type has been seen in literary works before and have found their way into a few video games as well, a far cry from their beginnings in the legends of European peoples far in the past. These two are trying to make new lives for themselves and one has a little trouble with English. What's important is that I've tried to create a pair of characters which readers might find themselves falling in love with for their strangely endearing qualities and I hope that these two are as much fun to read as they are to write. 0_o ------------------ Book of the Mountain Clan, Part 2 The heat of the day found them at the stream. Since it was clear just what the three of them were -- aside from a family trying to re-invent itself, or a family of two seeking to integrate a new member in Azrael, they just went in their demonic forms, horns, wings and all. Sariel and his mother stood in a slower section of the steam near the house looking into the water at the small fish and noticing one or two salmon, the first of the spring spawning run to reach this far upstream. Azrael was off about three hundred feet away looking for some herbs when he heard Rachel cry out. He snapped his head around and saw a large brown bear moving toward the pair. From what he could feel, the bear had been intent on doing a little fishing and saw Rachel and her son as someone who ought not to be there in his way. Inside the woods at the edge of the clearing, a pair of individuals in dark hooded cloaks watched the scene unfold after exchanging curious looks at one another. Azrael spread his wings and was airborne toward what would be an uneven conflict in a few seconds. As he climbed, both of his hands began to work patterns in the air -- patterns which were completely unrelated to one another, though one's purpose was to intensify the other. The bear was intent on the ones trying to stumble out of the pool to run and didn't see the half-demon as he came around in his wide turn, streaking like a rocket. Rachel and Sariel turned to look back when they heard the snapping sizzle and the pained roar of the bear. They saw the bolt shooting from Azrael's left hand while his right continued its machinations. Rachel stared, seeing that this wasn't only a ball of electrical energy thrown at a target. Her brother had established an arc which stayed, flowing from him to the bear, even as he raced past. As her eyes met his for only an instant, the thoughts of one of the watchers were complete and the female demon and her son felt the ground shake a little under their feet. Something large and white flashed by them, spraying them with water splashed from the stream and throwing divots of earth as it accelerated up the far bank and then it was racing away from them toward the bear who looked about as amazed as it was possible for a bear to appear. But the expression was gone in an instant and the animal recognized the threat as it stood up on its hind legs to bellow a warning before the fight. Rachel grabbed her son's arm and they ran into the forest, since it offered a place to get out of sight. Taking off would have been the best option, but there was no room for it in any direction that didn't face the bear. That brought them face to face with the pair in the woods. They stood looking at a pair of small pistol-like crossbows in the hands of a surprised female. Like most of the elven races, she was lithe, and not tall compared to a human, though this one was tall for a Drow female. All that her hood revealed of her features were her coal black skin, her eyes, and a little of her snowy white hair. The one next to her was the same type of creature, though quite large for his people, very close to Azrael's height. He looked past them, holding out an ornately carved staff in the direction of the animals. "Stand still for a moment," he said in a strangely accented voice without looking at them, "before something tragic happens to more than the bear." The brown bear bellowed its warnings, but the white intruder only began its assault. Several times, the brown bear connected solidly with the polar bear, but there was no visible effect, though when the polar bear retaliated, there were bellows and blood from the brown bear. After a few minutes of this, the brown bear turned and stumbled off. There were a few other altercations as the polar bear hounded the brown bear out of sight. Neither animal returned. Azrael landed at the edge of the trees and walked to stand next to his small family. Rachel and Sariel didn't understand what was said -- at least at first, about half of what was spoken was in another language. The female nodded in the direction of Rachel and Sariel. The few elves that Rachel had ever come into contact with carried slightly musical voices, but she'd never seen any like these. What came out of this one was a blend of two languages, and her voice held a little of the same musical quality, but it was a touch lower and carried a slightly smoky silkiness, all overlaid with a tone of curious confidence. She tilted her head a little with a small smile. "These are yours, Master? These ones are important to you?" "We -- did not see how this began," the male beside her said as he lowered his staff. "Were they running from you or the bear?" "From the bear," Azrael smirked, "Put those things away," he said, pointing to the crossbows. He looked at the female and smiled, "They're mine, Cha'Khah." The Drow female's eyebrows rose and she looked at Rachel with a bit of wonder on her face, "You are his female?" Rachel nodded and the hooded one regarded Sariel for a moment before she looked at Rachel and Azrael with a smile spreading across her face, "Then this surely must be your son, Azrael. Either that, or my hair is in need of shearing again since it hangs over my eyes and keeps me from seeing well." She lowered her weapons and in a flash they were out of sight under her cloak. "A thousand pardons, "she said with a little bow that looked as though the gesture was killing her to make, "I did not know, honored Mistress. What is your name, please? And the young drowling, how is he called, so that I might know you both?" "This is Cha'Khah," Azrael said, indicating the Drowess, "She has a little trouble with language sometimes, but never as much as she is pretending to have at the moment. She is apologizing for threatening you and didn't mean to, now that she knows. It's not something that she finds pleasant to have to do. I don't think that I've ever seen her apologize to anyone, now that I think about it. She asks for your names, so that she can stop playing at calling me her 'master' and you 'honored mistress'. She has an ironic sense of sarcastic humor, though she doesn't mean anything by it." "My name is Rachel," she said, bowing a little herself, "and this is Sariel, my son -- our son." "Azrael is right," Cha'Khah grinned, "I mean nothing by it. There is not even any humor to be gained if you do not understand our ways. So'," she said in a pleased and deciding tone, "Well met. The Dark Maiden be praised! It is good to know that there lives a female SOMEwhere who knows the way into the heart of my friend Azrael. I am honored to meet you." This time she did bow deeply and it didn't seem to bother her at all. "And this is Vadren," Azrael smiled, "mage and, ... bear maker, it seems. These are the ones that I told you about." "What was that?" Rachel asked, "What just happened there?" "Where did that other bear come from?" Sariel asked. "That is a little hard to answer," Vadren replied, "I think the best answer is that I made it. It does not exist anymore and it was not really alive anyway." Rachel snorted a little, "Well for something that you say wasn't alive, it did a great job of driving that first bear off." She could see the blood-stained ground and pointed. "It looks as though it can be hurt and even bleed." He shook his head, "That did not come from my bear." "Why not?" Sariel asked. Vadren shrugged, "Because there was no blood in it. You may not have noticed it, young one, but when my bear hit the other one, you could see the force of the blow ripple through the flesh." He touched the boy's arm and moved his finger around. "See? Your skin is attached, but it rides on the flesh beneath. If you were watching, you didn't see anything like that when the white bear was hit -- no rippling of the force through the flesh because there was no flesh. The white bear was solid because it was not a bear. It was only a construct." He let Sariel chew on that while he asked Rachel if they were alright. "Yes, but I really need to practice a lot more. I took far too long to think of defending myself, and I didn't want to take off with Sariel thinking about trying to protect me. I'm pretty sure that the bear was the same one that I got in the way of earlier, so that's twice now that I've run into him." "He will trouble you no more," Vadren said, "for he is already dead." "What about the white one?" Sariel asked, looking up. "Gone as well," Vadren replied, "His single purpose was to attack the first bear. I felt that one die, and so ..." "Why have you come?" Azrael asked them. Cha'Khah touched Rachel's shoulder to get her attention. "You do not know me," she smiled, "and perhaps I risk your wrath here, and I do not wish to offend, but, ... " She threw her arms around Azrael for a moment. After a very brief hug, she released him and turned to Rachel, "I have only two people who I might say are close friends. I know no one else on the surface. The embrace was because I missed one of them and it is better than my usual alternative -- to strike him for his thoughtlessness at walking away with so little notice, though I can see why now." Azrael nodded, "That was what I was expecting, to tell you the truth." The Drowess tilted her head a little mockingly, "A can always add the gesture if you wish, Azrael. I would not want you to feel any less loved than ever for causing us to worry for you. You told us nothing of these ones. You left us only a strange and cryptic note that you had gone to the place where you were born, but you said nothing of what you sought for there, saying only that you would be gone a few days. We waited, and then we sought to track you." "You couldn't have waited for very long," Azrael said, "I've only been gone a week and a half. It must have taken you most of that time to come here, and it takes time to walk in and up the mountain." "The fire was still warm when we came home, so you must have left not long before" she said, nodding with concern written on her lovely face, "We waited for as long as we could." There was an awkward silence for a moment before Vadren cleared his throat a little uncomfortably. "We waited for as long as Cha'Khah could sit still for." He looked off into the trees at some birds. Azrael waited and smiled a little. Cha'Khah grumbled an almost silent warning at the mage. "So we left within the hour," Vadren said with a sigh and a grin. The Drowess exhaled a curse through her teeth in her own tongue and then added, "I will gut you while you sleep for that, Vadren." "You might need that bear again soon," Azrael laughed," to keep you alive." "Why did you say nothing about these ones?" Cha'Khah asked, indicating Rachel and Sariel, "We knew you for a year underground, and two years after. Three years, Azrael, and you said nothing about such a beautiful female for yourself and a fine drowling son. I would be the first to say that I know little of the ways of your people, my friend, but you said nothing, and any male should be proud to have such a family, I think." She spoke to Rachel a little conspiratorially, "I seek to cause guilt in him. Is this done by females here and is it too much?" "It's done here," Rachel laughed in a little delight, "No more than that, though. That was just enough." Cha'Khah nodded her pleasure. "I came to see what might be left here," Azrael said, "I didn't know that Rachel was here. We haven't seen each other for eight years. I didn't know that I had a son. I suddenly have a family. We have decided to be a pair again." "What's a drowling?" Sariel asked. "You are not like us," Cha'Khah said as she reached to tousle the boy's hair in a gesture that was as uncharacteristic of her as an individual as it was of her race, "I have never really seen the children of your kind, Rachel, but you have made a beautiful one here." She reached her graceful hands to her hood and pulled it back. It can often be said that a person's face might have one feature which might make it striking and memorable, the way that someone's cheekbones may catch the observer's eye. In Cha'Khah's case, almost every feature was lovely. Her face was angular, leading to a small-looking mouth, but it was only an impression. In fact, if one took the time (or was allowed it), all of her features were a little other-worldly and might be termed unremarkable though lovely, but together, her beauty was rather uncommon for her kind. Her lips were thin and yet, because of the line of her chin they looked full. Her cheekbones were prominent, and yet they didn't dominate that face. Her nose wasn't long, yet it was rather tall from a point between her eyes to the nostrils. The tips of her pointed ears protruded from the long slight ringlets of her white mane, though they weren't large themselves. She had high arching eyebrows and after a moment, it might come to anyone that if there was one feature that dominated her lovely face, it was her eyes. They were a little large, and there was a very pronounced almond shape to them and the way that they sloped upwards towards her ears. Like any Drow, they were red in a dim or dark place. In a well-lit area, they appeared to be blue at first glance, but closer examination revealed that they were in fact, a pale shade of lilac. They looked like two flowers or gems sparkling in a bucket of shiny coal. The whole combination could take one's breath away. It was an effect that Cha'Khah was well aware of. Such was the effect of that face on others that more than one opponent had simply stopped to stare or gaze at her loveliness. And of course they died as they did. This was the serene and interested expression that she wore most often. When Cha'Khah was supremely angry, she looked more like a hornet. But at the moment, her face wore only a friendly interested look. She was pleased to have found Azrael and amazed at meeting Rachel and her son. Rachel stared at her beauty and Sariel stood smitten with his mouth hanging open. It caused the Drowess to laugh softly. "To the other races here we are Drow. A drowling is what we call one of our children. You may take it as a compliment from me, but do not look to hear it from another of my kind. We are known to be cruel to outsiders and I am no different." She tousled his white-blonde hair again with a smile, not being able to help herself. "But to you, beautiful boy-child, I offer a word of well-meant advice in case you ever meet others like us. Do not ever show one of us that you are this taken with how we look to you -- especially not ever a female. We use everything that we can to our advantage." She sighed and smiled at the boy and his mother. "But here, Vadren and I are the strangers, no? Here, we are the ones who must try to learn your ways -- and this I seek to do." She indicated the carcass of a doe that they'd set down as they came upon the scene of the fight. "I knew that if we found our friend, our coming would be unexpected, and so I sought to bring something of use. If you would show me a place, I can begin on the evening meal." ------------------- Rachel and Cha'Khah worked together outside the cabin on the skinning and butchering. It gave them a chance to talk and they found a friendship beginning. To Rachel, these were a very different people, and the Drowess was quick to point out their nature as it was where Drow normally lived. "We seem to find ways to like each other," she said, as she pushed a bit of her long white hair away from her face with the back of a bloodied hand, "This is a gift to me, and it is something that I have always wanted since my first steps out of the underground -- to get to know someone here. I left my underground city for many reasons, and one of the most important was a want that I had to make and have a friend who I could trust, Rachel." "Don't people have any friends where you come from?" Rachel asked, a little astonished. "One can have many friends there," the Drowess replied, "but there are always limits. If some sort of opportunity came up where a pair of friends both had a chance at something, and yet there was room for only one, you would soon see the small value of friendship there. You and I might be friends -- if you were a Drow for this moment. We might have been drowlings together, gone to the same academy, been through thick and thin, everything. But say that there was a male that we both wanted. That is a bad example, because very few Drow look for love. They look for gain, Rachel. But say that it was so in this case. We might help each other to remove any competition in the females who might want that male for themselves until it was only you and I. What do you think would happen then? Quiet murder is a form of art where I grew up." She laughed the dark scenario away. "But that is there and this is not. I am tired of having only friends which I must watch at my back. I want a true friend for once in my life, the kind that Azrael says that one can have here." She nodded at Azrael who stood watching as Sariel pestered Vadren with questions out in the clearing. "I am a little envious that you have Azrael's love the way that I see that you do," she said, "I have never seen this in him, the way that he looks at you and the drowling. It would be something that I could see myself desiring. But this is not Drow society, and I am making a friend in you, I hope. I would much rather have you as an ally who cares about me. I would much rather have a friend who I can care about and not have my motives questioned in the back of her mind." She laughed a little, "I am also falling in love with your sweet boy. I watch him for a time, and then I notice that he has made me smile. I take this as an important step in my journey from what I was to what I might become." She nodded to Rachel, "Another reason to thank you, for I spent all of my life before I came here being as miserable and cunning as the rest. It is a big reason why I left." Rachel thought that she'd heard a little bit of wistfulness in Cha'Khah's voice. "What is it that you might wish to become?" Cha'Khah looked down for a moment, "This is a little hard for me to say," she said, "We are raised to be reliant upon ourselves above all. I think that our self-serving nature comes from this a little, perhaps. I commanded a unit of fighters guarding Vadren's home. To show you the distrust of our kind, he and I are related, though not closely. But we both worked for the same house -- the same family, as it is expected. Even so, it was my task to learn what I could of whatever he was up to and report on this to the Matron Mother of the house -- and Vadren is her nephew! If she thought that he was up to no good for the house, she would instruct me to kill him. If I died in the attempt, the matron would think nothing of my death and merely appoint another for the task." "That sounds awful," Rachel said. "It does here on the surface, does it not?" the Drowess smirked, "But that is life there. Imagine a city where the power is divided among many houses such as this, each one's place and importance determined by a balance of threats, everyone looking to get ahead, and everyone ready to turn in an instant if the alliances shift a little here or there. Imagine each house ready to turn. Imagine each city ready to turn on another for the right incentive. A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 03 We love to trade and haggle with the traders -- wherever they come from. But if a trader or merchant sets his price only a little too high and the buyer feels that it is an affront, any customer would simply kill the merchant out of it. What I wished to become is free from that -- and Azrael has freed me, though I must live here where the sun is like a burning hunter who hounds me until the nighttime. But I am free and happier for it. Now what I wish to become is loved by someone." Rachel thought about it, "You said that you and Vadren are distant relations," she said, "Aren't you a --" "A couple?" Cha'Khah smiled, raising an eyebrow, "No. We care about each other, and we have, ... relations between us sometimes, but that is more out of friendship and mutual need, rather than the deep sort of love that I dream of having one day. Vadren is the same. We care for each other, but we both seek to find someone here to love us as you have -- as Azrael has. You are lucky. You see, Azrael showed us what might be possible when he led us out of the darkness. For what I would wish, he told me that it could have something in common with fighting in that sometimes one has to make their own luck." She smiled at Rachel. "But my luck improves, I think, Rachel. Today, I met someone who instantly made me wish for her friendship. Such a thing has never happened to me. Please, try to ignore my hard words at Vadren and my mocking tone at Azrael. I think that they expect it from me, and I must keep up appearances no? I will never take that tone with you. Though I must be a little careful, no matter what Azrael might say, I do still struggle with the language sometimes." They finished up and Rachel smirked, "There. All done. And now we can begin on dinner." Cha'Khah laughed, "It is an unending thing, this business of living. Where can we wash this mess off, so that we may begin our next task?" They walked to the stream and after cleaning their hands, Rachel was startled at how quickly and easily the Drowess was able to manage to get her light armor off. "I seldom have anyone to help me," she shrugged. "So you are -- were a fighter?" Rachel asked, noticing that while she was lithe and shapely, Cha'Khah also carried a bit of muscle. It was just not evident unless she moved. Then the long muscles and sinews showed plainly for a moment until she stopped again. Cha'Khah nodded, "I was a warrior. I still am, I guess. I have learned that I have a slightly rare ability at magic for a female. It seldom happens. Vadren teaches me, as I teach him my own skills. He is a mighty mage, though like me, he was overlooked where we come from." Rachel looked at Vadren. He was thinner than a human male, but she could see that he was far from bony. There was muscle on that body quite plainly. She supposed that for what he was, he would be considered long and lean. He wore no armor, though his pants were padded in a way. She mentioned it and Cha'Khah said, "The trousers do carry protection without giving bulk. But there is more there than you see. There are many pockets, large and small. Vadren carries a lot of things for his craft. He wears that open short-sleeved vest under his cloak. The cloak is off now so you can see a little more of his body." Rachel nodded absently as she looked. Vadren's skin wasn't as dark as Cha'Khah's, though like hers, there was no undertone. When they stood together earlier, Rachel had noticed that next to her friend, Vadren was a very dark gray, though when he stood alone, he appeared black in color. Everywhere that she could see his flesh, he looked to be made of tendons, sinews, arteries -- and muscle. It wasn't the same sort as Azrael carried, it was there all the same though, she thought, as she looked at the bare parts of his chest and abdomen that she could see. His face was different from Cha'Khah's as well. He looked like the negative of an elven male, with the same sort of features. His nose and his lips were thin and elven in every respect but the color. The ears that she saw protruding through his hair were a little longer than Cha'Khah's, but she liked them. His hair was straight and she saw no ringlets or curls, but gods, it was long. He parted it in the middle and what there was of it in front hung far down, finally petering out just above where she imagined that his white pubic hair began -- if it weren't covered. When he turned for a second, she saw that his hair at the back reached his bottom. He wasn't beautiful, but altogether he was strikingly attractive. "What color are his eyes?" Rachel asked, the words seeming to slip out of her mouth by themselves. "Here in this light," the Drowess said quietly, very aware of Vadren's effect on most females and not wanting to break the spell for Rachel, "they are a very light blue. In the dark, they are red, the same as my own. So," she smirked as she laid her arm around Rachel's shoulders, "am I to tell my male that you merely find him attractive, or should I tell him that you fancy him?" Rachel snapped her head around to stare at Cha'Khah, feeling the beginnings of her furious blush, "Fancy him?" "Or perhaps I could tell him that you lust for him," she sighed playfully, "He would like to hear that far more. I know him well. Many females want him from their first sight of him. Mostly, he has no interest in human females, but it is a useful thing sometimes when we travel. There are times when we would prefer to have a room at an inn after all and not everyone shuns us. Sometimes, all that it takes is a little quiet conversation, and a woman innkeeper or an innkeeper's wife might find a wish to explore her, ... fascination a little beyond only gazing at him. A little quiet work on his part and we can sometimes stay for free." Rachel's mouth fell open for a moment and then she laughed, "And if the innkeeper is a man? Is that when you spring to the fore?" Her companion shook her head. "Perhaps it says something bad about me, I cannot say, but there is no human male that I have seen yet that I would lie with. If such an innkeeper presses me, he soon finds that he was mistaken, and sometimes he finds that he is dying. But we were not talking about me. I was making sport over the way that you looked hungry when you gazed at Vadren and I enjoyed the look of small shock when I called him my male." "You said that you weren't a couple," Rachel grinned good-naturedly, "and besides, it doesn't cost anything to look, does it?" Cha'Khah threw her head back and laughed for a moment, "True, very true, my friend. We are not a pair. We are only close, and he is likely as close to being my male as I will ever get to having one for me here on the surface. We are as good as wed anyway, and to listen to us bicker, you would think nothing else. We do love each other, I suppose, and he is a good male. In this business that we are in, there are a lot of times when there is a little, ... tension in the doing of it. There can be the occasional close call, I think that you would say. Between us, when it is over, we sometimes feel glad to have lived through whatever we braved to obtain what we came for. Afterwards, it is good to let off the tension with a good meal, a bit of drink, and a little fucking. It keeps us close, though there is not much love in it. Well, not the sort that I would want if I had my heart's wish." "How do you mean?" her companion asked. "Well there is the sort of loving that happens out of lust, and the sort that happens out of love. Then there is the soft and quiet sort that happens not because one needs to be quiet, but because a pair wants to give to each other. I think that most couples who are in love have all three." Cha'Khah looked at Rachel and slowly removed her arm, "I have only had the first kind, my friend. It is nice and I feel better afterward, but it is a long way from the sort of loving that I would want from a male that I could call my own. Or do I think wrongly here, never having had this for myself?" At that instant, Rachel could feel exactly what the Drowess sought for herself. She put her hands on Cha'Khah's shoulders, "No. You think quite rightly, Cha'Khah. I had Azrael's love a long time ago, but we fell apart. I won't go into the reasons because none of them matter. He wasn't my first, and after him there were a few others for a month or so. I was pregnant with Azrael's son but I didn't know it then. Long after it was too late, I came to realize that he was the one. I even knew it before, but right then was when I felt it the worst because we'd lost each other. By whatever wonder it took to bring him here where I had come back to live and raise our son by myself, he came last week and found me dying. That bear opened my arm and I was so sick." She held up her arm, "There was meat gone from here, and all that's left are these lines now. He healed me and the flesh grew back in one night. I don't know how he did it and I don't care. All that matters to me is that he came back and we fell for each other all over again. I know what you mean. We do it all three ways, but though I love how hard we can do it for so long, I need the kind that you're talking about the most. That's when he says everything without one word. That's how I know that I'm his and he's mine and that we belong together. If that's what you're searching for Cha'Khah, then you just have to keep looking, because that's what you need, isn't it?" She kept her hands on the other one's shoulders, but she pushed herself back a little to look at her. "I understand you better now. I've never had many friends, the way that I grew up, but if you want one, I'd say that you've got one now in me. I'll be your friend; I know exactly the way that you feel, ... my friend." The Drowess smiled softly, "I have no words for this, because our speech assumes only others like ourselves. You are noble to me for only your words and how you show your heart to me." She put her hands on Rachel's arms and shook them gently once for emphasis, "It sounds a little wrong to say it that way in this speech, that you are a noble Drow, but that is the way that the thought comes to me. Thank you. So," Cha'Khah smiled, "We are friends, Rachel. You will never regret this friendship with me. I promise it." As they washed, they noticed Vadren speaking to Sariel as Azrael looked on. Rachel saw an impish grin spread across her new friend's face after a moment. Cha'Khah took a handful of water and passing her other hand over it; she created a sparkling ball and leapt high into the air. At the apex, she hung there for only a moment before she threw the ball of water at Vadren. She landed on her feet in the stream with a splash and ducked as low as she could, seeking to hide behind the grass at the shore. "I must hide now," she giggled quietly just as Rachel heard the Drow's surprised gasp when the cold projectile hit him in the lower back. Rachel was already turning around to study something off in the distance in another direction. "You can fly!" she hissed over her shoulder in amazement. "No," Cha'Khah chuckled as she whispered, "I cannot fly like you. I have no wings. But I can float. Most of us can. I only used this to get higher and to stay long enough to choose my moment to attack. This fades in us the longer that we are on the surface. But I live under a mountain, and I have only been gone a little while. What is Vadren doing now?" Rachel risked a look. "He's talking to my son and Azrael again." "As though nothing happened?" the Drowess asked, "Oh, that means that his retribution will be worse whenever it comes." She stood up and hid behind Rachel, peeking around her a little now and then. "I give Vadren trouble holding your son's attention now," she smirked, "he saw me and now tries to see more of me because of my skin." "He's used to seeing me," Rachel nodded, "I guess --" "I do not mind," Cha'Khah smiled, "We are different to most surfacers, Vadren and I. I expect it, and from one so young, I take no insult, Rachel. It is natural and to be expected. The boy is not being rude. You should have seen how half of the city stopped when Azrael first arrived. He looked just as he is now when he came, wearing nothing and looking like a demon, but carrying a bag of gold and gems for the matron of the house. No one was afraid, since we are used to seeing all manner of creatures there, but we had not seen his like before -- not like you are when you are like this. Drowlings came and stared quietly along with everyone else. The adult females were the worst, of course." "Why?" asked Rachel. Cha'Khah shrugged with a small smirk, "Because they think like adults. The higher females might look, but they are better able not to stare out of their sense of place. Oh, they think the same as anyone else, my friend, perhaps worse," she chuckled, "but though they might send a servant to make their hopeful solicitations on their behalf -- once they'd seen him a few times, they would never lower themselves to open invitations out in the street. A good thing," she scowled, "because they would only seek to use him as a slave and a novelty. You do know that he is very fine to look at, no?" "Oh, trust me," Rachel grinned, "I know." "You make a very attractive family," the Drowess smiled, "You are all three so beautiful to our eyes." "Thank you," the other smiled, looking at Cha'Khah and marveling at the color of the gleaming black skin before her. There was no other tone to it, she noticed again in the sunlight. If there was any hint of anything else, it would have been an almost black grayness. "Coming from one as lovely as you are, Cha'Khah, I take that as high praise." "As it was meant," Cha'Khah smiled genuinely as she tossed her long white hair with a shake of her head. Her lilac eyes opened and she filled her lungs in a deep gasp as a gallon of icy cold water hit her bare backside from behind her. A very wide variety of sounds came from Cha'Khah then as what Rachel thought must have been curses that she heard escaping through Cha'Khah's clenched teeth as she turned, her hands already forming the faerie fireballs to throw at Vadren who ran laughing in the other direction. Rachel wasn't sure what she'd heard, not knowing the language, but it sure sounded as though there was murder in it somewhere. The rest was lost in many more unintelligible curses as her friend ran off in pursuit. Rachel watched as Ch'Khah managed to close the gap and she hurled the fireballs with what Rachel could see was deadly accuracy, but while Vadren had expected this sort of response and mouthed his dispellment for them, she was already preparing her next attack. A few moments later, he hung helplessly ensnared in green tendrils which had sprung out of the ground to seize him. She walked up to him and they had a quiet conversation which ended in her long and forceful kiss before Cha'Khah came walking back to the stream with a small grin. The combination of her dark skin and her brilliantly white hair was a very striking one to Rachel. She was sure that her friend was the most beautiful female that she'd ever seen. "Are you just going to leave him there?" She asked the Drowess. "Only for a little while longer," Cha'Khah smiled with satisfaction. "You may as well know now, Rachel. Between Drow, everything is about bargaining. I threatened to leave him there until tomorrow or whenever he calms down enough to think of a counter to my enchantment. But this would really only set off another round of it. I told him that we are guests here and that we should not allow this to escalate into one of our feuds and he agreed. So I told him that I would release him in a little while, but, ..." She looked down and smiled a little shyly. "We are not much ashamed of ourselves, Rachel. I do not know how it is with you, so I am a little reluctant to say." Rachel smirked, "I remind you that aside from Vadren, none of us are wearing a thing, Cha'Khah. We're not shy either, so let's hear it." The Drowess laughed, "It is no punishment to him at all, but I told him that he had to fill me in the night and then he had to remove his seed afterward." Rachel thought about it, "How does he do that, with a spell or something?" "No," Cha'Khah said as she picked up her armor and began to walk back to start on the evening meal. She looked back after a few steps, "He must do it the hard way until I tell him that his efforts are sufficient." "Oh," Rachel smiled as she followed. "Forgive me if I don't really understand what you meant," she said after a moment. Cha'Khah laughed in her quiet and delighted way as she waited for Rachel to catch up. "There is nothing to forgive," she smiled as she transferred her armor to one hand in an obviously well-practiced sort of way. She put her free arm over her friend's shoulders and moved her head in to whisper in a conspiratorial manner, "I will fuck with him, and afterwards, he must lie on his back and I will hold myself above him until he licks his seed out -- though it will take some time for him to do that to my satisfaction," she said as they walked grinning. "I will be very demanding of his efforts," she smirked with a happy little sigh, "I always am." A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 04 ***I suppose that I ought to mention that there are several parts to this, and they're widely separated in geographical terms -- though there is interaction between them. The heads up -- to avoid confusion is that I tell you what you're looking at right after my notes to you, the reader. So that's what's happening here; we're leaving the group on the mountain for a little while as I introduce Selena -- a slightly troubled young woman struggling to stay alive in a shady business, though she'd tell you that it has its moments. 0_o ---------------------- Book of the Merren Part 1 Selena sat at the bar of the inn feeling the slight tension that comes when one trusts no one and is in a place where anything could happen and likely does on an almost regular basis. She knew that she was being given the once-over time and time again by most of the rough-looking males who might give a thought to getting lucky as they sat in boisterous groups at the tables of the inn's common room. Which was to say almost everyone in the place, she thought. All of that was fine, she supposed, but her interest only extended to the members of one particular group of them, and what she had in mind didn't involve pleasure on their part. She looked around a little furtively at the rough human and half-goblin men in the place. A lot of them were obviously thinking of trying their luck and were considering which approach might work. Selena found the thought a little absurd, since the majority of them weren't sharp enough to be able to have more than possibly two, neither one of which included an offer of dinner, and likely only one involved a question. And of course, the stable smelled better. She was also aware that there were others watching her as well. The barman wasn't looking all that friendly, since if anyone was actually successful in an attempt to pick her up, all the barman could expect to gain from it was the rental of one of his rooms instead of getting a cut from one of the wenches and the room fee into the bargain. He couldn't even be sure that she'd want a room at all for it. She might have her own place but he didn't think so. He hadn't seen her here before and wondered a little why -- if she were here to pick up a john -- she was still wearing that long dark cloak. Selena wanted to smirk, but held her face to a very slightly interested expression. The men and the barman weren't the only ones looking, and the men didn't count for the moment. Their interest was at least understandable at first glance. The barman wasn't pleased, and for the wrong reason, since he was making the assumption that she was here to freelance. The bar wenches held the same assumption, thought they were a little more of a problem, some of them being more inclined to take matters into their own hands with regard to discouraging the competition that they saw in Selena. She supposed that it was a little tough to make a living here as a female if you didn't have a marketable skill that was wanted and you had no man to protect you -- if you needed protection. The place obviously was just a drinking hole masquerading as an inn. An inn on the edge of a rough and tumble settlement with the equivalency of a pimple on the ass-cheek of the world, she thought. She wasn't terribly concerned. The first thing that she'd done when she'd walked in and chosen her place at the bar was to cast her eye around the room to make sure that the ones that she was after were here in the crowd. The second thing was the slow and purposeful way that she'd gotten herself seated. She hadn't been obvious about it, but she'd pulled back on her long cloak just enough to allow a little freedom of movement as she sat herself down. Really, it had also given her the chance to show a little of her long thighs and the high boots below them. This had the unwanted side-effect of annoying the real whores in the place. But it was the third thing that she'd done then which had given them all pause and it was done to keep all but the boldest -- or the most drunkenly foolish -- away from her for a little while because she wanted them to make up their dim minds before she started anything. She'd pulled out a long and cruel-looking dagger and laid it on the bar in front of her. It was working, obviously, since no one had tried to sit down on the stools to either side of her. There were rough rules to this game. They had to have been given the barest sort of warning, and that was what the dagger was for, so that they'd be able to catch the hint that this was five feet four inches, and one hundred twenty pounds of fireball and not just a slick fake-out girl playing the game. She'd gotten her first pint and it was gone now, finding its calling in washing a little of the blowing frozen dust from the cold streets here down. She'd been through here before long ago in winter and it never seemed to snow much. The horse's hooves dislodged some of the frozen dirt and the wind just blew that around. Conveniently, the oldest-looking and most porcine of the wenches walked over to take her order. She indicated the barman with a toss of her chins, "Jack there keeps girls here for what you're thinking of trying," she said, looking Selena over dismissively, "The men here like a girl with a bit of meat to her, you see." "You're confused about a few things," Selena replied quietly, knowing now that she was addressing one of the part-timers at least, "The men here, as mostly anywhere, like a girl period, though a lot of these ones here would take a sow if she was all there was handy and she knew how to hold still, when to squeal and when not to. I'm not here for that. I'd like another pint of the dark ale, if you please." Selena noted that her reply was going to need a little time to sink in to the wench's brain, so she waited. "Pay first," the sullen wench said, and then she looked startled as she found the coins in her palm before she'd really gotten it open. She sniffed and turned away. Selena watched as the barmaids gathered at the taps to discuss what had transpired. Apparently, unescorted females were a rarity in here and the only plausible reason that came to their minds was freelancing. Somewhere just after the pour, the large woman turned her back to Selena for a moment before walking back around the front of the bar this time. The movement was intended to be covert, but the rogue caught it. "Here ye be," the barmaid said with a more friendly expression as she set the mug down on the bar. Selena placed another pair of coins next to the mug. "What's this for?" the woman asked, "You've already paid." "I want another," Selena smiled, "but this time, I want it without the Death's Horn juice in the tankard." A statement like that carried severe repercussions in these out of the way places. Selena knew this and was aware of the response that she'd likely get from the wench. A customer who suspected an attempt at poisoning him or her was well within their rights to ask that the server drink some of the suspect liquid. As the wench began to deny it loudly, she gasped and froze in place from the pressure of the other dagger that Selena now held to her ribcage on the side away from most of the room and under the edge of the bar on the other. "Let's just consider it as a tip from me for the fine service," Selena smiled, "Since it's not poisoned, as you said, I think you ought to have some -- and I'm not asking." She pressed the point a little more so that the other woman could barely breathe. The tip was already through her clothing and against her flesh. "Anyway," the rogue said as she smiled downward between them, "You know that Death's Horn is only effective well under a quarter of the time. You have to be allergic to it to be in danger. Since I saw that you squeezed the fruit to put it in and your hand hasn't reacted, you ought to be fine. I'm only insisting so that you won't try anything like this again. It might make you a little sick, but I doubt it." "Then I won't drink it," the barwench hissed, the sweat on her face showing her fear. A few things happened during the space of time between when Selena set her dagger down and the time that she set the half-full tankard back onto the bar. She'd managed to lift the tankard, punch the wench in the solar plexus lightly to cause the woman to gasp, and toss a surprising amount of the contents into her open mouth. Her hand on the whore's throat assured that she'd swallow and she did before the coughing began. Selena stood back with an angelic expression as the woman choked and sputtered, her dress now wearing some ale as well. Even dark ale only shows as wetness on cloth when it is spilled. Though it's clear when it comes out of the berry, Death's Horn juice is a blood red at lethal concentrations in the presence of water and the dress showed this plainly. Still, the barmaid caused something of a scene as she alternated between struggling for breath and her attempts at shoving her fingers into her throat so that she'd vomit. One action seemed to preclude her performing the other. It attracted the owner, who'd been talking to the barman. "When she catches her breath, she'll likely try to tell you that I poisoned her," Selena said, "which is not correct. I only insisted that she taste some of the ale that she brought me. I watched her put Death's Horn in it. You can try it yourself," she smiled, "but I don't think that you ought to. The stuff is deadly." "You -- y- ou said that it only, ... works a quarter of the , ... time," the barmaid said from where she knelt on the floor, still trying to cause herself to vomit it out. "You told me that there was none in it," Selena smiled with a shrug, "so we both lied." The woman was helped to her feet by the others and led away. "How long before it takes effect?" the innkeeper asked as he watched, and Selena looked at him. "I wouldn't know, since I don't know how many berries she squeezed into it, do I? But it did show red, so that's not good. Why do you care? Just get me another pint, if you can manage it without trying to poison the customers." "She's my sister -," he said a little vacantly as the commotion died down and everyone went back to their tables. He drifted back to the taps and poured another tankard looking from the hallway to the back and then to Selena. When he set it down in front of Selena, she said, "If she grows very quiet inside of an hour and won't answer when she's spoken to, and if she really starts to sweat and the veins in her neck stand out enough so that you can see her heartbeat clearly from across the room, then you'll know. If the whites of her eyes turn red with blood, then I'd say that it won't be long and you're welcome. If I were you, I'd look for more of the fruit in her apron pocket. It's about the size of a cherry, but it's bright green and a little furry. Don't squeeze it if it's there, and don't forget my coins here." Selena saw that he was trying to keep his face as sombre as possible. Still, she saw what she thought was just the smallest hint of a smile there. "My thanks," he whispered as he picked up the coppers. He went to retrieve the first tankard, but Selena shook her head. "Just leave it there, friend," she smiled, "and maybe wait a few weeks before you use any berries that you find on your wife if she's anything much like her sister. All of the signs disappear about an hour after death. That's why it's used so much." Selena sat nursing her drink a while longer, waiting for what she knew was bound to happen, sooner or later. And of course, there were other things that would happen anyway. It was about time for the barman to state his position, she thought. She looked at him and raised her chin just a little to indicate that she wanted another drink. He stopped wiping the bar and began to make his way over to Selena. He'd been wiping the same spot on the bar for the past fifteen minutes. "Yeah?" he asked sullenly, "What d'yer want?" "Well what I'd LIKE," she began, looking at him through her long, almost black bangs, "is another pint of dark. But if you can't manage to at least look as though you're a little friendly to customers, then what I'll WANT is to loosen the few teeth that you've got left for you. You don't know me from anyone, but I'm someone who gets what she wants more often than not, and I'm feeling just a little put out that I came in here, and one of the whores tries to poison me within the first half-hour. I hadn't done anything to anyone -- at least not before that." Selena set a pair of coppers down on the bar and drew her hand back. "Now can we start over? I'll have a pint of dark, please." "Yer coins are no good here, "he rumbled, "the innkeeper says I'm to give you whatever you want for free. But I will take the tip." This wasn't even a stretch, Selena thought as she watched his eyes. Sure enough, she saw him glance quickly at her dagger as he began to reach for the money. Before his attempt to grab the haft of it had really gotten underway, Selena seized it and drew it a bit farther back, rotating the blade ninety degrees. Instead of slamming his hand on the grip, his open palm landed on the edge of the blade as his fingers began to close around it. The barman drew his breath in sharply from the pain. "At least now you'll have a need for a fresh rag," Selena smiled as she picked up her coins and put them in his apron pocket. "Go wrap your hand and bring me that dark right afterward. You try something stupid like that again, and this'll be in your guts even quicker that it cut your hand." It took him a few minutes, but Selena watched as he poured her ale and set it down in front of her, bandaged hand and all. "I'm not here to sell myself," she said, "no matter what you might think. I'm here for a drink and then I'll be on my way." "Then do it and be gone," the barman growled as he turned to walk away. Selena looked as though his remark hadn't bothered her at all though it did, and not for the usual reason. All of the commotion had upset things and there would be some time needed for them to settle down again. It was something which Selena didn't have much of. She could see that everyone had gone back to their tables, but it was quite obvious that they were giving her some very cautious and thoughtful looks now. She hadn't intended to be here even this long, and now it would take even longer -- unless one of these dolts grew some boldness in the next little while. She needed for just one to grow a little brass and hit on her hard so she could gut him in broad daylight. That one bounty would pay for the trip. With luck, another one or maybe two would spring to his defense and join him on the floor. It was shitty work, but it offered a thrill and it was better than looking at your own knees in front of the backdrop of whatever might be on the ceiling while some slob fucked you as a way to make a living. She doubted that it would happen now, not since they'd all seen that the dark-haired girl who'd wandered in was quite obviously handy with a blade. Some of them were already pretty drunk, but she knew that even so, it would take a few more drinks to make the details of what they'd seen fuzzy enough for them to grow a little stupid courage. Selena looked out of the window into the late-afternoon sunlight and she wanted to curse. Not many would see it or even have the eyes to, but she could see the smudge out there a good way off. Not more than about a third of the way down the snow-covered mountainside from the top of it, and appearing more like a dark speck than what he was, she could see him come. It changed everything, though Selena knew that it had to happen. This was the reason that she'd wanted to be in and gone from here before this. Well it was too late for that now, she thought, unless she just settled for her own hasty exit and she knew that if she tried it, that was when she'd be faced with all of the hopefuls who 'd been leering at her ass from behind their mugs for an hour. They'd all see her leave and decide that it was now or never. And right out in the stables among the horses was a piss-poor place for a knife fight. She knew that she still had a little time to think. She decided to head for the almost deserted table in the far corner, but the timing of it had to be right. As soon as she got up and walked there, the stupid hopeful mating attempts would begin, and Selena wanted the chance to maybe turn this to her benefit. She looked out through the window again. He was a lot closer. You could only see it if you knew what you were looking for, but she knew. She settled in to watch him and she saw it as he walked for a time, the way he just appeared in a place a little closer every so often. It was as though she'd held her eyelids closed for a minute or two instead of blinking. She even knew the other reason that he was coming. She wondered about it. What would someone like him need with any of the modes of human transport? For that matter, why did he bother with walking at all? He disappeared from sight for a few minutes as he crossed the lower plain between the mountain and the little sandy plain plateau that the town sat on,. When he came into view however, he was a lot closer and her eye was able to take in some details. She'd seen him before, now and then, and for some reason that she could never come to any answer for, he took her breath away the first time that she saw him well enough for it every time. After that first look, she was fine, but it always surprised her how he could get to her on some strange level. She'd seen him a few months ago and it had happened that time too, but the strange effect was back the first time that she'd laid eyes on him the very next day. She had no explanation for it and that was why it distracted her so much. Every damned time. It sounded like trite horseshit to her own ears to say it, but she guessed that there was no denying the truth. There was something about him. She had no idea what it was or might be, but it was there all the same and it made Selena uncomfortable since she could never nail it down. The next time that she saw him, he was only about two hundred yards off, still walking. He always looked the same to her, maybe in his late twenties, tall and muscled, though she'd never seen much of his body. It was always covered in leather armor, about the only metal on it was what was needed to pin it together on him so that it would follow the motions of his body, though she knew that there had to be something more than just the leather padding over those shoulders. Selena would have bet money that there must be spaulders there with some sort of row of short metal spikes on those pads because she'd seen for herself how it could catch the blade of an opponent's sword just long enough to give him the split-second to get one of his own blades in. She didn't know it for certain, since she'd never seen those spikes. They were always under the dark wolf's pelt that was a part of the equally dark cloak he wore wrapped around his shoulders. His arms were covered in leather and he wore bracers on his forearms which ended where his gloves began. When he'd taken those gloves off was when she'd seen the only other parts of his skin besides some of his face. Selena was slipping through a forest, on her way back from a manor house with a small bundle of jewellery that she'd stolen for a fee. It was something that she didn't ordinarily do. Oh, she stole things quite often for a fee, she just didn't try to make the first part of her exit through forests at night. On her way to where her horse was tied, she'd seen a clearing. To her surprise, she saw him with a small girl, sharing food by a fire. The scene was so unusual for Selena that she'd stopped to look for a few moments. She watched him put her to bed in his bedroll and then come back to sit by the fire. From the way that he pulled up the cloak against the night air, she knew that he'd be sitting there the whole night. By that time, Selena was already moving away in the darkness and wondering. She'd seen them together at two other times, the strange warrior and the young girl that he'd adopted, so the story went, anyway. The only other times that she'd caught a glimpse of him, he was alone. A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 04 Selena watched his legs and feet for a moment, seeing once again the fluid movements that he was a little famous for. It was said that he could move like death itself if he had a reason to need the ability. But all that Selena could see was that he was very sure-footed and carried himself with a lot of grace. After a moment, her gaze went higher to the swordbelt running from over his shoulder with the scabbard attached to it. Like everything else about him, there were mysteries for her here as well. He almost always carried one sword that was visible, a heavy hand-and-a-half sword, and yet she'd seen him with two at times, using both, and though she had no idea how it was possible, she knew that somewhere under that cloak of his, there was a bow hidden on his back somehow. Finally, she looked at the portion of his face that she could see and once more, that sense came to her of some unknown quality about this man. His skin was a little darker than hers, as though he'd come from somewhere out of the Southlands, though it wasn't true from what she knew. Most times he had the hood of his cloak up and it made him even harder for most people to deal with, though she'd seen him in the middle of a fight with it thrown back. She wondered how many people had ever seen him like that. Selena remembered her thoughts of the time. She'd only been nearby, not a part of the fight at all. It had happened as she was just passing through. Common sense told her that the best thing for her to do was to just keep on going, but she sat there on her horse like a stump. He never seemed to need to have the hood back. He had some way to know just what was going on behind him without needing to see. That day, he'd faced over a dozen, a gang of murderers and thieves like any other in these parts, just a little larger and mean enough to have come to his attention for some reason. The thing of it was that Selena didn't know that he could deal with them all. She didn't even know why, but she'd ridden right into the bunch who were behind him and ploughed into the largest. She couldn't explain it to herself to this day. After jumping from her horse to plant her sword between the shoulders of the large one, she'd wrenched her blade free and killed another before he knew what was happening. Her arrival had upset the balance of things apparently, and the one who she'd sought to aid finished the two that he was fighting and turned, whipping his hood back for a better look. She'd seen everything then; the long black hair, his clean-shaven face, that jaw, the aquiline nose, those lips, open a little from the effort of the fight, everything. But those eyes ... That one look had taken her right out of the fight altogether. She remembered blinking once, or maybe twice at most, and feeling something that she'd never felt since ... He'd done the rest in seconds. Four more lay dead with the others, and she wasn't sure if she'd even seen him do anything to the last one or if he'd just caused him to fall dead. She was still standing rooted to the spot when he'd wiped off his sword and walked up to her. He'd asked her if she was alright, since she looked so spellbound. He didn't say it that way, but she knew what he was thinking since she was standing there like an idiot. All that she'd been able to do was to nod with her mouth open like a puppet. He thanked her for her help and then he'd smiled and it was all over for Selena. The next thing that she knew, that hood was back up as he wished her well, and then he was gone, just gone, running as lightly as an elf over the uneven ground up over the ridge. The memory of it caused Selena to smirk to herself. Seeing him like that had made her smile that day. She always told herself afterward that he wore his hood up so that his way might stay a little clearer of the maids and wenches who'd no doubt throw themselves at his feet otherwise. Selena sighed to herself. She had no doubt that it wouldn't ever happen, but if she ever found a chance at it, and could beat down her own pride even a little, well, she'd likely toss herself there too, if she thought that it would get her anywhere. He carried some mark or marks on his face, usually over his left cheekbone, and since it seemed to change, she assumed that it had to be painted on, rather than tattooed in. His lips were a little fuller than what was common around here as well, and the whole effect was one of dark uncertainty, though to Selena it spoke of warmth at the same time. And that irritated her as well, since he always seemed to be so focussed to the point of cold brusqueness in his dealings with others. Other than the way that he'd cared for the little girl and how he'd spoken to her that day, he was like a lord from another place, not wanting or needing to have anything much to do with the likes of ordinary folks. Like Selena. His history -- or the little that anyone knew of it -- only added to everything else. Dahlgren was the only name that anyone knew, and it was said that to speak it to him was to almost guarantee that he'd return a cold stare in response. He was reputed to be the product of some pairing between a human man and a drow female, though from what she'd seen of him it wasn't possible at all. His hair was dark and not the normal white of that race, just as his skin carried no hint of the darkness of the drow as an elven people. He had the build of a good-sized human male, but with the grace and speed of an elf. When she'd heard of a drow heritage in an inn one dark night, Selena had scoffed. Until she'd seen him fight. Until she'd been allowed the tantalizing look at that face and seen those ears -- much too short for any sort of elf, and far too pointed for any human at the same time. He could see in the dark better than any cat, and he could call things to his aid -- dead things and more, in the name of the strange faith that he was a priest of, yet she never felt any nasty or evil feel to what he was. "So, Dahlgren," she whispered more to herself as she looked out through the window to watch him stop for a moment to stare at the stables, "you walking, mysterious, holy half-dead warrior, I'd really like it if one day, you could prove to me that you aren't an illusion or even half-dead." She took the dagger from the bar and pulled on the light gloves that she had in one pocket as she got off the barstool to make her way to the corner table. Her mood had changed now, and her plans were out of the window. She no longer cared if they settled down or not. "What's yer name, girlie?" a gravelly-sounding voice said as she tried to pass one table of the ones that she was here to take. Only one hand reached out to grope her, but the tiny spikes in the palms of her gloves caused that hand to be pulled back when she'd clamped one glove around that wrist to pull it away. She looked into the snide and now-angry face which matched the voice and slapped it - hard, leaving long reminders about the lesson. "Do that again," she nodded, "and I'll have your eyes." The rest at the table saw the dagger in her other hand and sat still. She took a seat at the table in the dark corner. There was only an old man there asleep. When she sat herself down, he awoke and, feeling the glare of the others, he'd looked around himself nervously and sat up to go. "Stay, wise one," Selena said quietly with a smile, "no need for you to go. I won't disturb your rest." After a long and confused look at the lovely rogue at his table, he smiled and nodded his thanks before putting his head back down on his arms to remember a warmer time, perhaps. Selena glared her challenge around her and then she pulled up her hood before she sat back. There was a chance that today, she just might regret not being interested in the lewd attention that she'd been generating among the sweaty and smelly males here who'd have long ago done their best to get her knees apart. The only things which had been stopping them were where she was and her skill with a knife. It might have been out of their own selfish needs, but at least they'd have done their best to fuck her really well. She might have wanted it then, because there was a very real chance that she might not survive the evening if Dahlgren was here and about to walk in. She knew why that was too. She'd taken something from him and there was just no way that she could see that he'd have a reason not to end her life for it. --------------------------- The barroom fell still as he walked onto the front step outside. When he pushed open the door, Selena thought that everyone seemed to be holding their breath. He looked around without stopping the sweep of his gaze on anyone and he nodded once to the barman before walking straight back through the other tables to pull out a chair at Selena's table to sit down. He looked at the old man with his head down there and then at her. "A friend?" he asked with a nod toward the man. "No," she replied, "He's just an old man who I disturbed when I came to sit here. He was going to go, but I told him it would be alright to sit. It was his table first, after all." The young man nodded and sat down across from her. After a minute or so of awkward silence as he looked around the barroom, most of the people went back to their own conversations. She thought they made something of a rather mysterious couple, the two hooded ones sitting at the back of the common room of an inn, the upper portion of their faces in shadow. Selena had a thought to get the haft of one of her blades into her hand -- for nothing more than the comfort that it might give to hang onto something, but she didn't. He's likely pick up on the thought, and anyway, she knew that it wouldn't do her any good. She felt a tiny thrill of fear run up her spine, but she forced it down and did her best to keep her face holding what she only hoped was the same sort of small and enigmatic smile that his showed. With a bit of effort, she placed both of her hands onto the table, wanting to give him a reason to trust her. It seemed to be taking a while for any of the wenches to find the courage to ask about either of them wanting a drink. Selena lifted her chin to the barman and pointed at her companion. The barman shook his head -- until she began to stand up. He suddenly developed an interest and the young thing who was sent over at last looked as though she was about to wet herself in fear of them or something. "I'll have a pint of ale, and my colleague here will have another dark," he said as he turned his head to face the man wiping the bar, "and tell the man at the taps that I have a better than average sense of smell." He paid her with a silver and told her that the change was hers to keep, since she'd be tasting the pints first. "Colleague?" Selena asked, tilting her head a little, "How did you know what I was drinking?" "Other than what I'm taking as another matter, you and I seem to be here today for a common interest," he indicated the men behind him with a movement of his head. "and if that's light ale that I smell on your breath, then I won't want any. Too rich for my taste." He looked at Selena. "Why did you steal my horse?" There it was, she thought, confused now that he was buying and then laying it down between them like this. "I didn't know that you were following them at first," she said, looking at her hands for a moment before she looked up at what she could see of his face, "I didn't know it was your horse either, until a little later, and by then there was no point in going back. I needed to follow them here. The one with his back to you -- the big one -- he stole my horse. I wanted to get her back and -- " "And collect what you really came here for," he said quietly, "bounty hunter?" Selena kept her nose down a little, wanting to keep her eyes in shadow from him and knowing that it wouldn't do her the slightest bit of good anyway. "We all have to make a living," she said, "today I'm a bounty hunter and tomorrow ..." "Today you're a bounty hunter and a horse thief as well," he said, and she could see no humor in what she could see of his face. "A trip to any sheriff's hole and I could make you into what they are, with a bounty of your own on your neck. Tomorrow, you could be dead." "I needed to follow them," Selena repeated, "I don't even know why you use a horse anyway -- um, ... " She relaxed then and it was more out of admitting her guilt and the futility of denial than anything else. "Look, uh, ... " She relaxed her hands on the table and looked at the edge of his face under the hood, "Is there a name that I could call you by?" He smiled thinly, "You already know a name." "No I don't," she said, "not really. All that I've ever heard is one name, but then I've also heard that you won't answer to it and you just glare at anyone who says it and then you leave. "If I'm a --" She waited while the wench appeared with their ale. When they were alone again, he nodded for her to continue after she thanked him. He held up his hand and carefully sniffed their tankards. "Why are you doing that?" she asked him, "You had the girl taste them." "She looked as though she tasted them," he said, "Maybe she did, and maybe not. Even if she did, we don't know if she's important to anyone here at all, do we? I know that I have enough enemies around here for it." Selena was a little shocked, both at what he'd said and that she hadn't thought of it, as careful as she was about these things. "If I'm a horse thief now," she said, "then I'd like it if I could be given the honor of at least knowing the name of the one who-" "Dahlgren," the lips smiled a little, "Dahlgren Runei. Stop thrashing around over my name. I only put up a fuss with people who I have no reason to want to have any sort of dealings with, that's all." She smiled a little hopefully in spite of herself, "So you're saying that you want to have dealings with me, then, is that it?" "Well I have to, don't I?" he asked, "You stole my horse." Selena smirked a little then, just before she put on a tiny pout, "Oh, that. I was hoping that you'd just forget about that." His face still showed no humor over the offense, "Do you know how far it is to walk from the top of that mountain back there all the way here if you don't have a horse?" "Yes," Selena said, heaving a sigh, "I'd like to say something smart here, but I do know how far it is. That's why I did it, and I wouldn't have if they were on foot. I wanted to get my own horse back. I can't afford to buy another like her -- or even a broken-down old ass. I'd probably offer you the lie that she has sentimental value to me, since she was given to me by my mother, but I won't." "Even if it's the truth?" he asked, a little shocked. Selena's mouth fell open. "You -- you know? How --" His face softened a little suddenly as he nodded, "Without even probing. The way that you feel about it shines from you like a flame to me. I could walk in here knowing nothing about you, and with one look, I'd know how you were given your horse. Please, go on with what you were going to say, and I am sorry about your mother." "Thank you," she said, still in a little disbelief at both his ability and his sincerity, "though that was a long time ago. Anyway, since they had my horse, it's not such a stretch to collect the bounties on however many I could. I know that you likely won't believe me, but I really am sorry. We've run into each other before a time or two, so that makes it a little worse, I guess," she said, "and I still don't really understand something. I know that it makes no difference about what I've done, but I can't help but wonder why someone, ... that is, somebody such as you, would even have a need to have a horse. I've seen you before, and I know that you, ... you can, ..." She petered out at that point. "I can't carry everything, can I?" he asked, "I often need to spend some time at what I do, and I need to carry things then. Besides, people expect a traveler to have a horse, or a horse and a cart. It eases things." Selena tilted her head again, "Eases things?" He nodded, "Yes. It's much easier to get facts from people if they don't think I'm something that they can't understand. People are fearful of things that they can't grasp. If I show up over the ridge with a sword in my hand, looking as grim as I always do, they clam up and I won't get much information out of them. I can probe with my thoughts, but most people get headaches from it." Selena decided that, in spite of her possible arrest for the thievery of his horse, she thought that she knew that he was something that she didn't understand, but she didn't really mind it. "...though I would like to know more, "she said. "More?" he asked, "More about what?" Selena looked down, feeling the heat of her blush inside her hood. "I'm sorry. I was thinking out loud. I spend a lot of time alone out in the wild land, and I guess that I must do that sometimes. It was nothing." She looked at him in a searching sort of way for a moment, and he allowed it, not asking or saying anything. "I do the same," Dahlgren smiled, "My horse has to listen to quite a lot from me. Then again," he grinned, "I don't have a horse anymore, do I? He was stolen, you know." Selena smiled, "You know? I recall that I've heard of something along those lines - a time or six, anyway. I'm very sorry for stealing him, as I've said, though I must admit that it has gotten me this chance to sit and have an ale with you. And to chat with you like this is nice too. I just didn't know that all that it took was a bit of theft to accomplish it." Selena pulled her hood back and looked over at Dahlgren, "So, what will you do with me now? I guess that I'm to be tried for theft, and with the punishment that goes along with that, I suppose that I won't be needing to worry about my own horse anymore, and my life will be simple -- because I'll be dead." "Don't be so quick about things," he said, leaning a little closer, "I'm enjoying this as well, and I promise that I won't mention what you've done in a legal sense anymore, ..." "What do you know of me?" she asked. "Not much," he said, but then he smiled, "and certainly not enough, I think. I've heard some tales, some of them pretty tall, I'd say." "Really?" she smiled in a teasing sort of way, "What kind of tales and just how tall?" "Oh, little things that I picked up here and there" he remarked, while seeming to be intent on examining the material of his tankard, "mostly about a rogue with a lot of charm -- which she's not above using while she robs you of your bootlaces. I've heard about a girl who always wears dark things and comes in the night to go where she's not supposed to be, things like that. I've seen her around, every now and then; at times and in places where I'd least expect her to be -- which shows that I need to revise my opinion, frankly." His smile grew warmer as he saw her pleased smile to him. "One of the most difficult things for me to find out was a name for this beautiful thief," he said, "It seems that some of the ones who actually know her are very reluctant to tell anyone who might ask about her. From what I felt, they seemed to be afraid to say too much at all, fearing that there would be repercussions of a very final sort. What I was left with were about eight different names, but it didn't take me very long to guess that all of them were aliases. So," he shrugged, "I was back where I started knowing nothing. I would like, ... at some point to , ..." "Selena," she grinned. She didn't know why he'd want to know, and in truth, she did feel the warning in her head about telling him, but she had a sudden sense that if there was one person that her secret might be safe with, it might be a man who had no need to fear anything from anyone -- or at least not anyone who might have a need for the information. A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 04 He smiled then, tilting his own head a little, "Selena?" He sat back a little with a dazed look. She didn't know the reason for it, but he felt a little like a man who had reached the last mountain before the end of his quest. "Just Selena?" "Why do you need to know the rest?" she asked, "there aren't many Selena's around these parts." "Please," he said very quietly," tell me the rest. I'll forget about your stealing my horse if you'll tell me your name." "I thought that you already did that," she smirked a little cautiously. "Well I did," he chuckled, and seeing it surprised Selena. She'd never seen something like that from him before. Until this moment, she'd almost have bet money that he wasn't capable of it. "But this time, I mean it officially," he grinned, "since I haven't got anything to give you for the information. Well I could buy you another ale, but I don't see why you'd want tha-" "Then give me a kiss for it, Dahlgren Runei," she smiled, "Knowing my name -- I mean my true name -makes you a part of a very small circle of people around here, and all of them are close enough to me to want to kiss them now and then." Selena wanted to dance in joy for a second, only because of the way that his mouth fell open in shock. "Fair enough," he said as he recovered with a small but genuine smile, "but we're in this place and we both have only so much time to do what we came here for. As much as I want to hear your name -- and pay your price, I can feel that some of the ones behind me are beginning to have thoughts of leaving. The rest want to find a bed here. We're running out of time that they'll all be in one place." Selena couldn't believe what she was hearing, but before she could ask him plainly, he motioned her a little closer as well, so she leaned in. "We've been pretty quiet here," he said, "I'd like it if we were a little quieter still now. I'd like to know how you intend to handle this." "Handle what?" Selena asked, deciding that he could go to his grave now, never knowing her name. "You're after the bounties," he said, "I care nothing about that, other than you need the coins, so tell me what you'd like me to do to help and I'll do it. I'm sorry, Selena," he said, "you can't know how sorry. But they'll get up to leave in only a minute. I know this. I'd love nothing better than to give you what you seem to want, though I can't imagine why you would." "Why are you here for them?" she asked. "I am being paid by someone who wants some justice," he said. "That's pretty much the same thing, isn't it?" she asked, and he saw the warning in her glance and hated himself for allowing the moment to pass. He'd never get another chance now. "It is," he nodded, "There are two doors to this place. I can make it so that no one will exit by one of them. I'd suggest that you go out by the main door and walk around to the left until you come to the next door and wait there in case any of the ones here come out that way. I'll be outside the main doors for the same reason." "How do you know that any of them will leave?" she asked him. "I can feel it in them," he said, "and I can hear the thoughts of one." She wanted to believe him, but then she'd also wanted to kiss him once too. "By your eyes," he said a little sadly, "I can see that I've done something wrong, though it was not meant, and not what I wanted. But trust me if you can and I'll help you get your bounties, and our friend here will do the rest." "Our friend?" she looked at the old man who still had his head down, "What about him?" "He's dead, "Dahlgren nodded, "he was dead before I even came to the table, aren't you, friend?" "Ah..." the corpse said, lifting his head. Selena could see by his eyes and his slack mouth that he spoke the truth., "Dead," the corpse said. The head fell back onto the arm with a thump, driven by Dahlgren's will to respond . He and Selena got up to go. ---------------------------- The heads of all of the ones at the table snapped around to stare at the old man's corpse weaving a little as it came, pointing at one of them after another and telling all of the things that each one had done, over and over. They jumped up from their seats and stood transfixed for a moment, and then they scattered along with everyone else. Two of the six who were sought by the rogue ran through the corridor. "Where we goin'?" one of them asked. "Ssh," the other said over his shoulder, "I duuno what that was, but I wanted to be gone a while ago. 'Sides, this here's a nice way to leave without paying' Patrick for those last drinks, innit?" The closed outer door stopped them for a few seconds, but then they pushed it open, "C'mon!" the one on front hissed, but then he stopped suddenly and the one behind ran into him. "Waddyer doin? He hissed over the shoulder of the man in front, but he received no reply. "Bill?" Bill turned slowly and fell onto his back. His companion gaped, but then there was something dark in front of him. All that he could see was half of a face under a hood. Selena jammed her daggers into either side of the second man's throat at slightly different heights. She held them there for a half-second, and then, before her mark could raise his arms, she twisted them and ripped them out, stepping back quickly over the body of Bill. The man stared for a second as his blood ran out of him. He barely felt her kick in his chest and he fell backward into the doorway. "You've killed me," Bill said quietly, "W-why?" Selena spun around to make sure that he couldn't reach her. "It's a long list you've got," she said, "but I was thinking of giving you a pass." She smiled, "Until you stole my horse." She jammed her dagger into the other one, and receiving no response, she found his arm and pulled up his sleeve. She could barely make out the markings there, but satisfied with what she saw, she began to cut. It was grisly work and she hated it, but it was a sight easier than having to deal with a captive who was larger than she was. The tickets on all of these ones had read "dead or alive" and she wouldn't have to feed them dead. That was why she often went after the ones where the authorities weren't all that worried about getting the escaped one back in one piece -- all they needed was the scrap of skin. By the time that she had what she wanted, Bill had tried to get up, but wasn't having much luck, so he was pulling himself away. "Where you going?" she asked. "P-please, .." he groaned. Selena stood up and walked around out of his sight. He strained to try to see her, but gasped and collapsed as she plunged her dagger into the center of his chest with both hands, twisting before she wrenched it free. She found his markings and cut them out as well, before going back to the other one to retrieve her other dagger and reaching into her cloak for the long bottle. Pulling out the cork with her teeth, she rolled the strip of skin and skid it inside before repeating the act with the other piece. That done, she corked the bottle and looked for unbloodied clothing on them to wipe the bottle and her daggers before she tried with only some success to clean her hands as well. It took a while, but the old man followed four of them out into the cobbled courtyard, still pointing and howling out their crimes. One of the men, looking more like the other side of his gene pool began to grow a little bold and began to walk back, saying that it was all a trick, but the corpse grabbed hold of his ear and wouldn't let go, still shouting. The ear eventually gave up and was torn off, mostly. But before anyone could get past their horror, the men began to fall, each shot through with an arrow before any of them could recognize the threat out there in the darkness. With the last of the four dead, the corpse turned to walk around to the other door, but stopped and began to walk back as Selena came from that direction and other than a look of distaste, she passed him by and walked to where Dahlgren stood. "Thank you, friend," he nodded and the corpse fell in a heap and they were alone. Selena worked quickly, looking for the markings of each escaped criminal, and then looking for the other marking -- the one that said that he'd been in a prison and hadn't ever had a reason to be set free again. When she found those, she cut them out, placing the strips of hide into her bottle. "What proof do you need?" she asked him. "What do you mean?" he asked. "How do you have to prove that these are dead?" He smiled a little weakly, "I uh, I just tell the one who paid me that they are. I am someone whose word is -- " "I know," she said with a nod, "Never questioned." She began to walk toward the stables in the darkening early evening, "It must be nice to be believed, no matter what you say. It would make a pleasant change for me." She found her horse, and after a look to see that she was alright, Selena adjusted the stirrup straps back to where they'd been and then she mounted up. "It makes me wonder why you agreed to kiss me and then you mentioned all of this. Very efficient," she said coldly, "very businesslike. A great way to piss on my mood. I don't often ask a man for his kiss," she said, turning her horse around. "So nice to have met you at last," she said, urging her mare toward the doorway. "Wait!" he said, not using her name, "I want, ..." "Believe me," she said over her shoulder, "I don't." She spurred her horse and was gone into the deepening gloom. A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 05 ***So, Selena is a girl who lives just on the edge of the law. She knows it's there and depending on her mood or purpose at the moment, she uses it to her advantage most times. Dahlgren is a lawful ranger on this world. His authority does not come from any human government, but for the most part, he's recognized as a "good guy" in the more lawless parts where there are no lawmen. They sorta like each other, a lot - sorta. 0_o --------------------- Book of the Merren Part 2 ----------------------------- It was full dark, a few miles away from the now-alarmed little place where an old man's body lay in the courtyard of an inn along with six others, here and there, who'd had sections of their skin cut out. Everyone knew the reason for that. They'd been wanted men, somewhere. There was no shortage of men such as that in the place, though quite a few of them were trying to make a go of their lives here as honest men, though they'd always have to hide from somebody. What had shocked them was that there had been a bounty hunter in their midst all afternoon long and they hadn't guessed, and no one knew the sort of man the ranger had been, or whatever he was, the one who'd come to meet her. Whatever he was, he was now guiding his horse through the winter darkness quietly. Only one of the reasons that this one beast had such value to him was the way that he trusted his master to see for them both on a moonless night such as this one. They picked their way up a long and gentle incline, and knowing that someone had a small fire going nearby -- since he could smell it -- and the way that this rise forced him to use it as the only way up only told him who it was -- and what he could expect as a welcome. But it didn't happen, and that surprised him. He knew that there had to be a reason for it. He just couldn't imagine what it was. But then, it was Selena, he thought, she was smart and canny. A quiet sigh escaped him as he thought of a few other words; beautiful, deadly and changeable were the ones which came to mind. He thought quite a bit of her -- even before their meeting at the inn. She might have been about twenty-five at the outside, but she knew a lot about living out here. It wouldn't have surprised him a bit to learn that she'd set the fire as a trap to lure him. He stopped his horse for a minute to listen. He was certain that this was Selena, given the way that it felt to him and also the way that he could hear little of the normal night sounds around him, father out to one side than the other. He could almost tell which direction that she was in by it. It wasn't as noisy now as it would have been if it were summer, but there were still a few sounds which perhaps ought to be here and were not. It didn't matter much which method he used. He could feel that it was her and the direction came to him in a heartbeat. In spite of the way that he felt, he smirked to himself. If he'd done something such as this, he'd have already sprung his trap by this point. The fact that Selena hadn't only indicated to him that there was likely a better place for it. But then he looked ahead and he stopped again. The fire was right there, just a few yards distant now. Was something wrong? He found her sitting on a rock with her head on the palms of her gloved hands, looking down at the snow by her boots. "What's wrong?" he asked her. "What isn't wrong?" she said in reply." I didn't think to check my saddlebags. I just jumped on my horse and left. My bags are empty. They must have eaten my food. My bedroll is gone. The stupid bastard who stole my horse wrecked my bow! I can't hit a thing with it. Everything's gone. I've got nothing, and look at the sky. Feel that air. It'll snow tonight for sure. I really ought to be on the road right now. I'm just trying to get a little warm and then I'll go." She looked up at him, "You ought to leave as well, Dahlgren. I'm very sorry, alright? I was being a disappointed bitch, that's all. I'd like to tell you that it's not like me, but, I guess it is. You were right to suggest that we act when we did. You'd better go. I'll -- " "You'll just sit there and freeze to death," he said. "There's no moon. You can't see well enough in the dark to get back to the road without tumbling off into the night someplace, and you love your horse. So you'll sit and freeze waiting until morning. But you'll be dead by then." She started to cry, and it was something which Dahlgren knew was very uncharacteristic about Selena. He got off his horse and sank to one knee beside her, carefully laying his arm over her shoulders. "There's more, isn't there?" She sobbed deeply and the voice which came to him sounded so small that he had to listen closely. "I left the bottle with their markings," she said, sounding almost as though she was about to wail in her misery, "I needed those bounties. There's no way that I can live through the winter without that money. I'm such a fool," she said miserably. "No," he said, "you were only upset because of me and what I said. From what I know about you, you always work alone, and so you're used to that. With me there, and with the way that I , ... It's not as bad as that, Selena. Here. Here's your bottle, "he said, pulling the long thing from the pocket of his cloak. She stared at it. "Thank you," she whispered. "Wait, there's more," he grinned, "My packs are full. I've even got an extra bedroll that I found on the ground outside the stables. It might be yours, for all I know. I still have my little tent, and I had some time to think before anyone came back. I went to the kitchen and because of the way that I was wandering around, thinking of the bad way that I suggested that we begin with the men, I followed my nose. I've even got a few wine bottles." She looked at him and sniffled with the beginnings of a smile, "I don't like wine," she said. "Neither do I," he laughed, "that's why I poured it out and filled them up with dark ale. It took a while." It actually made her chuckle a little, "Why have you done all this?" she asked. "I might tell you that I did it so that I'd have something to eat and drink on the road, once I got free from the danger of one particularly beautiful horse thief, "he said, "but it wouldn't be true. You may not know it about me, but I can track very well. You tried to hide the signs of your passing, but I can feel you and where you are. I knew nothing about your troubles, but I knew that you needed the markings for the bounties. Throw a bit more wood on the fire," he smiled, "and I'll do the rest while you get your feet warm." He had his little tent up in no time and they sat and ate their fill. By the time that the snow began, their horses were staked under a tarpaulin of canvas under some of the few trees that were able to grow here. The tarpaulin was slanted to allow them a little shelter from the wind as well as from the snow. It was far from perfect, but it was a lot better than nothing. They sat by the fire, drinking ale and laughing. "I always heard many ideas said over what you were," Selena said, "and I didn't believe a single one. But now I know that you are a mage, to have been able to do all of this." Dahlgren stared into the flames for a moment, smiling softly. "I don't know, "he said quietly," I might have had a selfish reason." He looked at her sitting beside him, "I did some things which needed doing," he said, "out of a desire for your well-being." He looked away into the night as the snowflakes danced, "I think that I was a little charmed one day a while ago when you came to help me in a fight. At first, I was a bit annoyed, not knowing who you were, other than someone who I'd caught glimpses of a few times in my travels. I thought that then, I'd need to have to protect you, but I was wrong. You really did help, so I had a need to thank you, but we were both a little dumbfounded, I think." "I stood like a tree, not being able to move when you came to thank me," she smiled. "I was little better," he said, "But that was when I tried to learn what I could about you. I know that you see me as some sort of paladin. It's a wrong impression that I give to some, I think. Now and then, it comes to me that there are some who are truly evil to others. I hunt those ones when I can." "I'm not exactly a blameless soul, "she admitted, "I've done some things." "Who hasn't?" he smiled, "All of us are only trying to live our lives, and I know that you sometimes must hunt others for the bounties. I hunt for a fee," he said, "when one who was wronged has the gold to afford to pay me for what needs to be done. As you said, there isn't much difference. But today, I also acted out of a want in me." He turned to smile at Selena, "I still want to know your name." She smiled at him open-mouthed, "You did all this because you --" "No," he said, chuckling, "I did this because you would need it, and you forgot your bottle. On TOP of that, I want to know your name." He laughed at himself a little, "I guess that I can be a little single-minded at times." "Well, "she grinned, "I see all that you've done, and I am very thankful, but I'm afraid that I have to tell you that my price hasn't changed. You still have to give me a kiss for me to tell you my name." He leaned over and was about to plant what Selena could see would be little more than a peck. For what he'd done for her, never mind how she felt, it just wasn't going to do at all. As soon as his lips touched hers, her hands were holding his head and she kissed him so that he'd remember it. After a second, she knew that she'd never forget it either as her fingers found their way inside his hood to slip into his hair. It was a long kiss by likely anyone's standards, but it did wonders to get them past a few things. As she sat back, wiping her lips a little because of the cold and how wet they were, she grinned at him, "You were going to cheat me out of a good kiss, offering me only a little. Well, I'd call that good enough to get my name now." He sat next to her in amazement. He was so shocked that he missed it. "What did you say?" he asked. Selena rolled her eyes, "Hells, all of that, and you weren't even listening? That'll cost you." "Cost me?" he said. Then he saw her two fingers as she held them up. "I've raised my prices." It went on for a while, Selena getting her kisses and then doing her best to whisper her name so that he couldn't hear it. At last, he sat dazed with his arm around her, "Meadsbreath?" he asked, "Selena Meadsbreath?" "Yes," she laughed a little, "though there's an 'e' after the 'd'. Are you sure now, or do you need for me to repeat it once more? Only five kisses?" "Five?" he chuckled, "It keeps going up." "Well they're good kisses," she laughed, feeling a lot better. ---------------------------- The storm had really begun and their little world turned into a white one. "It hardly ever snows in this whole area," Selena grumbled, "Why did it have to be tonight, and why here?" "I don't mind it, "he said, "I just pretend that this is any other place and it would be snowing like this there, wouldn't it?" he said, going to see to the horses. She looked at him from under her eyebrow, "You aren't one of those eternal optimistic types, are you?" It made him laugh, "No. I'm usually grumbling, just like you. I just know how to deal with things. I'm usually not that quiet about it, though. I'm just feeling a lot better for the company, that's all." He stood up and excused himself, saying that he'd return in a minute. With him out of sight for the moment, Selena looked at the tent. How to do this? She wasn't at all surprised at finding herself liking him a lot. She just didn't know how to handle their sleeping arrangements. This tent was small, only large enough for one person and some of their gear. How they'd both fit in it without lying right up against each other was going to be something of a problem for her. She got out the bedroll that he'd found and saw that it was indeed hers. She didn't want to think about the possibility that the dead jerk who had stolen her horse had slept in it for even the one night. But there was no place to wash and hang everything, and even if there were, it would freeze as hard as a plank. She unrolled it carefully and sniffed. Thanking her stars, she knew that it hadn't been used. But she was still faced with the problem. There had been a few times when she'd taken a man simply because he was there and she was in the mood. It didn't happen very often, it just happened. She liked him a lot, more by the minute, but right here, they were at a crossroads, and he likely wasn't even aware of it. Selena was trying to be mindful of how her mood could change. She really hoped that he wouldn't ... Dahlgren was back with that smile that she liked so much, and it changed her mood to the better a little. Still, there were things to be thought of. She looked up at him, "You haven't gone to pee, have you?" He looked at her as though she'd grown another head for a second. "Yes, why?" "Because I need to go now. I've been holding all of this ale for hours and my dam's fit to burst. If you went somewhere here, I'd at least like to know where, so that I don't sit in it. I pee a little differently than you do." He looked down, and she could see that he was hiding a little grin. She was about to ask, but he spoke first, "I um, ... I thought of that," he said, "There's a place around the other side of that stone pillar where the snow doesn't fall much. It's pretty much clear, frozen ground, but --" "You peed on the pillar, didn't you? Boys and men all have to pee against standing things," she said, "I'll never understand why, but I do know that." He shook his head, "No, I uh, suppressed that urge, and I went a little farther on. Just follow my footprints in the snow until you come around the pillar. You can go there, if you need to. Just don't walk farther than the stone." "I knew there was a reason that I liked you," she smiled as she walked past him. He looked at the tent and the bedding that she'd been trying to spread out in it. He couldn't figure out what she'd been doing, spreading it out like that, unless she'd had another idea and he'd interrupted her. This was going to be a little sticky, he thought. He was cognizant of her feelings -- as much as he tried to be aware of them, but he had things of his own on his mind. He didn't know if he snored, for one thing, and that was the least of his worries. "Hey," she said, on her way back. Dahlgren looked up questioningly. "Well stand up," she said impatiently. He stood up and she was in his arms, pressing herself against him, shivering. "That was so cold," she said with slightly chattering teeth, "The spot was perfect," she smiled," but for one thing, and it was the reason that the place has no snow," she chuckled. "The wind there is murder, and there's only one way for me to squat unless I wanted my face against the stone." He held her tightly and felt her shudder as the chill left her. "What happened?" "Well I had to just grit my teeth and go, Dahlgren. There was no help for it, and I really had to go, so I did it, but that wind hits the stone and splits apart. That's why there's no snow there. I sat there peeing right into that icy blast. The wind gusted and it blew me back so that I was almost leaning against the stone. I almost went all over my pants." She looked at him for a moment, "You're enjoying the picture in your mind, aren't you?" He pulled her tighter so that her head was on his shoulder against his, "Only a little, and I wish that it wasn't so cold for you, that's all. I'm a little surprised that you'd tell me that." "So am I, quite honestly," she said, hugging him tightly again, "but I guess it's just us -- two people here and we've got the climate to make the best of. That does bring another thought to mind," she said seriously, "How were you thinking of laying out the bedding?" "I thought that we'd just sleep side by side, each in our own bedrolls. Some of me might be outside the tent, but it's the only way that I can see us managing it so that you have a bit of private space between us." She pulled her head from his shoulder and she looked at him, "I can see that you're taking my comfort into account, Dahlgren, but while I appreciate it, I don't think that it's the right way to do it." She looked down a little uncomfortably. "When a party goes out into the wild lands, and there are both men and women, I think that there's some expectation in the men. I've never liked that for that reason, and it's a big reason why I always prefer to travel alone -- so that I don't have to deal with that because it can ruin friendships and make everything just that much harder and uncomfortable. Some men are fine like that, and others aren't." "I know that, Selena," he said, "I didn't want you to feel that." "I know," she said quietly with a nod before she looked up, "and I'm thankful for that. But I was thinking that it would be better to put one roll on the ground flat, and the other roll over us. We'd be warmer then. I don't mind us together like this, so I don't think it will be a problem lying down. We don't know each other all that well, but I think we like each other enough for that." She reached up and touched his cheek, sliding her thumb over his cheekbone, "Besides, we seem to like to talk, and it would be nice to talk like that, I think." He nodded, and let go of her to add more wood to the fire. As he placed the logs and sticks to his liking, hoping to build it so that it would last a while, he spoke to her. "I think the best way would be to sleep with me on the side away from the fire, and you closest so you'll stay warmer longer. When you wish to go to sleep, just pull the side of the tent down." ---------------------- They were on their sides, facing each other, listening to the crackle of the fire for a few minutes. But it didn't last for very long. Selena couldn't overcome her desire to hug him and she moved closer to him so that she could manage it. "You know," she said, "I'm a little sorry that I don't have any more information about myself that you'd want. I liked selling it to you for your kisses." She kissed him once lightly and drew her head back, "That one was free, by the way." He smiled at her in the darkness between them, "free?" "Uh-huh," she smiled, "It's to generate interest on the part of the customer." "How much for you to tell me a little of your life?" he asked. "Do you really want to know that?" she asked. "Yes," he said, "I only know a little of you. I know that you live alone, and the direction of your home from my own, that's all that I know about it." Selena was a little shocked. "How do you know that?" Dahlgren looked a little embarrassed for a moment, "I've told you. I can sense someone if I wish. I only know the direction and if they are far or close. It they are really close, I know how far, but for more than maybe a half a mile, no. I've gone outside and felt for you often, ever since the day that you helped me." "Why?" she asked, "and if you can do that, why didn't you come? I don't think I'd have minded too much." He looked even more uncomfortable. "I thought that it would be rude. I had no reason to, at least, not one that I could tell myself was one that you might believe, rather than thinking that I was there to hunt you for something. I don't think that you've done anything to anyone that would merit that, and you'd know that anyway. I just, ..." He thought about it for a moment, "I just wanted to know that you were there, that's all. I had no way to know, but it was the best that I could do to know that you were likely alright." A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 05 "And if I wasn't there?" she asked, "What then?" "Then, I'd seek out the new direction and leave it at that. I was a little concerned whenever it happened, but it was all that I could do. I know that you are a very cautious and private person. You keep to yourself. I don't know why, but I think that it is so that you can remain largely unknown." He felt her arm around him and she kissed him for several minutes, her tongue just grazing his lips for an instant now and then. "What was that for?" he asked, a little shocked. "I think that you're very considerate," she said, "and also, it's the generating interest thing again." "Ah," he nodded with a little grin which made her want to do it all over again. "I don't know much about you beyond that," he said, "but I've wanted to." "I won't tell you more of me, unless you ask me really nicely," she whispered, "Besides, that would cost you a lot of kisses to find out only a little very uninteresting stuff, mostly. I can't see much return value for the kisses." He guessed that this was the extent that she felt comfortable about giving him for now, and he didn't want to press for more. "What'll we do now?" he asked, "If there's nothing more to trade for?" "Who said there's nothing more?" she looked at him seriously, "There's lots. Dahlgren, there's plenty. We could do this the other way around now. I could ask you now, if you want to keep playing." He felt a little nervous about it, but he nodded. "First off," she smiled, "I'd like you to know that I'm enjoying our game so much. It's made me more comfortable like this here with you. I think that I'd like to know a bit about you, like why you do the things that you do. What is it all for? All that I've heard is that you're some sort of priest or something." She reached over and moved some of his hair out of his eyes. "Sorry," she grinned a little self-consciously, "I just wanted to do that. I so love your eyes. So tell me about what you do." "Aren't you going to let me set my price?" he asked a little seriously. Selena laughed a little. "Sorry. I guess it's just the rogue in me, trying to get something for nothing. Maybe it's not the best plan right here. How much, then?" "Five kisses," he smiled. "Five? Isn't that a bit steep?" she asked. "I'm only going by what you charged me," he said. "Yeah but," "Seven," he smiled. "Hey, ..." "Ten, then," he grinned that little grin watching with delight as Selena's mouth dropped open, "Twenty's not far off." She was all over him, and after the fifth kiss, she didn't hold back her tongue anymore. They sighed and he groaned as she pushed him onto his back. It almost brought the tent down, but Selena didn't care. She hadn't had this kind of fun, well, ... She pushed the thought away and kissed him even more, not being able to help herself, and almost not wanting to. When she was done, she smiled down at him as they looked at each other a little breathlessly. "That was twelve kisses," he said. Selena was a little astounded. He could keep the count through that? "I'm a heavy tipper," she said. "You almost brought the tent down on us," he said looking to make sure that it would stay up, not that he could see very far in the darkness. He dropped his head back down and put his arms around her again and he loved the way that she wriggled a little out of happiness. "It's a cost of doing business," she said, "Now tell me." "I've forgotten the question," he shrugged. "Liar, "she grinned, "You know how many kisses I gave, and you can't remember the question?" "Well, I was pretty certain that it was twelve," he smiled. He felt her fingers as they worked their way under the edge of his singlet. She couldn't help running them over his chest once. "Tell me why you do what you do, or I'll see whether you're ticklish. She was almost a little disappointed when he began to speak. "It's an old faith," he said, "and not known by many people. I'd say that almost all don't even know anything about it. It relates to a different plane than this one. For reasons which aren't all that clear to me, I was chosen to act here. I have a home which was hidden long ago, and I was told to go there to begin. I found it clean and not fallen down, so I just live there. Mostly, I do what I want. Sometimes, I hear of someone who needs killing. Sometimes, I am approached by others. I look at everything as it relates to the balance of things, and then I may act -- or I may not. I try to help with the orphanage at the old temple. It's not the same faith, but they accept my help, and I'm glad to give it. Is that enough for now?" "Well for now, yes," Selena smiled, "I sense that there's more, but I have no wish to pry yet," she smirked, "I have another question." "Seven kisses," he smiled, "I learned about selling kisses from you." She groaned for a moment, but then she brightened as her hands ran over him lightly. "I have a request," she said. "Do you need a quote for a price?" he smiled, "Or is this the question?" "No," she said, "This is more like me making a decision and asking you for a little help with it. We seem to like this between us. I'd like you to understand the way that I might feel here with you like I am. I'm quite obviously attracted to you and I can tell that you feel the same way toward me -- if you've got the kind of brain that I know you do. I guess that I'm asking you to use it a little now. I like this," she smiled, moving her hands, "I like it a lot, and I love our game, but Dahlgren, I don't want to give away the whole store, not like this, as nice as it is, and not here, at the very least. So what I want to say to you is that, if you'll let me decide what we do, then I want to show you my thanks for what you've done for me today." He nodded, and he felt her hands moving to undo the closure on his pants. He hissed when he felt her fingers, a little cold, but warming quickly, as they wrapped themselves around his hardening shaft. "Are you sure that you want this?" he asked, looking into her blue eyes, and feeling a little lost. "Uh-huh," she sighed as she moved forward to kiss him. But after only a moment of it, she pulled him over with her onto their sides. Switching hands, she pulled as much of the bedroll over them as she could. "Give me your hand," she whispered. With his hand in hers, she undid her own pants, "Try not to make me jump in the air from your cold fingers," she smiled, "I think I'm losing my mind, and if not, then I'm at least losing my shyness with you." She kissed him with a smile, "And I like that." He was careful and slow so that his fingers wouldn't cause her heart to stop, but in a little while, they both smiled at each other. "I like this so much," she sighed. He nodded, and kissed her again. "I'm getting a little tired," she said after a while, "but I have an idea if you're willing to talk to the back of my head." He thought that the way that he felt, he'd be happy to talk to her ass, but he only smiled and nodded. Selena rolled over away from him carefully and pulled her pants down as far as she could in the confined space before she pushed back against him. "Put it between my legs, Dahl," she said quietly as she did her best to give him the space for it. A few seconds later, she sighed, "This is better than I thought," she smiled over her shoulder at him as she reached to hold him against herself down there and keep him where it did her some good - which surprised her,since it was doing her a whole lot of good considering he was only against her. "Will it be alright for you?" "Yes," he sighed pressing against her. They moved like that for a while. "What do you wish when I finish?" he asked. "You're not there yet, are you?" she asked, a little concerned that this would end soon. It was only a little fooling around, but it was about the best that she was willing and able to do for him here. "No, not yet," he said, "I only wished to know." "You just let it go, Dahl," she whispered, "There's nothing else to do that I can think of. I like you. I'm happy to have you here with me. I can't believe my luck, to tell you the truth, so I won't mind. This is warming us up, and I really like the way that it feels. It'll be dry by morning, and if we leave early, I can be home and washed up by dinner. You just let it go when you finish." His head was over hers and he kissed her ear, "Thank you, Selena," he whispered with a bit of effort. "There will be a next time, won't there, Dahl?" she asked. "Yes," he decided, "I'd really like for there to be." "Then kiss me, Dahlgren Runei," she smiled, "if you can reach far enough to give me one of your fine kisses. Besides me, it's a very small group of people who know my true name, you know. Would you like to know how many there are? I kiss them all, especially when I'm in the mood for it. As I am now." He didn't even need much of his ability to get it. He just didn't know how to say it to her. He was shocked. "How many?" he asked, "How many are blessed to know you well enough to get your soft kisses?" She smiled, liking his answer, "There's only one, but I sure like him a lot," she sighed, "and I really hope that he likes me enough to want to do this with me fairly often." She pushed back against him and he groaned, reaching for her hip. "Harder," she hissed to him, "Harder and faster now, Dahl. I need you so much." He began to put a lot into it, letting go of her hip after a long caress over her haunch to reach for her breast -- the one that he could get to easily, at any rate. Selena groaned loudly when he pinched her nipple and she threw herself against him feverishly. He knew it when she came, and her soft cry threw him over his own edge so that he held her tightly as he groaned. After a few minutes of silence, Selena looked back at him and kissed his face, "There. That wasn't so bad, was it?" she chuckled. He smiled, "I think that you are telling yourself that, aren't you?" Selena nodded, "I guess I am. I'd never have done this if we weren't like this here. I'd probably have needed a month or more of being with you first, and I think that you'd only need about five, wouldn't you?" He nodded, "Yes, I guess it was the closeness. Thank you, I'm a little overwhelmed, but I'm happy." "I am too," she grinned, "And you're very welcome. Um, you don't need this part of you back right away, do you? I'm getting a little fond of having it here." "Well at some point, I'll need it," he smiled, "I'll have to go out to that pillar sometime." "Why don't you just leave it here and go pee like I do? I'll take care of it, I promise." She frowned after a moment, "It's leaving anyway. Alright, I'll let it go for now, but I won't mind so much if you promise me that we can do that again sometime." "You have my word," he said, "and --" "I know," she giggled, "I wouldn't dream of questioning your word." She moved a little and then she pressed up against him again, "Please hold me, Dahl. Put your arm around me and hold me, and I promise to shut up and go to sleep like a good girl. You ought to be pleased. It doesn't happen often." He reached to hold her, but she pulled his hand to where she wanted it before covering them again. Then she took his hand and placed it on her breast, wishing him a good night. ---------------------- It was the cold air, she decided. That must have been why she'd awoken. Selena looked out at the fire, and she could see that while there was still a little life left to it, it wasn't going to warm her much, not unless she either sat on it or got up to add wood and tend to it as it got going again. The dawn was coming, she thought, and she found a hope inside her that it would be as full of nice things to her as the day before. That had been something, she thought. To have seen him again would have been enough, and it was, other than the uncertainty over her stealing his horse. But after, well, she was just thrilled. She reached behind herself, feeling that he wasn't there against her. She almost just scooted herself back to be against him again, but for her sudden desire to look at him. She wondered if now, after what had passed between them in the night, whether he'd still have that effect on her. She hoped that he did, they way that he could take her breath from only looking at him for the first time in a day. When Selena rolled over onto her back to look over at him, her heart froze and her breath was gone. He was there, all right, but there was something different about him. He was on his back, looking like she knew him to look -- for the most part. But every so often, about every five or ten seconds, she could see something else. The skin of that something was a dirt shade of dark tan, though his hair was the same. His ears were longer than even an elf's, and that was just the start of it, that and the horns. He'd looked muscular before. Now he looked all that and more. The shoulders were larger and she knew that he didn't need much in the way of armor to protect himself from humans. His armor was built right in, his skin looking as though it was stretched over bony plates. They had a good shape to them; she'd have even liked it, but for one thing in her past. She sat up slowly, ignoring the cold of the morning as she stared in the dim light there in the tent and waited for the next change. She looked at his legs and saw that they were heavily-muscled as well. With a start, she realized that he was dressed. The boots were fur-lined. Looking back again, she saw that he had clothes on -- it hadn't been him that she'd seen. The color of his armor was exactly like that of his skin. The ends of his sleeves were fur-lined as well. Something moved, and she almost jumped straight up, but she fought off the impulse. She stared and waited. There was nothing there between his legs while he looked like the man that she'd gotten to know last night, but the next change, ... That was when she saw his tail, moving a little in restless sleep. Selena sat back, wondering what to do. The very first thing, she decided, was to get one of her blades in her hand. ---------------------- He woke up feeling a little coldness. It was all over him and he guessed that he must have kicked the covers off himself in the night. A hell of a place to do that, he decided. His eyes were still closed and he was beginning to get that message that he had a full bladder. It came to him that he might have a little difficulty getting out of the tent to attend to that without waking Selena. Then he thought of Selena and if he'd kicked the covers off, then she must already be half-frozen. He wasn't about to let that happen. He had to get up to make sure that she was warm. He opened his eyes. He saw that he was alone, and thinking that she'd gone to attend to the same need that he felt, he waited, looking around. It didn't take him long to see the changes. The snowfall had ended, and what had fallen overnight lay like a thick blanket over everything. It allowed him to see that she'd been up for a time. Things were disturbed, but then he saw that they weren't so much disturbed as they were missing. He searched for her inside himself, and he knew then that she'd gone. Looking around, he saw that she'd taken almost everything. He looked back into the tent and knew why he'd woken up feeling cold. Somehow, she'd taken her bedroll as well. Searching a little in the snow, he found his sword. Either she'd forgotten about it, or she hadn't wanted to take such a heavy thing along. He walked to where the horses were. They weren't there. Neither was the small tarpaulin. She'd stolen his horse again. He walked to where he could see over the other side of the valley. He could see her riding her horse, pulling his along, and going at a fast canter over the windblown hard ground there. He walked away from the peak back to his tent, wanting to know why, or what he'd done. Had she been leading him along all of this time? What for? It didn't make any sort of sense to him at all. Had she changed her mind from what she'd said the night before? She must have, to have left like this. He turned and rolled up his bedroll, tying it tightly. The tent was next, and then he lashed them together. He wiped his sword off on his cloak before putting it back in its scabbard. Then it hit him. He must have lost the conscious control that he had over his appearance in his sleep. If she'd seen him as he really was, well, that would be enough for most people, he thought. He guessed that it spoke of her skill as a thief to have been able to leave like she did. He hung his head, hating what he was for a moment. ---------------------- Selena looked over her shoulder just as she was leaving the valley. She'd gotten this far, though she really didn't know why. She thought that as soon as he woke up and put it all together, then he'd come after her at that strange clip that he could manage -- just moving from one spot to another across the landscape as he walked. She didn't think that he could cover ground any quicker than she could on a horse if she kept on at a good walking pace. At least she hoped not. At least she had some sort of explanation for this ability of his, and maybe the rest of them as well. The noises that he'd made about his faith being from another plane made sense to her as well, suddenly. Devilspawn, she thought. She thought back to the little valley where she'd been born. She was the only one left who still lived there. The rest, her father, her brother, they were buried on the hillside overlooking the little house. Her mother was there too, though it had taken a few years before what the demons had done to her had claimed her. Selena had been away, living in a much larger town, sent to school. On her return, she'd found her mother alone and waiting for her return from the school at the beginning of summer. But her mother was dying by then and there was a fine horse in the stable. Her mother was half-mad, but in her more lucid moments, she'd told her daughter some of what had happened. There seemed to be times when the woman struggled with something which she seemed very much to want to say, but never could. Having a sense of what lay ahead for her, she'd taken all of the gold and possessions that they'd had and bought her daughter the horse that she now rode, so that she might leave and find a better life for herself. A day later, Selena was alone in the world. Selena wiped the tear from her eye and gritted her teeth. It had never happened, this better life. Her mother died before her eyes, and she'd buried her. Taking what she could that likely didn't have the demon taint on it, she left. But the better life never happened for her. She'd been forced to sell herself a little in that same much larger town, and then she fell in with a bunch of thieves, learning all that she could. But she'd used some of her take to buy herself a few decent clothes and with them, and a little more money, she paid someone to teach her how to use any blade that she could get into her hand. She excelled at everything. When the thieves'-ring was broken up, Selena wasn't within a hundred miles, having left before the real onset of winter. She'd known that it was coming. They were living too high and carefree on stolen goods. Anyone could see that if they had a brain. You do this sort of thing for a living, the only way to stay alive was to live your live down low, as simply and as quietly as possible. Anything else was just asking for it. She'd ridden all the way back home and lived there alone. Whenever she was working, she wasn't anywhere near. Nobody knew about her line of work. She wiped another tear from her face, telling herself that it was just the cold wind in her eyes. Look what had almost happened. Just once, she'd allowed herself to have a thought that there might be someone for her, for Selena the thief, and look at what had happened. A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 05 This was the reason that she never allowed herself to look for love. She smirked for a moment, realizing that she was just sounding a little like her father. She couldn't have known about Dahlgren or what he was, could she? But it had been a very near thing. She'd liked him so much, and been overjoyed that they liked each other and she had just wanted to express the way that she felt. She knew that it had been the closeness of him and the storm, but it had been there, hadn't it? She'd been so close, so very ready. He hadn't been someone that she'd seen in a tavern or an inn and had thought that he was nice enough-looking for a quick tumble in the sack -- with all of the clumsy words and the careful, never-trusting way that two people like what she was had to be throughout it all. They had to pretend that it had never happened, didn't they? They had to make certain that they were leaving the room with exactly what they'd brought; each not being able to trust the other enough that they weren't being robbed as they were getting bedded. But both parties were thinking of it anyway, weren't they? They couldn't just enjoy it, they had to think about what they might relieve the other one of the whole time. Thieves loving like thieves. This one time, she'd been prepared to open her heart. It had already happened, or she wouldn't be fighting off these tears. This one time, there had been something for her with someone different, just this once. She'd come so close, she thought. She'd been right there, a hairsbreadth away from stopping him so that she could pull at least one of her long legs out of her pants to really have him. She'd heard him fall asleep a long time after they'd stopped. He just held her and she was in heaven for it. Nobody else had ever done this for her. She'd even asked him, and he'd just smiled against her cheek and admitted that he was smitten. He'd said that, she remembered. He'd said it just that way. There was nothing but hurt and confusion in Selena's heart now. When he'd gone to sleep, she'd reached down and found a little of him that was still wet between her thighs. She'd suddenly wanted to know about him, and since he was asleep and against her, there was nothing to do to ease that want in her to know, other than taste what she could of the man who she had hopes to get to know so much better. And what had that been, she asked herself, what had she tasted? Demonseed. She wanted to spit. She wanted to cry, so she did that, wondering which god that she ought to pray to so that he wouldn't come after her. She looked back and groaned. There was his horse again, she thought. But she'd needed it to carry things. She'd needed it because she knew that she could sell a fine horse like him to anyone for a quick gold. She knew that he could likely find his horse by feeling for it and going in that direction. She was confident that he'd get it back. It just might cost him, that was all. Mostly, she needed his horse, so that he couldn't ride it as he came after her. She thought of the price to herself. She doubted that a thing such as he was would hesitate to walk into any sheriff's office as the priest that they all thought him to be, all high and mighty, and just swear out a warrant for her arrest. She knew that likely no one would find her, but sooner or later, the warrant would just become a price on her head, and someone just like her would come for her, and someone would have to die for it then, wouldn't they? Selena squeezed her eyes shut for a second. What had she done? ----------------------- He'd been here for a time now, thinking of what he might have said or done for this. It still came to nothing in his mind, and so he just accepted that either she'd been her normal thieving self, or she'd seen him as he really was and been frightened. He left it at that. There was nothing that he could do. He didn't want to think about Selena anymore. It might cause him to try to examine just what he'd thought he was doing. He didn't come here for what had happened, but the fact that it had happened now only made things worse. It compounded the difficulty, he told himself. It introduced too many additional factors, he decided. It was an undesirable complication, he surmised. He sighed. It hurt a little to have had a thought that someone might have cared and he'd ruined it. He thought of little Nahl'een, the orphan that he'd found and adopted. He smirked, thankful that at least there was someone who still loved him. He ought to be getting back to her. He might not ever find someone for himself and right now, the truth be told, he didn't want anyone -- not even the horse thief, since it was just too expensive to even have known her for one night. But he knew that he was somebody to one little girl, the only person who loved him. That made a lot of things right in his heart. He walked to the place where the horses had been tied up, snatching up the bundle that was the tent and the bedroll on his way past. Looking out over the plain in the direction of the shithole town, he thought about things for a moment, and then he knew that he was just wasting time. Dahlgren Runei looked at his hands, covered in the gloves that he made in his mind. He looked at his arm, seeing the bracers which looked completely different to the ones that he wore in reality. His gaze went to the cloak which now disappeared as he assumed his natural shape. He spread his great wings and took off. It was far too late in the day to be hanging around at any altitude where he could be seen, so he went higher. The mountains in this range had the occasional herder or homesteaders on them. He went higher still. Satisfied at last, he did his best to fight off the chill of the colder air and the reduced oxygen. At this height, he'd run out of the few thermals that struggled to exist on a day in the mountains when everything lay under a blanket of snow. It didn't matter anyway, he thought, as he turned to the northeast. His great wings beat slowly, carrying him toward his home, taking him to the mountain orphanage where his daughter waited. He slowly began to wonder about something. She'd told him her true name. He knew that she hadn't lied when she'd done that -- he'd have felt it if she had. Why had she done that, if she was only going to steal away like a, ... well, a thief in the early morning light? She'd been truthful to him. That allowed for only one other avenue of thought. She must have awoken before him and seen. That must have been what had happened. He thought about it a little more. She'd stolen his horse again -- and he now knew her real name. Somewhere, someone must know her or of her. He hadn't been able to turn up much of anything before, but with this, ... it was just a bad combination. For her. He didn't know what to do about any of it, so he decided to shelve it for the moment. But as soon as he did, he thought of another complication and groaned. If he was going to collect his daughter, he'd need a horse, wouldn't he? Nahl'een knew what he was. But only a few of the the monks and the nuns at the orphanage did. He grunted as he changed his course once more. This was turning into a bad day growing worse, he thought. Within a few minutes, he could see her, just a speck sitting on a larger speck and leading a third one. He thought about it, wondering what she'd do first. The patches of skin in the bottle wouldn't last for long, so he knew that she had to stop off at some town to collect the bounties. There was one up ahead and he waited, having found a rising thermal over some bare ground to ride circling high above her to see if she took the turn or not. He suddenly knew something else about her. It came to him very suddenly. He didn't believe it at first, but when he saw which direction she was heading in, out of the three roads which joined together there, he just knew, and he remembered why he knew the name Meadesbreath. As soon as she rode off the main road, Dahlgren folded his wings a little to fall streaking earthward like a falcon while he concentrated on not being seen. --------------------- The old sheriff was long past going out on the road to hunt down fugitives from the law. He knew that. He was just waiting out his time so that he could get to the day when he could hang up the tin badge and become a regular citizen once more. It had been almost thirty years since he'd been asked to take the job. Thirty years hiding behind the piece of tin. They'd asked him because he was good at finding hiding criminals at the time. He was still good at it. He smiled. No one had ever asked him how he'd acquired the talent. It was because there had once been a time, back when he was young and stupid, that he'd had to hide in those very same places. But now he was watching the dates roll by, thankful that there were always some fools who wanted the thrill of bounty hunting. His thoughts were interrupted by the sounds of a pair of horses coming to the building. He sat up in his chair and looked out of the window. He snorted. That girl again. One look at her, and he knew that she was more crooked than a cheap nail. He wondered who she was here to rat out this time. She'd better be careful, he thought, one day, she'd likely find that she had a knife in her guts for the trouble. But then he also knew that she really could bring them in. Well not them, specifically. She always brought their hides. He didn't care, as long as the numbers and markings matched up, that was all that he cared about. Selena walked in, a little rushed-looking as she tried to remember the alias that she used here when she had any dealings with the old sheriff. "Hey, Bartholomew," she grinned at last. "You know, Daisy," he grumbled good-naturedly, "I'd really like it if one day, before I hang this job up soon, you could just call me Bart." "Sure, Bart," she said, "I'll try to do better." Selena beamed at him. His name for her was just something that he'd decided on one day, since it sure didn't fit her, but in calling her that, she'd clued in that he knew her as Shalen Throckmorton, the most ridiculous thing that she could think of the first time that she'd walked in. She heaved a small sigh. At least now she knew what to sign in the book when he paid her. "What have you got for me this time?" he smiled at her in spite of himself. "Oh, it's gonna be an expensive day for you, Bart." When they were done, he closed the cashbox after she'd signed for the money. "Where are the bodies? he asked. "I left them in the street, mostly," she said, "a little place called Bruster, on the other side of the range. It's such a shit heap that I doubt that anyone will think anything of it, unless they start to trip over them. They sure won't be able to pick them out by smell in that hole." He nodded and asked her where she was off to, and she replied in the same manner that she always did, telling him that she was off to blow the money on food, a barrel of beer, and whatever cheap male company the change from that would buy her. He nodded, believing none of it. He hadn't been alive this long to not know a lonely person when he saw her. He wished her well in any regard and sat back down in his chair. Outside, Selena's mood changed abruptly. There was only one horse there, where she'd left two tied up only minutes before. Selena looked around with murder in her eye, until she saw that her horse was carrying an additional set of saddlebags slung over the saddle, of all places. They had the rest of the food in them and the single bottle of ale that they hadn't consumed last night. There in the mud and snow, someone had written with a stick or something, she supposed. She stepped forward, sliding her boot over the message as she moved the saddlebags to the front of the saddle over her mare's shoulders. She was up onto her horse as in a flash and walking her out onto the main road as quickly as she could without attracting too much attention. It was the message that bothered her. It was written in the way that she'd learned while she'd been running with the thieves. How could he know of it? It was designed so that no one outside of their group would be able to read it. All that it said was, "I'm sorry. Dahl." ------------------- It took her the rest of the day to make it to her home. In the area in which she lived, the little valleys seemed to exist right on the edge of winter. It got cold sometimes, but it rarely snowed. That had allowed her to pick up the pace for the last dash home. She tied up her horse by the trough and thought to get her unsaddled and into the barn in a little while. For now, she just wanted to make certain that her home was still secure and that no one had broken in. After walking around the house, looking for disturbed windows, she walked to the porch silently; stepping over the plank that she knew would groan loudly if it was tread upon. That was why she'd never fixed it. Leaning forward, she peered in the failing light at the gap in the door, looking for the hair that she'd glued there when she'd left. Satisfied that there was nothing untoward about the only door to the place, Selena was reaching for the key in her pocket when the door opened and she almost fell off the small porch. "You!" He smirked as he looked at her. "You know, I've always thought that something like that would be a rather stupid way to address somebody. Who else would it be? Anyone in front of you would fit the statement, don't you think?" Selena scrambled backwards as he came through the doorway. "G-Get out of my house!" He began to chuckle, "You're a little late. I am out of your house." He looked at himself, the human that she'd liked, the one that she'd sat in the inn with, the one that she'd almost, .... He shook his head and grunted. All of it was gone in an instant, and she was looking at something that had bothered her to no end that morning. "G-get away from me! Leave me alone!" she backpedaled and this time, she really did fall onto her backside. He laughed and sat down on the porch. "If you're done with all of this nonsense," he said, "I'd like to talk to you. I know that you don't want to talk with me at all, but you're going to listen to what I have to say anyway. Considering that you stole my horse again, I'd say that you're going to get off pretty lightly. I think that if it were anyone else, I'd just kill them for it and be done." "I don't want to talk to you!" she said. "I know that," he smiled, "but you're going to at least listen, because if you don't, well, ... I'd never hurt you, unless you steal my horse a third time, maybe. But I give you my word that I won't hurt you at all." His face took on a satisfied look for a second, "Though I might just kiss you, just to make you squirm." She looked a little doubtful. "You won't hurt me?" He shook his head, "No. Why would I? All that I want is that you listen to me for a few minutes. You do that," he nodded, "and I'll leave you alone." "Talk then," she said. He nodded, "I'd like you to consider something." "I don't want to HEAR any OFFERS!" she cried out, her hands moving to clamp themselves over her ears. "I won't listen! Be gone from here! He rolled his eyes. "MURDER AND DEATH!" he bellowed with a roar of frustration, flinging out his arm to the side. Halfway up the slope, almost a quarter mile away, a tree exploded. Selena jumped with a scream as the top of the tree fell down in a ball of flame. When she looked at Dahlgren, his face was set in a look of annoyance. She began to whimper. His eyebrows rose. "Oh. Look at that, As long as I act like I'm civilized, you'll run from me, or shout at me and even try to shut me out. But if I act the way that you think a demon might behave, well then I have your attention. Just for your own safety at some other point in your life, your assumption is very wrong. I did nothing to harm you and I never would. I can imagine how you might feel. And I know what lies in your past. I helped you with no thought of myself." He looked down and continued quietly. "Other than my wonder at how it felt to feel the affection of someone like you." He looked up, "In return, you left without a word and stole my horse again. I have had to chase you to get him back, and you ought to consider that if it were not for how I felt about you, I would have struck you down like that tree over there long before you reached the town to claim your bounties. I could have fried you alive before you left the mountain range. But I haven't, have I?" He shook his head. "You wish to hear no offers," he said, "What sort of drivel is that? It only shows your ignorance. I will make no offers! I want nothing from you! I only want to tell you that I'm sorry for anything that I did if I frightened you at all. I don't even know what I did!" He sat in silence as she wept. After a time, he leaned forward a little, and she looked up. The thing in front of her looked so sad, she thought. All the same, he was a, ... "I know what I am, "he said quietly," I am one who can read a little of the minds of those that I care to know -- whether it is because I hunt them, or because I care about them. It's a small circle, as you said. I know what I am, Selena Meadesbreath. The trouble is that you do not. I wouldn't mind it at all but for a few reasons. I had no plan to do what we did last night. I know how many people see me. I know that there is nothing but fear in their hearts for me, just as it is in yours now. I just couldn't think of anything else to do. You left the town and forgot everything. If I didn't think that you would freeze to death, I wouldn't have stayed longer than to give you that bottle. But we both know that you didn't want that. You wanted me to stay. I should have told you what I am right away and left. And then, you wouldn't have slept a wink, even if I'd given you my tent. I didn't lie to you or try to trick you. I -- I wanted, ... I wanted to know you. I wanted to know someone who might care just a little about me. I'm sorry if what I am causes you fear." He sighed, "I'm sorry that I was wrong about you." He looked around. "I know this place. Something happened here years ago. I was not even on this plane when it did, but I know what happened. When I was sent back here, the first thing that I was told - the first issue that was given to me, one that I could not decline, was to find the ones who did what was done here. I hunted them for half a year, red demons, loose on earth somehow. I found them and I killed them -- as I was commanded to do. I nailed their skins to the posts in the town here, and then I left." He looked at her for a moment, "I just didn't know that the one that I liked so much to see was one of the afflicted family. I only learned your name last night and thought it through today." The cold wetness of the rain-sodden grass had found its way through the cloth of her pants and Selena realized that her ass was wet. At first, she wanted to squirm a little under his gaze, but then her courage came back to her and she just glared at him. "What, Dahlgren?" she asked, "If that's even your real name, why are you looking at me like that?" "I do not think that you could understand, "he said sadly, "And that is my name. I am not what you think, Selena. I am not what you fear -- but I can see that the part of me that bothers you is plenty for your hatred. I was fine and good enough to hold your interest as a man, but like this, ..." He smirked, "Well I know it is a different thing altogether, isn't it? There is little about me for you to like now and that's alright I guess, since I cannot change the way that you feel." A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 05 He smiled, "I can even understand it, from what I know happened here a few years ago." He got to his feet, "I had more to tell you, but I can see that you don't believe much of what I say, and only wish for me to be gone. I can do that, I guess. Just so that you can laugh when you tell of me in a tavern, I am obviously not an elf, or even a Drow, as some would say. To you and others like you, I am something much worse, aren't I? My mother is a Merren demon, you wouldn't know the difference, but my job is to hunt and kill the other kind - the ones who do things such as what happened here. My father was a human. They even loved each other." He stepped past her and began to walk to the barn. Selena watched him go as she stood up and pulled the wet material of her pants away from her skin. As he walked, he began to change back to the way that she'd seen him before. "Where are you going?" she asked him quietly. "My horse is in your barn," he said over his shoulder. He opened the doors and found his horse to lead him outside before closing up the doors again. She watched him mount up and canter over. "If, by some slim chance," he said, "you find that your brain can piece a few thoughts together without judging me, it might come to you that no matter what you might think, I didn't hurt you. If that thought ever arrives, then you ought to think about what else there might have been for me to tell you. Now you can live your life in the ignorance that I see on your face. Just remember that I did try to tell you. But if you ever want to know everything that I know about what really happened here, then I leave it up to you to find me. I have made my attempt to tell you. You are just not ready to listen. Do not ever try to steal my horse again -- or I will kill you." He spurred his horse and rode off. Selena stood for a time, watching until he was out of sight. She waited until she felt the tremors of her fear leave her before she unloaded her horse, bringing everything inside. The horse was led to the barn and fed. And then, Selena walked back to her house slowly. She was thinking, and had quite a bit on her mind. She lit the fire and ate the leftover food and drank the last bottle of ale. She was almost through the last of the bottle when she remembered that she'd had nothing and he'd brought it to her. When she got into her bed, she found that sleep eluded her for a long time. The next day, she thought about hiding the bounty money. It took her a while, but then she thought about her mother's room. No one had been in there since that awful day. Selena pulled back the bolt that she'd put there herself, wanting to hide from everything or to deny it all. She didn't know which it had been anymore. She thought that she'd find a good place there. She expected to find a roomful of cobwebs in there, and she did. She just wasn't prepared for all of the toys and dolls that she found on the bed. Her brother's toys, her dolls, long ago forgotten by their first owners. But all of them were there, right on the bed, in a large jumble with a few on the floor. The covers were filthy, and they were built up into a little mound, almost like a den. She had to hold on to the doorframe for a moment as her thoughts came to her. She wondered why there weren't piles of waste everywhere if some animal had lived in here. But there weren't any. There was only a slightly open window. She ran out of the house to look up, and then down again. The old garden was there, behind a fence. The gate almost came off its hinges when she tried to open it. When she got it open at last, she saw the fur and feathers and the waste. Selena had a lot more trouble getting to sleep that night. A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 06 *** So they parted badly and neither one wants to see the other. So what? That doesn't matter at all to his mother. She'll fix that right up, not that she'd dream of interfering. ~grin~ A little more about the mysterious Dahlgren. 0_o --------------- Book of the Merren Part 3 It was early-morning and he was tired, riding slowly up the long path from the road below up to the orphanage. He knew that his horse was beat too, but he'd taken the time to let him eat and drink on occasion. He'd wanted to go to the small store there in the town below for some things and he almost did, but then he thought of her, and decided that they could do it together. After a word with one of the sisters, he waited in the great hall. -------------------- Nahl'een sat in the garden watching a few of the small birds as they pecked at the seeds that she'd been given to feed them with. They chirped and chattered, flitting around as they found a seed and took it as though they were stealing something before they flew off to hide it in the crook of a tree branch or in some reeds for when the winter grew colder. The little girl smiled. She knew that they always did this with the first few seeds before they took some to eat themselves. She liked just watching them. It was a new experience, and she'd only been allowed it lately. They'd had to wait until her language comprehension was sufficient for her to understand that she wasn't to eat them anymore. She still liked to watch them though. Suddenly, she stopped watching. She sat up, looking straight ahead for a moment, sensing. "AAh!" she cried in her little voice as she turned and ran off as fast as she could go. She almost collided with the nun who'd come to get her. "Sorry," she said, and then she was gone, tearing a streak along the hall. He heard her from far off down the hallway, but she grew louder as she ran. "Dahl!" she cried, "Dahl, Dahl!" He grinned at her and wondered why he'd been feeling so bad until now. He raised his hand, wanting to hold a finger to his mouth to get her to quiet down for once, but he gave it up and waited for the collision. He had no idea how she could run like that in her long dress. She was so excited as she held onto him with her little arms, a girl with black hair and bright blue eyes, not quite six years old, and looking for all the world like nothing more than that. He looked down and saw her face against him, her eyes squeezed tightly shut as if she were drinking him in through her pores. He managed to loosen her grip only long enough to get to one knee before she flung her arms around his neck and held on so tightly that his vision was beginning to darken at the edges. He reached down and lifted her up and she settled to the change in position without even letting him go. "Hey, Nahl'een," he said with a sigh, "I've missed you so much." "I missed you, Dahl," she sighed herself, and then they were off after getting her coat on, almost forgetting her doll, and thanking the monks and the nuns for taking care of her once more. "I think that we should go to the shop for some food for tonight," he smiled as he carried her out to his horse. "Sweet?" she asked, "Nahl'een gets sweet?" It made him laugh, "You already are sweet." But then he corrected her and said afterward, "Yes, I think so." "Two?" she asked, knowing that she was pushing it, "One for later?" "One for now," he said, as he lifted her onto his horse, "and one for that time far away, after dinner." Nahl'een didn't care, she only waited for him to get on and put his arm around her. This was one of her favorite things to do in the whole world, to sit in front of him on his huge horse and ride with his arm holding her. It was one of her first memories of him, from when he'd found her to take her away, the day that he'd given her a name. Her life had never been the same since. Her little universe was still a small thing, but right there at the center of it stood a mighty god, and his name was Dahl. They rode down to the little shop in the town and then on to their home. A half an hour after leaving the road, since the horse was tired and they chose to walk for a while along the hidden pathway, they came to the gate. A chime rang in the distance from somewhere far off, and the gate swung open for them. Dahlgren had always wondered just where that chime was. He had no idea. It sounded as though it came from everywhere all at once, though it was never loud. They walked on, talking about anything as they made their way to the stables where he saw to his horse. ------------------ "I want to know things," she said as she sat holding still in the bath while he washed her hair. He smirked as he carefully wiped some of the suds from her forehead before they could reach the dark eyes that she showed like this, "You always want to know things. What is it now?" "Why we live here?" she asked, "Nobody comes. Why we live alone?" "You mean, why DO we live here," he said. "Not many know of this place, Nahl'een. Only a few of the monks at the temple. But they have a different faith, they just know that this is here. I have to live here, and you are my daughter now, so you live here too. And we are not really alone, are we? Shaevre is always here for you." He got up onto his knees a little higher on the floor of the chamber so that he could reach more of her long hair, "But I don't think that it's good for a little girl to live in a place like this where it's always so quiet. That's why I take you with me whenever I can if I have to go anywhere. I always take you to the town, don't I?" She nodded as she looked at his chest, and he had to wipe her forehead again. "Hold still now and close your eyes so I don't get soap in them." After he'd rinsed out her hair, he told her to open her eyes again and he kissed her forehead with a smile. "Do you want to play in the bath for a minute? I just have to look at the pots in the kitchen and I'll be right back." She nodded and he left the room. A quick look at their dinner and he was back. He doubted that he'd been gone for longer than twenty seconds but Nahl'een was gone. He looked at the floor and saw no water. He felt that she was still there in the tub and waited with a smile. After a moment, he saw the place where the water seemed stationary, not even a ripple there, so he knew where she was. "I can wait longer than you can sit still," he smirked. She began to laugh in the way that always made him happy to hear it and then she was there, at the other end of the tub, right where he knew that she'd been. "I want get out now," she said. "Oh," he said seriously, "Well, you're getting to be such a big girl, and I know that you want to do everything for yourself. But did you wash your back? Big people wash their backs you know, not only the parts they can see in front of them." "Ah-hah," she said, nodding. "Well, how did you do that?" he asked, "The brush is still there, where it was, and I can tell that it's still dry." "Oh," she said, and then she explained that she had washed her backside and everything, but she had forgotten her back. "I have trouble washing back." "I know," he said, "that's why I asked. Turn yourself around." She slid around so that she faced away from him and he began. He was a little relieved about the rest. When he'd adopted Nahl'een, he'd asked for some help and advice about bathing a little girl, and he was thankful for the lesson that he'd received from his mother when she'd come to visit the day that he'd brought her home. Without that, he'd have done his best – as he did in anything for her – but his mother had spent the time to patiently teach the little one to wash herself. For a while, his mother had repeated the lesson at least once each time that she'd come, but lately, she'd told Dahlgren that Nahl'een had now mastered it. All in all, he was glad that she was learning to manage many things for herself. He just knew that her back was going to be an issue and that she'd likely forget. Just like his own, her wings would always be a challenge for her to wash. But at least she was getting to an age where he could expect that she'd have the balance to move them out, one at a time to wash them. It could be a troublesome thing in someone so small, and the bath was no place to slip and fall. With the task completed, he rinsed her off and helped her out of the tub and into the thick towel that he had for her. He started with her hair, since gravity always worked, and there was so much of it to dry. "Time for dinner?" she asked when he was done, "Nahl'een is hungry." "Well that's good," he tried to look relieved. "I didn't think that I'd be able to eat all of it. I'll need your help." She giggled at him, "I eat like mouse, Dahl. You eat like, ... like, ... not know what." "Like a bigger mouse," he grinned and she rewarded him with a peal of laughter. "No," she chuckled, "you eat like horse, Dahl." He let her keep the towel around her as they walked to the kitchen. "Why so much?" she asked, looking at him a little suspiciously. "I see three pots. I see bread. Too much for us, Dahl." "Well," he smiled down at her, "I might have bought a little too much at the shop, or, ..." He sank down into a crouch, "Maybe I knew that we would need to have more. You know, like we do when Gramma comes sometimes." He knew what her reaction would be and he was careful to watch for it. Her black eyes grew huge and her little mouth dropped open as she inhaled. "Gramma? Gramma is here?" She sought to sense for her grandmother and in an instant, she knew. He nodded, smiling, and then he was alone, her towel lying forgotten at his feet on the kitchen floor. She didn't even bother with running, she just leapt into the air in a little hop and she was gone as fast as her wings could carry her with that thin tail of hers stretched out behind her. He laughed a little to himself as he heard her cry out, calling out for his mother. He just hoped that she'd manage to make the turns this time. He picked up the towel and went back to the bath chamber to hang it up. He'd almost begun to empty the tub before his eye caught sight of the worn little doll lying there drowned. He picked it up and set it in the small basin while he rinsed the tub out. He went back to the doll and thought about it. It was nothing more than a stuffed doll made of cloth. It was an old thing and it was so worn that he'd repaired it a few times already, and he wondered what he'd do when it finally gave up the ghost. She'd made a big deal out of how dirty it was, insisting that it needed a bath as well. He didn't often allow it for the sake of the doll's longevity, but he had this time. He picked it up again and squeezed it out carefully before holding it in his hand and causing the rest of the water inside to leave the damp fabric as a mist. Nahl'een ran in then, asking for her doll. He handed it to her with a smile and she was gone again as fast as she could go. He'd bought her other dolls and though she liked them and was thankful, none of them could replace that worn-out old thing in her heart. She took it along with her everywhere. He looked down and sighed. He knew where it had come from, and he now knew its previous owner. He walked through the kitchen and out down the hall. His home was something that he could never decide about. He didn't know the right word for the home that he'd been given as a part of what he was here to do. The word 'palace' came to mind, though that didn't really fit. He supposed that since it sat on a secluded peak, hidden in groves of trees, that it might be a castle as well. But that didn't suit what it was either. If it was anything, he thought, it was a fortress – a large, low fortress which seemed rather lonely at times, since it appeared that he and his little daughter were the almost the only ones in it, aside from his horse out in the stables. But that wasn't strictly true. It was defended by other means than only its location and gated walls. Anyone trying to get inside who was not recognized would soon find that it was inhabited by other things, placed there expressly for the defense of the building itself and the ones inside. There were six hellhounds who walked these halls and the grounds. They were here when he'd come. He didn't know who fed them or what they lived on, but they were friendly to him and they loved Nahl'een. One of them especially, the seventh, a young female named Shaevre who'd assumed the role of his daughter's close companion and playmate. Like most of her kind when in the hound-ish form, she could comprehend speech, though she couldn't speak. There were other things here as well. He'd just never seen them, but he knew that the hellhounds were not the worst that an intruder might have to fear. On the whole, it was an attractive place to live, the style being very open with many monolithic walls and tables and benches here and there crafted out of stone, with gleaming stone floors everywhere. There were decorations, stone mostly, and the open and sparse theme was very comfortable and easy to live in even though it seemed more like a museum or a temple in some respects. Whatever the intent of its design, it lent itself to being the home of a warrior who served a faith so ancient that no one knew its origins. Despite its location, it was never cold inside and it never grew too hot. The thing managed itself, and it was always best to pick up after oneself before retiring for the night. Articles left out and not put away might be found in the kitchen the next morning. Then again, they might never be found again at all. He'd never seen who cleaned up, though he'd tried to a few times. He just knew that someone did, that was all. There were many rooms to the place, and a few large chambers were one could go to relax and collect one's thoughts. One of his favorites was the large arboretum, a place almost at the center of things, though it wasn't laid out as a formal thing. It was more like a self-managing jungle of sorts. All manner of plants and birds lived there in a rather perfect balance and he was very careful never to upset that balance. There was the temple chamber at the back of that. It was his place of worship and Nahl'een's as well now, though he was still teaching her. The whole thing was based on the same sort of balance that the arboretum thrived on – one thing led to another, everything was a part of a whole and had a place, either large or small. The gods of the faith were neither malevolent nor benevolent, though they could be, if the balance was badly affected. That was where Dahlgren came in. He was here to be an instrument of their combined wills. Off to one side was what he called the beach, since that was what it was - a huge room with rock cliffs which appeared to be very high, but were really only simulations created to look like that. There was a wide sort of sandy beach which had some pebbles as well, and there was what looked at first glance to be an ocean, though it was in fact a rather large and warmed pool where waves rolled gently inward. There was something up above which resembled the sun and it moved as time went by, if one paid attention, though the arc through which it travelled always kept it in view above. The relative time of day could be changed with a thought throughout the twenty-four hours of the regular solar day. He and Nahl'een loved to go there together. She already knew how to swim after a fashion, but he taught her better ways, and when they weren't doing that, he built her sand castles. That was where he found them, a pair of demons playing together in the waves. He sighed, "I just gave her a bath." His mother laughed, "Well then she'll be even cleaner, won't she? She's turning into a regular tadpole, I see." "What is tad ... pole?" Nahl'een asked. "It's a little frog," her grandmother smiled, "A baby frog just like you, they even have a tail. They're always in the water." "Not tadpole," the little girl laughed, but then she stopped and grew a sly little grin. "If I am tadpole, then Gramma and Dahl are frogs!" she laughed, "Big frogs!" Her squealing laughter was infectious, though the squeals hurt a little. "I want to talk with your father," her grandmother said as she kissed the little face in front of her, "You play with the boat that I brought you, alright? We'll watch from the beach." Nahl'een nodded and pushed the little toy along in the water. Dahlgren wondered how it would brave the waves, but he guessed that it wouldn't sink right away. Ny'Zeille Runei turned and began to walk out, a very wet and still very beautiful female. She sat down on the towel that she'd brought and her tail curled on the sand behind her as she regarded her son. "I was told that you have met the girl," she said, "You spoke of it in your prayers." He nodded as he watched his daughter play, "Yes. It was a bit of an adventure. Though it began rather well, it didn't end that way. I didn't know that she was the one from the family at the farm. I only thought of that later." He smiled as he looked down at a pebble on the sand. "She stole my horse – twice. I helped her when I saw that she was in danger of freezing, and I slept with her, though not in the usual way, I suppose." His mother looked at him. She was very proud of her son. Given what he was – what his heritage had dealt to him, he'd made more than the best of it, seeking the faith and returning to Earth to take up the mantle of the Ranger – the only one on this world. By likely any female's standards, he was very attractive when he took his human shape, and that was not something that could be changed any more than his natural shape could be. And in that shape, she knew that here were many females who would want one such as him for a male as well, demons, mostly, and more than a few who were like him, some of both. She smiled a little, knowing that there were likely many human females who wouldn't pass him by without at least a longing look – even in his natural form. She just knew that they wouldn't do that in public, most of them, anyway. He was her only child and she doted on him at least a little, though she did try very hard to hide it. But he was alone here, and it bothered her somewhat. Somehow, he'd even found a way to give her a grandchild, a wonderful little girl who, though she had such huge troubles in her past and her beginning, had found ways to deal with it - just as soon as her little arms had wound themselves around his strong neck and the tiny tendrils of her love had entwined and ensnared his great heart. She sometimes wondered which of them had managed what, since it quite obviously went both ways. It didn't matter, she supposed. She remembered the first time that she'd laid eyes on Nahl'een. Such a sad little thing, and so nervous and fearful out having lived the first few years of her life as almost an animal. A feral little thing, she'd been then. She only knew one word and it was 'Dahl'. It had taken a half an hour to teach her that she had a name now, and that it was Nahl'een. Her speech was non-existent then, but you'd almost never know it now. She was still behind, but she made up for that with her effort and the speed at which she learned most things, once they'd been shown or explained to her. She was catching up quickly, and had become a little chatterbox. Which was just the thing that the place needed, Ny'Zeille decided. The Ranger now had a daughter, and the Great Ones had accepted that she was a part of his life and allowed him that. It was quite an honor for both father and daughter, since such a thing was not lightly given, and it meant far more that their acceptance. If there were any on this world who had a thought to do this little one any harm, they had better look to make their peace with their own gods, whoever they were, because it wouldn't save them from the wrath which would come of it. A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 06 She might have had a bad and humble start, but little Nahl'een was considered by many to have a bright and important future. Ny'Zeille sighed. As loving and thoughtful as her son was in his role as her father, what she needed now was something like a mother. "What happened?" she asked her son, "You say that you didn't mount her?" Ny'Zeille watched him shake his horned head and she smirked, "More the fool her then. How did it go wrong – if it was even going rightly?" He looked a little uncomfortable, "I made no attempt at mating, Mother. There was a bit of intimate play between us, nothing more. I, ... I found that I liked her very much. I wouldn't have tried to mount her, not without her knowing at all what she was lying with. I won't do that. It might have gotten somewhere at some point, but I think that I must have gone to this shape sometime in the night or something, and she saw me as I am like this." He shrugged, "I guess it was enough to close any door that she might have wanted to leave open. I followed her to see where she would go, and after claiming the bounties on the ones that she was there for – the ones that I was there to kill, she went to her home – that farm. I was waiting for her there, since I took my horse back, and then I spoke with her." "Who killed the ones?" she asked. "We both did," he said, "she took two and I killed the four. I allowed her to take the strips of skin that she needed to claim the bounties, that's all. When I spoke to Selena, I learned that she fears what I am. I guess that I made a mess of trying to tell her about Nahl'een, and I grew frustrated, seeing that she wouldn't hear me anyway, so I left." The demon smiled a little, "Selena, is it? How familiar you make it sound. I can tell that you still like her a little." He nodded, "Selena Meadesbreath." He sighed and she caught it. "So how did it end? You just left?" "No," he said, "I knew how she felt about – what I am, and I thought that if she was like that, then I had no hope to get it into her head that there might be some things that she holds superstitions about and that they rule her thoughts and actions. There was no point to it. And if I cannot get her to the point where she would feel comfortable only standing to talk with me, then what chance was there to tell her of my daughter? I told her that I had more to say, but that I could see that she wouldn't hear it, so I told her that if she wanted to know, then she had to seek me out. I am done with talking to a frightened stone." "Very well then," Ny'Zeille sighed, "I feel a mild desire in me to interfere – " When she saw his face, she laughed and he knew that she'd led him on for a moment. "I never would, Dahlgren. It's only a tempting thought, that's all. But I know that it wouldn't do much more than harden her heart even more. Let her be then, living in her stupidity and blindness. The loss is hers, after all. You should forget that you ever met her. You know her name, which was what you set out to learn. Call it a draw and move on. There are plenty of females here on this world, and though you won't believe it, many of them are far brighter than this Selena fool. ------------------- They sat at dinner, the three of them, and his mother was proud of her family. They listened as Nahl'een chattered about the things that she'd seen and what she'd learned. She didn't say much about her lessons, but that was only because to her, they were chores, the same as they would be to any child her age. But her lessons were important, and her grandmother asked her questions relating to all manner of things. Finally, she tossed a bread roll into the air and held it there with her mind. Dahlgren groaned. It was the last of the bread rolls and he'd had his eye on it, if neither of the others expressed any interest in it. He guessed that he'd have to settle for another slice of the bread. "Take it, Nahl'een," Ny'Zeille smiled, "Hold it there as still as you can." The little girl beamed and nodded, grasping it into her control instantly. Her father looked around the table for something else to eat, knowing that he'd likely not want the roll in a little time. It might end up on the floor in the corner, or it just might be hopelessly crushed the way that the last one had been a week or so ago. But nothing like that happened and the roll hung there in space, perfectly still, as though it were on a pedestal. "Very good," the older female smiled, "Not even a little tremor as you took it. Now, what will you do with it? I think that you ought to find the line, Nahl'een. Find a line through the middle. What is it called?" "The axis," the girl said very quietly, her concentration plainly evident on her face. The roll snapped into a different position and stayed there. "Find another one now," his mother said, "Can you do it?" The roll shifted instantly, and then went to the third axis in space and it began to rotate slowly there. "Ah!" Ny'Zeille gasped in surprise, "So well done! Are you hungry now?" "No," Nahl'een said a little absently, "What should I do with it?" "Well," her grandmother smiled, "I can feel that your father was thinking of eating it. Can you bring it to him, so that it isn't harmed?" The small half-demon nodded, "I think so, ..." There was a tiny bit of doubt in there and this was what now worried Dahlgren. He hated it when she played with her food – or his, more correctly. He was now very glad that they weren't having soup. But she surprised him and set it down very carefully on the small plate next to his dinner plate. He was impressed, and he heaped praise on her for what she'd been able to learn. It was obvious to him that she'd been practicing. "Tell me, Granddaughter," Ny'Zeille said a little carefully, "Have you been practising in your room?" Nahl'een nodded. "What is the heaviest thing that you have lifted so far while you practised?" The little one's reply startled them. "Shaevre," she said. At that point, the hellhound in question got to her feet from where she'd lain in the corner by the fire and padded out of the room. She was in no mood to play any part in a demonstration. The two adults stared for a moment. "Hard to do. Shaevre moves in the air," the girl said, "Will you stay, Gramma? I can show what I can do. If you stay." Ny'Zeille leaned forward thoughtfully, "I imagine that it would be hard if she won't hold still." He nodded when his mother looked at him questioningly, "You know that you're always welcome. Nahl'een always misses you when you're gone. Please stay as long as you have the time for." She nodded with a sideways glance at the girl, "I think that I'd better, and it would be such fun, wouldn't it, Nahl'een?" Nahl'een was in heaven – or what passed for it in her mind. ------------------------ They'd left Nahl'een in her bed with their goodnight kisses and gone to sit in front of the great fire. They spoke of many things, none of which were anywhere near to what his mother really wanted to speak about. He was her son and he knew his mother well. She was just waiting to make certain that Nahl'een was asleep. After about an hour, he got up and walked silently through the halls to his daughter's room. It was in total darkness and he could hear her regular breathing as she slept. What he felt of her inside him told him that it was so as well. The only illumination at all in the chamber came from Shaevre's glowing red eyes as she regarded him from where she lay beside the bed. He smiled and nodded, walking away. "How much does the hound, Shaevre weigh?" his mother asked, as she sat before the fire leaning back against the huge form of Arrax, her hellhound. She stroked his head absently and he rumbled occasionally in his quiet pleasure. "I don't know," Dahlgren replied, scratching his head, "I guess I'd say about two hundred pounds, maybe a bit more." "Two hundred sixty-eight of these pounds that you mention," Arrax said before going back to appearing not to be listening to them. Arrax was one of the very few of his kind who could speak in human tongues while in this shape. Her eyes opened a little wider. "Do you know what she has done? It is nothing for almost all of us to be able to lift something into the air as children. It is to be expected – along with many broken things that come from it. But there is a limit, Dahlgren. There is a limit which almost none can go beyond, and that is one's own weight. It becomes a matter of physics then, doesn't it? The heavier the article, the more effort, and also the greater the chance that the lifter only pulls themselves toward what is to be lifted. Even a human cannot pull something toward himself that is heavier than he is. He would only move himself, and not the article. This is the same thing. To lift Shaevre, Nahl'een should only be able to feel herself being pushed down by her own effort. Your little girl asleep there in her room has already broken that rule. At the age of what? Not even six years old? She can now lift things into the air which are heavier than she is and not be moved herself? I must stay now, if for no other reason than to see what she can do and to guide her, along with you. Other than one of the Great Ones, there have been only three who could do this at such a tender age – and I count Nahl'een onto the pile. He nodded, wondering what might come of this, "You and I." "So, there lies the trouble," she said. "Not only must we teach her a great deal of control for a little one to be able to manage, we must also report it before it is seen, and then there will be questions, Dahlgren. Those questions must have answers. "They will want to know how she came to be. Since we are the only ones who are known to have had this sort of ability at a young age, we will be looked at. I was nowhere near when she was birthed, and it would have obviously been marked by many if I had been with spawn. Who was the one who impregnated her mother then? It most certainly could not have been me, and you were with me elsewhere when it happened, so it cannot have been you – not that you would have done such a thing. So who was it? It is widely known and it has been confirmed that you dealt death to all of the vermin who came to that farm. Somewhere in that heap of bodies, there was one with a great deal of power that was not known about. It makes everyone nervous." "There is another possibility," he said, "though it is unlikely, and I hate to even bring it up." "Yes," she said, "there is. I was about to mention it. Could either of her parents have had power? Pure humans cannot possess it naturally." Dahlgren looked very uncomfortable indeed after another moment's thought. "Look at it this way," Ny'Zeille said intently, "Once they learn of this, the questions will arise about how a little one with such ability came to be spawned out of the rape of a human woman. Since you and I cannot have had anything to do with it, more questions are the only path forward for them. They will seek for any known and living examples of the little one's bloodline, and when they think to act, Dahlgren, they will send their Ranger to bring that one to them, since it is unlikely that any of them will choose to come here. It would be worse if they did come, wouldn't it?" He nodded with a sigh. He'd been thinking the very same thing. "What then, son?" she asked, "You know the one that they would seek. I can feel that no matter what you might wish to tell me, or what you want to tell yourself even, you still have some sort of feelings for that one. It would be easier if you didn't, but it remains truth that you do. How will it feel to you to bring her there, knowing that she will be examined by them, knowing that by the time that they are finished, she will have nothing left; no pride to hide behind, no dignity, not anything much of a will? How will you feel, because if she displays any of those things, it will be seen as merely other small defenses which must be ripped away to get at the core? Oh, you can do it, Dahlgren, because you are a Ranger and you must do as you are commanded. Even one of their Rangers cannot withstand them. To disobey brings instant destruction, no matter where you might be, and there is no defense against that command." She shook her head, "You'd do it, even if you wanted to die, you'd do what was ordered. But how would you feel about it, knowing what would happen to her?" She leaned forward, "You don't need to answer. I know how you would feel all too well. We both know that there would be nothing personal to it for them, nothing of good or evil, only that there is something here which could upset a balance somewhere and as such, it must be examined by them, quantified and known. After that, their attention would shift elsewhere, but what would be left?" She sat back and smiled a little, "So, all that there is to do is to ask the questions ourselves, in a manner which will take a bit of time, since she certainly will become at least a little uncooperative at some point, but it will leave her all of the things that would otherwise be taken from her." He shook his head. "What?" Ny'Zeille asked her son, "What have I said? You would not do this to save her mind? Her body? All that she might lose to them? What sort of son did I spawn and raise, to have grown so cold and callous that –" Dahlgren smirked at his mother, "You have raised a son, Mother, who knows you all too well. You have managed, in your inimitable and scheming way, to use a set of circumstances in order to try to arrange that I meet with her again. Well I will have none of it. We have only just learned of this ourselves. Nahl'een has only just learned to do this now, certainly within only the last week, so there is still time." "Time for what, Dahlgren?" his mother smiled at him innocently, "Time for you to get past what small hurt that she might have done to the feelings of a mighty Ranger such as you? You have seen death and slaughter. You have even been the cause of some of it in retribution. Don't try to tell me that whatever way that she snubbed what you felt could stop you from doing what you know is right, before something happens to someone that you know and still have a little feeling for. Pull the dummy out of your mouth and don't look so petulantly at me. I'm your mother. It hasn't worked on me since before you were Nahl'een's age, not that you ever did it much. If you won't see this Cesspool Ditchbreath woman, then – " "Selena," he said slowly and clearly, rolling his eyes, "Selena Meadesbreath." "There, you see?" she beamed at him, "You do care after all. But don't you trouble yourself Ranger, if you haven't the courage to seek out this one imperiled and unimportant ditchdigger, then I will." "Ditchdigger?" he tilted his head at her, "Where did that come from? She's a bounty hunter and a rogue – a good one, too." "Oh, who cares?" Ny'Zeille grinned a little, "I guess that I got stuck on her name. And if you say that she's a rogue, well that's only a fancy name for a human with sticky fingers to me." "Her name is – " "I know what her name is," his mother grinned, "I only wanted to hear you say it. You sound so much like your father when you're sticking up for someone that you care about." "I don't –" "Oh shut up, Dahlgren," she smiled as she got up and walked over to him. "You're digging a hole here. Goodnight." She kissed him and waited as Arrax got to his feet and they walked off together to the room where she always slept whenever she visited. He sat alone in front of the fire for a long while, staring into the flames. A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 07 ***We're back to the gang on the mountain in this chapter. By the way, the mountain that they're on is not the one referred to below. It's where they're headed to eventually. I've tried to be a little creative in trying to make use of features which I believe would likely survive the sort of things which have happened. Try to remember that from the viewpoint of the characters in this, something which you or I might just assume to be permanent would be ancient and many things have been forgotten. Four hundred years is twenty generations in human terms. The infrastructure which we all take for granted is largely gone. There are no highways. They've turned into the same sort of cowpaths that the many of the old well-built Roman roads are to us today. 0_o ------------------ Book of the Mountain Clan, Part 3 "Vadren's showed me his mage staff," Sariel said over dinner with the excitement of a child, "It's alive, and it looks so – " "I know," Rachel smiled, looking past her son at the staff as it leaned up against the wall. It had been placed there out of his sight for fear that the boy wouldn't eat a thing because of his fixation with the article. The entire thing had been fashioned out of one piece of wood, the roots of a particular tree where they'd grown down through the earth to wrap themselves around an ancient Drow shrine. No one worshiped there anymore, the particular city where it was situated had been cursed and looted ages ago and now stood empty and deserted, save for the fearsome beasts which prowled the forgotten streets. The head of Vadren's staff carried an intricate carving of a female with her arms out from her sides as though flying. Over her back, three spiked prongs carried past her, as though they were the points where her will left her when a spell was cast using the staff. The small figure moved a little slowly all of the time. "The tree was the home of dryads once," Vadren said, "and my staff carries the spirit of one of them. It was left in the place where it was made, and the journey to the place was almost the death of me many times. I did not know that it was there. It was not the reason that I went there at all. But I found that the tree's roots were being consumed by many nasty little things. I thought that it was wrong, and so I killed them all. When the last one died, the roots moved and the staff was handed to me by one of them. It serves me well, though I have tried to release the figure there several times, thinking that she was imprisoned, but it came to me in a dream that it was not so and that the staff was a gift. She does not speak to me often, but she has in the past and she told me that she is my servant. Lately, she has told me that I ought to seek a young learner, promising to yield two small wands out of the wood – one for the learner. He or she must be young and bright, having no wish to harm nature or her trees. But I have found no one." "You have not exactly looked very hard either," Cha'Khah smirked. It was all that she had the time to say before Azriel began. "I will think on it," Vadren smiled as he held up his hand. Much later, after Sariel was in his bed they talked. "He's a boy, and though he has some ability, I haven't taught him very much at all" Rachel said. "I haven't had the time or lately, the desire to. But I know that he'll need to know something one day. Both of us have a lot to teach, Azrael." "Not only us," he said, indicating the others. "He has a quick mind and a good eye," Cha'Khah smiled, "it would be a waste not to show him something." They fell silent for a few moments. "It will not be long before the weather begins to turn," Vadren said, "It leaves us only a very short time in which to begin here where there is little to distract him. He should know at least the basics for one of his young age before you think to return to Cheyenne Mountain." "And try to remember that not all of us can fly like you three," Cha'Khah said, "and the drowling cannot fly far as you both likely can. There are too many of us for you to take back in an instant with your magic traveling, Azrael." "I know," he said, "but I gave my word to Rachel that we would stay here until the beginning of the winter." Rachel shook her head, "There's still time," she said, "teach him whatever you think that he'll need – as long as it's within his ability to use properly and not burn down the mountain or hurt anyone. I said what I did hoping that it would give him and you the time to get to know each other and form the kinship that I think really needs to be there between a father and his son – especially a pair who only came to know each other recently. But the way that you two are going, I don't think that I should have been worried." Cha'Khah excused herself to go outside. "There will be a fine moon tonight," she said, "I wish to make my prayers to the goddess to ask for her guidance for the drowling and if I should teach him." She stepped outside and Rachel looked at Vadren, "What was that about?" "Most of our people worship a nasty spider goddess," he said, "one who rewards cruelty and intrigue. The society is ruled over by females who hold all power, something like ants. I do not care who holds the power, I only wanted not to be treated as dung because I was born a male. There are few of us, but there are some Drow who live on the surface. They tend not to follow the spider-faith and many choose to follow a different goddess, one who does not hold males in contempt. I am coming to feel the want to see for myself one night soon. If we are quiet and offer respect, we may go to watch my cousin. She dances in the moonlight for the goddess." "Your cousin?" Rachel asked, "That's the second time that I've heard you refer to her that way. She says the same thing when she refers to you, but from what I see you're a little close to use that word as though you were at a family reunion. You're almost distant enough not to be cousins at all." He shrugged, "We are cousins several times removed. We did not know each other or grow up together, and we are far enough apart to wed if we wished to. It may come to that one day," he smiled, "There are few chances that we have found for our hearts otherwise. Neither of us wanted to remain where we were for much longer." They went outside to watch Cha'Khah as she danced with a sword in her hand. Rachel fell in love with it immediately. She'd never seen anything so beautiful to watch, and it went on for a long time before she stopped. Cha'Khah trotted over to Vadren, who had already begun to make his way to her and they walked off a little way before they began to kiss and before long, she had him out of his clothing and onto his back. Rachel saw her friend's red eyes regarding her as she rode Vadren with a smile of pleasure. Rachel felt a little silly, but she offered a small wave of encouragement as she walked away holding Azrael's hand. ----------------------- The urgent part was over and Rachel lay on her side while Azrael was behind her with his arm over her. "Well that was quite a day," she smiled, "I met a pair of pretty different people thanks to you and I'm glad they're here." "They are different, next to most humans, I suppose," he said, "to me, they're just my friends and –" "Business partners?" she asked. "Yes, fellow adventurers and business partners. I see that you and Cha'Khah have become chummy," he said. "She's wonderful," Rachel smiled, "I've never met anybody like her. I don't mean for what they are, Azrael. I mean for who they are. Cha'Khah's so much fun to be around. I find that I'm happier just to stand near her." "Both of them are really good to have near you if you need someone in your corner," Azrael said quietly. But if you're somewhere sticky and things aren't looking too good then just give her a bit of room, Rachel. She gets things messy really quickly." "I think I'd like to ask her if she'd teach me," Rachel said as she felt him beginning to harden against her. She wiggled her backside to let him know that she was definitely interested. "It couldn't hurt to know and the way that she can move so gracefully is beyond any words that I have to say it with." "You know that even though she's a Drow, she's a kind of elf, right?" he asked, "I hate to tell you, but there is no one who can move as gracefully. But you go on and ask. I'm enjoying seeing this side of her. I've never really seen it before in her. I think that it's doing her good, and it can't hurt you to learn what you can. They're both a little different from the usual, run-of-the-mill Drow," he said, "Though I guess that there are some things which won't ever change. Have you noticed the way that she teases me as though I was her master?" "Yes," she said, "why is that?" "Well, it's probably because of the way that they all live, always having to watch for the knife that might come from out of nowhere for them, but Drow are always suspicious. They can't help it. I helped them to get out of where they lived trapped, but even so, Cha'Khah used to entertain a sneaking suspicion that I must have done it so that I'd gain a pair of confederates in my business. That's what they ended up as, but it was never my intent. She just always likes to call me her master – as if she'd ever allow anyone to wear that title ever again." Rachel lifted her leg and moved it back to place it behind his legs so that he'd have better access to her. She reached to move his erection to where it would do them both a lot more good and she tried to keep the groan in her from coming out as he slid inside of her again. "It sure hasn't hurt her shape any, this business of yours," she sighed as he began to move slowly. They were silent for a few minutes, just fucking slowly. "You've had her, haven't you?" she asked, wanting to see what his reaction would be. "Yes," he sighed, "but it was only a couple of times after getting done with jobs which were tight scrapes." "Wasn't she any good?" Rachel whispered, "I mean, I know that she's looking for someone to really love her." "She was really good," he whispered in her ear, "but I'm not the one that she's looking for, though I guess that I could have been if I wasn't always sad the way that I was before." "Why were you sad?" she asked as she moved herself to thrust back against him in the deliciously slow way that they'd found a few nights ago. "I'm going to sound like a sappy idiot here, but I never got over losing what you and I had. You may have noticed that I'm pretty happy these days," he whispered. "Ohhh" she sighed, "I have. Sorry about the dumb question. It's a shame that she can't be happy with Vadren. I know that I'm not what he'd want, and I'm a kid's mother and all of that, but if things were different and we weren't together, I'd probably be really interested." He chuckled softly as he stretched to kiss her ear. "You do know that we're twins, you and I, right? Have you forgotten? There's nobody in the world who knows you better than me. You are interested in your quiet way, I can tell." Rachel felt a little foolish. "But I'm not in love with him, Azrael. I'm in love with you. I have what I want and it's this. I was just wondering." "I know that too," he said, "I always wondered about Cha'Khah myself. There's no harm in wondering. Rachel. I know what we have." "Good," she said, as she began to thrust harder, "Because I think it's pretty fantastic. You just let me know if you want to do this another way. I'm fine just like this." He moved his hand a little to get to one of her nipples and Rachel moved her pillow to keep any sounds that she might make quieter. ------------------------ The spring turned into summer as the pair of Drow taught their new pupils. Sariel amazed Cha'Khah at how quickly he caught on to anything that she showed him. All that he lacked was the size and strength of an adult in most cases. Still, there were mishaps, but Cha'Khah showed Sariel right from the start what it was that she expected of him. She knelt and passed her hands over the slight wounds and scrapes in his young body as she healed them and then she looked into his eyes, reaching out to wipe away the tears from his cheeks. "Listen well, Sariel," she said quietly, "If this was where I come from and if you really were a drowling, you would find no comfort to be had crying over these little hurts that come from what I have to teach you. To show that one is hurt there is an invitation for more abuse, both from one's fellow learners and from the teachers, never mind from the parents if it was known that one showed it. To show that you are hurt is taken as a sign of weakness and Drow never show weakness – never," she said, "It is desirable to show that one can take punishment, but also, it is to prevent others from taking advantage of it. Remember what I said when we met; we use everything to our advantage. If your opponent is hurt, you must use that as you can as well. Be glad that we are not there, young one. But even though this is not that place, there is something for you to learn here. You may be hurt or injured, but the best thing while you are in action is to hide this until after. That is the time to examine and take stock, understand?" Sariel nodded, sniffling, "I know, Cha'Khah, but it hurts." "Of course it does, my sweet one," she smiled, "It serves as a lesson not to allow the hurt to be repeated. You may hear my hard words as we train together, but I seek to drive you to give only your best – never anything less, for your life will often depend on your success." She reached out and he found himself a little crushed against her armor as she hugged him, and then she kissed his young face. "I find that I am becoming so much like an aunt to you, but not in the way of the Drow, for one may expect little but a good kick from one's aunt there, even before she says hello. I love you as the dalharuk that I have not had yet, and likely never will, so please pardon me if I expect much from one so young. It comes out of my love for you and my desire that you stay alive. "Here," she said, reaching behind her, "I think the time has come for this. I have spoken with your mother and we have agreed that you have worked hard enough to earn this." She held out a small blade to him, haft first and she grinned at the way that his eyes opened in surprise and delight. "This is as sharp as any other blade that I have. I even expect that you will cut yourself a time or two as you learn of its uses. But I ask that you show care with it, or I will have to suffer the shame of taking it away from you once again. You do not wish for that to happen, because that will delay the beginning of my teaching with the bow. Hold it for a moment and then, when you think that you have the feel of it, hand it back to me the same way that I gave it to you and I will show you only some of its uses." Sariel looked at it carefully and then he closed his fingers around the haft to grip it. After a moment, he handed it back. His eyes opened in amazement as it became a blur in Cha'Khah's hand, a silvery globe that spun in what looked to be all directions as she moved it easily. "The balance between the blade and the haft is very important," she smiled, "or this would not be possible so easily. There is are enchantments on this which I will not show to you yet until you master some of the simpler movements, but see that old stump there?" She pointed with her free hand at an old half-rotten stump not far off. Sariel nodded, keenly aware that nothing that she did took away from the way that the knife shone and glittered as it spun. "Watch then drowling, and see only one of the tasks that his blade knows," she smiled. He barely saw her movement, but he knew that the blade was gone, seeing the dull blur of it as it thudded deeply into the rotten wood. Within a second, the blade fell to the ground and the stump's decomposition was almost complete, the blade finishing what nature had begun in only seconds. He got to his feet to run for it, but she held him back. "No. To touch it now would cause the same to happen to you, my sweet boy. The blade must come to learn your touch. Let me get it, and we will teach it together so that you are safe from it." -------------------------- "He's going to cut himself, you know," Rachel said as she watched her son walk away with the knife a few minutes later. "He might," her friend replied, "but he knows that Vadren or I can heal anything that he does to himself with it. You are not here now to think about Sariel. You are here to begin with the bow today." She looked at Rachel, "but I already see a problem." "Problem?" Rachel said, "What sort of problem? I know that learning this will be hard, but I've always been a little jealous of Azrael and how he can shoot. I'm willing to try hard, Cha'Khah," she said as she nocked an arrow. She was about to draw the bowstring back fully when Cha'Khah cried out, "STOP!" and Rachel froze. "What have I done wrong so soon?" she asked. "Oh, nothing yet, my lovely friend," the Drowess smiled, "but you were about to learn two things the hard way, and I seek to prevent the flow of a few needless tears from those eyes." Rachel was confused. She hadn't done much of anything yet, but she stood with the bow half-drawn. "Here," Cha'Khah said smiling and Rachel felt the Drowess' fingertip against the side of her breast, close to her nipple. "You chose to come here to learn today in this beautiful demon-like form of yours. I never use the bow anymore unless I am wearing my armor. It saves a lot of pain from the bowstring grazing my breast when I release. It does not happen often, but I have learned this pain myself – and you are a little bigger than I am. In one form or another, you will need to bind these beauties before you begin. Also, you need to wear this," she said, holding up the guard for the archer's bow arm. "Without this little thing, you will find your interest fading from you after only a few arrows." She strapped the guard to the inside of her friend's forearm. "Now hold your arms high above your head, Rachel, and I will bind your breasts for you. I thought of this and brought something for it. It is a common learner's mistake among adult females. I began as a girl, and it was not until I matured that I realized my peril quite painfully." A few minutes later, and Rachel was losing arrows all over the meadow while her friend cheered her on, promising to help her find them again afterward. -------------------- "When can I begin to learn to use the staff?" Sariel asked, careful not to show any impatience this time. The last time that Vadren had detected that impatience, it had cost the boy a week, during which the Drow mage had refused to show him anything. Azrael and Cha'Khah stood by watching as did Rachel who sat on the front step. "When I decide that you are ready, my young learner," Vadren grinned, "and not a moment before. You already know for yourself that both the wand and the staff are only ways to focus and direct what comes from within. It magnifies and brings intensity to what you do with your mind. Begin with the staff too soon and you will never be a mage with much power, and maybe worse, you will think that you are and have to lug around a piece of lumber for the rest of your days. Do it my way – as hard as it seems, " Vadren grinned, "and you will become a force to be reckoned with. Now, we left off with you learning the incantation for The Strength of the Many. If you can, then say this to me, but do not use your hands. You are not to cast anything, only show me that you know the words, understand? We will do that in a minute." Sariel began to speak the arcane phrases in a quiet voice, just loud enough for the mage to hear and understand what was said. A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 07 Vadren was pleased and decided to give the boy a little test. "Very good. Quickly now - as fast as you can, The Power of the One." Sariel muttered quickly. "The Virgin's Devotion." "The Ice Dagger." The others stopped to stare at the boy and how fast he was able to say the words. "The Blessing of Sanctuary." "The Power of the Bane." "The Stones of the Hanged One." "The Curse of Doom." "Death's Armor." "The Way of Entanglement." "Spot of the Hated Sun." "The Parted Flanks of the Maiden." Azrael spit out his mouthful of tea and began to cough. "The what?" Cha'Khah demanded. Sariel stopped and looked at Vadren, "You didn't teach me that one." "No, I, uh, ... I guess I didn't. Never mind then," Vadren chuckled. "I think that I am seeing a glimpse of some of the reason for your prowess with innkeeper's wives," his cousin chortled as she watched. "Now," Vadren smiled, "as quickly as you can, and separating your hands widely in between them, show me the motions for each of those spells in that order, but do NOT say the words." A minute later, and the boy stood smiling as he received the praise of his tutor. "Well done, Sariel. And now, I think that you have earned the right to use one of the invocations in a practical way." He nodded off in the distance. "Do you see what comes? This skunk has been coming here most nights looking for something to eat, but we leave nothing out to get. Construct a badger now as I have taught you. The timing is important, Sariel. This badger must be in place before the skunk reaches the glade or we will all be unhappy if the skunk sprays his aroma around." "Is my badger to kill the skunk?" the boy asked. "A fair question," Vadren smiled, "No, see to it that the badger only harasses the skunk so that he leaves, and then dispel the construct of the badger. Do you think that you can do this?" Sariel nodded and his brows knit together in concentration. The upset skunk was last seen a few minutes afterward as it hustled off out of sight. "Dispel the badger," Vadren reminded, "or none of us will like you very much if it comes here smelling the way that it does now." Sariel nodded and the badger vanished. "But when can I-" Vadren held up a single finger. "Careful," he smiled, "Alright. Since you have learned all of your lessons so well, you may begin with a wand that you and I will make for you tomorrow. After that, and if my staff decides that you are worthy – as I think that you are, you will get a new wand, one which does not need so much thought as the one that we will make. I will think about you having a staff at the end of the summer as we travel." Sariel nodded, obviously pleased to have an answer at last. ----------------------- It was raining, though it was a gentle and warm summer rain. Rachel moved her wet hair out of her eyes as she looked up. "Rain again," she said a little disgustedly. "I do not mind it," Cha'Khah smiled, "It wets my hair, it is true, but the sun does not hound me today. I can abide this light easily. It is my favorite light, outside of the darkness." "I'm sorry, Cha'Khah," Rachel said, "I keep forgetting that you both have trouble in full sunlight." "Do not trouble yourself. You were raised in it. I was wondering when Azrael would begin to teach the drowling, I am pleased that he begins it." Cha'Khah said to Rachel as they sat with their feet in the stream. They talked together watching as Azrael taught his son some basic casting of a different sort. "We've spoken about it. He told me that he wanted him to get started with what you and Vadren had to teach," Rachel said. "That learning needs thought, where what we have to teach him requires mastering what he knows lies within himself. If it's not brought out in a controlled way, then one of our kind only becomes what everybody fears and hates, something which only reacts to how it feels and not the other way around. It's hard to grasp, but that's about the best way that I can explain why we're not off ripping up the landscape like a lot of others." Azrael smiled down at his son, "Now, show me your fire again, Sariel." The boy held his fist tightly and thought. After a few seconds, he opened his hand to reveal a very small fireball that wobbled there, and then quickly extinguished itself. He looked to Azrael hopefully. "Very good, but I think you opened a little too quickly, so it was not steady, and you opened too far, so there was no protection. Try again, please." Sariel nodded, and this time the little ball stayed. "Don't look away, son," his father said softly. "It needs you to think on it still. Now, can you feel any heat?" He nodded. "Good, but this means that it's too low in your hand. Try to lift it only a little until you feel only warmth," he said. "This is fascinating, "Cha'Khah said. "I guess," replied the Rachel," but it's now the start of a lot of trouble as well. He'll want to light everything that he sees. But it's better to show him now, than have the house burn in a surprise. All day long now he'll beg me to let him light the fire and I'll have him bring in what pieces of wood he can carry so that he sees it's not all fun." Azrael leaned closer to the boy, and whispered; "Now it's time to learn to control this. Can you make it bigger? Good, not too much now. Again, have it close enough to your hand to feel the warmth of it. This way, you don't always have to look. You'll know that you have it. Not too big now. Don't look away. We all see what you're doing, so there's no need to look at anyone. Raise your hand in front of you, until you can see the stream past the ball, and stop there. Very good, Sariel. Now, gently toss the ball into the water. Be careful of the trees on the other side, and the grass here. Think that you want it to go in the water, closer to us than the other side. Try now." The little fireball left his hand and slowly arched out into the river where it was put out. Sariel beamed and everyone applauded. "Just remember," Rachel said, "You're not to practise this unless your father or I are there. We live on a mountain covered in trees, Sariel. Just keep that in mind." "So you've got the beginnings of a good fireball. What else can you do, Sariel?" "I can make a spark, I think," he said with more hope than certainty, "but it doesn't always work." Azrael snorted, "That is maybe not a bad thing, sometimes. Come here, and I'll tell why you may have trouble." They walked together closer to the water's edge. "Try to spark here," he said, "It'll be a bit harder today because of the rain, but try anyway." Sariel looked at his hand and snapped his fingers several times as quickly as he could. Azrael shook his head, "Watch, me one time. See what I do with my hand." He crouched next to the boy and snapped his fingers, opening them immediately to cup a sparkling lightning ball inside a cage of fingers. "You must begin to open almost before your middle finger reaches the bottom of your thumb. If you wait to hear the sound, then you're too late. And you must have the cage ready as soon as the ball appears. Like the flame, if you can just feel the tingle, it's the right height and size, but with this ball, the strength of it comes from outside your mind. Try now." The ball in his own hand went out with a sizzle as he closed his fingers. Sariel was trying too hard, and his father stopped him for a minute as he explained further, "A very important thing to know with the spark is where you are. To hold one, you must stand on the dry ground, and you will feel the tingle in your feet a little. Try again." He had it right the first time, and laughed as it twirled in his hand. Azrael instructed him on how to put it out. After three successful tries, he told Sariel to step just into the river, and try again. He couldn't get any action in his hand at all, and looked to Azrael. He smiled, "You see how important it is where you are? The spark wants to go to the dirt. The water takes it from you into the ground faster than you can make it, and it's important to never make one while you sit on the ground, unless you have a fur or a blanket to sit on. Again, the spark will leave you too quickly. Come back out now and try some more. We won't try to throw it today. You need to learn to size it and control it more." "What good is this?" Cha'Khah asked, "I have never seen you use this, other than the little ball as a toy to tease me with sometimes and laugh at how it makes my hair stand out. What is the purpose of teaching this?" "You have seen me use this, just not in this way," Azrael smiled, "This is just the first step." They walked away a bit before Azrael snapped his fingers and without holding up his hand, threw down a small bolt that ploughed a long smoking furrow into the ground with a bang. Cha'Khah jumped and stared before looking back to him. He regarded her with a questioning expression. "I have seen this before," the Drowess laughed, "only never this small." She looked at Sariel and nodded, "Be sure to learn this well," she chuckled, "I have seen your father knock buildings apart with it." Rachel had a passing thought as she looked at Azrael's tail and bottom. She winked at Cha'Khah and reached out to caress him just under his tail so that her son couldn't see the gesture from where he stood. Azrael turned back to look and saw her hopeful smile and the way that she waved her head toward the trees. Cha'Khah took it as her cue. "Come and sit with me, Sariel," she said, "Do you have your blade? I think it is time for you to show me what you have learned." The boy looked at his parents as they walked off holding hands. "Where are they – " "Sometimes grown ones wish to be alone and have a little time to themselves," the Drowess smiled, "Come, show me what you know." He had the blade in hand an instant later and it spun and flashed in the light of the overcast afternoon. "That tree there," Cha'Khah said, pointing, "use no enchantments." She was impressed, since he threw it underhand and the blade whizzed to thud squarely into the center of the trunk. It was obvious to her that her young charge no longer needed to aim but had integrated his other abilities to guide his throw. "Magnificent!" she crowed proudly, "Now, can you get it back, or must you walk there now? You had trouble catching it on its return yesterday." Sariel grinned a little. He had no intention of needing either of them to heal him today. He'd spent a lot of the morning working on only calling the knife back to his hand. He hadn't cut himself once. Cha'Khah watched as the blade sailed spinning back to his hand. "So well done, my young fighter! Bring it to me and I will unlock another ability for you," she smiled proudly. She hadn't told him, not wanting to swell his head, but though he'd been far behind where she'd have expected him to be as a drowling back home when he'd begun, he was now at the same point as the best of the ones that she could remember, almost as proficient as she'd been back then. Just a little more time, she thought, and she'd have made him into the best. She hoped to find him a small sword and Vadren was already working on a bow for him just his size. Teaching him to use her small crossbows would take a little more time. "This one causes the blade to frost over," she said quietly. "It will take some practice, but when we are done, you will be able to send it on its way before the frosting begins, so that your opponent will not be prepared for what you send to him or her. Whatever it hits will feel the bite of the coldness. Even the strongest warrior will be slowed and in great pain." ------------------------- "Where are we going?" Azrael smiled. "Well I was thinking that, counting my days, today is about the last chance we'll have to fool around before I hit the fertile time of my cycle. I'm assuming that you don't want to give Sariel a little sister or brother, of course. That, combined with us leaving soon, and the way that it's cooling off heading for winter," she smiled, "I thought that we ought to maybe take a little time to enjoy each other. Besides, it's raining just right. And of course, it's our turn to make dinner tonight, so all told, I decided that right now was a good time. Why, aren't you in the mood or something?" He laughed at the way that she was justifying this. Her reasons were all there, but still, he knew her so well. "Am I breathing? Then I'm in the mood." "Well that's what I thought," she chuckled. They walked to one of their favorite places, a small glade with the same stream upstream from where they lived. It offered a little shelter, but mostly it was open and it was raining softly. They'd always enjoyed making love in a gentle rain. Their kisses began and it still took so little time, once they were in a private place. It had always surprised them a little. The kisses became more urgent and Rachel sank to her knees, "I can never get enough if you," she growled just before she opened her mouth and he felt her teeth grazing him as he hardened. There were days when she did this several times for him – or herself, since it never failed to make her wet to have him in her mouth for only minutes. She often joked that doing this was the quickest way to turn her mind to it. When they were younger, all that it took was one look at him naked and she'd just smiled and ask him to bring that to her and that began it all over again. Rachel let him go and turned away from him, moving her tail aside. Azrael mounted her and they began to grunt and moan in their way, deep in their throats to encourage each other, but also it was a way to acknowledge what they were inside. They could live in the human world and even pass themselves off as human, but underneath it all, far below the civility, this lay there waiting and wanting. She felt his clawed hands gripping her hips and turned to look back, admiring what she could see of her male. It never failed to make her feel thankful. She was a beauty and she knew it, though she never let it get to her head, she just knew. It was a stroke of good fortune to her, but more than that, there was the other thing. The male for her had turned out to be her brother – the closest person to her in the world, and though it wasn't accepted, when they were like this Rachel didn't care. She knew who she needed, and he knew his need as well. "You're grinning," he grunted, "What's funny?" "About this – about us? Nothing, I'm thinking that Cha'Khah must be trying to explain our noise to Sariel, that's all," she said, "Come on, ... harder, are you getting old or something?" It was the challenge that she always threw at him, knowing that no male of their kind could let it by. He withdrew and she felt herself being lifted. Azrael threw her and she knew where he really wanted to take her, so she spun in the air and spread her wings to show him what she had for him. Azrael spread his own wings and they met, joining in midair as they screeched. She knew where this was going and she welcomed it as she felt him force her back. There was a rock outcropping that he'd drive her to, but she wouldn't make it easy for him. He wouldn't have it any other way, anyway. She clamped down in him inside her and pressed herself against him momentarily. Rachel had daydreamt about this all morning and had it all planned out. She moved her hips just enough as her hand slipped between them before she turned it and squeezed his balls just so – just enough to make him gasp, before she let go both inside and outside of herself to pull away as though she'd turn to run. It was the furthest thing from her mind. -------------------------- After Cha'Khah was satisfied with Sariel's progress and seeing as the others hadn't returned yet, she smiled, "I guess that today will be a day of testing you, Sariel. Show me what you know of the silent speech of the Drow. Do this now, please." Sariel squirmed a little, but he complied. It was used in tactical situations requiring silence, but also, it was used when what was said was not intended for the ears of outsiders. Sariel did his best, and his tutor was evidently very pleased with his progress as he found himself in her arms being hugged and praised. "I will make you into a scholar in the ways of the Drow people," she grinned, "You make me very proud, child." "I like to learn things," the boy said, scratching his ear for a moment, "but what will I ever use it for?" "You should learn from us only for the knowing of it," she said, "One never knows where one's path might lead. I would never take you to any Drow city where the spider faith rules, but I have heard that there are a few cities where the Dark Maiden holds sway and those are friendlier places. Even still, you should always know what is spoken around you. Drow do not teach the silent speech to outsiders. My life is already forfeit for what I teach you, so you should understand that it is important to know. You may be faced with guards – even in those friendlier places. They will speak among themselves silently. You would need to know what is said then. It might save your life." Sariel listened and he knew what she was saying and why, though he doubted that he'd ever need the knowledge. He just loved to learn, and he knew that what he was being taught was far from what any boy his age would have revealed to him. That was what he liked and why he tried so hard to learn. "Besides," the Drowess smirked, "while I doubt that girls of any sort could hold your interest for longer than it took you to be annoyed if you tripped over one now, this will not always be so." She chuckled, "I see how I fascinate you sometimes. Where we come from, there are many young females, some of them quite lovely. One day, you may find yourself there wishing to meet one. Since you are not one of us, it would place you at a large disadvantage. But if it was seen that you knew our ways and our speech, well then, my young friend, your skills and abilities – not to mention your fine and handsome self, ..." She laughed a little, "Then, Sariel, I can tell you that they would seek you out to know you better. They could not help themselves. You would be a wondrous walking mystery to their young and already jaded eyes. You would be different; polite and respectful, and yet, you could hold your own anywhere. And if there is one thing which Drow females cannot resist, drowling, it is a handsome mystery." Sariel was trying to understand all of it when Vadren threw his offering in, "They would seek to tame him, cousin. What is the good of that?" "Oh, use your head, Vadren," she snapped good-naturedly, "Think a moment. What if he knew the tongue as he is learning it? What if he could hold his own and even beat them at their play-fighting with blades since he knows the real thing at such an age? What if he possessed more power than the mages of half of the houses there? You know that he will be fine to look at. Add this to the heap in your mind. Now, what if he could see it plainly when they sought to charm him?" The mage's eyes opened as he considered it. He began to laugh. He gripped Sariel's shoulder gently, "They would fight each other to be seen with him. You should listen to Cha'Khah, Sariel. You already possess the greatest weapon possible in her." Cha'Khah grinned evilly as she chuckled, "Better still," she smiled and tousled Sariel's hair, "their mothers would kill each other trying to arrange the right to present their daughters to him. It would turn their normal way of doing things on its head. I would pay gold just to watch it happen." ----------------------------- She'd given him a good run and one hell of a mating fight, but now Rachel lay back on the wet and smooth inclined rocks in just the right spot, her legs splayed wide as he pounded into her. Her eyes went with a fair bit of pride to his chest and she looked up at his face. A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 07 Azrael looked down and it was the same as it had always been. When they got to this part of it, the animal fucking was fading and he saw absolute love in her sweet face. It took his breath every time. "I love you," she smiled as she reached up to caress his neck, just under his hair. "I've always loved you," he said stopping just about out of her, "I need you just to stay alive. I wasn't when we were apart." "But you sure are now," she groaned, "I'm never good without you. I'm right there, baby. Finish me. Please, ..." He slid in deep once more and Rachel's head went back with a long moan. He cupped one of her breasts, and his fingers found the nipple. He moved languidly for a moment, and then he thrust in hard as he squeezed. Rachel gasped for an instant and then her head snapped forward and up as she took his shoulder into her teeth and howled softly. He'd wondered what it was that she always said at these times. It had come to him one cold night while they were apart, when he was inside of his mountain and the wind screamed outside, though he couldn't hear it then. It came to him as he was aching for his female – the one that he should have never had or taken – but the one for him just the same. In one bright flash of longing pain for her, he knew what she was doing. She'd always done it. He just never knew what she said, that was all, and it had never come up between them before. Where she was at the moment had always been a bit of a wonder to them both. Rachel would come to a point in their lovemaking that she sometimes referred to as her moment. She knew it when it came, and during that time, she had a few moments where if he did the right things, he could take her from her peak into what to her always seemed to be the most satisfying orgasm to her because of the way that she could hold it off for a few moments. She just needed him to give her the last little push as he'd just done. She always howled and bucked and came as hard as anything then, but she always told him that she was his and always would be. At the time, the realization of it had made him weep, alone and in the dark. Now that they were together again, it still brought tears to his eyes. He let her bite, knowing that she almost never drew blood, and if she did, it was unintentional. It was just something that his female needed to do. He brought his head against hers and held still for her. "I'm yours Rachel," he whispered, "I always was and I always will be." She released him as she shuddered a little. He'd already come inside her a few times, but she had just the right little doubt now as she reached for the small wound that she'd caused on his chest with her claws earlier. "I'm sorry about this," she said in a small voice. "I know," he smiled, "We can't help it. I've hurt you the same way before. It's nothing." "It's not nothing," she said, shaking her head slowly, "It's what we are. It's the mark left behind by a very happy and thankful female. It's a sign, Azrael. We do these little things to each other when we make love. If you were a human, it would have killed you, or at least left you dying. We can't help it, and you know that it's just how our kind makes love. It's why we can't ever take human lovers who are really good at it in bed. We can never let ourselves go with them – not if we grow to love them at all. Hey, you didn't come that time, did you?" she asked a little hopefully. "No," he smiled. She asked him to take his weight off her and as he did, she raised her legs higher and drew her knees back, "Come on then, do me in the other place, nice and slow until you can't anymore. I love it, and by the time that you really need to bang me, I sure won't care anymore." A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 08 ***The small and unnoticed exodus as they leave for Rachel and Sariel's new home. It should be obvious how Vadren and Cha'Khah feel about Sariel by now, Cha'Khah especially. She's got a big heart - something which makes her a little defective from a typical Drow viewpoint. She loves the boy fiercely. In this chapter, she reveals a little glimpse of why that might be so. 0_o ------------ Book of the Mountain Clan Part 4 "Have you given any thought to finally leaving?" Cha'Khah asked Azrael and Rachel as she sat on the floor in front of the fire with Sariel sitting between her legs while she hugged him and leaned her head over his shoulder to quiz him in tactics again. He was having trouble with his responses in the scenario which she'd painted for him where it was him alone against a small group. He sat considering the magical lines and symbols which she'd drawn on the floor with her fingertip. When his responses pleased her, she nodded and they disappeared to be replaced with her next scenario. "I know that we are higher up here and so the coldness begins here much sooner," she said, "but I have already seen frost on the grass in the morning for a week now, and I remind you both that the fall rains will come very soon. My hated brethren can abide the cold easily, but I was raised underground where it is never cold. I can stand it, but I am miserable then." "Your hated brethren?" Rachel asked. "Yes," she nodded, "Our lighter cousins," she said, her face showing her disgust plainly, "The ones which you call the Elves. Since we left our old home, I have seen them a few times. Before I can tell them that I wish them no harm, they often attack, depending on which breed they are. I have no problem in my heart over killing them, but they are not easy to kill and I resent the work of it over nothing – something which a few words could prevent." She looked down at Sariel's first choice. "No, Sariel," she smiled over his shoulder, "You have forgotten this one," she said pointing at a symbol in front of them. "This one is a mage, remember? If the fight cannot be avoided, then you must remove the mage first. THEN you deal with the fighters. As far as the order of dealing with the fighters goes, you have it rightly." She leaned forward a little more to kiss Sariel's cheek. "Always remember, if they know each other well, the fighters will always seek to protect the mage every time because it takes a little time to cast and he or she has value to them. You will have limited time to act, but this is why Vadren teaches you combat casting for the quickness of it. Once they see that you have ability, all of them will try to kill you." "But I don't want to kill anybody," Sariel said. Cha'Khah sighed. "You say the wisest things sometimes for one so young," she said, "I will tell you a little secret. I once never wanted to kill anybody either." She pointed to the lines on the floor again, "Sad to say, it changes nothing for this. If it cannot be avoided, "she repeated, "they will try to kill you – once they know what you are. And out there in the world, my young love, there are those who can feel what you are from two hundred paces away." "We'll leave within the week," Rachel said, "After all these years here, I can't wait to go." Dinner was a little quieter that evening and a couple of them wondered about it a little. Rachel and Azrael said that they'd take care of the washing up. A little while later, Cha'Khah and Vadren heard their names and turned from their thoughts of packing to see Sariel standing before them holding what looked like a stack of folded wool and looking a little hopeful. "What is this?" Vadren asked. "You've both helped me and taught me so many things," the boy said a little uncomfortably, "It didn't feel right to me and, ... Dad helped me with these. I hope that they'll fit. You never say anything, Vadren, but I know that the cold bothers Cha'Khah, so, ... I made these, after Dad taught me how and helped me make sure they were the right size. I just hope they ended up so they fit." He handed each of them a vest and a heavy cloak, all of them made out of mountain sheep hides. He looked relieved when they took them from him, firstly that they accepted them, and mostly because the things were heavy in a pile like that. "These are wondrous," Vadren smiled, as he bowed deeply in gratitude, "I have never owned anything finer," he said sincerely. He helped Cha'Khah into hers, "You look like a fine and powerful mountain queen, Cha'Khah, a mighty queen of the hills." She smiled and nodded, looking at herself. She had no words for a moment, she only took Sariel in her arms and held him to her tightly enough to interfere with his breathing. "Thank you, Sariel," she whispered as she sobbed. Azrael stared and then looked at Rachel, "I've never seen a Drow shed tears of happiness before." ----------------------- "Look well, drowling," Cha'Khah said as they were about to leave the dark glade early on the morning of their departure, "One cannot see what lies ahead of him or her, and you may never come here to see this again." Sariel nodded and took a last look, before turning away to trot over to Azrael and Vadren as they began to walk. Cha'Khah chuckled, "I do not think that my words had any effect." Rachel smiled, "His world is about to grow much larger and I guess that he can't wait to see it." "And what of you, my friend?" Cha'Khah asked, "I do not see any longing look in your eyes. Will you not miss this place?" "No," Rachel said, "I know every log in the place, every nail. It's all that I've seen for most of my life. I can't wait to leave it behind. In some ways, it was like a womb to me. In many others, it's been a prison. We – I was born here." Cha'Khah leaned in close, "You were about to say that you and Azrael were born here. We are friends, Rachel. You are the closest and dearest friend that I have ever had. Between us as we stand here, I wish to say that I have long held the thought that you and Azrael are not a pair who found each other in the world and came here to breed your drowling. You may not have noticed it, but Vadren and I have never asked either of you how it was that you met. Knowing you both as we do, it became clear to us early on that you are much closer than that. He is your brother, is he not? We do not look on you harshly for this, we only see it." Rachel looked down and nodded. "It wasn't supposed to happen, Cha'Khah, but, ..." Cha'Khah hugged Rachel and whispered in her ear, "Shh, stop. But it did, Rachel. We know this. We have long known this, so do not hang your head to me. You are too high in my eyes for that. If it had not happened, I would never have the high honor of having you as my friend, and you know how much Vadren and I love your son. We would not have the love of that boy-child if you both had not made him between you. I did not say this to make you feel badly. I only wished that you understand that we know, that is all. It changes nothing. I fuck with my cousin, Rachel. We are not related closely, but he and I began while we were still in the city. There were other choices for us then, but still we began together there. It was part of our bargaining to teach each other, since we liked each other so strongly. If we found that we were all alone somewhere with no others and I was his sister, who is to say that I would still not fuck with him? I have no answer here in the early dawn, but alone in the dark, with no other for me when the want was on us, who is to say? From what I have learned of your kind, well, the other kind which you are as well, there can be many partners. But there is always one who is best for each of you. It may have caused you both pain and shame once, but it is my belief that this pairing is what it right for you both, not in a human way, and even as demons, but what you have is what you have. That you treasure each other counts for much more, I think." She drew her head back and kissed Rachel softly, "I owe you much, Rachel, and I understand you. Thanks to you, I have the friend that I long desired – more, I know the love of a walking wonder in your son. I show him a little thing, something to make his movement easier or quicker and he has it in only a few tries – something which might have taken me months. And then he flies to thank me, throwing his boyish arms around my neck to squeeze me, and my heart leaps, Rachel. It flies then. It was completely unlooked for by me, but because of him, I am someone who is loved. Such a thing means much to me. I love my friend Rachel more than my life. Consider how profound this is coming from the lips of a Drow. There are none who know but you both and us. I think that the time has come to leave this secret where it began. Come, let us begin this journey." She let go of her friend and turned to begin. Rachel fell into step and Cha'Khah looked up as she felt Rachel take her hand as they walked. "Thank you," she said, "I feel as though a weight has dropped off my shoulders." "As I wished it to," the Drowess smiled, "We all carry enough of our lives on our backs. We need no more to burden us." ---------------------- By the morning of the third day, they were near a village. Rachel tried to stir some life back into the coals of the fire for a little warmth and to make a small meal while Vadren and Azrael went toward the town. The night frost on the grass crunched softly underfoot. Cha'Khah's teeth were chattering as she lay huddled in her bedroll trying to regain some warmth after Vadren had gone. She looked over and saw that Sariel was awake, but not out of his bedroll yet. "I am happy for the gift of the singlet to sleep in, but it does not keep me as warm as I would want today. Please, Sariel," she moaned as pathetically as one so proud could manage, "if you love me at all, please come here and keep me warm. You are so close by and you look so comfortable." Sariel looked at his mother, who grinned, "Go and warm her up, Sariel. Cha'Khah wants to play the princess today." He got up and Cha'Khah was waiting for him, ready to hold the blankets open as he arrived. He lay down beside her facing away and the Drowess hugged him tightly, wrapping him in her arms with a contented groan. "I am too cold even to curse your mother for her remark, Sariel, but I bless you for this. You are a good boy," she said, as she held herself against his warm back and laid her chin on the top of his head. "My good fortune to know the warmest drowling and be close enough to his heart that he would come to warm me when I ask." She kissed his head, "Thanks to you, I am finally getting warm again," she smiled with closed eyes, "I cannot wait to get lower down the mountain and back to my warm home." Sariel smiled for a moment and then he closed his eyes. Rachel smiled at the two of them and felt lucky that the Drow had come to search for Azrael those months ago. In that time, she'd made a pair of friends, and Cha'Khah felt closer to her than any sister that she could imagine. "Don't do too good a job, Sariel," she chuckled, "We do actually want to travel today. The way that your aunt Cha'Khah looks right now, we won't go anywhere if you keep her too warm." "Oh, shut up, Rachel," Cha'Khah sighed happily, "or I might not ever give him back to you." "You enjoy it while you can," her friend smirked, "He might be a boy who adores you, but I'm his mother and he's just like his father. I can break that little spell and get him out of your arms in a heartbeat, my friend. I only need to say my own incantation when this is ready and it's just one word. He'll be over here like one of your arrows with his face in a bowl before you can blink." Sariel opened his eyes hopefully. "Is it ready?" Cha'Khah groaned, knowing that she'd lost. "The love of one who cares so much and teaches so well means nothing when held in the balance against a bowl of food? I feel betrayed, young one, but I forgive you this - so long as you do not move for another few minutes." "This is a lesson that I can teach you, Cha'Khah. It has nothing to do with loyalty or love. He'd do anything for you. You mean a lot to him," Rachel smiled, "and you'll mean a lot once more – right after he eats. " --------------------------- Vadren stayed outside the village and Azrael went alone and returned with four horses and a pony. Once they were back and everyone was loaded up, it took Sariel a little while, but it wasn't long before he was able to hold the reins of the pony in a bit of a death grip and ride a little wide-eyed with the rest. "I wonder who leads between that pair," Vadren smiled as he looked back. "The pony, of course – for now," Azrael grinned, "I asked for one who would know that he is to follow, and I see that the trader was genuine." "Well you may shout at me for my ingratitude," Cha'Khah said, "but I would prefer to walk. The trouble is that I cannot walk as slow as you will all ride while you plod, and so I must ride as well. The trouble there is that if I ride, I will not be as warm as when I walk. It has been so long since I rode one of the lizards back home, and these beasts make my thighs and backside hurt in ever new ways. There is no solution." "There is a small one, my friend," Azrael smiled, "You can try to hold your lips together, and less of your warmth will escape through your mouth. Walk then, if you wish. We'd be happy to lighten the burden of our own mounts by having yours carry more." "You are right," she grumbled, "I complain too much, and it is not like me at all. I only wish to be home again before the first of the winter storms. I would not even mind being in them so much, but I have been away from the underground too long now. I cannot even float anymore. Lead on, Azrael. I will hold my tongue." Two days after that, they were a lot closer, only another day out, and as they rode through the next to last town in the evening gloom, Cha'Khah was a bit startled to see one of her kind standing down a side street, looking very uncomfortable to even be there. She signed Vadren to tell the others that she'd meet them at the outskirts, and then she turned her horse back. The meeting and conversation was a strange one indeed. She waited impatiently as the introductions were passed back and forth between them, remaining purposefully vague about the house that she worked for – as did the other, who turned out to be a trader of sorts, "to those with discriminating tastes," he'd said. Cha'Khah was a little perplexed to find a Drow on the surface here, and not all that far from where she and Vadren lived. She still had her naturally suspicious nature. But a lot of that was allayed as she began to look at what he had to sell, and that, coupled with the way that he showed her no wariness or signs that he deferred to her since she was a female, and that he didn't know what sort of Drowess that he was speaking to, told her a lot. He was a surface Drow from one of the coastal ports, a long way from home, and he'd obviously never been flayed for his insolence. That was the first thing. The next was that he was either very good at some form of martial weaponry, or he relied on the three humans who now drifted over and didn't look interested in his wares at all for his protection. A much more likely possibility, she thought to herself. Then her eye caught one detail and she knew that her first thought had been correct - this was no trader at all and he was making a large and very incorrect assumption about her. "What are these goods which you have to sell?" she asked. He made no reply, but only lifted the corner of a rough tarpaulin in the back of his wagon a little more. Among the jumble of things that she saw there, her gaze fell on a small crossbow and a few bolts for it. Not far from that lay a bladed weapon with carvings on the haft and intricate patterns engraved on the blade. The rest was just junk to her. "Say how much for these two," she said, in a barely interested tone. "One hundred gold for the pair, Drowess," the trader said with a tiny bow, "They are well-crafted and well worth the price." She turned slightly, wanting to wave Sariel off. She couldn't believe that he was here and not with his parents. His presence here would change how she dealt – if she even dealt with the trader at all now. But Vadren was there, just beside and behind the boy, both of them with the hoods of their cloaks pulled low over their eyes. "In the first place," she said, as she regarded the back-up muscle, "I will not deal with you if these hairy things take another step, and I will kill them all myself if they move more than their eyelashes now. In the second place, you are not so much a trader as you are a grave robber. I recognize the markings on these, and it marks them as from Tortabramnen, a fallen city from the last war with its neighbor not twenty years ago. You ask much for things looted from a tomb, though I would pay you twenty-three gold at most." She pulled her cloak a little higher and turned to walk away. The thugs looked as though they were not above a little robbery themselves as they moved to stand shoulder to shoulder so that she was blocked. But her expression only showed that she was looking forward to whatever they had in mind as her hands slipped into her cloak. "You do not know who you deal with," she smiled as her hands came into view again, her shorter sword in her right hand and her dagger in her left. It was already spinning. The thugs backed away and would have bumped into Vadren's horse had it not been for the snort of Sariel's pony. As they turned, they saw Vadren's smile. His hands were moving, passing instructions to the boy. Sariel nodded and his own hands carved quick patterns through the air in front of him. As the quiet words for The Power of the Bane began, the patterns glowed faintly, and the trio were seized with the certain knowledge that they'd perish in another few moments. Their limbs felt weak and useless, their knees already feeling as though they were water. "You will stand still," the mage said quietly, "or I allow him to finish the next one. He requires the practice." The men nodded, their faces covered in cold sweat. Cha'Khah spun back and the trader found himself looking at one of her crossbows just as he was reaching to pick up and cock the one in his wagon. He froze, wondering where she'd put the dagger. "I understand how hard it must be to find good help here in your business," she smiled," but that is no excuse for assuming that all females are as the ones in the slack city where you come from and I said nothing to insult you – if you had ever lived underground. If we were there, I'd flay you myself for your lack of respect. " She was play-acting now, feigning the very attitude that was one of her reasons for leaving the underground in the first place. "Now, my offer of twenty-three golds stands. The crossbow is old and looks to need repair. The other weapon is enchanted to its dead owner's hand. They are both little more than useless. Try hard to move your price before I feel insult." "Twenty-three sounds fair," the trader said. Cha'Khah placed thirty on the bed of the wagon. "For your trouble," she said, "and to buy yourself and your helpers enough drink and warm thighs to forget what you have seen here. Ask or say one thing about us to anyone, and I will find you to take what I wish, and leave you here dead." "This is more than fair, honored Mistress," he nodded. "I have seen nothing and no one." "I do not believe you – in my heart, of course," she said, knowing that to leave out the last part was to insult him badly. "See to it that you do not remember at a later time to tell anyone. If my suspicious heart has cause to force itself into my deeds, I will hunt you down." A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 08 She removed the items which she'd bought and threw down some silver as she scooped up two coils of rope. She smiled, "A pleasant evening to you." They rode up and down several back streets before leaving town. Cha'Khah muttered curses under her breath the whole way. By the time that they reached the place where Sariel's parents waited, she'd almost calmed down. "I'm sorry if I did something wrong," the boy said to her later as they staked their mounts. Cha'Khah paused, as though counting to ten before she answered. "I have been fighting myself, drowling. I do not know whether to show you my displeasure at coming after me, or my excitement at what I bought. Here," she said, "Stow these in your pack. I will teach you what can be done with a good rope later. Let us get the fire started for the light meal tonight. If nothing troubles us tonight – no foolish hoods or long-dead ghosts, we will be safe at home tomorrow. The blame here is mine, Sariel. I should have told you that you were not to follow me. Your spell was well-done, so I must thank you. Perhaps no one knows it, other than Vadren, but your spell likely saved their lives. I would have just killed them all and hidden their bodies before I stole the wagon and kept my gold." They began to walk and Sariel looked up, "Are you saying that you would have stolen the wagon?" Cha'Khah chuckled as she tousled his hair and caressed his ear as they went, "Why do you think that I went back, to buy some trinkets? I wish to travel in some comfort now on a good seat. This business of riding these beasts will surely wear my poor bottom away soon." "But," Sariel objected, "that's stealing." "It is," she smiled, "and stealing is wrong, Sariel. A pity that the trader didn't think as you do. The wagon and the horse bore the marks of a farmer's name. He likely lies dead somewhere while his animal and wagon serve a low trader who would have killed me and taken my gold just a quickly, if I were like the females where he is from. Those three humans were not there to help the sale, sweet one. The true game there was robbery." Sariel looked perplexed as they walked. "You do not see it, do you?" She asked. "No," the boy answered. "There is no shame in it, "she smiled, "that is why you have me, to teach you what may not be plain. It is played thusly: the trader stands with his wares - and most of what was there was not worth a look if one knows what they see. An interested person may come by, having heard of the the seeming magic of how the Drow fight and travel without being seen. While he looks, if there is no one to see, the three men rob him at knife point. He will be quiet and hold still for it, thinking to get away with his life, but a blade through the middle of one's back only causes one to gasp and not cry out. Before he is even dead, he goes into the back of the wagon behind the seat and he is covered, and the show is ready to begin again. The bodies are thrown out later. I know the game, and I saw one boot under the seat already. That trader had no wish to sell a thing. He traded with me because he saw that the game was up with us three there. So you see, I must thank you,Sariel. Your coming with Vadren saved a lot of trouble, and it has bought you something," She winked, in a much better mood now. "You are in luck," Cha'Khah grinned later after the meal, "I had not planned to buy anything from him, until I saw these," she laid her purchases out in the light of the fire. She drew back the string on the weapon and loaded one of her own bolts, one which had not been prepared with the nerve toxin which she normally used. She leveled it at a tree and fired. The bolt hit the tree with a thud almost before they heard the soft slap of the bowstring. "Hah!" she exclaimed, "still good. I feared that I would have to rebuild it. So, here is your weapon," she said, handing it to Sariel, "I will teach you how to care for it and make it as new again. You are forbidden to even draw it until we have trained with it. This is not like the cut of a knife. If you hurt yourself or someone else by accident, we will not have time to save them. Understand?" Sariel nodded, his eyes glued to the sidearm. Cha'Khah smirked. He was looking only at the one thing. He missed the best thing completely. She hefted the other weapon, testing the balance for a moment, before she tossed it to Vadren. "Can you remove the wards which remain here, and keep the empowerments otherwise?" "Not likely," he said as he held it, "I can try." "What is that?" Sariel asked, "It looks different, like it's all bent handle and not much blade." "There is a reason for everything," she smiled, "that is not a sword, though I guess that it may be used a little like one as it is now. But that wastes its ability and the purpose for which it was forged. This weapon lives, and it can be a sword if that is what it knows is needed from it. Watch what your new friend can do if Vadren can remove the wards." Vadren handed it back to Cha'Khah with a nod, "Try and see," he said. "Our friend the trader must have bought this from someone who stole it from the side of the corpse that it was laid beside, the owner who no longer needs it," she said, "I know of this blade and its owner both. He was a mighty legend once. But time steals whatever greatness we gather, and it slows the mind and the arm. I would guess that neither the thief nor the trader knew much of this or what it could do once. He would not have offered it for sale if he did. Tomorrow, we will begin to unravel the mysteries of these writings on it for you, so that you might know how powerful a new friend you have made this day." As Sariel watched, Cha'Khah hefted the blade once more and then she set it into motion. As it swung in lazy circles, they could hear the blade humming softly. "It is made this way to strike hard, "she said, "as a chopping motion, but it is not made to be stopped where the blow lands, no, it is made to be kept in motion, once started, until there are no more foes for it to bite." She closed her eyes and felt what came to her through her hand and arm. The blade wheeled and arced in the red firelight as she got to her feet and began what looked like a dance. "This demands much from the one who wields it," she said, "you may choose the foes to attack, or you may let this blade decide the order. I think that you would find it best to let it make the choices." "Maybe it made the wrong choices, "Azrael suggested quietly, "and that's why he died." She shook her head, "He died from the wounds of many arrows, and not from foes close at hand. He was found in the midst of over forty bodies. There was no one near him for this to bite anymore." She danced and spun, the blade ringing in a low tone as it changed before their eyes, becoming similar to a sword with a drop-blade, "Like this, it can be more of a sword." Cha'Khah ran a few steps and leapt into the air. As she rolled in midair, the blade became a ten foot pike with a long and wicked edge. When she landed, she fought imaginary opponents as though she battled a unit of cavalry. She planted the butt of the haft on the ground and vaulted a little. When she landed, the weapon was as it had been before – a short, slightly thick blade set in a long haft. She held it out to an astonished Sariel, "I give this to you. Treat it well." He took it by the haft and when she let go, he almost dropped it. "It's very heavy," he said, straining a little to hold it up. "The metal runs deep into the haft. It must be heavy," she said, "or it would be worthless. You will need to carry this almost at all times to get strong enough to wield it." She laughed softly at his expression, "It is a quiet and simple truth," she said, "that often the greatest loves are born out of a dislike at first. Carry this with you, and you will come to like it much more." That night, as Sariel lay sleeping with his new weapon next to him, the others began to stir very quietly. Rachel hadn't noticed it at first, assuming that the others were asleep as well, but then she remembered that Drow were a type of elf and they didn't sleep like most beings. The fire had burned very low and the coals gave off almost no light anymore. That didn't matter much to either of the kinds of creatures that they all were. They could see well in darkness. At first, she was a little shocked and embarrassed as she lay under Azrael under their blankets loving slowly. She looked over and saw that Vadren had mounted Cha'Khah from behind and her friend was smiling at her. They were fairly close by, and Cha'Khah reached out with her hand. Rachel reached as well and the pair held hands while their males serviced them. When it was over, they all went back to being sleeping forms in the darkness. The next morning, they skipped breakfast and ate dried fruit which Vadren had bought from bags while they were on horseback moving over the incline of the foothills of the range. By lunchtime, they were in a newish forest at the base of Cheyenne Mountain, but they kept on until they reached an ancient and rusted fence which had been replaced by a stone wall, though some of the remains of the wire and the posts could still be seen here and there. The wall and gate were warded and Vadren got them past both. Inside the wall, the ground looked much the same as it had outside – a forest, but there were small clearings here and there which had become grassed over. All of it had been paved with asphalt once, but that had weathered and cracked into ruin long before. As they rode, it became clear to Rachel that this wall was narrowing. She came to be able to see it to both sides the farther that they rode until they came to a set of stables and a paddock. Not far from that, she could see the dark opening of a passageway leading into the mountain. "We unload our things and walk from here," Azrael said. To the questioning looks which he received from Rachel and Sariel, he smiled, "This opening is only the way to the long hall to the gates. All of it's inside, and the horses won't be much good in there. They'll be safe here." They shouldered their packs and walked to the dark opening. "I just called it the gate – until I found the other one on the other side. Since this is the north side, I called it the north gate after that. Since then, I've found records which told me that it was known as the north portal. No matter what you call it, it's still a hike." He opened the gated wall with a word and they stepped inside. As soon as they were in, Vadren began to mutter and chant quietly. Cha'Khah joined him after a moment. "Just stand here for a minute to let your eyes get used to the dimness while they bring some light back into the rock," Azrael said. "What do you mean?" Sariel asked. "All of us can see in the darkness," Azrael said, "but Drow have a way to make the rock glow softly where they live underground. Just rest a minute and I'll close up the gate." He pointed to a pair of wheelbarrows with thick rubber tires, "Put some of your things in those. Bringing groceries is a serious undertaking here. And be careful with the eggs." With that, they stood in darkness, but though they could see, it became more pleasant after a moment as Sariel noticed that the walls did begin to shine very dimly. It wasn't much, but it was everywhere, and that made all of the difference. Another minute, and it was as if the whole place was lit in a very low and soft light, and the long hallway which stretched out before them seemed a lot less foreboding. Cha'Khah sighed, "I am home at last. Already I feel better." They began to walk. Sariel was about to ask, but his father already knew that it was coming, "This hall is almost a mile long," he said, "but we are not going that far to where we live and those were not the main gates. We need to pass three gates to get inside, and there is still the main set to pass through. They're up ahead, about a third of a mile." Rachel marveled at the walls. The hallway was long and absolutely straight with no changes to the floor level and no deviations in direction. After some minutes, they arrived at what looked to be the end of the tunnel. Azrael spoke softly and what had appeared to be plates in the smooth wall made sounds, sliding noises as locks and latches opened. With a motion from him, one door began to move rather slowly, swinging toward them. "It takes a bit to get this moving," he smiled, "the doors are very heavy." They began to walk as soon as they had the room to pass through, and the doors began to close again behind them. The two newcomers stared around them. "It looks like a small city," she said, looking at the buildings. The ceiling was over fifty feet high. "This is only one part," Cha'Khah smiled, "There are two more chambers like this one, and many tunnels leading to different places. There are four underground lakes and we have little boats to cross them with if we wish." "It was made to hold two thousand humans," Vadren said, "Even we have not found all of its secrets yet." "Are there any windows, to see outside?" Rachel asked. "Not in its design," Azrael said, "It was made to stand attack from their missiles, so there are no windows, but there are air vents which pass through blast valves. These may be opened, and where they exit the mountain, there are a pair of, ... balconies, though they were meant only as places for the ones who worked on everything to stand as they repaired things. I've fenced one of them over, and it's large enough for a small hen-house and a place for chickens to scratch around in. A little more work, and Sariel and I can go into town one day soon to buy a couple of hens and a rooster. For now, we keep our food fresh in metal boxes that we keep in one of the lakes, since the water there is very cold." Sariel was a little absorbed just looking around for the moment, but he thought that the remark about chickens sounded a little ominous. Cha'Khah smiled as she stood with her hand on his shoulder. "You may have set your hens free where you lived before," she said, "but you have not truly escaped the work of looking after chickens, have you?" "No," he groaned, "I guess not." ------------------ "Have you found that this thing grows lighter in your hands?" Vadren asked as he saw Sariel walking that evening, lugging the weapon that he'd been given on his way back from where he'd been told was the place to go to the bathroom. "A little," the boy admitted, "I don't know whether it's me getting stronger or if it's trying not to be so heavy." "Likely a bit of both," the mage smiled. "Can you hold it up long enough to point it at anything without shaking from the effort?" "I think so, but not for too long." Sariel said. "Let us see," Vadren said, still smiling, "See the wall there, far off? Point it there and say the spell of The Ice Dagger, but use your free hand for the motions. In a little time, you will not need the motions at all." Sariel gripped the blade farther up its haft, closer to the balance point and he lifted the weapon. A second later, there was a flash, and with a crackling blast, a sheet of ice left the tip and slammed into the wall, shattering into many pieces which clattered and rattled across the floor. They disappeared long before they'd all come to rest. Sariel stared, and his expression caused Vadren to laugh softly. "I think that you have found your staff, perhaps the perfect one for a fighting mage one day. Not so heavy now, is it?" "No," Sariel laughed, "It does feel a lot lighter all of a sudden. Thank you, Vadren!" He swung the blade up so that it rested on his shoulder as he walked away with a very slight saunter to his young step. ------------------ "You need to ask it for what you wish," Cha'Khah said as they sat around the fire on one of the balconies that evening. There was a wall there which hid the place in a bit of a grotto and Azrael had built a firepit there. It wasn't used often, since it was a bit of a pain to lug wood to, but it was nice now and then to enjoy an evening under the stars. "This has its own life in a way," she said, "and if you wish to make the best use of it, then you must let it know who you are and what you would want from it. Be careful how you say this in your mind." She sat right up against him, leaning over so that she could read the markings for him as he held it. Sariel had offered it to her for this purpose, but she'd shaken her head, "It must know you Sariel, and not me. That is why I force you to carry this around with you everywhere for now, why I make you take it along even as you have your bath, though not in the water. It must remain within your reach for quite a while yet. Even so, that is why I stay near you as well. Its last owner was mighty, but he was also as cruel as the rest of our kind. I wish to be sure that none of this comes to you. He was fair, but it can never be said that he was kind. You are only a boy. It will not take control of you or anything stupid like that, but it can flavor things. While that would be perfect in a Drow city, it is not what would be wanted here. You must change this in the weapon to suit you as you are. You must show and tell it that while you seek guidance should it be needed, you have no wish for cruelty. I remind you that you wish for speed, agility and grace. A sense of what is just would not hurt you either. " He nodded and thought about it as he felt the haft in his hands. By now, he had grown a little used to what it could send him. He's seen scenes behind his closed eyelids which were often gory, but he was learning to reject the ones that he saw where he thought that what he saw was more than fighting for survival or a need. When he saw things which looked to have been done for no reason other than to cause suffering, he pushed them away, and was offered another scene a moment later, where he saw progress through a field of opponents. He thought that this was a better goal and allowed it to play on. He held the thing up horizontally in one hand, and it surprised them all that he could do it that easily. With little more than a thought from him, it grew in length and became a pike, causing Cha'Khah to have to lean backward as the blade of it slid past her face. "Sorry," he apologized, and she nodded as the pike became a long-handled sword for a moment and then it was what it had always seemed to be. "If he died, why didn't one of whatever enemy that he was fighting take the blade?" Rachel asked, "It seems to be a pretty powerful thing if it can do all of that." "The legend that I was told said that the blade fought on for a time, even in his dead grip. After he finally fell, the blade killed many more. As soon as anyone tried to touch it, it slew them out of its rage. But this had passed by the next day. When he was laid to rest by the last of the survivors, the blade allowed it. I think that it sought for a new owner for itself, "Chakhah said, "or it would still lie by its owner's side and the grave robber would be there as well. That is what came to me as soon as I saw it. There is no evil to it, only a hunger that it does not wait forever in the dark. In Sariel's hands, this honorable thing may now find a little joy and not always emptiness, for this is no ordinary object. It carries a little of its maker still. He was a boy himself once, though a Drow. I think it seeks to relive that in this one's hands; new roads to travel and all of that." "Know one thing," Vadren said, "This was the weapon of a high warrior who was a sorcerer as well. Think before you use it to cast and never, ever, use it as a plaything, Sariel, or you risk great grief. Never swing it at anything or anyone who you do not wish to destroy. You might be a little short on your reach on purpose as you swing, but this can misinterpret and cause your swing to be completed more successfully than you would have ever meant. A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 08 Remember this from the legend which Cha'Khah spoke of – and I do not say to believe it or not, only to never test it – the legend goes that this blade killed foes even after its owner was dead. You can feel that it lives, hear its quiet joy when you swing it only a little. You might be playing, but this may seek to help your short swing, understand?" Sariel nodded as Vadren completed his thoughts, "That blade understands the difference between a fight and some practice. It knows nothing of sport or play. There is a large difference between the two." "Cha'Khah," Sariel asked as he looked over, "why didn't you keep it for yourself?" The Drowess laughed softly as she put her arm around his shoulder to pull him close. "Such a boy-child," she smiled with her eyes closed for a moment, "you ask things so plainly, seeking the clarity of truth. Think a little," she said as she drew her head back and looked at him. "Something such as this would have done me great good a little closer to my rise. Now? It would only turn me into one who seeks power. You do not seek this, you seek for learning and to grow. I have no need of this thing," she said, "I have made my own legend, such as it is. A while ago, I thought that my legend was that of a fierce girl-fighter among my people. A little later, I was happy to be a little known as an adventurer and sometime thief beside my Vadren and your father. Lately, I see that I have turned into someone's friend and perhaps this most important, I have become one of your teachers and I stand among those who love you. I have no need of something such as this. Rachel," she laughed, "you will need to be his teacher about girls of his age when he meets them. I will surely be no good at it at all – other than perhaps as the voice of an adviser. But in matters of his love, I am afraid that I must withdraw." "Why?" Rachel asked with a curious grin, "I've got to hear this, now." "Because," Cha'Khah pouted a little, "it is my great fortune to be as an aunt to him. You gave me that title yourself, and I can think of none higher. But I will want to die a little when he falls in love with a girl for the first time. I cannot help this. And if she breaks his heart, ..." She looked away until she'd mastered the slight stinging at the corners of her eyes, and then she looked back once more. "I will want to kill the girl and her whole family if she causes one tear to fall from his eyes. I would not do it, but that is what I would want." "I can understand that, I guess," Rachel replied, "I'd probably feel the same way myself, at least a little bit." "You do not understand, my friend," the Drowess said as she stood up, "I make no sport here. I mean every word. To cause tears in those eyes is a crime to me." She walked off into the mountain. Rachel saw and felt Cha'Khah's emotion and she got up to follow. She caught up with her friend before she entered the narrow access tunnel past the blast valve. "What did I say, Cha'Khah? I didn't mean to upset you." Cha'Khah stopped and turned around, "You did not upset me," she said, "I am near my time of month and I can be a little, ... more prone to my feelings rising, I suppose. I was faced with a memory which I did not want to think about, that is all." Rachel stepped forward and placed her arms around the Drowess' waist. "I was worried," she said, "All I knew was that something was wrong, and, ..." "It is not nothing, but it is not much," Cha'Khah said looking down, "only an old hurt." Rachel touched the top of her friend's bowed head with her own forehead, "Can you tell me?" Cha'Khah sighed heavily as she began. "I was born a low and far relation to those who control the house, and so I was sent to another house as part of a bargain to be taught. Really, I was there as a spy. There was a young weaponmaster there. He was so attractive to me – and others, it must be said. But I thought that he seemed to like me, and I was at just the age and in a strange house, Rachel. I believed all that he said to me in our private moments. All that he said, I took to mean what he led me on to believe. You see, most of us do not hunger for love. But I did. I guess that it was a weakness in me that he exploited. He used me and it was not what I expected. I thought that it would be something like some of the stories which I had read in books from far lands. It was not that way at all. He was rough and, ... not very kind to me. In the end, he laughed at me and left me to my tears. I dove into my practicing and stayed there, speaking to almost no one, and developing my own art. But I was with child from it. I stayed on in my duties as long as I could until my daughter was born. I was such an inconvenience to them, requiring that I be taken off the duty for two days like that. The matron of my house was contacted and she made all of the arrangements. My daughter was taken from me. I had only one glimpse, and then she was gone. I have never seen her since. He was my first." Rachel's mouth fell open. "That's terrible," Rachel said, as she hugged Cha'Khah and felt her friend's tears on her neck. "Oh, Cha'Khah, I'm so sorry." "Thank you, but you do not understand it all, my friend, "Cha'Khah said, "In some time, the young weaponmaster was asked by the Matron there to demonstrate some of his knowledge of quick killing blows to his highest students – the daughters of the house itself. He said that he would need a target to kill, not wanting to risk harm coming to those girls. He was told to choose one from the guards of the house. He chose me. I went, knowing that he planned to kill me. I had no choice. It would make a tidy bundle for him, to have used me and then made sure that my tale would never be told, not that anyone there would care in the least. I think that he thought that I would beg him for mercy, but I did not." Cha'Khah lifted her head and looked at Rachel, "He told me to prepare myself, and I asked him if there was some method of defense that he wished for me to use. He laughed at me and replied that there was nothing which I could use that would change any outcome. He was right, of course, but not for what he had in his mind. I was told not to wear the house armor, so that it would not be stained when he killed me. I looked into his eyes and and said that if he was as good at his craft as it was said, then he ought to fight me the same way, so as not to soil his fine armor with my gore. He laughed again, knowing that he could not refuse before the matron and her daughters who were his patrons, after all. I kept my face blank. I had only dreamed of this for a year and more. I drew my sword and my dagger. When he attacked, I caught his down-stroke with both of my blades crossed, and before he knew that he had to reach me with his own dagger, I had him on my blade. It only took an instant to defeat the mighty master. He stood there a moment, because I had not twisted my sword in him yet. He looked at me, and I spit into his eyes before I drew back a little, still holding him on my sword. It was perfect. He stood as though poleaxed while I brought my dagger to his throat in a cross-stroke. I only stepped back as I drew the dagger back to complete the two small cuts of the arteries. His blood sprayed onto us both but I still did not twist. I watched his blood pour down and I was so careful to smile at him. He gasped then and I told him that he was the bigger fool. I stopped the dagger at that point and I cut him deeply so that his worthless little prong was almost cut free and told him that he wouldn't be needing it anymore. By then, his knees were buckling and I knew that it was time. I twisted hard then to give him the full measure of pain to cause him to stand up a little longer. I was standing face to face with the father of my lost child as I watched his agony pass from him. When he fell, I cut the rest of his prong free and I ground my heel on it. The matron and her daughters all enjoyed my little show, seeing that I did not just kill him. I humiliated him and showed him to be worthless. They knew that there had to be something behind it, they were females, after all, and I was commanded to tell everything. They listened, not caring about how I felt or what drove me to do this. They only enjoyed how it was that I took my revenge. Suddenly, I was wanted as a teacher for those girls, and I was offered much for the position. I accepted, of course. But as soon as she heard of it, the matron of the house where I belonged commanded me to return home. She wanted none of my knowledge or my teaching. She only wanted me to be unavailable to a possible rival. Drow never do anything without thinking of possible consequences later on. I was thrown back among the lowest ranks of the guards. It took me long years to rise. But he was my first, Rachel, the first one that I ever killed. I would kill twenty matrons and all of their fighters to prevent one tear from Sariel's eyes because of a hurt out of love." Cha'Khah laid her arms on Rachel's shoulders and kissed her. "Now you know how someone who wanted only love in a loveless place was turned into such a murderous thing. I grew up there, and it is to be expected, but I think that there was always something amiss in me because I wanted someone to love me. Because of you and that boy, I feel as though I come slowly out of my long darkness, led by your hands into the light and I love you both for it." She hugged Rachel to her tightly. When Rachel had gotten over her shock at thr story, she asked, "Is there any chance to find your daughter?" Cha'Khah shook her head, "There are no records kept of little bundles of inconvenience. I will never know her, if she even lives." The Drow turned slowly and walked away. A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 09 ***Sometimes what you don't want to see just shows up anyway, no matter what you do. 0_o -------------- They ran into each other now and then over the next two weeks. It hadn't been the intent of either of them -- it had just happened. Selena was in an area a little far from her home, and had stopped at an inn for the night. The next morning, she was on her way out of the door when she saw them. He felt that she was nearby, he didn't even have to try to sense her. All that he needed to do was to look down. Nahl'een's little head was looking in her direction. Selena stopped where she was, halfway down the steps. She stood there enthralled as they rode slowly past, Dahlgren and his little girl. Selena didn't know why, but she felt a sudden pang in her heart to see them. She thought that he hadn't seen her, but the truth of it was that he made certain not to look. But what rooted Selena to the spot was the way that the girl in the saddle in front of him stared at her, turning her head as they rode past. The bright blue eyes fixed on her like a pair of lances into her soul. It went on long after it should have stopped, long after the girl who might have found something of interest to her in a stranger's face should have looked away. She even leaned back a little, trying to see around him. She watched them ride off slowly out of sight. She could see that they were talking to each other. He was pointing something of interest out to her in any direction but the one where she stood. He didn't look back once. Selena left then, on her way to some business of her own in another direction and a little glad of it. Seeing the pair of them bothered her for the next three days. Just as she'd gotten over it and was back in the same town, she'd seen them again. She was in the small shop there to buy a bit of meat and some bread for her trip home. She had some money and no desire to have to hunt something up for dinner. She just wanted to get away from there. But as she stood at the counter, waiting for the slowest shopkeeper in the known world to weigh out the quantity of meat that she wanted, he came in, suddenly turning to look for something on the shelves in another part of the shop. She couldn't wait to pay, and he had no idea why he was looking at women's shoes. But at last, she had her purchases and was on her way out of the place. There was a girl there, next to his horse, the one that she'd know anywhere at a glance. She was speaking to a couple of other children, but just as Selena made it to the edge of the top step, the girl stopped speaking and her head turned around. Those huge blue eyes stopped Selena cold. A woman was walking up the steps. She looked at Selena and smiled. Selena nodded once, still looking at the girl. "Excuse me," the woman said, "Is that man in here, the one who comes here with that little girl there sometimes?" Selena nodded vacantly, still held by the blue gaze. "Yes," she said a little absently, "Why?" "I think he's the ranger, isn't he? From the way that you're dressed, you must ride with him. Is that your little girl?" "No," Selena replied. "I don't ride with him. He's, ... " "He's right behind you," the woman smiled, "Excuse me." Selena walked down the steps. The little girl almost jumped back a step, and was about to run away. In that instant, Selena saw two young riders racing through the town without thinking to look for people on the street. Selena lunged and pulled the girl back as they passed. The girl turned her head, and Selena saw the fear in her eyes. She let go of the girl's hand and watched dumbly as she ran past her to Dahlgren. He picked her up. Selena strode to her horse without looking back and dumped her purchases into the closest saddlebag to swing up into the saddle as quickly as she could. She groaned as she realized that she'd need to ride right past them. She tried not to look, but she just couldn't stop herself. Time had long since gone into a sort of slow motion for Selena. She saw that the two of them were looking at her, paying no mind to the other woman who stood there talking to them. She'd have ridden straight home then, if she could. But it wasn't possible. It was a good three day ride from where she was, four at a relaxed pace, and Selena was anything but relaxed. She was upset. She'd seen two different things in that little girl's face. At first, she'd seen wonder and maybe longing, but it had changed in the blink of an eye when she'd held the girl's arm to keep her from being ridden down by the two young fools. What she'd seen then was terror. She shook her head, but the image remained in her mind of a little girl who'd been in terror of her. There was something else as well, and she'd seen it as she'd been spurring her horse and looking at them. She hadn't heard a thing but the sound of her pulse in her ears, but she'd seen Dahlgren Runei's lips moving as he'd watched her pass. She'd been riding for almost an hour before she realized that he'd been thanking her. She slowed her mare to a slow walk and hung her head as she began to cry. She didn't know why, she just felt the need to do it. She thought that she must be losing her mind. -------------------------- As she rode into the third town later that day, she decided that she just couldn't go on any further. She really hoped that a decent night's sleep was all that she needed, and so she headed for the inn that she knew there. As she walked up to the innkeeper, he straightened and grinned, giving a nod to someone across the room, "Why, Miss Patty," he exclaimed, using the only name for her that he knew her by, "Yer lookin' like you've been ridin' just ahead of the devil himself. Come on and have a sit by the fire. I've got yer favorite table there with a chair free fer you to sit at. There'll be no standin' against the wall and waitin' fer a seat fer you tonight. Will you be stayin' the night with us this time?" She nodded dumbly, really wishing that he hadn't used that one particular turn of phrase, as she allowed him to guide her to the table by the fire. It was almost deserted, but for one other person. Selena didn't care. All that she wanted was a little warmth by the fire and a pint into her, and then maybe a bowl of something hot before she turned in. The old innkeeper pulled back a chair for her and she sat down heavily. It took her a second to realize that the man still stood there expectantly. "Have you got any good stew?" she heard the other person say. It came to her that this was a woman. A little odd, but then this place wasn't as rough as a lot of the places where Selena bedded down occasionally. It was just a little different, that was all. "Yes Mum," he smiled, almost bowing and causing Selena to wonder why, "We've got a few on the go tonight. We've a good beef stew, some tasty rabbit stew, even venison tonight, if there's any of it still left." "We'll have a bowl each of the venison stew, or the beef if the venison is gone, and a pint of dark each as well," the stranger said, "Oh, and some good crusty bread if you have that too." Selena raised her head, looking across the table in a bit of wonder. She began to reach for her pocket for a little coin. "Forget it, Patty," the man said, "This lady's been waitin' on you for a long time now. She's already paid for whatever you want. Yer in luck, Mum, the bread's not long out of the oven and I can bring yer a load of it still hot, I hope. I'll be back in a shake." "What is this?" Selena asked, as she looked across the table a little suspiciously. The other person wore a hood, pulled down low, and all that Selena could see was the lower half of a strikingly beautiful face. "Nothing bad, so you needn't fear," the woman said, "Let's just wait a minute until old Bob there gets our pints at least, though you look as though you're in need of the stew more than the pint." It took a few minutes and as they waited, Selena looked around the place. For this time of day and this day of the week, the place looked about the same as it did at any other time that she'd ever been in here. The old constable was in, but then he almost lived here. She'd never actually seen him anywhere other than in here. She looked for her contact -- the man who might come to her if there were any jobs on the go which she might be interested in. But he was nowhere in sight. It was a little odd. But Bob bustled over at that point and in another minute, Selena had a hot bowl of goodness in front of her and a pint near her right hand. A large basket of warm, sliced, crusty bread sat off to the side between them, covered with a cloth. Selena felt the heat of the stew as a big spoonful slid down her throat. She almost wanted to cry for the way that it felt so good inside of her, radiating warmth instantly. She looked across the table, and the other woman was eating as well. "Go ahead, eat. Get some life back into you. We've plenty of time for the talk that I want." She nodded in the direction of the rest of the room. "The copper's already stupid with all the bitter ale that I could pay for inside of him. I expect that he'll fall over asleep in a few more minutes. Your man Harry -- the one who looks for work for you? He's a little loose too tonight, and right now, he's in the arms of a very bored wench and he thinks that he's giving her the fucking of her life. She can't wait for him to finish. I've bought her for him all night, and she's dying for him to squirt his load and drop off to sleep, just like all the other times. Then she can enjoy a long sleep, since she doesn't have to service anyone else tonight. All of the other girls are busy as you can see if you look." Selena began to smile and it turned into a grin in another few seconds. This girl really knew how to read a room. She began to chuckle, but her companion grew a little serious just then. "By the way, if I were you," she said, "I'd try to make the acquaintance of the big boy there, the one in the red shirt? Not tonight, but maybe soon, have a little chat with him. Your Harry's a rat. He's looking to sell you out to the deputy constable, the young one who is trying to make a name for himself before he dies of boredom in this place. Harry's thinking that you're a little too tight with your cut to him. But our big man there, well, he's missing his pretty boyfriend tonight because Harry sold him out to the law for skimming town funds. Red is nursing a grudge, and you ought to talk to him before he acts on his own. A little smooth talk -- since you're safe from him, and a little coin, no more than a silver, I'd say, and old Red there would be happy to slip a dirk through one of Harry's kidneys. In -- twist -- and out, and Harry won't rat out anyone anymore. You know that nothing can stop a cut kidney from bleeding him dry. I'd go over there right now and talk to Red for you, but we don't need the excitement that it would cause, do we? You're too tired for that sort of fun tonight." Selena laughed a little nervously. This lady could read things a little too well for someone who wasn't even in here every night. She'd never seen her before. She sipped her ale a little and went back to her stew. Her companion grabbed a slice of the bread and dipped it a little in her own stew. After bringing it to her mouth, she closed her eyes in bliss for a moment. "Oh, you have to try this stew with a bit of the bread. This makes a day on the back of a horse looking for you worth every minute." "You were looking for me?" Selena asked. The other woman nodded earnestly, "I was. And I'm so happy to have found you, finally. I have a bit of business for you, if you're interested -- and I so hope that you are." It was hard not to like the other person, Selena found, especially when she smiled. She found herself smiling along before she knew it. "What needs doing, "she asked," and what's the offer for the pay?" "MMph, "the woman made a noise as she held up her hand, her mouth full of stew and bread. "Sorry," she smiled after a moment, "I'm really being a bit piggish, but this is so good, isn't it?" Selena nodded and the woman began. "Alright, no offer," she said, "The price is fixed because the job is guaranteed. You don't even have to do very much, but it'll cost you two days of your time, once you get there, three at the outside, and that's beyond traveling time. We're not paying for that. Oh! I almost forgot,... Here." She slid a gold coin across the table to Selena, keeping her hand over it so that only Selena could see what it was. Selena stared and looked up. "This is yours," she said, "It's the pay for only sitting here tonight and listening to me tell you about the job." "But," Selena almost exclaimed. "Shh, " the woman smiled, reaching with her other hand to place the coin in Selena's hand, "Take it. Really, it's yours just to hear me out. You can accept it and walk, once you've heard me, or you can stay and hear it all. I can tell you that there are ten more as pay for the job, see?" She opened the hand that she'd slipped into her pocket and Selena could see that there were ten more golds there. She'd never seen that many in one place in her life. The woman closed her hand. "I'm serious. Now, are you in just to listen?" Selena opened her hand for the briefest instant and then closed it again, slipping the coin into her breast pocket with a nod. The other woman smiled in a bit of relief. "Are you sure that you're talking to the right person?" Selena asked, "I'll tell you for nothing that I've never had a payday as big as what you're talking about." The woman shook her head. "That's not important. I know about you and what you can do. Even that isn't what's really needed here. We're looking for the right person, and no one else will do. What I want will be like a walk in the churchyard on a sunny day for you, easy as slipping on cowshit. But it has to be you, no one else. I know who you are. I won't say your name above a whisper in this place. It's not important to anyone else, but it's so important to me." She slid another coin across the table under her palm. When it got to Selena's hand, she tapped gently with her index and middle fingers. "This is something else. It has nothing to do with the job. This is the thanks of a small family for something that you did for us. Please, if you don't take the job or anything else, please take this with our thanks." "I don't know what you're talking ab-" Sh," the woman said, "Take it and I'll explain." Selena palmed the coin and it went into her pocket as well. "Look," she said, "You're making me jumpy. Nothing ever happens for me like this. I haven't done a thing, and I have these. What's going on?" "Alright," the woman said, "You ought to know who you're dealing with, right? You'd do a lot of jobs for a lot less than I'm willing to pay, but this much makes you nervous. I can understand that. Just sit still for a moment." Selena found that she suddenly could not move or speak. It frightened her, but the other woman began to speak then, in soft tones to try to calm her. "I'll release you in a few minutes. I happen to know that you have certain, ... fears. I also know that you likely got them for a good reason. That's my problem here -- to get you past them, at least long enough to listen. I need you to get past them, and I think that we can do this, but you must hear me out. This way, you'll at least sit here long enough for me to finish. No harm will come to you, you have my word, and my word is better than the word of anyone who you might know, except for one man, and it is most certainly better than your own, ..." She leaned forward to whisper. "Selena Meadesbreath." She sat back a little for a moment. "I wouldn't need to do this if I knew that you'd listen, but I have no intention of seeing you put your hands over your ears like a child. It's demeaning to us both, to say the least. Now," she began, "My name is Ny'Zeille. If it happens to sound a little like a demonic name to you, that's because I am a demon." Selena would have jumped up screaming, but she couldn't move a hair. She watched as the eyes which she couldn't see until now glazed over reflectively for just an instant in the darkness under that hood. "Just so that you know who it is that you're dealing with," she smiled. "The second coin that I gave you is for what you did this morning when you grabbed a little girl's arm to keep her from running into the path of a pair of horses. She was frightened of you, and she does not know why, much the same as you are frightened of me right now. I'd bet a lot of money that if I asked you just what it is that you are afraid of, you would not be able to tell me a real reason which makes any sense to either of us. All that you know is rooted in the superstition that you have heard in taverns since you left your home. It's alright. I understand, so don't think that I am insulted. I understand you far better than you know. Your family was attacked by red demons for nothing which they did. My man was killed by humans, defending me as I gave birth to our son. Other than your point of view, there's really no difference, is there? So you see, I do understand you. And you should know something else. I killed those who killed the one that I loved. They were the only humans that I have ever harmed on this world. I certainly have no intention of harming you. Again -- just so you know -- there is more than one person who is grateful to you for what you did. The little girl's name is Nahl'een. It means Jewel of the Evening. You know that a ranger has adopted her as his daughter. They love each other very much. I love that little girl very much as well, Selena. She is my granddaughter. The ranger is my son. It has happened that he has found children, survivors of the mayhem that he must deal with sometimes. If he can, he brings them to the local church or to the temple orphanage. In the case of Nahl'een, he saw at once that she was the same as he is, and the two found that they needed each other, her needing a parent mostly, and so he has taken her as his own daughter. They are the same. In case you need reminding, my son's father was a human. This job that I wish to offer you involves nothing untoward about it at all. There is no crime that I wish to be committed by you. Indeed, you wouldn't understand my reasons, but by having you do this for me, I am trying to prevent what I believe to be a crime from occurring. Mostly, it involves a bit of your time, to answer questions about when you were a little girl yourself. After that, you will be asked to do simple things, such as picking up a pebble. I make no joke here. You might wonder why I would pay anyone so much for such a thing. The answer is simple. It will involve you being in a home where two people live; my son and Nahl'een. There are a few demonic things there, but they'll leave you alone unless you try to steal something or hurt Nahl'een. Other than that, I can guarantee your safety. It doesn't matter what a person's circumstances might be, Selena, everyone has their price. I set the pay for the job to be more than enough to interest you, that's all. I understand that there might have been the beginnings of something between you and Dahlgren, but that you ended what was beginning likely because you learned of what he is. That is neither here nor there to me. You might feel a little uncomfortable to see him again and so the gold is partly to pay you in compensation for that. If being in the same room with him for a couple of hours over two days really bothers you, try to remember the ten golds that I'm paying you. You will likely only have to answer his questions to the best of your recollection. A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 09 And I'm not paying him anything, Selena. How he might feel about you is not my concern. I am interested in aspects relating to your childhood. I'm paying you to come and try to recall a few things which might be a little hard to remember. It might take as long as three days, but likely not. Probably two will be all that's needed. I'll provide food, a very comfortable place to stay and you will not be harmed in any way." She smiled a little, "Though I have heard from him that you seem to have a little trouble believing that when it is said to you." Ny'Zeille sat back and sipped her ale for a moment. Setting the tankard down, she smiled again. "Now, I hope that I haven't forgotten anything, and I've allowed you a little time to calm yourself. As far as your fears go, you ought to consider that if I wanted to harm you, it would already have happened. The golds in your pocket are real, and they are yours to keep. When I release you in a moment, you may scream and howl in fear and act like fool. That is how you will be seen, because if you do that, you will find yourself here at this table alone with only one tankard and bowl of stew. The gold is yours in any event, Selena. Try to remember that I'm offering ten more as pay for the job. You will not be harmed in any way, and you will be a little rich too." She leaned forward, looking closely, "I think that I can see why Dahlgren liked you so much." She looked for another few seconds, and then sat back with a smile, "Alright, this has gone on long enough and what's left of your stew there is growing cold. Stay with me a little longer, and if you wish, I'll be happy to buy you another one. I like your company. Try not to fall over now." Selena almost landed with her nose in her bowl, but she recovered and stared across the table. "I really am sorry to have frightened you," Ny'Zeille said, "I couldn't see any other way to do it. You should eat your stew," she nodded. It gave Selena something to do while she tried to think, so she ate, surprised that it hadn't really grown any cooler as her companion had spoken. "You're serious," she said, "All of that, you're serious?" "Incredibly so," the woman said, "I don't throw golds around lightly. They don't come much easier to me than they do to you. Will you do it?" The rogue looked up from her bowl and took a piece of bread, "When?" "Now would make me happy to hear it, but it's not possible without really upsetting you. Why not spend the night here and ride back with me tomorrow? I will lead you to my son's home. It's quite lovely there." "Couldn't you just give me a map, and I'll find my own way there?" Ny'Zeille chuckled, "Believe me, it is far better this way. If I gave you a map, you would come like the thief that you are, wouldn't you? You wouldn't be able to help yourself. You'd crawl around outside the wall, trying to see what was what. It's always about some sort of a plan with rogues. I wouldn't mind allowing you the challenge of it so much myself, just to see what you'd do. But it is not my home, it's Dahlgren's, and I know that he wouldn't like it. But that is not the real danger. You, being as skilled as you are -- and I do respect you for it, by the way -- would find a way over the wall. I can't imagine how you'd manage it, but I think that you would find a way. And that would be the end of the loveliest rogue that there most surely has ever been. There are things there, Selena, some living and most not. Their purpose is to wait and defend. They never sleep. They never rest. There is no way that they cannot sense you. There is no way that they would not tear you apart. It is all that they are there for, most of them. I already like you. I have no wish to see you harmed. And if it were to happen, I would never have the chance to learn the answers which I seek about your childhood, and before you ask, this place is not the one to ask what I need to know. My son's home is peaceful beyond anything that you might have experienced. It is lovely, and there is a garden where you can sit and your thoughts just come to you as you watch the birds. A much better way to try to remember, I think. Selena regarded Ny'Zeille from under her eyebrows as she ate, "I won't be hurt or tied up or anything?" The woman laughed a little, "Not even if you wanted to be." Selena remembered something and looked over, "Will the girl be there?" "Nahl'een? Yes. She lives there. If you do not wish to see her, I can tell her to leave you alone. Otherwise, she will probably drift around on the edges of your sight, being curious about you but not daring to come close. I don't know why she was like that with you. She certainly isn't like that near other humans. I've never seen a little girl who can make friends with others so quickly." "Will you be there, Ny'Zeille?" Selena asked. She was feeling a little comfortable with this woman at least, now that she understood a little more. "I might be, I don't know," she said, "I must sometimes be somewhere else. It depends on where I am needed most. I can try to be, if you wish, but you should know something here. Humans are ashamed of their bodies. You all seem to think that not wearing clothes has something to do with mating. It most certainly does not for demons. We are not ashamed of ourselves at all and only seeing another of us naked does very little -- unless one is a red demon. They are barbarous things. It is one of my son's favorite pastimes to hunt them wherever they appear on this world. If I am there when you come, I will likely not be wearing anything. I hope that it doesn't bother you, though if it does, I won't much care. As far as your next question goes, what my son does as far as what he might wear is up to him, but I believe that he will be wearing clothing out of consideration for your feelings. Just remember the ten gold coins which await you at the end of it. Now," she said, "Will you do it? Will you come?" "Give me a minute," Selena said, "I need to think." "Certainly," Ny'Zeille said as she got up, "I'll be right back. You should pull your hood up. Harry is about to come down the stairs and he's miserable because the wench that I paid for has told him just what kind of lover he is. He has thoughts now -- thoughts of, ... leaving this village, but not before he gets a little coin by talking to the deputy constable. Just think about deciding and please wait for me." Selena pulled her hood up and tried to watch what she could as Ny'Zeille made her way over to the large man in the red shirt. They spoke for a minute and Selena could just see the payment as it was made. The man nodded and got up, walking away. Ny'Zeille came back, looking down with a tiny smile just visible on her face. As she sat down again, Selena turned back and saw Harry coming down the steps with storm clouds over his brow. But his expression turned to shock and surprise as he was grabbed and muscled out through the side door. Selena knew that it led to an alley. She turned back to her companion. "I hope that you didn't have anything that you wanted to say to him," the demon smiled, "I'll tell you when I feel that it has happened, but I think that Harry, ... Ah! Harry is now the late, unlamented Harry. And you're welcome." Selena stared, "You can really do all that? Make things happen as you want them to?" "No," her companion smiled, "I just felt things. With that, if you use your head, it's only a little bit of charm here and there and you often get what you want. I just didn't know that Harry was so sensitive about his little, um, ... shortcoming, that's all. I didn't expect him to be told in the manner that he was." "Alright," the rogue said after a moment. "You'll do it, then?" Ny'Zeille asked. "Yes," Selena replied, "If you can do the things that I've seen here tonight, then you could also likely just make the idea come into my head that I want to go to Dahlgren's home, and I'd have gone. This way, I get ten golds, and the chance to look at him again for a little while, not that it will do me any good." "What do you mean?" the demon asked, knowing full well what was meant anyway. "Nothing," the thief replied, "As you said, everyone has their price. Ten golds is enough for me to suffer through two or three days. And if you don't mind too much and if it's possible, I'd prefer it if you were there. I understand about what you said. It's just that, ... I think I'd feel better if you were there to talk to a little. I won't feel so alone then, I think. I don't care what you wear. I know it's not likely true, but you feel a little like a friend -- at least someone that I know a little bit." "I am a little surprised at your words, Selena," the woman smiled, "and I do think that you fear the way that you do over nothing. But I think that I can see it from your side. It won't be as bad as that. It probably won't be bad at all." Selena nodded, but inside, she hoped that it was so. Before this, she wouldn't have thought that she'd have agreed to something like this for anything. But ten gold coins... She guessed that she did have a price after all. She'd likely have agreed for three. ------------------------ The next day dawned bleak and overcast. The two women sat for a bit of breakfast before they left. Soon afterward, it began to snow, wet and heavy flakes, though nothing seemed to accumulate on the ground other than water. By the time that they reached the second village, it had turned to cold rain. It made everything miserable, but Selena found that talking to Ny'Zeille could lighten the feeling of dread in her mood and she appreciated it. Every once in a while though, ... "Gah!" the demon exclaimed just as they'd ridden through the place and were back on the road again, "The day is a miserable bitch. My knees are wet and it's running into my boots. And we've only just left!" "Mine too," the rogue groaned, "and my hands are wet right through my gloves. They're freezing. I think I'd prefer just cold, dry snow." "No you wouldn't," Ny'Zeille grinned over, "It would pile up and the going would be even slower. When I'm riding through shit like this by myself, sometimes I pull one glove off with my teeth and warm my hand against my tit. It's a rude shock at first, but it warms quickly. Then I switch. It does help some." "Can't," Selena said, "Not much to warm anything against. I have to use my armpits." "Ah well," the demon chuckled, "Your hard luck then." "Yes," Selena sighed. They rode on in silence for a minute before they both burst out laughing. It made Selena feel a little better to laugh. "Was Dahlgren hurt over what I did?" she asked, "I saw him asleep and I really wasn't ready for what I saw." His mother rode in thought for a moment, "Yes and no," she said, "He wasn't exactly heartbroken, since nothing much had passed between you, and he is a grown man, after all. It's not as though he was crushed. I think that it just made him a little sad. He is used to how he is feared. He accepts it, since he can't change it, any more than you can give yourself bigger tits to warm your hands with, I guess." She chuckled. "He found himself in a bit of a tight spot on that mountain with you. He was really afraid that you would freeze to death, and so he stayed. He didn't want to sleep together with you for fear of what happened anyway. He thought that it might, but he had no other solution. I had to drag it out of him, but he told me that the way that you slept was your idea." Ny'Zeille began to fumble, looking for pockets. Selena smiled over, "Going to warm your hands?" "No," her companion grumbled, "I'm trying to find my pipe. I want a smoke, if I can manage it." The rogue watched as Ny'Zeille was able to get all of the required bits and preparations of the ridiculous habit together in the cold rain somehow. "How will you manage to light that?" she asked, "Have you got matches, or a flint or something?" "No, ..." the woman said with a smirk, "Don't need them." She held up a finger and a flame grew out of the air above it, staying there in the rain just long enough to allow the lighting of the pipe. Selena was awestruck. Ny'Zeille smirked, "Well I am a-" "I know," the rogue grumbled, "You probably just grew your tits to the size that you wanted as well." The demon stared and it brought them another round of laughter. "Can't," she said around the stem of the pipe, puffing for a moment until she pulled it away from her mouth, "The way that we look is fixed, just as yours is. Many of us who live here have found that we can have another way to look to humans, such as the way that my son can appear as the handsome dark ranger to you, and the other way when he obviously felt safe enough with you to relax as he slept. We can't change the way that we look to humans either. I can look like this, or I can look like something else." She smirked, "Don't even ask, Selena. I don't feel much like chasing you all over the land here trying to get you to calm down again." "I was going to ask, you know," Selena smiled. "Do you really think that you could stand that?" Ny'Zeille turned a little in the saddle to look at her. "Oh, I don't know," the rogue replied, "I haven't really seen all of this face yet, though I can see that you're lovely. I guess that I can handle it." She smirked, "I'll just keep thinking of my ten golds, I guess." "That's the spirit," The demon chuckled as she threw her hood back. Selena had just enough time to see that she'd been right about her companion before her face changed for only an instant. Then the human face was back and the hood came back up. "Happy now?" "Yes, actually," Selena grinned, "I think that I've just been allowed to see something which very few humans have ever seen, both of the faces of a demon. I didn't know that there were only two ways that you can look. You're very beautiful either way and I can see where Dahlgren got his fine looks from." "I can feel that you mean that," the demon said, "thank you, ... Wait, are you saying that you like the way that he looks in his natural shape? From what he said, I would have thought that you were terrified." "I was," Selena nodded, "I almost peed myself when I saw what I'd been sleeping against. I was scared to death. But I got hold of myself and seeing that he didn't look as though he'd wake up, I got my things together and left. I didn't know what he'd do if he woke up and seen me there." "I think," Ny'Zeile said, "that he likely would have smiled and said 'Good morning' to you until he saw and felt your fear of him. If I know him, he'd have likely told you to sit still long enough for him to leave and feel embarrassed over it later. As it was, he woke up and found you gone and worse, ..." "Worse?" The demon sighed as she puffed on the pipe and looked down for a moment, "You did steal his horse again." "Ah," Selena nodded, and they fell silent for a time. --------------------- By the time that they'd gotten close to the little place near the mountain road to both the temple and Dahlgren's house, the rain had changed to freezing rain and sleet. Selena's mood had deteriorated. She threw back her head and yelled in frustration, "FUUUUCK! Stop this shit already! I hate it when little bits of snow and ice fly into one ear and out the other." Ny'Zeille looked over, "Selena, put your hood up. Your hair is freezing." "I can't," she said, "my hood is soaked through and almost frozen stiff because of how wet it is." "Then hold still," the demon said. Selena felt her hood rise from her back and she saw the ice crystals on it spray off in all directions around her. Since the wind was at their backs, she saw swirls of fog or mist pass her for a few moments. "What? What are you -- " "Hold still," was all that she heard. The next thing that she knew, her hood was over her head and it felt wonderfully warm. "Thank you so much," she smiled over. "It's nothing," her companion said, "I'd have done it sooner, but I didn't notice it before now. I can't have you get to where we're going only to die of exposure. Besides, I really like you. I feel that you are beginning to see me as a friend, and I am very surprised. I'd do a lot for my friends, Selena. You will not freeze to death with me along, though I'm beginning to think that weather like this seems to follow you." "I'm beginning to want to agree with you," the rogue said, as the wind picked up and blew their cloaks out ahead of them. The sleet began to sting like gravel against any exposed skin. They rode on and a few minutes later, Ny'Zeille surprised Selena. She didn't even turn her head, she just spoke. "What did you say?" the rogue asked. "I said," the demon turned to smile, "He did like you very much, you know." "Really? He told you that?" "Yes", her companion said quietly, "I didn't even have to drag it out of him as I did for most of it all. He said that." It made Selena smile for a moment, "I liked him too," she said with a small sigh before she sat up a little straighter to ease the ache in her back, "But that's in the past. I've seen him twice since then, and I wouldn't say that his expression was kind. I'm just going to do what you need so that I can collect my pay and be gone, Ny'Zeille. I think that I'd like it a lot better if you were the one who asked me what you need to know, and if I could, I'd just go then, without seeing him at all if I could manage it." "Well, I think that's for you to decide tomorrow," the demon said, "This is getting more stupid by the minute. Look, the town's just ahead there. Let's see if there are still any rooms, and I'll pay for our rooms and even a hot bath and dinner." "I'd argue with you," Selena shouted into the sudden blast of wind, "but I'm not that stupid." ----------------------- They managed to get two small rooms and the world didn't look quite as severe from the warm side of the inn's windows. They'd paid extra to have their horses seen to in a warm stable and they now sat in dry clothes looking at each other over some good hot food. "I've just had a thought," Selena said seriously, "How would you manage this trip if you were alone? Be honest with me, Ny'Zeille, please." The demon looked at her for a moment. "Well, if I were where we were and alone there? If I was faced with bad weather and needed to get to Dahlgren's home in a hurry?" "Yes," the rogue nodded, "I have a feeling that it wouldn't be a problem at all for you, would it?" Her friend shrugged, "Not really. I always travel light. I can fit all of my things into a small bag which I can carry on my back. I'd have sold my horse and saddle and, in a private place, I'd have just put my small pack on and flown. Weather like this isn't very thick. I can get above it in only a few minutes. I'd have just flown then. I only bought my horse and saddle here yesterday to ride out ahead of where I knew that you would go. I wanted to be waiting for you when you came. I learned about what you did from Dahlgren's thoughts. We can sense each other from a long way off." She looked down, a little uncomfortably, "We can't wait for springtime for what is needed to be known from you, Selena. I wanted to meet you very much, both to see if you were all that I have heard about you and to maybe get a glimpse of a girl who had managed to touch the heart of my son for a little while. He thinks that there is no one for him on this world. I've told him differently a thousand times, but he is just like his father in his stubbornness. He may be correct, I don't know, but I wanted to meet you anyway, and once you had agreed to come, well the weather just turned to this shit. I wasn't going to leave you to travel all of this way alone." A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 09 "She smiled, "You seem to have a tendency to want to freeze to death, and you said that you haven't got big enough --" Selena laughed, but afterward, she stared a little, "So you rode with me all day in this because you're concerned for me?" Ny'Zeille nodded, "I didn't mean it, I was really trying to watch out for you, but I have found a friend on this road, and though the ride wasn't pleasant, I've enjoyed your company all day. " "I have too," Selena grinned, "and I'm thankful for your company, especially now that I know that you didn't have to suffer as I did. I'm even more thankful now. I made a friend too, one who seems to be trying so hard in such a subtle way to force me to think about my fears about what you are. I've learned a lot. I'm almost not afraid to go now, I'm just a little nervous, that's all." Ny'Zeille reached for Selena's hand, "Trust me, there is nothing for you to fear. By the time that you awake in the morning, I will be gone. You only need to follow the road out of town and turn right at the second road, the very small path. Just go up to the gates when you get to the top. You will be welcomed, I promise it. I want to go on ahead to make sure that everything is ready, and that there is enough food. I arranged to have my horse loaded with food from the shop tomorrow when I leave while you were in your bath. If I leave it to Dahlgren, there won't be enough. I think that a woman can understand. But you will be welcomed and not treated as anything other than an honored guest." Selena's face fell a little, "Alright," she said, "I'm a big girl. I guess I can manage that. You will be there, right?" "Yes," Ny'Zeille replied honestly, "unless a war breaks out somewhere or something. I will be there." They ate for a time and looked out through the window at the storm. It was just a bit of miserable weather, nothing much was accumulating on the ground. The meal was finished and Ny'Zeille had broken out her pipe and sat puffing contentedly as they looked out into the gathering gloom of the storm and the approaching nightfall. "You're very proud of him, aren't you?" The statement, spoken as it was out of thin air, surprised the demon a little, but she smiled and nodded, "I am, so very proud of him. What he is can be a disadvantage on both sides. Look at the way that people fear him here. On the other side of things, he would be thought of as weak because of his human blood, but he has shown them all to be wrong. He has taken up the old faith of The Balance, and has risen to what might be called a Templar by humans as the word for a knight of a faith. To us, he is a ranger here, though he acts when there is imbalance that he can correct. It is a high honor, though it is a lonely life as well. " "I don't have many friends," Selena said quietly, "In my line of work, it can usually only be a liability -- a hole in my safety, if that makes sense. I'm finding that I miss not having the sort of friend that I did as a child, someone who cares, someone who can be trusted." She looked at her friend's pipe for a moment, "May I?" "What?" the demon startled in surprise, "Oh, of course, Selena. I didn't know that you -- " "I used to," she said, taking the pipe from Ny'Zeille, "It's not something that I can afford to do much, so I almost never do." She puffed a little and handed the pipe back with a little grin. "Anyway, I believe that I have made just that sort of friend today," she said smiling, "and I'm feeling pretty good over it, too. So good in fact, that I'm buying the next ales." The demon's jaw dropped open in a grin, "And here I'd thought that your cheapness was result of the measure of your chest." "Careful," Selena chuckled. "You know I only make sport," the demon said, "You told me that you were terrified when you saw my son, but you did not answer me when I asked you if you liked his natural form as well as the one that he shows to humans here. I guess that I am fishing, trying to think of what to look for in the sort of woman that he'd want, since it confuses me so much that now I wish to know. Thinking about it logically, I think that the best chance would be with a girl like him or a demon girl who is a little tolerant. None of that really matters, of course. Love between two people is a random thing oftentimes. He and I can speak of almost anything, but if I mention a female for him at all, he grows instantly clinical -- as though we are discussing a battle that he was involved in. Selena's eyes flashed, "Ny'Zeille, ..." she had to think about it, "You look here, Ny'Zeille Runei," she said with only a little mock gravity, "Are we friends or not? Because if we are, then I'll not have you blabbing everything that I tell you to that son of yours, are we clear?" NyZeille smiled and looked down, trying to hide her grin, "Yes, Selena. We are friends, and I won't tell a thing." "Well aright then," the rogue said, "I'll only tell you this once, because we're here and all, but not one word of this will reach Dahlgren's ears, or I'll never trust you again. I'll want your word on this, that bloody world-famous Runei word that Dahl always pisses me off over when he reminds me of it." She saw her friend's chin come up and nod, "I give you my word. You called him 'Dahl'." Selena pursed her lips and blew one of the strands of her dark hair out of her eyes, "Pfft, Just forget that I said that." She leaned forward conspiratorially and her friend did the same. "This is only for your ears, my friend, because even though I'm not exactly thought of as a much sought-after sort of shy girl, I am human, and I've found that it just doesn't pay to have something like a girl's secrets overheard at all. I was so hopeful to get to know him a lot better. It's bloody obvious to me now why, but I've never met anyone like him. I saw your son and I had so many things to deal with inside me all at once. I did the only other thing that I could think of. I packed up like a frightened mouse, trying hard not to chatter my fears out loud to myself as I did it, and I ran. I'm not proud of what I did, especially after how we fell asleep and what we did before that. I'm actually ashamed of myself over it. I doubt that I can, or that I'll even ever get the chance to apologize, but I really wish now that I hadn't sat on my wet ass in front of my own house wishing that he wasn't there. What I should have done then was just thank him and tell him that I was sorry for everything that I'd done. He really needs to find a better sort of girl for himself." Ny'Zeille sat listening to all of it, but she did catch it and moved to pull it back in front of them, "The only OTHER thing? Did you think to hurt him? Kill him? I'm a little confused." Selena rolled her eyes and looked down. She was suddenly very interested in her own fingernails. "No. He hadn't hurt me or even threatened to hurt me. Nothing like that." She looked up, "Please, Ny'Zeille, I'm talking about him to his mother, of all people." The woman smiled slowly, "His mother, who is a demon, after all." "Who's a de- Hey!" The smile grew wider as she tilted her head, "Well if you can't confide your darkest desires to a demon who is a friend to you, who then? No one with a brain would dare confide in one of these preachers which every town seems to have at least one of. The idiots would only denounce them for admitting what they themselves feel the same as anyone else, but they'd be happy for the chance to burn an innocent and keep the rest cowed." She laughed, "Can you just imagine what one like me would do if it was attempted? I'd hang him by his own bag right over the door of his home and set that ablaze for the stupidity of it all." Selena's eyes narrowed down to slits as she set her jaw, "Alright. It doesn't matter anymore anyway, and not one word, Ny'Zeille," she warned, "or I'll walk away from your job out of embarrassment. There's not enough gold in the world for that, by the way, if I find out that you told him any of this." She sat back, looking out into the darkness on the other side of the window. Her voice came out very softly and carried a hint of childlike wonder to it, "I saw him lying there, still clothed because of the cold and I stared at his face. I had a whole lot of other things coming up right then, but there was one thing -- one sudden desire that I had and it frightened me like nothing I've ever felt -- because, well, I need to feel that I always have some control, somehow." She looked down, "And right then, I could feel that I was losing that control." "Why?" the demon asked softly as she reached out and touched the rogue's hand, "What was it?" Selena sighed, "He's always looked so good to me. Every time that I've ever seen him, whether he's looked at me or not, every time, I lose my breath, or that's what it feels like to me. I can see him a hundred times a day and I'm fine, but the next time that I see him somewhere, it's the same thing all over again, just the first time. Right then, I looked, wanting to know if it would happen again, because we'd fooled around a little the night before. We didn't do it, but I really wanted to." Her voice grew even softer, "It did happen, Ny'Zeille. He was lying there and every so often, I could see what he really was, ... and it happened anyway! I wanted to kiss him so much. I almost couldn't stop myself. I wanted to kiss him so softly so that he'd wake up and see me there over him. He'd have probably needed to go pee or something, but I wouldn't have let him get up. That's why I ran. If I didn't stop myself, ... " She closed her eyes, and drew a breath, "Oh, I'd have just fucked him silly right there. We'd have frozen to death on that mountaintop with his stupid tent on top of us, but I wouldn't have cared, not until long after I'd had him." She hung her head. Before Selena could start to cry, feeling shame for what she'd admitted to his mother, Ny'Zeille pulled herself forward and lifted Selena's hand to her lips. She kissed that hand slowly and set it down on the table again, though she didn't let go, she just held it. The rogue looked up and saw her soft smile. "I want to make an admission of my own, "Ny"Zeille said, quietly, "Firstly, I don't think that you ought to feel badly about what happened. If it helps any, I can tell you that he only thinks that you will not listen to him out of some fear that you have. It may have been so then. Secondly, we are both females, no matter what we are, and you should know that I understand. Thirdly, I will not tell any of this to him at all. It is not my place to interfere and I find that I value your friendship so much. But lastly, I need to tell you something. I only had the chance to bear one child. I have never found another male who I felt that I really wanted after what I had. So I only had my son. I have already admitted my pride in him. But now I will tell you something else. If I'd had the chance, long ago, just one more chance to bear another child, I am sure now that I'd have loved so much to have had a girl just like you, my young friend. But we can only have what we have, Selena," she said, "I am happy to have my friend. Besides, I have just realized that there is a flaw to my wish. Dahlgren would have had a sister then, and I have a feeling that your childhoods would have been very loud indeed." It made Selena smile and she thanked Ny'Zeille for the thought as they stood up and said goodnight and parted company on their way to their respective rooms. A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 10 ***Would you do it? Walk into a demon's home of your own free will if you were Selena? Remember that she's a very capable rogue, and has always had to take care of herself. Ten golds is a lot of money to Selena. 0_o ------------------ She awoke looking at a nightstand which was not familiar to her. Selena groaned as she realized where she was and she rolled over onto her back. The light coming in through the window past the almost drawn curtains told her that she'd slept a lot later than she'd have intended. She sat up and thought about where she had to go today. She almost fell right back down onto the mattress again. Not that, she thought, wondering how she'd ever agreed to it. She thought about it and began to think about just going back home. She had the two golds, didn't she? With them, plus a little care, she'd go far into spring before she needed to look for work again, maybe into summer. It would almost be like a vacation, not as though she'd ever had one of those, but she'd overheard wealthy patrons talking in taverns once in a while. They told of traveling to places that she might have heard about, but sometimes hadn't. Even the places that she had heard of weren't possible to even think about much. But she'd listened anyway as she'd picked their pockets now and then. Alright, she thought. She had to do this. There were ten more golds at stake for her. With those, she might even be able to travel at least a little and if she stayed at home, she wouldn't need to work for two years and maybe more! She could plant a garden; she could plant barley and wheat, once she'd gotten a plow. Besides, she thought, she wanted to spend more time with Ny'Zeille if she could. She almost hoped that this would take all of the possibly three days now, just for that. All that she had to do was, ... All that she had to do was to go up to some strange home and have to see him again -- maybe have to answer questions from him. Well, she could do that for ten golds, she decided, and even maybe face the little kid with the big eyes too. She got out of bed and checked her hiding place first. Satisfied that the money was still there, she pulled some clothes on and sauntered down the hall to pee. From there, it was a quick trip to fill a basin with water and she washed her face and brushed her hair before going to see about a morning bath. ----------------- She stared at the innkeeper for a minute. "You're certain?" "Well yes," he said, "Everything was paid for but this amount here, Miss. If I remember rightly from what the other lady said to me, it's fer the second pair of ales that was called for last night." Selena began to laugh. "Is there somethin' wrong then, Miss?" "No," Selena grinned, feeling a little sheepish now as she pulled out some coins, "No, not at all, sir. And here's for a tip. Thank you and have a fine day." He smiled at her, "And to you, Miss. We'll look forward to yer next trip through, then." She nodded and walked down the steps to where her horse had been tied up for her. At least the sun was shining again, she thought. But then she stopped and looked across the way at the shop. ----------------------- She found the slightly overgrown pathway without difficulty and started up the long incline. It only went straight for about the distance that it took to get out of direct sight with the road below. After that, it began to wind in a series of switchbacks, so that she found herself riding to and fro, left and right along the low mountainside. At every turn there was a stone pile of some sort with markings carved into the biggest piece. She'd passed two of them by before it dawned on her that they'd been piled in such a way so as to look generally like a human figure in a sort of stylized way. Each one looked a little different than the last and had a pile of round stones placed to one side of it. She wondered what they'd been placed here for. She began to feel as though she were being watched, but there wasn't enough heavy vegetation on the slope for an adult person to really hide themselves behind. When she looked back, the stone 'figures' seemed to have shifted a little, at least the top stone of each one. There were no faces carved into those rocks. She stopped her horse and looked around. The sky was blue, and the birds were singing. What the hell was the matter here? The birds would have stopped singing if there were intruders there from their point of view. She looked back the way that she'd come. She couldn't see the road down below. She couldn't see the tip of the hill, though she could see more loops of the road that she was on, zigzagging their way to the top. She nudged her horse onward, hoping that this wouldn't take all day. She thought that navigating this pathway must really be a joy to have to do on a dark night... with no moon to see by ... especially after a heavy snowfall. She thought of other possibilities as she went along. What if one were being pursued? She looked up and then down. Oh, that would surely be fun. There were places where the loops were pretty close together, less than ten yards -- thirty feet, but they were about ten feet apart in height and the face was sheer here. So that meant that anyone chasing her only had to wait for her to pass to rain arrows on her. She got back to the matter at hand. Her next thought took her back to the stone 'men' again, since the one immediately above her stood a little ahead and on the next step up. She noticed that the 'head' of this one had a line on the back side, looking a little like a crack. She didn't think about it again until she looked as it was directly opposite here to her right. She looked up and saw the crack again. But not on the back side now. Chastising herself for being foolish, she went on until she passed the next one at the bend and started back. She stared at that one rock now, and the crack was facing her again. She rode up to it and stopped directly in front to stare at that line. She leaned out as far from the saddle as she dared without falling and saw no such feature where it had been before. Shuddering a little and trying not to think about it, she rode on, but on her way by, the next level up, that crack was still facing her. She turned her horse around and rode back a ways. Turning around again, she looked and that line was still the central feature of the thing. She spurred her horse a little quicker after that, realizing that it these stonemen were alive somehow, then each of them had a pile of stones to hurl. At last, the slope eased off into a rounder shape and she rode to the crest, happy to leave the stonemen behind. Beyond that she saw an arched gateway, all by itself in the thin woods. Thankfully, the gate was open, she smirked to herself as she rode up to it. She'd have hated to have had to ride around it. It would have taken her at least thirty feet out of her way, she chuckled. But then she noticed something and she was certain that had it not been for her thoughts about the rockpiles, she'd never have the thought to notice what she was looking at now. As she came very near to the open archway, she looked along the line where there would have been a wall if this had been the gateway through it. What she saw was grassy light forest, the same as it looked everywhere else, lying flat and damp-looking like any other in the cold winter here which snowed little. But there were no trees along that line. Only the grass. She looked the other way and it was the same. She looked down and saw a piece of deadfall -- a thin sort of branch which had fallen from a tree at some point, either from snow or a strong wind. It looked to be a piece of one of the nearby birch trees. Selena knew that birches give up their branches easily in strong winds. She looked down at it and considered, thinking to get off her horse and toss the branch into that clear and open line of grass, just to see what would happen. She almost did, but suddenly found that she really didn't want to now. "Oh, for pity's sake," she grumbled to herself, wondering what was wrong with her. She rode through the archway. From somewhere far ahead, she heard the sound of a single chime. Shaking her head, she rode on, noticing the angle of the afternoon sunlight. She sure hoped that she got to where she was going soon, because if she'd been wrong in her choice of pathway to follow, she wouldn't be getting back to the road until dark, and the thought of riding past those stones again, ... But she saw a high wall up ahead, maybe twenty feet high with another gate. She rode up to that and saw that it was closed. "Oh, this just gets better every minute," she muttered, climbing down from her horse. "Where's my welcome?" she wondered aloud, thinking now that she had the wrong place for certain, though she couldn't really understand how it was possible. She reached out to touch the ironwork, seeing that there were doors as well which could be closed behind the gate. That chime sounded again, and then there was silence. Only the sparse chattering of the few birds intruded on her thoughts. Looking ahead, she saw a large, low building a long way off with a great set of doors. In between, there were gardens and open sections which looked a little inviting. But then they were there and she was out here, she thought. The heavy doors began to swing open and she saw Ny'Zeille step out to begin walking toward her. Selena stared. This was her friend in her natural state, the horns which she'd seen the day before, wings, long tail and all. And she wasn't wearing a thing. Selena noticed that as the demon came a little closer. It wasn't terribly cold at the moment, but Selena would have hated to be naked here just now. Ny'Zeille didn't seem to notice the cold at all, other than the way that her nipples seemed to have reacted to it. It took a while for her to get to the gate -- it was that long a walk, and she walked at an average pace, not striding for speed or anything, she only walked. Selena only wished that she might have that sort of feminine grace as she watched. The demon's face opened into a wide smile and the gate opened inward by itself. "Selena! I was wondering when you'd make it up the hill," she said, "I was growing worried, until I heard the second bell at the gate out there. It can take a good length of time to get here, I know, but still..." "I guess that I was slow, looking at things, mostly. So I've come, Ny'Zeille, I'm finally here. After all of that," she waved her arm behind her. "You didn't say anything about earning at least one gold just for getting up here." The demon laughed, "True, I guess that I should have said something about the long way up. Come, let's see to your horse." As they led her mare through the gates, they began to swing closed soundlessly behind them. The walk to the stables took a bit of time as well. "Aren't you cold?" Selena asked. "I'm not really bothered all that much by cold, "Ny'Zeille said with a bit of a shrug, "I suppose that it comes from flying during the winter. The work of it keeps one warm. Out here like this well, I'll live long enough to get inside the stables. Now yesterday, that was cold for me, just as it was for you. I wasn't moving at all then, was I? I was just sitting and shivering on my horse, the same as you were." "And wanting to warm your hands." Selena chuckled. "And wanting to warm my hands," Her friend laughed, "Here we are," she said. They closed the stable doors behind themselves and had her mare in a stall in minutes with feed and water. Selena saw Ny'Zeille's horse there as well, looking comfortable, and she saw the stallion that she'd stolen twice in a third stall, a little way off. Selena tried not to think about that, but she felt that she needed to know anyway. "Is he here?" "My son?" her friend asked, turning, "No, he is away far to the south and west. Red demons tearing through a little town on the edge of a desert. He had no time to ride, so he just went very early this morning. He only waited long enough for me to hurry here, so that Nahl'een wouldn't be here alone. I don't know when he'll be back, so you're stuck with me." "What are these things, and why are they different from you?" Selena asked, wanting to know now. "They are the things which give us all such reputations," the demon said, "They are the stuff of the nightmares of humans. I could tell you that the rest of us are all fine, upstanding folk, but it wouldn't be completely true, though we are a lot more civilized than a lot of you and all of the reds. There were once wars between us which lasted for thousands of years. Now, they are mostly imprisoned, kept on another plane all their own. Every now and then, however, a few get free and might come here, since humans have little in the way of defense against them. I could say that Dahlgren is here to protect mankind, but that would be incorrect -- though I suppose that it would be a more romantic notion. He is here to help with the balance. If this was a world where red demons lived, and he was here as he is now, then he would be off killing humans if they came here causing needless death and chaos." "So I can know one if I see one by his red skin?" Selena asked. "No," her friend replied, "There is no visible way for a human to tell." "Well you said that they were called red demons," the thief said, a little confused. "The name applies to their minds and the color of their thoughts," Ny'Zeille said, "They are murderous, bloodthirsty things. You might tell them by looking at their eyes. They're usually twitching nervously. It is their way. One of my kind would know in an instant. We can smell their blood, as they can smell ours." They walked to another set of doors which led into the house. As Ny'Zeille opened the doors for them, Selena heard squealing joyous laugher from far down the hall and around a corner. A huge animal came into sight, about to continue on, carrying a smallish figure on its back, but it slid to a stop and turned its head toward them. The figure looked as well. The pair resumed their original course and were out of sight within a second or so. "Um, Ny'Zeille?" Selena began. "Yes, "the demon answered, before remembering. She groaned, "Forgive me. I was thinking about something else. Yes?" "What were we looking at there, up ahead?" Selena asked, "What was the big thing there?" "A pair of young friends playing, I suppose. The larger one was Sheavre. She's a young hellhound. One of seven which are here, eight when I come to visit, since I always travel with my own. The other six which belong here are all larger than Shaevre, and run the grounds outside at night." They were walking down a long hallway of which one-third was the main aisle. There was a row of columns to either side, and further out was a narrower aisle, again, both sides. After a few moments, NY'Zeille turned a little to look past Selena. Nahl'een was riding Shaevre quietly along the aisle to the left of Selena, She said nothing, but was studying her intently. "Hellhound?" Selena asked. "They are not really hounds, "the demon said, "They are really just another race of demon. They merely look dog-like. They are very intelligent, and most can have two shapes as well. They all understand speech, though in the shape that you saw, many cannot speak. They are all quite a bit larger than the largest dog, and something to always remember is that they are very much heavier. It is possible for one to grow to like a person, as Shaevre has grown to love Nahl'een. Even so, try not to allow one to stand on your foot. You'll see them here everywhere, but they won't harm you. If you find the desire in you to pet one as you would a regular dog, you may wish to ask first, but never push their fur backwards. The ends are like razors when they wish for them to be. Shaevre allows Nahl'een to ride her as a human child might learn to ride a pony." Selena was shocked, "That was -- " Ny'Zeille nodded and held up two fingers, "Two shapes, remember?" She looked again and gave her granddaughter a wink. Nahl'een giggled and as Selena turned her head to look, the little demon flew off down the hall, laughing. Selena was a little surprised that she didn't feel any fear -- walking next to a demon and watching a young one flying away clutching what looked for a brief instant to be a doll or something. Selena stopped and stared at the hellhound, who now turned to her and approached slowly with softly glowing red eyes. "What should I do?" the rogue asked nervously. "Well, calling her a good doggie is out of the question," Ny'Zeille said dryly, "You can try speaking to her as though she can understand what you say -- since she can. Her name is Shaevre, as I said. You should say hello." The hound padded slowly up to Selena, extending her neck a little to sniff her cautiously. Her nose came to a little higher than Selena's navel. "Hello, Shaevre," the rogue said. The red eyes nodded once in reply. "Come, Selena, let's get something warm for you to drink by the fire." As they turned to walk on, Shaevre fell into step behind them silently. Everywhere they walked, Selena stared. The place seemed to go on forever. NyZeille sensed her friend's wonder. "It is large, Selena, and it is possible to get a little lost here, but there is a plan to it and once you learn that, you can find your way anywhere easily. There is a large center and four wings. They are all a little different in their schemes, once you notice. It is easy to tell where you are by looking at the walls. When they arrived at the kitchen, Selena marveled at the rich smells of the meal cooking there slowly. NyZeille took a pair of mugs and found some tea leaves, before pouring hot water in from a steaming tap. With their mugs in hand, the rogue followed to a round hall where there were benches to sit on. "Is it always this warm here?" Selena asked. "It is always the same," the demon replied, "never really hot, and never cold. You'll get used to it, and I'll take you to a room which you can use as your own while you are here. You certainly won't need that cloak here. Set your pack down and rest a minute. We can see a little of the arboretum from here, and over that way," she pointed, "is the stone garden. That way, lies the garden of sighs, and behind us, there is what Dahlgren has come to call the beach. All of them are tranquil spots where one can spend hours." Selena looked around and then back at Ny'Zeille, "Why would someone have a stone garden, and what is the garden of sighs?" "The stone garden is an open area with a collection of stones in shapes, some geometric , some random. All of it is laid out around a large, open area which suits itself for practice in fighting arts. The stones are there to evoke thoughts and feelings and are decorations. You may wish to use it to exercise in, for example. The garden of sighs is a place designed to please the senses." She smiled, "All of the senses, my friend. If you were here alone for example, and found a want in yourself for some pleasure, that would be where you would go. There are shapes to the features there which are to soothe tired muscles, even some designed to be used for personal pleasure, if you catch my meaning. For both sexes, there are places where one might wish to press one's body against for the sensation of it. I use it sometimes. My son uses it a lot, now and then. Nahl'een is forbidden to go there since she is far too young. It is the only place in the building which will not permit her to enter it since she is a child. It would prevent her from developing any sort of magical extensions of her will, if she were allowed there." Selena had been what she was for far too long not to have noticed that she was being looked at. She turned her head a little and saw a slight motion. Looking down, she saw Shaevre looking off in the same direction, so she glanced off into the distance in such a way so as to permit her to see the little girl in her peripheral vision as Nahl'een tried to get the hellhound to look somewhere else. A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 10 "Speaking of Nahl'een," she said a little loudly, as she pulled her pack to her and began to rummage through, "I was thinking as I left the inn that I ought to perhaps bring something along as a gift." There was a quiet and startled gasp as Selena pulled out a small parcel out of her pack. Nahl'een recognized it right away as caramel. "Do you think that she might want some of this, Ny'Zeille? I seem to have bought too much for us to eat all by ourselves, you and I. Do you think that she might like some?" The demon chuckled as she went along with the ruse, "I think that we ought to have it after dinner, but I don't think that a little now would hurt anything. It's just that there might be a problem, since she's not here anywhere that I can see. Do you see her?" "No," the rogue said, purposefully looking in another direction, "I don't see her anywhere." "No, ... Ah! There she is. Come here, Nahl'een. "Ny'Zeille smiled. But there was something wrong. The little demon stepped out very cautiously and only came a couple of feet closer. She stood there with wide eyes and the same fearful look that she'd given Selena two days earlier in the village. It took a lot of quiet coaxing from her grandmother to get Nahl'een to come to her. Even so, she hid herself behind Ny'Zeille and only peeked out around her. "I don't understand this," Selena said, "This is the way that she looked at me in the village. I've only seen her here and there with Dahlgren. Other than in the village, I've never touched her. Until now, I haven't had the chance to speak to her. What's wrong, Nahl'een?" The little girl only shook her head and looked more fearful. Ny'Zeille tried with little success to get her granddaughter to do anything but cower behind her, and she even looked too frightened to be able to respond to questions. "I will deal with this," the demon said quietly, "I'll have Shaevre show you to your room. You can take off the cloak there. Maybe that's what's scaring her, I don't know. Unpack and come back in a few minutes. Wait for me here." She spoke to the hellhound, who stood up and walked off a little, stopping to look back, waiting for Selena. "She'll take me to my room?" Selena was a little amazed. "Yes," her friend said, "she understands speech. Try not to think of her as you would a dog." The rogue shrugged and picked up her pack, "I'm very sorry if I've frightened you, Nahl'een, I didn't mean to. I hope that I'll see you a little later." She turned and walked off following Shaevre. She didn't see Nahl'een as she shook her head, as though in answer to what had been said to her. Ny'Zeille picked her up and sat her on her own lap to try to make a little sense out of what had happened. The little one looked to be almost about to cry. Shaevre led Selena to a chamber not far off at all, and she set her pack down on the bed. She supposed that if the hellhound could understand her, then she wouldn't look like too much of a fool if she spoke to her. "I'm really confused," she said, and the hound looked up. "I don't know what's the matter. I've hardly ever seen Nahl'een before, and she's scared out of her mind of me." The hound's eyebrows rose and the wide forehead wrinkled a little as she stood looking back at the rogue. The thought came to Selena that the creature was just as confused as she was. There was nothing in that face which showed anything other than perhaps a little caution, but she certainly didn't see any distrust there. She saw a peg on the wall and removed her heavy cloak to hang it up. Selena sat down on the bed heavily. She thought about it for a moment and realized that she was upset as well. She couldn't really understand the feeling. She'd seen and felt the distrust of others, and it had never been something terribly unusual for her to see that she was disliked. She'd never cared before, for the most part. It was just something that she dealt with, and it had never really bothered her before. But it did now. She couldn't even explain it to herself, but it was really bothering her that a little demon kid was afraid of her. She'd have thought that, if anything, it ought to maybe be the other way around. "Would you please show me the way to get back to Ny'Zeille?" she asked a little experimentally. The red eyes in front of her nodded and Selena smiled as the creature walked out of the room to wait for her there. They walked back and Selena could see that she'd have found her way back easily. "Thank you, Shaevre," she said, looking down at her package of candy, a forlorn little offering that no one wanted. "I'll just wait here for Ny'Zeille. I suppose that you'd better be getting back to Nahl'een. She might need a good friend now, if she's upset and afraid." The hellhound looked and her and nodded, turning to pad off silently. Selena wondered why that was. She'd have thought that she ought to be hearing the clicks of the beast's nails on the stone, but that wasn't the case. She sat back down on the bench and waited, looking around at the strangest building that she'd ever been inside of in her life. There was nothing really all that strange about it, she decided, it was just not the sort of place where she'd have ever considered that anyone might make their home. It was attractive, it was just sparse and open. From where she sat, she could see a long way down a couple of the wings. She turned around about ten minutes later as Ny'Zeille walked back holding the hand of a still rather uncertain little one. Her friend stopped and Nahl'een stepped forward a little more to stand -- still far out of reach -- very nervously. "Nahl'een is sorry," she said in a tiny voice. "No need to be sorry, "Selena smiled as warmly as she could, "you did nothing wrong. I'm really very glad to meet you, Nahl'een. I'm the one who is sorry, if I made you afraid. My name is Selena." Nahl'een nodded, "I know." "Well, if you're feeling a little better now, maybe you'd like to share a little of this with me? I can see that you're still nervous, but I won't hurt you -- I really won't," the rogue smiled, "Do you want a little? I can hand it to your grandmother to give you some if you won't take it from me." "Perhaps if you put it down between you, a little closer to her, she might take it then and bring it to me," Ny'Zeille said. Selena nodded, but to Nahl'een she said, "May I have a little bit? I bought it for you, Nahl'een, but I always loved this stuff when I was little. Can I have some?" Nahl'een nodded a little nervously and watched intently as Selena opened the parcel and broke off only a little piece for herself. Selena was pleased that the little girl seemed to be watching to make certain that she'd be left with quite a bit. She re-rolled the parcel and set it down as far from her in Nahl'een's direction as she could reach. It was gone in an instant and Ny'Zeille gave a piece to her granddaughter before taking a little one for herself. She sat down next to Selena and in a few moments, Nahl'een sat cross-legged on the floor looking at them intently. "You didn't thank Selena for thinking about you to bring you something from the shop." "Sorry," the little one said, "Thank you, Sel-ena." "She was so upset that I couldn't get much from her in the way of speech, "the demon said quietly, "so I asked her if I might probe her mind a little very gently. She's still a bit behind where she ought to be as far as her ability to speak is concerned, but she's getting better very quickly as she catches up. It took me a minute, but I did find something far back in her memory. I questioned her afterward, thinking that she must be wrong and assigning the memory to you, but as far as she knows and believes, she fears you because you killed her mother." Selena's jaw dropped. She thought back over all of the time that she'd been in this odd profession of hers. She'd killed a few females along the way, but the count had been far smaller than the number of males that she'd dispatched for any number of reasons. She tried to think of any during the period of time that would seem likely, given Nahl'een's apparent age, and drew a blank. She didn't even need to consider how many female demons that she'd killed, since it was a round number. "Ny'Zeille, I've never killed any demons at all, never mind -- " "It's alright, my friend, "the demon smiled, "I already have my answer, and I'll tell you later after dinner. I don't want her to become upset again. Just try to be as friendly as you were here, and we'll work on it. I've already offered her sort of a plausible explanation which she's accepted. She doesn't believe me, but for now, she's better. I think it's time that we ate." ------------------------- Dinner wasn't much more than sausages with pickled and shredded cabbage, along with some potatoes, but it tasted wonderful to Selena as she sat talking with Ny'Zeille and trying to engage Nahl'een as well. It worked, partially, thought there was always something which held the little one back to mostly silent and intent observation. After the meal, they sat in front of what her friend called the Great Fire, which seemed to Selena to be little more than a rather large fireplace, which for reasons that she couldn't determine, never needed stoking, and never seemed to require the addition of fresh firewood. Nahleen spent most of the time, partially lying on Shaevre and hugging her, while Ny'Zeille asked the rogue questions relating to her childhood. The questions were simple things which only required some recollection on Selena's part. As far as revealing anything important or profound, she was mystified as to the purpose of it all. She could have answered these at the inn. "You were away at school when something terrible happened at your home," Ny'Zeille said, "We needn't upset everyone with what happened, but you knew nothing about it, other than you received even fewer letters from your home. You didn't think too much about that?" "I became a little alarmed," Selena said, "I rarely got any anyway. It costs a lot to send one. My parents didn't have a lot of coin. I only received one from my mother asking of I would be coming home for the summer. I thought that it was a strange thing to ask me. I always came home, just not the summer before since I'd found work and I was finished at the school anyway. My parents should have known that." "Ah," Ny'Zeille said, "But something did happen. With everything that she'd been through, and all alone after the red demons left -- and your mother was very lucky that she wasn't killed then, I ought to mention -- your mother's mind began to deteriorate, you said. When you came home a long time after, she was losing the rest of it, shortly before she passed." The demon laid her hand on Selena's knee as she leaned forward, "I'm afraid that I must tell you of something which will likely upset you at least somewhat shortly. But let's do it this way, and maybe it will help two people and not only one." Selena had no idea what her friend was talking about now, but she turned and watched as the demon looked at Nahl'een. "You have seen Selena before the day in the village, yes?" "Ah-hah," she nodded cautiously. "What do you remember of that time? It might be hard for you, little one, but remember what I said. Selena does not know you, but she would like to, and she doesn't want to hurt you. I am here anyway, Nahl'een." "Long time ago," Nahl'een said. "Not 'member much. She-" "Selena?" Ny'Zeille prompted. "Ah-hah, Sel-ena came. Mother said hide. Then, ..." "That's enough, little one," the demon smiled, motioning her over to sit on her lap to hold her before her upset overtook her. "Demon infants can mature in some ways a lot faster than human ones," Ny'Zeille said. "In some ways. In others, they lag behind human babies. How old would you consider that a human child must be to be able to climb a tree that has plenty of branches to reach? Perhaps six years old? Any demon child can do that -- if there were enough things to grab onto -- at four months of age, and maybe less. She has a good memory, though she lags behind in speech. That is because for the first few years of her life, she had no one to teach her, no one for her to use as a model. Can you hide now, Nahl'een?" Selena stared as she saw nothing on her friend's lap, other than the imprint of the child's bottom on the demon's thighs. At a word from Ny'Zeille, Nahl'een was back in sight a moment later. "You tended to your dying mother for a day or so, Selena, and then she passed. I want you to consider that Nahl'een was there, but hidden from you in the manner that you have just seen. To her, in her simple view, what you might have done to try to help your mother was something which --in her child's interpretation, killed her mother." "But, ... " "Wait, Selena," the demon said softly, "I heard of what happened long afterward, that there had been red demons on a small farm. You told what you knew from what your poor mother said to you to the local sheriff. As a result of that, my son was sent to hunt those demons, but that was long after you had gone, and even longer after what had happened. I'll tell you of my own thoughts. I believe that, while your mother was abused by those demons, she was not impregnated by them. I can say this because there is nothing in Nahl'een's blood that I can smell of red demon. Your mother was pregnant before you left for school." "Wait a minute," the rogue said, "My father wasn't a demon." "No," Ny'Zeille smiled, "he was not. Not any more than Nahl'een is a demon, not any more than my son is one, either. Not all half-breeds show as much as this, and many that do, choose to live here hidden. I'm not trying to insult your father's memory, or your poor mother's for that matter. All that I am suggesting is that from what I know, and from her memories, there is a bit of a doubt, which is a good thing. We'll work on this in the morning, you and I in my questions. Perhaps I am wrong, but I have my doubts. If you wish to argue with me, however, I think that you ought to wait a little while until this little one is asleep." She looked at Nahl'een, "Do you know what Selena is good at, Nahl'een? Do you know what she likes to do sometimes?" Nahl'een looked at Selena and shook her head. "Our friend Selena here is very, very good at traveling and she has always has adventures." Selena chuckled a little nervously but she was suddenly surprised when she noticed how the little girl now looked at her. "Maybe, if you can show her that you're brave and not afraid of her too much, she might tell you about one of her trips, would you like that?" Selena even managed to laugh a little at the way that Nahl'een moved to sit cross-legged on the bench, leaning back on her grandmother with a rapt expression. ------------------------- "That was a bit of magic, what you did to get her to change toward me with one sentence," Selena grinned at her friend over a cup of spiced tea later. They were still in front of the Great Fire, though Ny"Zeille now sat on the floor, leaning against Arrax as they talked. The demon's hellhound was larger than the rest, and there was something about him, Selena thought. "Sometimes, one only has to know children," the demon smiled. "She might be half-demon and half-human, Selena, but a child is a child. There is more than enough in common between the two kinds for that. And your story was so good, my friend. You even had me hanging onto the bench when you faced the troll. I could sense that you told the truth, too. I thought that you'd just make something up out of the air." "I might have to at some point," the rogue said, "I'll run out of stories before too long. Now, do you think that she's asleep yet? I want to pick a few holes in what you said earlier." Ny'Zeille thought about it, sensing carefully, "I believe that she is. What did you wish to say?" "Only that it cannot be," Selena said, "if you're right, then, ..." "Let's just see," the demon smiled sitting up, "If you think that you can trust me a little, all that you need to do is to allow me into your thoughts with a touch. I'll show us both whether I'm right." "Alright," Selena replied. To herself, she thought that Ny'Zeille's idea was out in the field somewhere, but she nodded, not really certain how it was to be done. "Lie down on your back, right there on that seat," the demon said, standing up to step closer, "just lie still there, close your eyes and let me ask a question or two. You don't need to answer, in fact, it would be better if you didn't. Just allow my words to start your memory." By now, Selena was game, intrigued a little, so she complied and Ny'Zeille sat on the edge next to her and touched her lightly on the forehead. "Think of when you were small," she said, "Nahl'een's age and younger, if you can. Anytime when you were a child, think to see your father, at any time when he did not think that you were there watching him." Selena could see him, the father that she still missed so much. He was working the land of the farm, doing the hundreds of daily tasks which any farmer does. She saw nothing unusual or remarkable, other than she was surprised at the richness of her thoughts. "These are times when he knew," the demons voice said in her mind, "seek out the times when he was surprised that you were there, or better still, when he never knew that you were there." The scenes shifted like leaves before the wind. Selena saw a time when her father was next to the cow pond, taking his clothes off as quickly as he could to wade in at what had seemed to be incredible speed to struggle with a calf which had tumbled into the mud and was almost drowned. The life of a single calf represented a treasure to the fortunes of her poor family. She saw him emerge covered in all manner of filth and stagnation, but carrying that calf. He hadn't seen her, but she'd gaped as she'd watched him wash it all off behind the barn. He'd had a tail then. Horns too. She remembered not being able to sleep when her brother was only three. She'd been in her bed, shaking because she'd thought that some horrible monster had gotten into her parent's bedroom for the growling and the cries of her mother. She'd repressed this for years but now she watched it again in wonder as she saw again what she has when she'd lain in her bed shaking in fear, listening to the sounds of her parents making love in the way that was normal -- for a human woman deeply in love with a man who was also half-demon. There were other scenes which came to her in rapid succession, but overall, she remembered her father as the kind and quiet man that he'd been, who'd always been very shy whenever the harvest fair came around, because her father had always been the strongest man in the area of the village. He just never said a word about it, and her mother had never said anything about the way that he could make her scream out at night sometimes. Now she knew why. "My -- My brother, ..." "From what I saw, he received almost nothing from the pairing which made him, "Ny'Zeille said quietly, "It varies, what comes through, like anything else. A brown cow mated by a white bull with black spots, sometimes gives a calf which shows nothing of one parent. "What about, ... "She looked up at her friend, "me?" "Well that," the demon said, lowering her head with a smile to leave a kiss upon Selena's forehead, just as she often did to Nahl'een, "That is something which we need to find out -- and we will, my dear friend. But while this does much as far as what I wished to know is concerned, I think that you have some things to think about -- some rather profound things, such as the way that you look at demons and others. A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 10 I know you well enough now, and I know that you only tried to care for your dying mother -- who was already mad and dying anyway while you worked feverishly to save her to the best of your ability. But little Nahl'een, the baby, not more than two years old when you came home. To her what she saw you do was what she thought harmful. I think that you will need to tell her that she was wrong about what her sister did." Selena shot up into a sitting position so quickly that her head hurt a second later, "Sister?" "I believe that your mother was either too ashamed to speak of it, or too far gone by the time that you got home from your long journey home to be able to tell you. Think," the demon said, "Have you found nothing? No sign that might have been left by a little creature, living as best she could on whatever she could find or catch for herself to eat? Dahlgren was there, while you were gone once, not knowing who the last members of the stricken family were. He was there, and though he found no little female there living like a wild thing -- since she was living in the forest by then where he found her later, he did find signs that one such creature had once lived there." Selena suddenly thought of the things that she'd seen in her mother's room. "Whenever he must be away, if I cannot come to help. Dahlgren leaves the light of his life in the care of the orphanage. They have only just allowed her to watch and feed the bird in their garden, because when she could not understand what they said to her, she hunted them there. I don't know how she managed to keep herself alive and live all alone as she did, but you each have a sister. You and Nahleen are sisters. There was a gasp from the doorway. They looked and saw Nahl'een there, holding onto Shaevre and shaking visibly. Ny'Zeille wanted to kick herself, but it was plainly too late for that. "Nahl'een, come here," she said softly. But Nahl'een didn't seem to hear her. She only stared at Selena, who now stared back. She took several steps forward and stood before Selena, still shaking. If there was one thing which Selena had always believed to be a successful rogue's greatest talent, it was her ability to see many details in the blink of an eye. It had brought her priceless and much needed information so many times and indeed, it had saved her life so often. Now, it brought her both chills and evidence as - even in her shock and rising, tumbling emotion -- her eye caught sight of the small and worn little doll which Nahl'een clutched in her fingers so tightly. It was one of the ones which her mother had made for her. It had been her favorite for a time, until she'd been given a better one a little later. After that, this doll had been a little forgotten, used more in the role of one of the guests when Selena had played at having her favorite doll share tea with her doll friends. She reached out in the doll's direction, and Nahl'een held it up a little, but it was clear that she wouldn't let go of it. Selena didn't want to take it, she only wanted to look. "Mother gave you this, didn't she?" The little demon-girl nodded slowly, "You, ... you not, ... kill, ... Mother?" Selena shook her head slowly, never moving her eyes from those of the little girl, "No, she was already dying. She was so sick," Selena croaked as her tears began. "I tried to make her better, but, ... I couldn't." She sobbed, "I couldn't!" She began to cry. Nahl'een looked at her and then at Ny'Zeille, "What is, ... sisters?" "Two or more girls, same mother or the same father, often both," the demon said, almost in a whisper, "You've seen girls who are sisters at the orphanage. You are Selena's sister, Nahl'een. She is your sister." "Sisters are friends?" The question brought tears to the demon's eyes, but she nodded, "Almost always more." Nahl'een stared at Selena, who sat with her head in her hands, sobbing. She walked closer until she stood right in front of Selena. After a long moment, she crouched to slowly put her arms - still clutching her little doll - around Selena's neck and began to cry with her. "I didn't know," Selena's voice came out from between the pair. "Nahl'een, ... Nahl'een, I didn't know. I'm so sorry, ... oh, I didn't know." Nahl'een pulled her head back and they looked at one another, Nahl'een's little face awash with her own tears. She nodded, and they were crying together, hanging onto each other. Selena never found a plausible reason for it afterward, but at the time, it seemed the reasonable thing to do. She suddenly found that, rather than feel strange over what she'd learned, it now felt so good to hold her head next to Nahl'een's as they wept a little. She'd been in a little awe of the girl for a time, her features being somewhat different from when she'd seen her as a little human girl, with much the same color hair and eyes as she had. Still, there wasn't anything ugly about this lost little sister that she'd just found herself to be related to. She turned her head slightly and kissed her cheek. "If I did anything when you were there to frighten you, " she whispered, "if I've done anything to frighten you since then, Nahl'een, then please try to forgive me. I never knew. But I'm happy to know you now." She drew her head back, wanting to lighten this a little as she struggled within herself and sniffled, "Is this your favorite dolly?" Nahl'een pulled herself back a little while still keeping one arm around Selena's neck. She looked at her and wiped her eyes with the forearm of the hand which held the doll, "Ah-hah, always have this one." She held it up a little, and Selena smiled, "I see that she's gotten a little hurt, now and then." "Dahl fix her, sometimes," Nahl'een nodded. The mending work looked a little rough, but it was holding up, and Selena smiled, "Well, it's good that he helps you to take care of her, isn't it?" she asked as she sniffled a little. Nahl'een nodded and smiled, but her yawns weren't long in coming to her a few minutes afterward. Selena and Nahl'een both felt a lot better and they could talk and smile and it amazed Selena at how the little girl liked to stand close to her now. "You should go back to bed," her grandmother said. "You be here when I wake up?" Nahl'een asked Selena, who nodded. Nahl'een hugged Selena tightly and told her goodnight before she did the same to Ny'Zeille and walked off with Shaevre. Selena watched long after they'd turned the corner out of sight. "You knew all of this when you came to meet me at the inn?" The rogue asked without turning her head. "I was almost certain," Ny'Zeille nodded, "I wasn't completely sure, but I felt sure enough. Your body masks what you are well, or I'd have known in an instant. as would Dahlgren. If he'd known, I think he'd have found your last meeting at you house to be especially humorous, with you acting the way that you did. But I didn't bring you here for Nahl'een, as wonderful as that was to see and watch," she said, "I brought you here for you. I will explain in the morning. I imagine that you have quite a lot on your mind now." "Yes," the rogue said with a sigh. "It feels very strange to find out that I'm not who I thought I was my whole life." Ny'Zeille shook her head, "You are just who you have always been, my friend. There are those who do not hold thieves and rogues in very high regard, but I am not one of them, and neither is my son. He spoke highly of your abilities, by the way. There are only two things here for you to work through; your relationship with Nahl'een, and what you are -- not who you are. That has not changed." She leaned back and stretched a little to reach for Arrax' face. He turned his head to allow it so that she could scratch the far side below the ear. The motion showed Selena for the hundredth time just how beautiful her friend was. She had no feelings in terms of desiring another woman that she was aware of, but beauty was beauty and Selena found herself admiring Ny'Zeille nonetheless. That was why her next moment came to her a shock all the more as she heard a deep male voice. "The life of a demon can be full of enough confusion," the voice said, "to have lived as long as you have not knowing things about yourself is to be seen as a deep shame." Hearing the voice was enough to startle the rogue. To see who it was who now spoke, .... "I thought hellhounds couldn't speak," Selena said in awe. "Many of my kind cannot speak with humans," Arrax said, "I can. I know many ways to speak. I come from a clan long known for many things. The ability to speak and learn ways to communicate is one of the lesser things for which we are known." "Arrax and I are old friends, "Ny'Zaille smiled, "I have, ... certain functions which I sometimes must attend to on behalf of the ones who rule the plane where we come from. Sometimes I must act as a sort of ambassador as well. The Xer or Hellhounds are a different race of demons and come from a different plane altogether. Our two kinds have long been friends and allies in many things. Arrax here serves much the same function for his people, and he in in command of the Xer contingents on many Mer outposts, such as this one." "Perhaps it would be better if you would try to stop thinking of my kind as dogs," Arrax said, "While I suppose that it is an easy assumption for you to make, living as you have, we are anything but. We have, most of us, two forms as our friends the demons have. The other is much more like you, though you wouldn't see it that way and think of us as monsters of some sort. We understand this as well, of course," he nodded with what Selena too to be the equivalent of a smile, "and so those few of us here choose to show this very rarely." "They mate for life, "Ny'Zeille said, "and after a personal tragedy no less heartbreaking as the one which happened to me and Dahlgren's father, he was chosen for his role. I knew him, of course, and we found our paths crossing all of the time. Our rulers saw the value of the two of us working together all of the time, rather than only most of the time anyway, and so we have been together ever since. If you can get the dog analogy out of your head, I can tell you that some years ago, we found ourselves alone together on a deserted world for a time, trying to determine if it might be suitable as a colony for either or both of our races. One thing led to another and we found ways in which we might please each other. It took some doing, given our natures, but he acts as my loyal companion and very attentive lover, and I am often his shameless bitch when I am in the mood. So that you might understand, I think that you see me behaving in a rather regal sort of way quite often, no?" "Yes," Selena nodded, "That's how I always see you. I admire the way that you're so confident and no matter where you are, you act as though you own the place." "Ah," the demon smiled, "Thank you for the compliment, my friend. It is how I am by nature since I was given the role that I have. But since we are here and there are no others, I wish to point out the mannerisms to my posture here. When we are alone, and there is no need to pretend, I often drape myself over Arrax a little carelessly, just as Nahl'een does with her friend Shaevre, though in her case, it is only two young friends who are close playmates, and nothing more. Since Nahl'een came to live here, she and Shaevre have become inseparable a lot of the time, and I think that it is wonderful. There is no better friend for either a demon or a Xer child than what they have, though of necessity Shaevre is older, since she is really Nahl'een's bodyguard. It may pass, though my hope is that they always remain close friends. I do this for another reason entirely. I do this to always show Arrax that I am his female. It's the closest that we can come to what is normal for his kind and I wish to never allow him to forget what he means to me. I'm afraid that I'd have become just a mean-spirited old thing without him. It is nothing new for our kinds, though young ones are not possible for such a pair as we are. As far as our mating goes, my son knows of this, and when we are here, we are discreet about it because of my granddaughter, so we usually use the garden of sighs for this whenever it happens. As with anything such as what we share between us, most others do not have the desire in them for the other kinds. For example, of the other seven hellhounds here, three of them are males, and they see nothing at all of interest in the bodies of the females here who are not of their kind, so you need give no thought to one of the other males leering at you, for example. A sheep would hold their interest more, and then only as a meal." Selena was fascinated. "What does the other shape look like? I'm not asking you to show me, Arrax, unless you wish to, but now I'm very curious." "Thousands of years ago, the Xer and the Merren were already here, thinking to colonize. This was abandoned. Something which I have always found a little fascinating about humans is the ease with which their blood allows itself to be blended. On this world," he said, stretching his neck so that his face could rub against the demon's cheek once affectionately before finishing his thought, "it has happened that there has been a crossing of our blood with that of humans. It manifests itself very rarely, which is perhaps not a bad thing, and indeed, the individuals affected have never learned how it was that this condition -- which may be passed from one individual to another by a bite - truly began. There is another, ... condition somewhat like this in some rare humans, but it was caused by a different race of beings altogether who feed on the blood of humans. There was once an attempt made by us to colonize this world long ago. There were far fewer of your kind then, and we wouldn't have begun here if we knew that your kind was here. But it happened anyway, and someone was bitten and lived. From there, it spread a little, but never very far. We abandoned the attempt to colonize and those of us in this house are all that are here of what are known as hellhounds. Among ourselves, we are Xerrian, since Xer is both our home and the word for what we are, as close as both human and demon tongues can say it. The bitten ones, well, your kind calls them werewolves. We call them weak abominations." The rogue's jaw fell open, "Weak? I've seen one now and then. I've had to rob places where one or two were employed. I sure didn't think they were weak. I almost died a couple of times." "No doubt they are stronger than humans," Arrax said with no trace of humor, "but they are not much like us." "The other ones are called vampires, right?" Selena asked, "I've run into a few of them too." "Correct, and like the bitten ones who carry traces of Xer tendencies, passed on from one to another by a bite, those ones are also weak when compared to the ones who caused it and do not appear all that much alike to their forebears, who were vaguely like the Merren. We usually exterminate both sorts where we come into contact with them, "he said, "the ones caused by our ancestral foes which you call vampires and the ones that we ourselves unwittingly caused. They have no place here and seldom reason before they act." He smiled, "As far as what I look like, perhaps you should speak to Ny'Zeille when you are feeling a little adventurous one day." Ny'Zeille leaned forward and Arrax rose to his feet. "Come, my friend, "Ny'Zeille smiled, "Arrax and I are off to bed. We will walk you to your room." Selena stood up and Ny'Zeille took her hand as she walked with her other hand on the shoulders of the huge animal. "It can be a little perilous to walk the halls at night," she said, "I do not think that you would be in any danger, strictly speaking, and Arrax has told the other Xer about you. There are other things which walk these halls then, and you may wish not to see them, though mostly they only clean the place. You should remain in your room until daylight. You are free to roam wherever you wish then." She stopped as they came to the door of Selena's room and turned, "I am really rather excited, Selena. I think that you have other things to learn about yourself, and we will continue in the morning. I have no doubt that you will be pleased." She leaned over and kissed the rogue's cheek, and it was becoming clear to Selena that this sort of affection was something done out of little more than well-meant friendship, so she returned the gesture. "As far as feeling adventurous as my friend here means it, we may speak of it at another time since it is late and he has his want of me rising in him. I am very fortunate to have his love, though what we share is not what we wanted. The usual bargaining and transactions are not required between two old friends like we are. But to all others, Selena, remember one thing and never forget it. You may be curious about them, and that is all fine as far as it goes, but with the Xer, there is always a price -- always. He may show you what you wish to know, but you should be careful, or you may find yourself to be another of his happy bitches and second to me." Selena tried to hold the shock from her face as she smiled and kissed her friend good night again. She stood at the doorway to her room and watched as they walked slowly out of sight. Selena sat on her bed for a long time, thinking about what had been revealed to her, and most especially the stunning knowledge that she had a little sister. She wondered what they could make of this relationship and she had no answer. She only knew that she liked Nahl'een very much and she hoped that they could become like sisters between them. Once undressed and into the bed, Selena wondered about a few things as her hands found the familiar features of her own body. She thought about Dahlgren with a little sadness for herself, since she doubted that she'd ever be given the chance to try to fix what she'd done and said in her ignorance. She just didn't know. She was aware of that, and also felt a little hope that he might think of it as well. It was a warm thought. Then she thought about the Xerrian, and wondered what sort of intimate combinations were possible. Not many likely, given that they weighed so much. A careless move on his part, and she'd likely be crushed. Still, as her fingers found the core of her and she slipped two of them inside herself, she had to work at pushing the thoughts away and concentrating on the ranger. A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 11 ***Selena has a sister. She might look a little different, but hey, they have a lot in common. Well, uh, ... they both like candy, Yeah, that's it... Have I made you wonder about Shaevre? Not quite the same as she was in the prologue, is she? You'll get a look at her again in this chapter. 0_o ------------- Book of the Merren Part 6 "What more is there to do?" Selena asked after they'd had breakfast. They were in the stone garden, the three of them walking around the perimeter, weaving in and out of the groups of large and small stones there. Nahl'een was like a completely different girl today, Selena noted as they walked holding hands through the stones. She seemed to want to stay close to Selena, as though she was a little afraid that the rogue would disappear if she didn't remain in some sort of contact with her. Selena found that she liked the new Nahl'een quite a lot. "Not very much, some, and quite a lot," the demon smiled, "As far as your recollections, not very much more. As far as finding out what you might possess of ability and power, there is a lot to be done, and there will be -- if you would permit it -- only a little physical examination. That was something which my son would have left to me in any event. I need to look for features which might let us see what you received when you were made." "I'm not going to like this, am I?" Selena asked. The demon laughed softly, "Just keep thinking of your ten golds, Selena. There will be nothing done to you. I only need to look. In fact, I'd likely already have been able to tell what I wanted to know if you weren't wearing all of that, and had decided to be a little more comfortable. The temperature here cannot be changed. This home was built for demons, so I am always quite comfortable, since I live like what I am. My son and Nahl'een are always dressed as you are, though they wear lighter clothing. That is because Nahl'een needs to learn to live in both ways, and here, she will likely spend most of her time looking and living as a human girl. But Dahlgren is not here now, so we choose comfort, don't we, little one?" Nahl'een nodded, looking up at her sister, "I like this best," she said, moving her wings a little, "not have to keep my wings so tight." "We're all the same here, Selena, other than for a few features like our wings and tails," Ny'Zeille smiled. "You may hang on to your bashfulness over your body if you wish, but I cannot make it cooler in here for you. Ah, here we are." They stopped in front of a large carving. It was a large stone sphere, perfectly round in all respects, and though it seemed to be sitting on the floor, it was in fact sitting on a smaller stone which acted as a base for it, having an indentation so that the sphere remained in place. "Come here, Nahl'een," the demon said, "and let's begin." The girl released Selena's hand and walked to the stone. She stood where her grandmother told her to while the demon took a position about the same distance from the stone, but about ninety degrees farther around it. Selena stared a little as they both sank down to their knees. "Go ahead, little one," Ny'Zeille said quietly, "try this again, whenever you are ready." Nothing seemed to be happening as Selena watched. She only knew that she ought not to disturb the pair, but she wondered what this was about as she stood watching. After another minute, she heard a soft grating sound, but that was all. "Slowly," the demon said, "and only say it if you think that you cannot hold it, or you begin to have trouble." There was no reply from Nahl'een, but gradually, Selena could see that there was a line of daylight under the stone. It was no more than a hairsbreadth at first, but it grew gradually, and in another few moments, the stone sphere hung suspended in the air before them, about three feet above the small circular stone which had served as its base. Selena was astounded. "Axis," the demon said, "choose one, Nahl'een." The stone shifted very slightly. "Another, if you can, little one." The round stone began to shift in space slowly, until it rotated and slowed to a stop. "Hard to stop," the girl said through her teeth. "Yes," the demon said, "hard to start, and hard to stop. Will you try for a third today?" There was no reply for a moment, and then Nahl'een said, "Not today. Too much, Gramma." "That's fine," Ny'Zeille said, "Do you want me to set it down, or can you do it? Remember, not quickly." "I can do it," the girl said, and the stone sank very slowly downward until it sat just above the base. "Not right," Nahl'een said with effort. "I can set it down for you," the demon said, and the sphere shifted sideways a little and sat back down silently, though Selena felt the weight of it settling as a slight bump through her feet when it stopped. The pair stood up again, and Ny'Zeile stood hugging and praising her granddaughter. "What was that?" Selena asked in amazement. "What you have just seen," her friend grinned back at her, "is the reason why you are here. There are very, very few of us who can lift more than our own weight like this. There have only ever been less than a handful who could do it at this young age. Nahl'een is the only one known who is at present, a child." "You asked me to come so that you could show me this?" "No, don't be silly," The demon said, "You are here because I thought that you are more than likely Nahl'een's sister. That means that you more than likely have some ability as well, though you probably are not aware of it. That is what we are here today to find out." The rogue was about to scoff when she suddenly found that she couldn't move again. The demon grinned and looked at the ground. Fixing her gaze on one more-or-less round little pebble, she caused it to lift into the air, where she looked from it to Selena and back across the ten feet or so which separated them. "You should try to think," she said, "In all of your travels and adventuring, was there ever a time when you needed something to miss you while you were not in a position to dodge it? A time when someone or something threw something at you, and you could not sidestep or duck? A time such as this?" The pebble moved through a gentle arc, just as Selena was released. There was no time to move or to even turn her head as she watched the pebble come at her forehead. She was sure that it would leave a lump, but then it was gone, skittering across the polished stone floor away from her. "Why did you do that?" the rogue scowled a little at the demon. "You're mistaken," she replied with a wide smile, "Why did you do that?" She laughed and pointed to the pebble as it sat on the floor of the exercise area almost twenty yards away. "I didn't do anything!" Selena said. "There are only three of us here," Ny'zeille said, "Did you do anything, Nahl'een?" The girl shook her head, giggling. "Well, I didn't do anything but toss it gently at your head," the demon laughed, "So that leaves only you, my friend, and I am so happy to be right about you again." "Come on, you're telling me that I sent that stone over there?" "Who then?" Ny'Zeille laughed, "Shaevre? She is not even here. She is outside at the moment, fawning a little playfully at Arrax' nephew, Xhan, hoping for a little affection from him -- which she will not get, since she lacks the required social standing and he acts like a petulant thirteen year-old human to her. You did that, not anyone else." The pebble slid along the floor for a few feet before it rose into the air again to fly to a spot about a foot above Selena's head. She didn't notice it floating there, but Nahl'een grinned and began to giggle. "You didn't answer me," Ny'Zeille said, "Was there ever such a time?" "Well, no," the rogue replied, "at least, I can't think of any." "You need to think harder," her friend said with a smirk, "Surely all of the close calls that you have lived through in your time have not been the result of blind luck and happenstance. Think, Selena." She released the pebble. "Ow!" The pebble was back on the ground. "Fine," Selena scowled as she rubbed her head, "There were a few times when something missed me that I was sure would nail me. You're telling me that I caused things to swerve or something and not hit me?" "Yes," the demon grinned, "You weren't aware of the ability, but when you needed it and had nothing else, you managed it. You don't even know how you did it, you just did it. You don't believe a word of what I am telling you, but that's fine, my friend. I've already shown you reasons why you ought to believe me when I tell you of something which is outside of the realm of your experience, have I not?" "Yes, but -- " "And I've shown you that it is possible. You saw with your own eyes how a little girl like Nahl'een can lift an object many times her own weight with her mind, correct?" "Yes, but -- " "I have even forced you to demonstrate that you possess this ability within yourself, haven't I? You threw that pebble away with far more force than I used to make it come at you. I only tossed it as lightly as I could so that it would hit your forehead. You sent it flying as fast as a comet, not me!" "Yes, but -- " The demon stopped, "But what?" Selena looked a little deflated, "But I can't do something like that when I WANT to do it. I see that I can do it if I am FORCED to do it. I saw that, and believe me, I am amazed. But you and Nahl'een can do it because you WANT to, not because your life depends on it. If I could do that, ...." "You can do that," Ny'Zeille said. "If you can do one, then you can do the other, since they are the same thing. Your new sister here is a few days away from being six years old, Selena. Do you think that she flexed her mighty mind to lift the stone? She's only a child. She defined her will to do it, nothing more, and then she did it. You can do the same; you only have to believe that you can. But first, you must learn a simple thing which Nahl'een knows as a truth. If I set you a tiny, simple task involving no ability other than what the dimmest stablehand might have, I am sure that you would fail in it, for no other reason than how you have learned to define a problem in such a way as to stack the chances of your failure against you. You cannot solve a problem unless you define it first. Anything else is blind luck. You have learned human ways of definition, and they are mostly incorrect. If you were really human, I wouldn't even bother with this. It's not worth my time, unless I had another reason. In you, I have a reason and more -- though you will have trouble until you learn to avoid this pitfall. Master this tiny thing, and you will be ready to learn much more. Fail at this utterly, and there is no point for me to try. Are you ready?" "You make it sound as though I must move a mountain, "the rogue said. "Not at all," her friend said, "That is for next week. Today," she said, bending down for a moment, "We will work on what you can manage. Come with me." Selena followed the demon as she walked a little farther through the stone garden. She found that Nahl'een had taken her hand again, and she felt a little better and a lot less stupid. The warmth of the building was causing little prickles in her scalp from just the barest beginnings of the onset of sweat and they bothered her. It was just at that temperature. She thought that she'd feel a little better if she had been sweating. At least her body would have made up its mind what it wanted to do. As it was, it seemed to be just on the edge and it bothered her a little. "Do you know what she's going to make me do?" she asked her small companion in a whisper. "No," Nahl'een smiled, "Only it is not Nahl'een today. I am happy." Selena wanted to grumble as they were led to a stone bench. "Sit astride that." Ny'Zeille said. A moment later, she held up the pebble between her thumb and her forefinger. "Here is our old friend again," she smiled as she set it down carefully on the polished surface, "Take a good look at it. Hold it in your hand for a moment if you think that you need to get re-acquainted, and look it over if you must. When you are done, place it back on the bench and let me know when you are ready to be defeated by a simple pebble which has no mind or will." "I don't need to look at it," the rogue said, "I remember it from before and I didn't like it then." "Be that as it may," the horned one said, "Try to lift it. I don't care what means you employ; your head, your mind, your fingers or your tongue. Try to pick it up." Selena looked at Ny'Zeille as though she'd just turned green. "What do you mean?" "I meant try to pick it up by any means at your disposal." Selena wondered if it had been placed under a spell of some sort. She bent down, leaning on her elbows to examine the pebble suspiciously. Sitting back up, she looked at the pebble and nudged it with her finger as though she were afraid that it might turn into a dragon or something. Nothing happened. She picked it up. "The pebble wins the first round," Ny'Zeille smiled, "and you cannot follow instructions. Put it back down and try to pick it up." It happened three more times, and Selena was growing frustrated. "But, I AM picking it up," she protested. "And the pebble keeps defeating you, since you have not successfully defined the problem. You are thinking like a human." "I AM A HUMAN!" she yelled in frustration. She found herself looking at the others, who regarded her with a great deal of surprise on their faces for a moment. Nahl'een said nothing, but she stood there with her mouth open a little, and her eyes a bit wide. Selena's little tantrum did nothing to dampen the demon's infuriatingly cheery mood. She stood looking delighted. "Still wrong," she sang musically, and the storm clouds gathered over the rogue's head. The demon grinned, "You're even wrong about that feeling of anger, but don't hold your breath now, my friend. Your head may explode." Selena glowered at the little stone. It began to vibrate for a second and then it was still. She didn't see it. She was in no mood for subtlety now. "GO ON!" the demon yelled, "Try to pick it up like a good little human would! You will still fail!" Selena had been sitting so as to straddle the bench. Now she sat with her fists on her knees and her jaw clenched tightly. Her eyes closed and three seconds later -- just as she thought to sweep the stupid pebble off the bench with her hand and stomp away... The pebble shattered with a small bang. Selena started and opened her eyes. All that there was left was a little stone dust and a tiny cloud of it in the air above the place where the pebble had been. She watched the dust drift away. "What did you do?" she asked Ny'Zeille. "Why do you keep blaming me for what you do?" she retorted, "You are still wrong, but at least I can say one thing to you. You have just proven to me that - no matter what you might believe - you are most certainly not a human. There is no human alive who could do what you have just managed to do in your anger. The greatest human mage might change the pebble to something else -- or make it appear to have been changed, but he or she could never destroy it. Any feats of fire and brimstone they perform is only making use of already explosive tendencies in carefully selected materials. You have just caused the pebble to be destroyed utterly. No human can do this -- not one." She smiled warmly at her friend, "Welcome to demonkind, Selena." She stared at both of them. "What, ... What just happened here?" "You broke the stone," her sister said in awe, "I can't break stone." "I set you an impossible task," Ny'Zeille said, "Your interpretation was as I thought that it would be. Humans cannot distinguish the difference between doing something and trying to do something. They believe that it is the same thing, and it is not. My words were chosen to force a human into failure, since what I asked cannot be done. No one can try to do anything and succeed. At best, they DO it, and call that success. For what I asked, all that there is -- all there can be, is failure. Any action is to fail. I could not attempt to pick up the pebble either -- not without actually picking it up, which was NOT what was asked for. In demon terms, if you will -- on this plane and on any others, one cannot try and succeed. One can only try and fail. If you want to pick up a stone, and it is within your ability, then you pick it up. Trying is not doing. I could have asked you to try to pick up the stone that Nahl'een lifted with her mind and it would have been the same, but you would say that it was impossible because you are not strong enough. I gave you a small stone. In demon terms, the absurdity is easy to see, but to one raised in a human world, it causes trouble that one is not even aware of. Humans doom themselves with their own words and thoughts at every turn. On a warm summer day where you might have to be somewhere at a certain time to get past a guard or two for a, ... a package of jewels, for example. You might have the thought that you want to go to the nice beach that you know where no one goes for a pleasant swim in the sunshine. The thought is a nice one and so you feel good to have the thought. Yet you must be somewhere else, and so you dash your own lovely thought. If it remains in your mind, and if the beach is close enough, you might tell yourself that if you hurry, ..." "You never rush a job, any faster than your plan," Selena said, nodding, "You'll get it wrong then or make a mistake. I understand, Ny'Zeille." "Then what was your error?" The rogue sighed, "Besides getting angry? That you can't pick up a pebble while you try to pick it up. You either pick it up or not, but trying is not picking it up." "Correct at last!" the demon said, "Too bad it came to you too late for the pebble. The rest,... well that my friend, is your own ability for you to unlock in a little time. But it proves that you are not the human that you thought yourself to be." "Would you help me learn how to control it a little?" Selena asked. "Would you stay and teach Nahl'een the dances which are taught to rogues so that they know how to dodge?" the demon asked, "What you want takes time. What I ask takes time as well. Do we have a bargain? If you agree, I will tell you why we stared at you when you shouted at me." Selena began to chuckle, "I'm beginning to think that you are not evil -- I've learned that much. But you are very sneaky. I am coming to appreciate it about you. Alright, if nobody has a problem with it, and I still get my ten golds, then we have a bargain. Now what were you two staring at me like that for? I saw that, and I was afraid that I'd done something wrong -- other than yelling at two people who like me." "Oh no," Ny'Zeille laughed, "You did something right. Look at my eyes and I'll show you what we saw." Selena's jaw fell open a moment later. "I did that?" She looked at Nahl'een, "Really? You saw that too?" Nahl'een plastered herself against Selena and nodded, hugging her tightly, "Ah-hah," she said happily, "You are like me." "Come, Nahl'een, "the demon smiled, "we have no jewels to steal today. All that there is left for us to do about it is to go to the beach. You come too, Selena. You can sit on the sand and tell us more of your adventures. You have two friends who would like nothing more than to hear of them." ----------------------------- Arrax sat up to his long ears in administrative details. He was baffled at the number of small and inconsequential things which awaited him at every outpost that he came to, cursing the idiot who set the policy so that someone like him had to be in charge of dealing with what amounted to little more than minutia because no one wanted to take responsibility for it. He'd been at this all morning so far, and wanted a break from it more than anything. He looked up, noticing the presence of someone standing in the doorway. A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 11 "There is something that you have on your mind that is not really worth my bothering about, Shaevre?" he asked, "Everything else that I do here falls into the category." "It is inconsequential," she said, "and not worth your time at all," she nodded without humor, "but there is no way to do this otherwise." She stood up properly changing her shape to the more usual bipedal one to make her request, and his eyebrows rose. "With much respect," she said, "I wish to be allowed to step down from my duty and return to our homeworld. If it is possible, then I will wait until a suitable replacement can be found and sent to relieve me." He looked at her for a second longer, "I should tell you," he said, "that I will not even consider setting things into motion until I hear your reasons for wanting to leave a posting such as this and returning home to nothing, since you would be tossed out of the service for this." Sheavre squirmed a little under his piercing gaze, but she began anyway. "I enjoy the posting, such as it is, and I love Nahl'een. But it is always the same -- even here. I am always reminded of my low caste by the others. I can make no friends, so I am always alone when I am not on duty. Worse, there are no males here for me, and I am getting to an age where females must choose. I believe that I can do better back home where, if nothing else, I can find a male, breed, and watch them all starve, before I die myself either from being beaten or starving to death myself. At least it would be an end to an unhappy life. Something must be done anyway," Shaevre shrugged, "all too soon, if I remain here, my heat will overtake me, for none of us can repress it forever. I already feel the beginnings of it. When that happens, if I do not go mad and have to be killed, I will test the patience of everyone with my insubordination and add my final shame to my death." Arrax looked down and drew a breath for a moment. He looked up again and felt for the female. "So much is wrong with things," he said shaking his head, "Our entire society is crafted to reward those who have no value to it, other than their high birth while everyone else suffers. I come from such a family, Shaevre, but I am not blind to it." "Your family is an old one, having many generations of mighty warriors," the female said, "You are known for your deeds yourself, Arrax. This makes it easy for me to defer to you and your family and I do so gladly. It would be my honor to serve under one such as you. But the rest, ..." He smirked a little to her as he waved a finger, "Careful, ... though we are within the walls of a demon house, this room is considered to be Xerian territory, as any embassy is. The room does have ears, and I would need to make a report of what I know that you are about to say if I heard it. But I understand. The reason that I am in this job is so that I can be away from our world and its troubles as much as possible. One day, Shaevre, the low-born will rise up and do what must be done. I have no wish to be there then. The only high-born families who would be spared would be ones like mine -- and the worthless bread-dippers would look to us to defend them at the same time. They will be in for a rude shock one day, for we would side with the masses -- in my humble opinion," he smiled looking around them as if the walls really did have ears. "I assume that you have tried to catch the eye of my nephew?" She nodded. "Xhan is fine. He is, ... handsome and there is much to please my eye when I look at him. He is intelligent and not really invested in the class system yet, but -- " "Oh he is," Arrax said gently, "but where once he might have looked on everyone else a little smugly for reasons of his high birth, he now has reasons to doubt. He was in love with a low-born bitch, but I dealt with it -- for reasons other than the one of class, though he has not yet come to realize why. She sought to pair herself with his place, and not with the male. It is my hope that he puts a little of his intelligence to some useful thoughts. He is young like you. A little brightness when combined with a sense of injustice often leads to the making of idealists who think purely and are given to action -- again, hopefully tempered by that intelligence." He looked up, "I assume that you tried to catch his eye and were rebuffed?" She shook her head, "Ignored would be a better word. I gave up before he spoke the words to me that he would have nothing to do with one so low as me. Also, I gave up then so that I didn't feel the need to loosen a few of his teeth for saying the words, the way that I am feeling lately." Arrax chuckled, "I daresay it might have done him a little good and woken him up to the possibility of having something wonderful with a fine bitch. But that is his loss, Shaevre." The words caught the young female completely off-guard and her face showed it. "Oh come on," Arrax laughed out loud, "I am his uncle. I look out for him as I must. But that's not to say that I'll wipe his ass and hold a rag up to his face to wipe away his snot after he blows his nose the wrong way. His mother and I are in complete agreement. She handed her son over to me so that I might bring her back a male warrior -- as befits our family. He has passed through the academy and it taught him nothing as it teaches all who go. That leaves service off-world to gain his ability. If he stayed there, he'd have become another fop like all the rest, prancing around like pretend warriors who care more for their offices and titles than their people. Almost all of them would shit themselves at the prospect of actually having to fight and maybe die for the social order which gives them so much for nothing." "I know that," Shaevre said, with a bit of a snicker, "It gives ones like me such warm thoughts, but I was surprised to hear you call a low-born female like me a fine bitch." "Why not?" he grinned a little, "It's the truth, Shaevre. You are beautiful, strong, and smart. Have I missed anything? Oh yes, you have served from as soon as it was permitted; training at sixteen, asking for deployment at seventeen and you came back a blooded veteran with more battle honors than any of your superiors, though they made certain that they gave each other commendations so that they'd get their medals. That's all that they can do, however. Commendations are not battle honors. They might wish to have the battle honors, but they must be earned by being there. The recommendation process causes interviews and no fighters in the ranks will support the fabrications of the same bootlick officers who send them to their deaths while not even stepping into harm's way themselves. Officer's accounts of other officers are largely ignored -- as they should be. They are only taken seriously in the event of a courts-martial -- of another officer." He slammed his pawed hand down on the desk lightly for emphasis. "You were blooded and a hero at nineteen! You did that in less than three years in two campaigns. There are no serving generals now who can say that. That is singular, my young friend. That is outstanding!" He laughed, "That reminds me of someone else." "I didn't know you, Arrax," she said very quietly, "but I heard very early of the exploits of Arrax. You are a living god to the common line fighters in the Expeditionary Brigades where I began. I tried to pattern my career after yours. You were the youngest general in the long history of our forces. I just don't have the high blood of a good birth. There are no wars on now, and so I can go no further. That's why I left to join this service." "Well to my eye, that all makes you a wonderfully fine bitch, worthy of any male worth his own stones," he nodded, "Your only trouble is that our society has forgotten what we are. If it weren't for that, you'd have it all, wouldn't you?" "Now who is talking dangerously in Xerian territory?" she smiled. "From anyone else, I would take the remark as sarcasm and snobbishness, but from you, it is high praise. I know that your eye is not caught by beauty alone -- not that I have much of that, but I know that you hold a fighter's ability in high regard." "As do you," he smiled and she nodded. "That is why," he said with a little grin, "you and I may speak plainly -- as fighters, who have no need to add layers of flowers to our words. We both know what is what. I'll tell you a little secret," he smiled at her as though he were her own kindly uncle, though they both knew that he was far younger than that, "IF I didn't have my own bitch right now in the demon, and IF I'd never met and had the love of my life in the one whom I shared it with, and IF I was young, and not the age that I am, Shaevre, I couldn't imagine myself not wanting someone such as you. My first bitch was just the same as you are, though she was not a fighter, and we discovered a very basic truth in each other's arms. The closer that you live your life to what we are, and not what we purport to be, the happier your lives will be. So," he nodded with a wink, "What you should take from this is that I am in your corner. I have no daughters or nieces who I care to know anyway, but if I had, I'd wish for them to have grown up like you. I have the beginnings of a plan, my girl. I will not reveal all of it to you just yet, because not all of it is clear to me at this point. But enough of it is clear that I will begin on the parts of it which can be started into motion. For now, I will not turn down your request to step down. I will only pretend that you never made the request in the first place because I need some time. I will also raise your rank." "Raise my -- " Arrax nodded, "Unlike most in positions such as mine, I take the time to learn of the backgrounds of the people who serve under me. It leads me to find jewels now and then. Your humble birth seems to have gotten someone in some government office a little confused. I'll start an investigation to find out who it was so that I can help them with their new career choice. It is a fixed and very hard rule that combat veterans be given due consideration and the rank that it merits. You were not and I want to know why. Since I share the background, I will not permit some bread-dipping, egg-sucking biscuit-eater to accord veterans less than the honor that they deserve. Why do you laugh?" "It is nothing," Shaevre grinned, "I am in a little awe that you have managed to string three of the line fighter's all-time favorite insults for the worthless in the officer corps into one sentence. To one who does not know you, it would show that you've been there. The only one that you left out - " "I know," Arrax laughed, "mother fucker. I left that one out. I tend to assume that they're all mother fuckers, those who aren't still virgins. What other bitch would hold her tail aside for them? As of right now, you are above three of the others here, and they'd better remember that your rank deserves respect. You are the only one in the contingent here who has real combat experience from your time during the campaigns of the Battle of the Three Cities, and the Mornian Expeditions. The rest had better take the lesson to heart, or I'll find a way to make you the lead Xer in the contingent, trust me. They still won't be able to get their noses out of their own assholes, but that can't be helped. They were born that way. But they WILL now have to speak to you, and I want to hear about it if just one of the ones beneath you forgets to salute you even one time. I'll make the announcement later today, so prepare to have your pretty ass kissed immediately, if I know them. You do know that the others may try to discredit you, and offer blame for their own failure. Just be prepared for it and request a little one-on-one meeting if you feel that it is necessary. They are larger and heavier, but it's little more than what living a soft life adds. You are the only one who still trains. I'm sure that you'll have no trouble jarring their memories, and I'll ignore their bruises when they come to me to complain. And that's if I don't revoke their combat worthiness certification on the spot and send them back to the disgrace of a ruined career. If there's one thing that I enjoy in all of this cow shit, it's fucking over somebody who needs it. Are we clear?" "Y --Yes sir," Shaevre said, snapping him her own salute, and it was letter-perfect -- just as he knew that it would be. "Now, about the matter of your heart," he smiled, "A change of the landscape around you cannot be a bad thing. It will shake out the echoes and cobwebs of old patterns of thought and give you a fresher view of things. There is much more here that is wrong than the way that a veteran was treated. Shaevre's eyebrows rose as he began. He thought she looked as sweet as she must have when she'd only been a very small whelp as he watched her face while he spoke. A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 12 ***This chapter spans about 20 years or so and just a few thousand miles. It'll make sense later, I kept telling myself that when I wrote it. 0_o ----------------- Book of the Dragon Part 1 Near the top of a mountain in a river gorge in China, there is an opening from the living rock to the sky. It occurs near what might be called the 'end' of the mountain, for it is where the stone ends and beyond that, it was a sheer drop of two hundred-odd feet to the river below. There are other openings, but they are smaller in size and situated in a long row of the rock face at right angles to the large opening. If one could stand at the opening and look in, one would see a smooth stone floor, ancient, but still sound with the light of the day coming in through the smaller openings. No animal could get to this place, and so the whole 'gallery' would have been taken over by birds if it weren't for the actions of one human over the centuries. That human changed now and then as the duties exceeded the abilities of the people keeping the birds out and the 'hall' swept and clean. As one became too old for the task, another would come, mostly from the same small group of families. The birds were relentless however, and always tried to nest there in springtime. They even hung around the rest of the year, for it was a place where they felt safe. They lived below, those families, right inside the mountain, or -- on the lower face in dwellings carved from the rock. It was part of an old arrangement. The people had a safe place to live in an age where making a living as a river fisherman was a challenge, and the providers of the place received care in the form of humans who would do their bidding whenever they asked, which was seldom. That was the cause of the present difficulties. Many things had changed over the last millennium or so. There hadn't been any of the threats which had caused the families to want to live there for hundreds of years, and while their homes offered safety, not everyone wished for the life of a fisherman or a fisherman's wife. They hadn't in a long time. There were many chambers in the rock above the homes of the people there. The knowledge of what was there had passed from the minds of the people generations before, but there was still one middle-aged couple - a man and his wife who knew all of the legends still. They knew what was there, and they used several of the large chambers for their one needs and told none of the others. It was decided one day at a meeting to leave the place where they and their ancestors had lived for so long. Plans were drawn up and many things argued over and finally agreed to. When the vote was taken, every adult in the 'village' inside the mountain agreed but two. "We will stay, "they said, "Someone must look after the tombs of our ancestor once you have all gone. We have no children and few ties to everyone here. There is nowhere for us to go or even to want to go. No one but us cares about the old agreements anymore, but we two still keep to the old ways." When the day of the first large leaving was to take place, several of the larger boats were pressed into service and loaded with the belongings of a few of the families. But as they pulled away and many took their last looks at what they were leaving, there was a sound from the mountain which caused them all to look back, suddenly believing the old legends after all. Thousands of terrified birds exploded from the opening high above and one after another of the older generations in the boats nodded to each other and they all said the same thing. "She is awake." After a hurried conference of shouts passed from one boat to the next, they turned back. If what they'd sought to forget or ignore was a fact, there was no point endangering many lives. They waited while the couple who had elected to stay went to learn what they could. They were surprised to see a pair of doors open which had not been seen to be in that state in many, many lives of men, and a voice beckoned them to stand in the doorway. What they felt as they stood on trembling knees defied description for the severity and awe of it all. "Where are the people going?" she asked, "What of the agreements?" The couple looked at each other for a moment. This dialect of the speech was largely gone now. "Forgotten." The man said, "You have passed into tales and legends." "Nevertheless, "she said, "the agreements are still in place. No one approached me to ask that they be ended." She held up one claw in thought for a moment, seeking and feeling a little of the world around her, now that she was awake. Many things were an uncertainty now. She thought of herself and made a decision. "I will remain awake," she said, "and that means that I must either be brought food or I hunt it myself. Where the people who would leave the accords in the dust behind them would go is over a day's trip on the river, and there are many trips to make. I will allow it," she said, "for there are none who remember or care what was done for them so long ago. But I have conditions and they must be met -- or I hunt what is easiest for me, and that is forgetful and ungrateful humans in boats. I want some cattle kept here for me, so that I may eat. There was a monastery here. When I last closed my eyes, there were fighting monks training against the day that they and I would be needed. What of them?" The woman shifted a little uncomfortably on her feet and looked up after a moment, "The day never came, Wise One. The order fell apart after holding to their vigil for over a thousand years." She opened her reptilian eyes a little wider and took a moment to feel with her mind. "And how is it that you would know this, woman?" "I am the last descendant of the last monk's family," she said, "I will stay with my husband -- if you would allow it. It was our plan anyway. We know no one in the world outside. We still train," she said, "The threat is long past, but in my family, it has been the way of things forever." The beast nodded, "Then you have my gratitude, you and your man. It seems that I have awakened just before the end. I am the last, and yet I feel that there is a storm coming. Not soon for your kind, but to one like me, too soon and I am too old now, a little past my prime." She thought a little more and smiled, "But there is still a way that this may be met, and I do not even know yet if this storm concerns us at all. I will prepare a way, if I can." She looked at the pair for a moment, "I suppose that if there are no monks anymore and you are all that I have here, that things will need to be changed. It was always done so that each one of my kind had a human rider, but though I can see that you are fit, I am looking a little ahead as I must. I am the last, I think. I cannot feel any others. Tell me, when the agreement was forged, there were three families who were to provide the ones who would train to ride. Are they still here?" The man shook his head, "Only a few of one family remain, and they are leaving or wish to. I know what you would ask. None have been prepared as riders for many centuries. There are the parents, and now there are only two children. Sickness took the first. The boy is as any other, but the girl, ... she is one who was born with little in the way of ... I do not know how to say it. She is a little simple." The old one sat up with a great deal of interest, "Simple, you say? Tell me, would you call her simple, or would you say that she is ... always a little preoccupied in her thoughts?" He nodded, "I think that is what it is." "You wish to stay, you said, if I can help with her thoughts, would you raise her and teach her the way? You would still serve in this way and I would call it ended when you pass, ... or I do." The couple nodded, a little hopeful to think that they might have found a way to raise a child after all. "Bring me the girl and her parents, and I will see if this may be mended - before my hunger overtakes me and my anger at the forgetfulness and impertinence of the ones who have enjoyed the protection of my kind for countless centuries takes me beyond caring as well." The parents stood in abject fear, but the object of that fear only smiled at the little girl who stood looking around herself. When her gaze fell on the old one, she laughed a little and began to toddle over. "Please, do not eat her." The mother said, lacking the courage to go and reach for the child herself. "I know what is in your thoughts, woman," the beast said, "I know what you would seek to do and where you would take her to sell. I offer something different. You will stay here with me, or, ... you will leave this girl in the care of the pair standing outside the door. You have grown tired of a child who cannot learn what you would teach her. I know the reason for it, and I will give her a much better life." She looked at the toddler who stood playing with her leathery wing, amazed at the colors there. "Ah, but there is the gold that you hoped to get for her, isn't there?" She moved a little and produced a small bag from somewhere. After a brief look inside, she extended her arm, holding it out. "Take it, and you are free of your burden. Go and raise your son. There is more than enough here for a good life if you are careful," she said. "What will happen to Yuan?" the mother asked. "What do you care?" the old one smiled, "She will have a life, a good one, if I can manage it. Take the gold and she will forget you faster than you seek to forget her. She has a mind, but it is locked. I have the key, knowing more of you than you know yourselves. She is not the first like this born to your mother's family. Every third or fourth generation, one like this one comes, a boy or a girl. You think them idiots, but your families were chosen for this, to provide riders while mine was chosen to provide mounts. Take the gold and leave, oathbreakers, before I change my mind." Not long after the last of the boats slid away down the river, the old one looked down as little Yuan slept in her bed, and she motioned the new parents to join her in the stone hallway. "It is time," she said, "Long ago, I had a male and we danced in the sky for days on end in our joy. I was the youngest and my male did not live through the last battle. I still have eggs, though they are too old now to hatch. There is still life in them, however. What I will do this night is place the essence of the smallest one next to Yuan's heart. She will know nothing of this and feel nothing, but we will all gain, Yuan most of all. Her mind will unlock for she was made for the way that a rider and a mount can join their spirits. What is different is that the joining will be a lasting one. Yuan will not be a rider. I gain a child who is partly like me. You gain a child with an open mind to raise and teach, and Yuan gains everything that we can give to her." "You said that she will not be a rider," the woman said, "I do not understand. Who is to ride you?" "No one," the beast smiled, "And Yuan will need no dragon." ---------------------- Lozenjellis, over twenty years later. Well, it was easier said than done just to find him, Monnie supposed. It had taken her weeks to find somebody who knew much more than their own name, and weeks to learn how to get around. Gradually however, she did find a few people who knew something of a man who had lived ages beyond his normal span of years and one or two of them even had a clue as to why. "He's the undead," was what she'd heard one night in a tavern from an old geezer at a table in a dark corner. "I don't know what that means," Monnie had replied, "but I mean to fix that for him. I'll make him dead." "You don't understand, "the man said, "I can tell you a bit more if you'd like, but it's late and I'd best be going. I'm about out of money." Monnie knew what was being inferred and she called the barman over, "We'll need another two each," she said. "Now, kind sir," she smiled, "I'm hoping that my offering will keep the dust in your throat from bothering you too much for a little while. Can you tell me more?" "Thanks," the wheezing old man smiled. "There's not many these days who care to know much of what an old feller like me carries around in his skull." He leaned forward, as though what he was about to say was explosive in some regard, "He's been here forever in these parts. He don't come around all that much, really. If he did, none of us would be living here, I can tell you. We'd all be gone, either dead from him, or just moved on, looking for a place with a bit more safety. I don't know the name for what he is, but I do know that he don't need to eat much of anything, that's fer sure. Folks say that he drinks people's blood right out of them. He lives on that -- needs it, too. Only he don't bother with us too much around here. " "How can I find him?" Monnie asked. "Now what the hell would ya want to do that for?" her companion asked, "You don't look stupid, most folks with a brain want to get as far from him as they can. Like I said, he don't bother with us much, but if the mood takes him and there's somebody close enough by, well there's enough dead folks around here and he just adds to the count." "I need to find him, is all." Monnie said, "But I don't even know where to start looking, now that I'm here." "I've heard tell that he has a place here somewhere, but I sure don't know where that would be," the man said. "He spends a lot more time out near old Rogers Lake at the old base there, Edwurs, or something. It's a long ways north of here, but that'd likely be a better place to look. Listen, I maybe know somebody who does know. You want me to ask around?" Monnie pulled a silver out of her pocket and handed it over. "Do that for me, if you can," she said, "This is for your trouble." That took almost ten days. At last, Monnie met another older man at the table in the corner one night, and her previous companion left them alone. This man didn't ask Monnie why it was that she wanted to find the man. He appeared not to care about reasons, which suited her just fine, though in retrospect, she later thought that perhaps she should have asked him why. But that evening, he passed her some instructions on where to be in the city two nights from then. Apparently the one she sought was expected. From the stranger that night, she also gleaned a name. Elkington. Purcell Elkington. The bit of history which went along with that was also a little intriguing. Elkington had been born in Liberty, Texas, not far from midway between Beaumont and San Antonio hundreds of years before, in the mid 1940s. He grew up and joined the old United States Air Force -- whatever that had been, Monnie surmised, eventually rising to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel. Somewhere in that rise, Purcell Elkington had ceased to be a regular human being and had become what amounted to another new word for her. A vampire. That was about all that she got, her new informant leaving soon after that. But Monnie found the place and made sure to be there on the right night. That was how she met Elkington in person. The man who took her money to point her toward Elkington also accepted money from old Purcell himself. Before she could say or do much of anything, he stood behind her and had her arms pinned behind her back. It amazed the heck out of Monnie, since she wasn't exactly a weakling of any sort. He said a few words into her ear, and Monnie fell into a stupor. As much as she wanted to kill him, Monnie did nothing when he released her, and even allowed herself to be led deeper into the building where she was tied very securely and left for a time. When she awoke, she was in total darkness. From the way that things felt to her, she surmised that she was naked. After a while, she heard the approach of some individuals and recognized Elkington's voice as he told someone else to light a candle so that she could see. In the dim glow of the light across the room she saw him smile as he looked at her a little curiously. "Now surely this is a mystery," he smiled, "It happens now and then, but usually women don't try to hunt me down much by askin' around after me. I'd tell you that you're stupid as well as ugly, but then you've probably already had time to come to the first notion, and I'd imagine that you've known about the second one all your life." He squatted down and reached out to touch her leg. "Damn," he said, "green skin. You're one ugly thing, aren'tcha?" Standing up again, he smiled, "So what is it that brings you out here from whatever filth pit you crawled out of, Sunshine? You wanted to meet me, I was told, so consider yourself met. What's on your little mind?" Monnie tried to speak clearly, but whatever haze she was working through in her mind left her far from the witty conversationalist that she normally was -- not that she considered herself to be anything like that. She usually called things as they were, pretty much. "You -- you bring demons, ..." He laughed, "Is that all? Hell yes, I bring demons, and you oughtta be glad I do. Y'see, I've found that I can get more and better mileage out of the blood of female demons than out of humans. They're a whole lot more fun in the sack too, once you take enough blood out of them to keep them docile. They last a good long while before I need to get me another one. The only trouble -- and it's no trouble for me -- is that I always drag a few extra along, not that I mean to, but I don't really give a rat's ass, you know? I just ditch those ones. Like I said, it's a good thing for most humans that I've got such discriminating tastes. I wouldn't bother with the likes of you though." He chuckled as he looked between her trussed legs, "I do have some minimum standards. You might be a little fun to fuck over, but I've got no desire to dick a red-haired, green-skinned rhinoceros, or whatever the fuck you are.." Monnie had looked as he spoke, and she realized that she wasn't where she'd first been, so not wanting to hear much more of his noise, she asked. He looked mildly offended. "You're a long way from where you were last night," he said, "Your stage-coach, or whatever that was that you hauled your big ass around in had a few interesting trinkets that oughta fetch a bit of coin. Oh, and don't you bother yourself about them horses none, either." He winked, "Already dead and slaughtered. My pal, who was your guide by the way, took care of that and sold the meat to a market. I've got expenses." While Monnie struggled with the loss of her horses as well as everything else that she'd owned, he stood up and stepped closer to lean down, "Don't waste your breath. I know your next stupid question already. I'm not going to do a thing to you. You've got nothing to waste my time or sweat over. I'll take my leave of you now and leave you to the tender caresses of these two twerps, Mutt and Jeff here." Monnie struggled to refocus and noticed the others in the room for the first time. There were a pair of male demons with him. They didn't look very interested or enthusiastic about much of anything at the moment, though in her stupor, Monnie couldn't tell that it was really a facade. They were doing their very best not to stare. They'd learned long ago not to appear to be too interested in anything around the Colonel because he always took it away from them at some point, whatever it was. "I read her stuff," one of them said. "What's heaven?" he asked. The other one looked very interested in that as well. Elkington laughed. "Heaven. You want to know about Heaven? Well, don't worry your pointy little heads over that concept too much, Pixie and Dixie, Y'all just do your little thing to your new girlfriend here, and you'll maybe learn a little 'bout it before she dies. Just do her. She'd probably thank you for it. I don't imagine that she gets much dick of any sort, the way she looks." A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 12 He drew back his fist and clocked Monnie on the temple. It surprised him a little that all that the blow really earned him was her hot glare, so he put a lot more into it and she went limp. He stood up and turned to go. "Can she teach us about Heaven?" the other demon asked before he reeled backwards from the hard slap from Elkington. "Idiot. Any girl can get you a little close to it. Then again," he sighed, "I guess that you'd take that literally. Let's just skip it. I'll be back in two nights, maybe three at the outside. Have fun." ----------------- Monnie clawed her way back slowly. When enough of the pieces had returned, she opened her eyes and would have jumped. She was looking up into the faces of the pair as they looked at her with concerned expressions. Instead, they jumped back a little. She tried to move and found that she was still tied securely with her arms out at her sides and her legs about as far apart as they could possibly be. So much for dignity. "Well?" she snapped as the first of her angry tears began, "What are you waiting for? Aren't you going to tear pieces off me and eat me? Aren't you going to fuck me, or have you already done that?" "We didn't do anything," one of them said a little defensively. The other one turned and beckoned and the first one handed him a bucket. He set it down nearby and looked at her. He pulled out a rag and squeezed excess water from it and began to dab her head very gently. Monnie winced at the touch. "Sorry," he said, "We, ... thought of it, but we wanted to wait for you to wake up first. We have questions." "Yes," the other one nodded, "We don't want to do this wrong. We thought that if we waited and if we did it right for you, then you might take us to Heaven. Can you really do that?" Monnie shook her head to clear it and instantly regretted the act. Her head pounded something awful and her jaw was making her ear hurt as well. She didn't curse all that often, but if there ever was a time for it, she thought, then this just had to be it. "What the fuck are you talking about?" The one with the cloth sighed, "She doesn't know what we mean," he said over his shoulder, "He was lying to us again -- just like he always does." He worked carefully to try to get some of the cool water onto the abrasion on her chin as well. "Just like he always has and always will," he said sadly. Monnie heard a rather odd sound -- considering that she thought that she was the one here who had a right to make it. The other one was sniffling a little. "We haven't hurt you or done anything to you," the one with the rag said, "Rest a little. I think the Colonel is already gone and he won't be back for two or three days, but I'm not sure of it yet. If he even remembers you then, we'll tell him that we had a lot of fun before you talked us into untying you and you got away after that. He'd believe that story, since he thinks that we're just idiots. That is, if we don't make it out of here ourselves by the time that he comes back. We've been getting ready to leave here for a long time, and thanks to you, he's just handed us the chance. Just relax and we'll free you in a little while," he said, "We're not going to hurt you. I don't think that you should get up right away or you'll just fall down and you'll feel worse after that. Just rest. We'll get you some food and water in a few minutes, and in the morning, we'll take you in whatever direction that you want to go. Just don't ever let him see you again, or he'll beat us for letting you go, once he finds us." "I might have fallen for a pack of lies once," she said, "but -- " "She doesn't believe us," the other one said in a worried tone, "She thinks we're lying." "It doesn't matter," the first one said, "Nothing matters anymore. You should believe us," he said to Monnie, "we're really the only chance you've got. If you want, we'll untie you and you can try to stand up. You'll just fall over and throw up. We've seen this before. We'll leave you alone if that's what you want us to do, but then we'll have to leave you here. We're leaving soon." He sat back and looked at her, "You oughta think a minute. Why would we want to eat you when we've got plenty of food and want to share it with another person that he's screwed up? You're in the desert here. The only time that you can live to travel very far is now, at night. But he's awake right now. He sleeps in the daytime. I don't know if he's still close by, so it's best that you stay until the morning at least. If you travel at night, he'll find you once he knows that we didn't kill you. Why do you think that we'd eat you anyway? You're so, ... beautiful. We don't want to hurt you." Monnie smirked, "Now I know that you're- " "She doesn't believe us!" the other one said. "Stop that!" Monnie said. She thought for a moment and as much as it hurt to do it, she raised her head, "I suppose that you think I'm beautiful too?" When she saw his adoring nod, Monnie dropped her head back and regretted doing that as well. "Shit!" she hissed through her teeth from the pain. "I keep telling you, just rest a while," the one nearest to her said quietly. "I'll untie you and we'll help you to sit up, but don't try to stand yet. We'd help you up, but we already know that you'll fall down." He turned to his brother, "Get another bucket." "What for?" He asked. "Because," the first one said patiently, "She won't believe us no matter what we tell her and when she tries to stand up and beat us to death, she'll throw up at the very least, so go get another bucket, ok?" He turned to Monnie again, "The Colonel thinks he's the smartest person in the world. He thinks everybody else is an idiot. I heard the way that he talked to you, and I didn't believe it. Maybe I was wrong, though. We can tell the way that you think. That's why I keep telling you that we really do just want to help you. We could leave you here and go on with getting ready to leave. But we thought that it would just be really cruel, and you haven't done anything to us." "Where are you going?" she asked, adding, "Look at this from my side. I've had my life ruined by demons and I came here to kill the one who brings them here. I've killed more than a couple of demons, but they've never spoken to me at all. I never gave a thought about how they looked before." She sighed heavily, "And I haven't exactly woken up feeling peachy, you know?" She looked away, "Other than my mother, nobody ever said that I was beautiful, either. Even Artemis never said that to me. All that he ever said was that I was a little pretty." "Look," the demon said, "I'm not going to sit here and hand you my explanation. Ask my brother why he feels the way that he does. He's better at words like that than me. I read just about all of your notes. What you've just said is either a lie, or you're learning a little about us. As far as leaving, the Colonel just leaves us alone almost all of the time. We found a few things and found out a lot more about the things that humans had once, long ago. We taught ourselves what we could from their books. Humans can't fly like we can, and we can't carry much for a long way. But we've wanted to get away from here -- from him, for a long time. We found a way to fly the way that humans did once, and now we have our chance. Let's wait until Billy comes back. I already know what you're gonna try to do, so I'm not gonna untie you until then." "Billy? Your brother's name is Billy?" She was very surprised. "Uh-huh," he said, "I'm Hank." "Where did a couple of demons get human names like those?" she asked. "What's wrong with our names?" He asked her, "Why can't we have those names?" She could see that he felt a little defensive, so she just smiled a little, "There's not a thing wrong. I think those are really good names. I even think they fit you. I didn't mean anything by it, I was just a little surprised." Monnie didn't really understand what he'd said about flying and she could see that there was no point to arguing so she just lay still and it led to several minutes of silence where he daubed her head very carefully. She was surprised to see the look of careful concentration on his face. He sat back and ran his fingers through his rather spiky-looking hair once. "You're lucky, you know," he said after a little while, "He didn't bite you. I guess he doesn't think that your blood would be any good for him." "I got that part about how ugly I am," she said. "You're only ugly to a four hundred year old snotty-nosed asshole," he grinned a little, "You're really lovely. We've seen pictures of females all over this place, but none of them are as nice as you. We're sorry if we misunderstood about Heaven. We don't know any better. We've been here alone for a long time and we can't go back home. Anyway," he said, trying to lighten things a little, "you're still lucky he didn't bite you or try to turn you. He does that sometimes, trying to make another of what he is. It never works out for him and if they even live through it all, they always end up hating him for doing it to them. He's had to kill every one." "Why?" she asked. "Because to his surprise, they don't all love him to death for what he did to them," Hank said. "Almost all of them resent it. He thinks he's so great. It never comes to him that the rest of the world sees him for what he always was. He was born hundreds of years ago, but he hasn't gotten over himself yet. He came from a rich family and thinks that the world ought to kiss his ass, and becoming what he is hasn't exactly changed that. So you see, you are lucky that it hasn't crossed his mind to turn you." "I'm still trying to decide on how lucky that makes me," she said. Her eyes drifted over him. He was about average for a demon male, a little taller maybe, but he looked healthy as far as that went with slightly more musculature than she'd seen on them before. His hair was black and long, the top a bit shorter, for some reason. She looked at his face and it wasn't the usual mess of contorted features that she'd often seen. He looked sane. As far as that went, he didn't look all that nasty. Her eye drifted down and hung on his genitals for a few seconds. He looked healthy there too. She moved her gaze on quickly, settling at last on his clawed feet splayed widely as they were on the floor next to her. She forced her eyes back to his face. "Your hair," she said, "it's different on both of you, from what I've ever seen on demons here. The other one, Billy, ..." "He's my little brother," the demon said, "Where we are here was a big place to test their flying machines a long time ago. From what we can tell, some of them were couples and some weren't. There are places where it looks like only males lived. This building was for females as far as we know. My brother's found things to take care of hair -- brushes and scissors and stuff like that. He cuts my hair for me so it stays out of my eyes better while I'm working on getting us out of here. He just brushes the heck out of his own. That's why it looks so shiny, I think. He keeps it tied back like that mostly." "I've never heard a demon speak like a human before," she said after a few moments. "Yeah well, we're a little different, I guess," he shrugged, "We're just as fucked up as anything else that he takes his hands to. He was trying his method out of grabbing us from where we lived. He used to suck human blood before then. He wanted to grab a child -- someone who couldn't kill him or hurt him too much and we were near his trap, so he sucked us here and we've been here ever since. He can't send us back. We were just little then. He taught us to talk like he does. I almost can't remember how to talk to another demon -- not like I ever get much of a chance to. Since we're not girls, he's left us alone." He looked at her and pointed a little, "You shouldn't make fun of us if we tell you that we like the way that you look. We meant it -- even if you don't want to hear it." "I wasn't making fun of anything," Monnie said, "It's not something that I hear every, ... few years, that's all. I just remember a boy at school a long time ago. I had a bit of a crush on him. It was the kind of thing that a kid feels before she gets to know that she's not what everyone thinks is pretty. He made a big to-do about how lovely I was." She frowned after a second, "It took me a few days to see that he was making fun of me." Hank looked at her and shook his head, "Well we're not like that. If we say something, we mean it -- unless it's to the Colonel. To him, we just say what we think he wants to hear so he'll leave us alone again. I wish we coulda been there then," he said looking away for a moment. "We coulda fixed him for you, Billy and me," he nodded once and grinned a little. "Why would you want to do that?" she asked. "You don't get it yet, do you?" he said, "We like you a lot. We just don't know how to say it right. I guess it just shows that we're pretty fucked up, but we didn't do anything wrong while we waited for you to wake up. We did touch you though. I'm sorry if it was wrong to do, but we've never seen skin like yours and we just had to," he shrugged as he looked down. "We also touched, ... that place there a little. We've only seen pictures." He sighed a little, "Sorry about that too if it was wrong to do. We didn't mean any harm." Monnie tried to think about it clearly, and if she put herself in his place, ... "I think I'm glad that I wasn't awake then," she said, "I wouldn't have known why you did it. I guess it's ok, as long as that's all you did." He didn't look up. He just kept looking at the floor for a moment. He looked up a second later and leaned forward a little. She heard his words as he spoke and she saw his teeth in that mouth of his, wondering why she wasn't really as repulsed by the sight as she'd always been before. She guessed that it had to do with him not looking crazy. "I know you don't believe me, but we think you're so beautiful to look at. We spent a long time just sitting here staring at you." Monnie was a little shocked. "You -- you really mean that?" "Yeah," the demon said, looking self-conscious for a moment. He set the bucket aside and slowly reached out to the unhurt side of her face, careful in case she looked as though she was about to bite him or something. "We did, and you really are. We know that we're ugly to you. It's ok. We understand," he said a little sadly as he sat back. "We um, ... we kissed you. Both of us did. It was nice, but you weren't awake, so we guessed that it was about all that we could do." "What do you mean?" she asked, a little more surprised now. "Well, you didn't have any reason to, especially since you got spelled by him and brought here. You don't have any reason to want to kiss us, and we knew that you never, ... you never would want to, so while you were asleep, we, ... kissed you as lightly as we could." Monnie might have been there against her will and restrained the way that she was, but she was coming to see that she had a couple of the strangest admirers in the pair of them. She wasn't really repulsed by it, but she had to know something. "You really will untie me?" "Yeah," he nodded emphatically, "If he hadn't hit you or spelled you, and if we found you here tied up like this, you'd already be untied. Please, I just want to hold off until we get that bucket. I'm really afraid that you're gonna need it. I just know that if I untie you now, you'll sit up and puke for sure. You're nice to look at, but I don't want to see you tied up like that. I'd hate that if it was me." "Why did you kiss me?" She held her gaze on his eyes, and though he wanted to look away, he took it as a test of some sort and looked right back into hers. "I've never kissed a girl before." He snorted a little angrily, "I've only seen female demons as he brings them back for a half a second and then he moves them somewhere else, so I guess I've never even seen one for longer than a second or so. I wanted to try it and you were there and all. It's probably the only chance I'll ever get." "Maybe not," Monnie smiled a little, "You never know. I never had anyone for my whole life until one night in an awful blizzard. A man came to my farm half-frozen and I took him in. We were together for a long time after that, until he was killed by demons. That's why I want to kill Elkington. He didn't know about it, and he doesn't care anyway, but I want to kill him for it." The demon began to look away. "Don't you look away from me," she said, "You didn't do it and it's not your fault. I didn't mean to tell you that part. I just wanted to say that you can never tell. Look at me," she said. He looked at her again, trying to hold her gaze. "You haven't harmed me in any way?" she asked. "Never would," he said, shaking his head, "unless maybe you were hurting my brother and he didn't deserve it." His answer made her smile a little, though she tried to maintain her serious expression, "And you will untie me, after your brother gets back with that legendary bucket that's taking longer to arrive than the second coming of Jesus?" "I promise to untie you then," he said, "I'll even untie you right now, but you've gotta promise me that you won't try to sit up or stand yet. You've gotta believe me, you will see everything spin when you do. He's spelled us before, and we puked for a whole day after. From what I read in your stuff, you've got some kind of magic to you. Well that won't work for over a day after getting spelled." It was true. Monnie had been trying to use her abilities every now and then since she'd awoken, but nothing happened and her nausea came back whenever she did. Monnie didn't know why, but his remark did make her smile then, and she couldn't hold her expression any longer. The look on his face as he stared at her softer look was worth a lot to her. She shrugged, "Would you want to try a kiss from me instead of just kissing me while I'm out cold?" His mouth fell open, but he recovered after a second, "You won't bite me or hurt me?" "Alright," she said, "let's make a promise out of this. You kiss me as your promise to untie me when the magic fabled bucket arrives with your cute brother, and I'll kiss you as my promise not to jump up and pound the crap out of you both as I wanted to at first. You're not the raving mad things that I've ever seen. In fact, I can tell that you've got your own tale of woe in all of this. I'm starting to like the way that you look at lot better. Maybe we all need those glasses things that some people wear if you think I'm beautiful and I think you and your brother are turning into a handsome pair of males the longer that I lie here. So come on, Cutie. Come here real slow and I'll kiss you at least once." He looked as though he was struggling with his own trust issue, but he leaned forward slowly and his knees touched the floor as he slowly placed his hands on either side of her. Monnie caught one quick glimpse at his already hardening shaft and then it was out of her view as she looked up through his long hair. In spite of everything that had happened to her, she found herself wanting him to lower that mouth a lot quicker for some reason, but she was savoring the slow way that he brought his lips against hers so carefully. They both sighed for a moment, and then she pushed back with her head to get some space, "MMphff." He drew back instantly, "Did I do it wrong?" "No," she smiled up at him in an almost whisper, "not at all. I just want you to kiss me again just a little softer. The only way that I've ever been kissed by a male is when Artemis kissed me, and he was always too hard about it. He never listened to me when I asked for softer kisses. But I think I've got a chance here with you, since you're new at kissing a girl. I might not always want to be kissed softly, but right now, yeah. That's what I want from you. Now try it again." A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 12 He kissed her again, and it lasted a lot longer. Monnie was amazed at how kissing him made her head feel a lot better -- as well as everything else. "You weren't completely honest with me," she said without accusation after they'd pulled apart to smile at each other, "My mouth wasn't the only thing that you kissed, was it?" "Oh shoot," he said, "I forgot. We did um, kiss you there for a minute. I did it first, and my brother did it after I told him that I really liked it, so it's my fault. It was wrong to do that, wasn't it?" "Is that all you did?" She was asking him seriously, and he knew that. She wanted to laugh a little at the way that he looked like one of the boys in the Young Scouts back home, the way that he appeared to be ready to swear on a bible. "Yes, I kissed you for only a minute, and then I licked you there for only a minute afterward. That part was something that I really couldn't help. That's all that we did, both of us. Was it really wrong?" Monnie figured out a few things for herself at that point. First of all, given that she was still alive and relatively well and not particularly worried about her existence in the next few minutes, she found that she wasn't really all that upset over his admission, given what she now knew of these boys. Secondly, she found that she was coming to see that they had a lot of endearing qualities to them. They had their own kind of charm, as awkward as it was for them and she liked that. She realized that it had been a long while since she'd had any sort of thoughts which could arouse her and she knew that it was because of what had happened to her and what had always never happened for her. These two were really sweet in their own way, and they looked so good to her -- even though they were demons. They liked her, it was bloody obvious, and it wasn't as though there had been a hell of a lot of this sort of admiration in her life to this point. She knew what could likely happen here, and on balance, ... Well, she was just a little thrilled with the idea. "You might as well get to know this now about girls," she said with a little smile in spite of herself, "This will sound really strange, but try to understand this part. I know that you've never even been close to a girl before. What you did was wrong then, because you didn't give me the chance to say yes or no. I would have said no, even though I'm all tied up here and you could have done it anyway. I would have hated you for it then. It depends on a lot of things like the girl and how she feels about the boy most of all, together with the time and the place. So yes, what you did was really wrong then. But it's not so wrong now -- and I'm not telling you that I want you to do that now. I'm just saying that I like you a lot better now." The other one returned then, balancing a lot of things. He almost dropped everything including the bucket as he stared at them, but he managed to set the new bucket down nearby before he moved to kneel on the other side of her. "What are you doing?" "She's teaching me to kiss her the way that she likes," his brother said. Monnie moved her head up to kiss him on the cheek, "Can I teach him too?" she smiled and chuckled a little, "It sure beats just lying here." "Sure," he said, as he moved out of the way. Monnie looked up at the younger of them, admiring the way that his long light brown hair hung over his shoulder in a ponytail, "Hi Billy," she smiled, "I wasn't going to leave you out if you don't mind sharing me." She turned her head, "Is that ok?" He nodded, "We've always shared everything." Monnie looked at the older one, "Well, the bucket is here, Hank. So could you please start untying me while I'm busy teaching? That was our deal, and I won't stand up -- even though my head feels a lot better and I'm not dizzy anymore." Monnie could see that this one was a lot more shy, so she coaxed him a little into coming closer to her so that she could kiss him. His kisses were perfect from the very first one. They took turns kissing her for what seemed like a long time. With her hands finally free, Monnie found herself loving to hold them as she ran her fingers through their long hair. They felt so nice to her to touch. Several times, she felt a tiny touch of warmth on her skin which cooled a little rapidly. It happened on both sides of her belly near her hip bones. She was at a loss over it, until she moved her hand to one of the spots once. As soon as her fingertip touched it, she knew. These two males were kneeling beside her on either side so that they could practice their lessons in kissing a girl. They wanted lessons because they wanted to do it right for her. It wasn't hard to figure out that they were excited from a sexual standpoint either, they were males, she smirked to herself. The sudden thought of lying there with two young male demons who both wanted her so much that their shafts were drooling brought her a lot closer to her decision. "Hey," she said, "You've forgotten my feet. Could one of you untie my feet, please?" They both got up to do it. Monnie could see the way that they looked at her thighs and her vulva. It would have made her uncomfortable earlier to say the least, but right now, they way that they looked at her made her feel like a goddess. She might have had the slightest inkling of it, but in actual fact, the statement was absolutely true. To the pair of them, she was a living, breathing goddess. They both helped her to sit up very slowly and she could tell that they were being so careful with her. But though it didn't work and she felt the first wave of nausea that Hank had predicted, Monnie was determined, so she forced herself to remain more or less reclining for the moment, but she did manage to prop herself up on one elbow until the feeling passed and she accepted the drink of water that Billy offered. "My, my," she grinned as she looked at the pair, "I most surely have never seen a sight as nice as I'm looking at here. Look at you fine men. Well, since you said that we've got all night, I might as well tell you that I like what I'm looking at every bit as much as you do. I don't know what I'll do afterward, but if you want some lessons about loving a girl and you mean what Hank said about liking me, well I can tell you that I'd sure like to be that girl. I just need to be able to get up a little higher than flat on my back if I'm really going to teach you right." "You mean that?" Billy asked, still struggling over the way that she'd made him feel inside, "What happened? When I left to get the bucket, you hated us." "I don't now," she shrugged, "Try to imagine being me waking up the way that I did here." He looked at her for a moment before he looked across at Hank, "She does like us now -- at least a little, or she's coming to the idea." "Please," Monnie said, rolling her eyes and being surprised that even doing that could hurt, "could you just stop doing that? I'm having enough trouble as it is. If you can really tell the way that I feel about you," she said looking at Billy, "then you'd better look again. I come to things a little slowly. I like you both more every minute. You haven't killed me yet, and you're very sweet to me and now I wish that you were there when I was at school, Hank. If you both had liked me then the way that I see how you like me now, I'd have been so proud to have you for my boyfriends. Of course, we'd have had to kill the preacher to shut him up, but that should have happened to the old pervert anyway. I'd have loved to rub it into all of the other girl's faces if I'd had you guys then." "You can't mean that," Hank smirked, "We're demons." "And I don't give a crap about that anymore," Monnie grinned, "I'm half-orc, and I can just see that you adore me, don't you? Nobody's ever much liked me, never mind flat-out adored me. We're not even close to being the right kind for each other, but you like me and I like you. Does that mean that I have to buy a license to like you? Well, you tell me where I gotta go to get one, then. I mean it." "Yeah," the Billy said with a little smile that melted her heart, "I guess you must come to things slow. I can see it now. It makes me want to kick the Colonel in the nuts for what he said to you. Here, I brought some bread, meat and a bit of cake for you." "Cake? How did you -- where would you get a cake?" Monnie asked. "I made it," he said, a little proudly, "We brought a bag of flour along when we came back. We don't fly like he does, we've gotta flap our wings while he just zooms along somehow. We always get back hours later, but he wasn't that quick this time. He had to carry you. You're lucky that he didn't lose interest and drop you." He reached and pulled a dried leaf from her hair. "What's your name?" "Monnie," she said, "It's Monica really, but I liked Monnie when I was a kid, so it stuck. Now that I'm not hog-tied and upset, I can see that you're not the bloodthirsty things that I always thought. I'm sorry if I made you feel bad in any way. Hank told me a little about you both and I've got to admit that it's really hard not to like you two. Are those really your names?" "No," Billy said, "I guess we forgot our names. He always gives us names and he changes them about every other minute." "Yeah," Hank added, "We really don't even know our own names. He chooses names from some moving pictures that he used to see when he was young. Anything where there was a pair of characters -- Heckle and Jeckle is one that he calls us a lot, sometimes when he's being really nasty, he calls me Peter Pan and --" "I liked being called Tinkerbell," his brother said -- until it was explained to him what had been meant. It all meant nothing to Monnie, but she could see that it bothered them, especially now that one of them understood what Tinkerbell meant. "I hate that bastard," he said past his few angry tears as he began to work at cutting the bread into slices. "We got our names from human books. My brother liked Henry Ford because of the way that he was always making things, but I found out that 'Hank' is a short form for that and we both like that better for him." "He's Billy," Hanks smiled, "the kid." Monnie slowly managed to get herself into a seated position. She looked at the pair -- she couldn't help it, really. Billy was smaller in almost every respect, though in one that she could see, he was the equal to his older sibling. Both of them were adorable, she thought, though there were differences to their personalities as well. Hank was a lot more confident where Billy seemed to be a little more intuitive and careful. "Please bring that bucket over here," she said, "I can tell this isn't going to go away by itself, and I think that I'd like a little of that food, so, ..." She struggled to her knees and Billy was just in time with the bucket, holding back her hair for her and carefully wiping her lips with a cloth before he moved the bucket outside of the room. "Here," Hank said sympathetically, "try a little bread and water first. It'll help, at least it's always helped us when he's spelled us." She nodded and gnawed on the bread. "Why would he do that to you?" she asked after a drink or water. "You're not the first one who's tried to kill him," Hank grinned. "Maybe he feels guilty for bringing us here, I don't know," Billy said as he came back, "if it was anybody else who really tried, he'd just kill them dead. But us? He just spells us really hard and laughs at us." She sat back down again and moved herself into a cross-legged position for a little stability. "What was that you said about flying?" she asked. Hank began to tell her. "Humans had machines to help them fly once. You can't see it from here, but this place is full of those old things, all kinds of them. Most of them will ever fly again, but we did find a few that could, so those were the ones that we taught ourselves about, since we had all of the books on all of the machines here." He smiled, "There actually used to be a few more that could fly. We fixed up the smallest ones and I learned how to fly them. It almost killed me a few times, but between the books and a lot of luck, I guess, I managed it. Most of what's here needs a lot of flat ground to get into the air and land again, but there are kinds that don't. That's the kind that we settled on learning most about, though it's harder to learn on them. They're called helicopters and they're pretty complicated compared to the other ones, both to fix and to learn to fly in. We fixed up a big one, since we knew that we'd need to have that one to carry everything with. Billy can fly too, though the one that he flies is smaller. We use that one to get things for us." "Where are you going to go when you leave?" she asked, "If you have a way to fly, I guess that I might be asking for a ride to somewhere away from here. There's nothing that I can do to him, ... yet. I think I'll need to prepare before I try again." "You need to find out a lot about something like him if you want to kill him," Hank said as he worked at cutting up the warm meat and putting some onto a platter for her with some bread and a bit of gravy, "You didn't really know what you were up against. You're really lucky." "I'm beginning to see that," Monnie smiled, "I'm sorry about thinking that you were with him. " "It's ok," he smiled a little, "you know now, but you don't know it all. See, we want to go somewhere that he can't really get to. He can fly and so can we, but he's faster. Here," he said a little proudly as he passed her the ancient-looking plate and a fork, "I've cut it up small for you. Try to eat some more, Monnie." She was beginning to feel a lot better, and motioned for them to eat as well, so they all sat together and there wasn't a lot said for a few minutes. "Go on with what you were saying, Hank. Where will you go?" Monnie asked. "I don't really get it, but I know that he can't fly over water," he said, "He could ride on a boat, but there aren't a lot of them around. There's an island off the coast of Lozenjellis called Catlina Island. We figure that if we can get there when we know that he won't be around for a little while, then he won't know where to look for us, and it's far enough away so that he'll probably think it's too much work to go there. We've already been there a lot, and we've got a place. We'll just fly there tomorrow during the day. As far as we know, he doesn't know about our machines. He just thinks that we tinker around uselessly. He's never seen us fly them or even start them up." I don't know how much good that'll be to you, though. I mean, you'll be somewhere a little safe from him, but, ..." "I think we should bring Monnie with us," Billy said, "If she doesn't like it there, then we could always bring her someplace when we go back for supplies." He looked at Monnie with concern, "You can't stay here, and you won't live long enough to make it back to Lozenjellis on your own. Even if you do make it, what then? He could find you a lot easier than if you come with us." Hank agreed -- if Monnie wanted that -- he said, "I have seen horses on the island, but I'm afraid that they're wild. There are no other people there, as far as we've been able to find out. I guess that it might be your best choice, but I could also drop you off in the city someplace. Isn't there somewhere else that you'd want to go? Where did you come from?" I'm from Granfalls Minnisoda," she said, "I came a long way to get here, and there's nothing there for me to go back to. I'd be happy to go with you -- at least until I can think of something else." She smiled at them both, "And anyway, why would I want to? I've got a pair of really good kissers who need a girlfriend. If you want to take me along, I'd be happy with that. I don't have anything anymore." Only Billy could have said it, and only Billy would have between the brothers. It sounded a little silly at first, but they all knew somehow that there was more to it than the simple statement when Billy lowered his fork and grinned, "Yes you do, Monnie. You've got us now." She smiled and was about to say something about how things were a little more serious in real life -- at least in hers, but Hank put his hand on her knee to get her attention. "Billy's just saying it a little simply but, ... Well, we want you to come with us, Monnie. It's not just about teaching us and everything." Monnie wasn't the sort who could accept things such as this easily, but she had little other choice. To her surprise, she realized that this was what she wanted as well, as much of a wild-assed adventure as this was turning out to be. "Thank you both," she smiled, "I guess you can count me in." She looked at them a little seriously, "But you really can fly? I mean in one of those old machines? What do they run on? The only machines that I've ever seen are like grain mills and you need a river to turn the grinding stone." "They need a fuel," Hank said, "and lots of it. There was a lot around here, but it's all gone bad or disappeared over all of this time since the machines were new. But Billy and me, we found out from some books that you need some black oil, and once you've got a lot of that, then you need to break the oil into giving you the fuel. I found lots and lots of shiny plates that make electricity if you leave them out in the sun." "What's that?" Monnie asked perplexed, since she'd never heard of it. "It's like lightning, only it's really really small. Anyway, with enough plates, And I mean a lot of them and a whole pile of other pipes and motors and stuff, we can make our own fuel, but it takes a long time." He smiled, "We gave this a lot of thought, and we've been at this a long time now -- years," he said as he offered Monnie some more food, "We just need for the flying machines to hold together long enough to get us there. They're really old. We've taken care of them because we have a lot of parts and all, but still, ... And Billy's right," Hank said with a nod, "you just have to come with us. We like you a lot, him and I, now that we've been talking. It wouldn't feel right to just drop you off somewhere and not know that you're alright. Billy would worry himself into a knot." "I'd want to know that you made it to freedom," Monnie said, "wouldn't you worry about me, Hank?" "Sure he would," Billy grinned, "You just gotta get to know him a little. When something's bothering him, he won't say a word. He'll just stew in his feelings and wonder why he feels worse." "But there isn't anything that I can add to everything," she said, "I can't fly and I --" "You might've been too busy to notice, Monnie," Hank smiled, "but you're bigger than us. I ain't seen you standing next to Billy or anything, but I figure that you're maybe as tall as I am and maybe a couple inches taller than Billy. You're also built pretty good. I just know that you're good in a brawl and we're not -- at least not very much unless we use our claws and teeth and get really nasty. You're pretty strong and we could always use some help, and - " "And people don't run away from you if you want to talk to them, the way they do with us," Billy interrupted, "You could be our mouth, the one who does the talking for us if we need that. AND you're beautiful," he smiled a little shyly. "And I'm wondering if there's anything around here that I can use as clothes to wear," Monnie said, looking around, "I can't go around naked like this all the time." "Why not?" Hank smiled, "We do." "I guessed that much," she smiled, "and I'm not complaining about that. I like looking at you guys. But it's not this hot everywhere is it? Where I'm from, it gets howling cold in the winter. An island has to have some cold breezes sometime." A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 12 "I think I know where there's still some flightsuits hanging up," Hank said, "They're not like the things that ladies wear when we've gone to Lozenjellis, but it you don't care as long as I can find one that fits, It might be alright. I'll be back." He got up and walked off. "You like looking at us?" Billy asked after a moment. "Uh-huh," Monnie said, "Not at first. I was upset and my head hurt even more than it does now, and, ... well there were a lot of things wrong. But I do like the way that you look to me, now that I know you." We think you're beautiful," he repeated, and for once in her life, Monnie knew that it was the truth and she didn't mind hearing it. "I know you do," she smiled, "Thanks for saying it. Hey, where did that thing about Heaven come from?" Billy looked shy and embarrassed suddenly. "We aren't stupid," he said, "at least not as dumb as the Colonel thinks we are or the way that he treats us. But we've only been here for most for the time that we've been here on this uh, world. I've never found anything besides manuals for things. There's nothing much here about how to do a lot of other things. Like, neither one of us really knows what to do with a girl, other than where something of ours fits -- or is supposed to." "Well that's pretty much all that there is at the bottom of everything, "Monnie smiled, "But I know what you mean." "I just know there's more," he said, still feeling foolish, but a little thankful now that he had someone to talk to about it, "I just don't know what it is." "All the rest -- what you're talking about, is really the most important part to the girl," she said, "because if she's not feeling the right way about you, then it's not going to happen -- at least not the right way," she smiled, "the best way." She fell silent for a moment as she ate the piece of cake that he'd brought her. "This is so good, Billy," she laughed. "See? This is one of the parts of it all, that you did something for the girl -- something that she'd like, though it doesn't have to be a piece of cake. It could be a lot of things, almost anything. It depends on the girl, because all girls are a little different." She thought about it and then looked at him. "You were both wanting to know about Heaven. That idea came from something in my coach, right?" "Yes," he nodded, "we read it and wanted to go there. We thought it sounded like a nicer place to be than where we are." "What you were reading referred to after one dies, Billy. It's sort of a promise that if you live your life doing good and treat people nicely, then you'll go there after you die." She looked off into the darkness of the long room, "I don't even know if I believe in that anymore after the things that I've seen. But you ought to know what the Colonel meant as well. He said it as a crude thing and he wasn't talking about the same thing at all. He was talking about the way that it can feel if you're with somebody and you hopefully love them and they love you and you make love with each other." She grinned and reached to touch his penis once very lightly, "That's the part where something of yours fits something of mine, but there's so much more to it than that." She looked up and saw that Billy was staring at her a little. Monnie smiled, "I don't know, Billy, but I like you guys a lot already. If I've got two males who think I'm this good looking, I think I'd have to be a real fool not to take advantage if I got the chance." "The chance at what?" Hank asked as he returned with an armload of clothing. "Billy and I were talking about Heaven," Monnie said, "and all the time, I've still been wondering what I could do to help with the effort. I'm not sure at the moment, and my head's still throbbing just a little, but if we manage to make it make it to Catlina Island alive, I think I'd want to be your girlfriend. Actually, I think that I already think of myself that way." The clothing fell from Hank's hand. "Which, ... um, which one of us?" "Come on, Hank," she smiled, "look at me. I think there's enough of me for both of you, and I like you both anyway. If the two of you can handle a little sharing, I promise to do my best to help us all get to the kind of Heaven that you'd both want with me." While the brothers ate a little more, Monnie stood up very carefully and tried on the flightsuits staying near a wall and leaning when she felt that she had to. Out of the bunch that she'd been given, there were three that fit -- somewhat. The flightsuits had happened to have been made to fit a man, and Monnie had a couple more curves than that, all while being a bit larger than that long-dead male. She modelled one for them and then she took it off again, folding it up very carefully and laying it aside. "I thought you wanted something to wear," Hank said. "I do, but not for this," she smiled, "I like it here with you like this just fine. I wanted something to wear in case I needed something to wear. Right now, I'm happy just the way that I am. I hope my head feels better tomorrow. I feel like I've been drinking for days. Where do we sleep tonight," she asked, "I've got two boyfriends and though I'm not at my best, I'm sure I've still got enough to make them both happy with me tonight, but I don't want to do this on the floor." They stood up and stepped close to Monnie. She slid her arms around one waist each and she kissed each of them for a moment. When they hugged her, Monnie felt happier than she had for a long time. It made her want to smile at the way that they had a little trouble with their eagerness. Their mouths were subtle in their kisses, but she felt the way that their shafts were nudging against her a little rhythmically. They led her to another room where there were several beds. As Billy stood ready to help her if she felt wobbly, Hank moved two of the beds together and Monnie asked, "Hey, so neither one of you has ever done it before?" They shook their heads in the darkness, and Hank almost groaned when Billy admitted, "Not with a girl, no. We do it with each other once in a while, does that count? That doesn't count, right?" "It counts," Monnie said, a little surprised at first. But then she thought about it and decided that she liked the thought that they cared about each other as they did. The way that she looked at it, it sure couldn't hurt anything between them all. "I think that's really nice. I'd like to see that sometime. Everything counts," she said, "but I was thinking that if I'm going to be your first girl, then I think you ought to let me work this tonight. Could you bring that candle or maybe light another one? I can't see in the dark as well as you guys seem to be able to and I've got a lot to admire here." She smiled, "This won't hurt a bit. You boys just be nice to me and watch those teeth." They helped her to lie down across the beds and Billy moved the pillows. They were on her a second after that, touching her, kissing her everywhere. The sounds that they made when both of them took a nipple each thrilled her to hear as they sucked so noisily. Her breasts had never felt so fine. "One of you, somebody," she grinned in pleasure, "touch me in that place that you've both been panting over all night. Be gentle and slow. Slip a finger or two in if you want to. I'm so wet for my boys already." She felt their first tentative caresses and she groaned rolling her hips back a little, "That's so good," moaned. "Why is it wet?" Billy asked as he raised his head. "To get ready for my two handsome men, silly," she smiled up at him, "You ought to decide who goes first. I want you both, but I can only take one at a time, can't I?" "You go first, Hank," Billy said. "Alright, but there's a rule that I'm just making up," Monnie sighed, "Actually, it's a hope. You said that you've done something together. Have you ever sucked on Hank, Billy?" He nodded, "All the time. We do that a lot." "Ohhh, that's good," Monnie groaned softly as they explored between her thighs with their fingers, "What I'd really like is to be licked every time first. If you both can agree to that, you'll find me a lot more willing almost any time. Give me a little room here, Billy. I'll get back to you in a minute." She reached down and when she felt Hank's lips against her, she took his horns in her hands to guide him. After a few minutes, and conscious about Billy, she smiled at him and how he knelt beside her watching and stroking himself. "You come back here, Honey," she said, "Don't jam it in my mouth, but I want to suck on that right now. Can you do that for me?" Her first orgasm overtook her shortly after that and the sight of her there like that in front of him caused Billy to come seconds later. Monnie had to remember to breathe through her nose, and she lost a lot of his seed, but nobody seemed to mind. "Hurry now Billy," she smiled, "Be my darling and get Hank wet for me." A little to her surprise and to her joy, Billy nodded and moved to where Hank now stood up. Billy proved to be an enthusiastic assistant, licking him thoroughly. Hank slid into Monnie and she pulled him onto her more. Where Billy seemed to want to be gentle, Hank was more inclined to try to bull-fuck her. Which was just what Monnie wanted then, bucking back against him to match his thrusts. Hank began to growl and Monnie just let her feelings out and yelled her happiness. "I -- I want to -- do this a lot harder," he huffed as leaned back up to look down at her. "Do it!" she yelled as she bucked, "Fuck me, Hank! Oh, fuck me. Give me everything. If -- there's any-bod-y who can ta-ake being fucked by a demon, it's m- e," she chuckled a little breathlessly. Billy stood there in awe as he watched them slam together. He'd never seen Hank like this before, and it came to him to feel thankful. All of those times when he'd let Hank mount him, Hank had been very gentle and patient with him. "So-oo good," Monnie groaned very quietly, "I'm in love." Hank heard it and smiled. He looked down at Monnie and what he saw in her eyes hit him a little hard. "You -- you're joking," he said to her as he stopped. Monnie shook her head and wiped her eyes, "I can't help how I feel. It's just us fucking, it probably doesn't mean anything." Billy threw himself down next to her and kissed her softly. She felt his tears on her face as they ran into her own. "No," he said, "I can tell. You can't hide it from me," he sniffled, "I've never felt like this before." "Neither have I," Monnie said through her teeth as she raised her legs high around his brother. She reached out and took Billy's hard shaft in her hand and stroked him before she turned her head to look at Hank again. "Come on you fantastic bull. Fuck me hard. I've got another fine bull to fuck just waiting his turn in the paddock, and the way that I feel now, I can handle both of you all night long. You two are the best cure for a headache that I've ever seen." The simple fact was that while Monnie felt as though she was having the time of her life, she also felt the strangest sense of belonging rising in her, and based on a life of experiences -- her experiences specifically, well things just didn't run the way that her hope told her, so she was trying to push that aside and cover it with a bit of brusque lustiness. Her partners in this were not human, however, and they saw through it. They just didn't quite know what it was because they lacked experience. But they weren't stupid and they did care about her. They asked about it almost enough to kill her mood, but then she just admitted it -- to them and also maybe to herself. "Look," she said, "I've learned that I've been wrong about some things. And I've found somebody who gives a shit about me beyond fucking me. It's written all over both of you. I'm a girl. We always have a little hope in us for a long time, until it gets beaten out of us by life or some shit like that or the dream just wears out and fades away forever. I'm no different. But now I feel it again, and I've got a little hope that this might go on. It hurts a little to think that it probably won't. Nothing ever has for me." She snorted, "and of all the times for this to happen, I'm here on my back. I'm having a great time, but, ..." "Monnie," Billy said quietly, "This is new to us too. We've never known anyone -- our whole lives since we've been here, and today ... please, we want a chance too. This is what it is, we know that, but we want you with us." They all felt a little lost, but they all found themselves trying to show that they were being genuine, even Monnie. It took a while but once it seemed to be understood between them, they grew more passionate without the feeling of risk and it was far better after that. For a long time they alternated, fucking her one after the other. Monnie was up to the task, though, laughing a little each time that they changed places. At first, they made their 'horny demon noises', as she called them, though she was far from silent herself, but as the night wore on, their frantic pounding into her changed into something that Monnie had never experienced before. At first they were just rutting, but much later, they loved her more slowly again, and all that Monnie could do was moan after she finally gave up her tough pretense and just admitted that she WANTED to love them and hoped that what they'd found could continue. She was a mess, covered in semen, as were they, but they'd never been happier. The single biggest surprise for Monnie came as she was getting ready to lower herself onto Hank. She'd just licked and sucked him into hardness -- and she had no idea how many times they'd managed to amaze her, the way that a little touch from her could rouse either of them. She kissed Hank for a moment and prepared to move up and lean back to get him inside of her when she felt Billy's tongue in a place where she was still virginal. "Ohhh, Billy, that feels so nice," she sighed, "Don't stop for just a minute. Just, ... just, ... ohh." He went on for a little while before he wet his finger and pressed it into her slowly, a little at a time. "Just let it in, Monnie," he whispered in her ear, "Would you let me fuck you here? I promise that I'll be slow and really gentle. I know how it feels, so I'll be really careful. Can I? Please?" She looked back a little nervously, but he smiled in his charming and shy sort of way, "C'mon, Monnie, I just want to love you. I'd never hurt you. I didn't even eat you, though that's what you were yelling at me to do as I was licking you the way that you like." His misunderstanding of what she'd said made her laugh a little and she nodded, "I'll try it, but please, ..." "I will," he smiled, and she groaned deeply as another of his fingers pressed its way in. "Can you wait for a bit?" Monnie asked Hank, but he only smiled softly under her and nodded, so she tried to concentrate on allowing this. Eventually, Billy's fingers were replaced by his hardness as he worked it into her slowly, a little at a time, ever deeper. There was the sudden small cry from her as it passed her ring and then it went a little easier until at last, she felt his scrotum against her. "I feel as though I've just accomplished something," she whispered as they held themselves motionless while she got used to him there. Hank moved up a little and held his shaft so that it brushed against her opening. "I think we have a chance at something here," he said quietly. "If you can get a little lower, Monnie, you can have me inside you too. Billy's gonna have to go along with it though." "Well what girl wouldn't want that?" she chuckled a little bravely. "Ok," Monnie grinned, "I may as well shoot for the moon, I guess. Can you do that Billy?" She heard his sigh behind her, "Monnie, I'd already do anything for you. Ok, let's do it." It was a slow thing, but they did finally get connected, the three of them. "Oh God almighty," Monnie hissed a little, "this is so nice for me. But, ... what do we do now? I can't move much." It turned out that it was Billy who drove this as he began it. The ability to feel each other's shafts rubbing against their own through the membranes inside of Monnie was amazing to each of them, but it was Monnie who got the most from it. Billy was thrusting slowly at first, a little deeper and then back. He was afraid to hurt her and kept asking and Monnie kept thinking about it and answering that she was still fine. But she was a little lost here, and could only speak mostly in monosyllables. She was struggling with being completely passive in this. She really couldn't move much, pegged as she was on two beautiful cocks at the same time. She shuddered and twitched as Billy picked it up a little and Monnie realized that she was their prisoner here, but a second later the first of her orgasms in this position came to her and all that she could do was to hold still and shake as she hung her head and groaned. Billy sensed it and he took her hips in his hands and began to stroke harder, still asking her if she was alright. "Yeah," she grunted, "I'm, ... in Heav-en, ... now. God, I-I'm th-e luck, .. luckiest, ...g -girl alive. Fuck me, Billy, Dear God, fuck me, I swear, ... I'm- m in lo-ove with t-t-two men." She couldn't speak much after that, she just settled in to grunting and trying to push against one or the other of them the little bit that she could. She lifted her head and Hank watched her pant for him, a little drool running from her lip to fall onto his chin. Monnie tried to apologize, but he shook his head and smiled at her, taking her face in his hands as he kissed her. "You're even more beautiful like this," he said, "My heart feels like it's breaking." She tried to nod, her eyes a little glazed in her wantonness. Monnie Aldergrove felt a lot of things. Her abdomen rippled and Hank felt the muscles over her ribs stiffen as he stroked her breasts. Her thighs and arms twitched a little and trembled a lot. She felt deliciously dirty in what they were doing together. She felt shameless and free. She felt lucky, and by God, she felt so in love. She just prayed that they felt a little like she did. That was when Hank began to thrust upward. He and Billy went like this for a long time, long after Monnie had come again and again, still their prisoner and proud of them all. As they came inside her, one not long after the other, Monnie shrieked and howled out her love for them, and somewhere in there, she invoked the names of the Holy Trinity and half a dozen saints before she roared out, "Mother of GOOOOD" and almost hung limp. Hank noticed it as she began to collapse and he told Billy to help lower her onto him slowly. Billy held onto Monnie and withdrew as gently as he could and they helped her to lie down. He eased himself down very carefully next to her after that and they both caressed and stroked her body, whispering how they felt to her, and hoping that she was alright after all. "Was I good?" she moaned quietly as she sobbed a little, feeling emotion and weariness, "I tried my best for you, I really did." "I can't even say how great that was. We have our answer," Hank whispered to her as he kissed her shoulder and rubbed the side of his head against hers, "We know the difference now, and we know that we were wrong, but you really did take us to Heaven, Monnie." "I think we sort of took each other," she groaned. "Yeah," Billy sighed as he put his arm over her and laid his head on the other side of hers on his brother's chest, "Thanks, Monnie. Could you, ... would you please come with us tomorrow?" "Please stay with us," Hank added. She didn't move as she spoke against Hank's collarbone, "I am so, ... tired and really, really fucked. I'm happy too. A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 12 I guess that makes me happily fucked," she chuckled to herself. "I've never done anything like that before in my life. I'd kill anybody to get to either of you. To have one of you for me would make me the happiest girl in the world." They smiled until she finished the thought. "But that's not what I want," she said, as she lifted her head. "I don't mind being tired. I'm also happy for once. I'm sure there's a connection between getting fucked by you guys and feeling happy. I'd do anything to get cock like that one hell of a lot, so what I want," she grinned mischievously, "is both of you. If you can go on sharing me and not mind, then I can't think of anything that I'd rather be than yours, the two of you." "We want you, Monnie," Billy smiled, "just say you'll go with us." "I have to," she smiled, "I'm in a bed with two gorgeous guys who can fuck forever. I'll go anywhere you want. How dumb do you think I am?" A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 13 ***~sigh~ Ok, I'm slapping my forehead here. I shoulda slipped this in a little sooner. This occurs at the same time that The Drow are teaching Sariel and before they move to Azrael's home. The reason that I mention it is because in the last chapter and this one - it's still summer. See? This is the reason that I end up with sticky notes stuck all around the periphery of my screen.0_o --------------- It was a little after eight when they came to wake Monnie up. She smiled up at the pair of them, seeing that they were so excited. She could only imagine how it had been for them, preparing for this one day for years, and never saying a word to the Colonel in all of that time. "We've got a busy day ahead," Billy said, "we would have had a lot of flights to make, but we started a while ago with Hank and me slinging containers over there from a little after dawn to set them down near where we'll live. We've already got containers of spare parts and enough material to make another one of our little refineries for the fuel." Hank nodded, "All there is left is three trips," he said, "one to haul the last full fuel bladder, one to haul a bladder full of old kerosene that we can freshen up into fuel as the first batch when we get the refinery going and one trip with weapons to shoot up the Colonel's boat, since we know where it's moored." "I don't understand any of that, "she laughed, "I just love to see how happy you are to tell it." But her smile faded as she stared at what it was that she'd be riding in. "What is that?" she said, as she looked at a rather ungainly thing sitting outside in the sunshine. It was mostly white with some red here and there. "It's called a Sea King, "Billy said as he opened a door for her, "You just sit here and don't touch anything. I'll be happy to show you what everything is and what it does after we get it all done. Oh, and be sure to keep your feet off those pedals there." She climbed up and he strapped her in, explaining how to get out of it in a hurry if she needed to. Monnie looked around at all of the switches, knobs and gauges while Billy set to the engine start-up. He placed a set of headphones on her head. "What is this for?" she asked. "It gets loud in here when it's running," he said. There was a crackling whine for a few seconds, followed by a strange roaring sound. The whine could be heard again and then a second roar. The dark bobbing things in her view outside began to move, and the whole thing shook a little unsettlingly. Monnie looked over at Billy often during all of this, but he was looking intently at things in front of him. He did turn at one point, and Monnie was amazed to hear his voice in her ears. "It's supposed to do this," he smiled, and she didn't feel even a bit better. "We have to be in the air before Hank comes in another minute. That's why I'm not talking much." She thought about it. He'd said that they had to be in the air. In all of this, Monnie had forgotten that she didn't really know what this entailed. She didn't know it could be done. Flying in all of the many forms developed over mankind's history was now a non-existent art. Nobody just flew unless they were birds or, ... demons. It was impossible to fly. But she decided that she had to trust them. They'd been doing this for a while, she told herself. They knew what they were doing, she said to her nervous stomach. Monnie couldn't decide whether to undo the straps of the safety harness holding her in her seat and jump out, or if she ought to just throw up again. In the end, it was Monnie's fear of the thought of actually flying which prevented her from going with them. No one knew what an aircraft was. Nobody had seen one fly in hundreds of years. Monnie wanted to go with them. She just couldn't. She told Billy as she yelled at him and he offered to blindfold her, something, anything, but they couldn't afford to waste the fuel of even one more start, because if they weren't on the island with everything, they'd be, at worst, in another place far from where their ability to make more was. He called Hank on the radio and they both tried to reason with her, but by then it had become a visceral thing in Monnie. She unfastened her seat harness, opened the door and ran. Billy eased back to ground idle and reached over and grabbed the door that she'd left open. When he was back in his seat, he keyed his mike. "What are we gonna do, Hank?" He heard his brother's sigh, "We've been trying to get away from here for a few years now, Billy. I dunno. I'm in a shaky hover with the fuel bladder under me. I can't set down without you on the ground unless I hit the release and drop it and we can't afford that. All I can think of is to get these loads over and look for her when we get back. We'll know better then if we have the fuel to spare to look for her. I only hope that we can find her and get her to try again." To Monnie as she looked back, the machine that Billy rode in looked more like a huge carnivorous insect which had captured him and was taking him away. The thought made more sense that seeing it as a tool to transport people. It sounded angry as it rose into the air. On another level in her brain, she was seriously asking herself if she'd just lost her mind. She'd found two people who really cared about her and she was watching what had to be the only chance at happiness that she'd ever have leave her behind, the way that she felt. She doubted that Billy could see her, but she stepped out from the corner of the hangar that she'd hidden herself behind and began to run after him, waving. But then the noise of his machine was overshadowed by something louder and she saw a second one of the machines as it flew past the space between the hangars. It was much larger than the first one and it looked evil to her. She stopped, and the next thing that she knew, she was running for her life again. They made five crossings back and forth that day, returning to the old base twice for more of their things. Both times that they returned, they spent precious minutes of their air time searching for Monnie. The second time, they both rode in the larger attack helicopter, since it was also made to carry a heavy load. Billy sat in the weapons officer's seat ahead of and a little under Hank. They looked for twenty minutes - hundreds of pounds of fuel to them, but they didn't see her. They landed and loaded up for the last time. It was the position of the sun in the sky and the amount of fuel that they had left which forced them to leave. They didn't speak as they lifted off that time, and said nothing as they flew toward their new home. Monnie was miles away by then, making her way south back to Lozenjellis, but she watched the heavy thing as it hunted for her while she hid from it in the ruin of a motel next to the road. When she couldn't hear it anymore and it was far out of her sight, Monnie Aldergrove sat with her face in her hands and cried. ----------------------- A solitary figure stood on the sand of what had once been known as Manhattan Beach in the late afternoon sunlight. He was wiping blood from the blade of a large sword with a piece of cloth taken from the body of one of the unfortunate victims of this. She wasn't one of his victims; she was just one of many who had perished before he'd arrived. He was getting better at predicting where he thought these demons would appear, but he'd gotten here too late for many here. When he'd begun as what he was, he usually arrived days afterward. At least a few of the others had gotten away, he thought. The beach was a popular place to come to swim and bathe and it could be a little crowded, now that there were more people coming to live here. He looked around. There were a few other torn human bodies, none living now. The rest of the carnage, most of the ripped-up flesh here had belonged to the ones that he'd come here to kill, demons, every one of them, both genders, all sizes. He knew that there were a couple more still here somewhere close by. He heard the soft sounds of footfalls on the sand and turned, seeing the pair of males who came running at him. A third was in the air above them on the way down. He groaned. He was tired and had just cleaned his blade. With a wave of his flung-out hand, they shrieked and fell backwards in a red spray of their blood. The one in the air fell wetly just beyond him on the sand. If only he knew how they got here, he thought as he turned back to walk into the city. Demons in Lozenjellis, the report had said in his mind. He wanted to shrug. There were almost always demons here these days, more than anywhere else. It was a big place, after all, and he couldn't be everywhere at once. He looked down at himself. His leather clothing was wet with their gore. He groaned again and turned back to pick up the cloth once more. If he dipped it in the Pacific Ocean, maybe he could use it to wash most of this filth off of himself. He froze suddenly, hearing that odd sound again. He looked out to sea and stared trying to see into the glare of the sun which, while not nearing the horizon quite yet, was still making it hard to spot whatever this was. This was the fifth time today that he'd heard the sound, a strange beating roar out to sea. He saw it then, not far off the horizon, a large black dot which flew in a horizontal path perpendicular to the direction that he was looking in. There was a brief flash as though the sunlight had reflected off a shiny surface for a second. He saw no wings. If it was a beast of some sort which could fly, wouldn't it have wings such as he himself had? That was how he flew, after all. He wondered briefly about taking off himself to give chase. He wanted to know more. But he was tired at the moment, and he'd been here all day, mostly. His seeking had brought him no closer than somewhere called Elscondo, though he wasn't certain if that was the right way to say it. So many names had been tortured and lost. He hadn't landed that far away, it seemed, but he'd lost a lot of time trying to get his bearings in the jumble of a massive dead city made up of many of the smaller cities which had once grown around it. He decided to leave it be -- for now. He had resources to learn about what this was, and anyway, it seemed to be going back and forth to that island out there, just visible as a smear along the horizon. He knew that he'd likely be back soon enough anyway. There were almost always demons to be hunted down around Lozenjellis, and anyway, he wanted to get back to his daughter, Nahl'een. He was already late to be in another place as it was. Sheathing his sword over his shoulder and securing it, he turned eastward and spread his wings. There was another outbreak in a little town out in the desert to the southeast. He hoped to be done there quickly so that he could go back home. ------------------------ Hank looked at the fuel state gauges as he made his approach, knowing that it would be tight. Searching for Monnie had used up their safety reserve. The needles on the ancient gauges were well into the portion of the arc of their travel which carried a warning that the manufacturer did not guarantee their accuracy for safe operation. And that was when the thing had been new and running on properly produced turbine fuel, not the hopeful stuff that they produced. Translated, it meant that they were on fumes. He looked a little closer through the armored glass of the windshield and he could just see the back of his brother and he noticed the motions of his shoulders. He knew his brother well. Billy was crying. It might have seemed foolish to a human who had lived a normal life to this point, but to a pair of demons who had never known something like the light that Monnie had brought to them, it went well beyond upset. It wasn't just what they'd done together, it was something much more than that. It was a reason to want to live. Where they were going to be now seemed much more like a prison than the hope that it had once represented to them both. It had only been one night and she'd changed them, but without her, they were in the same place. It only looked different and there was no ancient old asshole here to laugh at them, that was all. Hank shook the tears from his own eyes as he hovered in, needing both his hands on the controls, setting the beast down as close to the old hangar as he could. As he reached for the ignition switches to cut the engines, he almost felt worse than ever before. They'd lost someone. It hadn't happened since they were torn from their lives and had lost their parents and friends, but it didn't feel much different. The engines had stopped and the main rotors had eased to a standstill for several minutes before either of them moved. -------------------------- They looked for her the next day and the next, burning fuel that they knew they didn't have to spare, but they found nothing. They spent a few days setting up their rig and refining what fuel there was to be found in the underground tanks at the old airport there. It got them in the air again, and better, the process was set to continue, as long as there was sufficient sunlight available. They were in business again, still looking for Monnie, still hoping against hope. It was Hank who spotted her the very next day. They were flying along an imaginary line where they'd guessed that, if she was alive and well, she'd be travelling toward Lozenjellis and if she was, she'd have to cross that line at some point. They were in Billy's Sea King, and it had been Hank who had spotted what he thought might be her, a large and naked form, slowly crawling into the shadow of an overhang in front of a derelict gas station which still stood. "Set down at the end of the street," Hank said in the intercom, "There are still some old posts and wires standing. I'll go get her." "Hank," Billy objected, "we don't even know if it's Monnie." "Trust me, Billy," his brother smiled over, "there's nobody's sweet ass I'd know better on sight from this far off. Just set down." "There are those packs of dogs around here, "Billy said as he came around for the approach, "the ones that we see most times. They aren't here right now for some reason, but you ought to take that pistol in the emergency kit with you." "Alright, worrywart," Hank said, as he grabbed the kit to pull out the webbed belt with the holster. As he knelt on the floor of the rear cabin, he put it on and cinched it. He really didn't think that he'd need it, but he knew that if he went without it, he'd never hear the end of it from his brother. He drew the old sidearm and, after inserting a clip, he cocked the weapon and set the safety before he slid it back into its holster, snapping the flap cover over it. Billy's wheels had barely hit the dirt and Hank was out on the ground running, bent over in the dust raised by the main rotors. He ran for the place where they'd last seen her. As he got there, he found that she wasn't there anymore. She was just at the edge of the building, crawling toward the open doorway. "Monnie!" he called out hurrying over, "It's me, Hank. Come on, we'll get you home and safe." As he reached her side, she didn't seem to have heard him, she just kept crawling slowly. He tried to tell himself that the odd tone of her skin was due to the shadow. He didn't remember her looking like this. In this light, she looked as though she was a little more gray than the slightly green tone that she'd worn days ago. He couldn't figure out why she was ignoring him. Everything changed when he laid his hand on her cool shoulder. The red hair flew with the motion as she snapped her head around with a snarl. Hank's heart stopped in his throat when he saw her eyes. Billy was out in the mid-morning sunlight, holding at a ground idle as he watched them struggle through the binoculars that he held in one hand. It didn't make sense to him until he figured that she must not want to go and was struggling to get away. By now they'd figured out how terrified she'd been of the helicopters. But everything changed to horror when he saw the blood on his brother as he managed to get away to run. Hank's throat was open and there was blood everywhere as he got to his feet. Monnie was struggling to run after him, but she stopped when she ran into the sunlight and ran back a little to stand screaming at him in rage from the shadow of the overhang. Everything had gone into slow motion for Billy as he watched his stricken brother come, growing weaker by the second from the loss of the blood which sprayed from his throat. It took Billy a second to realize what was behind the crazy way that his brother was waving his arms to him. He was trying to motion Billy to take off. Well, Billy wouldn't do that. He'd never leave his brother for anything. He began to roll off the throttle and go to get Hank. Hank stopped as it came to him. Billy would shut down and get him. He knew that he was done-for anyway, and he knew what would happen to Billy, the same as what was happening to him. He could already feel it as he weakened. He reached for the holster on his hip. Things slowed down even more for Billy then. This was all slow and sticky wet terror to him now as he watched the person who was his anchor in the world that he had never wanted to be on pull out the 9 millimeter pistol and fumble with slippery, blood-soaked fingers to get the safety off. Hank fell to his knees with tears in his eyes as he placed the muzzle against the middle of his chest and pulled the trigger. Billy barely heard the shot from inside the noisy helicopter, but he saw a little of the red spray as it left his brother's back. Hank's eyes went wide and he jammed the muzzle into his own mouth and pulled again while he still had a second of life and the strength for it. He landed on his back, missing some of his head and his legs twitched a few times as Billy watched. Billy blinked a couple of times and then his gaze went to the shadows of the overhang where what had once been Monnie Alderson ran along the edge of the shadows screeching in frustration. He rolled the throttles up to flight idle and adding a bit more, he fed in some collective pitch and the whole horrible scene fell away as he turned and flew off with tears in his eyes. It was a fine sunny day as Billy flew over Lozenjellis at two thousand feet, seeing nothing as he went but the last few seconds of his brother's life, over and over. His tears streamed down his face, and they just continued as he went back to Catlina Island. He cried during his approach and he cried as he shut down. After a long period where he stood weeping in the sunlight, he cried some more as he rigged the setup which would allow him to snag the nearly full fuel bladder. It was the smaller one, but it had the better fuel and he knew that he'd have less trouble if it began to sway under him in flight. It came to him then that with the smaller bladder, he would have quite a bit of weight margin. He stomped off to where they'd stored the tractor and in a few minutes, he was straining to load a message to whom it might concern. Billy walked into the building which had once been a restaurant under the control tower and he grabbed some food, stuffing two backpacks with it as he went. He grabbed two of the heavy sleeping bags that they'd brought, and whatever came to mind in the next ten minutes. He wound up with three full packs. He threw them into the rear compartment of the Hind before he walked to pump out whatever fuel was left in the Sea King into the wheeled tank and hauled that to the Hind with the old tractor there as well. All that he knew was that he had to get away. A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 13 He didn't know if Hank would come back after shooting himself through the heart and blowing his brains out, but he knew that Monnie already had. And he knew that she knew where they had gone. He didn't want to be anywhere near the island by sundown. He didn't know what would happen then, but he knew that much. After a trip to rip open a box of phosphorous grenades that they'd taken along as an afterthought from the Materiel lockup which they'd stumbled across four months previously, he took two and walked to the restaurant again to grab something else that Hank had insisted that they take one day. Billy hadn't wanted anything to do with it then and had suffered through Hank's lectures on its care and feeding. He was thankful to his brother once more, because he really wanted it now. He laid the old rifle into the bird with a bag full of magazines. After a moment's thought, he stood and took a piss out in the dirt right next to the helicopter. He was still crying as he urinated. He cranked and he thanked Hank for the way that the old bird lit off right away. After running down the checklist, he fed in some throttle and took off, snagging the fuel bladder on the third try and then turning eastward and a little north. He was so upset over the obvious, but he'd always had such trouble flying the Hind, preferring the Sea King by a wide margin. Today, he'd never flown a helicopter so well in his life. The words were already out of his mouth to Hank that he ought to see him now, but then Billy lost it again to his grief, cursing that he couldn't even set down to weep as he wanted to. The ancient helicopter was meant to have a weapons officer in the front seat, but there were a few things which could be controlled by the pilot in the event that the weapons officer had been wounded or killed. The two pods of unguided rockets that he'd almost busted his bag loading under the stubby wings were one of them. When he got back there, Hanks body was still in the street, but the dogs were at it now. Billy held it to a hover and waited for the bladder underneath him to stop swaying. When he felt that it was as stable as it was likely going to get, he looked at the building where Monnie had been trying to crawl into. He let over two dozen rockets go into it and the rest of the gas station, turning in his hover as he went. He demolished every building nearby. Whatever was in the underground tanks was no longer gasoline, but it was still flammable, and he turned away leaving nothing standing but a tall pillar of flame and smoke behind him and he headed south cursing. He was crying again. He made one pass by the docks and he saw the Colonel's launch. He grinned to himself as he saw the human who assisted Elkington most often come out on deck to see what the noise was all about. Billy turned away out to sea and then came back. He sighted a little carefully, and he let six rockets go in three pairs. The first two pairs hit the launch squarely and he just caught sight of the man as he was blown away by the blasts. The other two went farther on and hit the remains of a ruined warehouse. It was the only time that Billy had smiled all day. He punched the drop buttons on his small weapons panel and the old helicopter lurched upward a little as the shackles opened and the rocket pods fell away. He didn't need them anymore, but he really needed the extra range that he'd get without them and their weight. He'd been careful to guess that the pods would clear the bladder when they dropped and he was relieved when they did. Not all that long afterward, he could see what was left of Sandeego far up ahead as he turned a little northward to give Lozenjellis and everything north of there a wide berth. He didn't really know where he was headed, but the relatively short linger time that the ancient Russian helicopter had precluded going in most any other direction. And that was on a good day. His day had turned into something unimaginable and he was hauling a big bag of fuel, so he wasn't exactly beating feet as he went. His first stop to refuel was near what had once been Blythe, California, though Billy didn't know that. He didn't care much either, still fighting back his tears. To his amazement and thanks, Hank's invention to hold the neck of the bladder up as he landed held together. It had never been tried before, but it worked like a charm and allowed him to set it down and release so that he could pick it up by himself after transferring fuel to his tanks. It took him over an hour to pump the fuel by hand and then he was off again after snagging the bladder on his first try. As dusk began to come on, he let down for an approach not far from a place called Flagstaff, by his map, and he set down on the crumbled asphalt in what had once been the visitor parking lot of a state park a long time ago. Billy didn't know that either and he didn't give a shit. He pumped fuel again, finishing after dark and trying to sleep inside the helicopter. He still wept and every time that he thought that he had it under control, he'd see his brother die again behind his closed eyelids and he'd cry a little more. More than once, he looked over at the CAR-15 carbine, thinking that it held the way out of this wasted life of his. But every time that he decided that he had the courage to do it, he knew what Hank would have said. He was up in the cold light of dawn and just long enough after that to eat a little, he cranked and was gone again. Three more times he stopped to refuel, and the last time, he left the empty fuel bladder behind. He got as far as the outskirts of what had once been Cortez, Colorado and he knew that he didn't have what it would take to get through much more of the mountains. He was already at a fairly high altitude as it was. Getting through the passes that he could find was just taxing everything, himself most of all. On top of that, he knew that he'd have to set down sometime and wanted open level ground for that. The farther into the mountains he flew, the less of that he'd find. He turned south. When he got to one-quarter tank, he looked for a place to set it down and caught a quick glimpse of something interesting to him. He flew on southward a little away from the mountains and finding a gravel bed some miles away, he landed there and spent another night in the machine that had been resurrected by Billy and Hank together. It had taken a long time and a lot of work, but they'd done it. It was supposed to be their ticket out, away from the Colonel and their bleak life around the old base at Edwurs. It was supposed to be their workhorse to get them to Catlina Island where they'd thought to live a little better and happier. But Monnie had changed all of that. The next morning, Billy spent a while trying to figure out what he needed and what he didn't and set his things a fair distance from the old helicopter. He took the two phosphorous grenades and wrapped some old duct tape around the spoons to hold them in place. He drained a little fuel from one tank into the dishpan that he'd brought for this, and allowed some fuel to run onto the ground out of both tanks before shutting it off and leaving the caps on the tanks open. He set the dishpan under the helicopter, and carefully pulled the pins on the two grenades, easing them into the fuel. With that done, he ran to the pile of his things, shouldered his backpacks and clutching his rifle in one hand and one of the rolled sleeping bags in the other, he walked toward the mesa that he could just see in the distance. Half an hour later, the fuel had dissolved enough of the old tape's adhesive to allow one of the spoons to fly free and the grenade ignited a hot fire seven seconds after. He was nearly a mile away when he turned, wondering if something had gone wrong, but he smiled when he saw the smoke of the fire. He knew that it would get cold here in the winter, and so he needed a place to survive it while at the same time wanting to stay out of sight, mostly to feel a little better. He thought that he'd flown over such a place. Billy the lost demon shifted the straps of his packs and walked away, headed north. ---------------------------- China Over twenty years had passed, and the two humans had gone the way of all earthly things, the harshness of the life there leading them to their graves not long after each other by the time that they'd reached their early seventies. Yuan mourned their passing, because she'd known the richness of their love and teaching. Her time as the daughter of the old one was coming to a close as well. Her mother was weak and Yuan now had difficulty remembering how long it had been since she'd seen her mother fly. It had certainly been at least two years since they'd flown together. She looked down as the old one rested, her hand on the great head. "You must seek someone," the old one said when she woke, "Living here hides some things from my view, but I know that there is something changing. I have felt this in the wind for a long time now." Yuan smiled, "All of my life you have said this to me Mother. I still know little of what it all means." She moved to turn and reach for the pot of tea for her mother to drink from. The beast nodded her thanks, "It is past time for you to know everything," she said with a smile, and given what we are, you should seek comfort as you hear it." Yuan had always loved to hear her mother's tales and she sat on a cushion and looked expectantly. "I believe that I am the last of us, what was once a nation of dragons," she began, "After wars which did little good to either side, we came to live in peace with the humans. I was only very young then, but I remember that evil spirits came to cause much strife and trouble for everyone. We had our challenges and we faced them, but the humans suffered more. It was decided at a council of the elders that we would help, and so the alliances were forged and the agreements made. Together, we vanquished the evil things and lived in peace. But there are two things about humans which one must remember," she said, "They war with each other almost always, and they have very short memories compared to us. We took no part in their wars with each other. But I awoke some years ago, and felt that there was a new evil on the way, just as I knew that I am surely the last, and least ready to help. At the same time long ago, the humans whose task it was to fight beside us in their defense had forgotten everything and wished only to leave here, forgetting even that there was one still here to be served and who was prepared to help them. What I did was to ask for a child from one of the families who were to raise the riders. When we went to war as allies, long ago, each of us carried a rider. But that day is so long past now. You were the child that I was given for a bag of gold and jewels. To them, you were afflicted with a weak mind, but I knew that it was not so. Your mind only lay ready to be filled. The day of large ones such as me is long ended. I saw this, but I also saw that there is still a need, so I did my best. In your breast, beside your heart, there lies what is left of the smallest of my living eggs. The essence within it has joined with your own. What you became that day is what you are. You are a dragon, and yet you are smaller, lighter, faster, and still you have all of my ability. The couple who raised you with me taught you what they knew of how to fight, and I taught you everything else. But we come to the end soon, at least for me, and it is still an inauspicious time for this. You are but twenty-three. Old enough for a human girl, and still so young for a dragon girl. I would have wanted for another eighty years or so before this time, but it is not to be. More and more of the new evil comes. There are others who gather in places, learning of the peril themselves and one day, it is my hope that they all band together against what comes. Your place will be with them, daughter." She reached for ancient scrolls and unrolling the first of them carefully, the old dragon showed Yuan the way that she must go. "It is east," she said, "always to the east, you must go, high to catch the wind as I taught you." --------------------------- Her mother had fallen asleep not long after and Yuan drifted to the gallery to look down. This place was all that she knew, other than when she'd flown with her mother. Besides the concern that she'd seen, she really didn't know why she had to go anywhere at all. Well, there was the business of having to find food, since they'd just slaughtered the last of their herd of cattle. She went to the training chambers and ran through several repetition sequences just to move her blood around a little before she walked to where the human couple who'd raised her were buried. She still missed them terribly, she thought as she spent a little time tending to their graves. Whatever her mother had told her about, these humans had seemed to think that it was important as well. The evening had begun when she'd finished her meal and carried the soup up to her mother's chamber. Balancing the tray a little awkwardly, she opened the door and carried it in. A moment later, she knew that it wouldn't be eaten. Her mother was dead. Yuan spent the next few hours weeping. She was all alone now. Before the early light of the dawn, she took whatever she thought that she'd need and walked out, closing the old doors behind her. She went to the room where she slept and crawled into the bed. Sometime after the sun had risen she awoke and began to prepare. Three days later, she stood at one end of the gallery saying goodbye to everything that she knew. As she walked to the large opening, the birds made way for her and uncharacteristically for her, Yuan found herself annoyed with them. She stopped and her neck began to elongate as the rest of her other side made its appearance until she stood a lot taller and looked nothing like the quiet young woman who was faced with more unknowns than anything else. Whenever she questioned what she was doing, she heard her mother's voice in her mind, over and over. "There are others who gather in places, ..." "Your place will be with them, daughter." Yuan bent her neck a little and opened her mouth. The roar sent all of the birds out through the opening at the end in their terror of her. She knew that they'd be back. They always returned as they always had. She doubted that she ever would come back here as she stood at the end of the hall and looked out. She didn't know where she was going in this journey of hers, but every journey has a beginning and an end. She stepped off the edge and fell forward. As her speed increased, she spread her gracefully long wings thirty-five feet to either side of her and began to climb. She made one large circle, still climbing for a last look, and then she turned to the north and east seeking the coast to follow it to where she knew that she had to turn eastward to begin the crossing. A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 14 ***It can be a little startling, certainly. Sometimes, when you're in just the right place for it, geographically as well as within yourself, someone can just, ... get to you. It can be a lot of trouble, usually, but then, some of the greatest loves begin that way too. 0_o --------------- Book of the Merren Part 7 Selena's jaw dropped as she looked around. It looked like a scene from far to the south. There were no geographical features like this anywhere near where they were and it was so warm and inviting. She didn't know for certain, but the air seemed to be even warmer here, though she felt cool little breezes on her face, as though there was just the barest sea breeze coming to her off the water. She glanced up, "That's not the sun, is it?" "No," the demon said, "it's nothing more than an approximation, just as the rest is only an approximation of a place on another world. The color of the light is a little different, and tends to be just a little more red, though it is hard to see. It looks like many places in the warmer parts of this world that I have seen." "I feel as though I'm standing in the sunshine on a warm summer day," the rogue said, wiping the first beads of sweat from her forehead. At least her body had appeared to have decided about that, she thought. "Well I suppose that in many respects, you are," Ny'Zeille smiled, "Tell me, are you going to stand there like that all day? You look a little out of place standing there like that." "I don't have anything lighter to wear," Selena shrugged, "I came here dressed to travel through winter." "Well, if your shame of your body bothers you that much, then remove everything but your undergarments," her friend suggested in a helpful tone, "You'll drown if you try to swim like that. It's not very deep here, but you'll be lugging around your wet clothing if you go in like that." She smirked, "Really, Selena, if you were alone and had no one hunting you for something which you'd just stolen from them and you found yourself here on this beach, what would you do if you wanted to swim? Would you get all of your clothes -- and weapons and whatever artifacts and charms that you might be carrying soaked? I don't think that you would. And I don't think that you'd just sit in the sunshine and sweat, either, at least not for long, anyway. You're too bright for that." "Well if I knew that I was alone and there was no one to see me, I'd take my clothes off and go for a swim, "Selena said a little nervously. "And who is here now," the demon said with the barest hint of sarcasm, "someone who might lust after you or wish you harm? All that I see is a woman and her small granddaughter. We are all who are here, three girls who would be dressed in nothing if this were any of a thousand fishing villages on this world and we were washing clothes if we were human and if there were no males nearby. In many of those places, their men are forbidden to be there then -- if they want to have clean clothes to wear and do not want to have to do their own laundry." She turned back to her granddaughter and they walked into the small waves, leaving the rogue to stand and sweat by herself. She hadn't been completely truthful; there was another here, a young male Xer who sat on the rocks a way off, drying off in the light. But he'd hidden himself and sat there invisible. Ny'Zeille knew that he'd be leaving soon anyway. He came here every day at this time, wanting to feel a little as though he were back on his home world, instead of here on this lump where he'd been dragged by his uncle Arrax. Xhan looked over, watching with the barest interest as the strangely-dressed female began to disrobe a little self-consciously. He'd wondered why they wore all of the encumbering fabric when he'd seen her earlier, but from the little that he'd learned of her, ones like this always seemed to need pockets to carry all of the trash that they wished to carry along wherever they went. But two things came to mind for him in a few seconds. He did like her body somehow, as strange as it was to him, and the female was armed six ways from tomorrow. His eyes widened a little as he watched. She must have been carrying six blades, not counting the one that he saw strapped to her thigh under everything. What was all of that for, he wondered? He'd ask Arrax about it later. For now, despite what the Esteemed One had said, they were not alone and he was intruding. He slipped off of the rock and stood on his long legs as he stretched languidly and ran the fingers of one hand through his mane for a moment as he yawned silently. He looked again and saw that she was bent a little to step out of her garments. Xhan's gaze settled on her backside and he smiled, finding something about this one to like after all, even though she had no tail. He wondered how her kind knew how felt about each other without tails to tell by. Remaining invisible, he changed forms and padded away, just as Selena stood up and turned around, wondering why she'd felt as though someone had been watching her. Ny'Zeille marked it. If the young Xerian hadn't made a move to go, she'd have been more pointed about it in her words, while still choosing them in such a way so that her friend would likely not catch on. She liked Xhan a great deal and she was aware that he wasn't happy here. He'd excelled at his studies and was more than ready for his first off-world assignment. The trouble had been a female, she smirked to herself, as it so often was. Xhan's eye had been caught by a sweet-looking little bitch back on Xer. Ny'Zeille had seen her and had to give her points for her efforts at landing a male from a prestigious family like Xhan's. Arrax had also seen her, however, and there was no way that he'd allow the same thing to happen to the nephew that he loved so dearly as what had happened to him. True, they'd made the best of it, he and his first bitch, but it had been a rare thing, the way that his female had managed to charm his family into accepting her. He knew that it wouldn't happen twice, even though he knew exactly how the young lovers felt. He wasn't the only one who needed charming, after all, and the bitch that Xhan was so lustful for didn't have a tenth of the natural charm and grace which would be required to even get her paw into the door. Besides, the young male had chosen to follow in his uncle's footsteps, and a life in that service carried more than enough hazards on the worlds of far-flung planes. Death could come in an instant from any of countless directions for ten thousand reasons which a newcomer wouldn't be cognizant of. Ny'Zeille frowned. That's what had happened to her male's first bitch -- the one who'd been the right species for him. Death had come to her and their whelps in an instant while he'd been off to meet a dignitary. She loved the Xer that she'd taken as her male -- just as he loved her, but she'd known him before the tragedy as a friend and colleague. She'd met his female and played with their little ones. He'd never been the same afterward. She brightened, laughing a little at the way that her friend waded in so cautiously. "I know that a rogue must always be on her guard -- if she wishes to remain among the living," she smiled, "but there are no sea snakes or predatory fish here. You won't even find a stone to stub your toe against, Selena. There are clams and oysters over in that direction and a few star-shaped creatures who keep their numbers down, but there is nothing here to even cause you to worry about getting your lovely hair wet here, if you don't wish it." Whatever Selena was about to use as a reply was cut short when Nahl'een suddenly jumped up from where she'd crept holding her breath to wrap herself around her sister's upper body. Selena toppled over backwards as Nahl'een's happy shriek filled her ears. "And even if you don't." the demon smiled to herself as she finished the thought, "there is a young sea monster who will get it wet for you." This was more like it, she smiled as she watched them splash each other. One almost wouldn't know that they'd only met recently. ---------------------- Xhan walked to his own room and looked at the bed, trying to decide the way that he wished to sleep after his night of walking with the others. Unlike them, he had no duty to perform here, he only liked the company. He could always remain like this and sleep either on the floor or on the bed, but that would limit his options for the way that he felt. He closed the door and climbed onto the bed, lying down in his other form. He lay on his back and before long, his fingers slid around his scrotum, caressing it the way that hers so often had. He missed her, and as he felt his longing for her grow into the puddle of self-pity that he knew it was. His hand found his hardening shaft, seeking to make himself feel a little better by masturbating and remembering the way that she could coax his gushes from him so easily. His uncle had told him what she was doing and why -- what her hope was when she moaned into his ear in the dark places they chose for their trysts. Xhan didn't care. He loved her and she loved him -- that was what he'd told himself anyway. He remembered the way that she could drive him to near-madness with the way that she rubbed her body against his in the darkness. Xhan wasn't inexperienced. He'd had more than a few playful pairings with others, ones who hadn't laid their little treasures in front of him like bait to tantalize him into choosing them for a life together. But she had, always holding him off, telling him that she was serious about them and how she wanted him for their lives together. He hated the way that his uncle had shown him the truth about her, using his connections to provide him with the proof and the way that she had poured the same honeyed words into the ears of another that he knew well. She'd gotten over Xhan in a week, and had quite obviously decided that her back-up plan would do just as well. From what he saw, it had already been decided, the male from a slightly less famous family filling her every chance that he got. Xhan pushed the thought away angrily and settled back into stroking himself as he remembered how she'd pressed her mound against him so hungrily. The scene in his mind shifted a little, and he was amazed to find that it wasn't who he'd placed there in his little fantasy now. It was another, and the thought of her against him took him roaring to a sudden climax in seconds. He'd been completely unprepared for this. As he laid there, the fur of his hard belly covered in his own semen, stroking on for a little while, he was flat on his back, staring at the ceiling of the chamber and wondering just where and how this had come to him. He shivered a little as his final spasm came to him and then he lay still, listening and feeling the thunder of his heart. He groaned, knowing that he'd need to wash now. ------------------- "How they know?" the little face looked up at her from where she sat in the water with Selena sitting behind her. Nahl'een loved the way that it felt to sit leaning against Selena and feeling the way that she was inside her arms while she told her another story. "How the thieves know you were there?" "Well," the rogue smiled down at her, "they couldn't see me, since it was dark and all, but they knew that there was another thief there. Unless they're really stupid, a thief knows it when things go missing and other things happen to draw their attention somewhere else. We'd all know it if someone came to steal the things that we'd stolen away from us. I was just using them. I was there for the same little gold statue, but I found them already there, so I just changed my plan. I let them face the problems of the traps and the guards. They started out as six -- which was too many. Only two were left by the time they got to their hideout. They kept looking to see if they were followed, but they didn't see me. I knew them anyway and I knew where they liked to lay low, so I was there waiting for them, that's all." "What happened?" Nahl'een asked. Selena looked over and saw that her older friend sat not far off, hanging on every word. It made her laugh a little, "I had a little surprise for them. I usually carry one or two. They're little packages with a small bit of flashing powder wrapped up very tightly in a paper covering. The tightness is important, because it will make a better noise. They had incense sticks burning all over the place to help with the smell of the sewers. I just used one to light the fuse of my surprise, and then I moved away before it went off. They go off with a bang then. But my surprise was even better, because I set it in a pile of their own. I knew where they kept them stored for when they used them. When it went off, it lit all off the others, and in the noise and smoke, it was east to get away. So I had the gold statue that I'd been sent to get, and, since they'd been seen back in the big house, they got the blame. Best of all, I had my revenge." Nahl'een was happy. She loved to hear adventures of any sort. "You show me how? I want to be like you, Selena." "I don't think you'd want to be like me all that much, Nahl'een. You only want to now. Anyway, even you can't learn all of this in an hour, but I will show you the dances." "What are dances for?" the little face frowned in thought. "A rogue needs to be able to get out of the way of things which might be thrown or shot at them," her grandmother said, "and if you think about it Nahl'een, you might see that there is no time to try to decide what to do then. You must be able to let your body decide what to do all by itself. The dances are to teach your body to do this." "Yes," Selena said as she lowered her head to press it against Nahl'een's affectionately for a moment, "Each one is a series of steps or movements. You learn one at a time, and practice them all endlessly, whenever you have a little time. You learn balance as you do them slowly while you learn the movements. Then, when you know a dance well enough, you move faster through it. If you work at it, your body will be able to move the right way at just the right time. Then you learn the next dance and begin again with that one." "I've seen the way that it's done, little one," the demon smiled, "It teaches grace and when it is done a little slowly, it is very beautiful to watch." "You show, ... "Nahl'een stopped as she remembered how she was supposed to ask, "Can you show me how, ... it looks to see?" Selena smiled and got to her feet, walking out onto the sandy beach. She thought a moment, and selected something from her sizable number of dances and then she began. Her movements were slow and purposeful at first, but before long she sped it up a little, and the others sat with their mouths open in awe of the rogue's graceful movements. After a little while, she increased the pace, still performing the same fixed movements which she knew by rote, until at last, she completed the final repetition at blinding speed, a little sand flying from the movements of her feet. She walked back to them and sat down in the water again. It wasn't until the pair had finished their amazed praise of the beauty of it all that Selena realized that she'd done it all naked. She thought about it and decided that she could get used to it. It really didn't bother her at all with them here. She was a little surprised to suddenly find Nahl'een on her knees next to her in the water, hugging her neck tightly and begging to be taught. Shaevre padded in a little later, and Selena was asked to perform again so that Nahl'een's friend could see as well. The rogue thought it was little more than a disguised attempt to get her to dance once more, but she didn't mind all that much. Shaevre sat on her haunches like a dog and nodded. The thing of it was, that when Selena had finished her series of dances and the demon and the little girl had gone into the gentle surf to play a little, Selena felt herself being looked at. She turned and saw Shaevre watching her with interest. She felt a little silly, but she smiled at the creature, "They look as though they've forgotten me for the moment," she said as she watched them, "I'm sorry if you were dragged over to watch, and I hope it didn't bore you too much." She looked back and saw Shaevre watching Nahl'een then. Selena shrugged and walked over to join them, not noticing that the hellhound stared at her for a few more minutes. The next time that Selena looked, she saw Shaevre already looking elsewhere. -------------------------- "I'm almost afraid to ask, but what did you want to look at on me to know what you wanted to know?" Selena asked as they stood on the bottom about halfway out. Aside from Ny'Zeille, Selena had been forgotten for the moment as Nahl'een ran in and out of the water at the edge with her playmate. "I really don't need to look anymore, my friend," the demon smiled warmly as she watched her granddaughter play, "From all that we have done, I can say that you are a mix of the two types of blood, the same as your sister and Dahlgren. You need to explore to find out the extent of what you were given from the pairing of your parents and then you need to develop it. It would be my pleasure to help in any way that I can. I wanted to find a way for you to stay to accomplish it, and so I found something very useful and valuable in bargaining to have you teach Nahl'een. Both of you will benefit." "I understand your sly maneuvering," The rogue smiled, "but now I think that I'd at least like to know the physical signs. You never know, it could come in handy for me one day to be able to tell myself." "Very true," her friend smiled, "but I believe that it might only be of limited value, since most of the ways to tell are details which are kept covered by clothing on most people here. I can show you if you wish, but this is not something to share with a human. I know what you are now, and if you were human, I'd never show you at all. It is knowledge which would only be misused by them." "I'd still like to know, "Selena grinned, "even more if I'm allowed to know a secret. Do all people like me know it? "Most do not," Ny'Zeille grinned, "and most pure demons do. They just don't tell. There are six indicators for females, only five for males, and only one of them is sure most of the time. One can be misinterpreted over a rather cosmetic practice among some people, two sometimes occur in humans naturally, one is a matter of preference which can also occur in a human now and then, and one occurs in three other types of being. The last is a little hidden. Am I tantalizing you now?" "Oh yes," her friend laughed, "now more than ever. I must know now." "Then come a little closer," Ny'Zeille said, "and I'll show you." Selena took a few steps and suddenly found that the bottom dropped away under her feet. She sank below the small waves for a moment, but came up sputtering a little as the demon's hands slipped under her arms to pull her up and set her down where she stood. "You knew that hole was there!" Selena laughed. Ny'Zeille nodded, "Yes. I wanted to see if you wished to know so badly that you would abandon your usual caution -- which you did. I'm a little surprised. I didn't think it would be worth that much to you." "Well I guess it is," the rogue said, laughing at herself a little, "now shut up and tell me please." Ny'Zeille sighed, "There you go, thinking like a human again and wanting things which cannot be. If I shut up, then I can't tell you, can I?" She read a little of Selena's sudden idea, "-And I can tell you that I am not ticklish at all. Now, in either of a demon's shapes, these things might be present. If all of them are, then it is almost a certainty. I have never seen a person where all of these are there, and they were not at least part demon, but I suppose that one must allow for the possibility. A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 14 A behavioral aspect which can be looked for is a tendency to like -- or at least appreciate great beauty in either gender in a sexual manner. It is not a certain indicator, since there are humans who are attracted to both sexes as well, but almost all demons have this tendency in them. For example, I have a rather strong preference to be attracted to males, but I recognize that I also have it in me to want a female -- at least in my mind now and then. Aside from a short affair when I was a very young female, just barely of age, I have never sought this again, and as far as I know, since we still see each other once in a while, neither has my first lover. But I suppose that if we had remained close, our love would have carried on." Selena wanted to smirk, since her friend was obviously wrong about her, but she said nothing and Ny'Zeille went on to the next sign as Selena felt the demon's fingers against her lower back. She suppressed the shiver that she felt coming to her from the pleasant sensation of it. "One of the surest indicators -- and one of the hardest to see is a feature of the tailbone," she said, "In normal humans, it is the end of the spine and serves as the anchor point for many groups of muscles inside the body. The tailbone carries on down under the skin between the buttocks of both demons and humans. But demons have tails, Selena, and this place is where our tails part with the tailbone to hang outside of our bodies. In an undeveloped one, or in a demon who is in their other form, there is a very small bump which may be seen sometimes and felt for here." This time, Selena did shiver as she felt the demon's fingertip slip down to the spot just above her cheeks gently, just where the back ended and the haunches began. She couldn't help it. Ny'Zeille's breast was pressing softly against her own. "There," Ny'Zeille smiled at her as she put her other arm on Selena's other shoulder to support herself in the motion of the waves, "This is the place where the tail would be. It can be undeveloped, as I believe that it is in you, or it can be there hidden when one is in the other shape. Can you feel that? Where my finger is now?" Selena was only partially successful in holding down the quiet groan which escaped her lips. The demon's fingers felt so good. She nodded, "What can you feel? Is it there, ... what you would look for?" "Yes," the demon smiled, "as I knew this morning that it must be." Ny'Zeille smirked just a little as her voice took on a knowing tone. "You don't wish for me to stop, do you? Very well, I'll continue for a moment. I don't mind." Selena found herself pressing her bottom out a little as the demon's hand moved, cupping her haunch now and then in a caress before going back to that small bump, and probing a little lower now and then. "This brings me to another indicator," she said in a low voice, as she looked into Selena's face. "The eyes will show a little reflectively during moments -- or periods - of stress, emotion, or pleasure -- as yours are now and as they did when you became angry with me earlier. It is why you almost always wear a hood. You just didn't know what it is that you seek to hide, but your own body knows of it. I see that it is happening more easily for you now --another sign that your body is coming to accept itself at last, as even it knows that you are among friends, to use a figure of speech. I'll go on with my touch for only a moment longer -- unless you now do not wish to know the other signs." "I -- I still want to know," her friend sighed, "This feels so good, Ny'Zeille," she said as she pushed her backside out and in involuntarily only a little against the fingers there, and she thrilled at the way that it caused her nipple to feel from the changes in the pressure against Ny'Zeille's breast. "I know," the demon sighed, "I like it too, sometimes." She removed her hand slowly in a lingering way, her long fingers trailing across Selena's buttock longingly. "The other three things are also in an intimate place," she said as she moved herself to stand more in front of the rogue. She moved her hand and Selena felt those fingertips against her again below her navel and moving south. What surprised her was that she hadn't already moved away from the touch. "It is not a sure sign, since some human females remove their hair here," Ny'Zeille said as her fingers slid over the rogue's mound in only bare contact, "but no demon of my kind needs to shave this. It is also a sign of red demons, only in the opposite way. They are a different race than we are and they do have hair here naturally. I can feel that you do not shave. You have never had hair here, have you?" "No," Selena said as she saw the way that Ny'Zeille lowered her shoulder a little as her fingers slid down lower to cup the rogue's mound, squeezing gently. "This is always more pronounced in anyone who carries demon blood. Both we and reds show this. It is not a true sign though, since there are many human females who have this as well." Her breasts had been in light contact with Selena's during this interval, and it felt wonderful. She wondered how it was possible. She didn't think that this sort of thing would have brought anything other than a feeling of mild revulsion to her, but ... She wanted to reach for the demon's breasts, but felt her hand moving forward to cup the other one's mound instead. The eyes in front of her glazed reflectively in an instant and the demon smiled softly. "Rest your head on my shoulder, Selena. "I like this with you so much." Selena lowered her head and a second later, she heard the low voice again as those long fingers moved a little more in a different way. If the two of them had been out of the water now, she had no doubt that by now she'd have been wet enough for it to be running down her leg. Even in the water here, Selena could feel the slickness of Ny'Zeille's inner lips so the rogue knew that she wasn't immune to this either. "The last sign," Ny'Zeille moaned a little as she spoke very slowly, "is here. I can already feel that it has begun. Your pearl is becoming a longer little jewel, isn't it? Those of our kind always have this. It doesn't only lie there waiting hopefully to be pressed against or rubbed a little, no. It comes out a little more, doesn't it, peeking well outside it's flower to seek for its pleasure. Can you feel mine, Selena? It seeks for your touch now." Selena was surprised and a little happy that her friend had the same sort of feature that she did. She stood groaning softly into Ny'Zeille's shoulder. "I, I don't --" "Don't even try to tell me that," her friend moaned quietly as she continued to keep an eye on Nahl'een, "You have the blood for it, as I have shown you in many ways. We are the same, Selena. It doesn't mean that we must now run off to find a bed. I am coming to appreciate my friend -- and she is still my friend. I still want a prick inside of me, but I know what this is, "she sighed as she kissed the rogue's neck for a moment. Their motions became a little more urgent and Selena stopped hers as she came gently, hanging onto the demon. When it had passed, she began again for Ny'Zeille and a moment later, she felt the demon shudder against her. Selena raised her head to look in confusion at the demon. What she saw were those eyes glowing faintly back at her. "We both want a male more than anything," the horned one said, "but we both like this as well -- and it is safe with a friend who is growing close to us. It leaves out the possibility of heartbreak to a degree. Leave it at that, and know that we can help each other now and then. I see nothing wrong with that." She kissed Selena softly for a moment, and then smiled at her. "Come, I need to make something for Nahl'een to eat for lunch. There is soup on the fire, a little away from the flame and it's been heating slowly since breakfast. I'll cut up some bread and we can eat." They began to walk to the beach together. The rogue was more than a little surprised at herself and how she'd reacted to Ny'Zeille's touch. Just as the demon had said, Selena was absolutely certain that she still preferred males, but this had been a rather startling lesson to her about herself. And just as Ny'Zeille had said as well, she didn't have a great urge to drag the demon to a bed. She just liked the way that it had felt. She felt Ny'Zeille's hand on her hip and she copied the movement, since it pulled them together as they walked, and their hands dropped down and they stepped apart a little as they came near the shore. ---------------------- He sat on a rock outcropping in the late afternoon wearily. He was covered in blood, not much of it his own, he thought a little thankfully, but he was a mess. There had been more than forty of them, and some had gotten away for a time and had needed to be hunted down. There was nothing which fought more desperately with its back to a wall than a red demon who knew that his or her number was up. It had taken most of the past day, and he really hadn't been looking forward to doing this after nightfall. He wouldn't have minded and he could see just fine in the dark. But again, it would have brought out even more of their desperation. To realize that their last hope at hiding or slipping away unobserved gave them no advantage would have just made it even messier -- if that were even possible, he thought. Dahlgren has just needed some warm sunshine on his tired body. He'd taken his clothes off for it, not caring how he might have looked. He needed to get away from the stench which his clothing wore now from the gore that he'd gotten covered in. He looked at the ruined town a little way off in the distance. Some of it was still burning and the three streets there were full of bodies. What a damned shame. His eyes drifted to the one surprising asset that he'd found here on his arrival as she picked her way tiredly up the rocks toward him. She'd already been fighting and killing them when he'd arrived. Like him, she was a half-breed, born several hundred miles away in some little hovel that even she'd nearly forgotten since little of it came to his mind. Like him, she had some considerable ability, though she perhaps wasn't aware of the extent of it. Like him, she was naked, or very nearly so, most of her dress having been an early casualty in the fight, and there was one more thing. Unlike him, she was part red demon. It had caused him some confusion and now left him with a hell of a lot of doubts. "They came from outta there- that cave behind you," she said a little wearily as she wiped a bit of sweat from her forehead. Since she was as covered in blood and filth as he was, all that she succeeded in doing was to smear what was there a little more. "Here," she said, holding out a bunch of flash powder sticks to him, "I reckon you'll wanna close that off any time now, the sooner the better." Dahlgren nodded a little absently as he looked her over without being pointed about it. "Yes, but while I'm not about to quibble about the way that you've helped me, I guess that I'd like to know why. I can tell that at least some of you is the same as they all were." She looked at him a little hard with a slight tilt to her head, "That bother you or somethin'?" "No," he said, "not really, I'm just very surprised, that's all." She stood back a little, and he guessed that she was preparing to continue this, only between the two of them now. He looked at her black eyes as her eyebrows lowered a little. She was thin and lithe, though not wiry at all. The remains of her blood-soaked dress sticking to her by what was left of the collar did nothing to cover the hint of the slight swells that were her small breasts. She was as beat-up as he was, obviously. He glanced at her thin, longish arms and the large, clawed hands where they ended. Looking more, he saw her thin hips and the dark patch of her fur between her legs -- possibly the only real human trait that he could see on her at all, other than her rather nice, human-looking skin. Even so, there was something to it that he'd never seen before. Beginning just below her navel, there was just a hint of hair. It grew in little more than a stripe, only widening a little when it reached her pronounced mound. Her long legs matched her arms, though he liked them on her, and they ended in feet exactly like the demons whose carcasses lay littered all over the landscape where they'd fallen. "I think I'd understand a little better if you'd tell me who you are and how you came to be here. Maybe then, I'd get a grasp of the way that you killed these ones as you did. I have to hunt red demons. I've never met someone who is partly red demon and shows such hatred for them." "My name's Faith," she said with a nod, "and all I need to know from you is whether we're gonna fight it out or not, you and me. Seein' the way that you fight and all, I guess that it'll be my last day alive. I wish I'd known that before I worked so hard to help you." He shook his head, "No, that's not what I meant, "he said, "I don't want to fight you. I'm thankful, believe me. I'd still be at it without what you did. I'm just trying to understand, that's all." "There's nothing to understand here, Slick," she said, "You want to know why I kill them?" She tilted her head and gave him a hard look, "Well I'll tell you why. I'm mad at them, how's that? I'm mad and I fucking stay mad. Bad luck, bad blood, you call it whatever you want to, but I figure that I got shafted before I was even born. All I ever wanted to be was a plain ordinary girl. Look at me," she said, "My Momma was raped by one of them. Not any of these, but that don't matter. I was a regular girl til my time of women come the first time. Then I turned into this over three days of fever, agony and blood. My eyes went black like this and they stayed this way. My teeth grew and my hands and feet, ..." She shook her head. "THAT'S when Momma told me what I am," Faith sneered. "Only then, so I got no warning about what might've been comin' to me. None of my clothes would fit. All of my friends ran off and wouldn't come within a hundred yards of me anymore. I couldn't go to school no more, nothing. People either ran away, or they shouted and cursed me for six years." She looked as though she was trying to hold her emotions inside and was about to fail at it. "The people from the town came for us in the middle of the night soon after I turned eighteen," she groaned a little, "People I knew all my life, they dragged my Momma off and they killed my little sister with a club over nothin'. What did she do to deserve that? She wasn't like me. She didn't have this taint. I broke through the wall and ran off, and when I thought about it all, I just got mad and I ran to the town. But they was already burnin' my mother for bein' a witch. My momma wasn't no witch, but they tied her to a post and they lit her up anyway, all because of me. All because I turned into this." Faith stood there weeping a little, but it wasn't long before she had it in hand again. "That night," she said coldly, "that was about the only time that I killed humans. I ran right into the flames and I killed my Momma so's she wouldn't suffer no more. My dress burned right off me, but my hair didn't even catch fire. And I'm not gonna tell you what I did to the man with the club who killed my sister." Her gaze came at him from beneath her eyebrows, "Then I gave 'em all a reason to fear me, since they seemed to want to do that so much that they'd murder them that ain't done 'em no harm. I grabbed the ones who came for us and I dragged them into the flames and I held 'em there til they lit up themselves. I showed them all how I play with fire," she said, pointing to herself, "and you've seen some of that. After that, I've killed any of the ones like what spawned into my mother that I could find. Just as soon as I know what they are, I kill 'em. And I can sniff 'em out in nuthin' flat, you'd best believe me. I've never killed humans after that one night, other than the odd bastard who wanted to use me, but it was a heap of bodies before I got done, I can tell you. Lookin' the way that I do, I just live alone, since nobody will come near me. Whenever I try to get to know somebody, they start to lose their little minds and I just walk away. Now," she said, squaring her thin shoulders, "if you reckon that I've done somethin' wrong bad enough to need to killin' for, well then, you just go on ahead and do what you think you gotta do. If you kill me, fine. My life's been nuthin' but a worthless thing -- the same as me, and I won't have to scratch around so hard tryin' to stay alive no more. If I kill you, well I'll know that there's not even a true ranger who's any use to me, and I reckon that I'll just go on back to the town there and start rummaging around for a new dress before I head off." He shook his head, "I don't want to kill you, I just wanted to know." He stood up and stepped closer to her, putting his arm over her shoulder with a smile, "So I hear that you hate red demons..." It made her laugh, "Well wouldn't you? Look at me." "I did," he said, "You look like a demon. I don't see anything wrong with you. I think you look lovely -- but then, I'm a mutt too, aren't I?" Faith found herself laughing again, but inside, she had a hopeful doubt now, wondering just how much of what he'd said was the truth. When she felt for it, that was what came back to her and she found herself looking at him in a new light -- at least a little, anyway. He took the bundle of flash powder sticks from her and walked back to the opening in the rock. "They mined here, those people?" "I didn't live here," she said, "but that's what it looks like, so I reckon they did. I was just passing by and I heard the screams. It didn't take me long to feel what it was about, so I come running to kill me a few. They screwed those poor folks over pretty good from what I see." "Yes," he nodded as he walked away from her, looking for the best place to set the charge. Faith couldn't help liking the way that he looked to her as she watched him. They walked off together a few hundred feet. "Why'dja take so long to get here?" He shrugged, "I was far away when I heard." "You're not gonna be needing a match, are you?" she looked up at him with a small smile, "They're expensive hereabouts and I ain't got any." "No," he said smiling at her, "I thought that you'd just set the charge off from here, since I know that you can do that. You could have just done it while I was standing there with the sticks in my hand, but you didn't." "Reckon I coulda," she grinned a little, "but ya gotta trust somebody sometime, the way that I figure it and I could see that you were trustin' me then. You about ready?" He nodded, and she smiled up at him. The roar of the explosion didn't even make them jump as half of the cracked and fissured old mountain face collapsed on itself. "Come on," she smiled as she tore the rest of her dress off, "I know of a little place around here where there's enough of a trickle that we can wash some of this shit off us. We got a little while before the sun sets, and that oughta be long enough for me to find some clothes and for the two of us to find a freshly-killed cow for something to eat. There's enough of them lyin' around now." He was a little surprised when she showed him the little dell where there were at least a few trees which could manage to stay alive under the relentless sun. "This starts out as a big old river far over that way in the mountains," she said, "but this is all that's left by the time that it gets all the way over here." The water was cold and it was good to drink. They took turns standing under it and helped each other to wash what they could of the blood from their hair and bodies. "Come here," Faith smiled, as she led him around some rocks. "Most folks don't even know this is here, unless they can guess why there might be a few trees here. This little place is hidden well enough, I guess that most don't think to look. But the real treat is back here." He stared as he looked at the little pool in the rocks. A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 14 "You'll need to watch where you put your feet," she said, "some of these stones are a mite slippery, but you get past that, and this is big enough for us both to sit in and cool off a little." -------------------------- It had long gone dark when they sat together by the little fire that they'd made. The night was only beginning to cool off and it surprised him a little so he asked Faith about it. "This here's called the Devil's Frying Pan," she said with a sweep of her hand, "It'll get a lot colder over the night, but it's also a lot hotter during the day, the way that this valley is shaped. I don't know why they called it that, other than from the heat. I've never met him, unless I'm sitting with him now." "I wanted to ask you," he said, "from what you said, you can't change the way that you look?" She shook her head, "Uh-uh, or I'd have already figured that out. Nope, I am the way that I am, and I can't do nuthin' to change me." She watched his eyebrows knit together a little, "But Faith, you've got a small pair of bumps on your back. They're not very large, but I know what to look for. Haven't you ever grown your wings?" "My wings?" She snorted, "Believe me, if I could do something like that, don't you think I'd have found me a better place to live? I'd have looked awful hard, I can tell you." They'd gathered up a few things from the deserted town, clothes for Faith, and some bedding and blankets against the cold of the night. They sat eating a little of what was left of the bread that they'd found, and she leaned against him after a while, once he'd covered them a little with a blanket. "You never told me your name," she said quietly as she looked at him in the firelight. "Is there a reason for that? Is it a big secret or something?" "Sorry," he smiled at her, "I didn't mean to be rude. I guess I forgot. My name is Dahlgren." She smiled after a second, "Well that's good enough, I guess." He felt her hand under the blanket as she reached a little to touch him. It took no time for her to get his hardening cock into her hand. She grasped it and stroked a bit, wanting to see if she could make him groan just a little. She stopped for a moment, and then she squeezed a little tighter and began again, smiling to herself as she looked down, not wanting him to see her smile and because he'd made the sound. "Why did you say that hearing my name was good enough?" he asked quietly. Faith put her free arm around his neck and stretched up to kiss him softly. "I don't know if you can understand this," she said quietly, "but I'm feelin' pretty good right now to have met you and all. I'm not the type of girl that a lot of the men around here would want. In fact, none of them have ever wanted me, other than a couple of real bastards. So I haven't exactly done me a lot of this here. But I really want to now, Dahlgren. And that's because of the way that you look at me. I can tell that you even like me some, and that's alright with me." She moved so that she had the space for it and asked him to lie back a little. She took his shaft and began again, looking into his eyes. "There's something for me in there, a kind of a feeling," she nodded looking into his eyes. "I've never seen that in a man's face before," she said as she moved herself to get a little lower. "Around these parts, folks always talk about a true ranger. That's what they call you, Dahlgren. Not one of them has ever seen you, but they all know who you are. Tonight, I know who you are, too. So what I meant was, that it's good enough for me to do this with you, because I really like you too, Dahlgren. " She kissed the head of his throbbing hardness a little and after a second, her tongue slipped out from between her lips as she felt the texture and enjoyed the heat that she felt from it. "I've never done anything like this before, but I've seen my mother do it for a friend of hers once not long before the men came to kill us. Leastways I thought that he was a friend then. Anyway, if I'm doin' anything wrong for you, then you just tell me and I'll try hard to do better for you, would that be alright?" He nodded as she settled in to it and Faith found that she liked the way that he ran his fingers through her hair a little. The trouble was that she also found herself wanting more, and after several minutes more of it, she stopped and asked him to lie back more. "I've seen a couple of these things, "she smiled, not looking up at him, "but what you've got here is a little hard for me to keep on like I was without breaking my jaw or something." She looked up and Dahlgren saw her eyes looking at him like two black pools as she moved herself up and forward so that she could rub him against her nipples for a little while. She leaned in and kissed him before she pulled back a little to look at him with a smile. "Honey, I don't know what it is, but I can feel that you've got something troubling you somehow. All I know is that it has nuthin' to do with me or us here. I want to make it better, and I think that all you need is to have a little Faith. You go on and lie right down and I'll give you some, alright? I'm sure that it'll do us both a lot of good." He did as she asked and watched as the blankets fell from her slender shoulders when she rose up to mount him. She was so slender and delicate-looking that the sight of her took his breath from him for a moment. She took hold of him and worked him into her in one long, slow careful motion with a groan from low in her throat. "Ohh, "she moaned as she looked at him, "to think I've wasted all that time makin' sticks to poke myself with." Until she leaned down a moment later to kiss him again, he saw that her breasts were barely there. She straightened up again and began to ride him slowly, running her hands over her breasts and belly, stopping now and then to pull on her nipples. When he reached for one of them, she gasped and allowed it before her eyes closed with a loud sigh from her. If he'd had any doubt about what she was until now, he'd know it in pitch blackness as her muscles began to work him in the magical way of all females with only a little demon in them. They couldn't help it once they were feeling it. Faith stopped moving, other than only in little movements forward and back while she worked him inside of herself for a while. As silly as it seemed to her, Faith found it very enjoyable to look at him as they smiled at each other. But as much as she enjoyed this with Dahlgren, her own need began to overcome her all the same. He watched her lick her fingers and slip one along the wide line of her cleft there in that small thatch of hers. A few moments of slow humping against him and she brought her fingers to her mouth and sucked them as she looked into his eyes. She repeated this once, rubbing her wet fingers along his lips afterward until he opened his mouth to suck them in and he was a little surprised to see her eyes roll back a little. It took her to where she had to hump herself against him hard. He wanted to tell her to go a little easier, but he could see how she enjoyed it so much to do this, and hoping that she didn't break anything of his, he tried to arch his back and clench his own muscles in order to give her all the pleasure that he could. He rationalized that he must be doing something right for her from the way that she cried out and she picked up the pace even further, laying her hands flat on his chest for support as she thrashed against him wildly. It took him to his release as she came and those muscles tightened on him. He grabbed her hips and thrust into her as deeply as he could, and his eyes widened when Faith shrieked out his name and the echoes from the hills answered a second or so behind her. For just one second, he stared up at her wide-eyed as she wavered uncertainly. He didn't know what it had been, but something had changed for Faith as they'd fucked. He wasn't the sort of idiot to ascribe it to anything that he'd done. He just guessed that either the sensations or the emotion, or maybe both had done it. He didn't know. All that he knew was that if he didn't make an effort to catch her, she'd likely break his nose with her forehead, so he reached for her and eased her down, even as the last of his contractions squeezed the last drops of his seed into her. He could see that her eyes tried to lock onto his for a moment, and then he laid her onto him very carefully and hugged her gently. It took her a few minutes before she really came around and he supposed that if he were the sort of fool to think that this had been him, he'd be proud of what? He didn't like to see her this way at all if he'd done anything to weaken her. He wanted to shake his head, slightly worried for her now. "Faith?" he whispered softly, "Faith, are you alright?" She groaned softly, "Fuck," she said against his throat, "that was somethin'. I don't know what all you did, but please, Dahlgren, you just gotta be my man. You do that to me every night, and I'll make you the happiest men alive. I'll swear it on anything." She stopped when she noticed that she was moving because of his gentle laughter. "I really don't think that I did all that for you -- though I wish that I could, Faith. You've never done this before, have you?" "No," she groaned softly, "never before now. But I think I've seen the error of my ways. I'll be a good girl from now on. I promise." He felt her soft smile against him and it felt good. "I think we'd better try that again a little later, just in case you want to take back your proposal to marry me, and by the way, nobody's ever asked me like that." "Mmm." she sighed, "Your hands feel so nice on my back. But could you do that under the blanket? I'm sure it'll feel a lot nicer like that, not that I'm complaining." He wondered how to say it. "Faith, there's no blanket on your back. You threw it off when we started. I'd be happy to rub your back a little for you, though. All you have to do is raise your wings a little so I can get my hands on your skin." "Wings?" she asked, uncertain that she'd heard him correctly, "What wings?" "The uh, ... the really nice set of wings that you grew right at the end there. I couldn't believe what I was seeing, but you grew wings out of your back, just like that. " He moved his hand a little to hold onto the edge farther out from her body, "See? This isn't one of mine, it's yours, Faith." She turned her head to look a little more and then she began to sit up, staring. As she looked from one to the other, they moved a little in response to the motion of her torso. Faith just gaped at them and tried to move them experimentally. She reached back next to her ribs in response to something that she felt. Her fingers came back a little bloody. "I'm bleeding a little." He nodded," I'd say that these were there all along under your skin, since they're wet. You're sleeping on your stomach tonight while they dry and get a little tougher. You might want to try them out late tomorrow afternoon for maybe five minutes. They've got a lot of strengthening to do before they can take your weight." He felt something move against his leg a little, "And you might want to get a look at the tail that I'm sure that you grew as well." She snapped her head around and groaned. 'What's the matter?" he asked, "I don't know how it happened, but it looks to me like your development was stopped somehow. Maybe all of the fighting today, and I don't know, maybe right at the end there, you moved a little differently somehow and I saw them. You held them out a little above you when you came." He smiled, "Other than the shock, it was very nice to see. You looked a little like a queen for a second." She looked at him and nodded with a confused smile, "Thank you, nobody's ever said such nice things to me before." But then she scowled a little sadly, "I thought I was screwed before, but, ... what am I gonna do for clothes now, Dahlgren?" --------------------------- Faith groaned loudly as she listened to the sound of his hips slapping her skinny bottom. She decided that she liked the sound of it so much. It was almost as nice as the way that it felt to her as his balls kissed up against her mound. Her tail was pushed a little to the side and she found that she could hold it out of the way with almost no effort, but she did love the way that it felt to curl it around his thigh. She knew that her release was coming to her again and, lowering her face and chest to the blanket, she arched her back to present herself to him a little better. "Dahlgren!" she called out, loving his name all the more, "Dah-ah-ahl-gr-enn, you wonder-ful de-ee-eem-on, you, I LOVE, ... it when y-you fuck me-ee!" She felt him take her hips in his hands a little tighter and she knew that he must be close himself. He grunted and it thrilled her to hear it as she felt him slam into her over and over, barely giving her knees a chance to touch the blanket. She just bunched up the blanket in her fists and pressed against the small stump that she felt under it to push herself back. When he roared and froze, it was all that she needed as she pressed herself back against him and ground her nub against his scrotum as she wailed into the quilt. This was the fourth time and she was coming to love it when she felt his hardness twitch inside her as his seed came to her. When he finally softened and she felt him slowly leave her, she was always a little sad, but now, she just felt herself sag as she moved her poor knees backward until she was almost lying on her front. She heard and felt him moving around. "What are you doing now?" she asked. "You probably didn't notice," he said, and she could hear his smile in the way that he said it, "but it's gotten cold enough to see your breath. I'm getting all of these blankets and quilts together so we might just live through the night. You might not be aware of it, but everywhere else, it's winter now, and you did say that it gets cold here at night." He had her well-covered and she found him against her, a little cold himself. "I don't want to sleep on my stomach," she grumbled, "It's too hard here." She lifted her head to turn and face him, "Could I sleep lying on you? I'm not very heavy." "Sure," he smiled, "come here then." Faith moved herself with a long groan at the messages from her legs and hips, but she made it finally and waited as he adjusted everything again. "Cover our heads," she said, "but leave us an opening to breathe. I know how to do this." "You've slept outside at this time of year before?" he asked. "Uh-huh," he heard her say under his jaw, "a few times, but like this, here with you, I think it actually might be nice for once. Besides, if I know that I can feel a little safe, I always sleep with the covers over my head. I have since I was a little girl." He got it all arranged after a lot of detailed instructions from her. At first, it had seemed to be a bit of a pain in the ass, he'd thought. But the way that she sighed against him when he finally had it to her satisfaction made it worthwhile to him. He felt something against his thigh and asked. "That's you, Dahlgren," she smiled, "That's you running out of me again." She hoped that it would be alright, and wondered if there was something that she ought to have done about it, since she'd never done anything like this before. But he answered her unspoken question when she felt his tail move to wrap around hers a little bit. She hadn't planned any of this, but now she was beginning to feel quite a lot for him. "So what am I now?" she asked him quietly. "The same as you were before," he replied, "But some parts that you should have had made their appearances tonight for some reason." She moved her head away from his throat a little and she reached to pull his face so that he'd look at her. "I don't know 'bout anything anymore," she said softly, "But I really hope that these wings will let me be able to fly sometime. I've always wanted to fly, and if they can't carry me, then what good are they gonna do me to have to carry them around all the time. I don't think I can hide them, and I can't walk around naked. What am I gonna do?" "I'm not a really wise person," he said, "but I've learned one simple truth. Females need to talk in bed. The first thing that you do is try to get some sleep. I know that will be a problem because you have wings and a tail now and that has to be strange for you. But everything else, these questions, try not to think about them. There'll be enough to keep your head full in the morning. I guess that I'll stay with you unless I'm called away. You need someone to teach you how to fly, or you'll just have a lot of accidents." "What about after?" she asked him quietly, more than a little fearful to hear his answer. "If I have to think about how to explain all of this to myself," he said, "then I won't get any sleep either, and there will be two of us crashing into everything." She felt his hands as they slipped under her wings to hold her by the waist. "If you need an answer right now, I don't have one. That's why I need the sleep. But I didn't come here for what we've done tonight. All that I know is what I feel from you." He kissed her softly, "I feel the same way." A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 15 ***I sometimes 'complete' characters visually. That is, I have an idea but nothing visual at the outset. I might be looking at something and they come to me. It didn't work that way with Dahlgren. For Dahlgren, I happened to be looking at the cover of a PC game and there was a guy in the background. He's not Dahlgren, but if you saw the picture, you'd get it as far as the clothing and his physique went. When I invented the character who would become Faith, I was looking at a drawing with nothing relating to my story. There was a thin thing in the back of a bunch more and he was male, but I already had the backstory in my head. I just knew that it was the bodystyle that I wanted. As far as her mannerisms, it came from her growing up poorer than dirt, but trying awfully hard to get by. Her speech pattern had nothing to do with that, coming mostly from where she grew up. I wanted a character who could make me smile just by being herself. She has nothing, but she has her own charm and there's a dignity in that which works for her. It worked for me. 0_o ----------------- Book of the Merren Part 8 She heard the morning songs of a few birds and she opened her eyes. Faith found herself still lying on her front and still on top of Dahlgren, but he had moved up a little somehow or, maybe she had moved back. She lifted her head to look at him and he groaned. She was very careful as she moved and hugged him very gently. "That's alright," she grinned, "I've gotta pee too. I understand how it is." She kissed the center of his chest and pushed herself up and off him using her hands on the blanket. "So tell me," she said after they'd both come back, "What would you be doing now, back where you live? I know I'd be heading over to the town again to look for some food, and then I'd likely just amble off. There's a little place that I like to hole up in sometimes and it's pretty cozy and out of the heat of the sunshine. What would you be doing now?" He smiled at her, liking her for her mannerisms and the rather endearing way that she looked to him today, a little tousled and not really awake yet. They seemed to have become closer as they'd slept. He really couldn't explain it- even to himself, but there was a pleasant familiarity there that he found so appealing. "I'd just fly back to my home. I have a daughter, and she's very nearly six now. I think that I'd be trying to think of something to give her on her birthday." She slipped her arm around his waist and began to lead him to the pool, "Tell me about her -- and also tell me about her mother." "It's not like that," he said, "I never met her mother. She's an orphan and I've adopted her. Her name is Nahl'een and she's like us, a little of two kinds. She lived alone for the first few years of her life, and she's a little slow in learning to speak properly, but she's coming along pretty quickly. She loves to talk forever now, and I love to listen to her." Faith looked at him a little pointedly, "You know, I don't know what it is with you, but I ask a question and you answer it -- some. Sometimes, you don't tell me what I want to hear at all, like last night when I almost had to jab you with a stick to get your name outta you. Don't you know nuthin' about girls, Dahlgren? I asked and I got told a bit about your little girl. That's really nice to hear and all, especially the way that I can feel that you just love her to death. That's what a good daddy ought to be like. But I asked about her mother to see if you've got somebody for you. Now you said that her momma's dead or somethin' like that. What I want to know is if there's a female in your life." He smirked as he looked down and he laughed after a moment, "You mean other than my mother?" "Lookit here," Faith scowled at him, "You ain't one of them momma's boys, are you?" It made him laugh more. "I never used to be," he grinned, "but ever since Nahl'een has been with me, my mother comes there fairly often, I'd say. I'd even say that she's there a little too often, by my old standards. But she doesn't come for me, really, and I'm not under her thumb or anything like that. She comes to help with Nahl'een. It doesn't matter that there's no blood connection between them, my mother took Nahl'een as her granddaughter on first sight. Sometimes that's helpful to me, since we live alone, mostly. So she looks after my daughter if I have to be away - like I am now. If she can't come, then Nahl'een goes to the orphanage where I first brought her after I found her. She's always welcome there, and there are other children for her there to play with." He looked at Faith a little fearfully. "I know. Sorry. You want to hear the answer to one question and now it seems that I'm dodging it. There's no one, Faith. There hasn't been anyone in a long time, since before I came back here to do what I do -- whatever that is when I'm not killing red demons. There was somebody that I might have gotten a little close to a little while ago, but it didn't happen." "Well," Faith said brightening, "would you want somebody?" His expression made her laugh at him. "I know, I know," she said sweeping her hand out toward the desert floor below them, "it was a real close thing in so many ways and so hard for me to choose. There's all these hopeful men out here, ... all of 'em lusting after my little ass the shameless way that they do,... all of 'em needin' the soft touch of a quiet little girl such as I am. Why it's lucky there haven't been fistfights and duels fought over me, just sayin'." She looked down as they walked. "I know I ain't much to look at, Dahlgren, "she bent down for a moment to pick up a stone and throw it down the slope. "But I like you an awful lot, and I ain't exactly got me a full dance card around here at the best of times, like right now." "Right, uh, ... now?" he asked. "Yeah," she said, "Don'tcha see all them men out there just waitin' to grab me and make me their girl, bangin' me all night long? Why, there's whole herds of them, there's -- " "I don't see anybody, Faith," he said softly, "but I know what you mean." She nodded and was silent for a moment. She picked up another rock and threw it hard. Dahlgren watched as it sailed on almost out of sight. "If you know what I mean," she said almost as a whisper and he had to listen hard to catch her words, "then you might see that I'm already yours - leastways if you'll have me. I ain't pretty, like I said, bu-" "You're more than pretty," he said, "I think you're lovely. You ought to stop hitting yourself over the head." She shushed him a little impatiently, "Dammit, Dahlgren, can't you see that I'm trying to tell you something?" She moved to stand in front of him. "Listen," she said, her black eyes almost pleading with him all by themselves, "I know we only met yesterday, and, ... well, after last night, and how good it felt to have a man like you to lie on, well I'm, ... I want to tell you that I think I love you, Dahlgren. I know that you likely don't love me, but give me a chance. Something like this doesn't ever happen to me. I've only ever been alone and - well I ain't never been in love before." She looked down at his chest and laid her hand against it. She was a little surprised to see just how small it looked there, and how very good it felt to touch him again. She knew that he'd probably listen to her make a fool of herself like this and she knew that he was only being polite to be hearing her out the way that he was. He'd fly away in a little while and she'd be alone again. She'd never minded it all that much, once she'd gotten used to it since there was no alternative. But she knew that this time it would be very different. This was going to hurt a lot. "I'm nuthin' like what you'd want, but if you'd take me with you, I'd let you fuck me all you want to, Dahlgren. I think that maybe I need that now. I'd try really hard to make you love me. I promise I won't even talk if you're with one of your better friends so's they don't see how rough I am. I won't shame you. Just take me with you. Please?" She didn't dare to probe with her thoughts. She just knew that she'd lost, that was all. She leaned forward and placed her forehead against him, wanting to feel it one more time. She'd never meant for it to happen and she knew that she didn't really know any better, though she supposed that she should have known, the way that he'd made her feel. All that she knew was that she needed him. It was long past a want in her. She squeezed her eyes shut but even so, a couple of tears came to her to betray the last depths of her heart's desperation. They left her cheeks to fall onto his feet, as lost as she was. "Please, Dahlgren," her voice came out of her as a tiny thing, "I'm begging now." He reached for her and held her tightly. She looked up in shock and gasped as his head was suddenly against her own. "Don't beg," he said into her ear, "You don't have to try really hard to make me love you. I'm a little lost here, I guess. I don't know how to do it yet, but you can come with me." She pulled her head back and saw his smile. He watched her eyes glaze over happily in the way of demons, "You really mean that?" "Yes," he said, "I can't promise anything yet, really. There will be at least some problems, and it has nothing to do with how 'rough' you might think that you are. It has to do with your blood. " He kissed her hard enough to make her groan and press herself against him. "What are we gonna have to do?" she asked in the second that she felt that she had for it. "I don't know yet," he said, honestly. They stood holding each other for a moment longer before they walked the rest of the way to the pool and the little cascade which fed it. "You ought to go first," he said, "there's blood and goo all over your back from when your wings came in." "Goo?" He shrugged, "It's a nicer way to say runny scabs." He watched her pretty nose crinkle and he nodded, "I'll wash it off for you and I'll be gentle." She stood under the cold water, struggling just to breathe around her gasps. "Ah!," she hissed in a little pain and looked at her hand to see if it was injured, "What's in my hair?" Dahlgren smirked a little as she felt her head tenderly with her fingers. She looked at him as her jaw dropped. "Horns." He said, "A couple of rather small horns. I thought you knew about them before now. They're not big, they're probably not very visible when your hair's dry, Faith." "Horns," she said, rolling her eyes, "I get farther and farther from being the girl that I want to be every minute. Great." "I think they're kind of cute," he smiled. "You just shut up now, Dahlgren, before anything else shows up. Is it bad, this goop on my back?" "Not really," he said, wiping carefully with his hand, "A lot of it is already coming off, and the scabs will fall off by themselves. Just don't scratch, no matter how much it might itch." He looked at her shoulders and her back with her new and still-soft wings before his eyes drifted down a little lower. "Did you mean what you said about, ..." "About falling in love with you, or about letting you fuck me?" she asked. "About falling in love," he said, "the rest was just you being a little desperate and I can understand where it came from." "I meant it," she said, "every word. And I was serious about the other thing. You might not want to hear it like that, but there's two things here, Handsome. I really am in love with you, and I love what you did to me last night, so I'll be wantin' quite a lot of that. I think it's good for my heart or something, the way that you make me feel then. It felt to me like it was more than just fuckin' but I ain't never done that before, so I wasn't sure. You were falling a little for me too, I'da guessed, but I didn't know." She turned around, "Do you think that we need each other? I mean, not just for that. There's something more, isn't there?" He smiled and thought about it, "I guess there is. It felt a little different to me. I have to say that I've never felt as, ... involved in it before. I've done that before, but never felt it like that." "Well didja like it?" she asked, seriously, "Was I good for you and did I do everything right? I mean, besides the part where I was suckin' on you. I had a bit of trouble then." "You were really good," he smiled as he saw her fingers reaching for his maleness again. "What are you -- " "You just shush, Dahlgren," she said as she looked at it there in her hand while it hardened a little magically to her," Ima be needin' a little practice at this, that's all." She sank to a squat, out of the stream of the cold water. She leaned in and kissed the point where it joined the rest of his body, licking with her tongue as well before she leaned back to look at it. Faith planted a very soft and warm kiss on the end of it while looking up at him before she looked back to his throbbing shaft. "Oh, Momma," she said to herself, "I wish that you'da had a chance to teach me a little about how to do this right for a man." She sighed and opened her mouth to take him in. Four minutes later, Faith was still struggling with something as she worked, but she did come to a realization at last. She was certain about the way that she felt about him. She was fully cognizant of her being bone-tired of her life in the desolation all around her, and he was her way out. That was only a factor here. She was aware that he could -- and had -- raised feelings in her that were a whole new way of living, if it went on and she knew that she wanted it to. But there was that other thing which had come up. No matter how she tried to look at it, she just knew how she felt. She could try to separate all of the other things out and she was still left with how she felt inside. What was the issue for her was that she'd never experienced it before. She just knew that she loved him, and it was a huge thing to her, as it would be for anyone, she guessed. She just knew it, and she also knew that she felt that there was more to it, but she was already at the edge of her ability to grasp it, since she was so inexperienced at any sort of relationship. Faith just had a sense that there was something more for her and him. She just didn't know what it was or might be. She shelved it and thought about being with him. They didn't know all that much about each other, but she wanted to learn all that there was because ... well, she told herself, because she wanted to be his. She didn't know how that would work, but she knew that it was what she wanted to be. Because that would make him hers. Well, she thought, if he was hers, or going to be, then the way that she figured it, she had better get back to the task at hand. Faith redoubled her efforts, ignoring the messages which her jaw was sending her brain. She pulled back and used her long tongue to lick his scrotum gently, very thankful that she had gotten at least some instruction about male parts from her mother long ago. She held his shaft up, stroking it as she played with his sack and the stones which it contained, loving the way that -- if she was slow and languid about it and her breath cooled them a bit -- she could feel them moving a little in there besides what she felt as she pushed them around herself. That was when she made a rather strange discovery. As she changed her position to get at it a little from the side, she found that if she grasped his cock near the base and lifted, his scrotum would lift a little as well, and that gave her the room to ... He gasped as he felt her tongue wrap itself almost completely around his balls. He'd never known that this was possible before, since it wasn't with any of the partners that he'd ever been with. But Faith could do it, and he thrilled at the way that she held him, her warm tongue holding him captive and squeezing so gently. She lost it for a second as her tongue looped a little tightly over his saliva-soaked skin and he looked down. He saw her looking up at him and he saw something in her face that he didn't think that he'd ever seen in a female's face before, no matter whether she was human or any of the demons that he'd bedded down with. Not like what he was looking at now. He knew right then that she hadn't been lying. Not even to herself. "Is that good for you?" she whispered. He nodded and she grinned for a brief second. He watched her inhale and then her mouth was coming for him again as she lunged the short distance and extended her tongue again, pressing her face against him and that tongue, ... that marvelous tongue slid hotly around his balls again as she found a way to hold that sack so that it wouldn't get away and he felt her teeth pressing against his body while she tugged so gently to pull it toward her open mouth with a groan. Her eyes gleamed the overhead sunlight back at him as they glazed just before she closed them in her happiness for a moment. The look that she'd seen in his own shining eyes was almost enough for Faith. Her whole body tingled and her cunny -- as her mother had termed it, felt as though it was on fire and humming -- and she hadn't even touched herself yet. She remedied that situation by releasing him and planting her knees instead of squatting. She kept one hand on his rock-hard shaft, working it as she brought it back to her mouth. Her other hand went to her little tits, from one to the other. They'd only been another pair of things which she'd hated about herself. When she'd changed into this mess that she'd become, it had seemed almost an insult to her -- a cruel way that nature had chosen to rub salt in the wounds of it all. Her breasts had been developing normally up to that point. They hadn't been anything to write your aunt about yet, as her mother had teased once gently, but they'd come in just fine in a little time, she'd said, and she'd have to bat the boys off when they did. But as she lay in her bed in pain, she'd finally been able to fall asleep the second night of it. The cruel joke became apparent to her the next morning when she'd awoken to another round of agony inside her changing body. They'd actually shrunk away to little more than swells, and her nipples had grown to a size which took up most of what had been left to her. She had tiny tits and nipples the size of small eggs frying in a pan. But those nipples were hungry now. To her own hands, they felt as though they'd suddenly changed, becoming a substance which must surely be the hardest material known to man. And they were so sensitive, like they got during those rare occasions when her time came to her. It didn't happen often, maybe twice a year, by her reckoning, but when it did, she'd been known to change the landscape around her in her misery. Right now though, they felt so good under her hand. She almost couldn't bear to let her hand move lower. She stopped stroking him and her right hand came to her other nipple for a moment, before she moaned for the way that it felt to her as that hand slid down her hard little belly, deep down under herself. She thought that she must be dripping, she was so wet. She brought her drenched fingers up and regarded the wet shine on them for a moment. His fingers came into her view then as they took her hand in his and be bent down a little. She almost lost him, her lips just managing to keep him a she watched the tender way that he licked and sucked her hand after lifting it up to where he could reach it. She actually felt her eyes roll back from the sensation which seemed to come from her vulva, breasts, and most of all, the middle of her chest then. Something happened in her then, a spark which flickered between all three places and Faith came. It was really short, but she almost jumped off the ground from it. Her hand flashed out from her breast just afterward to grasp what she could of his hip so that she didn't fall backward. A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 15 The crying groan that he heard as she came took Dahlgren away. He stared at Faith, her eyes open again, but there was nothing to be seen there but blackness. Her onyx irises had rolled back and remained there as she suckled as though her life depended on it. He had no time to warn her, not even enough to draw his own breath and bellow as he wanted to. He just came. Faith's mouth was full instantly and she remembered what she'd seen her mother do. She opened her mouth a little, swallowing all that she could, but giving the rest somewhere go. She groaned louder again as she felt his hands on her head caressing her as the sensation of his semen dripping from her lips came to her mind and she noticed it. With the brunt of the flood past her, it seemed, Faith began to lick him hungrily, wanting all of it that she could get, and wondering why. She decided that it was a little satisfying after a moment to do that. Besides, her tongue found that some of it was hanging there dripping from his balls and that gave her the excuse to ... He groaned and she felt him contract again, though not very strongly now, and what that brought her was a little of it running down his shaft to wet her cheek. He reached down and pulled her to her feet suddenly and Faith smiled up at him very wetly. "I know I did it right that time!" She laughed, "I told you I just needed a little practi-." But her eyes opened wide as she saw his face. He looked so good to her and his eyes were glazed over with his emotion. "Thank you," his voice came to her hoarsely. She had only enough time to see what was there in his face before her eyes closed from the feeling in her chest and the soft and earnest way that his mouth and tongue licked his own seed from her face. His arms pulled her to him and one of them slid down to her ass, pulling her against him while the other slipped around the front to work inward to her breast. "Don't bother with that," she heard herself say, "There ain't much for a man like you to enjoy there." "Shut the fuck up," she heard him growl into her ear quietly, "They're the best I've ever seen." Her head fell back a little as he kissed and licked her throat. "Sorry, but I love your tits. I'm just tired of you talking like that. You keep thinking in human terms. You hate what you are, Faith, but you're the most beautiful demon girl that I've ever seen in my life. Tits come in all shapes and sizes but I can't think of anything nicer on you than what you have." He chuckled under her ear after a moment. "I guess I'll just have to show you, that's all." Faith would have been shocked and surprised. Thinking about it afterward, she was sure that her amazement would have been clearly evident on her face. But she had no time to think about it. The next thing that she knew, her world became a blur around her and her breath was forced out of her lungs a little. By the time that she knew what was happening, she was draped over his shoulder and his hand was on her thighs just under her little ass. The world was a bit of desert mountain scenery which was receding from her as he walked. "What are you doing?" she asked when she'd been able to get a breath into her. "I'm taking you back to where we slept," she heard him say in a quiet, low growl. "Uh, okay, Dahlgren," she said, "but, ..." He stopped then. "Don't tell me that you're going to ask me why. You're actually going to ask me, aren't you?" "Well, I thought that we was gonna go get something to eat," she said, "I thought that I was supposed to be trying to figure out what I'm s'posed to do with these wings or something." Her ass stung suddenly and she yelped, "Hey! What was that for?" "I'm trying to get your brain to catch up to events here, "he chuckled as he began to walk again. "I know that we're all alone here, and it's probably not the best place for it, and, ... well the way that you grew up, you probably don't know much about the mating habits of humans and two different kinds of demons, do you? I mean other than inserting part A into part B," he said as he walked. "I know about that, Dahlgren," she said rolling her eyes, "what else do I gotta know about? What else is there? And you're wrong, Mister True Ranger, sir. I'm the one with part A. Part B -- that's your part, gets taken into Part A -- that's my part. There's some ranger school where they teach you this stuff, isn't there? Didja skip off that day or what?" He stopped again and cursed quietly to himself. "I've seen red demons mating before, and they seem to do that pretty well. I guess it's because they get a lot of chances to practice, since it's all they do, other than try to kill each other or somebody else. But other than that, there doesn't seem to be much of anything of a ritual to it. They just fuck." "Well what's wrong with that," she asked," other than you get more of them from it?" He sighed, "What's wrong with it is that there's no courtship to it, no getting to know the other person and growing close beforehand. That's what's wrong with it." "That sounds so nice, Dahlgren, "she said, "But what is it that's bothering you?" "What's bothering me is everything," he said, "No matter what we both are, we're half human between us, aren't we? And we're here in the middle of this frying pan, you called it, with a caved-in mountain over there, and a hundred vultures in the streets of that town, picking over the lumps of dead meat out there. I don't know about you, but I don't want to look at it much more. It's not helping my mood or my want to romance you." Faith's eyes grew to the size of saucers, "Romance me? You want to romance me? Well hot damn!" "You're the one who made all the noise about wanting to come with me," he said, "You told me that you felt as though there was something more. Well I think that there is, Faith." "This wouldn't have anything to do with me suckin' on you just now would it?" she asked a little cautiously. "Yes and no," he said. "I've never been with anyone who could do what you can do and not know much about how to do it. You just do it anyway, and I've never felt anything like that. But there is something else, Faith. Nobody," he said, "Nobody has ever made me feel the way that you do inside me. So I've decided that I'll have to play this differently, that's all. It's the best that I can do, I'm afraid, and I just hope that it's good enough for you." "What in blazes are you talkin' about now?" she asked, "You're leaving me in the dust with your fancy talk." He sighed, "All that I can do, all that's left, as far as I can tell, is to just do this in the way of the kind of demon that I also am, and that's not the way that it's done now." She squirmed a little, "Well if you'd get to the point soon, it would be good. It's heading for lunchtime. OW!" Her backside stung again. "You'd better be going somewhere with all this pretty soon," she growled herself, "or I'll just light up the really nice tail that I see that you have back here. You've spent the last five minutes talking to my ass. I'm back here, the rest of me, in case your eyes ain't working too well. But if you slap my face like you just done to my ass, well I'll kill you." He slapped her butt again, but before she could respond, Faith gasped as the fingers of the hand on her thighs slipped between her haunches to press against her lips. Her annoyance flew from her instantly. "If you'll give me a chance," he said softly over his shoulder, "I'd like to say that I'm going to do this in the old way, where a male chooses a female who seems to like him enough for it." She groaned as his fingers pressed into her a little more. "What I'm trying to say is that I've chosen you, Faith. You don't have to beg or anything else. You seem to want me -- and I was thinking about how you might not be thinking clearly. But I know what I saw and I know what was between us, and it's more than just what we were doing." He heard her sigh and then he didn't hear anything more. But he could feel her emotion clearly. If they were in a dark place right then instead of out in the desert sun, Dahlgren wouldn't have been surprised at all if he'd seen her body glowing. He could feel that much of it coming from her, and he knew what it was. It was the acceptance of a female demon of her male, something which almost never happened for his mother's kind anymore. Other than to make the heart in his chest feel as though it would burst, he was very humbled by it "I can feel that you really mean that," she said quietly, "You don't know how good it makes me feel." He turned his head a little and kissed her hipbone. "I mean it the same way that you do." "So, if I've got this right," she began, "this here's the part where you carry me off and, ... what's that word? I read it in a book in the healer's shop back home a long time ago, before she chased me out for not buying it. Ravish? I think that's it. I thought it said radish the first time I read it. And that didn't make any sense. Is this where you carry me away to ravish me?" "This is the part," he sighed, "where I take you as my female -- that is, if it's what you want." "I do, Dahlgren," she smiled behind him, "I know this is where I'm s'posed to say I do. Uh, there will be ravishing though, right?" "I dunno," he said, thinking a little. "It might have to wait now. You said it's getting near lunchtime. I may only radish you for now. I'm already hungry just thinking about it. Come on, Faith. I want to eat now." She squealed and giggled as she felt his fingers tickle her. Her laughter echoed from the rocks of the mountainside as he carried her away. ------------------------- Faith opened her eyes and was immediately thankful that they were in the dappled shade under the trees. Her whole body felt as though it was humming. She held his head as he kissed and sucked her nipples. What that boy could to a girl to make her feel good ... It was far past that feeling, she realized. Dahlgren the true ranger was making her feel worthwhile and loved. She was coming to revise the way that she felt about her body because of him and how he let her know that he liked it just as it was. She smiled. She couldn't help it. She'd never felt like this in her life. She lifted her head and kissed the top of his. Those horns spoke of a lot of things to her. She sighed and it ended in a long groan. Faith was coming to believe in herself again, and she felt something else -- something other than the love that she now held for him. As hard and tough as her life had forced her to become in order to survive on her own the way that she had, Faith now felt her acceptance in every inch of her lithe frame. This was past just the sex of it now. She had a male now. It was a little thing to think or to say, and it took no time to have the thought. But what came to her right afterward, every single time that she had that thought, was the profound pause that the feeling brought to her. She'd long ago accepted that she'd always be alone and die that way one day. Now she was having to change that. She didn't know it, and it only came to her much later in the darkness of the night in her little cave when she'd taken him there, but that was when she knew beyond all doubt. It was her acceptance and submission to her male. She'd seen herself how a female demon's body can glow softly then. She had no frame of reference for it until he'd told her. For his own kind of demon, it signaled the kind of love that was only mentioned in tales and legends out of their long past now. All that Faith knew when it began as she hung over his shoulder was that she'd accepted him. It took her a little longer to see that he'd accepted her as well. In the small cave, out of the sight of anyone, she'd seen the way that his hard muscled body glowed softly for her as well. At this point though, none of that had happened yet. His kisses caused her stomach to ripple under his lips as he worked lower now, agonizingly slowly as he teased and nipped her, tugging on her little stripe of hair which led him lower to her little box of fireworks again. They carried on for hours and when the angle of the desert sun had escaped the overhang of the tree branches, Faith had gotten up to take her male's hand and lead him to her little cave where it was dark and cool. To her happy surprise, he'd laid her down again and picked up right where he'd left off. "Why?" it was all that she asked as she held her hand against his cheek. His eyes glazed for a second and his voice rasped just a little as he smiled, and right then, Dalhgren didn't look very human at all. "Are we to be a pair?" he asked. She nodded as her want of him returned to her. "Yes." He nodded, "Then I want this, and you need it." She gasped from the sensation of his teeth chewing gently on her muscles where her leg met her body. Faith opened her eyes, needing to see his now, and she wasn't disappointed in what she saw the next time that he opened them, the glazed reflectiveness of his corneas as they shone his emotion to her. "I surely don't know much about this business here that you're doing for me," she whispered as she brushed his forelock out of his eyes for him, and he stopped then to listen to her as if spellbound and waiting for some deep wisdom to come to him. It made her smile to think that she had none for him other than to tell him how she felt -- which was exactly what he needed, though she didn't know it. "But I think you're the finest demon in the world, Dahlgren, and I love you. You've just got to be the best radisher ever," she smiled now that she had her word for when he loved her like this. But the rest of her thoughts flew from her as she watched him lunge for her the way that it thrilled her to see him do that, as though he couldn't hold it back another second. He'd told her about the way that it came to him at those moments, and how that had never happened for him ever before. He admitted that he was doing this for her, but he also said that it was for him as well and he needed it when it happened somehow. It didn't matter now. Faith became a wild and crazed thing in only an instant again every time that he did it. All that she could manage -- all that she could really do then, was to reach for his horns. Once she had them in her fists, she could throw her head back and arch her back, using her hips to move her opening up and down in the air for him as she bucked against his face and sang out what came from her to him. She'd lost track of how many times he'd made her buck and wail against his face. She came hard and long in only minutes this time, but to her surprise, she still had that burning need in her that he seemed to be able to ignite. She pulled him by his horns so that he's stop and give her the other thing that her body demanded from him now. The face that she saw rising there above her belly had changed. He was full into demon now, just a she was herself and they both needed this to live another minute, it seemed. She let go of his horns then and he rose up, reaching under her legs to lift them up effortlessly as he slid that hot thing of his deep into her in one hard thrust. They both groaned and then he began, lifting her legs higher to hold her up as he began to pound into her. She hung in his grasp, with only her head and her shoulders on the blanket. For someone who'd had only her solitude for so long, she wondered at the way that she just accepted it, never mind the way that she needed it now. It seemed to mark a symbolism to them of sorts to do it this way. She was yielding to something that he hadn't demanded of her, he'd taken her this way because he knew that they needed it, but he'd lifted her as an offering to her, and she'd acquiesced, making her own offering to him. "I love you," he snarled, his voice taking on a very different and harsh sound in his need of her. But in that instant, she knew that the need came from somewhere other than his loins. They both understood that this wasn't just two demons fucking mindlessly. This was two demons who were about one-half inch from declaring themselves forever. For what they were, it was a rare thing. His kind rarely did this anymore and her kind rarely ever got beyond the mindless fucking. Long afterward, they realized that what had brought them to this point together at the same instant was their human sides. Faith didn't hesitate, though her own throat felt very different to her as she opened her mouth. "I love you," she said, and there was no shy hopefulness as her voice rasped between them. They stopped then. looking at each other and what was there between them. To Faith, Dahlgren was magnificent, the way that his muscled body held her up this way so effortlessly. To Dahlgren, Faith was the embodiment of the perfect female, and the look in her eyes for only him made his heart feel as though it would explode very soon. He couldn't imagine a finer way to die. She reached out with her hands and laid them onto his, where they held her legs up from under her knees by her lower thighs. She moved the muscles inside of herself for them both gently. "I need you so much," her voice grated softly, "If you feel like I do now, and you want to have me forever, then only ask, Dahlgren. Ask it and I'll say my words to you. I don't even know where they come from in me," she whimpered in a little voice which bordered on anguish, "I just know that if you ask me and mean it, then because of how I feel, I'll have to say them to you right from my heart. And I want to, Baby. I want to say them so much. I want to be yours so much it hurts." "Let me be the male for you," he growled, "and it is what I always will be." "I accept you, male," she said, knowing the words as they came to her, though she'd never heard that it was what had to be said, "Allow me to be the one for you. Let me be your female, and it is what I will be happy as forever." He nodded, and Faith's heart leapt against her ribs hard enough to hurt. "I accept you, female." They hung there, suspended as if by their emotions, her muscles still working them both slowly. He looked at his female, her eyes shining at him in her joy and love. He'd never seen anyone who had ever looked at him this way. She smiled and moved in his grip languidly, her head rolling a little, though her eyes never lost their grip on his as they watched her. Her mouth opened a little more in her bliss and her long, lovely tongue lolled out a little way to lick her sweet lips. A spasm caught her and her head went back for a moment, but then she looked at him again and she pursed her lips to blow him a little kiss. It was such a tiny thing, the gesture, but it made his heart swell in his chest anyway. His shaft throbbed from it, and she gasped in little sounds and mewled to him wordlessly. Her hands didn't lift from his as they held her hips, but he felt it as her thumbs caressed his. She clenched onto him then in a spasm and they both groaned. "You're so fucking beautiful," she whispered, "I love you so much." He looked so powerful and strong to her and yet she knew that he'd never harm her in any way. It was a very new and different feeling to her to have the thought. She'd never been able to trust anyone since she'd been on her own. Now, she suddenly couldn't really imagine not trusting Dahlgren in anything. She clenched and rippled her muscles inside herself for him, wanting to give him the very best that she could give to him. He moved himself in ways that she hadn't known were possible and it felt so good to her. His eyes rolled back, showing her only onyx blackness a she watched his lips move soundlessly for a moment or two. She wondered what it was, and then she began to feel something change in her. She didn't know what that change was, but she knew then what he'd been doing. A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 15 Dahlgren the ranger was praying. She looked along her own body, held there by him as it was. Faith wasn't ashamed of it now, not anymore. She saw the line of her hair as it ran from her navel to her small and soft patch of sopping wet fur. Her eyes took in her long legs and the rippling muscles of her own hard belly as they twitched a little before her. It felt as though she was in a new body now, the way that the light from their bodies seemed to make her fur glow lighter somehow. A subtle motion caught her eye and she looked up at his face again. The shine was back in his eyes as he looked at her, but then his mouth opened and he smiled. "You are the most lovely one I have ever seen," he said, "and I still don't know what this road will bring to us. But I do know that I want to walk it with you." He eased her legs down, losing their connection as he did. Faith looked up at him with tears in her eyes from his words, "Oh please, Dahlgren, put it back in me or I think I'll just die." He moved forward on her then, sliding his shaft into her and seeking the way to do it all so that he didn't crush her. But he needn't have worried, they fit together just fine as her legs rose again to help him inside further. "You're always saying that I'm lovely and all," she smiled up at him, "I'm even starting to believe it a little. But you're the most beautiful man that I've ever seen; flat-out gorgeous and so handsome. Come on, you delicious thing, fuck me like you mean it. If you don't mean it now, then you never will." She chuckled a little as she saw his eyes saying what could never be lied about to her as plain as the hardness throbbing softly inside of her couldn't be imagined. "So come on and fuck me," she smiled, "We belong to each other now and I need some of you. You can have a little Faith now whenever you want. Come on, Baby," she sighed to him, "You just show Momma what you've got for her. She's needin' some of your sweet thing now. Oh fuck, Dahlgren, I'll always need you. You make me so happy." It seemed to spur them, what she'd said, and the way that she'd said it. He began to thrust and she matched him. She bucked against him as hard as she could, both of them grunting loudly, not caring about anything other than their combined need for each other anymore. ----------------------------- Ny'Zeille knew nothing of what Dahlgren and Faith were doing. Her mind was at rest in her ignorance of the existence of Faith as she knelt in the temple chamber praying to the forces of balance. She knew that her friend was in the stone garden beginning her first lessons to her little sister. She considered the idol in front of her as it spoke to her quietly in response to her prayers. It was a much easier way for her to communicate with others like herself directly. "All matters and occurrences considered," the large statue said, speaking in multifaceted voices which spanned several octaves, "you have done very well, as is usual for you," the rest of the Great Ones said, "incredibly well, in fact. You must bring the thief into the fold of the Faith, of course, but there is time for that. The other side of this bargain that you have made serves much purpose as well. The one called Nahl'een can only benefit from the teachings of the thief. Nahl'een's recent ability is duly noted, as is the thief's. Continue as you will in this regard. But there is another aspect which arises now and it causes us some concern. It has to do with your son. From his brief prayers, he has accomplished his task once again, another shining honor in the history of a stellar warrior from an already prestigious family. All of the red demons have been killed in a most expeditious manner, as is his way. There were more there than were seen at first, and it would have taken him a good deal longer, given the speed at which the vermin can run and the openness of the place. They scattered in all directions even at his approach, and it would have taken him the whole night to hunt them all and dispatch them, if he did not have the help that he found there." The demon's eyes opened then. "Help?" she asked, "You say that he had help? Who could --" "That is what concerns us," the statue nodded, or appeared to, "Only one of many concerns which we now find in ourselves." Ny'Zeille's eyes rolled back into her head as she watched the scenes which were sent to her. "This one was already killing when your son arrived," the shimmering voices said, as she saw Faith lay a pair of the demons out with a sheet of flame from her hand. "That is not ordinary flame," she heard in her head, "somehow this one knows to use the only flame which is deadly to them. Even we do not possess this in our arsenal. Yet she can summon it easily." Ny'Zeille watched the two of them form an instant, loose partnership, working together as they had, even when the fight came down to teeth and claws at one point. "She has much ability," the voices said, "and has already killed their kind before. There were instances when we would become aware that one or two of the hated ones had appeared there. Before we could act, they were dead. Our investigations revealed this one. She works for no one other than herself, hating the things more than even us." "Who is she?" Ny'Zeille asked as she watched the female rip the life from a red demon who had managed to prepare an attack from behind her son. Before it had really begun, however, the thing disappeared in a red mist as the stranger dispatched it. "Little is known," the voices said in reply, "She appears to have sprung up out of the ground, for all that we know. All that we have is her rather interesting name, considering the warrior that she helps there. Her name is Faith. If this is anything more than pure chance, then we are humbled at her efficiency and drive to eradicate the vermin." "She does have ability," the demon said with a nod. "Something which we consider noteworthy is that while Dahlgren studied much to learn the arts in which he excels, this female developed her abilities alone, coming to learn them more by feeling and by using her considerable intuitive ability," the voices shimmered from the idol, "She seems to make use of whatever object comes to hand if she requires the use of a weapon. She carries no sword or anything else, for that matter. We note with interest that the two of them worked well together, one having no clear advantage over the other, though to be fair, their abilities lie in different areas. She matches him in speed and intellect, and wherever she appears to be weak, he is strong -- and it goes the other way as well. We find it most remarkable. But this is not the area where our concerns lie at the moment," the idol said, "Observe this now, if you would." Ny'Zeille saw her son and the female in the throes of their passion. She watched idly and waited for their comment. "Did you observe anything noteworthy?" "Not really," she sighed in a way that indicated that the scene held little of interest for her, "I saw my son copulating with a female demon. It HAS happened before... I see no great event here. He is attractive, and while she is as well, I saw nothing remarkable in that. They teamed up to destroy some demons together and were victorious. It is not a stretch to consider that they might wish to celebrate or just give in to the joy of having survived it." She found the scene in her mind again, and was about to request that it be stopped, but this time, she did notice that the female's state of demonic development jumped ahead with the arrival of her wings and her tail. "Alright, I did see it that time," she said, "Forgive me if I sounded uninterested. I can say that I am interested now." "As well you should be," the statue said, "we would not present this to you if there was not something here that is at the least highly interesting to us -- and you. Their involvement with each other has progressed somewhat since then. This afternoon, he mated her." "Well, he mated with her last night as well, "Ny'Zeille smirked. "You misunderstand, Esteemed One," the voices said, "He took her as his mate out there in the sand and the rocks. We will assume that you have no interest in witnessing the scene where they stopped copulating suddenly and pledged their love to each other." "Mated?" the demon said in disbelief, "You say that he took this one and she took him? They are paired?" "Yes," the idol shimmered, "It happened. They were still joined when he spoke of it to us, announcing it and stating that while his female knows nothing of the Faith, he would assume the responsibility for her learning and he further stated that they recognized their, ... differences, shall we say, and that he humbly asked that we recognize the union." The demon was in shock. "Recognize the, ..." "We reserved judgement, of course, knowing that you were not aware of these developments. We need time to consider and any action on our part must be tempered with diligence and wisdom. There is much to be considered." "I see nothing here which requires consideration," the demon snapped, "I insist that you decline my son's request. I don't know what's the matter with him," she said, "taking a mate arbitrarily like that, as though the first female in a place who spreads her knees for him, and he wants her forever. He's acting like --" "He is acting somewhat like his mother," the voices remarked, and she could almost hear the ironic humor in the shimmering tones. "With much respect and our everlasting offering of condolence for your great loss, how long did you require to make up your mind about the human male that you took as your own mate?" Ny'Zeille felt the wind of her outrage taken from her sails in that instant. She looked away from the idol and down for a moment. "I knew in the span of one of my own heartbeats," she said after a few seconds, "I knew without doubt almost at once. When we touched, I was certain." "And it happened only the one time that you fell so hard, hopelessly in love with your male forever," the idol whirred softly, "before he was taken from you. You never loved again until you developed your present, ... predilections, shall we say. You love your Xerian, but it is nothing like the way that you loved the human male." She looked up again, "Point taken," she said quietly, "Of all of us, I should know better. Alright," she said, "It lies at my feet to meet this girl demon and do my best to get to know her if she is mated to my son. That is my duty, and it is family business, after all. I thank you all for showing me. Please strike my earlier objections. If you have no issue with the pairing, then please render your approval." "The problem is that we do have issues," the voices said cautiously, "one issue specifically. We cannot grant what was asked, and yet we do not wish to delay for long without cause. The problem is not that our ranger has met and fallen in love with a female demon. If that were the case, we would already have granted his request. Any ... fallout, as it were, would be family business, as you said, and it is not our place to interfere. That would be an arena where you, the girl, and Dahlgren would have to decide things between yourselves. The issue is that our ranger has fallen in love with one very much like himself. The female is half-human. While we have nothing against that part of her, it is the other side which is the problem. The girl is half red demon." Ny'Zeille felt as though her personal universe had just shifted beneath her. "Red demon, "she repeated in a whisper. "Hence our difficulty," the voices droned, "Your son sees our delay as a reasonable one, knowing how news such as this would cause us to require time to consider and debate. But the operative word is reasonable. Were we to take too long, or worse, to deny his request, our sense of it is that he would turn from his path and ask to be relieved of his duties in favor of the girl. It is understandable. We saw that her state of development seemed to hang for her. In mating with your son, it pushed her past it, though he believes that the reason had more to do with the emotion of the day. We believe that he is wrong in this and that her development was halted because she was so upset and traumatized at the way that this came to her, and by the murder of her family afterward. She only developed as far as was needed by her to exact retribution and to allow her to survive afterward. She lives in a rather harsh place. In answer to his request, and to show that we wished to give something that might offset our necessary delay, we attempted an experimental gesture for them. Since they were already mating and were joined at the time, we took advantage of the heightened emotional conditions at that moment to give her a slight push. She has now completed her development and has two forms like any other. But we cannot have a former ranger of ours turning from us for many reasons. We do not wish to give him cause to come to doubt the balance. As you may recall, you bowed out when he was being considered for his path and this posting -- as you should have, though most proud and hopeful parents would not have done this, seeking the fame and prestige of basking in the reflected spotlight. You have no such need, Ny'Zeille. Dahlgren Runei was chosen because he was the best that we could send to that troubled world, and he has only gotten better, a source of pride to us all, acting alone as he has. If he were to step down, there is no other that we could send and have no reservations over the replacement's very survival. Worse, imagine if he were to hold a grudge. The loss to the faith would be great indeed." "Then I will remove the problem." the demon said, "and I'll deal with Dahlgren's hurt feelings afterward." "A short-sighted response," the voices said, "and completely uncharacteristic of you as well, though it is understandable. No. You will do as you originally stated before you knew of the girl's background. You will welcome her into your rather famous family and you will learn what you may of her. We believe that she may be of value, the nature of her unconventional heritage notwithstanding. She has something in common with Nahl'een, having had to make her way alone, and finding that she could survive on the strength of her own abilities. We lack understanding as to how she came to be made. It was not thought possible for a spawning such as this to occur. We need to know more. Have a care about how you approach this, and do not think to be heavy-handed here. Nahl'een must not be placed into harm's way, and there is love between father and daughter -- even though there is no blood-tie between them. It must be taken into account as well. React the wrong way, and we all lose this chance to learn of a remarkable individual out of your dislike of what she is. React out of blindness and a sense of hurt, and you could lose your own son to you. As your own parents lost you. We cannot preach to maintain balance if we do not allow for the effect of chaos. It happens, Ny'Zeille. On that world, it is possible for it to snow in the summertime at the middle latitudes -- it is only not likely." "Just as it is not likely that I want to welcome her," the demon growled. "Nevertheless, you will, "she was told. "Prepare yourself, Esteemed One, and try to bear the, ... mercurial nature of the blood that she carries in mind as well." The idol began to drone out its final benediction to her, but Ny'Zeille wasn't listening as she bowed her head. She had a good reason to keep her gaze down. It prevented them all from seeing the hot red glow of her eyes. ----------------------- Faith was past tired of all of this senseless flapping and hopping. The muscles around the joints where her wings were attached were screaming to her of their aching tiredness and she felt like an idiot. She was very glad that there were no others here to see her in the middle of this foolishness, though she was coming to suspect the birds who came to perch in the nearby trees of smirking when she wasn't looking. She was sure they were watching her. There was even a vulture who stood not far off, looking on. At least she had a plausible explanation for that, Faith told herself, the bastard was obviously waiting patiently for her to flap herself to death. "Aw, come on, Dahlgren, "she whined, "Can I please stop now? I'm never gonna be able to fly. You're just sitting there making me do this so that you can smile at me like that." She walked closer to him and put a little more whine into it, "Please?" He shook his head, though he was still smiling, "You sound a little like my daughter. I hate to tell you this, but I'm already immune to whining. I'm not enjoying your discomfort. I know how this must feel for you. But you wanted to come with me, and I'm not going to walk back. I can't carry you everywhere forever either. Keep the thought in your mind that this is better than having to carry wings around which you can't use. Just keep trying a little while longer, and that'll have to do for today, I guess. We can begin again tomorrow." "Shit," she groaned, "you're not gonna let me give up and forget about it, are you?" "No," he said, putting his hands on her hips to look encouragingly at her, "I'm not. Once you meet with only a little success, I know that it will be enough for you to want to go on. You have always wanted to be able to fly. Now you have wings, and it's at least possible for you." "I know," she said softly as she leaned forward to nuzzle her face against his throat. "I am grateful for what you're doing. Don't mind my bitching. I know there's a lot of things for me to learn." "One thing at a time," he nodded, "and this is one of the hardest ones. You should take your own advice," he said, "I think that you only need to have a little faith." She groaned softly into his ear and it made him shiver. "I think I'd rather have a little more Dahlgren," she whispered after she'd licked his ear. "You make me believe in myself. I'm even becoming a little happy to have my little tits, the way that you make them feel when you kiss on them the way that you do. It feels so nice to hold you then. You keep me in just the right place, right in between wanting to lie with you like that forever and bein' one thin hair away from needin' you to fuck me stupid again." "You try just a little longer," he said, "and I promise that I'll rub those poor muscles there on your back for you for a good long while. The stew in that old pot that we found ought to be ready soon, and we can eat. I'll do my best to make you feel better." She drew her face back and he saw the wicked little grin there. "You gonna rub a few more poor things on me too, then? I'm achin' all over Dahlgren, in some pretty surprising places, just so you know." "I will," he said. "Promise?" she smiled hopefully, "You promise me, and I'll try to figure out how to go a little wild on you like the way I did before, though I don't even rightly know what happened. You were radishing me, and I just felt wild and free. Then we went at each other and I was so happy. I know that, 'cause we'd just stopped in the middle and said our words to each other. Right after that, I felt like somethin' changed in me and when we got back to it, I, ... well, I just lost myself on you, is all." She kissed him for a minute. "I promise," he smiled, and Faith walked off a little to give herself some space. She didn't know what had happened to her, but Dahlgren had just a clue, and some of it related to what she was. The rest was a guess to him, but the way that he saw it, she'd spent a large portion of her life just tromping from one place to another with nothing to look forward to, other than the hope of finding something to eat for herself. He wasn't the kind to give himself much credit, but he now supposed that Faith had a reason to feel happiness. That, combined with however she'd been raised as a young girl, and with a touch of the wildness which red demons carried, it began to make sense. But there was also that other factor which he couldn't ignore. A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 15 For whatever reason, he felt that his request had caused the last push to be sent to her. When he'd found a small pool that wasn't in constant motion, he'd called her over to show her the other way that she could now look. She'd known that something had changed anyway when her wings had disappeared for a few moments. But when she'd seen herself as the young woman that she'd have been anyway if this had gone correctly for her as a girl, she'd burst into tears of happiness and wept for a long time. "I'm even blonde again! "she'd grinned then, holding out her long hair to him, before looking down to examine her lighter pubic hair in this form. "I can't see well enough with the light like this. What color are my eyes now? They're not black anymore." "Green," he'd smiled, and she'd begun to weep all over again. He was happy himself, loving to look at her anytime, from any angle. She captivated him and had stolen his heart so suddenly that he hadn't really even had a chance to see it coming. When they wanted to be, the two of them were more tender that he'd have ever believed that it was possible for two people to be. But when that wildness of hers came to her, he felt the commonality between their two kinds, and he became what lay under the many layers of civilization that his mother's people had covered everything with. All of it was stripped away then, and he turned into what they all sought to pretend to deny. He became just like her. He looked down and saw one of the marks of her passion, a bite mark that she'd left. It hadn't broken the skin, though he didn't know why. But it had left a mark, all the same. He didn't know what he should be feeling while he watched that sweet ass of hers as it swiveled away from him. She wasn't even aware that she was doing it and he knew it, feeling her thoughts. But he could see the signs left behind from their passion. He was looking at the bite marks that he'd left on her himself. He knew that she felt them, just as he felt the ones that she'd left behind on his body. He also felt a little of the pride that she had within herself to wear them. It was a demon thing. The pride which a couple felt to wear the marks of the passion of their kind. It was something which his mother's kind now did rarely. He'd hardly ever seen anyone with one. Faith stopped and turned around. She smiled at him and shrugged before she began again. Her wings unfolded themselves and she held them a little away from her body. She didn't know it, but he could see how they hurt her just by looking at her face. It was time to step it up a little. "Try facing into the wind, "he said, pointing to the slope where the hot blast of desert air came from the hardpan of the plain below. Faith turned and though she didn't have any real reason to trust the things on her back which had just appeared the night before, she gave in to a sudden impulse and she folded her them a little to run right off the mountainside, spreading her wings wide just before the slope dropped away from her feet. Faith was flying. Well, she was gliding, at any rate, and she saw the limitations of that only a few seconds later. If she even had any skin left on her face after plowing a furrow in the ground with her nose, she knew that she'd have a long walk back up. This flying business seemed to be a bundle of things which came at nearly the same time, she guessed. She didn't know what to do for a moment and hung there frozen in the air. But she knew that it wouldn't do, so she relied on the same instinct and intuition that she'd always found within herself. She began to beat those wings against the hot air. It got her some lift but it wasn't going to be enough to do more that stave off the inevitable crash for a little while longer while adding more distance to the hike back. She changed the angle a little and found herself gaining height easily, and Faith cried out in joy. Without even a thought, she suddenly just knew how to turn as she climbed, and felt her tail move in the wind behind her, but now she discovered another problem. She was riding the wind now and not going against it. Now she had to settle into more of a glide, but that would increase her speed, and the mountain was becoming larger to her at an alarming rate. She could see her male there below her and she felt herself grin even more for the thought of the two words. She wheeled above him and headed back toward the desert. She had no idea what he's been shouting at her. Dahlgren leapt off the mountain and chased her. He caught up to her in a few moments and he stayed beside her very carefully, not wanting a collision. "Dahlgren, you handsome thing," she yelled over, "I love you to death, but I'm already tired. How do I get down?" "Make one pass with me as I land," he called over, "but go around one more time, and think about slowing yourself when you come in. I'll try to catch you." She nodded, not really knowing how it would work, and they glided toward a small, grassy spot not far from the pool. He pointed at it and she slowed as she watched his exaggerated landing. She knew that he'd done it that way for her benefit, and she wheeled around to try. Her landing was awful, but it wasn't too bad, as far as a slightly controlled crash went. She came in too fast, and beat the air with her tired wings, finding that she didn't have much left for strength. She was a little too high right at the end of it. "Oh, Shhhhiit!" she exclaimed as the last of her strength slipped away and she blasted right into Dahlgren who'd stood trying to see where he ought to be to try to catch her. They tumbled over once and she found herself on top of him laughing in spite of the way that she hurt. "Dahlgren," she gasped as her chest heaved while she looked at him from where she lay on his chest, "I am gonna fuck your little brain, ... right outta your gorgeous head, ... for this. Thank you so, ... much." He looked at her with a huge grin, panting a little himself, "You're all talk," he said. "Come here!" she growled, launching herself at him. He held her off with his hands and an innocent expression. "What about me rubbing your tired muscles first?" "Fuck that," she snarled in his face as she rubbed her mound against him, "This is important!" She sat on him holding his head while she kissed him with everything that she had. -------------------------- Selena walked through the Arboretum. The birds and the other creatures, the plants, everything was there as though it was all doing its best to catch and hold her gaze today, but it wasn't working. While Ny'Zeille taught Nahl'een, it had been made abundantly clear to Selena that her presence was not desired by the demon. Selena thought over any of their interactions since the strange coolness to her had begun, and she couldn't think of a thing, nothing which might give her a clue as to what she might have done. She rounded a corner in her wanderings and found Arrax smiling to her as he stood on his two long legs. Selena was a but shocked and taken aback to see him this way and it was suddenly very clear what Ny'Zeille had meant about seeing him like this. He was like a whole new entity to her like this, though it was more than plain to her that this was Arrax. "You seem to have something on your mind which distracts you," he nodded, "I passed by on my way here from over there and waved as I saw you. You looked right through me and continued on." His words surprised her. Selena was fairly certain that a hellhound on two legs who stood over seven feet tall and was as attractive to her as this would have caught her eye. Her gaze ran over him even though she tried not to look. His fur was a little long and so sleek and shiny, but as much as there was on him, it couldn't hide that body, no way, she thought. She forced her eyes to behave and looked at his face. Since she'd come here, Selena had learned that there had been many comparisons made between the way that these creatures appeared and the canids on this old world. She could see how it was possible to think that way. But she'd also learned that there was one type of Xer who looked a little like something else, the creature that had been the root of all of the sorts of dogs which had walked beside man for millienia, and she saw that whatever name there was for this type, It must also apply as an adjective to Arrax. He was more the beautiful and powerful wolf than any who might have ever lived. He was tall and heavily muscled, but there was intelligence gleaming in those eyes which looked down at her in a friendly way. He appeared relaxed and open. It seemed to run counter to her impression of him as she'd seen him before, as a large four-footed beast -- who could converse with anyone. Then again, she realized, he was alone now and not with Ny'Zeille. "Well I must have been really distracted to have missed you," she smiled, "and it is my business to notice things, so that ought to tell us both something. I'm very confused and I'd even say a little upset, to tell you the truth. Ny'Zeille has been somewhat cold to me, almost bordering on rude a couple of times. I've been trying to remember, and for the life of me, I cannot imagine anything that I might have done to cause her to feel slighted." Arrax noted it as Selena's shoulders slumped a little, "I know that I sure feel slighted, the more I think about it." Arrax looked a little pained for a second as he sought of something to say. "I can understand, I think. I am beginning to see a side of her that I have not really ever seen before. I know that she has her reasons, but that cannot be used to gloss over everything and expect others to understand." "What reasons?" Selena asked, "If I knew of one, I might be able to understand." "She is upset over her son, Dahlgren," Arrax said, "though perhaps that is a bad way to say it. She is upset over his actions. They are not what she would have wanted for him and she feels mortified at what he has done. She seems to take it as something that he has done to her -- which is most certainly not the case, I am sure." "I do not understand," Selena said, "What has he done?" Arrax looked uncomfortable for just a moment as he realized that Selena didn't know. He wondered if he ought to say anything at all, but he knew that it was too late and he decided to mention it at this point. Selena looked more than a little baffled and he found that he felt a little sorry for her, as he knew that the demon could be very single-minded at times. "It is not my place to tell of it, but I know that if I do not, then you will likely get no answers at all," he said. "Dahlgren was sent to hunt demons. This much you knew, I am sure. But he found someone there and they seem to have ... well, they have paired and become a couple." Selena gaped a little before she was able to get her expression in hand, but she nodded to Arrax, since he'd paused and seemed to be waiting for some reason, "Go on please, Arrax." "I suppose that Ny'Zeille might have had cause to feel a little surprised, obviously. Knowing her as I do, I can say that she might even have been a little upset at the news, for it would show her that she'd been left out of the 'selection process' altogether, "he smiled. "All that I see is that a grown male made his choice, as we all tend to do. A little fast, I would say from where I stand, but I cannot see from here, can I?" They began to walk together as they talked and Arrax went on. "So I would have expected to hear her complaints no matter who he chose, but there is the other thing and it causes her to pace ceaselessly and talk to herself over it -- when she is not talking me into the ground over it. To her, what he has done has undone all that she has done in her efforts to restore her family's name. It is absurd. Her name is quite famous on Mer, her family well-known for many things. Yet all that she can see is that this one act of his has ruined everything. There may be some truth to it, but not as much as she ascribes, for all of Mer does not watch her endlessly as she seems to want to believe. Dahlgren has mated a Red Demon, Selena. This is what keeps Ny'Zeille furious." Selena looked down and Arrax thought to curse himself for not seeing that she might have had feelings for Dahlgren, and he said as much in his apology to her, but she surprised him. "I might have entertained thoughts such as this once, "Selena said with a shrug, "But I am not a young girl given to heaving great sighs, Arrax. I am a little too practical for that. No, I am upset at something here, but not that so much. She was going to teach me more about what sort of abilities that I might have, now that I know more about myself. But I see that she has lost interest in this, and now I know why. So I guess that I'll never know. That is what bothers me most of all." Arrax was silent for a time as they walked, but then he turned and smiled, "All is not lost, perhaps, Selena. If there is one thing that I have learned, it is that what one thinks that they know is often incorrect -- as you have recently learned. Further, some of what is correct may be seen clearly by one who knows what to seek." Selena looked over and he wanted to laugh at her expression. "Well, I can see that you earn whatever pay that you work for as an ambassador of Xer," she laughed, "You have told me nothing with a lot of words." He laughed, "Then I miss a chance to increase my earnings. I am no ambassador for Xer, though I suppose that I may try at times to offer a certain demon some wisdom before she acts too rashly as an ambassador of Mer. The Mer have outposts and we provide the security staffing. I am a commander for this purpose, and I was once a fighter. But I am a little more as well, though it is not a profession," he smiled, "Truly, I do not know how I came to the ability -- some years as the lover of a high demon of Mer, perhaps. Sometimes I almost believe that I have been a little corrupted by it, I do not know. But however it came to me, I can say that I have a few abilities that my kind do not ever possess. I can tell you that all of this explanation and testing that she gave to you was little more than a ploy to keep you here for a time, long enough for her to show you in the gentlest way that you are not what you thought yourself to be." Selena stared and would have spoken, but Arrax put his arm around her shoulder and moved her along the path in the garden as they walked. "Do not speak now," he said, "and please try to bear my touch on your body, for now I wish to know for myself." After a moment, he stopped and stared a little himself. "Stand still now and listen, Selena. I can see better than even the one who gave me this, though I never tell her that I have this at all. What you seek to know about yourself will come to you regardless at some point, so learn a little patience and you will be well-served by it." His voice dropped to a low rumble as he moved his head close. For the life of her, Selena didn't know what he was talking about, but she knew that it was important or Arrax would not do this or tell her. She knew that about him at least. She also knew that she really wanted to kiss him. The feeling in her was distracting and very unsettling. She did her best to fight it down. She'd have plenty of time alone in her room to examine what she felt now. She concentrated on what he was trying to tell her. "Listen," he said, "Listen to what you hear, and listen harder for what is not said around you. Listen to your heart most of all, and before you do all of that listening, listen to me now." He brought his lips very near to her ear and he spoke softly, "I do not know what the Mer call this ability, but I have it more than Ny'Zeille. I can sense and I have the sight to see with it. What I see -- what I now KNOW about Selena Meadesbreath is that if you stood here in this place as you truly are inside, then I would have to bow to you." She looked at him and he nodded, "It is truth. It is also truth that if Ny'Zeille Runei saw you as I can -- as I do here, now, ... " "Arrax, " Selena smiled, "you are playing with me now." He shook his head and he held her so that she had no choice but to listen -- he was holding one of her shoulders in his large hand in an almost painfully tight grip to force her to listen. "No," he said, "If she knew what I know, she would have no choice but to kill you or kneel, and that is something that a high Merren demon can never do, not one like her, and not to one such as you who comes from another world. She could not accept it, but she would have to act in case you were the one." "What one?" the thief asked in a whisper. "Selena," Arrax whispered, I can see you as you are to others. As I touch you, I can see more. I see your true shape, and I see that you wear the horned crown. In the order of the Mer, there are high demons and there are low ones in their society. But that is only what they developed, just as where I am from, there are levels in the society. But the Xer know what the Merren have tried to deny. There are demons and there are demons, Selena. It has been so long since there had been one with the crown. That one can hold power all alone on Mer, needing no one else. That one is more of a demon to them than the Merren are to humans on this world." She felt his soft and gentle kiss against the side of her head, "Keep this for yourself," he said, "it is for no other to know and I will never tell the ambassador or anyone else for your own good. What you are will come to you in its own time. If I can, I will seek to help if I may, but it may not always be possible." "Why?" Selena asked, "I see that you are serious, but I do not understand much of it. I think that I can tell that you like me, even from before. Now you tell me this. Why would you care about this?" "I have reasons, "he smiled, "Some of them you would not understand, not knowing how things are elsewhere. But I can say that the Merren leaders have had a good run for far too long. If a crowned one were to appear before them to sweep them aside, it would cause what I see as a much-needed change. It would upset their precious balance. While they learn their new lessons, they would not require so much help from the Xer. That would have a disastrous effect on the Xer economy, and that would hasten the change that is so badly needed on Xer. My world is as badly-ruled as theirs." He leaned back a little and smiled, "But those are all things which are large and less important to me than a smaller and much more beautiful one named Selena. I want you to live long enough for you to come into what is for you. Now that I know you better, Selena, I can say that it is a true want in me now for I wish to see that for myself. I see how you are in your nature before all of this. I can barely imagine it, a crowned one who is not cruel, who has a living heart, that is what I wish to see. In all of my learning, I have never found that it has ever happened before. The Merren fear the emergence of a crowned one for a reason. Every other one has been more cruel and callous than they are and whenever it happens, it changes the order of their world." "What do you mean by a 'crowned one'?" Selena asked. "I am a Xer," he shrugged, "It has been my business to fight and direct others in the wars. Now, it is my business to direct how our outposts are managed and run. But those things are what I do for my pay. For myself, I am a student of antiquity, no matter where I might find it. Put me in a place, Selena, and I begin to seek out its ancient secrets. I cannot help this. Xer have no horns, but I have spent much of a lifetime near to demons. How many horns do demons wear on their heads? I know that you have only seen some close up lately, but tell me your thoughts." A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 15 Selena shrugged, "Most have two," she said, "Some have three. I've seen one or two with only one. I don't know if there are any without horns, I mean, other than me, since It's been made clear to me that I'm half-demon myself." "Permit me," he said apologetically as he reached to begin to feel her scalp under her hair. He smiled after a moment and he took her hand to guide it. "Do you feel the smallest of hard bumps in your hair?" She knew what he was trying to get her to feel, "Those? Arrax, they've always, ..." He nodded, "We have not even known each other for very long at all, but I can say that I know that they have always been there. You hide them in your hair, thinking them unsightly. To you, they must appear to anyone else as though you banged your head into a door and the goose egg remained." She nodded, "So?" "So," he smiled, "we are back to my question. How many horns do demons wear on their heads?" "I told you," she said, I've seen one or two with three horns. Ny'Zeille showed me the signs to look for in a human who has demon in them. She said nothing - " "Ny'Zeille was not looking for a crown," he grinned, "I do not even know if she knows of this." He was looking away across the garden, "I have only felt one on you, but I can tell you exactly where the rest are. One in the middle of the forehead, high up where I touched. A slightly smaller one to either side of that. One just over each temple pointing outward, and one behind each ear. The last two would grow around past the ear to point to the front a little downward. You have seven, Selena. Seven horns, though they do not show yet." "Seven?" she gasped. He nodded as he turned his head to look at her, "In the long history of Mer, there have been many crowned ones. In recent ages, they appear singly and change that world whenever they do. It is as though the universe knows that the Merren will always grow fat and corrupt if they are allowed to have their way. Some scholars believe -- as do I -- that the true purpose of a crowned one is to tear down their corruption, to force them to be more correct for a time. Whenever a crowned one has emerged, it marks the beginning of a time of flux for them. They do not wish to see another one, and so they would rather seek the one out and kill him or her first. They have always done this. It has never saved them. Another always comes. To answer your question, each crowned one, whenever they have appeared, whether male or female have always carried the same number of horns on their heads. Seven. No other demon has that many." She stared at him in horror, but he smiled, "I know what is in your mind. Do not fear. For one thing, what we have spoken of remains between us, so that you can now go on living your life with the hope that I am wrong. It is more important to you that no one learns of this for the Merren would kill you if they could. While you are like this, you have no defence. Tell no one, not even a lover For another thing, though I do not know it for certain, everything that I have learned about the crowned ones is that in their true form, every one was beautiful beyond knowing." He smiled with a soft chuckle, "And you are very nearly there anyway. I must go. We will speak again. In the meantime, guard what I have told you. I will seek ways that it may be brought out, though I do not think that there is any way other than time." "Wait, "Selena said, "You've told me things in the last ten minutes that confuse me more than what I learned from Ny'Zeille. You just told me -- " She reached for his arm, "I need to know something. What you have with Ny'Zeille -- " "That is spoken of by her as some great love," he said, "with just the same voice as she used to tell you of what you are. That message was true, though you now know how deep her interest went. I know what I have, a female who makes much of loving with me and does it seldom. A headache, how much her duties strain her, now it is how upset she is over how her life is ruined once more. What began as a channel for our needs now causes me to want to sleep in my office, but that is my problem for the moment. I grow a little tired of being shown as a trophy as though she tamed me somehow and gains in the eyes of others. I am not her servant, I was only her friend but that wears thin too. I grow to enjoy my own company more. As to what I said, ... Xer have always been attracted to demons," he shrugged, "sometimes, it happens the other way as well and rarely. It is said that we have eyes to see what most cannot, and I can see even better." Arrax turned with a broad smile, "for all the good that it would do me." "What does that mean?" Selena asked and she watched as Arrax smiled a little sadly. "I cannot say much as yet, but it could easily happen that I am nowhere near you when this comes to you. If you have the chance of it, seek a Xer for yourself. The past four like you have taken Xer as mates, as though they wish nothing of the Merren. If you have that choice, choose that one wisely. We tend to like to bargain for power." Selena nodded ,"It that what you would wish?" "Me?" He laughed softly, shaking his head, "I have had years of commanding others. I am long tired of ordering everyone around. Why? Do you have thoughts of wanting me for your own? I am too old, Selena. I would think that you would want a younger male than I. But it is a nice thought and I thank you for it." She watched as he walked away. She knew that her thoughts wouldn't do her any good either, but she found that she liked the way that he looked like this so much better. She wondered why they didn't always show this side of themselves. Maybe not all of them could, she thought as her aimless wandering took her to the kitchen. Shaevre sat in the corner, a formidable bodyguard for Nahl'een. Selena liked Shaevre. She nodded and smiled as she said hello and was rewarded by the hellhound's nod and interested gaze. As Selena made herself a cup of tea, she wondered if Shaevre had this ability; to walk on two legs and speak to her. She doubted it and felt a little sad. A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 16 ***Sometimes what you've got to do is go back to your roots. She'd tell you that. If you asked, that is. She's old, but her kind doesn't measure age the way that we would. If you asked, she'd answer honestly that she feels the same as she did at twenty-four or so. What were you doing at twenty-four, assuming that you've reached that age? If you asked, she'd say that she didn't plan it, but she ruled absolutely then, and perhaps the greatest joy to her was to hear that there were foreign troops near her border. She'd also answer honestly that she's feeling a little lost at the moment at finding that she has no purpose any longer - or maybe it's that she's searching for one. She really wouldn't be able to answer - if you asked. So she's taking her own advice and going back. Just to make it easy on the tongue, the name of main character in this is Dakhete, and it's pronounced "Dak-HET-eh", not "Dak-heat." 0_o ---------------- Book of the Djinn Part 1 Dakhete walked through the streets as silently as death, though there was no need for her to be still. The streets were filled with expectant people who chattered nervously among themselves. Some of them stared at her for a moment or two, but most were thinking of something other than the strangely-dressed warrior in their midst. She wore a mail shirt with long sleeves. It was composed of small plates and was long enough to cover her hips. Over her shoulders, she wore a dark cloak, held on by a long studded leather strap which ran from where it was fastened to the cloak on the front of one shoulder down between her breasts to cross around her back, emerging from under the other breast to cross itself between them on its way up to where it held the other side of the cloak. Below her bosom, she wore a leather girdle to which was fastened the scabbard of her short sword -- well, one of her swords. On her left hip, there was an extension of that girdle which hung down and held several more blades. The haft of a longer, heavier, and finely honed sword was visible over her shoulder from the front. Over her hips, there was a short sort of Roman-style kilt of leather strips, and the mail shirt rode over this. Below that was where the mail pants began which ran down her legs to her boots. On her head, she carried a rather conical headpiece with more thin ringed mail draped over her head, from her eyes down. Any who had a concern were not too unsettled by this one's appearance in their midst. They knew that the town guards would be along shortly on their rounds and would either take this one into their custody or kill the stranger for the affront of carrying blades openly, since it was forbidden here. She ignored them for the most part, knowing that no guards would be forthcoming, not from this sector, anyway. She was listening to her own inner voices as she walked. She'd come here to seek for someone. As yet, she didn't know who it was that she sought, only that she was needed for some reason. This was as strange to her as her other thoughts, because this time, there was nobody summoning her at all. The only thing that she knew was that -- She was bumped and jostled in the throng and it took a bit of her will to avoid her first tendency to retaliate in a definitive and permanent way. She'd killed many times for far less than this, but she allowed herself to be led by the crowd to a section of the old city where the edge of the souq or marketplace gave way to the border of the section known for its brothels. It was near to a broad-topped wall and there was an open area which gave Dakhete a rather foreboding feeling to see it. The noises of the throngs died away for a moment as an ass was led through the streets. On the back of the donkey was a naked young girl, who sat weeping in chains as she rode. From her dark skin, Dakhete could see that this one likely had no clothing at all to her name. All that she wore was her deep tan. Her hands were chained in manacles and the chain was looped under the donkey's throat. Her ankles were chained in a similar manner and the chain passed underneath the animal. At once Dakhete realized the purpose of the restraints. Dakhete was astounded. She hadn't seen anyone like this in, ... well, it was a long time. This girl was not human -- not completely, anyway, from what Dakhete felt, and obviously was to be stoned to death at the wall. The chains were charmed to restrain her from using her abilities. Dakhete wondered if she knew much about herself. She rather doubted it, since she was in this predicament. She took a moment to look at the unfortunate as the prisoner cried quietly. The girl looked to be only developing in her abilities, and appeared to be a little diminutive in stature, though it was a little difficult to tell since she was seated and of course, she was not human, so that yardstick was of little use. The donkey seemed to help the illusion, not being a large example of the breed. Dakhete thought that perhaps she might know only a little of what she might be able to do for herself. She looked to maybe stand a little over five feet, and Dakhete thought that she looked to be about eighteen or so, from the sense that came to her. But without at least touching her to sense it, there was no definitive way to tell. She saw little in the way of breasts there, almost nothing. She really couldn't tell much by looking, and it often happened that when one had latent ability, the physical side was a little delayed as well. They do not know what they do here, Dakhete thought as she noted the leonine features as well as the tail drooping forlornly over the back of the beast. She knew they were there, but she was the only one with the ability to see past the natural illusion which she doubted the girl was even aware that she had. To all eyes but the armed stranger dressed as a male warrior, and to likely even herself, this was an unfortunate and miserable human girl. The sight stirred a distant memory in her, but nothing came of it, only the inkling of something that she knew. She just didn't know what it was, other than the sense of familiarity which came to her and was gone. "Why is she chained?" she asked a woman nearby. "They are to keep her still," the woman said, "and they prevent her from harming anyone else. She is wicked and evil, as all of them are," she said. "You mean, they are to prevent her from defending herself, so that she may be put to death by the crowd with ease, and the people can enjoy their murder and not fear her retribution," the warrior said, "What is her crime?" "Crime?" the woman laughed, "she is a demon. What more is needed? She is a minion of Hell, and she tried to seduce my pious daughter, if you need to hear of her depravity. I saw them in the bed myself. They were naked and, ... " Her voice trailed off from the obvious stress of it. The stranger shook her head, "I have traveled widely and seen many things -- even demons. That girl is no demon. You are about to participate in a murder. There is no other word for it. I just thought that you ought to know that. And if they were together and naked, as you say," Dakhete smiled, "this one here looks as though she is too poor to even own any clothing, and I suppose that your pure daughter was thrashing against the chains which held her in that bed against her will? Or was she thrashing for another reason altogether and you only caught them at it?" The woman huffed and pretended that Dakhete was not even there anymore. The mother and daughter walked on at that point, looking over the ground with a lot of others, seeking the best rocks to throw. Dakhete stole a glance at the offspring of the woman, a soft and very toothy young woman who looked to be well on her way to replicating the homeliness of her mother any day now. She thought that the girl ought to have been happy that someone cared enough to try seduction, in her opinion, if that was really what had happened. From the nervous way that the girl looked at Dakhete, there was little doubt that whatever had been told, it was plainly not what had been happening, yet the chained girl and the donkey were here to pay the price. The ass was led to stand near the wall and was tethered there as someone who appeared to be a local holyman began to bray and drone with a holy book of some sort in one hand and a stone which Dakhete presumed to be the first one to be cast in the other. He wasn't even finished as the first rock hurtled at the girl from the woman's daughter at the front of the crowd. It hit the prisoner in the shoulder and she cried out, but then she saw that a second stone was on its way, and would likely hit her donkey. She leaned forward as far as she could to try to shield the animal and almost fell off when everything stopped in mid-breath. The ass shifted under the load and the girl looked up and almost jumped to find an armored warrior next to her. She stared, trying to see, but could only make out a pair of eyes. She peered for a moment. The eyes there didn't look very threatening and the irises were amber and not brown. She was the only person that she knew of who had amber irises. "Who are -- " she stopped as she looked around. "Why has everyone stopped? What is that ticking sound?" "I hold them," Dakhete replied in Hassaniya Arabic, the language of the local Bedouin in this part of Morocco through her mask, "the sound is their voices. Really, I only slow time. If we stand and speak for a time, the stones which were thrown will arrive." The girl wondered at the voice, "You speak like me, but you are not from this place. What do you do here? What does that mean?" "I will free you," Dakhete said, "only do not waste more time in talking or your ass here will get a slow stone in her head. Do you not see this? Hold up your hands." The girl held her hands up as far as she was able. Dakhete took hold of the chain and pulled it apart in one motion. She bent down and repeated this with the leg irons and lifted the startled girl from her seat on the back of the ass. Dakhete was startled herself, learning much of what had happened from their touch. "Lead her off to the side and out of harm's way," she said. The girl nodded and as she walked, the irons fell off. When she turned to come back, she stooped and picked up one of them, swinging it by the short length of chain which remained. She walked along the line of the crowd, looking closely for the ones who had either thrown a stone or had been about to. When she found one, she hit them once with the flailed manacle as hard as she could. The ones which had been hit only remained standing. She was out of breath by the time that she stood near the end of the line, sniffling a little as she looked at one person for a long moment. It was the girl who had been caught with her in bed and had blamed her for it, it was the girl who had thrown the first stone and hurt her with it. The first thing that she did was to pound her swinging manacle into the mother's head a few times for the nonsense of this. Then she turned to the daughter again. She stepped back and moved her arms as her lips muttered an incantation. She turned back to Dakhete. "Nothings is happening." "Oh, it will," the warrior nodded, "as soon as I release them all. Why did you not do this before in your defense when you needed it?" "I was upset," the girl replied, "and they had me chained -- " "With chains so weakly enchanted that you could have torn them apart if you hadn't believed the holyman," Dakhete said without reproach. "No matter what their faith, never trust a holyman, for they cannot help but twist whatever was written. Come, we must go." "Where are we going?" the girl asked over her shoulder as she walked to the man with the book. She searched for a moment and found his dagger. With it, she cut away his robe and emasculated him rather neatly to Dakhete's eyes. After that, she struggled and worked as she made the cuts which would disembowel him and then stepped back. She flipped the dagger in her hand and, liking the balance of it, she decided to keep it and wiped it clean with part of the man's robe as she walked back. "Are you ready at last?" Dakhete asked with a bit of humor, "What was that for?" she nodded to the holyman. "For what he has said about me and about my mother," the girl shrugged, "for what he tried to do to me last night. And for the poison that his lips were spilling. I cannot leave without my Najmah here," she said, indicating the donkey, "She is all that I have." Before she could add anything to that, she found that they all stood on the top of the thick wall and she took Najmah's lead in her hand and tried to cover the animal's eyes a little with her hands. "I will release them in a moment," Dakhete said, "but if it is your wish, I will seal the alleyway for you to do what you will then. I say this because it may require a moment or two for the saying of it." "My thanks," the girl smiled and she began her words. The people moved suddenly a minute later. Stones which had been hurled carried on in their trajectories, hitting nothing. Several of the throwers died of the injuries which they'd received from the manacle flailed over their heads, the woman who had made the accusation among them. The majority only fell from their wounds. The homely young woman burst shrieking into flames and the holyman found himself a sudden eunuch whose main difficulty now was that his intestines were spilling from his belly onto the dirty paving stones. A trio of guards from a different sector of the city where time still ran its course came running along the top of the wall toward them. Dakhete turned to them and drew her blade, waiting. "You are to come with us," the leader said, "You are to stop this illegal use of magic. I arrest you in the name of the Holy Robes." "What is the charge?" Dakhete smirked behind her chain veil. "Disturbing the peace. You break the laws of being armed and using magic." he said, looking down for a moment, "murder and the interruption of a lawful stoning." "That was what I wished to hear," Dakhete said as she advanced, "that last one. There was nothing lawful about what was about to happen here. These Holy Robes may go and fuck their hats instead of their goats for all that I care. Allow me to show you MY law." Dakhete swung her blade faster the men could see, never mind react to, and the horizontal stroke as she advanced one step lifted the man onto his toes as the sword came to him under his ribs, sliding though his cuirass like a hot knife through butter and severing everything including his spine. His upper half fell down into the square and his hips and legs collapsed and twitched where they'd landed. She looked at the remaining pair as they stood wide-eyed and trembling. "No stomach for the fight anymore?" she asked. "Jump then," she sighed in a resigned tone, "or you join him on my blade." They jumped down. She felt the presence of one of the city's mages and turned her head. He was in the street on the other side of the wall, holding up his hand with some expectation on his hooded face that what he'd cast would hold her. She reached for him with her free hand across the seventy feet between them and used his magic to pull him up as though they were attached, swinging him over her head and down into the stoning place on the other side of the wall with a wet crunch. The mage lay still. The uninjured in the square looked around themselves, and some pointed at the ones on the top of the wall. As soon as they saw who stood there, their stones fell from their fingers and their open hands rose in an effort to placate the pair. It bought them nothing, however. The girl completed her chant and the wind began in the square, rushing around in a great circle and gaining speed. Everything began to blow around, and the people had to cluster together to try to remain upright -- which was the girl's purpose, after all. The one who had been caught with the girl in her bed lay on the ground a few seconds from breathing her last. When she judged the time to be right, the naked girl on the wall bent forward a little as she howled out a word. The whirling air ignited. The girl pitched forward and almost fell into the square, but Dakhete reached around her thin waist and held her up, taking the dagger from her limp fingers to put it into her belt. Doing that caused the donkey to see where it was and it shifted nervously, but Dakhete laid her hand on the beast's neck and spoke quietly as she looked down. She felt fingers and a hand across her face over the mask, and noticed that the girl had reached up behind her. "You -- you are still here, "she mumbled. "Yes," Dakhete replied, "We must leave soon." "Please," she said, resting her head backward against Dakhete, "don't let me fall. I -- we cannot stay here. Wherever you go, please, take us with you? Please?" "If it is your wish," Dakhete replied, "Do not lean forward again." She realized that she was speaking to only the donkey then. The girl was already out. This young one had much power for one as young as she appeared. Before she could do anything else, Dakhete felt things about the unconscious girl as they came into her mind unbidden through her touch against her skin. She saw some of her misfortunes and knew also that she had no one who cared for her. She'd been sold into a brothel long ago and her developing nature was all that had prevented her from being used at what Dakhete judged was a rather disgusting age a few years before. She hefted the limp body twice to get her into position before she bent a little, picked her up bodily and slung her over her shoulder. She weighed little, and Dakhete tried not to think about how long it had been since this one had seen food which was for her to eat. "Come Najmah," she said quietly over the screams in the square below, "Your mistress has not forgotten you in her kindness. We must travel, so you must remain calm and all will be better in only moments, I promise." The expression which she saw in the animal's face made her grin and then they were gone, reappearing in another souq far away in a different city. As they walked, Dakhete ignored the stares at the warrior who carried a naked female over her shoulder, stopping at one stall and bartering quickly as though the girl wasn't even there. As far as they all knew, Dakhete was a male warrior with a prize. She did nothing to change their perceptions. A pair of bags were bought quickly and were filled with food and supplies even more so. Waterskins were draped over Najmah's neck and fastened by eager-to-please merchant's assistants who tried to see more of the unconscious girl's body. They all backed away when Dakhete asked them if what they wished to see was worth their lives and she reminded the shopkeepers that she was not forced to buy from them and that she was paying far above market value in gold for fast service. The shopkeepers nodded and asked where the young man lived, since from his clothing, they did not recognize his tribe's colors. "Not here, "the warrior said, "and not here for much longer. Do you wish to talk all afternoon, or are you in business to sell something? I need clothing for her. Guess her size and give me four choices, quickly by God, or I am gone." All four jelabeeya were displayed to the warrior and he nodded at them all, and did much to apologize for the harsh words, "A thousand pardons, we must be on our way long before the sun sets and we have far to go in the darkness. Peace be with you, God willing," As soon as they were around the corner of the winding main market pathway, they disappeared in a swirl of dust. -------------------- A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 16 It might have been the smells of the food which awakened the girl. She found herself lying on a blanket not far from a small cooking fire and looked around carefully trying not to appear to be moving very much. They were not in any town, she decided, seeing nothing in the way of buildings before her. She noticed a motion to her left and pretended to be asleep, rolling her head a little onto that side so that she might observe. Dakhete paused as she walked past, looking down for a moment before carrying on as she took Najmah an armful of hay before she sat by the fire and washed the dust and chaff from her fingers to see to the meal. She removed her headdress, but retained a blue shawl over her head, showing only her eyes for the moment. "Are you going to lie there and pretend to be asleep for very much longer, or are you going to sit up and come here to eat with me? I bought too much food if all that you want to do is to stare at me." The girl stood up slowly and a little unsteadily and made her way to where her benefactor sat. Dakhete held out a plate of food, and the girl almost passed out again. "Sit," Dakhete commanded, "Eat. We must be on our way shortly, and I wish to be at the end of my journey by nightfall. I wish to ask around a little first. I have not been this way for a time." The girl reached for the platter, but it was drawn back again. "Your name," Dakhete said flatly, "I wish to know your name. Surely it is a fair price for the food, basinah." "I am no kitten," the girl said. "You are as a kitten to me," the other one said from behind her shawl, "and there is no insult in my words. You did well today in the market. But that was there and this is here. Now; your name, lovely one, please." "I have many," the girl replied, "It is the one thing that the poor are rich in since they cost nothing," she smiled a little as she took the plate, "which sort of name am I to give? I have names for every season and day of the week." "I only wish for a true name of yours," Dakhete sighed, "and in exchange for that, I will give you a choice of mine." "Rasha," the young one said, deciding that it was enough. "I see it," Dakhete chuckled, looking at her naked companion, "you truly are as a young gazelle girl to my eyes." "And you?" Rasha asked as she tried to retain at least a little of her manners while eating at the same time. Her poor stomach had gotten the news from her eyes that there was food nearby -- as if it hadn't already heard the rumor from her nose. "I can give you two for now," the older one said, "and you may choose. You may call me Balqis or Dakhete. They both fit me well enough for this and they are both true, one more so than the other." "Balqis, "the young one thought, "a little hopeful to be named for that queen of long ago in Sheba -- wherever that was." Dakhete laughed, "I had no idea that I traveled with such a scholar of antiquity." The girl tilted her chin upwards for a second, "What is the other one again? And what is the full sound of it?" "My name is Dakhete," the woman replied. "That sounds a little strange for a Moroccan name," the girl said. "For a Moroccan, it would be," Dakhete nodded, "so it is a good thing that I am not a Moroccan, I suppose, and even better for you that we are no longer near there. If you care at all, I can tell you that you killed over a hundred in that square today." "Good," the girl replied as she ate, "They should not have come to see me die." Dakhete nodded in agreement. "We have gone a little far today, and Najmah is not even tired at all since it has only been an hour. She is happy with the hay and I believe that she likes to travel with me. We began in the souq in Marrakesh and we were near Tunis a little later, where I came by this food and more. Now, we are in the Sudan, my friend, very near to Shendi. It lies behind us on the other side of these tombs," she said, hooking her thumb over her shoulder. The girl looked and stared. There were pyramids rising out of the ground there. Najmah munched her hay thoughtfully and looked back at her. "We are in Egypt?" she asked, "I have heard that there are pyramids there, but I have never seen them." "There are," Dakhete said, "but we are not there, we are a long way south. I said that we are in the Sudan now. We are in the land of the Nubian pharaohs, and it pains me to see these tombs in such a state, for surely the ones where we go will not be much better. Don't eat so fast, or you'll be sick, my friend. Give your poor stomach a chance at that food. I enjoy seeing it disappear into you, but it cost too much to see it reappear again in only moments because you ate it like a jackal. Even if you are not ill from it, you will get sleepy from so much, and I have no wish to carry you again, though I will if I must. Here, drink a little water, at least." "Why did you do this for me?" the girl asked, "You do not know me." "Nevertheless, "Dakhete said, "you needed it, and I knew that you had nowhere to go and I would not leave you there. I remind you that you asked me to take you along. I did not like the thought at first, but I admit that I am warming to it now that you are awake and we can speak. I am going to an old home of mine for a while. I have travelled for a long time and now I wish to gather my thoughts. We are journeying to Medewi, though for some time, it has been known to scholars of dust as Meroe. It is an ancient city. I think that we will be the only ones there. It is likely quite a dead city and would have been for a long time, I think, if these tombs are in this shape." "Why go there then?" the girl asked. "Because as I have said, "Dakhete replied, "I have a home there and I wish to see what has become of it." "To have done all that you have," the girl said a little cautiously, "I think that you are no more human than I am -- though I thought that I was before." "No," Dakhete shook her head, "Neither of us is. Yet part of you is human, Rasha. I just do not think that you know all of it yet. What do you know of your parents?" "I only knew my mother," Rasha said, "and she was human, a common whore in Marrakesh. She always loved me and did her best for me. All that we had besides a very few things and some of her clothing was Najmah there. My mother bought her for me because I wanted her so much, and my legs were too weak to carry me very far. Najmah did not cost much, though for my mother the amount was as much as she had saved for a time. But I was a little girl and knew nothing of what such things cost. It was only later that I learned that the price may as well have been the cost of a fine stallion to my mother. Najmah is a little small, like me, and so we are the best of friends," she smiled, "Well, as friendly as we can be with our temperaments. But with her, I could go wherever I wished and we went everywhere together, even after my legs could carry me." "You must have been the poorest of the poor," Dakhete said gently, "I can see you in my mind, riding her in the street, always dressed as you are now. There is no shame to it in my eyes. I respect you for it, and think highly of you." Rasha smiled then, and Dakhete saw her exactly as she had pictured her. "Still, I was a happy child, my mother said, always laughing and smiling. When one has nothing, it is easy to be a fine princess. I have Najmah. I had nothing to wear for almost all of my life," Rasha said a little proudly, "though I guess that it would come to an end very soon if I was still there." "I guess that it would as well," Dakhete nodded, "it does not matter that one is too poor to have clothing, others will not like it even so. Me?" the girl heard Dakhete's smile in her voice, "you are far too pretty for that place and you are far better to be away from it. Even so, you need to wear something at least to travel in, since now we will not be going so fast that no one can see us. I have bought jelabeeyas for you." Rasha looked over, "For me? Why?" "Yes," Dakhete nodded, "four of them, since I did not know what might appeal to you and you need more than just one. I know it is hot here, and I am not asking you to wear them here. Only when we travel." "I have never worn one before -- well, since the last one that I had grew too small for me or, wore out, I think that it was. I have no need of any jel-" "Think a moment, " Dakhete said, "I know that you were the child of perhaps the poorest whore in the city. This is not that city, you would tell me and I know that. This is a better place to be with no clothing, but we will be going where there are people, and I have no wish to do it in the same manner as I did in the last souq that we were in." Rasha wrinkled her brow, "How was that then?" she asked, "I have no memory of it at all." "That is because you were over my shoulder like a sack of grain," Dakhete said, "in a dead faint as you were from lack of food and the strain of thinking that you would die, as well as the cost to you in the magic that you made there. Just accept this from me, "she said, "I would take it as a kindness that you did. This place, wherever we go here, most people are Muslim of one sort or another now. That you were a poor beggar who had no clothing might be accepted in the alleys of Marrakesh, but I assure you that it is not accepted elsewhere." "I accept me," Rasha said, "I like my body. I think it is my business if I wish to cover it or not. You are dressed as some sort of ... soldier or a fighter. Why?" "It suits me", Dakhete said, "it allows me freedom of movement, and it makes traveling easier if I must be among people. I can disguise myself as a man and I do not have the troubles of other men being forward or hopeful. I like my body too, Rasha, and I like yours as well, but you cannot travel well like that and you cannot carry much. Here," she said moving a little to facilitate the reach, "I have been carrying this for you, since you almost dropped it when you were fainting." She leaned to hand over the dagger that Rasha had taken from the holyman, "It is a fine blade, well-balanced even for throwing, though I doubt that he used it for much more than peeling the skin from an apple or cutting out a bit of bruising from the flesh of a banana. I am sure that it was not a trifle to buy. It carries some enchantments on it about protecting him from harm and evil, oh, and guiding his hand in a just way," she smirked, "I'd remove them, if it was me. There are others that would work better for you." "Like what?" Rasha asked. "Well, such as always returning to your hand," Dakhete replied, "That would be more useful, and sailing truly when it was thrown. Here." She laid her other hand on it and when she removed that hand, the one holding it began to roll it in her long fingers so that it spun and glittered. She drew her arm back and the dagger flew in a long graceful arc to strike point-first into the trunk of an acacia tree an impossible distance away. Rasha stared and turned, "I have never seen anything like this! How did you-" Her mouth fell open as she saw Dakhete holding the dagger out to her once more. She reached for the blade, but winced from the motion. It was the shoulder that had been struck by the stone. Dakhete saw it and got up to kneel beside the diminutive girl, "I forgot about that," she said, laying her hands on the shoulder and in subtle movements, she repaired the damage and the bruising in a few seconds. Rasha sighed from the feeling of incredible well-being which flowed through her. "My thanks," she said, watching as Dakhete went back to where she'd been sitting. She held the dagger, wanting to say more about the help that she'd received from her benefactor, but she was a little too close to being a bit overwhelmed and so she remained silent, deciding to wait at least for a moment. "If you would take it as a kindness from me if I dress myself in the clothing that you have bought for me, then it is my honor to wear it for you," she said, "though I think that I would prefer to dress as you do, if it was my choice." "Travel further with me," Dakhete said, "and you may have your choice, whatever it is. I have been in many places and done many things. I seek to go to Medewi now since it has been long since I was there. I expect to find little. But I will remain there for a time as I sort out my thoughts and recollections. If you travel there with me, I will have a chance at something that I should have done long ago. Among other things, I am a teacher. I did not know why I was in Marrakesh this day. I only knew that there was someone there who would need me. Such a thing has never really happened to me before, I assure you. I found you there, and I believe that you are the one who needed me -- as you quite obviously did, no? So I sit here now with one who is like me in many ways, and yet we are different as well. That is as it should be, but it comes to me now that you are more than the one who needed me -- and the aid was freely given by me. Truly, I could not have helped it anyway. I have a sense of justice and I knew in an instant who it was who was being wronged there." "You saved my life," the girl whispered. "In a manner, I suppose," the warrior replied, "I see it more as providing you the way for you to act as you needed to act. I only gave you the space in time in which to do it." Rasha shook her head, and it came to Dakhete that she felt for this poor naked girl in her heart; one who needed so much, though she had such power within herself that she was not aware of, it seemed. Dakhete didn't really know what to do about that for the moment. She only knew that it was incredibly difficult not to like her. "No," the girl said, "You did that, yes. But you broke my chains for me." "I only broke chains which you could have broken easily yourself. You did not know that you could, that it all," Dakhete said, "If you and I wish to argue over the point, I would have to give it to you that since you had no knowledge of this, then yes, I suppose that I did save your life. But I can say," she laughed a little behind her shawl, "that it was my pleasure to do it, for I think that I may have found a gift for myself in you. If it pleases you to be able to fight in a tight place and to do things with weapons such as you saw me do with your dagger, then I may have found one who I would want as my pupil, the only one that I seek to teach of my own will. We will have to see, but perhaps I have also found a friend for myself in you. I can say to you that I hope that it is so." Rasha's eyes grew large and Dakhete found herself a little lost as she looked into them across the space of perhaps three feet between them. The girl lowered her head and looked down as though she was struggling with something which she wished to say. In that instant, Dakhete saw something that she hadn't noticed before. Rasha had appeared to her to have her black hair cut short, but is really was not so. Her gently curling, glossy black ringlets were really only the part that Dakhete could see from the front; the rest was in a long, tightly bound ponytail which surely must reach to her backside. She wondered how it had been possible for her to have missed that. She'd carried Rasha over her shoulder and laid her down here to rest only a little while ago. How could she have missed it? Rasha raised her head and Dakhete's breath caught in her throat a little. "Please," the girl whispered, "give me your hands but a moment." Dakhete tilted her head in curiosity, but she held out her hands to Rasha. The girl moved herself forward onto her knees and she reached for the hands, taking them in her own. "You say that I do not know what I can do and it is only lately -- only days now, that I see that I never really knew what I am. But I know well what I was. All of my life," she said humbly, "people have laughed at the poor little daughter of Yasmin, the whore. They tolerated me because I made them laugh and smile, but I never had more than a playmate in the street when I was small because everyone thought that one so poor would surely rob them blind if they let me into their homes to play with their children. Then I grew too old to have a playmate, and I was alone, because only boys wanted to be friendly with me, but I know what it was that they wanted. The girls hated me because the boys always came to me. I have never had a friend, the way that such a person as you must mean that you wish for. Since you have given me two names to choose from, I can easily do the same. I tell you now that Yasmin is my true name also, just as it was my mother's name. I tell you that if it is your wish to have my friendship, then you have it until I am dead." She lowered herself a little and she pulled Dakhete's hands apart for a moment to give her some room and before the warrior could object or even say a word, the girl kissed her boots and raised herself to bring the hands together before her again. She shifted the hand which held Dakhete's left hand and she placed it carefully onto the top of her own head and she looked down in submission then. To Dakhete, this was something that was a little akin to things which she'd experienced so very long ago, most often in the very place where they were journeying toward now. The sense of déjà vu was a little overwhelming to her. But to her, as the sounds of the gentle breeze and the songs of the birds around them faded into the background, what had gone before seemed more like mere formalities now. None of those acts meant anywhere near as much as what was happening to her right now. "If it is a pupil that you seek, Mistress, then it is the truth in my heart to say to you that you have found her in me. I will strive like no other that you may have taught. May I bring you joy to see how I will learn for you whatever you wish to teach to me." Dakhete heard the girl sniffle for a moment, "I am worthless," she said, "my life has meant nothing to anyone since my mother died." She looked up and Dakhete saw how the girl's tears ran down her lovely face. It brought her own tears to her eyes to see it. "You have saved my life," she said, "You took me away, and you feed me and clothe me. It surely means little, but it means much to me." She pulled Dakhete's right hand to her and she kissed it softly for a long moment, and she said, "Teach me then, whatever you will, and I will learn it. I place myself at your feet always, Dakhete. I would be happy as your servant and pupil. My life is yours," she said as she wept, "By God, I swear it." Dakhete moved her hand from the girl's head and she held that young face in both of her hands as she leaned forward. "In the first place," she said, sniffling herself, "I wish to say that I have felt no greater honor, been offered no finer tribute than what you offer to me now. How deep my words run may only become clear to you a little later, but that is not important, Yasmin. I want you to know that you have humbled me with what you have done, and that is no easy task." She leaned forward a little more and she kissed the girl's forehead through her shawl slowly and then she looked into her eyes again. "I accept what you offer, though I have my own conditions, if it pleases you. I will be proud to take you as my student in many things. First, I have the honor of showing you what you are as you learn of it yourself. Second, and this will take a little time, but I will show you how to fight and be invincible in so many ways, for whatever your purpose. Thirdly, you and I will learn our true purposes together, since I have only weeks ago learned that I have no purpose myself anymore, but I can teach you what I learned while I had one," she smiled. She put her arms around Yasmin's shoulders and hugged her. "This will need to be something of a strange relationship between you and I," she said, resting her lips against the girl's forehead once more. A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 16 "How old are you?" The words hung in the air for Yasmin for a moment. "I am eighteen," she answered. "You do not sound as though you are convinced of it yourself," Dakhete said, "Seek in your heart and try it once more. There are reasons why I ask this of you." The girl hesitated for just a second, wondering which was the more desirable answer to Dakhete. She decided that if she was to be her pupil, then there should be absolute honesty between them. She had never felt this way before about anyone and Dakhete deserved the truth more than anyone living, she decided. "I am, ... not really sure," she answered quietly, "I believe that I am, ... I think that I am eighteen. Since my mother died, I have lost track." "Much better, Yasmin," Dakhete smiled, "the reasons why I asked are important. We will need to be several things between us, and ever truthful is perhaps the most important. I will always be truthful to you and I require that from you as well." "What do we need to be?" Yasmin asked. "I am your servant and will do anything for you." "A little and only sometimes," Dakhete smiled as she drew back to look at Yasmin. "Look at us here," she chuckled, "two girls who kneel together crying in the grass and dust, but I like this. The secret is in the names that I have called you by. I will call you as Yasmin most often, since it is a name as lovely as you, and it brings your mother honor for both of us to hear it in the air between us. I will call you Rasha in my mind as you learn, the graceful and beautiful gazelle who I must teach to sometimes be as a lioness. Sometimes I will call you Kitten, for I can see that I will also need to be just a little like your mother to you, and I think that doing it that way will bring both her and I much honor, so you see, it will be a little complicated, the way that we will be between us." "I will be as you wish, at any time," Yasmin said, nodding, though she ached to see Dakhete's face under that shawl. "From what I feel, I can tell you that you are almost nineteen," Dakhete smiled, "but do not groan to me over it. You have only days to wait. Many things cannot be taught to one who is younger than that. It is tradition in most of the arts that I have learned and only prudent. Some things are deadly to know and are not to be placed in the mind of one a day younger than that, and magic, as it applies to weapons is one of the most important. Also, to begin, there needs to be a building up of energy beforehand until we begin to teach you how to use weapons more than just the way that a human might." She got up and sat down by the fire again, "Eat a little more, my new friend," she said, "and we can be off." "Will you not eat, Mistress?" Yasmin asked. "No," Dakhete said, shaking her head, "I am not hungry. This was all for you. I will eat our evening meal with you and be proud to do it." Yasmin lowered her head, realizing that even before all of this, her mistress had shown her much honor. "Thank you, Mistress, I live by your kindness." "Never mind all of that," Dakhete laughed as she waved her hand as though to wave away the words which embarrassed her a little to hear them here, "You have not told me what happened to cause what I walked into back there in Marrakesh." "Nothing much," Yasmin said, "I did nothing, like I do any other day in the market stalls, for example. I know which stallkeepers feel sorry for me and let me have something to eat for nothing. They know when to look away so that they do not have to see me walk away with the small bread or the fruit. Anyway, they do not stone thieves there. They only cut off their hands." Dakhete knew then that Yasmin had this way about her, a method to her speech which allowed her to retain a little dignity in her words even as she admitted something else entirely in what she was not saying. Dakhete had no doubt that if any one of the stallkeepers saw her steal from them, they'd have done something about it. The city was full of the destitute and always had been. The only reason that the daughter of the poorest harlot had anything in her stomach at all and still had her lovely hands was because she was good enough at pilfering not to have been caught at it -- yet. "If you are finished with your meal, then let us leave," Dakhete said, "We are not far now, but we must find a way across the river. My home lies on the other side of the Nile. I could bring us there n an instant, but it has been so long. I need to be sure so that I do not bring us to a point in the middle of the river itself, and also, I wish to see how things have changed." Yasmin nodded and rinsed off her plate. Handing it to her mistress, she chose one of the jelabeeyas which were for her and she put it on. As they walked together, their conversation carried on. "- But that would all have changed very soon," Yasmin said, "I would have money to buy clothes for myself, and food as well." "How so?" Dakhete asked, "What would change?" Yasmin shrugged, "I thought that I would begin to whore myself soon. They already tried to make me do it, but that is not so easy, since I am not like other girls. I fight back very well. But I have learned that perhaps it is not as easy as I had thought to do. My mother got sick," she said, "but before she died, she made a bargain with my uncle. It was his establishment. He was to allow me to live there and had to feed me. For that, when I began, I was to pay him back." "Yasmin," Dakhete said quietly, "I have no wish to harm your dream, but this uncle, he whored out his sister?" "Yes," Yasmin replied, "My mother was very beautiful," she smiled as she remembered. "I have no doubt of it at all, "Dakhete smiled back, "I can see it in you. Go on." "You can?" Yasmin asked, "Even though I am still like a stick and have no -- " "They will come any day now," Dakhete smirked, "Do not give up hope. Anyway, there is a look that some women have who are small or have very little. I think that you will have it in any event, and you will have truly earned your name and be as a lithe young gazelle, a beautiful one. I can tell that you have always been a little sad that you did not get larger breasts, but --" "A little sad? I have been heartbroken that I did not receive ANY breasts!" Yasmin said exasperatedly, "SOMEthing would have been nice." "It may be that they will start to grow now, though I must say that it might also not happen anymore," Dakhete said, "You are not thinking the right way. Remember that you are not completely human. Think that your body knows a little bit about protecting itself and that is why it never developed so much. You really needed to be able to continue hiding in plain sight, the poor naked girl. If you had blossomed and grown lush tits, it would have brought you only unwanted attention. As lovely as you are -- even like this -- you would not last long as a naked girl who has large breasts and very curvy hips. No self-respecting man would scoop you up out of the streets to be his bride, I can assure you. It would be the right thing, but it would never happen." "You said it again," Yasmin said, looking over, "You said that I am lovely." Dakhete rolled her eyes, "Look, you are very beautiful to me. I see that you have no curves, other than the long ones such as gazelles have. I like that on you. I see that there are no large tits bouncing there on your chest, but there are some, Yasmin, who see this as an asset and as signs of beauty nonetheless. Look here," she said, trying to get both of them thinking in other directions, "Look at my chest. It doesn't look like much, but to wear this armor, I must bind my tits tightly. I am no more than average myself, but I can't fight with a sword very well if I don't bind them, and as for shooting a bow, forget it. You will not have this trouble, I think." "Are you one of those?" the girl asked, "the ones who see not having a big chest as an asset? I only wish to know and you said that honesty is important. So, you like my body?" Yasmin asked, "I mean, you like the way that I am?" "Yes, for God's sake, "Dakhete said, "I do, alright?" "Alright," Yasmin smiled, looking forward again as they walked. She looked as though she could float. "Go on with your tale, please," Dakhete said, "before you turn into an old maid and I still would not know what I wanted to hear." "My mother was very popular," Yasmin said, picking it up again, "she had many, many men who came only for her. She worked late each day and night, and I waited to take care of her then. I wanted for the day to come when I could begin so that I could buy my mother the things that she'd never had." She looked down and was silent for a time. "But she died before that happened," Yasmin said in a sad whisper," and I never had the chance." Dakhete put her arm over Yasmin's shoulder and said, "There is something which you are not seeing here," she said, "Your mother worked so hard and made so much money, and yet she had nothing with which to buy her daughter, the most important person in the whole world to her, even a single jelabeeya. Your uncle could not find it in his heart to allow his own sister, who was making him rich, to buy her daughter even one simple garment so that his niece wasn't naked on the street. How hard would that have been for him to allow now and then? I bought you four of them in a twinkling. They may not have been the finest in the whole market, but it was not even a thought to me. I am sure that if she could have, your loving mother would have bought you much more than that. No," Dakhete said, shaking her head a little angrily, "this uncle of yours used her, and took all of her earnings to keep her working there as poor as a mouse and embarrassed that her only child had to run the streets naked all of her childhood. I know this, because I would feel that way if it were me. On top of that, he only waited and fed you little, or you would not have been as weak as you were today. He waited for his chance to have you agree to begin working for him. He just didn't know what you are." Yasmin looked over and spoke very quietly after a moment, "I wish one day to go back there. I understand it now. I will kill him." "Then that is what we will do one day soon together. I long to see that for myself now," Dakhete said, "I am sad that I brought it up, but I thought that you should see it for what it was. I will take you back one day soon for you and for your mother's memory both. And I can tell you something else, Yasmin." Yasmin stopped then and wiped a tear from her eye as she looked up in a little surprise at the fierce look in Dakhete's eyes. "No one," she growled through her teeth, "No one there will ever laugh at lovely Yasmin again. I swear it to you in the names of many gods, my friend." Yasmin nodded her thanks as they walked on. She fretted a little over the clothing. "I am not used to it, that is all," she said, "I walk and the wind blows a little. When it blows from the front, it gets in the way of my legs as I walk." "Then I have good news for you, I think," Dakhete replied, "This is only to travel in where there are people. Where we go, it was the custom long ago to wear much less." "Really?" Yasmin asked, "the women too?" "Yes, the women too. Almost everyone wore nothing from the hips up," Dakhete said, "Women and men wore short skirts. On a woman, it might go as long as midway to her knees. Young women might wear ones which only covered their backsides a little. That was the way it was then. We favored the Egyptian way, since we were from that culture." "Why was that?" Yasmin asked, "You said that we are a long way south from there." "We are," Dakhete smiled, "But the Egyptians conquered Nubia and we learned from them. When they grew weak, we became the power. Many of the Pharaohs were Nubian after that for a time. Anyway," she laughed a little, "I think that we will be the only ones there, so you may run like the gazelle, naked as you always were, if it is your wish." Yasmin began to grin and Dakhete asked her why when the look didn't fade after a minute or more. "I am thinking of my wish," the girl laughed a little, "I think that it is my wish to see you with me like that." It made Dakhete laugh for a moment, "You hold on to your wish then, Yasmin. If there is no one there, and the gods are willing, there might very well be two gazelles leaping there, for when I train and teach others, I wear little. But I still want to know what happened to bring you to the stoning wall like that," Dakhete said. Yasmin looked sad and now she looked uncomfortable as well. She struggled with Dakhete's words and had no argument, nothing with which to gainsay what she'd heard. She looked down and mumbled. "If it causes you shame, Yasmin," Dakhete said as she hugged the girl's shoulder a little, "then keep your secret. I think that I have said the wrong things to you. I did not wish for you to feel badly." Yasmin looked up, "No," she said, "You helped me. I will tell it. I had a, ... a girlfriend." She looked over almost expecting to see a look of disapproval, but seeing none, she continued, "We were in her room and we were kissing a little. It felt so good, and I didn't think at all, and before I knew it, I ... I guess that I looked different all of a sudden, and Wadha started to scream. Her mother came running in and Wadha began to make accusations that I was trying to defile her virtue, or something such as this. She only said it because we were there in her bed. I ran out and they caught me three days later. They kept me at the temple, and the man there, the holyman, he tried to , ... " She looked over with tears in her eyes. "He hurt me, Dakhete. He beat me a little and said that I must submit to his holy club, but it looked more like a little root to me. I resisted it easily, but I learned enough to know that I can never really even be a whore like my mother." They walked on for a while and Yasmin said, "I did not mean to upset you by saying that I was kissing a girl. I seem to like them better. I do not know why, really. I ... I just do, that's all." "You have upset nothing," Dakhete said, "It was not wrong to me. I wish for you to stop feeling badly, that is all. That is upsetting me, because I started this talk between us foolishly. I only wanted to hear more about you. I have my own troubles. Look, there are the rivermen. They are leaving, but one remains still." She put her headgear on once more and walked right up to the one who had a craft large enough to carry them and the donkey. "I have never heard of such a place," the riverman said, "and anyway, from what you say, this is a ways downstream. My men and I would have to paddle back up and it would be dark by then. They are already in their cups anyway. Everyone has gone for the day. I am only here to coil up my lines and square away. Our last fare was a boatload of grain for the mill and it has left a mess." "Then take us only across the river," Dakhete said in the tone of a male, "that will have to do and we walk the rest of the way to where we wish to go. I have never heard of rivermen so afraid of the dark and a little work that they would shun a generous fare." "You can find your own way across," the man said in a surly tone, "I have a better plan. You go on and swim across, and leave your bride here. By the morning, the crocodiles will surely have you, and your girl will forget your foolish name by the end on the week." He looked a little vacant as Dakhete spoke again, "I only need you to steer the boat, fool. Now, help the donkey in and cast off your line. I grow tired of hearing you." They were slipping down the river a few minutes later, the riverman at the rear, working the steering board and saying nothing as he looked a little confused. "How did you do that?" Yasmin whispered. Dakhete shrugged, "There is much that I must teach you. Some of it regards men. To them, we are walking wonders which many do not understand. If you find the right one, Yasmin, you will find that to us, they are a different sort of walking wonder themselves. But for now, I do not wish for you to think that men are cruel or stupid or both, but some of them are these things, and there is nothing easier than to hold a thought in the empty mind of a fool, no matter what is between their legs. I learned what I sought to know. A riverman this close to Medewi, and he has not heard of it. I do not think that we will find any others there." "You said that you had your own troubles," Yasmin said, "How can I help? Is there something- " "Sh-sh" Dakhete hissed, as she took Yasmin's hand, "There is nothing that you can do, pretty one. There is much for me to think about and that is what I am trying to do. Only hold my hand, and I am pleased." Yasmin nodded and fell silent. Dakhete considered what she was almost certain that they'd find at Medewi. She also struggled with her own issues, and more than a couple of them related to her feelings toward her companion. At length, Dakhete pointed to the shore, "See there?" she asked the man, "Steer us there, and we will be rid of each other. Put in at a spot where the donkey can get out and there are no crocodiles." He nodded and headed them there a little downstream. "How will I get back upstream?" he asked, "it will grow dark soon and the crocodiles hunt most then." Dakhete was thankful to be reminded and she told him in a droning voice, "You are thinking wrongly. You need to go farther down to find the rich towns where the people pay much more to be ferried in a fine boat such as this. Go on downstream and seek your fortune." He nodded and thanked her, pushing off to jump into the boat as it picked up speed with the flow of the river and he was out of sight before long. "I wondered how you would answer him," Yasmin said. "It matters little," Dakhete replied, "As we talked, I knew that he must not be a very good riverman in these parts. I remembered that there are cataracts in the river in a few places, and there is one of them between here and Medewi, now that I think of it. He has never been there if he did not know of it. It will be almost dark before he reaches it. He will either hang up there or smash his boat on the rocks. Or if he has luck and a little skill, he may pass them, but he will be moving much faster after that and he has no lights to see by. He will hit something, I am sure of it. Remember what he said to me. It is he who will be in the belly of a crocodile by morning." "Stand next to me," she said to Yasmin, and she urged Najmah a little closer as well, "I have no wish to walk this road at night for we will have to fight our way through every crocodile who needs to eat. It is too close to the river from what I remember. All this time, and little has changed in this place, only the clothes a little and the shining tombs that I remember are dusty old buildings now which fall down." She sighed with a little determination as she drew her sword, "And if little else has changed, then the crocodiles have surely not either." The next thing that Yasmin knew, they were walking down a dusty pathway. "Medewi is over there," Dakhete said, "we will go in only a minute. I search for something here first. I can see that there is much for me to put right again and I will need a little help. This is one of the cemeteries, and I search for one grave where an old friend must lie. Oh, this will take all the rest of the day," she grumbled. She walked to the front of the cemetery, and Yasmin could see the remains of what must once have been a very ornate and rich-looking gateway badly crumbled now into little more than twin heaps of wind-rounded square blocks. Dakhete stood with her arms outstretched and began to call out in a loud voice. A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 16 "Piankh! Piankh, the Guardian. Piankh the Mighty. I remind you of your oath to me. Come! I have need." Nothing happened for a moment, and then there were sounds, soft groaning whispers which Yasmin could not hear clearly enough to understand. Even if she could hear them, she thought, she doubted that she'd understand any of it. She looked away down the hillside and wondered about the place. She could see pyramids off in the distance. She had no idea where this was, but in its glory, it sure must have been something to see. When she turned toward Dakhete again, she was startled to see her speaking to a large man who listened attentively. Without turning her head, Dakhete beckoned Yasmin to her. She took Najmah's lead in her hand and they walked. After a moment, Yasmin was astounded to hear that she could indeed understand what was being said as she listened. "I cannot," he said with obvious reluctance and much regret, "I was sworn to Tanyi's eternal service after you left. I had no say in it, Kandake." "Stand here but a moment," Dakhete said, a little angrily. She turned and howled down toward the pyramids. "Tanyi! Tanyi, rise and come to me, I command it, and you will obey." Yasmin looked at the man. He was obviously at his peak as some sort of warrior. He wore sandals and some ornate leggings. Above that, he wore some form of short kilt which glittered in the late sunlight. She saw that he was very powerfully built and wore a symbol of his office around his neck. He bore many scars on his body, obviously from warfare. She wondered where he'd come from and how it was that he stood here when there had been nobody there only a few seconds before. "He comes, Kandake," the deep voice said as the man nodded. "Are there still foot-soldiers?" she asked, "Are there archers?" "Yes, Kandake, many. " He looked at her with a grin, "Thousands still, there are." She smiled a little, "And are there still my war elephants? What of them?" "I can say there are at least one hundred fifty, perhaps a few more than that. Sad for me to say that it is not the thousand that you knew." "Then we wait until Tanyi can drag his bones up here," she said, "I will deal with this. He has much to answer for." A man walked up the path along with a woman, obviously his queen by their dress, plus some which may have been their offspring and many advisers. He stopped before her and said nothing. "Do you know me, Tanyi?" she asked him. He nodded, but said nothing. "Who am I then?" she asked. "I am King Tanyi, King of Armak," he began until Dakhete raised her hand and all of them screamed out in agony. Yasmin stared as she watched it along with Piankh for a moment. "I did not ask you who you were," Dakhete scowled. "I asked you if you knew who I am and not liking it, you sought to twist it as you have always done. You are a presumptuous little weasel and you always were," Dakhete said as she spit on him. "I handed you a lush and proud kingdom, Tanyi, and look at what you did with it. This is a dustbowl. This is unforgivable. You still need lessons in respect, I see. Piankh here tells me that you overrode his oath to me, is that so?" "He lies," the apparition said, "He- " The rest was lost in his screams as Dakhete held up her hand again. "You had no right, Tanyi, for I was not dead, was I? I only had to leave for a time. Well I have returned. The rule of you and those after you is ended and I rule here once more. If you insist on telling me mis-truths," she said, "I will summon all of the kings and queens of this place and they will do as they wish to you and your little mob of defilers for what has been done here. We know who carries the blood and who does not. We know the truth without a thought. There are no lies among the dead, Tanyi, though I am not one of you. Before that even happens, I will allow Piankh his revenge for what you have just said to me, and we both know who is the mighty fighter and who has never lifted anything heavier than his sister-wife's tit in his life." She turned away and Yasmin saw tears in her friend's eyes. "I am sorry that I ever left," she said to herself, "I turned an empire over to a worthless rat." She wiped her eyes and spun on Tanyi. "On your KNEES!" she howled in his face, "All of you usurpers! NOW!" The king's party dropped instantly and Dakhete's voice grew cold. "Hear me well, Tanyi and obey, or by Amun , Sekhmet, Bast, and Apedemak himself, I will shatter all of your family into dust and burn it and before I do that, I will let everyone see how well a TRUE queen can stand and piss into the mouth of a worthless man." And you will drink it before the lowest foot-soldier to see," she said with an evil tone, "Do you understand?" "Yes, my Queen," he said fearfully. Yasmin wondered how it was that one who was already dead would have something to fear, though it was rather obvious that this one did -- at least from Dakhete. "I am not your queen, you idiot," she said, "Your queen kneels behind you. I was never your queen, and I grow tired of your insolence and stupidity. I am Kandake here, more than just a queen. The name is still famed in places so far removed from here that you know nothing of them. Three thousand years have passed and the name lives on still, though it is changed a little and people still name their girl-children Candace after me and all of the other RULING queens. But no one, Tanyi, no one has ever named their boy-children after even one king of Armak, other than another Armakkan. Now this will be your last chance to get this rightly. Who am I?" They bowed their heads. "You are Dakhete, Kandake of Medewi, Queen of Armak" he said. "I was never the queen of any king," she said, reminding him. "I am Queen Regnant. I rule alone and I take back what I left in your worthless care. Now, release Piankh from his oath and ask that worthy one for his forgiveness, or by the gods, I can feel my bladder in need of relief into your mouth. I have had precious little to laugh about of late and for what I see that has happened around me I wish to do far worse than that." The king jabbered at the warrior who nodded his thanks to Dakhete. "Before you go back to your dusty boxes, "she smiled to Tanyi, "and seek solace in the sandy slit of your sister-wife, I wish for you to see something." She turned to Piankh. "My old friend, it is so good to see you once again. Can you help me to bring a little of this place back once more?" He smiled warmly as he slapped his fist against his muscled chest, "After so long, there is nothing that I want more, Kandake. I want to weep my own tears of happiness only to see you again. My oath to you stands once more and I have never felt such pride. Only tell me your wish and I will have it done." Dakhete smiled, "This place was built on might and power. I have the power and the right to wield it. Now Piankh, trusted friend, I give you the ability in my name. Show me the might." He grinned and it changed into a laugh as he turned and held out his arms. "Our Queen is returned to us!" he called out to the dusty hills, "Dakhete is our Queen once more! All hail Dakhete, Kandake of Armak!" "HAIL!" the hills resounded with the roaring call of thousands of voices, "HAIL DAKHETE!" It went on and on. Yasmin almost fell over. She'd seen no one on those hillsides, and now she couldn't see the ground of those hillsides. Everywhere that she looked, she saw troops, thousands of them. There were foot-soldiers, ranks and ranks of them standing and clashing their spears and swords against their shields as they chanted. The din was incredible and the whole valley rang with it. She saw charioteers and thousands of bowmen, or more correctly, bow-women who sang haunting chants in strange rhythms and every few seconds, they cheered wildly and held their bows aloft to the queen. Yasmin looked at Dakhete who smiled, "Armak has always been famous for our girl archers, the best in the world. They have always sung their chants as they move - for they always move, looking for the best ground to shoot toward and shifting like sand as they do. The chanting draws the ear and causes foes to look. To look for more than a moment is too long, and that is well before the fight." The ground shook a little and Yasmin spun and gaped at over a hundred war elephants as they paraded and began to line up as though for Dakhete's inspection. The ground was flat near to the river, but not far off, it was more rolling hills. There was only really one higher feature, a single large piece of kharst which rose out of the ground. On the back side, away from the city, it sloped down until it disappeared into the deep forest which also covered it, but on the side facing Medewi, it rose to a peak. About three-quarters of the way up the steep side, there was a bit of a ledge, a little overgrown with the large twisting roots of the huge trees which grew above it. At this moment, as the river valley echoed with the cheers of a long-dead, but newly arisen army, as the ground shook from the rumble of many elephants striding to walk in cadence as one, no one looked at the mountain, no one saw what crouched a little on that ledge. A large cat stood there, not large for his kind, but then he was not at his peak yet. He watched, panting a little through his open mouth. He only looked with mild interest. His companion, the one whom he was there to guard, it was he who looked with keen eyes. The young man stood bent a little so as not to present much of an identifiable human shape to anyone's eye who might be looking in their direction. The only clothing that he wore was more of a belt fashioned from a thong of leather from which hung scraps of animal fur. The thong also provided a place for his short sword. Beyond that, he was nude, other than a thong of leather around one bicep. In his right hand, he clutched the shaft of a spear, the butt of which was against the ground between him and his guard. To a keen eye, the spear itself might be of as much interest as the pair of watchers, for it was well-made, forged out of a long billet of steel. Though it now served its owner as more of a walking stick at the moment, it was long and balanced for use as a pike or a throwing spear. The tip was a little leaf-shaped, about seven or eight inches long, and in cross section, the tip was forged in a diamond shape. The other remarkable feature was the boy himself, for his skin was paler than that usually seen this far away from the trade routes, and he bore few of the African features of the majority of the people who might have settled here after the passing of the nation of Armak and the eclipse of the kingdom of Medewi. But then, none had wanted to settle in such a place. He was a little tall, and his build reflected a life lived outside, for the most part. He still wore some of the lankiness of a youth, though the musculature of the man that he would be one day soon was beginning to make its appearance. He had the height and the form. The muscles were there. Now he needed the pounds. It had begun at puberty and really, it was near to its completion, the magical change from the boy to the man, though there still remained more strength to be gained as more of the build that his life demanded of him appeared. He still had a way to go, but then he was only nineteen. His skin appeared -- depending on the light, to be either a dark golden color or a light chocolate brown. His features were a slight mix, though he leaned toward the features of a Caucasian, from his father. His hair looked a little wild and hung far down his back in light brown and blonde curls, and at the moment as he gazed down on the scene below, his eyes sparkled in an azure blue. He watched for a little longer before he trailed his fingers over the back of the long-toothed cat, who looked up and back to the youth. Seeing him nod and his subtle hand motion, he turned after him as they entered the gloom of the forest on the mountain unseen. "I have forgotten how this feels, to stand here and see the might of Armak, "Dakhete smiled as she placed her hand on Piankh's massive bicep, "Thank you, my friend. I wish for you to meet Yasmin," she said, "A young friend of mine and my student -- yours as well at some point. She is here to learn the craft and the art of war. And this is her ass, Najmah. Please see to it that they come to no harm here and that all know of them. There is much to do, but I ache to see the city restored at least some. Please help as you can, Piankh." "My honor, Kandake," he smiled, "It shall be so." "I will leave much of the restoration to you, but first, there is one thing." "Ask it," Piankh smiled, "The smallest thing shall be my life's work. The largest as well." "Tamyi still has nasty thoughts, but nothing like those of his sister-wife, Yumn. I remember how she gloated when I left. She has always had envy and hatred in her heart for me, " she smiled, "all of his family do, I can hear them, and they see one here who means much to me, so they have caused my wrath to fall on them. Take their heads, and tell all who see them that these headless ones are reviled. What is left of them will turn to dust, since I forbid that they return to their boxes. This girl and her donkey are to be protected above all else. The heads are to go into the river and they will never be whole again." Yasmin was sure that she'd seen no sword on Piankh, but she heard his sword ring as he drew it with a grin and she saw it gleaming wickedly as he walked toward the ex-king. A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 17 ***The rest of the day like no other for lovely Yasmin. Oh, and a little more of Dakhete's back-story too. 0_o ---------------- "What was that?" Yasmin asked as they walked the dusty road to the dead city, "What just happened there? Where did all of those people come from?" She stopped and Dakhete continued on a step or two before she stopped to look back. Yasmin was looking at her a little strangely. "Who are you?" Dakhete saw that Yasmin's lip was trembling. The girl was obviously becoming upset. She walked back and put her arms on Yasmin's slender shoulders. "I am sorry if all of this frightens you. I should have said more but I was preoccupied. I am not now, so I will try to begin to explain." She chuckled to herself, "I really do not know where to begin this properly." She thought a moment, "Alright. Piankh, my friend, I have need of you once more. My friend and I will want to have our evening meal -- and I will prepare it myself, since we have the food. What I need from you are three things. Firstly, please organize a party of guards with torches if it is possible to remove any crocodiles by the river as close to my house as is possible, so that we may bathe in a bit of peace. For this night, it will be allowed if there are no attendants available. Secondly, please see what may be done so that we have a place to sleep in my home if that may be done. If not, then find us a place for that. And thirdly, a place for a little cooking fire with a bit of wood would be very nice." The large man nodded and slapped his chest with his fist once more, "It will be done, Kandake." Yasmin didn't know that the man had even been there with them, but she looked around now and saw that they were alone. Piankh was running along the path ahead of them. "For a time, long ago," Dakhete began, "I ruled here. This is almost as far back as my memories go for now and I hope that I will remember more soon, since things are coming to me once more. I was Kandake. That means a ruling queen who holds power by herself and does not share with her husband, for example. A Kandake is above the queen of a king. She stands higher than a king. You know that I am not dead, of course," she smiled, "but everyone else here is. I have only raised them, that is all." "They are, ... ghosts, then? All of them?" the girl asked. "They are shades," Dakhete nodded, "A ghost is a thing which knows nothing of what is around it. A ghost is a remnant and nothing more. These are shades, Yasmin. They know me. They see what is around them here. They can act and not only wander in a little place and moan to frighten children. A ghost can do little harm to anything. A shade can kill a living man. Look around us. I thought at first that I would come here alone and try to remember everything, but then I met you, and now everything has changed. My pupil needs a good and proper place to learn, and she will learn little while she spits out the sand from between her pretty lips all the day. So I have decided that I require at least some of this old place to live once more. For that I need help, and so I have begun it. You need have no fear of them. In a little while, when all have heard that I have returned from those who just saw us back there, many will want to meet you. None will wish you harm. Quite the opposite, in fact. They know that they are dead. The dead have existences as well, only different from what they had while they lived. What just happened there behind us is something which should have happened long ago. It was a little unfair to hold Tanyi and his ilk to account for all of the ruin around here, but I know that much was lost because of him after I left, and it was he who began the decline. I am Kandake once more, Yasmin. To show you the difference, imagine any queen who wishes her king dead for whatever reason. I would guess that it has happened that a queen might wish for that in her heart, but can that really happen without all sorts of intrigue and plots? I think that it is usually done from the other side of it, where the king decides to be rid of the queen." The girl struggled with the notion as she slowly raised her arms to hold Dakhete by the waist. "No," she said, "I know little of such things, but I cannot imagine that it would be possible. Any queen who has a king lives under that king. A ruling queen does not have any king -- at least, as far as this beggar girl knows." "Correct," Dakhete smiled, "or very nearly so. Here in what was once the heart of Armak, a ruling pair may share power equally, but that sort of queen cannot kill her king. I was never that sort of queen. I am Kandake. I rule absolutely. I could take a king as consort, but I can also order that king to kill himself -- and he must obey. Think of this; when I ruled here, Egypt was only a captive state under the heel of Rome. I often had Roman armies on my borders. I led my armies myself as a Kandake must and I beat them back, and more - my armies chased and hounded them, carving them up as they ran. That is the difference between a queen and a Kandake. A Kandake must be as hard a warrior as any man, for they need and expect no less. They deserve no less than that from their queen. That is what it means to be Kandake. Look at Piankh. How can I ask him to lay down his life for the kingdom if I am not prepared to stand with him and fight? Armak lost both ground and prestige under that rat Tanyi. It was not only me. Yasmin. Other Kandakes before me forced Rome to bargain and ask for peace so that they could staunch the bleeding that Armak raiders caused. A Kandake before me forced the Roman governor to the table and they settled on a peace which was very favorable to Armak -- and then she broke it and began again, because her true purpose was only to buy a few years to replenish the Armakkian army. One can smile across the table and bargain for peace if it suits, but Kandakes have always held to one creed -- it will be a sweeter bargain if one holds the leads of one's snarling hounds in one hand and grasps the olive branch of peace with the other. It is our choice which one we let slip from our fingers, never theirs. But it was not the Romans who finished the decline here. It was another kingdom from the south, I would guess. Any kingdom or empire lasts only so long before it grows weak and if there is another one nearby just ascending, ..." She shrugged, "At least this did not fall when I ruled here. Tanyi was not my king. I nominated him when I had to leave by the command of my master far away. He commenced the fall of once-mighty Armak and for that, my pretty gazelle, his life was forfeit -- if he still lived, of course. Now, I know that if I had commanded it, he would have refused, being a coward, and so, once I felt the thoughts of those dead spirits, I acted. By my hand, those ones do not even live in the afterlife anymore. They are gone into nothingness. So that is what just happened. The people are my subjects, such as they are now, alive again and away from their dried- up corpses. My army stands once more - and they will not tire - and they cannot die by any mortal hand. I think they will prove useful -- especially the elephants. There is much to be repaired and that suits an elephant who draws breath once more and seeks a task. And I have over a hundred of them," she smiled. "So, in a little while, all of this will begin to turn green again. You will train under me for many things. For fighting with weapons, you will learn from Piankh the Mighty, and he will be pleased to have a pupil such as you are. But that is only the beginning; for all that he knows is what he knew then. I will take over for many finer things after that. For archery, you will know Sheershepsut, the finest archer who ever lived in the kingdom. She will teach you her mastery of the bow. And it will go on and on. You will learn to ride a chariot for sport, mostly, and you will learn to fight from the back of a mighty war elephant as well." She pulled Yasmin to her and hugged her, kissing her through the shawl on the forehead. "You will be a very busy gazelle." Yasmin felt better in Dakhete's arms and laid her head onto her shoulder. "I am sorry. I just did not understand everything." Dakhete didn't answer and Yasmin lifted her head to see Dakhete gazing straight ahead into the distance. "What is it?" she asked, trying to crane her head around to see. "Look there," Dakhete said a little distantly, "What do you see?" Yasmin turned around, and Dakhete kept her one arm on her shoulder as she pointed, "See there?" Yasmin looked and far off on the top of a ridge, she saw three lions and sucked in her breath. "Lions!" she said, "I have never seen lions before. Are we in danger?" She thought that she had to ask it, even though she felt the strangest want in her to go to them, feeling no fear. She felt Dakhete's arms tighten as the woman leaned her head on Yasmin's shoulder and continued to look with a smile, "No, this is a very, very good sign. They come to see what is happening. Come, we both wear a little dust, and I have been trapped in this armor all the day long. I apologize if you can smell my stink." Yasmin grinned, "It is not bad, Dakhete, but I know what you mean." She had her jelabeeya off in a second. "That feels better again. Why not take off that armor? Forgive me if I sound disrespectful, but you are Kandake, you said. Surely if the queen wishes to feel a little air on her skin, it is allowed, no?" Dakhete gaped a little in surprise and then she chuckled, "And what am I to do with my armor, Yasmin, ask you to carry it for me? Summon someone for that?" "Of course not," Yasmin laughed, "though I would carry it happily for you if it is your wish. I was thinking of a more sensible solution." Dakhete smirked, "And what would that be?" "Let Najmah carry it." The girl smiled. Dakhete began to pull her boots off on the spot. A few minutes later, Yasmin stared as Dakhete stood wearing little more than a white underveil that she'd been wearing underneath everything wrapped around her and it was open for the most part, hiding little of her dark body. It was wet with sweat and stuck to her, but the warm air and the breeze, ... it dried almost before ones' eyes The blue shawl was still on her head, covering everything but her eyes. "You are so ... you are more lovely than I had imagined," Yasmin said, "But why am I not allowed to see your face?" Dakhete groaned as she gave in to giving her breasts a gentle scratch, "Oh, free at last," she chuckled and Yasmin saw those golden eyes turn toward her. "I am not hiding my face from you. It was not my plan to meet anyone today and this is how I go when I dress in armor because it often serves my purpose to look like a man, as I have said. There is a lesson in this, but I do not know if it is too early to begin this part. I will try nonetheless. Often, it is desirable to hide one's face if one does not wish to be known. But there are other reasons for it. Look at me. I stand here hiding almost nothing of my body. This traps the eye of a male opponent. They hesitate, wanting to see more, or at the least, trying to commit what they see to memory. My face is hidden and I am a mystery. Even to a female adversary, my body may draw her eye, but with most females, it is more the unknown of my face which causes them to slow and wonder. Like this, I am easily wounded, and yet, I am also at my most dangerous. A third of a second is a long time to hesitate in a fight, Yasmin. I can do much in that time." She smiled seeing the way that Yasmin looked at her. Dakhete wondered a little why she had felt a little nervous about allowing Yasmin to see her body. "I must point out that often I will guide you in a lesson, and I may leave you to wonder over something. But there is very often a key which unlocks a truth. In this case, the key is profound, so pay a little less attention to my tits for a moment. If you can see -- or imagine that you can see -- one place on an opponent's body which would tell you in advance what his next motion will be, would that not be worth much in a fight?" The girl nodded, "Oh, I have often longed to know something like that." "Then never mind my face and forget about anything else on my body," she said, "and look only here." She pointed to the spot where her collarbones came together. "Every motion that a fighter may make can be seen and predicted if you look here and learn the way that a body moves. Anything that he thinks to do can be seen here just as the motion is thought of and before it really begins." She smiled, wanting to tease her friend a little, "My enemy can stare at my face or my nipples -- even my cleft - all that they wish after I am dead. Before that, they are in peril if they look at those things in a fight for while my opponent stares, I am moving to end it in my favor." She chuckled, "Most often when I train -- even most times when I have trained others either singly or in small groups, I have taught wearing nothing more than this blue shawl on only my head. It serves to enhance my mystique, you might say, but like this, I never need to pause to wipe the sweat from my face. Once my sweat has soaked the shawl, it is always cool against my skin. My hair is never in my eyes. As far as my mystery goes," she laughed softly, "I think that you ought to know how I regard you." She stepped a little closer to Yasmin and spoke a little slower for emphasis. "Listen carefully. Of all of my students, and I have trained armies of fighters to slip in unobserved to kill and then leave unnoticed by anyone, none -- not one of them has ever seen my face, Yasmin. Not one." She lifted the veil from her head completely and began to untie the shawl. When she pulled it off and wrapped it up in one hand, she smiled a little shyly. "I only hope that I do not disappoint my pupil." Yasmin stared and tried to answer, but all that she could do was to shake her head slowly while her eyes remained locked on Dakhete's face. Finally, a few words managed to escape, "I have never ... Oh Dakhete, you are ... you, ..." "I am growing old waiting for you to finish, "she laughed, "Stop it, Yasmin. You are making me feel foolish with this. I take your rapt expression as a compliment -- a very heartfelt compliment and I am honored that you like the way that I look. So?" she grinned as she took Yasmin's hand to get them moving again, "then let it be said that we like each other and let us get on with the important things, such as getting clean and eating our meal." "But, ..." "But what, my friend? Must I summon a long-dead scribe to have it written that for some reason that neither of us can understand, we seem to be smitten with one another? I have struggled over it all the day and now I am tired of the struggle. Be happy that I like you, for I am enjoying the day with my friend. I in my turn, am happy that you like me. We laugh only standing still. That is the gift of new friends to each other. It does not have to be understood. I have given up trying to understand it. I would rather eat now. What more is there?" Yasmin stopped and held Dakhete's hand tightly so that she had to stop again. They stood on the hillside looking at each other as Dakhete waited. "I almost died this day," Yasmin said, "and I met one who is like me -- and who even likes me too. I am to be taught things that I could never seek ways to learn by myself. Now I find that the one who saved my life is not only a warrior who is a girl; she is a queen, and mighty from everything that I see and hear. You can raise the dead and travel far in the blink of an eye. You are the most beautiful woman that I have ever seen in my life, and you like me? Dakhete, it is all too much in only a day." "Fine," Dakhete sighed heavily and rolled her eyes, "You need a moment then. I will wait." Yasmin's jaw fell open and Dakhete laughed. It broke whatever spell her friend was under and she laughed as well. They began to walk. "It is a bit much to take in, you must admit," she smiled at Dakhete, "Look at it from my view." "I have and I see it," Dakhete smiled, "Your life was so much easier before. You woke up, someone chained you to poor Najmah here and you were about to be stoned to death. What could be simpler? Now you are in a sandpit surrounded by dead things and a crazy woman." "Who likes me," "That is true. Yes, I suppose that it must be a lot for one day," Dakhete said, "but I was becoming embarrassed. I was afraid that you wouldn't like me." She looked over, "I have made a friend of a girl. You have made a friend of an old-" "Older girl," Yasmin laughed, "What of it? Have you seen yourself in anything shiny, Dakhete? I know that you are much older than I am, but we are not human, are we? You look like no more than my slightly older sister. I feel very proud to have met you and I am happy to walk with you. That is all that needs to be said. Well that," she grinned, "and how very happy I am to finally see my teacher's beauty. It makes me feel privileged and accepted as your pupil as though I belong. Tell me of your troubles," the girl said, "If they are not gone, then I still wish to help if I can." She saw Dakhete smile, "My troubles," she repeated, "They are not too much, but I face one that causes me to stop and think often these last few hours. You see, I have this new student. She is quick in her mind and she shows me at every turn that she would be my greatest pupil. She is young, just about to enter the lowest age where I would even consider training her. In fact, I would NOT train anyone else at that age. But this one has had to live by her wits, having nothing else in her arsenal. That makes her perfect for this. In my whole life, Yasmin, I cannot say that I have ever seen one who shows more promise and lets me see that she is beyond willing." "Oh, that," Yasmin smiled, "well tell me, what is the difficulty then?" "The difficulty," Dakhete said, "is that a teacher must retain a certain ... distance in order to remain objective." "I see," Yasmin smiled without turning her head as they walked, "But it is likely that this student will succumb to the tendency of many students to wish nothing more than to be closer to their teacher. Infatuation is a natural leaning if one looks up to one's teacher. You and this student will need to be careful to see the foundation of this tendency." Dakhete's head snapped around at Yasmin's words. "A very astute observation," she said after a moment. She looked ahead herself and they walked in silence for a moment. "Thank you," Yasmin smiled at last, "I knew that all of those hours spent learning to read the texts in the shops would have a purpose one day." "You can read?" Dakhete asked, "There is it again, the student surprises the teacher at every turn." "I am glad of it," the girl said, chuckling, "I'd do anything to please and impress my teacher, you know." "Come on then," Dakhete laughed, "See the torches there? That is where we may bathe." "What about Najmah?" Yasmin asked, "She's dustier than both of us." "Then she needs to be washed as well, if she will permit it. Faithful beasts of burden are cherished here. In fact," she chuckled, "I may have to provide Najmah with her own attendants, she is such a good girl." Yasmin shrugged as she looked over, "That's my Najmah." The river felt cool and pleasant after the heat of the day and their travels on foot. Yasmin looked over when she had finished washing and stepped closer, "I wish to say my thanks for everything that you have done for me this day. I feel as though I am to begin a new life now." Dakhete held put her hands on Yasmin's slender hips and kissed her cheek, "And so you will. Only be prepared for the harshness of some of the aspects." A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 17 After a moment, she looked around, "Are there any here or nearby who can act as attendants? I have changed my mind." It took a minute, but a strikingly good-looking young man of nineteen stepped forward very uncertainly, "I can, Kandake, but I have little to use to wash this one's hair, and I think this is what you seek. I need oils from the rushes, some fine ash, and a little salt -- and perhaps something to smell good in the hair. Give me but a little time. What I will bring will not be pleasant in the hand, but it will clean hair." Yasmin turned enough to look over her shoulder. The boy had light skin, and his features carried only a little of the classical African in them. His nose was thin and straight and his lips were not full, and yet they were not thin either. The beggar girl who had never liked boys felt a fleeting desire in herself to kiss those lips for a moment. His long hair was golden and wild. Altogether, he was beautiful to see, but not much like any young man from these parts at all, and in the short time that she'd been here, she'd seen many who had turned her head for an instant, being handsome, but none like this boy. "Do it then, boy," Dakhete smiled as she turned Yasmin around and began to untie her hair for her, "a little time we surely have." The youth turned to go, but Dakhete stopped him with a comment over her shoulder, "- But before you begin, young stranger, come here a moment and tell me a little about yourself." The boy turned back and began to approach a little hesitantly, as though fearing something which he was not certain needed to be feared but that would require caution on his part all the same. "Kandake?" he asked uncertainly as he bowed. "You need not fear, young friend of Medewi," Dakhete smiled, "I only wish to know what it is that you are doing here. The last one that I expected to see in this place is a handsome and living young man, a golden-haired one into the bargain. Much has changed since last I was here and people seem to have moved around. I saw features on some of the people in Shendi which surprised me, for they were not like that when I was last there. Even so, one like you is uncommon here. Are you not afraid of all of these dead ones around you?" "No," the youth said, "and I have respect and not much fear of you, but I think that I fear what your coming might mean. I am only surprised that you are here. I sometimes live alone not far from here." "What of your family?" Yasmin asked, and the boy stared for a moment before answering. While he stared, Yasmin came a little close to forgetting her own name for a moment, feeling lost in the bright blue of those eyes. "I think that you seek to serve this Kandake, from what I see," he said. When Yasmin nodded, the youth said, "I serve my own mistress. She is my family. I was asked for by a woman of the Merab people, the subjects of my mistress who wanted a child and was fearful of losing her husband if she did not conceive soon. My mistress granted it, but my skin, my hair and my eyes" he said, trailing off a little, "Too strange and anyway, I was not the sort of son that was wanted since I looked nothing like the father. I have heard that the woman was a little desperate and laid with one of the tribe of my mistress, who sought to grant her the wish. I was unwanted and given back to my queen. She took me as her own and raised me. When she seeks to know what happens beyond her palace, she sends me forth." Dakhete seemed not to be listening very much -- though she was, but after a moment, she could be seen to be considering something. "And your name?" she asked, "Who is your mistress, boy?" The youth bowed again, "Khyan, my name is," he smiled shyly, "I was named for the king of long ago. My mistress is called Nasira bint el-Jebel. There are not many left now, but besides ruling over the Merab people, she is the queen of the djinn inside Jebel Barkal and beyond." Dakhete was thunderstruck. She stared, "Her name again? What was her name?" "Queen Nasira," Khyan replied, "You have heard of her, yes?" "Your queen? A queen of the djinn?" Dakhete asked, "No, but that means nothing for I have been away from here for a long time. If I'd stayed, I am sure that I would know of her. Jebel Barkal lies at Napata. It was the center of this kingdom once. There was not much there anymore while I ruled. It faded before our eyes, but I went there sometimes to visit the tombs of the kings and queens. You say that she lives inside it? Do you mean in one of the temples there?" "No," Khyan shook his head, "I mean inside the jebel, right inside the mountain." "Inside?" Dakhete looked confused, "There is no way to get into the inside of the jebel. I have been there. I have seen it many times." "There is if my queen wishes for one to go there." Khyan smiled, "She makes the way. Other than that, no one has ever gone there and come out again, well, other than she and I and the guards that we might take as we journey." "From what you have said," Dakhete remarked, "your queen is a djinn, and you are partly one, as am I. Any such as we need fear almost no one, yet you mention guards." Khyan smled, "It makes for a better journey and I am the emissary of my mistress, yes? It is better if I appear at the gates of a place in some company, though I left my guard with my spear outside your open gates this night. I thought it best to come to you as I am." "Why did you come here today?" Dakhete asked. "In truth," he said, "I was here anyway, but I came because I heard all of the sounds of the others here, the chanting and how they called out to you. I heard your name and I know of the mighty Kandake who was lost to the people." He smiled, "Those are my important words, but I see that you would wash your hair and I can help, I think." Khyan shrugged, "I had to come to see. I know that I should have come to you sooner, as it is still my duty to meet you for my mistress, but, ... "he looked down, "I was a little afraid. If you are here and have summoned the dead, then it surely must be the end of all things, no?" Yasmin imitated Khyan's shrug and added a smirk as she snorted, "No ..." It made Khyan smile and they laughed then to place Khyan at ease. "No," Dakhete grinned, "not at all. It is more, ... another beginning. It seems to change for me by the hour now," she chuckled as she looked from one to the other, "I thought to come here alone. On the way, I met my student and now I learn of my neighbors. I seek to raise this old place once more. For now, that means that I will need the help of these faithful ones who have always lived by their oaths to their kings, no matter how poorly they were treated by Tanyi. I always preferred to save my wrath for the enemies of Armak. So it will be once again, I hope. But I will really wish for living subjects, and if it is your wish to be the first of them, then you will stand high in my eyes for it." "I am bound in the service of my own queen, " Khyan said, "I cannot swear any oath to you that you would have me say," he said with a little emotion in his voice, but Dakhete shook her head, "No, Khyan. You did not know that we would come. You feared me for my name and you came out of duty? That is loyalty." When she saw Khyan nod, she motioned as though sweeping all of this away, "No. That you came and offered your help in spite of your fear shows me your heart and sense of duty. I need no such oath from one such as this and I agree that you cannot serve me. You may tell your mistress that I would wish to meet her one day soon, if it may be arranged. I would ask for your friendship to me and Yasmin more than I need any oath. It makes a better bond, yes?" Khyan nodded hopefully and smiled. Piankh came to the riverside then and Khyan backed away a step, but Piankh only smiled, "Ah, the boy who dusts," he said. Dakhete looked confused, so Piankh chuckled, "Over the time, there have been some who have come here for various purposes. Most came to steal. They died quickly if we noticed them. Some came to rebuild long ago, and we allowed it, for they repaired a few buildings so that they might be used to teach others of Armak. They left and a few seekers came to see, and we allowed that as well, though there were some who had glue on their fingers it seemed, and we slew them right away for it. The rest never came again. Other than this one and the one he serves, none have come here for over four hundred years. This one?" he laughed, "This one came so close to his death so many times at first because we saw and believed that he wanted to steal. But we remembered him from when he was small, being brought here by his mistress and taught of what she knew. He comes now and then, and he goes into the places that he knows how to get into. He brings brushes that he makes from bird feathers and he brushes the dust from things, leaving everything as it was when he goes. That is why he is still alive. You should take him into your service, Kandake. You need one like him. He wondered why they laughed at him a little uncomfortably. Khyan excused himself to see what he could do about making something which could wash hair. Dakhete smirked to herself as she unwound the thin cord which kept Yasmin's long ponytail confined, "I can see myself needing to step farther and farther back as I unwind you here. I hope there is an end to it soon, or you will stand here and I will be holding the other end from across the river." When she had it untied, Yasmin returned the favor and the two laughed at just how long their hair was. That was how Khyan found them when he returned with a clay pot and an unappealing mess inside it. "Forgive the way that it looks, Kandake," Khyan said, "With some time and the right things, I am sure that I could make better than this, but I am sure that you will like the result and I have added crushed blue basil leaves from bushes that I found growing nearby. Its smell is a little strong, but it should do and make the hair smell fresh." Dakhete wasn't that impressed at first, but she understood that she'd allowed little time to come up with anything. To her surprise, Yasmin's hair shone like a dark fluid and the smell wasn't too strong. She asked to use it as well. "You have done well. Have you anything to comb out hair?" The boy nodded and produced a comb. "Where did you get that?" Dakhete grinned. "It is mine," he shrugged, "but you may keep it as a gift. We have a task before us if you wish to comb out this lovely one's hair," he smiled a little shyly at Yasmin, who looked back with the same expression and tore her gaze away reluctantly before she fell under the spell of his blue eyes again. "I thank you for this kindness," Dakhete smiled, "If you wish to eat with us, then stay and you have my gratitude." As they washed in the river earlier, Piankh had all of Najmah's packs carried to Dakhete's home. It was in sad shape when they arrived, but they could see that much had already been done, and Piankh proudly told them of his plans to bring it back, but for now, it had been swept out, a good portion of it, and one chamber was being washed. All that could be used as a bed was a large, low table, and that was only there because it weighed tons, being made out of stone. Dakhete was a little surprised when they were taken out through the back door. There was a fire pit dug out and everything was ready for Dakhete to prepare the meal. She did that with Yasmin, the three of them laughing between them and they sat down to eat. Dakhete remarked upon the similarities of the young pair, noting that despite the differences in their appearances, they were both lithe and beautiful to her. "I think that I sit here with two of the finest gazelles that I have ever seen," Dakhete smiled, "I am in very good company, though I am a little larger." "Perhaps, but only a little and what we see is from muscle. My mistress is the same," Khyan said with a smile, "If you have trouble holding the thought of a gazelle in your mind, then think as I do when I look at you, Kandake. I see a lovely oryx." Dakhete was hung on the mention of the queen again for a moment, but she recovered, "Thank you," she smiled, "I have always loved to see them." She smirked, "I have always admired their backsides." "As have I," Khyan smiled. "If it is permitted," Yasmin began, "maybe it shows that I am already a little infatuated with my teacher, but can you please tell me what you do remember about your life?" "I can try," Dakhete said with a shrug. "I remember being here before any other memory so far. I was a little younger than you, perhaps sixteen or maybe less. I did not know what I was then, really. I know by the time that I was twenty, I had already received much instruction in fighting and magic, but I cannot recall who taught me now, which is strange. I hope that I remember who it was that I owe so much to. I am not a human. I hunted when I was hungry, even though there was gold provided for my use to buy food. I spent it on a fine blade and other such things instead." "How did you come to rule here?" Yasmin asked, "It does not sound to me as though you were wealthy." "I was not," Dakhete said, "I was more like my curious student back then, I suppose. But I do know that I was protected and no one chased me around if I went to the market. How I came to rule was ... it was ...." She lowered her head as the emotion of it came back to her. "I had a girlfriend," she smiled as she looked up. "Do not look so surprised, such a thing was allowed here. My girlfriend was betrothed to the young king here in a match which had been arranged by her mother to be rid of her. There was nothing that she could do about it, and so she came to me, begging me to stand in her place. She wanted at least a little time to be away and not live under the pressure of the expectations that would be put on her as the queen. So she left, and the man decided that he liked me better than he liked my friend, though he planned still to have her when she returned. I never saw my friend again," Dakhete said sadly. "I do not know where she went, I only know that she never came back. Well, I also knew that I had no desire to be that man's queen either. His trouble came to him because once I had become known among the people, they all loved me but they hated him. He could be very cruel. I asked and pleaded with him to be more lenient. He only told me that he would if I would submit to him and become queen. So there was my quandary, for I knew that he had no intention of ever changing. Here is another lesson, young gazelles. People are the way that they wish to be. Unless their lives are threatened, they will never change. Even if a sword is held to their throats, they may change, but once the sword is removed, they go back to how they wish to be. Unluckily for him, he thought to make his demand to me publicly, thinking that it would cow me. It showed his foolishness, for I replied instantly that I would submit to him forever if he could beat me in a fair fight. He laughed and said that I was only a foolish girl." Dakhete finished the piece of meat that she was eating and sucked her fingers to clean them before she wiped them off. What happened?" Khyan asked, "I have never heard of this tale and I enjoy it." "Nothing very much," Dakhete replied with a tiny grin, "He was dead before he hit the earth. No man has ever said such things to me and lived long. I thought that I would be killed for it, as was loudly demanded by his parents, so I challenged them both to fight me together. I went farther than that, Khyan. I shouted that the land was in a poor state indeed if the ruling family did not possess even one fighter among them who could deal with the threat from one girl. I shouted as I asked how they planned to deal with threats from outside. I demanded that they all fight me. The father and his three other sons advanced on me with blades in their hands. I had nothing but my dagger. Suddenly, a voice shouted out that I should at least have a weapon, and the crowd took it up and clamored that I be armed. The father nodded and said that I should have a champion to fight in my stead and after he was defeated, I was to be put to death. I killed his son and he still thought me weak. A kingdom ruled by a whole family of idiots. But that same voice shouted out that I needed no champion, that I needed only a blade. The people began to clamor that I be armed and fight for myself. I felt the haft of a sword in my hand and when I looked," she smiled, "it was Piankh. He had been the one who had shouted at the old king. He smiled at me and said, "Take my sword and make your place, beauty. You need nothing more from me, but I will watch your back." Yasmin gaped and sat on the edge of a large stone, almost slipping off. "Please, go on! I must know this." "Well I am here, am I not?" Dakhete laughed, "I slew them all, and cried out that if there were any more who wanted to fight then let them all come. It had been two years, but I was still upset over the loss of my girl in the first place, and all of that just made me angrier than a nest of hornets. But none came forth. The leader of the priests shouted that the land and its people needed one such as me for it was widely known that I feared nothing. I was made Kandake right then, since if there is one thing that priests are known for, it is the ability to smell a shift in the wind." She smiled to herself as she looked down, "And after I received his patient lessons in just what a girl is supposed to do with a man, I did my best to show Piankh my gratitude. He would never accept my offer to make him my king, but I kept him close for many years. He never uttered one word about it to anyone, but we were lovers for a long time. I still liked girls and wished for the return of my friend with all of my heart, but I always cherished Piankh. From him, I learned that beauty is a thing which shines inside and out if one has it. I knew this anyway, but he also taught me that love has the same ability and that to one such as me, it only rides on the body -- it is not the body itself." Her eye fell on a cat in the corner. She'd come in through the doorway and made her way to a small thicket of grasses growing there. "Go on, my friend," Dakhete smiled, "See to your little ones. We will not disturb you." The cat regarded her for a moment and then settled down to nurse her brood, staring at them the whole time. "I can remember more now, thanks to our little friend there," Dakhete said, "I had other help, now that I think on it, but I will only tell of it later. We need to begin your lessons first. Bring your dagger to me and sit with me here." As Yasmin was taught, Khyan looked at Dakhete for a long time. Eventually, he respectfully asked one question. "Kandake, "he began very cautiously, "This friend, or perhaps I should say, ..." "You may say it, Khyan," Dakhete smiled, "we are alone here, and I regret nothing that I have ever done. You wish to refer to my lover of long ago?" "I do," Khyan said, "Can you remember her name? I know it has been a long time, bu-" "I can never forget, and you will be surprised to learn that her name was Nasira," Dakhete said, "My girlfriend's name was Nasira. I have never forgotten her. She had hair and skin just as yours there, though her body was, well, it was more like to my own, but she was beautiful." Dakhete gazed into the flames of the small cooking fire for a moment, "She was always a little wild and impetuous, and I was the warrior-girl in my training. She loved animals of any sort, and I loved a good blade in my hand. I know what you think," she smiled, "but it surely must be only chance that your queen shares that name. Likely one was named for the other. My Nasira was to be the queen here, and wanted nothing of it. Why would she want to be queen near Napata?" A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 17 She leaned forward, "I am more interested in a djinn queen who lives inside a mountain in the middle of my kingdom and no one knew of it. I wish to meet any queen who is my neighbor, and mostly, I wish to know her so that I may thank her for sending you to see what was afoot in the land to the south and east of her. She must be told what a fine servant she has, and that is best said -- so that the words may be spoken and heard truly -- only from queen to queen. If she is djinn and you are partly so as well, I know that you need only send your thoughts to each other if you are close, and you say that you are as her son. Whether she sent you or you came by chance to see my return, it matters not. If she does not know that she has a neighbor, then she will know long before the dawn. I am not troubled by it. I welcome it, as I have said." She leaned back and dazzled Yasmin with the fluid motions of the dagger in her hand as it spun looking like a glittering sphere before her. "I once had the love of a beautiful girl by that name, that is all. It gives me a pleasant memory which hurts my heart after more than a moment. She left me and never returned. That is all that needs to be said." Eventually, Dakhete saw Yasmin's yawn, and reminded her that her ordeals would begin in the morning. Khyan was reluctant to take his leave of them, but he said that he had to go. Yasmin asked him if she might walk with him to the gates, and Khyan grinned as he nodded. They walked to the gates together. "Thank you for what you have done," Yasmin said, "My hair has never felt so clean and the way that it smells now, ..." "It was nothing," Khyan said, "I am happy to have met you. If it is your wish, I can return tomorrow. I think that you will need a little help in what it is that you are to learn. I know little of you, but I believe that you have lived on the strength of yourself until now. I believe that your Kandake seeks to add to this." Khyan walked on through the gates and Yasmin wondered where this guard of his waited. But things became a little clearer when Khyan bent to put a leather belt on and tie it closed before he strapped on his sword and picked up his long spear. He whistled, and the huge cat bounded over out of the darkness. As they walked off together, Khyan turned and wished Yasmin a good night with a smile and a small wave. "I saw his guard," Yasmin said to Dakhete later, "He has a large cat who waited for him somewhere in the darkness. He came when Khyan whistled for him. Dakhete, he was huge and had long teeth, but he barely gave me a look and then they walked away. He asks to return in the morning." Dakhete smiled, "I see that you like him. He is very good to look at, though I think that you should try a little harder to keep your gaze on his fine face a little more." Yasmin looked down, "Was I that obvious? I've never seen men naked, even where I grew up." "You were," Dakhete grinned, "but there is no shame in it. We cannot fault him if we are not wearing much ourselves. Let him come then, it is only a little sad to me that he came this evening, when we had just arrived ourselves, but that is fate, Yasmin." "How do you mean, Dakhete?" Yasmin asked, and then her eyebrows rose, "Oh, you mean that he came here when the Kandake was least prepared to receive him," she said, looking around at the dusty ruin all around her. "Just so," Dakhete nodded, "and you have overlooked something in your quiet pleasure at finding a young male who is obviously as delighted to make your acquaintance as you are to make his. He is fine, is he not? But all the same, he said that his queen took him to raise as her own. No matter what the circumstances of how it was that he came to be made, Yasmiin, we were visited by more than a humble young emissary, as fine as he is." She looked around and then hung her head a little, "I began the day with only the thought to come here alone to search for some of my memories in the dust. Look at me now, Yasmin. Along the way, I felt something draw me to a souq to save a mistreated one and I make a friend and student out of it. I drag her here and assume what I left behind me," she said, sweeping her hand around them. "It was not my plan to do more than try to remember a little, and I am here with a strange and compelling desire in me to raise this dusty place. I wish no empire anymore. I only wish to make it live a little by itself and not by my hand as a puppet. I think that it can be done -- all of it, and I can teach the friend that I have made as well. Such a strange day," she said, "and I am one, Yasmin, who has lived many strange days." Dakhete laughed then and shook her head, "But I lived for so long as the instrument of others, doing deeds for their purposes and never my own. Now I seek to live for myself and my friends, the lovely one who does not know what she truly is and her wondrous little ass." She looked and saw Yasmin's smile as she strained to hold her laughter back. "I meant Najmah," the Kandake chuckled, "but no matter. And this is the day that I receive my first guest. I have not even ruled here an hour and I am faced with the emissary of a neighboring queen that I knew nothing of. I will surely look as a fool to her when he tells of us. My fine luck," she said shaking her head. "At the least, yours still holds and serves you." "How so?" Yasmin asked as she slid her arm around the queen's waist and hugged her with one arm, "I am your student and I will serve you in anything. I wish to be your friend longer than I am alive for the things that you have done for me in only a day. You need to learn to share your burdens with me, so that I might know how to help in anything, for that is my wish, Dakhete." "I am only grumbling," the queen smiled as she accepted her fate and saw her good fortune as it came to her with Yasmin's affectionate kiss on her cheek. "Your taste in men is as fine as you are, my young friend. No matter what was said, the one who helped to wash and comb out your beautiful hair as though he was nothing more than a servant is much more than he appears, if you can set aside your wonder of his body, as lovely and lithe as your own." "How so?" Yasmin asked once more, "Make it a little clearer to me. I remind you that I began the day as the daughter of a whore, my Queen." Dakhete nodded with a soft little grin which spoke of how her annoyance was swept aside as she thought of what had really been her good fortune, "Yes, you were the poor girl who was to be stoned for getting caught as she sought a little pleasure with another girl. I am enjoying the sweet bit of irony, Yasmin. My young gazelle's eye has been caught by another gazelle, much like herself, only he is a fine male. Whatever will you do?" she chuckled, as she hugged Yasmin briefly before looking into her golden eyes for a moment and then leaning in to leave a very soft kiss on her student's lips. "Such wondrous eyes which only need to be opened a little," she smiled, "yet they work for you, even though you do not know how well yet. To you, he is a copper-skinned beauty, with such blues eyes and golden curls. He smiles a little shyly, and I see you almost lift from the ground. You do well, my friend. The emissary whose nakedness you were admiring," she nodded, "Khyan is a prince." "A prince?" Yasmin sighed as her jaw began to open in wonder. "Just so. He is half-human by his words, but I can see that he does not know everything. He is djinn, the same as I am. I have seen his flame while you were gazing at his bottom and the other part which caused him a bit of trouble. He is a djinn raised as the son of a djinn queen." She leaned in and kissed Yasmin's cheek and left her ear with a new wonder to consider. "I will enjoy watching this," she whispered as Yasmin felt Dakhete's smile against her cheek. "Khyan bint el-Jebel is a prince who has seen the lovely gazelle who can stop his young heart when she smiles. He will find no sleep for himself this night," Dakhete said, and her look said that the subject was closed. Yasmin looked around and Dakhete smiled as she raised her hand as though fending off an argument, "I will not hear of it, my friend. I know your thoughts and I did not pull you away from your death so that I would have a servant who sleeps at my feet. It is my wish that you sleep close to me. I will not allow you to sleep as though you were a dog at my feet. I have never been that sort of queen." "For one so wise," Yasmin smiled, "You speak plainly sometimes. I already knew what you would say." On the hard stone slab, they had only blankets, but they didn't mind it. Yasmin hugged and kissed Dakhete, thanking her for a day like no other in her life before she turned away and pulled the woman's arm over her. They talked for a time and then each one fell asleep. A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 18 ***Well, it's a wide story over a big world. What can I say? 0_o ----------- Book of the Dragon Part 3 Yuan had left the mouth of the river behind weeks ago now, working her way along the coast in little hops toward the still populous ruin of Hong Kong. She'd flitted among the bays and inlets before finally climbing out over the coastal islands on her way to something nebulous in her mind. Faced with many unknowns, she set her strategy at conserving her strength and energy as she climbed at about 80 miles per hour, struggling a little with the westerly winds which were not to her liking for this coastal work. They would blow her out to sea before she was ready, though when she was, they were a blessing. Finally finding the jet stream at just over twenty-five thousand feet, she'd turned east and let the wind take her. She soared mostly after that, barely moving her wings, her mind falling into a sort of autopilot state where she could drowse and yet still make corrections. Her bearing changed a little almost constantly to allow for the curvature of the Earth, though on a flat map, it would work out at very near to 090 degrees and her course took her to Maui, though she didn't know its name. It had just been a speck on the old map that she'd memorized. She was more than a little relieved to see it, since it proved that her mother's memories had been accurate, and after almost two days of high flight with nothing but water in her view, it was a relief to see any land at all. She saw it from high above and coming upon the group of islands a little unexpectedly, she was too high and spent a long while gliding downward in large spirals. Finding little human habitation, she remained there for about a month, flying to one of the neighboring islands where there was a little more human settlement to learn what she could. She was careful, not wanting too much interaction with them. For one thing, she hadn't really given any thought to any sort of a story about her sudden appearance and she found the people there a little too interested in where the young woman had come from. For another thing, she felt a little guilty about 'lifting' the occasional sheep to eat. And the operative word here was lifting. A fast swoop out of the darkness and she had her meal, removing the head with one snap of her long jaws. The herder would find nothing but the head the next day and if he was observant, he'd maybe find a little of the animal's blood as she'd carried it off shoulders down a little to allow the blood to run out. It was a good thing that she'd done it too, for it had forced her to give some thought to finding a little shelter -- a place to eat and sleep and gather her strength. She'd never undertaken something such as this before, and the trip across had so far taken quite a bit out of her due to the cold temperatures at the altitudes that she'd had to maintain. With that in mind and feeling a little stuffed with a bellyful of mutton, she'd fought off the urge to doze and had gone looking for a place to hole up. That had been one of the best decisions that she'd ever made, because not long after finding one that wasn't full of hundreds of years' worth of bat dung, and after cleaning it out and bringing some deadfall branches that she'd found in the nearby forest, she'd gone back to the other island nearby, grabbed two ewes in the middle of the night and flown off to her cave as the normally fairly constant trade winds slackened off markedly enough for her to notice it during her flight. She'd flown right through a sudden rain squall. She hadn't expected that or the cold rain that it carried to lash her with. It wasn't a daunting thing, it had just really startled her to come low over a ridge and find herself in severe turbulence being pelted hard with cold rain. Once she was through it, she flew even faster back to her cave. But when she got there, she found someone else in residence, huddled in a corner and shivering. After getting in through the 'door', which was something of a tight and awkward fit for her in this form, she set the ewes down and moved a little closer to get a look at what she recognized instantly as a rather small example of the problem that her mother had told that she'd have to deal with. She was looking at a cold, wet, miserable, and now very much frightened young female demon who tried to back herself further into the corner that she was already fully backed into. Yuan tilted her long head and looked quietly for a few moments, wanting to see the madness, and wild rage that these creatures exhibited as they decimated struggling human populations and laid waste to everything in their sight. The thing sniffled and hurriedly wiped a tear from her eye, quite obviously trying to summon up something threatening in her desperation. Yuan would have smirked, but it wasn't really a possible expression for her in this shape. Speaking carried its own difficulties. The way that Yuan was right then, she supposed that if the demon got the drop on her to attack right then, it would have been difficult for her to defend, but she knew that she could change that in a heartbeat. Right now, the creature looked as though she'd have a little trouble coming out on top in a wrestling match with a moth, never mind a dragon. "You do not look like that much of a threat," she said quietly as she picked up a piece of wood to stir the ashes of the little fire with. The demon stared at her, but didn't comprehend what she'd said in her native Chinese dialect. There was no hope for the fire, so Yuan lifted a few sticks and set them into place and a moment later her thoughts had the heap burning once more and she looked to see her companion a little better. What she saw was not pretty, as obviously beaten-up and distressed as she was. The girl had arrived in the same confusion as the rest when they'd materialized here, but for some reason, she hadn't been taken with the crazy madness which the others had. At one point, she'd been beset by two males, but she'd managed to kill one and badly injure the second before she'd gotten away unseen and hidden herself away in the forest of a neighboring island while the rest had all gone looking for things to rape and kill. She didn't know it, but they'd found no one and nothing and had killed each other off in their insanity. Now she was here, having flown across in a one of the squalls pushed by a fast moving cold front, tired, weak and beaten. Her eyes widened at the sight of the dragon, lit as she was by the flare of the fire. She could see fine in the dark, but in this light, the effect was a little dramatic and she stared as the beast scuttled over to one of the bodies of her prey. In some ways, Yuan was a little mistaken. The demon was not altogether defenseless -- she was just near the end of her long rope. Enough tragedy had already befallen her. To suddenly find oneself thrown into a mass of howling mad demons and dumped out into somewhere nothing like what she'd left, to be assaulted before she'd even known what was happening, and then to crawl into a wet hole in some rocks to find oneself looking at ... whatever sort of beast was there with her just pushed her out on her own personal ledge quite a ways. "If you can sit there and behave yourself," Yuan said as she began to work on getting the cut in with her long nails which would allow her to pull back the hide, "I can give you something to eat, and I will share my place and the warmth of my fire. I need to know more of your kind." She finished with the hide and broke the shoulder joint, reaching with her nails again to cut the limb free. That done, Yuan looked at the demon again. "I am sent to help others in the killing of ones such as you, but I see nothing here which needs killing, other than for food, and I think that something like you are would not taste very good at all." She chuckled and slowly held out the meat. The demon wouldn't take it, being frozen in her fear. Yuan thought about it for a moment, "There is no humor here to share, is there? Not like this with you in terror." The demon's eyes grew even wider as Yuan changed then into a human-looking female -- who still held out the meat as though it weighed little, since to her, it did. "Maybe you can find your courage to take it if I give it like this. Here, take it. I have no wish to lay it in the dirt, but I will not hold it for you while you eat, friend." The demon had no idea what was said, but she hadn't eaten in a week, other than the small things that she could catch easily, and most of those were not remembering. She began to reach out cautiously. "Go on," Yuan smiled, "Take it. I see your teeth. What you have in your mouth is not for chewing on grass, and here is food." The demon girl tried not to snatch it, suddenly not wanting to offend, and she managed it -- barely. When she had it in both of her hands, she looked at it, and then at Yuan for a moment as her benefactor smiled back and nodded in encouragement. Everything on this world that she'd found herself on looked so lovely, she thought, but nothing had been that way for her. Males had tried to rape and hurt her, the few humans that she'd seen had either run, or they shot arrows at her. She had a tear in one of her wings as proof of their kindness and hospitality. And now this changeable beast offered her food? She decided that she had little choice. She didn't even possess the strength anymore to fly out through the doorway past the smiling beast, and even if she could, what then? She nodded once and began to eat, her stomach winning the contest. After the first of it, she began to try to speak to Yuan, who smiled, but obviously couldn't understand her either. They shrugged to each other and sat eating. Yuan held up her hand after a few minutes and with a few of the longer pieces of wood, she made a way to hold the meat above the flames, and she set two large pieces on them. She stopped to listen after a moment and the demon did as well. Yuan was a native of Southeast Asia, and as such, she was quite familiar with monsoons and was even acquainted with the occasional typhoon. She was not at all prepared for something like the Kona Storms of Hawaii. The winds began again a few seconds later, though they were now reversed, and the real rain began. Yuan stepped to the doorway and held out her hands to let what poured off the rocks above wash them. After a moment, she stepped outside, and the demon gaped as she heard Yuan's laughter. "Come," she said beckoning and sticking her head back inside the shelter, "it is warm for the moment. I know that it will grow cold in only a minute, but come and see." The demon set the meat down carefully and though she didn't understand the words, she liked the happy sounds that the other made, and drawn by her curiosity, she came forward and stood in the doorway. The spray which wet her from Yuan's body was indeed warm. She couldn't believe it. Yuan beckoned for her to join her in it and though she was still cautious, she stepped out into the downpour and smiled up at Yuan, who was using the opportunity to wash. The female demon considered for a moment, and then, since she knew that she was filthy and didn't like the way that she smelled to herself, she did the same as the other girl. She managed shy smiles and even a little laughter a few seconds later and to her amazement, she found herself holding her wings out so that Yuan could wash them for her. It didn't last much longer however, Yuan had been correct. The rain turned cold only a couple of minutes later and they stepped back inside, but at least they could laugh a little. Yuan had long glossy black hair, but she stared at how much the demon girl had. It was wild and long, and, as she looked, it came to Yuan that this was a mane in a very real sense. The girl stood smiling and squeezing what looked like gallons of water from her hair. As they stood to let the rain run off a little, Yuan saw the wounds on the demon, a few rips and tears in her skin and a hole in the leathery smoothness of one wing. She didn't know what had caused them, but she had more of a clue now why this girl had felt such fear. She laid her hands on the demon's shoulders and when the demon looked at her questioningly, Yuan smiled and held up one palm. She stepped back a little and reached for an injured forearm and with a light touch, only the barest contact, she mended what had been done. The demon gasped and stared, but Yuan only smiled and looked for another injury, methodically searching and repairing as she went. The tear in the wing was a bit of a challenge, but Yuan managed it by placing one hand on either side of the membrane for a moment. The demon squeaked a little in joy, and then looked embarrassed until Yuan laughed. She almost missed the misshapen tail. The girl had tried to get away during the fight, but one of the males had seized her by the tail to drag her back and he'd snapped a segment. It had been nothing but a dull throb that she'd dragged behind her ever since. Yuan reached for it, but her touch caused her companion to hiss in pain, and her reflex as she'd pulled away showed Yuan the gash in her haunch. She spoke in a low and even tone and in a moment, the demon had relaxed so that she allowed Yuan to lead her to the ledge where they had met. Yuan demonstrated that she wanted the girl to place her palms on the ledge. "You will have to trust in me for a moment," she said in the same tone, "only a moment for each hurt, nothing more, I hope." She looked searchingly into the demon's eyes, and after a nervous moment, the girl nodded, though she didn't understand. She only knew that this person was kind to her and hadn't done anything but good for her so far, so she decided to allow it. Yuan slowly reached down and lifted the tail very slowly and with great care to inspect what she could, and after a moment's thought, she knew that she wouldn't have to fuse the segments. She placed her hands on the break and though the girl hissed quietly and looked back with worry, she still nodded to indicate that she trusted Yuan. Yuan slowly wrapped her fingers around the injury, moving back a little to stand next to the demon as she held up the tail so that what she was doing was visible to its owner. She muttered low in her throat and the demon sighed, and without thinking, really, she leaned her head against Yuan, who kept right on muttering and sighing on her hands. What the demon felt was warmth and comfort and she reached to place her arm over Yuan's shoulder, wanting to lean on her a little more. Yuan understood and didn't mind as she went on. The demon opened her eyes in a little surprise and amazement to find that she had been leaning on Yuan like that, but Yuan only grinned and held up the tail, completely mended and uninjured once more. The demon stared and smiled, wanting to hug Yuan, but Yuan held up her hand and pointed to indicate that there was one last injury to deal with, and the demon nodded as she placed her palms on the ledge once more. Yuan sank down to a squat with a smile to herself. This was turning into something which she didn't mind, this trip. At least so far, she thought. She hadn't really been terribly enthused about doing it, but it had been her mother's instructions to her that it had to be done. Now it was looking to her as though she might have made a friend out of this one, and as long as no one was trying to kill her or anything like that, she didn't mind helping someone if it could be done as easily as this. Humans were more difficult to repair than this girl. She took a close look at the wound, and stood up to reach outside for a bit of rain water, since she would want to have her hands wet for this, not wanting to risk even the chance of leaving a scar. Some places, like arms and calves weren't a concern, but faces, breasts and haunches were more of a special case for this. Yuan tried to remain impassive, but even though they couldn't understand one another, she found that the girl was likable, and with all of the mud and filth washed off, she was really very pretty -- for what she was, of course. Yuan didn't mind seeing all of those sharp, bright teeth when her friend here smiled at her shyly, but she was sure that a look like that would cause most humans to lose their minds if they didn't faint. She ran her wet finger along the line of the wound and held the fingers to either side of that one hovering just over the edges. It took a bit of doing, but as she worked slowly, the center groove of the gash rose up to where it ought to be, and the edges pulled into a line where it all closed. She got up to run to the doorway again for more water and came back with a comforting smile for the demon. She just hoped that the last part would go well. She needed three passes to make this right, working slowly and carefully and then she needed to check. She closed her eyes and ran her fingers over the place lengthwise and then across in several places along where it had been, trying to make sure that there wouldn't be any ridges or scars. She couldn't feel any, but that wasn't the definitive proof yet. She backed away a little, holding the girl's hips and turning her a little this way and that, trying to see if there would be any welts or unevenness. A female -- any female, would want to die a little if the bottom that she'd considered an asset since puberty ended up looking unsightly and remained that way. Yuan had the ability to repair this girl. She was determined to do it well, so that not even the noonday sun would show that there had ever been an injury here. Satisfied, but not certain, she wanted to feel for any temperature change which might tell her that there was something still not healed. That would leave a dent over time, and Yuan wanted to do this well for the girl. She didn't know the specifics here, but to her, it looked as though her companion had been through a shitstorm somehow, and from what she could tell of her, what had happened hadn't been earned. She leaned in and licked very slowly along the now invisible line of the injury, trying to sense for coolness. This was something which she wouldn't normally do for most, but now it was also something of a point of pride for her to leave this perfect. The demon surprised her a little, moaning softly and Yuan almost had to stop for the smile which she'd had to fight off when that tail moved to brush her cheek softly. Yuan's opinion of herself was that because of what she was, she would likely find few -- if any at all -- who would want to have anything to do with her. Her mother the dragon had known of this, and had prepared her so that she might be able to take what she could get -- if it ever even happened. "When one is young," the ancient dragon said, "one finds many chances at love and pleasure. For me, it seemed for a time that every time that I took to the air, I found myself in the company of others who wished for me. But time and age -- and the decline of our kind now brings me only empty skies and memories. For you it is most unfair, daughter. You will soon be the only one, from what I feel. That is why you will learn the ways of pleasure of all sorts with anyone, so that you may find perhaps one to hang the hopes of your young heart on." Yuan sighed as she went, trying to decide if it was what she wanted, but in the end, it was too soon anyway, so she enjoyed what she had here and licked only a little more, deciding that she liked this demon girl and her fine little ass, but she didn't want to ruin anything if they were beginning a friendship at all. Her hand brushed against something and she looked down for a moment. There was a rather thick leather band around the demon's calf, just under the knee. She didn't know what it was or why it was there, but it was the only thing that this girl wore. A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 18 She patted the cheek there as she stood up and was surprised to find the girl in her arms, telling her something which she had no idea about -- other than it seemed to be heartfelt. The demon tried to see, but it was too far, so Yuan spread her hands and a reflective surface appeared out of the air as a mirror, and she was pleased to be able to show the girl that her fine bottom was once again just that. When the demon had seen it, Yuan dispelled the mirror, and the demon went to her knees before her and bowed her head. Yuan decided that it wasn't the sort of relationship that she wanted and she bent to pull the girl to her feet with a smile and a shake of her head. It rained for a week. Oh, it varied quite a lot in its intensity, sometimes being gentle for hours, but then it would increase. Mostly, they were safe, though they weren't particularly warm, not catching the warnings in time to look for some extra wood to burn for a little heat and dryness. They had to manage what they had carefully, but they weren't so nervous with each other, and the company helped a lot -- even though they couldn't understand anything that the other one said. They wanted dryness particularly, since outside their little cave, not all that far from a summit, the wind screamed and drove the rain at over a hundred miles an hour, and when they stood together in the doorway, they watched rain, hail, and lightning. Before long that first night was over, a little rivulet formed outside. In minutes, it became a mud-colored torrent crashing past to join others on their way down the mountainside. Yuan had little in the way of clothing. The demon had none and after a while, they both wanted to rest, so Yuan spread her blankets out and then she reclined while the demon sat with a thankful look on her face, both keeping one watchful eye on the opening to the world outside while doing their best to keep their tiny little fire going almost a twig at a time and eating the meat which they cooked over it, now that neither of them was starving. They weren't in a perfect cave here, not something with a full ceiling over their heads. Where they were, it was more like several huge stone slabs leaning closely against the rock face that they'd fallen from eons ago. As such, the rain above saturated the moss and dirt which had accumulated between the stones and little trickles ran down the inside of the walls too. Happily, there were no drips. Yuan was a little concerned, but as far as she could tell they were safe and at least a little dry, if not altogether as warm as she knew they'd have liked to be. Neither one was really cold either; they were just sitting in a rather damp place. At least they were sheltered from the wind and rain, Yuan thought. Thinking about it like that, she decided that unless anything else happened, she could relax a little and maybe sleep. Well she tried, but there were two things working against her; the unevenness of where she tried to lie down, and the fact that she really didn't feel like sleeping anymore. She tried anyway, as she leaned back against one wall a little. Dragons sleep with one eye at least a little open, closed down to a thin line, but even though they might sleep, they still watch. She saw the demon looking at her for a long time, the pretty face held in concentration and thought, and more than a little wonder as well. Yuan wasn't ashamed of her body at all, and she'd made no attempt to hide anything of herself from the demon. What she'd done hadn't been done out of any expectation of return, she just liked the demon more every minute. If something happened between them, fine, but Yuan was really hopeful for a friend and would have wanted a companion now if it were possible. She watched as those eyes ran over her body, stopping now and then to look at some feature or other. It went on for a long time, and after a while, Yuan grew a little tired of it. She decided that she liked the demon's body as well, but she was beginning to feel a little like an exhibit. The demon moved then, very slowly and with great care. She moved toward Yuan and was careful not to touch her, but she peered at her eyes and listened to her breathing, trying to decide if her friend was truly asleep. The demon sighed to herself. When she was little, the world -- the one that she had been born on -- the right world, had seemed as shiny and new as she was. Born the daughter of a high tribesman and his female, she had been reared in a warrior clan, high in a range of mountains. She'd had no servants, the practice not being the custom of her people, but she'd been taught and expected to be able to hold her own in anything. But that was in the past. She was all that was left of her clan after they'd been beset by a loose alliance of their enemies funded and supplied by the kings of the lowland people. Her hills and valleys were a far-flung bastion in the defense of her clan's own allies. But the war had been sprung on them all so quickly that they had been overwhelmed and overrun, and had not even been able to send word calling for aid. There hadn't even been a declaration. The army of their foes had just materialized out of the autumn mists one morning and the hundred hired mages had begun it. She didn't know how many there had been, a few thousand, she supposed. All of that to beat down a clan of perhaps two hundred proud mountain people. She'd been dragged off to be a slave -- something which ran against her barbarian grain. She'd been beaten and threatened with all manner of harm. But she hadn't been broken, though she supposed that it was coming one day. She planned to do the work that was assigned to her. It was her way to justify the wormy food that she was given, but that was as far as it went. They'd only tried to rape her one time and the cost had been too high. They'd tried to restrain her -- six lowland males to hold her for the fat chancellor. But it had cost them. Three males dead, including the chancellor, one crippled and one blinded among the rest. They'd come to charge her as though what had been done by her was a crime, but their own laws proscribed that she be given a public trial, and that could not be allowed to happen. If they tried her, then she had the choice of proving her innocence in a trial by combat, and she'd heard that there had been no takers from among the lowlanders. Nobody wanted to risk handing her a weapon after what she'd been seen to do with her hands, teeth and how she'd called boulders out of the very ground to assail the outer walls of her prison with. It was too bad that there were no more boulders to answer her call or she'd have had her freedom. And then, she'd been washing in a trough of dirty water, not daring to do more than go to one knee and keep a watchful eye on the archers who patrolled the walls of her prison yard. The next thing she knew, she was in a pack of strangers, all of them demons, though that was a wide brush, she thought. They must have been gathered from her world and others, the way that they looked to her. She'd never seen many of the kinds that she was in with. She was the only one like her, and none of the others knew just what to make of the smallish female with the wild mane and the ability to stare down even the largest male -- as long as they were sane. Now she was here, and this beast girl, or whatever she was, had helped her and fed her. For the way that her life had run for the past six years, she had enough trouble believing it, and she couldn't even tell of her thanks. She was so thankful that they'd met and was happy for everything. She really had a deep desire in her to do something nice for the strange female who had done all of this for her. She just didn't know what she could do and felt a little helpless for it. She liked Yuan's body a great deal, though she wasn't especially drawn to females. Still, for what had happened for her and the way that she felt, she'd have done pretty much anything for the girl here with her, if there was some way for her to know what she'd want from her. She didn't know if the was attractive to her, but then she thought that she had to be, at least enough to make her companion want to lick her the way that she had. She peered at those closed eyes and that lovely face, wanting to kiss those lips to tell of her thanks, if nothing else. She began to pull back and decided that she had to do something, and so she moved a little closer and tried for a little courage. "Thank you," she whispered in her speech as softly as she could and then she kissed Yuan's lips with the barest touch. Dragons of any description excel at holding themselves still as they watch. There is an old draconian saying that to remain still long enough to be covered in moss is nothing -- if the ocean next to you dries up, then you had watched for too long. Yuan didn't know about any of that. The demon girl's hair was tickling her breasts enough to make her want to scream. Finally, the demon ran out of her courage and retreated silently back to her end of the blankets. Yuan watched her sit on one haunch, her leg curled underneath her as she looked and sighed a little. The dragon had a mischievous impulse cross her mind and she decided to act on it, just to see what might come of it. And so, Yuan began to move as if shifting in her sleep. Little by little, one millimeter at a time at some points, her hand began to drift toward her mound. Yuan wanted to laugh, seeing the way that the demon had caught the motions and stared. At one point, just for a little fun, Yuan moved her fingers in a way that was just about a coin's toss as to its purpose. She might have been brushing her fingers there in response to a mild itch... Or it might be seen as a precursor to something else. When she moved her hand away again, she almost succumbed to the urge to grin and laugh for the very quiet and disappointed groan that she heard. But she knew then that she really wanted this girl as a friend, a rather close friend. Anyone who hangs on the motions of a sleeper's fingers in something such as this, Yuan thought, ... She stirred as though shifting in her sleep and let out a soft sigh as she moved one leg outward and brought her fingers back to caress herself a little. Watching her companion as she did this was precious, she thought. The girl looked as though she was about seven years old and looking at a plaything which she didn't have the silver to purchase for herself. Yuan wanted to hug her for it, for just that look. It was that sweet. She went on for a time, sometimes being a little coy and sometimes being more blatant about it. Gradually, she raised her knees and began to play, though always being careful to look as though she really was asleep. Focusing outward, she watched the demon moving a little, squirming and shifting, and it was a few minutes before Yuan realized what she was looking at. The demon girl was rocking herself on her heel as she watched. Yuan was reaching the point where she knew that she had to either move ahead, seeking her own release, or give it up and stop. But she had one more slightly cruel trick to play, and so she groaned a little and licked her fingers before she slipped the ends of two of them just inside herself for a moment. The demon became more insistent as she rubbed herself on her own heel a lot harder, doing her best to remain quiet. When Yuan brought her own wet fingers to her lips, the demon began to caress and clutch at her breasts gently. They weren't large and they had such puffy nipples. Yuan had been admiring them earlier. She inserted her fingers again and moaned loudly, still appearing to be asleep, and the demon almost fell on her face, shifting her heel and pressing back against it as she did her best to stifle her noises. The sight of the girl on her front with her face turned toward Yuan as she gave it up and frigged herself shamelessly brought Yuan to a quiet orgasm herself. As the demon lay there in front of her gasping for breath a little, Yuan moved a little and opened her eyes. The demon froze then , wondering what she could do to save this. Yuan's face grew a concerned expression and she placed her hand on the girl's shoulder gently. With a little pantomime of hugging her own shoulders, Yuan asked if she was cold, and the demon nodded and looked a little miserable. Yuan smiled and lay back, making room and motioning that the other one should lie with her, and the offer was accepted. As she lay down next to Yuan and faced away, curling herself up a little as though she was colder than she felt, Yuan pulled one blanket so that it covered them and she put her arm around the demon, who sighed and it was obvious that the words that she said were her thanks. Yuan hugged her a little and smiled to herself. It poured rain outside and the wind screamed over the summit a few hundred feet above them. There were gaps between the stones -- enough to let a bit of a breeze through, but anyone with a nose could tell that the little cave smelled of happy females. Yuan pressed her face against the mountain of hair at the back of the demon's head and after a long sigh, she closed her eyes. Yuan had begun as a tiny little girl who'd been starting out to be nothing more than a disappointment to her parents. They'd wanted another son to help with the work on the river. Though they had a son already, a daughter was second-best. But to them, it was not even that good, from the little that they could tell. Little Yuan seemed to have nothing in her which resembled the spark of life that a normal child usually had. She was happy to sit for hours wherever her mother told her to sit. She didn't do anything then, not even play. She just sat and looked into the distance, and if what happened to be in the distance was a wall only three feet away, well then Yuan looked at that. At three years of age, she could comprehend what was said to her, but as far as anyone knew, she couldn't speak, because she'd never been seen to have ever tried to make any sounds, other than in response to the irritation of soiled pants long after she'd filled them. She even toilet-trained herself. She just never said a word, and even tickling her wouldn't cause her to laugh. All of that changed after she'd been left behind, and Yuan had begun to speak then. All that she'd needed were parents who provided her with something to think about, and between the couple who raised her and loved her more than anything and the old dragon who loved her as well in her way, it had been a long journey of learning for Yuan. The little dragon egg which had been placed in her chest provided its own impetus and drive. Yuan turned from a silent toddler into a quiet girl with quite a good deal of intellect inside of her, unlocked by the inclusion of the egg, and given all that she could process behind the brown eyes which turned slowly golden as the years passed. She grew fit and stayed that way in her body's response to the physically challenging life that she led as the daughter of two masters of ancient and arcane fighting arts. And that had been only half of it. Yuan was also very much part-dragon. She bore little resemblance to the one which had given her this. She looked nothing like the traditional Chinese-style dragons of legend and very little like even the ones out of the stories and accounts of the dragons of European antiquity. Yuan was something much closer to a form which had existed before man ever set foot on Earth. Because of the magical nature of the gift and the intent of it, Yuan was something of a mix between two types of pterosaur and owed much to her dragon mother for the other gifts of the ability that she had. But while it all helped in a lot of ways, it also took her far into her own loneliness. She was the only one. Even if there were another like her, it would only be a partial fit due to the way that she could also be -- the same quiet human girl, quite lovely now as a young woman who lay trying to sleep in the darkness of a cave on the mountainside, lit by the flickering light of a small fire as she held a young female demon to help keep her warm. She was a little sad because she felt something for her but she knew that she had to journey farther soon, the lone dragon in all of the world as far as she knew. It was all that she'd ever have, as far as she could see it. She could be the girl, and she could even select between two of the dragon shapes, one much larger than the other. That large form had been what the old dragon had intended for her, and it gave her the ability to soar for days if the wind was right, with her mind resting as she managed her flight. Without the metabolic constraints of being reptilian, she could slow her metabolism a little while she soared and remain largely unaffected by the colder air temperatures and reduced oxygen up there. Where Yuan could fly for days at a time, a reptile would have become torpid and died -- even if they hadn't fallen out of the sky right away. None of the original pterosaurs had ever flown as high as Yuan could go rather easily, not one of them could have lived there. Weight was always an issue for all flying things, and like that, she was nearing her prime and weighed close to four hundred and fifty pounds, but she was strong then, and not really reptilian, though it was what she looked like in that form; four hundred, fifty pounds held in the air by a wingspan of more than thirty-five feet. In human form, her legs were long and graceful, but as a dragon, they were short overall, though in actual length, they were even longer. On the ground, she was a little ungainly, moving around using motions somewhat like a bat, but in the air, she was nothing but graceful, her wings set far back, trailing her legs as steering rudders with her long neck stretched out. The wings were rooted at the backs of her shoulders, her arms were almost human in shape and size. Those arms were almost the single departure from the pterosaur type. Her feet weren't all that she used to steer with. Her long beaklike snout had an effect and the vane-like comb which stood at the back of her skull helped a great deal as well as the fat and stubby tail that she had. Once she knew what she was, Yuan just knew that there wouldn't ever be anyone for her and she'd just adjusted to the fact. The dragon had commanded that when she'd turned eighteen, she be provided with humans to learn about sex with. They were hired and brought by her foster parents and had been willingly blindfolded in a dark room. They'd had no idea what it had been that they'd mated with, those men and women, and they hadn't been harmed in the least. After that, others were brought for her very occasionally, most often for her birthday again or perhaps to celebrate the arrival of the Chinese New Year. Only the first time, Yuan had been watched and coached a little by her elders. All of the other times after that, no one had watched. It was in preparation for those times that Yuan had seen the need to develop a third form, much smaller than the other. As far as she was aware, no one knew of that form. Some of it had been for economy, since there were times when Yuan didn't want the energy expenditure of the nearly fine hundred pound shape. She wanted a form which was nimble in the air and not as awkward on the ground. And there were other things which she'd wanted. In the shared past of the reptiles, birds, and mammals on Earth, there is an organ which combines the functions of several into one. It is the cloaca, a shared opening for genital, urinary and anal tracts and all of us have it, though it develops differently in human embryos and disappears to become what we have for those purposes long before birth, barring the appearance of a defect. A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 18 For reptiles and birds when they mate, most species of males only hold their cloaca over that of the females to pass the sperm. In some types of reptiles, there are two hemipenes and they are used alternately, one mating after the other, but the males of some types have a penis, such as turtles, the crocodilians -- and the dragons, though they are neither reptiles nor cold-blooded. And that, right there, was just another thing which made Yuan even more of a singular creature on the planet, though to her mind, 'singular' was just a better way to say 'freak'. Yuan had been born a human girl. The little dragon egg, the only one which would fit without killing her, that one which had been set with such care against her tiny heart had been male. As she'd matured, Yuan had kept much of what she'd learned fairly private, since it was her way anyway to do that. She could be a human girl, and she was lovely that way. The only outward differences which one might notice were the eyes from very close up for the color of the irises and the subtle shape of her corneas. Between her legs there was no pubic hair. Something else had grown there. Her body then was covered in human skin, all except for that one area. Yuan's outer lips were covered in tiny scales, every bit as soft as the skin of any woman, and if one was given the chance -- and no one ever had -- to look closely, those scales were not all the same color. The large dragon form wore a pattern on its back and front. The scales matched that pattern in miniature. In human form, Yuan was a woman. She had all the right equipment, other than the scales in one place. But she was partly a magical being and that allowed her to make changes as she saw fit, now and then. The large shape was male, having a cloaca, and under the right stimulation, a penis could and did emerge. But it was the smaller flying shape which made Yuan a little proud in a quiet way to have developed. Like that, she could change a few things and her face then bore some of her human features, if one knew her, though none did. That shape had an anus, and a vagina, though the shared functions of it were not quite what had always been in the evolution of creatures here. Her anus was for waste elimination, and her urethra handled the urinary functions, though in two ways if desired. She had a vagina, just as she did when she was a human, but under the right mental, emotional and physical stimulation, a penis could and did emerge. It had been an afterthought, though a long and careful one when it came to her, and it wasn't so much for what one might have thought at all. It actually had little to do with reproduction in this shape, though it could be used that way. Really, it had been the way that Yuan had created this form so that the ability of both dragon shapes could be brought forward to her human shape. It had been a quite selfish thought, but Yuan didn't care. She only knew that sometimes her male side desired pleasure, and in the large shape it was a difficult and not very satisfying thing to do if one was alone, as she knew that she would be one day. Her hands could just barely reach her penis then. It felt wonderful to her if she managed to bring herself off in that large shape, because it was a ton of hard work to get there. Because of that little feature in the smaller shape though, Yuan had another way to play when she was alone. It allowed her male side to be pleasured if she wanted that, and she didn't even have to change herself. She just needed to want it that way and aside from the practicality of it, she'd been careful in its creation to make herself a beautiful as she could, which was a silly thing to think of, but anyone would want to look their best if they could. But this was something very special and marked Yuan's private and very personal hope that one day she might find that one person. When she knew that she'd found them, or the other way around, then Yuan would reveal the third way that she could appear. It had also been quite a lot of fun for her to use her male organ on the blindfolded humans, she remembered with a soft smile to herself as she lay holding the demon girl in the darkness. She didn't know about this, and she had serious doubts, since she would have to travel on farther and she knew that her friend couldn't fly as high as she could to catch the jet stream, and to fly lower would leave her pretty much out of gas when she got to wherever she had to go, energy-wise. Yuan knew that to arrive somewhere barely able to hold herself up was just asking for disaster -- and that's if she could even make it without soaring. The next night was something of a repeat of the first. Yuan thought it was a little funny, the way that the demon girl struggled with their language issue, talking Yuan into the ground as she tried to suggest to her that it might be time to sleep, and wasn't she tired -- all done to the crazy pantomime that they'd developed. But Yuan did finally agree, and she pretended to toy with herself a little in her 'sleep' again for her friend's benefit, but she grew bored with it after a while. On a whim, she did it in a slightly different way, and before long, her clitoris began its change, to emerge more and more from its hood. The demon stared and crawled closer, until she was in a little danger of having her jaw or nose knocked by Yuan's hand while she worked herself languidly as she feigned sleep. Finally, the demon girl sat back on her heels and thought. She still liked the strange female there with her who'd share anything that she had with her if she could be made to understand. She'd grown to like her a lot, even though they couldn't really converse, other than in a comedic fashion with a lot of hopeful chattering on both sides of it and quite a bit of arm flapping and hand waving. That didn't matter, they liked to listen to each other and one day, she hoped to be able to actually talk with her. But this, she thought as she stared at what now looked much more like a male organ in the strangest place, this had some promise in a naughty way. She still wanted to do something for her friend, and though she thought that she was lovely, she was still having at least some trouble trying think of a way to bring it up. Now this was something, she smiled. She even had an idea of what to do with one of these. She just hoped that her overture would be accepted as she crawled forward slowly once more. With only a little push within herself, she reached out and stopped Yuan's hand. Yuan opened her eyes and stared a little as the demon smiled and pushed her hand away so that she could do this for her instead. Yuan heard the demon speak quietly and she heard a bit of hopefulness in her voice -- and of course, she didn't know what was said, exactly, but it wasn't hard to grab a clue. "I wish that I knew your name, at least," the demon said, "I want to do something good for you, but there is nothing that you aren't already able to do far better than me. This little wonder right here that you have by some mystery well, this is one thing that I know that I can help you with -- if you would only let me try." She moved forward on her knees and began to stroke what she's seen standing there. Yuan closed her eyes and enjoyed it. Afterward, Yuan pointed to the leather strap around the girl's leg, and the demon pointed to the leather, and then at her own neck, before she bowed her head to Yuan again, but Yuan didn't want this. She just sat up to hug her friend for a while, and then they went to sleep. ----------------------- When the storm finally abated, they spent a day just washing the blankets and Yuan's clothes in a stream and laying them out on some rocks to dry. Yuan wanted them to lose the musty smell from the cave. They hunted up a few semi-dry bits of wood and helped the drying process a little so that they had a way to cook the last of the mutton for a proper meal. That done, they stretched out on the grass naked and daydreamed the rest of the day away. At one point, Yuan felt the urge again and looking around -- as though she'd really needed to -- she turned herself into the larger male form right in front of her friend. Resting on the stable platform of her feet and the 'elbows' formed by the first joints of her wings, she reached her hands back and teased herself until the penis came forth. Her breath hissed in and out of her long mouth as she worked it once it had grown long enough to just barely wrap her hands around. At first the demon stared and then she grinned, and finally, she laughed as she got up and came closer. "I wish that you would have done this for me before," she smiled as she stood looking up at Yuan's long face with her hands on her hips. Yuan lowered her head and the girl hugged it and kissed her snout, "Please, let me help." She crouched a little and reached to move Yuan's hands away from this quite large thing which hung there in the air and bobbed in time with the dragon's pulse. The demon lost herself in it a moment later, stroking and sucking what she could get for several minutes before she called up so that Yuan would bend her long neck to look underneath herself. Her eyes opened wide in disbelief as she saw the way that her friend lay on her back and using her thighs and hands, she worked very hard to help move this along for Yuan. When she couldn't hold back any longer, Yuan raised her head to the sky and called out loud and long as she came so hard that it amazed her. Even as she gushed, she grew worried for her friend. She knew after a second that she needn't have worried at all. The demon was laughing and sputtering, and most of all, trying to get as much as she could into her mouth. From that objective, it was a failure, but she didn't care at all. She was so happy to have been able to do this and she reveled in the quantity of what Yuan could deliver. It was all over her, and she looked as though she'd nearly been drowned in semen. Yuan scuttled backward until she was over her small friend and she lowered her head to lick what she could away. She rolled onto her back carefully as she changed to become a beautiful female human whose fingers worked in and out of herself as she tried for another orgasm the other way. She sighed happily to herself. If she played this the right way, she could go for hours. Yuan didn't think that there would ever be someone for her. She was just thankful that she had the slight compensation of having so many ways to find pleasure. But the demon was on her then, still soaked with her semen and now without any inhibitions at all, and they laughed and played for hours in the sunshine since they were both in the mood and it was a lot of fun. Yuan was both male and female, depending. The demon could adjust to that and didn't mind a little fun, but Yuan got the sense fairly quickly that actual coitus with her male side was out of the question. The wild mountain girl wasn't all that big on females -- but she adored Yuan for many things and reasons, and they were alone here and laughing. What did anything matter? They still couldn't understand a word that the other one said, but that didn't matter either, since they laughed until they cried anyway. She tried to remember, but gave it up in the end, wondering how long it had been since she'd laughed and had a friend. But after that, later in the evening, they had trouble. It took Yuan a lot of time and hand waving, but she got it across that she'd be leaving. The demon made it clear that she'd go along, and then there was a lot of flapping and gesticulations as Yuan demonstrated that it wasn't possible. She pointed to the demon and hooking her thumbs together, she flapped her fingers, and the demon nodded. Yuan held her hands near her waist while motioning and showed that she could raise her hands no higher, though she looked as though she was struggling to. Then she pointed at herself and made the same motions, but far over her head. The demon nodded and looked down, sinking to a seating position, and then Yuan saw that she understood, since she was looking upset. They actually pantomimed an argument, but Yuan made it clear that it was cold where she flew, and there was little to breathe. Her friend looked angry and determined. Yuan began to demonstrate the problem again, but the girl only pushed her hands away and made it clear that if Yuan few away, she would follow, and Yuan couldn't allow this. Finally, she had a desperate idea. She seized the demon by the ankle and pulled her so that she fell onto her back and looked up. Yuan ignored the protests since she had no idea what was being said. She pulled one leg up and began to unfasten the leather strap. When she had it off the leg, the demon slowly stood up in surprise. Yuan pointed downward viciously, and the demon girl dropped to her knees. Seeing Yuan shake the strap, she bowed her head and moved her hair. Yuan fumbled for a moment, but she got the strap under the girl's chin and fastened what she now knew was a collar. When she took her hands away, the girl looked up and then stood to fling her arms around Yuan's neck. A few moments later, Yuan walked away, motioning her friend to follow her and she walked to the cave where her pack lay. She pointed to the girl and then at the pack and the demon got it at once and was happy. Yuan was worried beyond belief, doubting that her idea would work at all. She packed up in the evening and when she awoke, they ate the last of the roast and taking everything out into the morning sunshine, the girl got into the large pack, wrapping herself as best she could with Yuan's blankets and after what Yuan knew was a very brave hug, the girl sat down and waited for the pack to be closed. Yuan looked at the huge knapsack and gave serious thought to just flying away quietly. This wouldn't work at all and she'd be carrying an extra hundred pounds or so, and for what? She was fairly confident of what she'd find at the end of her flight, a dead and frozen solid demon who'd had the foolishness to want to trust her friend. She slowly put her arms through the straps -- easy enough for a human-sized woman to do, and then she began her change as slowly as she could so that she could adjust things at least a little. But it went so easily that Yuan was now even more convinced that this wouldn't work. Finally, she raised herself and waited, feeling the bundle inside trying to get positioned. She shook her head. She was about to murder her first real friend. A lean forward with her wings spread and Yuan took off low down the mountainside gathering speed. Satisfied with the speed in hand, she pulled up a little to give herself some room and began to beat her long wings, climbing in spirals for an hour until she found the flow of the jet stream once more at almost twenty-one thousand, eight hundred feet and then she turned east again and rested, letting the hundred knot tailwind push her and only beating her wings enough to maintain her forward motion in the air-mass relative to the wind. Yuan felt miserable. The only thing that she didn't do was cry. Half-frozen tears would only cause her more troubles and she knew that she'd have plenty of time to weep later. She wanted to go as fast as she could, but she didn't know how far it was. She'd felt no motion from the pack long before she'd reached her cruising altitude. The morning turned to the afternoon and then to the evening and still Yuan soared onward heading ever eastward into the darkening night. It was almost 2500 miles to the coast near Lozenjellis, a nearly dead city whose miles of ruins caught Yuan's eye from almost five miles up as she began her gentle descent. It had taken her almost a full twenty-four hour day to glide from Maui to the coast. She only knew that she was looking for a feeling in the mountains. There had been no motions against her back the whole way. She thought to land, but she was already certain about what she'd find anyway, and thought about just digging a grave wherever she landed, so from that point of view, she thought to carry on and not waste the energy of a landing and then another climb. She was descending gradually anyway. Her mother the dragon had said that the rest would come from her heart. Well, her heart hurt her now. The girl was exactly the sort of friend and companion that she wanted, she just knew it. They could even make love in their awkward and hilarious way if they wanted that. This was just having to make the best impossible choice out of a range of no real other options. Yuan had to go, that was all, and her friend, ... well, her friend understood, always nodding no matter how Yuan had tried to tell her that she would die like this. Yuan adjusted her course a little farther northward and settled in. Though she was still dozing, she noticed the snow as the elevation of the ground increased. Yuan had never seen snow before. It caused her to think about finding a place for shelter to live as she carried on the search. Seven and a half hours after crossing the coast, she caught sight of something which attracted her instantly, reminding her more than a little bit of the place that she'd left behind. She turned then and began to lose altitude faster. A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 19 ***This is such a wide panorama, but we're getting to where I can finally move the stories along easier. I had planned to have you meet the baddie in this two chapters ago, but I had an idea and the chapter for that is in rewrite, so that's for a few days from now. In the meantime, allow me to take you away to a place with mountains and forests, trout-filled streams, deer aplenty, demons, ... ~smirk~ Well, yeah, this isn't some outdoorsy magazine. 0_o --------------- Book of the Dragon Part4 Yuan had been letting down as she worked her way back to the cliff, but at this low altitude, she was fighting gusty turbulence and trying to see through the snow squall that had chosen this moment to block her way. She squinted as the wind-driven snow stung her eyes and pelted her. Eventually, she'd had to almost close her eyes completely and rely on the picture which her other sense brought to her mind. The lower that she got, the worse the buffeting became. She was a little high and fast as she dipped below the top rim of the cliff and suddenly the snow was above her. She could see and the air was calm, and not a moment too soon. Yuan had to flare hard and she landed, changing as she scuttled a little and then with a lot of hurried work with the now-loose pack, she stepped through one of the doorways of the ancient town built under the lip of a red sandstone cliff. She didn't look too hard, other than to make sure that she wasn't about to fall on her nose. The doorways and passages were a little low to her, but not much. She went deeper into the complex until she found a slanting wall with toeholds in it leading up to a hole above. Yuan climbed up and after a quick look, she hefted the pack and climbed the rest of the way through to set the pack down as gently as possible. She laid it down on its side carefully and opened it, but she could only see her blankets. She was a little surprised to see that one of them was near the top of the pack, and so she pulled it out with no trouble and reached inside. What she felt was so cold to her touch, but Yuan was at least a little happy to find that it wasn't frozen. There was a coating of rime frost on the inner surfaces of the bag and that surprised her, because it said to her that her friend had been breathing at some point. Now she had a quandary. She didn't want to just drag the demon out, and she wouldn't just upend the pack and pour her out. She laid out her blanket so that it covered the pack and stepped to the little hole in the wall which was the window. Yuan stood there shivering a little and waiting to dry just a bit before she would put her clothes on. She remembered that they were folded in the pocket of the pack and so she pulled them out to get some of the cold out of them. All that she could do was to wait, but at least she felt that she might be able to hope. This made no sense to her, but it was better than she thought this would go. Yuan reminded herself not to get her hopes up. There was still the likelihood that the pack only contained a body, but she felt a little hope regardless. She wondered where she was, but she felt a little thankful to have found this. From the air, it looked to be a human settlement carved into a rock face. It was only now that she could see that it was in fact made of dried mud blocks which had been fitted together well. She was a little far from the ledge now, being inside one of the rooms right at the back of the overhang, but that was alright to her. She was that much farther from the snow that she could see a lot farther out as the squall continued, blowing clean over the cliff from behind it. Yuan turned away from the window and reached for her clothing, pulling it on as quickly as she could. Winter, she thought, something that her mother had not mentioned at all, not a winter like this. She shrugged. She'd see what was what in the morning. Right now, she felt weary and needed sleep more than anything. It was a little cool here but not cold, not like what it had been out there. She lay down right against the pack and covered them both with her blanket before she closed her eyes, but it only lasted a minute before they snapped open as a sense came to her. This place looked old and uninhabited for some reason, but she knew that the second part of that wasn't correct, besides the demon in her knapsack – and she wasn't sure about whether she lived or not because she got little sense from it. She just knew something else. She was not alone. There was no one in the room, or down below. There was nobody even near to the passageways that she'd traveled. All the same, there was someone else in this not quite deserted town under the cliff. ----------------------------- Yuan awoke feeling groggy and slow. There was nothing wrong that she could see and she wasn't even cold, she just felt off a little bit. It wasn't until she tried to move that she almost groaned from the dull ache in every joint. She didn't know what this was, but something wasn't right. She looked over and reached into her pack. Cool, but not cold. Even so, there was no real sign that the demon was alive. She got up and looked out of the window. The sky out there was overcast and it was barely snowing in tiny flakes. She hurriedly removed her clothing, as much as she hated the thought. She had to find another place and quickly. Her intestines were sending her messages with the cramps in no uncertain terms. She saw no one as she walked out carefully and she was glad of it. It was all that she could do to hold on as she ran out into the valley a little way and found a place. After the unpleasantness which followed, she needed somewhere to wash. She'd been thankful that she'd managed to be quiet about it, but she'd had to crouch low to allow her guts to empty themselves from both ends at once, and she was a mess. The thought of using snow to wash with, ... She found a stream and though some of it was iced over, most of the surface was open and she stepped closer, her feet telling her that she didn't like this business of winter here very much. But two things came to her attention, as sick as she felt. There was a reason why the surface of the stream was not ice-covered yet. It was a wide stream, but here it was narrow and a little deep. That caused the water to rush past. The other things that she noticed were the tracks in the snow. Her eye followed them and then she saw a pair of animals mating. If she didn't feel a little like frozen death, she'd have loved to watch them, not having seen something like this before. But between her and those creatures, she saw another creature a moment later, the one who had made the tracks and he was kneeling as he watched them as well. ----------------------------- Billy knelt in the light snow and tall grass at the edge of the woods, watching as a good-sized and regal-looking buck enjoyed one of the females in his harem. The weather had turned colder and the early December wind blew strongly, but it was in Billy's favor, keeping his scent from the animals as they mated. The demon needed meat, and though he was a little hungry, it was not enough to make him want to try for either of the ones involved in this. He still had a little from his last kill hanging up. There was only him, after all, and he had no real way to keep the meat cool enough for long, so he mentally scratched both of the pair off his menu. All that he could do was to hang the meat in one of the cooler sections of his 'home', but he knew that he couldn't consume as much as he'd get from either of these animals before it went bad. He was also interested in the skin of the animal, but again, it was not enough to cause him to act. He'd been here for two and a half months now, and he'd changed some in that time. It might be said of him that he'd grown up, and while there was a little truth to that, what had happened was that Billy had more or less adjusted. He still missed Hank every day, because they'd been each other's anchors in some very real ways, but he'd learned that he could keep himself alive all alone. He lived in a cliffside dwelling, very old, but still sound. Billy didn't know which group had made this home for him; all that he knew was that it likely was older than anything human that he'd ever seen. That didn't matter, of course. He didn't do anything to harm it, he just lived there. There was water not far off, and the whole thing was built under the overhang of a southward-facing sandstone cliff. The cliff created a dead spot in the prevalent winds, and the sunshine heated the rocks. After dark, the sandstone cooled slowly. He supposed that it was the warmest place for miles around. When he'd first walked back here, having overflown it as he'd thought about setting down, he'd spent a fair bit of time just exploring. He couldn't believe that no one lived here. He didn't know that it had lain deserted for almost all of its existence. The builders had walked away after a two decades-long drought left them far from water, though it came back after the drought ended. A different people came much later, but not to live there. They sought to protect it, and all of the land around was made into a wilderness preserve. Those ones were long-gone too now, and the place was remote as hell – just what a young demon wished to have for a place to live. He didn't belong and he couldn't go back. His brother was dead, and humans feared what he was. The way that Billy saw it, he'd just live here until he couldn't anymore. But though he'd done well for the first little while, and learned that he could survive here alone, there were things which made it less than perfect. Nothing was perfect, he thought, least of all his miserable life. He had no one to talk to. For a time, he'd found himself speaking to his dead brother as though Hank was there with him. Sometimes it helped and sometimes it only helped for a little while before he castigated himself, growling in a quiet voice that it was long past time for him to grow up. That would work for a time, but sooner or later, Billy would have the thought that on balance, knowing what he now did and had lived through, Hank had been wrong. It had sounded so good to them both to decide and plan to make the move and run from the Colonel. The doing of it had caused them both to have to learn so much so that it could be done. But now, ... What did he have besides emptiness and even more loneliness than ever before? He'd been torn out of his young life and never even gotten to kiss his parents goodbye. He and Hank had spent their childhoods and young adulthoods alone by themselves. They'd tried so hard to get away, and what had it gotten Billy? He'd prefer to have to live the rest of his life putting up with the old vampire's shit if it meant that he and Hank could sleep hanging on to each other – because that way they both really slept, rather than what he did now, try to sleep and wake up every two hours wondering if he was safe, knowing all the while that it made no difference whether he awoke or not if he wasn't safe. What was safe? Without Hank, there was no such thing. He even knew that for all of his attitude, Hank needed to hold Billy just as much to feel safe, it was just never said that way between them. The only thing which had finally helped him was the realization that if they'd never been caught, they'd have grown up normally, and by now, something such as this wouldn't have ever been an issue to either of them. They'd have been the right creatures in the right place and by now would they'd have been a pair of brothers who loved each other, but had grown up independent and secure in themselves. Another issue was that, living on that old base, there were plenty of things to be found out and learned. The place had been a wonderland that way. That Billy had survived this long was proof of it. He's always been interested in the outdoors. He breathed in every survival and adventure book that the base library had. But there was no intellectual stimulation in this place. It was shelter, and in that light, one got used to the old place pretty quickly after that. The last and most unsettling thing was the fact that for the past twelve hours, he knew that he wasn't alone there. Nobody bothered him, but he knew that there was somebody else there. There were only three things which kept him there now, well, other than the fact that it was winter and he had nowhere else to go. The place had been well thought-out when the site had been selected, since the rocks were heated by the sun and gave up that heat rather slowly. It was closer to being like a warm autumn where the dwellings were, while everywhere else, outside of the microcosm, winter looked as though it was coming on pretty good this year. He'd seen the footprints here and there in the dust of the ledge where he never went, and they told him that the other one who was here was human, alone as well, and most definitely smaller than he was. He doubted that the other one here, whoever it might be, had any real inkling about him and most especially just what they were living near to. Billy was no great-sized demon. His father – if his childhood memories were to be believed – was huge, and Hank had taken after him. While Hank hadn't been huge, he was well-built. Billy was muscled too, but not to that degree. Billy was adapting though. He'd never had the need of it until now, but he'd developed a more human-looking form in addition to his demonic one living here. That had come about because of the clothes that he'd taken from the base. It just made sense. Why live as a cold demon when you could live as a much warmer human in human clothes? These days, he made out just fine in jeans with construction boots, a red plaid flannel shirt and even a fleece-lined coat. He had a thought that caused him to smile to himself for a moment. One of his greatest discoveries had been one of the hairdresser's shops on the base. Along with the scissors and the combs, he'd found a few instructional books, and that was how Billy had learned to cut hair. There had been a couple of early misadventures with Hank's hair, but he'd managed to try a few things out and it stood him in good stead out here, because something that had never occurred to him was just how much of a pain in the ass his long ponytail could get to be, with the way that it felt uncomfortable and just plain bugged him when he wore the coat. It was a little better when he untied it, but the hair at the front bothered him then, always getting in his way the way that it did. That's why he cut it off one night. When he had it at a length in the back that pleased him, he went to work on the rest, with a pair of carefully placed mirrors. There was one particular hair style that he liked and he thought that it looked really good when he'd tried it on Hank one time, though his brother didn't like it much. Billy did and that was what he strove for here. He liked it this way a lot more and he thought that it suited him. Billy had no idea whatsoever about the 'look', and couldn't have cared less about it. He only knew that he liked the way that it looked to him and that it felt alright to him. There wasn't anyone else around to impress anyway, but he 'd have likely fit right in with the young male styles prevalent over four hundred years previously. He'd have looked just fine walking on campus, playing a guitar or just picking up a surfboard. Right after that by coincidence, he'd finalized this more human form, and that was the way that he looked then. There was something that bothered him, and he thought that he might have the barest answer when he searched hard in his dimmest memories from before the time that he'd been brought here with Hank. He'd grown up at the old base, where it was stupid hot in the summer and sometimes cold in the winter, but never like this. He and Hank had just looked as they pretty much always had; a pair of young demon males with skin which was as smooth as any human's skin, though it was a warm shade of gray. Their eyes were black on black, the same as any demon's, he supposed, at least, that had been what he'd seen in the second of time that he'd had to look when the Colonel brought another group before sending them somewhere else. But in the time that he'd been here, he'd developed his human-looking form and that was all good, the way that he figured it. He could blend in with them, if he ever got the chance, and he guessed that he looked like one of the lighter-colored humans. He'd decided that he liked it, and the clothes fit like that, and so he'd stayed that way for most of the time ever since. He figured that he'd go back when it was warmer. But the next time that he'd changed back to what was natural for him, he's been astounded. While he hadn't been looking, so to speak, his body had changed markedly. For one thing, he'd grown more mass somehow, he was sure of it. He hadn't had those shoulders before, for damn certain. Other than the inconvenience of his natural form being even farther from being able to fit into any clothes that he had, he didn't really mind. It was the rest of it that had shocked him. His long hair had grown in this shape, and that was an understatement. The skin on his shoulders and upper back wasn't smooth anymore, not with that hair growing out of it to blend into that mane. It wasn't brown anymore. It wasn't black anymore either. It was lighter, but not uniformly so. Some of it was white and some was black, and there was a lot of gray as well, but not from age – that was its color now, a mottled looking mess to his mind. Where it had once been sleek and straight, it was now ... not that way. And there was more to this. He'd actually chipped the old earthenware cup that he liked to drink out of. His face had changed, forming the barest of snouts and he'd banged his cup against the teeth which were a little forward of where they'd been the last time that he'd done this in that shape. And while his mouth had been moving forward a little, it had taken the bottom of his nose with it. He couldn't decide whether he now looked like a dog or a cat, for Pete's sake. His eyeballs were still black, but his irises had turned a light silver – not gray at all, and they were slightly reflective as well, though it could be controlled and dimmed. His skin carried patterns in it from dark to light and back, just like his hair. And that was another thing. He'd never needed to shave in his life before. He still didn't, really. But he had a little tuft of hair on his chin now. It drove him nuts. It wasn't more than maybe an inch or so long, growing into a little pointed thing, but it was there and he now found himself stroking it or tugging it a little whenever he was lost in thought. He'd have been upset over it once, but he lived here alone. Who did he have to impress? But the answer came to him after days of thought, where he went through the motions of a single creature living alone in the winter wilderness of Colorado, doing the things which needed doing in order to stay alive. It hadn't been until he found himself wishing for a mirror so that he could see himself and how bad it must look that his memory got the nudge that it had needed... Because a mirror-like surface had appeared before him against the wall that he'd been looking at. That had been enough of a shock to him, because it was something that he could never have done before. But when he'd looked at his reflection ... that was when the memories came flooding back and he knew why he looked like a different sort of demon now. Because that was what he was and had always been. The differences were what came to males his kind when they matured, and there were reasons for every one. A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 19 The skin patterns and the mottled hair, he thought, - all for camouflage. His face had to be that way, because in their past, his ancestors had to be able to rip meat from their prey to eat – preferably while it was still warm. As long as that had been developing, their noses had to be long, but not stuck out there in the wind, they needed long nasal passages to have at least a chance to warm the air which was inhaled before it had a chance to freeze their sinuses. That's why his nose was long and yet built into the top of his short snout, much like a certain breed of large cat here on Earth that Billy had read about by accident once day, a cat who lived in high mountain ranges and needed the same protection for its sinuses – the Snow Leopard. The color of his eyes just went with that, for camouflage and to be able to block out a lot of the light reflected from snow. It all made sense suddenly as he looked at the adult demon there in front of him in his winter plumage. He looked rather primitive and violent, which made him smile, since he wasn't really either one or at least, he didn't think of himself that way. He looked like a very powerful wild thing, used to living on the hard edge of a very hard environment. As far as the way that demons looked, what he looked like now was a barbarian of demonkind, whose young body had decided that if he was going to live in the cold, then it had better step up for him so that it was at least a little easier. He looked, ... Like his father. That day had brought a ton of memories crashing down on him that he was still working through. But none of it would keep him fed, and so he'd gone back to looking more like a human who was a surfer – whatever that was. He moved his hand very slowly and turned on the laser sight. A red dot appeared instantly over the point of impact on the doe's shoulder. Neither of the animals noticed it. Billy thought about it. If he squeezed the trigger now, he was in for a lot of work, since she was a big doe. Still, he thought, on balance, life was now a lot of work out here, no matter what task one undertook. If he fired now, he wouldn't have to worry about something to eat for the next while. He wondered how he'd know it when they had their big finish. He supposed that he'd wait until they uncoupled, he thought as he moved the dot onto the stag. Yuan didn't know what to do. She thought about just backing away, and so she did that a little, but then the ice which she'd backed up onto chose that moment to complain as it broke and then she was falling over backwards. Billy snapped his head around as he heard the sound and he watched something surreal happen in slow motion. A naked human, out here in this, and she was falling into the stream. He cracked his head on the low tree branch that he was hunkered under as he stood up and ran. When he got to where he'd seen her, she was gone. He looked down and saw one foot in the water, just under the edge of the ice. That was all that he could see. He set his rifle down and jumped in. Just as his boots hit the surface of the freezing cold water, he had a thought where he questioned his sanity. Yuan struggled weakly, the shock from the intense cold of the water just seemed to paralyze her. She knew that she was no good at fighting off cold like this in her present shape, but she couldn't summon up any sort of will to do anything. Acting on an impulse which she could not control, she opened her mouth to inhale, but her throat slammed shut a half a second later. In that time, a little water had gotten into her throat and lungs and the pain of that, ... She thought that her heart would stop. She didn't feel it when something clamped itself around her ankle, but her world blurred around her then and though she thought that it was an untimely end to her life, her passing would at least stop the icy cold pain – she hoped. But she felt it when the pressure of the water against her body was gone and she found herself on her back being held, and being shaken. She knew that it wasn't her, she didn't have anything to shake with. She opened her eyes and found more cold water in them, but at least she saw that she wasn't in the stream anymore. As her vision cleared, she saw a human whose features were contorted and he looked angry as he shivered violently. She blinked twice, thankful that there was something on her which was still under her control, since nothing else seemed to be. The thought that came to her was that he wasn't angry. He was in pain from the cold as well. She couldn't understand what he was trying to tell her as he gasped. In a moment, she wanted to tell him something as well, she just didn't have the way to warn him. The water in her lungs was on its way down and her body wasn't going to allow it to remain. Billy was trying to get his own breath through the cold that he felt, and he had only been in as far as his navel. He needed another moment to ride this through, and he even felt it as his testicles contracted as though they too were in shock and only wanted to hide from the cold by clustering tightly against his cold body. He couldn't feel his penis, not that it was terribly important at the moment here. He had a thought that it must be nearly microscopic now. It was a good thing that he didn't need to pee. He doubted if he could find it right now. Yuan's lungs bucked inside her once from the motions of her ribcage. The next time, it was helped by her diaphragm, which had come back to life, though not really ready to allow her any conscious control just yet. She raised her hand. It was all that she could do to warn him. She wanted to cry for the loss to her dignity that she knew was coming. It came to her that she was having the strangest disjointed thoughts to be thinking this way. Well, she was looking at him, he thought, so she was conscious, but she was moving, or trying to as he carried her away from the stream. When her saw her first motions, he just knew, and so he flipped her over a little, and he tried to give her the room for it while he did his best to keep her out of the snow. He reached with his right hand to get as much of her long black hair out of the way as he could. Yuan found herself looking down a little as she began to retch and the water in her lungs began to lose the fight and was worked up into her esophagus again on its way out. It still felt cold to her. She felt stricken, so absolutely weak and stricken, and worse, she knew what was coming with the next heave. Billy's right hand was against her lower belly and he felt it as her body tried to divest itself of everything. In a surprising flash of insight, he remembered what had happened those times when the Colonel had spelled him and Hank really hard, and they'd had to vomit so forcefully. He just knew that this wasn't one bit milder for her than that. His right knee shot up gently and he pressed it up a little to let her know that she could sag over it if she wanted to. Yuan's dignity chose to fly from her then and she was thankful that she couldn't see his face. She was choking and coughing up water and vomiting and her other end was doing far worse as her intestines voided along with her bladder. A moment ago, she was certain that she was dying. Now, she was certain that she wanted to in her shame. His left arm was under her collarbones, holding her up, and his right was over the back of her hips, holding her so that she wouldn't slide off the thigh and knee which held her back end up. Yuan groaned and tried to curl up into a ball and if she could have had her wish then, she'd have just disappeared. She had the ability, but not the control or the strength at the moment. Billy only needed one look at what lay in the snow behind her and he knew that she had the fever which had killed billions of humans the world over for centuries now. They either had immunity to it, or they didn't. He'd seen it before on his occasional trips into Lozenjellis with the Colonel. The ones who were in the throes of it died almost every time. He'd heard of a few who'd lived through it, but he'd never seen one. He sighed then. As far as he could tell, she'd be dead in twenty-four hours – forty-eight at the outside. He had the strangest thought then when he asked himself just how he was going to dig her a grave in the frozen hard ground. He hadn't even really gotten a look at her, and he knew that it was likely only his want to know somebody after being alone, but it made him sad. He had his own issues now, being frozen cold himself, but aside from that, it wasn't as though he had a lot of other things to do in the next day or so. He decided to try to help her as much as he could. It would likely only be what he could do to ease her passing, but she was another person out here alone, and he couldn't do as a lot of humans did when they saw one of their number with these symptoms. Billy wouldn't kill her, and he wouldn't leave her here to die alone. He looked at the mess and he scooped up some snow. She was making some sounds now at least. Billy didn't know it, but Yuan was trying to thank him. Her sudden gasp almost caused her to begin to cough and choke again, but she realized that it wasn't as bad as what she'd just come through when she felt the cold of the snow in his hand as he tried to clean her off and the words that he spoke sounded very apologetic to her. When he was a little satisfied that it was as much as he could do weighed against the two of them out here in the breeze, Billy picked her up to move her a little to another place in the snow and he eased her down. She was on one hip and holding herself up a little as she watched him walk to the stream a little stiffly to wash his hands grimacing from the coldness again. He looked back, and then he came to her to wash her face for her with a little water cupped in his hands. As he rubbed her lips a little, he looked over at that she'd thrown up and saw that it was only water and bile – no food. He shook his head. The buck had finished with the doe for the moment, and he'd heard the sounds not far off. When Billy looked up, he saw the buck paw the ground about thirty feet away and remembered that bucks are very aggressive during the rut. He's never get to his rifle in time. Yuan raised her hand to point to the enraged animal, and Billy wanted to tell her. "I know," he said, "I see him." He stood up and decided that this poor woman was now about to have a vision which ought to complete her journey into terror – surviving a drowning to see how a demon can rip something apart. But before he could do anything, the buck disappeared in a blast of flame from the woman's hand. It was gone a second later and so was the buck – mostly. The doe had been watching, but now bounded out of sight into the woods. Billy looked at Yuan in shock, but he recovered in a second as he thanked her. She didn't understand what he'd said, but she knew what he meant and she tried to smile a little, as amazed as she was that he'd accepted what she'd done. Billy smiled back, and he walked to where he'd set his rifle. Slinging it over his head onto his back, he came to where she lay and he picked her up and after getting her balanced in his arms, he said, "Just tell me if you need me to let you down, ok?" He already knew that they couldn't understand each other, but he was going to try anyway to tell her. Yuan looked up at him. She'd have preferred to walk, but she knew that she'd be really shaky and anyway, up against him like this, she felt warmer, so she guessed that it must be why he was carrying her, but she was only a little correct. Billy was carrying her because he needed to. He'd found a person who needed help. He hoped that if she could fry a buck the way that she had, then there was something to her that might just carry her through the rest of the fever. He hoped so anyway. ------------------------ As he carried her onto the ledge, Yuan had tried to tell him that she had clothing and blankets and she pointed off in the direction where she'd spent the night, trying to tell him that there was another person there. Billy had a clue, so he took her in that direction until he was confident about the doorway that she pointed at. He nodded then, saying that he'd bring everything that he could find to her, but that right now, they both needed to get warm. He looked down, "I'm sorry that you can't understand me." Yuan looked up and shrugged with that little smile that she had and she told him pretty much the same thing as he'd said to her in a language that he couldn't fathom at the moment either. He walked to the part of the settlement where he lived and there were no sounds then, other than those made by his soaked boots and the wet jeans which flapped a little at his ankles. He set her down and helped her to stand by a doorway. Taking her hand, he led her inside, stopping only long enough to point through a doorway into a chamber which had no roof or ceiling, but it did have a hole in the floor and one look told her that this was where she had to try to get to if she felt the cramps in her returning. She nodded her understanding as she waved her hand past her small and pretty nose. He got her out of there and they were walking down the corridor farther. He took her to a warm room. She was very pleasantly surprised, and she walked to one wall and felt the bricks there, wondering what was doing this. From what she could see of the rest of the room, this was where he spent his time when he slept. The corridor curved and she followed him to other rooms where he had things stored, and again, the one wall felt warm to her touch. Billy noticed the questioning look on her face, and he would have told her, knowing all the while that she wouldn't understand her. But her face developed a worried look and she was gone back down the corridor, and as he followed, he knew the reason for it as he heard the sounds that she made in the room with the hole through the floor. As Yuan tried to hold still and see if the moment was past, she looked at what she'd thrown up as well and she groaned. She'd made a mess in his home. She gaped again as he set a pot of water in front of her there on the floor and he offered her a bowl of it to drink. Yuan looked at it for a moment and then up at him, blinking in shock as he smiled to wash off her lips for her again. "It's ok," he sighed, "I know you can't help it. There's no harm done, and the floor in the whole room slopes toward the hole anyway." Yuan was still in a bit of shock, but she gasped again as he wet his hands in a larger pot on the floor and washed her again, a lot more thoroughly this time, thighs, calves, and all. He didn't say it, knowing that she couldn't understand, but he hoped that she'd see that this large pot was here for the purpose. As she got to her feet and stood in the doorway, she watched as he rinsed the floor off. "Come on," he said with a wave of his hand – as though what he'd done was nothing, "I need to get some kind of food into you that might stay there a little while, long enough to do some good, hopefully." Yuan' surprise hadn't left her yet, and he laughed at her wide eyes, "Don't just stand there like that. If you keep that up, I'll just lose my nerve. I'm trying to make things a little better for you and I don't mind." He saw that she was weak, and so he just shrugged and reached down to pick her up again. They looked at each other and after a moment, Yuan put her arms around his neck to steady herself against the mild vertigo that she felt. As he carried her as carefully as he could, Yuan felt a lot of quiet amazement as she looked at his face. He was so different to the humans that she'd ever seen. She knew that people looked different on this side of the ocean from what the dragon had told her, but there was more to it here. She'd killed the buck to protect him, and yet he seemed far more delighted over it than she'd have thought. She thought that after something like that, a human might have thrown her back into the stream. She knew somehow that he wasn't human and that he liked her, since he was caring for her the way that he was, not even blinking at how she'd fouled herself – he'd just cleaned her without a thought – twice. She didn't know what to think anymore, other than she liked him as well. She couldn't understand him, but that didn't matter other than the unfortunate way that they couldn't communicate. She tapped his shoulder and he stopped to turn his head to her. "Please, do not stop talking to me," she said in the dialect of the Chinese that was prevalent where she'd been born, "I like to hear you speak, and maybe I can learn." He didn't get it of course, but he smiled, and she liked that. "I have enough meat to make you a soup, and I have some dried vegetables in a package, so I'll throw some of them in too. I know you're sick, but you need something inside you." He took her to where he slept and he got to his knees and set her down on his sleeping bags, pulling one of them over her. He held up one hand, "Just stay there," he said as he sat down to untie his boots. She watched him as he removed his wet clothing and hung it up to dry. She was a little shocked, knowing that humans are usually embarrassed to be naked, from what she'd heard and seen. But he wasn't and she could see that there was other clothing that he could put on. But he didn't appear to be about to do that and she liked that as well about him as she looked at him. She wished that she wasn't sick now, for other than the obvious reasons of how she felt like she was hanging around Death's door. A male like him was good to look at, she decided, for only the tiny hope that she felt. It did make her feel better to see him. He turned to leave the room, and she got up to follow, but he didn't seem to want that. He gently forced her to lie back and he covered her with as much care as if she was a child again. When he got to his feet and stepped away, Yuan pulled off the sleeping bag and made to get up again, but he heard it and spun to point and tell her to stay put. "Just stay there, ok?" Even she could understand what he wanted and his concern showed plainly on his face. She smiled at him. He smiled back and turned, and then she began to get up. When he spun back in disbelief, Yuan managed a weak laugh at the look that he wore. So stern, and yet it wouldn't fool a four year-old. He told her again, but she shook her head and got to her feet, pulling the sleeping bag with her and wrapping herself with it. Her expression told him that while she appreciated his concern, she'd found a way to warm up like this, and she was going to come with him. Billy threw up his hands and walked out," Ok," he said," Have it your way." Yuan followed him, knowing that he didn't really mind anyway. She leaned against the wall watching him. This room was hot from the large fire which burned low in the center of it. He threw a couple of good-sized logs on it and it responded quickly. She looked around the room and saw all of the wood that he'd placed there to dry before it was needed. He reached to move a piece of metal away from the flames. "This place is really old," he said, "Since there's no metal anywhere in it, I guess that it goes back a long, long time. I found this out on the woods a long way from here and I just bent it to suit so that I'd be able to hang a pot from it." He shrugged, "It's pretty hokey but it works." He pulled a burning stick from the fire by the cold end and he lit a second fire under what looked like a long trough. "This water isn't really cold anymore, but I think you'll want a bath later. I got this old tub out of a half-fallen in house a ways from here. It was a big pain in the butt to get it down here, but it was worth it, just for the feeling when you sit down," he chuckled, "Gonna take a while anyway to get hot, though." A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 19 He walked from there to another chamber and he lifted a pot of water, "I try to keep a lot of these filled so that they warm up a little. I was gonna make stew today anyway, so I cooked up some meat. It's cooked and all, barely, but I just need to cut it up some more for you. This is the pot that I'll make our soup in, ok?" He'd added that as a bit of a joke, knowing that she couldn't understand, but she surprised him when she smiled and replied, "Ok," with a tiny laugh. She was pleased to have found a word that could be used as both a question and a reply. He stood at a really rough hewn table and set the pot down. Walking over to a hook hanging from a tree trunk embedded in either wall, he cut a portion from some cooked meat hanging there and with a lot of rinsing, he cut it up into rough cubes which he threw into the pot. Yuan watched him and admired the way that his body moved. Every once in a while, she managed to get a brief look at his genitals without being obvious about it, and she was a little pleased to see that they seemed to be recovering from the way that they'd looked to her at first when he'd taken his wet clothing off. If he noticed it, Billy said nothing. He reached for a plastic bag and removed some dried vegetables to throw them in as well, doing his best to get them to sink, but he supposed that once they'd been in the water for long enough, they'd do that anyway. "I got these out of a bunch of preserved rations that I had. It said they're freeze-dried, but I don't know what that means. All I know is that they'll swell up in hot water, and they'll go good in soup or stew." He found his little container of salt and sprinkled a bit in as well before he turned to look for a bit of fat on the meat hanging up. Satisfied, he walked back to the table and began to cut it up as well. "Well it's fat," he said, "You need a little bit of fat if you're gonna make some half-decent soup." He didn't see it, but she wasn't looking at the soup right then. She didn't know the meaning of the word, but she wanted for him to understand that she'd been listening, so she tore her gaze away from what he had between his muscular legs, "Fat," she repeated with a nod. "You don't really understand any of what I'm saying, do you?" he asked with a smile. "Fat ok," she smiled very hopefully, not having a clue, and he laughed. She watched the way that his bicep swelled as he picked up the full pot of soup that wasn't soup yet and carried it to hang it near the heat of the fire in the other room. "Come on," he smiled at her, "Let's get you warm." "Ok," she smiled, and they laughed at each other. He pointed at the other sleeping bag, "Please lie down." Yuan blinked at him. She understood what he wanted, she just, ... didn't want to lie there while he was off doing all sorts of things. She wanted to be in the same room with him at least. Billy looked concerned again, "Hey, the soup's gonna take a long time before it's ready to eat. I really wish that I had some good bread now. I make it once in a while, but I haven't for a time. I'm trying to make the flour that I've got last until spring. After that, I'll have to see about finding something else to use as flour. I think I read somewhere that you can use cattail root for that." He had no idea what he'd said, but the woman lay down then, and holding the sleeping bag open, she indicated that she wanted him to lie down too. Billy was amazed. It had been what he'd wanted to do to try to warm her up. The few times that he'd touched her since they'd come back here told him that she was still cold. Billy didn't want her to feel uncomfortable, and thought about it as he got down to lie next to her, but Yuan curled herself around him immediately and sighed with a smile, "Ok," she whispered. Yuan knew that he wanted her to get warm and she wanted that as well. She still felt so sick, and she knew that the few other times when she'd been ill in her life, she'd been just miserable. But with him there and especially with him right there against her, she felt better. She didn't know why, but she knew that he cared for her in some way after so little time, so that was better than fine with her. She knew that there were going to be some huge issues in this, but with them together like this, Yuan felt at least some desire to want to face them, rather than what she'd always done the few times that she'd found herself up against a human. Those times, they were for her to enjoy, their services paid for and their ignorance assured by the blindfolds in the dark. It had crossed her mind then with one or two of them that she'd have liked to do what they'd been doing on a more or less regular basis, but she knew that they weren't worth knowing, really. This male fascinated her. There was nothing more to be said. They had the comedy over trying to learn each other's names. He pointed to himself and said "Billy," and then pointed to her questioningly. It took a while. She raised her finger and carved a glowing symbol into the air. As it hovered there to his amazement, she'd pointed to the two portions. Before she could speak, he surprised her, pointing himself. He'd seen the thing in old books at the base library. "Yin," he said and then he pointed at the other, "Yang." Yuan was amazed and a little delighted. "Yin," she pointed to herself, and then she indicated that he was "Yang," "I knew that," he nodded, and then he pointed to himself again, "Billy." Yuan got it then, but she got hung up with pronunciation, "Birr-" He shook his head and she watched his hands as he said, ""Bi," indicating the hand and the syllable with his face, before leaning the other way in a comedic and exaggerated fashion toward his other hand, "Lee." She lay on her side next to him with her eyes wide in comprehension. She clapped her hands once in delight. "Li" was perhaps the most common name in most of the few parts of China where she'd ever been. "Bi-----li," she said, and he nodded, before bringing his thumb and forefinger together to indicate that it should be shortened. "Bi---li," she tried again, "Bi-li." She smiled hopefully at him, and he nodded, squeezing his thumb and finger tightly together now. "Billy," he smiled. "Billy," she laughed, and he reached to touch her nose lightly with his finger to show her that she had it. Then she tried it, making the same exaggerated motions to him. "Yu-----an. He did his best to screw it up "You-----ahn, You --- anne," he shrugged. She shook her head, "Yu-an, Yuan." Billy was really tempted to go for 'Juan', but she'd fried a deer before his eyes, so ... "Yuan," he smiled, and waited for her finger to touch his nose, since he'd gotten it right. She stared at him for a moment, deciding that this stranger had just said her name in a way so subtly different, that she'd never heard it quite like that before. She knew that he was waiting for her to reach for his nose to touch it. She shook her head. She kissed him instead. Billy looked suddenly uncomfortable and got up to sit next to her. A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 20 ***Billy is starting to believe that he was born under a bad sign of something. But it's not all bad. He's starting to glimpse what he always was. But when you ache for something your whole life, it's doubtful that - if by some strange chance it comes to you - that it's what you really wanted, or thought that you did. 0_o ------------- Book of the Dragon Part 5 It was confusing to Yuan. Billy lived alone, that much was obvious to her, and she found herself really liking him for more than the things that he'd done and was doing for her, but she thought that a male like this would be a little more, ... responsive somehow. He seemed somewhat reserved to her. She thought that she could understand it a little, but though she could tell that he liked her, there was something that he seemed to be holding him back a bit. She wondered what she had done wrong just when she'd thought that this had been going rather well. She reached out to touch him and he allowed it, even taking her hand in his. "You have no way to know," she said in Chinese to him softly as she kissed his hand very lightly and held it as she looked up as she spoke, "but I know that I have caused you discomfort and I am sorry. I want to know what I have done." She opened her eyes to look into his and she wanted to hug him only for what she saw there in the thoughtful way that he returned her gaze, "You are so beautiful to me, Billy. I have never seen one such as you are." He whispered to her that he hoped that she would be alright and not grow weaker. That was what he knew of this virus and what it did to claim its victims. They did make strides in their conversation. They got past the quiet hilarity of him trying to teach her "You" and "me" and the way that it is reversed from the other side of it. He felt the rumble and heard the noises and he looked at her questioningly for a moment. Yuan didn't seem all that sure of it herself, but after a moment, she smiled and gently patted her stomach under the sleeping bag with a nod, before she slid her hand lower down on her belly and patted there with a shake of her head. To herself, she wished with all of her heart to get better as she looked at him. Eventually, he got them up and wrapped Yuan in the sleeping bag to go check on the soup. By now, he'd figured out that she wanted to be near him and he liked it as well. But there were things in this that he'd have told her right away, well, most of them, and what was left he'd hold his tongue over out of respect for her feelings. He guessed that none of them really mattered. She couldn't have understood him anyhow. Billy had grown up near a cruel old bastard who loved to give something so that he could take it away soon afterward. To a child, it taught the lesson that you can't keep what comes to you. The events in his life only reinforced that. He was used to being laughed at by the Colonel, so he hid his feelings if he had the slightest doubt. He'd come out of his quiet shell in a big way once, saying what he felt to one girl, and it had cost him everything the very next day. Billy would rather be alone than hurt anything like that again. He knew that it was an unreasonable thing. He didn't care. The way that he figured it, his fear of drowning was just as unreasonable. Just like Monnie's fear had been. He liked Yuan. He really did, and he was fascinated with her. But she had the fever and a part of him was trying to get ready to have to dig a hole in the frozen ground in a day or so. The soup tasted really good to him and he ladled some into a pair of bowls for them, indicating a place for her to sit on the opposite bench, but she shook her head and motioned for him to sit beside her, so he moved the bowls and she sat up against him as they ate. He looked at her after she'd made a motion to him, indicating her mouth and then showing him her hand as she opened and closed her fingers like a duck's bill. She ended with a curious look at him. "Talk," he smiled, getting it. Yuan nodded emphatically with a smile and pointed to him, "Talk you." He straightened her out and then he told her of how he lived here, knowing that she didn't understand, but he knew that she wanted to hear his voice, so in between spoonfuls of soup, he talked and she hung on every word, loving the soup as well, but having no way to tell him. After the meal, Yuan held up her hand, motioning for him to stay, and she left the room, knowing that he'd prepared a bath for her. When she came back from the room with the hole in the floor, he pointed to the old iron bathtub and she wandered over, testing it with her hand and nodding with a grin. She looked at the level of the water and she looked at them both, trying to determine whether their volumes would be too much and cause it to overflow. She took the sleeping bag from her slender shoulders and walked to lay it on the bench after folding it. When she turned around, she found him with his mouth open and she liked it, smiling as she walked to him, but he stopped her and she watched him sink to his knees to look at something which she'd forgotten about completely – the tiny patterns of scales over her mound and outer lips. Yuan wanted to groan and hide, but before she could do much about it, he took her hips in his hands and he smiled at what he saw. He looked up, "I've never seen anything so lovely." Yuan stared and she felt herself ache to see him lean forward to kiss her mound very softly for a few moments. She couldn't help it. But he didn't do that. He only stood up with a soft smile. She groaned to herself. When he got to his feet, Yuan put her arms around his neck as she kissed him before she turned to get into the tub. As she sank slowly into the delicious heat of the water, Billy reached for something and he held up an ancient paper-wrapped bar of soap. Yuan didn't know what it was until he unwrapped it and handed it to her. It was cracked and faded, but it was still soap. Yuan's nose didn't quite work as well anymore with what coursed through her at the moment, but she did smell the floral scent and she grinned in happiness, "This male cares for me as though I was the finest queen," she said to herself in amazement before she added the second part, "and yet he does not seem to want me." She looked at him quizzically and motioned as though she was washing her arm with the soap. "Wash," Billy grinned, and she said it as a question to see if she was saying it correctly. Once she was sure, she smiled softly to him, "Wash, .. me? Wash Yuan?" She held out the soap to Billy with a small and hopeful smile. Yuan was more than a little surprised to find herself asking him, but then she reasoned, he'd already been cleaning her. He may as well get her smelling nice as well. She found that she wanted him to do this. She only hoped that this worked out. Her motions told him that she was absolutely adamant that he get into the tub with her. To her delight and his slight amazement at himself, he did. Billy gave her the best bath that any girl could surely have as he washed her, even going as far as always looking to be sure that her hair wasn't about to get wet. He held up her arms one at a time to wash her armpits and he looked at her curiously when he noted that she had no hair there. She shrugged, pointing to her head and then at her armpit, but shaking her head. She made the same motions again as she pointed down. He nodded and smiled. When his methodical washing began to approach her waist, Billy expected Yuan to want to take over and he paused, but she smiled and nodded, and by her motions, he understood that he was not to get soap inside her. He was glad to know it, since he'd been wondering just how he was going to do that, not knowing any better, deciding instead to wash her bottom really well, considering what it had been through up to now from the fever. Yuan was on her knees, leaning on his shoulders with her forearms and moaning in a little quiet pleasure as he did it. It surprised him, but he kept at it, careful about this orifice in the same way as the other one, and washing the soap off meticulously. Yuan smiled down at him as he ran his fingers against her there very softly and she pulled his head to bring his face to her small breasts to get his kisses there. "You do more than care for me," she sighed, "I surely desire to know love once in my life. I am always alone now." She looked away for a moment, "Why can I not have this one? What is wrong?" He liked the sound of whatever she'd just said to him in Chinese, not even knowing that it was that tongue for certain. "I don't know anything about you, Yuan," he said quietly, "I don't know why you came here or how long you'll stay, but please don't die. I know you can't understand me, but if you like this, well, ... as stupid as this sounds to me to say it, I'm gonna need some time to make sure that you don't disappear or die like everything and everyone else has." He looked up at her as his fingers stroked the inside of her flanks and softly brushed her anus, "I've never taken care of somebody before. I think that I've always been the one who needed to be reassured – at least while Hank was around. Right now though, all I know is that I want you to get better." When it seemed to him that she'd had enough for the moment, Billy took her weight off his shoulders and he sat forward a little. Yuan surprised them both by not being the least bit nervous as she allowed it. She suddenly had a thought that she'd allow him anything. He maneuvered her so that she could sit on the edge of the tub and lean back against the wall, and he got to his knees between her feet. "I don't know much about what I'm doing," he said to her quietly, "I've only ever been with one girl one time before, and I had to share her with my brother then." Yuan didn't know what Billy was saying, she only knew that the words were important to him to say and she bent forward a little in the steam of the hot water to hold his sweet face in her hands as she listened, dying to be able to comprehend it. She only knew that he was gorgeous to her and right now, he was so serious as he spoke to her quietly. She knew that she could sit spellbound and listen to him opine over the best ways to manage a cesspool and she wouldn't care a fig and feel just as fortunate to have had the chance to hear it. "At least that time, I had Hank to ask about things that I didn't know – not that he knew much himself. I just know that I want to do everything right for you, Yuan. I know that I must sound like a fool to you and, ... well I guess that I'm not all that far away from being one, really. I just wanted to tell you that I care and I'll try to do my best for you." He leaned forward and began to kiss her labia, putting as much into it as he could while still being gentle and soft about it. Yuan's head went back to rest against the wall and she sighed as her fingers found his hair. A tear ran from her eye as she began to pray to the mother spirit of the dragons. She didn't know if there even was such an entity anymore, but she recalled her mother's words and she did it anyway to the best of her ability in a halting manner as he licked her. She stopped now and then if he sucked one of her lips into his mouth for a time, or most especially whenever he concentrated on her little bean, but she picked it up at just the right place when she had the chance again, asking that this not end soon and though she began by making her gentle request, by the time that she felt that she was losing her ability to follow the train of her thoughts from the way that he was taking her up the slope of her pleasure, Yuan was flat-out begging that she be granted her wish that she might have this one male for her heart and that it last between them. She had no idea how long she'd been sitting there on the edge of the tub like that. She only know that she wasn't cold anymore and that she'd already had three of the sweetest orgasms of her life, even though for one of them, she'd had to depend on Billy to hold her up as she'd done the only thing that she could do and just held onto him tightly as she cried out. She'd ached to buck against him, but it wasn't possible, so she'd just hung on as he'd done his best for her. She loved the way that his hand felt then against the middle of her chest to make sure that she didn't fall forward. Yuan had said just what she'd felt then, calling out his name and crying that she wanted his love as she hung on to his muscled arm while he held her up. She'd even gone on after it had almost subsided, holding his head with one hand then and whimpering that she knew that this was just passion between them, but she couldn't help herself. The farther that she got from her climax, the more she felt surprised and amazed to feel that she still felt that way toward him. "I want you to know," she whispered as she felt the last tremors of her orgasm fading, "that I will never forget the things that you have done for me today." She sighed, "Ahh Billy. I love your name and I begin to love you. I only wish that I could tell you. I would give anything to know what I do wrong." She looked a little different to him now as she smiled at him a little dazed. He moved her hands to his shoulders and he picked her up to let her sit on his lap as she hugged him tightly. When she pulled back to look at him, there wasn't really anything to say, they just smiled at each other. Billy was ready to get out of the tub, but Yuan was adamant about bathing him now and she was astounded at just how many square miles of him there were to wash, but she did it, even holding his foot up out of the water to wash each toe, grinning as he laughed. She was pretty dogged about it, right down to his ears before she hugged him tightly. Right down to the very careful way that she retracted his foreskin and washed him so very carefully there. They dried each other and she pulled him by the hand until she had him with her between the sleeping bags. She pulled herself up on the only pillow and she pulled his head to her breast. "Yuan talk," she said, and she did as he began to love her breasts. She caressed his flanks as she told him everything about herself. She knew that he couldn't understand, but that wasn't important to her. If they ever found a way to speak to each other easily, she'd tell him again and beg him to tell her everything about himself to her. "Do you like me, Billy?" she asked softly. He stopped and looked at her with a smile and she had her answer, though there was no comprehension of her words in his face. She saw the comprehension of her questioning and her touch rather plainly and she kissed him as she ran her other hand over his shoulder, so much larger than hers and so strong to her eyes. "I have a wish that you claim me as yours," she admitted, and she knew that she'd have likely said it just the same way if he could understand her, "and if it goes as I now hope, sweet one, I will claim you too. I will need your help again soon, the way that I feel." She sighed, "And I try not to think of the one who trusted me and lies dead because of me in my pack." When she was finished her tale of her history, she pushed him over and stroked him to hardness again, a little disappointed as well as astounded that it took so little from her to do that. A moment later, she thought about it and felt a little pride in herself too. "You're so beautiful, Yuan," he said in a little awe of her as he looked at her. Yuan smiled back, "I do not know what you say to me, and I do not know how much of a prize I might be to one as wondrous to me as you are, Billy. I only hope that you enjoy me as I enjoy you." She raised her knees then, wondering what sort of lover that he might be, but she knew that she had a hope for herself. Right now, she was sick and she felt it a little – even though his attentions went a long way toward making her feel a lot better. It was a little tough to get him into her and settled, but when he began, Yuan felt it – what he had to tell her, but couldn't say because of their speech differences. Their troubles all disappeared for them as they began to make love and she cried before she came the second time, weeping at how he made her feel without pounding her at all. Somehow she knew that he'd be too long for her in this position, but he didn't try to push in as far as he could as though he sensed it, and she knew that he never would unless she showed him that it was what she wanted. For right now, all that she knew was that he was perfect. The next time, he took her from behind as she lay in front of him on her side. It allowed him to stroke longer and she sighed and mewled to him as he filled her so much. When she tried to show him that she thought that she could handle a little more, she'd listened in a little amazement to him chuckle into her ear as he rolled them so that she lay on her back on top of him and he was a little hard about it until she had to stop him because the way that he caused her to move was a little hard for her to take, since she still had a little trouble with vertigo and opening her eyes only a little would cause her to feel dizzy. He stopped and she felt herself growing a little weaker as she rearranged herself and brought him to his release into her mouth before she turned around to lie on his chest. She heard his sigh and Yuan sighed herself, amazed that she'd found this male. She kissed his shoulder, "Only one thing could make me happier, Billy, but I think that it is not to be. I can cry for what I have done tomorrow. For this night, I am happy with you." She watched as he smiled. He was happy but he was also confused as well. He hadn't wanted to do any of this, but Yuan was so different and she'd managed to get him past his cares so easily, he really wasn't sure how it had happened. "I think I know what you're trying to do here," he sighed, "I don't mind. Just give me some time, Yuan. Please get better. I can live all alone, but now I don't want to." He sensed it when she was about done for the night and he knew that he'd been right when she slid off him. He laid her out so carefully as he moved next to her, but she moved right next to him, molding herself to him and her expression was apologetic for her weakness. Yuan just couldn't help herself and crawled onto him again to hide her face against his throat as she told him that she loved him. Her words surprised her now, but she just accepted it, because now, she knew that it was so. --------------------------- He'd woken up a couple of times during the night, and he'd stared at her then from inches away, his worry a palpable feeling in his chest. He felt her growing weaker, her breathing turning shallow. It frightened him, but there was nothing that he could do. By the time that the pale light of dawn began to filter in through the doorway from one of the rooms with no ceiling and down the long hallway, Billy found Yuan to be unresponsive and burning up with fever. ------------------ Far down at the opposite end of the ledge, a demon woke up, wondering where she was, why she seemed to be restrained, and why her limbs felt so cramped. It took a long time for her to sort out her recollections. Her hibernation had left her mind very fogged. Eventually, she noticed the cooler air which came to her when she inhaled and she noticed the way out of her present dilemma. It took her a good while to work herself to freedom. If she'd been a little more with it, she'd have just torn the pack to shreds in her frustration, and if she'd been a little more awake than that, she'd have regretted it right afterward. But she did manage to get out of the damned bag at last and lay there blinking – or trying to while the pieces seemed to swirl in her mind and try to fit themselves together. A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 20 Eventually, she managed to find her feet and she wandered down the hallway out into the thin morning light of an overcast winter day. She stood blinking in wonder for a while as she grinned. This was more like it, she thought. She looked at herself and smiled as she saw the winter coat which had grown in as her body's response to the plummeting temperature in the huge knapsack as Yuan had climbed ever higher. Rocks and boulders, she thought, she was now even the right color for this, as she saw the overall light gray patterns on her. The last Rohn tribeswoman, the very last one of her clan of mountain demons was still alive. She lifted one of her long arms up and then bent it back at the elbow next to her head as she stretched on her clawed toes languidly. The motion caused her small breasts to peek out through the part of her long mane which hung over the front of her shoulders. Her eyes were closed for the moment a she yawned comfortably, but they opened a second afterward and her light gray snow-ghost eyes took in the scenery of her surroundings. She still lived. Even though she was likely the last mountain demon alive anywhere, it still felt good to be moving air. And she was free. And she was in some mountains. And it was even winter. What more could she want? She stopped that line of thought right there. There was no point getting stupid. She ambled off along the ledge to look for the girl who had brought her here. Twelve minutes later, she stood staring through a doorway, looking onto a room where there was a bundle on the floor which she felt was her friend. Something was very wrong. She felt little if any life there, just the barest inkling was all that she got. So very wrong, and that wasn't the immediate issue. There was a being there, kneeling over her friend and looking down at her. Her irises opened a little more and she felt the adrenaline hit her system in a surge. Billy knew it would happen. He'd tried to stop himself and hold the line at only helping the young woman, and then when the fever took hold, he'd planned by then to be at least a little ready for this part before it came. He'd wanted to maintain a bit of distance, not investing anything of himself so that it wouldn't be a loss when the sad part came. But it had happened anyway, no matter what he'd intended. He couldn't imagine a bigger idiot anywhere than himself. But there was no other way around it. He'd known that she would get to this point. That his heart had taken a leap at her pointed to his own weakness, he decided. He'd done the right thing to try to help her. He knew that. He should have just kept his heart out of it. That, and his weak need to have another person in his life had caused this. Holy shit, he thought, he was fine not seeing another breathing person for almost three months, and the very first one who just strolls along and falls on her ass, ... He reached out slowly to touch Yuan's cheek as one of his fucking immature tears fell on the sleeping bag. He hated the ease with which his eyes gave them up. He was angry with himself, upset at how someone so beautiful could lie there dying when he was the one who was obviously defective – a weak, poorly adjusted, and needy specimen, he thought. He hoped that his parents were still alive somewhere. Because if they were dead, then by the little that he'd been taught of his people's beliefs, they'd have to be there, watching what he did. They'd be there seeing the way that the weaker of their spawn failed at everything he did, just a feeble and pathetic example of a kind of demon from some plane far from this shit-heap fucked-up world. Hank should have been flying that last day. Hank could make a difference in the things that he did. He was right far more than he was wrong in almost anything. Hank should have been flying and then it would have been Billy out there lying dead in the dust. But regardless of the way that he whipped himself, he was still a demon. And the sort that he stemmed from had always lived out on the very edge of survival in places where one's death could overtake them in the span of one breath or less. Evolution was nothing more than natural selection in allowing the ones who'd been able to summon the ability to deal with what came to them successfully to be alive at the end of the day and have enough desire left over to breed among the rocks in the wind. For what he was, it was the ability of his kind to have found ways to survive and flourish at one time in a bitter place, and that meant that the successful ones – the ones who had been alive afterward to lick their wounds and tend to the hurts which another one had suffered – those ones were alive enough to hold scraps of food up to the lips of the ones they were with, and hug them, rubbing their bodies against each other hopefully to offer them the chance at a little love. That had been in their past. That had been what had been built on. Those ones had been able to deal with threats without getting their brains too involved. Survival was based on visceral patterns and blinding speed, ... The same things which they used when they killed something. Billy didn't know what it was, but in only a few milliseconds, he was aware that there was something else here, and that it was intent on his destruction. His body took over and based its reactions on its faith in itself. His mind could wonder and feel sorry for itself afterward. Right now, ... Things slowed down for him then, and this time, he was not held in it as a prisoner or passive observer. The way that it slowed opened up so much room for the blinding speed which his forebears had passed on to him. He heard and felt each accelerating footfall. He even heard the soft swish of half-opened wings which sought to help cover the distance to where he knelt. Inside of himself, Billy knew that he had all day for this, as he turned first his head and then his upper body to deal with what came for him. It left him plenty of time to hear the curse in a tongue that he hadn't heard in over two decades. Lots of time to feel astounded that he could understand what was spoken to him through a tightly constricted throat and past long and vicious teeth. "Get off her, shanrashh! Your death now." Besides his wonder at it, Billy was a little taken with the choice of curse here. He had a furious ball of gray fire coming at him and little time to think. He saw the light eyes and the wrinkled snout pulled back as it was by lips drawn away from gleaming teeth and he just reacted as the threat crashed into him. His left hand blocked her right-handed slashing strike before it came to him, and he put enough into it to be a strike all by itself. His right hand shot up from below for the throat which must lie back there, under those teeth. For this, he'd need to close his fingers and grab what he could, before the claws on the thing's legs could be brought into it as well. He was at a disadvantage, being dressed in the clothes of a human. But fate had dealt him a hand to play and his body was playing it. His fingers felt something which would have caused his eyebrows to rise in surprised recognition had there been the time for it. As it was, there was precious little time now that it was about to get close. He closed his hand, turning it a little for a better grip as he did, and using his legs, he moved in the same direction as the attack, throwing himself backward with one knee up to hold those clawed feet at bay for the instant of time that he needed for this. As they rolled together in a blur, Billy changed his grip, reversing faster than he'd have ever thought possible and the pair of them landed with a crash, one atop the other on the floor with Billy on top holding that head by one long and down-turned horn and jamming that surprisingly lovely face into the floor. She found herself looking at a male human hand – strong and appealing to her in a stupidly surprising way, since it was pinning her own clawed hand to the floor. She blinked once and wanted to curse again for the way that she even liked the thin golden hair on it. His eyes took in the patterns on her dark gray face and he knew. He didn't know how he knew, he just did. He wasn't even aware of what his mouth was doing as it mouthed three things that he had no knowledge of, things which his mother had cooed to him as he'd nursed at her breast, sounds which came to him from inside himself as though they were hardwired into him, since they were. It wasn't a language, and she hadn't been reciting them to teach him anything. She'd done what all mothers of her kind had done forever, activating what lay in the breasts of their infant young as they loved them, from mother to child, handed down one generation at a time. On the cold world where Billy had been spawned, the one where winter never gave up its grasp at the higher elevations and latitudes – even as the lowlands baked, Billy was a Ch'arnn. The word meant the clan that he'd been born into, long known for their strength, speed and intuitive ability, and the way that they could react and turn things to their advantage. Translated loosely, 'Ch'arnn' as a word worked out to something like 'guided lightning', though it lost a lot in the translation. It was why they ruled the loose federation of the clans and the binding of that conglomeration had been managed countless generations before without bloodshed and by agreement. All of the hill clans bowed to their Ch'arnn kings. The Ch'arnn never gave it more than a warm and thankful thought, but they felt a close kinship with another clan far from them, the closest and most staunch allies to them in their hearts, the tribe widely famed for two things; the beauty of their females and the magic of their witches. And of that clan, every single female child who survived long enough to pass into young womanhood was a witch, her powers coming to her as surely as her first menstruation. Indeed, there was little hint at anything until the first night of a girl's first period. It marked her awakening and sudden attunement and synchronization with the other forces of nature in the world around them, because it was what they also were - a part of that nature. The only variable from one girl to the next was the strength of what ran in her lineage and the ability which came from that. The word for that smallish clan meant 'snow ghost', for they saw no difference between a dead one and one who lived, other than that one could touch a living one, on the off-chance that one was feeling a little brave and if she would permit it, of course. Whether one survived it was largely up to her whims then. They were the Rohn and mostly they kept to themselves, but they did feel a bond to the Ch'arnn, a strong one. It was why some of them sought their mates among the Ch'arnn, male and female both. To have won a Ch'arnn female for oneself was a difficult thing to do for the males of that clan, but those unions always produced fine young. And it was also why only the best and most accomplished Ch'arnn males dared to try to seek out and win the heart of a Rohn witch. It was a simple truth among the Ch'arnn that if you didn't have the stones for it, you'd best stay on your own mountain, because it was not something for the weak of heart, body or mind. Many never returned. The fortunate among those who returned brought back a wild bride, one who would never be tamed and who usually added to the wildness of her male. Among the Ch'arnn, it was a test of any of the males of the high families to seek out a mate from among the Rohn. It was absolutely expected of their rulers. That was why Billy's mother had not been a Ch'arnn female. Billy's mother had been a fine and beautiful Rohn witch. It was why she'd crooned to her young quietly as she nursed them, bringing forth what they'd need one day, but leaving no trace of it. Only Rohn mothers knew of this and knew as well that their young carried enough of themselves to be able to use it. That was one of the only reasons, aside from his lightning-fast speed, that Billy had managed to turn this attack without even knowing who it had been who'd launched herself at him, and how his body knew at almost a cellular level that this one had to be held by a binding spell before she could speak her own. He didn't even know that he had it inside of him. Survival was based on visceral patterns and blinding speed, ... She writhed and struggled, not believing the force of the magic which held her as she growled. Billy made it worse when he began to chuckle. Her eyes opened wider in disbelief, and she spoke in her tongue that she knew that he couldn't understand. "Laugh? You laugh at me? Let me up shanrashh, and I will show you what it what here." He really began to laugh then, but she felt that it wasn't at her discomfort. She could just see him shake his head bitterly. But what she heard then ... "I have been here almost all of my life," he said quietly in the very same language to his own surprise and to her amazement, "In all of that time, I have not ever been this close to a female demon of any kind. My fate and foul luck that the first one that I see close up is a beauty, and she greets me so nicely. I barely knew the word when I heard it. I was young when I came." He laughed again, "And what did I hear? I can't believe where I am now, on the back of a Rohn witch who calls me dickbreath. How nice." "You know the speech!" she hissed in amazement, "How can a human – " she sensed him then, "You are not human, and not weak or slow as they are. I never thought – " "I never thought either," he said sadly, "Only I could fuck something into the ground so badly. A fine Rohn witch, and I am here on her with my knee in her back, wondering how to let her get up while keeping my eyes." He leaned down carefully so that she could see the face of the fine young surfer or college student who held her down. "Snow Ghost, this is a mistake. If I'd seen you first –" "You'd have tried to tear me apart," she hissed, "but you'd have died the agony for it, even as fast as you are." She watched him shake his head, "No. I would have come to you slowly and done what I should, and gotten to my knees in my joy to have even seen you. It is luck to see a Rohn like you." He snorted to himself, "Something that I have little of." "What do you know of the Rohn?" she asked as she struggled, "How is it that you dare to speak thusly?" "Dim memories," he said sadly, "all that I have." "You should have had the thought before now," she growled, still straining to get free and wondering why anything that she thought of wasn't working. "What have you done to her?" "Nothing," she heard him say sadly, "other than to try to give what comfort that I can, Rohn. She is sick and dying, and it was nothing that I did." He felt her sag underneath him, "Dying? Of what? Which sickness?" she groaned. "She has the fever which has killed billions of humans," he said, "I know that she is something else, but right now, it is this which will take her soon. She is a friend to you, or more?" "A friend," the witch replied, "and a little more, mostly we are friends only. Unbind me, so that I may see what I can do. She has done much for me and I would not see her die if I can help her." She seemed to struggle with something in herself for a moment as she gulped another breath, "Please ..." He remembered what his hand had grabbed when he threw her. With two more quiet sounds in his throat, he was off her and holding her up by her collar as she gasped and struggled for breath, still helplessly bound into inaction. He peered at that collar and his world seemed to bend for a moment. He set her down and grabbed her by her mane as she coughed. Billy was quiet and shy by nature, but the events of the past twenty-four hours were really pushing him now. What he was looking at around her pretty neck almost drove him to fury. He stared at that old leather and the markings on it before he looked at her face, doing his best to fight down the impulse to commit murder. "I know the Rohn," he said through his teeth, "Where is your mate?" "I have none," she said in even more wonder. He snorted, "A witch maiden with no mate yet you wear a Rohn marriage band -that band, here on this plane." He looked down and she knew nothing of what he said next because it was English, "Why here? Why that band? How much more fucked up can I get?" Billy saw the tears that she tried to blink away. "Alright," he said quietly, "I ask only one thing and I am sorry for this mistaken meeting, but you began it, Rohn. See to her as you can. If you wish to harm me still, then I ask that you do it so that I am ended." "Why?" She asked as she felt the freedom of movement again, "Who are you?" "No one," he said quietly as he looked from Yuan to the demon, "Twenty of the years here and more with little more than nothing. Two days of far too much, months of solitude, nothing but loss, and now I have no wish for anything but to be alone." He looked at the ring of leather again, "And I have nothing left anymore." He pointed, "Through there I have meat hanging. Take what you want and there is a pot of soup which you may have to eat, and a smaller one with broth for her, if you can manage to get it into her. I have kept her warm over the night. Eat and then help her if you can." He picked up his rifle, "I will bring you more meat. You may stay here if it suits you. If you still have the want for my death, then do it, I care not. But take that off your neck if you are a true Rohn. First you attack me and insult me with your tender greeting, and then you do worse by letting me see that. Take it off and if you insult me again in either way, there will be two of us dead, and no one to help her." He walked out of the room as she got up to run to Yuan's side. Two hours later, he was back with a doe, already gutted and cleaned with snow. He said nothing as he went into the room and worked at getting the hide off to stretch it out on a rack that he'd made. When he had it butchered crudely and hung, he washed his hands and asked about Yuan. "She is the same, or little changed, maybe. The soup was good," she said with a nod, "My thanks for that and all of this." He nodded, "When the night comes, hold her close to you and warm her. This place is not cold, but that is when the fever rages and harms the most. She will shake, even though she is like this." She saw that he had deer hides in his arms and a knapsack, and he nodded before her question could come to him. "The hides are for me. I leave the bedding that she sleeps on for you both. I will return in a few days, perhaps, before the meat is gone. You cannot hunt while she is like this." "What if she passes?" the female asked, "I try my best but it takes time to see what might work for her." "Then I will help to bury her," he said with sadness as he turned away. But she saw the glint of silver in his eyes for just an instant and by the time that he was outside and walking quickly away, she was on her knees staring at the empty doorway, her own universe seeming to bend. He had miles to go to his new home, another of the deserted settlements of humans long gone now. It was smaller and colder, but it was what it was, he thought. When he arrived, he went to the stream and drank, before he walked up to go inside. He took off his boots and his pants, and unbuttoned his shirt slowly, folding the jeans and hanging up the shirt on a peg. He lit his small fire with a thought as he walked outside naked and with a shake of his head, he changed. A male mountain demon stood there all alone. He felt the cold breeze as it lifted a little of his mane and his silver eyes surveyed the landscape for several minutes. It would do, he thought, and it was far better than the space between a pair of boulders. A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 20 He sank to a squat and thought. He had a strong hope that the strange woman would live. They could do as they wished, he thought. He had no need or want of either of them, he told himself, and it was better for them that he was gone. If he was with them, whatever misfortune it was which dogged his footsteps would only find them as well if it hadn't already, and he'd had enough of it all now. Seeing that leather ring had been like a lance through his heart. Touching it had taken the last of the wind from his soul. He looked at his right hand, so much larger and more cruel–looking in this natural form. The insides surfaces of his fingers tingled, as did the meaty part of his upper palm only because he'd curled his hand around that leather before he'd known what it was. He fought back the urge to weep. He wondered why it was that he hadn't killed the witch. Surely she deserved that for how she must have gotten the article. He wanted no one, he told himself. He wanted this, to be alone now. He didn't think that his thoughts were worth sharing with anyone. He was hungry, but he didn't want to hunt. Billy didn't want anything at all but one thing, and he was too far away from it for it to even be a thought to him yet. But it would come to him. He knew that it would, and he didn't mind. A carbine like the CAR-15 was short to begin with. With his longer arms when he was like this, it would be no problem when he was ready. He didn't move for hours until it had gone full dark around him. Then he walked back inside and tossed a little wood onto the fire before he wrapped a deerskin hide around himself and closed his unlucky eyes. Sleep was a long time in coming to him. ------------------- He started when he awoke, feeling as though he'd been pulled from his sleep by a forceful blow. He looked around himself and it made no sense. He wasn't lying in the dark in an old adobe ruin. He wasn't even lying down. He was walking outside on a cold and blustery day. There was a sense of familiarity to the area, but there were important things missing, signposts that he would know if they were there. But they weren't so this made no sense to him. He walked over the rim of a huge and familiar valley but – he didn't know it, and yet he knew that he should know it well. He looked across it and saw a small range of distant mountains which were all wrong. He realized that he knew them, but from where he stood, he shouldn't be able to see them at all. From here, his view of them should be blocked ... by a ... mountain. Which wasn't there. He looked down, and saw that the floor of the valley wasn't as deep as it should have been. This had always been a bowl-shaped valley. What he was looking at was a platter with a lot of snow-covered lumps on it. He stared, but he couldn't see the sort of detail that he wanted to see. The middle was fogged on a clear sunny winter day by a snow-squall. It hung in just the perfect place to obscure his sight. He knew what he was missing. From here, he should be feeling the warmth and familiarity of the Quarn where he'd been spawned. But he didn't feel that. It wasn't there. He saw no others, living the lives of their kind in the collection of simple buildings clustered together. No young ones chasing each other or tussling in the snow. No buildings, nothing. All that he felt was death there. He walked on toward the low cloud which dumped the furious snow out of its belly. As he got closer and the edges of the squall began to whip around him, he saw the glitter of the flakes as they shone in reflected sunlight where it was still sunny behind him. And then the glitter was gone, replaced with a blizzard which poured its guts out on everything below it. As he walked, he saw a small shape there up ahead, a Ch'arnn female. She wasn't wandering as he was. She was walking slowly toward him and he knew the minute details of her way of moving. As they approached each other, he saw the markings of his clan with certainty on her body – until he was close enough to make out her face through the snow. Her body bore the tribal camouflage which marked her as a Ch'arnn, but her face showed the markings that she'd been born with. She'd been born a Rohn. He stopped then as she came nearer and he felt his heart tearing open. He was looking at the beauty of his mother. She didn't stop. She only smiled as she began to weep in a mixture of joy and profound sadness. She walked until they were close enough to converse as two members of the same family. She stood against him – as was their custom in the cold world where they lived. Her arms slid under his and she hugged herself to him tightly as his arms and his wings encircled the one who had given him life. She pressed her head against his chest, over his heart and she began to speak – and she didn't call him Billy. He recognized his true name. He listened as his tears began again. When she'd told him everything, she pulled her head back and looked at his face. "A true Ch'arnn king you look to be now," she smiled, "You have grown larger than even Laish, as you were destined to. But this is not the place for you any longer." He drank in the features of that beautiful face, but after a moment, he noticed something. "Your band is, ... gone." She nodded, "Yes. It is held by another now. Beyllix, my beyllix holds it." He didn't understand. "You were far from me," she said, "and we thought you dead." "Hank," he began, trying to find the words to tell her, but she already knew. "We have seen Laish. He is with us often. He did as the older must always do for the one. That is the purpose of the protector. It tears open the heart of the mother, but it must be so for the people." He sighed, his breath shuddering in his chest, "I see no people, Mother. There is nothing here but death." "Here, no," she said, "but there are where you live, not even a handful yet, but it is where you must be. Make your own Quarn there," she said, "open it along with your heart, and the people will be again." He didn't know what she was talking about, but she smiled as she sniffled, "I have been without you for so long, but I saw one chance and the beyllix was willing. I am with you." "Where is the Quarn of the clan?" he asked her. "Under the mountain," she said simply. He looked up, seeing nothing through the whipping wind and snow. "I saw no mountain. Our mountain is gone." "It lies on the Quarn," she said, "and we stand on it. I lie beneath it all." Her tears began again and after a moment, she reached up to hold his face, and he lowered his head for her soft mother's kisses. A minute later and he was alone with no one inside the protection of his muscled arms and his strong wings. The wind began to scream and moan, and the snow on the ground looked like a fast moving mist as it blew past his legs. The squall gave up then and was blown away. He was standing alone looking at the shattered chunks and pieces of his clan's sacred mountain. There was nothing else to be seen, and he understood what his mother had said to him. In the cold gray light of the early Colorado morning, a pack of wolves moved through the valley, seeking sign of something to eat. Several of them looked to the sandstone ledge, feeling the presence of someone there. But none turned to approach. None wished to investigate the being which squatted there motionless as it sat with its long arms around its knees, and its mane covering the wings which wrapped it. The being's short snout rested on one forearm and looked out without seeing, without blinking. It would have been difficult to tell if it lived, since its breaths were so slow and shallow, the barest hint of the warm breath from within escaping though the pair of nostrils. If one was close enough to notice and knew what to look for, they'd see no light reflected from the irises there. All that might be seen were the two slow streams of its tears. A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 21 *** This little part of the whole began far differently, and when I had it down, I went on with other sections. After a while, I came back to it and decided that it was just not good enough, because I liked the character of Billy and the end that I'd written for him was a little too ... much of a summary ending to him. I knew that I could do better and felt that he deserved it. So here it is, the truth about Billy. Oh, name pronunciations in this: Beyl'eth = "Bayl-ETH" or "Bail-ETH, Ayt'han = "AYT-han" or "Eight-han" 0_o -------------------- Book of the Dragon Part 6 Yuan woke on the third morning. She looked around and as fragile as she felt, she got to her trembling knees first before she rested a few minutes and managed to make it all the way to standing a little unsteadily on her wobbly legs. She hobbled off to use the hole in the floor. When she returned, she looked in all of the rooms and found no one. A thought to herself and she knew that her prayer to the mother spirit of the dragons had gone unanswered. But after a moment, she knew that it was not quite so. She listened for a moment to some curious sounds. Following the noises, she walked outside onto the great stone ledge where the old settlement had been built. Not all that far away, there was a ring of stones which had quite obviously been made for a large fire. Inside the ring of stones, near to one edge and not in the middle, a smoky little fire burned and not for the warmth of the one who sat on her haunches next to it. Yuan walked slowly closer and saw her demon friend, looking very different than she'd appeared when she'd last seen her. The girl was still so lovely, but now she looked as though she could walk out into the snow and disappear. She sat with her eyes closed and there were tears streaming slowly down her cheeks as she chanted and sang, one hand worrying her own wild hair and the other making some subtle motions over the little fire, releasing some sort of root or twig fragments so that they would fall into the fire and make the fragrant smoke that hung in the air. Yuan carefully stepped to the other side of the stone ring and watched so as not to disturb her friend. She noticed that the leather collar was back on the girl's leg today and she wondered about it. After a few minutes, the demon's eyes opened but they weren't seeing. Yuan almost gasped at the changes to her eyes. Her friend now wore a very haunting visage as she looked off into the distance. Yuan didn't know the specifics, but she knew enough. She wasn't seeing anything nearby or even out there in the snow-covered distance. She was seeing far, far further than that with those eyes. At length, the eyes closed and the hands were still. A soft and different song escaped those lips for a few moments and then she opened her eyes and started to see Yuan there. "What are you doing out here?" she asked, as she got to her feet and almost knocked Yuan over to hug her. The pretty lips fell open as Yuan replied in exactly the same speech, "I woke and had to make water," she said with a smile, "On the way back, I heard your sweet singing. I am so happy to see that you live, but I do not know how it can be." "You can speak as I do!" the demon laughed, "How? I can easily say the same as what you have told me. When I left you not long ago, there was more death to you than life." She held up her hand suddenly, "Wait! I must know. What is your name?" "Yuan," the other chuckled. "I am Beyl'eth," the demon grinned. After a brief conversation where Yuan explained that she seemed to have been given a gift of many ways to speak, Beyl'eth hustled Yuan out of the cold and back inside, taking her straight to the 'kitchen' where she promptly began to feed her as best she could, offering broth, soup or promising to make her some stew, since she'd just found a few potatoes and liked the taste after a nibble, so she'd throw them in, she said. She kept a wary eye on Yuan and they talked for most of the day. "Where is Billy?" Yuan asked after a time, "I thought that he must be out hunting, but he does not return." "Billy?" Beyl'eth asked, "You mean the male?" Seeing Yuan's nod, Beyl'eth looked down, "He said that he may return in a few days, but, ... I think that he will never come back. I woke from my sleep and found him over you. I thought that he was hurting you or had harmed you in some way and I attacked him, not knowing what he was. I ... I also insulted him very badly. It only came to me very early today. What I did, not knowing him, made him withdraw -- and he was already withdrawing." "What did you do?" Yuan asked, surprised at the expression that she was looking at. Beyl'eth pointed to the leather strap which she wore. "I could not know, and he looked human. I had no time for anything anyway. I could not have changed what happened. There was no time." "What is he then?" Yuan asked, "What is so insulting about that thing?" Her eyes grew wider then as a thought arrived, "You saw him just now, did you not?" Beyl'eth nodded sadly, and when she looked up, Yuan saw that she looked about ready to cry again, and wanted to ask about the tears that she'd seen. "I did not know then, but he knows much inside him, even for what he is. It was a very dangerous moment. We could have killed each other so easily. In my surprise he defeated me. He is the same as I am," she said, "We are Tarkroth, mountain demons. I do not know him, but if I am right, then I know of him. I am even related to him through his mother, but not closely." Yuan watched as Beyl'eth looked off into space while she spoke very quietly, as though she was talking to herself. "We are of different clans. I am Rohn, and if I am right, then he is a Ch'arnn prince. I think that by now, if the lowlanders had not come, he would be my king." Her eyes opened a little and she shook her head, "I have insulted and hurt the one who I should bow to. How much more wrong could it have gone? Little wonder to me now the way that he bested me." She looked at Yuan again, "I did not know him. I was spawned maybe three years after him as many were, the parents all hoping that their girls might have a chance at the heart of the younger brother -- the one who would be the next king. I am named for his mother, a little. It was the fashion then, for she was known to all, and came from my clan. Narreth, her name was, and I am called Beyllix Narreth -- Heart-spirit of Nerreth. We sometimes shorten our names, so I am Beyl'eth." She sniffled a little, "Only, there are no Rohn any longer. I am the last, and there is no living Ch'arnn but him. All are dead; the clans, the tribes, the people. There are no Tarkroth children to sing their songs to the mountain spirits for there are no longer any Tarkroth in the mountains and the winds blow cold and angry. The lowlanders know nothing of what they have done and the snows reach closer to them every winter. Their punishment comes to them one day when there is no summer anymore and nothing will grow to feed them. I was a slave and I saw no others like me. "This," she said, pointing to the leather on her leg, "this is a Rohn wedding band. Single girls of marriageable age carry their unused wedding band always against the day when the right one comes for their hearts. It is an old barbarian custom, and the band does not come off the leg easily, for each of us sets a test or series of tests for any males who might seek us out. We may like the boy, we may even love him, but the test must be given and passed. Many males perish in the attempt. It can never be easy, or the girl's parents kill the boy at once. My kind has always been the wildest among the wild ones of the mountains," she said, "To give our hearts is to give our freedom a little, so there must be trust. To take a male with no band causes the girl to lose her ability. The magic fades from her, and it is the same as to kill her slowly. The band is the sign that we are taken, but never owned." She smiled at the floor for a moment, "What male would want that? If he was that stupid and meek, then he could buy a slave at the market, and she would lie for him calmly." She looked up, "That is not what we are famous for, among other things. I was taken when my Quarn - my village - was overrun. It was the first stroke to conquer us. With us gone, the way to the Quarn of the king was a long way off, but the way was clear then. We were attacked by many kings of the lowlanders. I was brought back to the place where the Quarn of the king stood to search for something of the queen's among what was left a year later. They wished to use me to find something with which to chain her spirit. When we die, our spirits often live on, and hers was mighty. If there were many of us left, she would be as famous in death as she was in life. When her Quarn was falling, and her male was failing under the crush of so many mages and fighters, Narreth began to sing to the mountain. The Ch'arnn have always lived in the shadow of a famous mountain with others nearby. She fought on beside her male as she sang. There were other females there who were Rohn, and they joined the song. Soon, the Ch'arnn females joined in. They had little magic to us, but it all helped. Rocks and stones flew to their aid and killed many lowlanders. The females called the mountain down and killed the cruelest king of the lowlanders, along with most of his army. The mountains lie fallen there, and the Quarn lies under them, along with the Ch'arnn and Nerreth, who lies beside her male, the king. I alone know the tale, because her spirit came to me as I looked. She called to me by my name and gave her band to me after leading me to where her body was buried. There was much stone over her, but her band came to my hand then as I stood, and I walked away before the place was seen. I put it around my leg as though it was my own and I hid mine under stones." Beyl'eth looked off, staring into the distance, "She called me kinswoman and begged me to wear it. She asked me to live true to my name, and I said that I always have. When I had it on me, she blessed me and after her kiss, I was alone." Beyl'eth looked at Yuan and shook her head, "Ayt'han saw the ring on my neck." "Ayt'han?" Yuan asked. "Yes, Ayt'han," Beyl'eth nodded, "That is his name. It was known three days after his spawning by every Tarkroth in the land, and dreamed of by every Tarkroth girl close to his age in her prayers at night for a time. I did not ask, but I do not need to. I had not thought of it all then, but I saw the pain which I gave him in his eyes when he saw it. Any child of a Rohn female knows the wedding band around his mother's neck better than he knows his own hand. He sees it every time that he suckles as an infant and it is among the very first things that his little hand closes over when she holds him. In a room full of them, any of us could find the one belonging to our own mother with ease. We know that one by sight. We smell her in the leather. We feel her in it by only the lightest touch. He looked at me and saw his mother's band. I looked at him and saw the arrow in his heart. He looked as though he wanted to kill me for it, as though I was a thief. He is one of the lost princes. There was him and his older brother, Laish. When a queen spawns, she thinks of what will be, and they always spawn twice when they think to what must be for the people. The first, girl or boy, will be the protector until the one comes into his own. That child may rule, but never while the one lives, and even then, a new king must be found. When the brothers disappeared, the king and the queen prepared to step down to make the way for another, not wanting to spawn another pair, but the people would not hear of it." "What if the second child is a girl?" Yuan asked, and Beyl'eth grinned, "The same process happens at the level of the leaders of the clans, but a girl may rule there. My mother died when I was spawned. My father died when we were overrun. For a short time, I was leader of my Quarn and we made the lowlanders pay blood for every home that was burned, but there were too many. For queens, the second child is never a girl. We are witches, no?" Yuan looked over, "How do you know that the one who gave his name to me as Billy is not Laish, the older one?" "I know it because Laish is dead. Ayt'han carries the death on him still. I am a witch," she said, "this shows itself to me. He does not see it, but Laish did for him what was needed, whatever it was. I do not know much at all of what he carries or how he came to be here, maybe the same way that I came," Beyl'eth said, a little of the emotion in her beginning to come through again, "but I know that he is Ayt'han. He knows Rohn customs. He knew the speech at once, even though my dialect is a little different from his -- it shows that he had a Rohn mother when he shifted it easily to match mine. He has such strong magic that he knows little of. He has come of age and he has no one. He blames himself for Laish. He was already withdrawing. It is a sign in us when we can go no further. I have been there before. Others make noise or appear to withdraw, but when a Tarkroth can go no further, we always grow silent and withdraw. After that, we find a way back, or we find a way to go on. He is the last Tarkroth male, Yuan," she sobbed a little, "And I showed him plainly that his mother is dead. I wore the proof right here and there was no mistaking what I saw in his eyes. He touched his mother's band, so he felt her. Family is everything to a Tarkroth. When the two were lost to us, the whole nation mourned and searched. I was little, but I remember that my own family was upset. It is hard to live where we do. The cold outside here is as nothing to us. That is our spring and half of our summer out there. We females do not take child easily in a place like that, and there are many ways to lose one's young. When a single babe is born, the whole Quarn and the others nearest to it celebrate. When one dies or is lost, the hardest grown males weep. We all weep then, because we all feel the loss. I proved to him that his mother waits for him, Yuan, and he knows that the brother Laish waits to welcome him too. The male that I saw is very tired of his life. I have enough on my own back, I do not wish to have a hand in his choice." There was silence for a moment as Yuan watched a tear run from the demon's eye. "He was not, ... as you are then, was he?" Yuan asked, "I only saw him as a human." Beyl'eth nodded absently, "I saw him that way, but he didn't look like the humans that I saw on the islands. He was so angry, but even so, he was good to look at." She sighed, "It is my failing. I should have known. It happened so fast." "How would he look then," her friend asked, "would he look as you?" The demon nodded, trying to imagine it for herself, "He would look like me, only larger and male. The Ch'arnn males are the largest of the Tarkroth, the quickest and the strongest. Very deadly, they are, especially their kings, for they receive their magic from their Rohn mothers." She sighed not noticing it, "Their males are the finest of all to see and to love with, my cousin told me. Her mate was a Ch'arnn. I often hid myself among the rocks after seeing him. I would go where there was no one and hide myself. If I sat in a squat and leaned against some stones, I could move my hair to hide what I did there. It is winter, so he must have the same mane." "The same eyes?" Yuan asked. "Not quite as light, but the Ch'arnn I remember had light eyes too. Most Tarkroth carry gray eyes. Rohn carry the lightest of them all. Ch'arnn eyes are silver -- when they wish to show it, bright, full of humor then, quick to laugh, and impossible for a Rohn girl to resist, it is said." She shrugged with a helpless look, "Many males of the other clans seek for a Rohn girl, but we love only Rohn boys -- unless the one who comes to seek for our heart is a Ch'arnn male. All of them are fine to our eyes. It has always been this way. We are mighty in magic and wild in our ways. Rohn males understand this and allow it." She laughed a little, "They have no choice. They seek the sweet little things which we carry between our legs and cannot help themselves. Yet our little things are what will rule their lives. Many Rohn girls are happy with that." She smiled a little impishly then, "But Ch'arnn males seek us for it even more and match us in the joining. They are the only males who can. This is known to Rohn girls. It is also said that the Ch'arnn can rule the Rohn in the same way." She chuckled and nodded, "So there lies a double-trap which the pair leap into if they find love for each other. Those pairing last to death and beyond, it is said." "Then there is much to do," Yuan smiled at her friend, "and we need time. This ability that you have, can you do anything to place a thought in him? Anything like that?" Beyl'eth nodded a little slowly, "I can send feelings to him -- if he would take them. Why?" "First," Yuan grinned, "I must eat to get well, and you must send the feelings. Can a wild one as you are share a little? You are the last, as is he. I like him too, and Beyl'eth, I am more than the last. I am the only one like me who ever was. The Tarkroth here should make their lives together -- even if it does not suit to begin with, or a wonderful people will be utterly gone. Do you think that you are the only one here with just a little wisdom? I am a dragon -- partly, and I am quiet about it, but I have much." She set her spoon down and leaned on the snow ghost's shoulder so that she could look into the most beautiful light eyes that she'd ever seen. "Nerreth saw her heart-spirit when she gave you this band. I do not know how it was that you both came to be here, but perhaps with the clear sight of her death, Nerreth saw where her boys had gone. Perhaps she could see into the future as well. It may be only pure luck, but I must believe -- as should you -- that this was meant by her that you have and hold her band. I am sure that, if she had the need, she could have killed the lowlanders there with you that day if she had wanted it and set you free. But it would have placed you somewhere else on the day that you would be brought here by the strange thing which happened. I do not think that Nerreth does this, I think that she used the circumstances of what was to happen." Beyl'eth looked doubtful and Yuan shook her gently with a grin. "Think, Rohn girl. If there was to be an ending to your kind and it was you who were the dead witch spirit, who would you wish to give to your lost child, if not the most perfect choice that you could in the only other last one? From what you said, the Ch'arnn and the Rohn seek each other. He was to be king. You were to lead your tribe. Nerreth would have known of you anyway." The demon nodded, "I met her once while she lived. Her sadness had not come to her yet and I was very small, but I remember that she picked me up and said that of all of the girls who carried her name, I was the one who had truth to mine." Yuan threw back her head and laughed, "Oh, this is perfect! There can be no blind luck to this." Beyl'eth blinked and stared at her friend and then she sighed and smiled, seeing it. "Now," Yuan began, "Can you share him a little? I can accept it if you say no, but, ... I like him Beyl'eth. You are the right one for him, but I am female as well, and I am half-human. Their blood blends easily -- I am living proof of it. I have a dragon living in me. If you agree, the Tarkroth could begin a clan here one day. A little strange perhaps, but some of the little ones might even look a little like me." A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 21 Yuan was careful in how she worded things -- very careful. She wanted it to sound a certain way to Beyl'eth. Her friend was no dummy, but Yuan was a dragon, the epitome of patience and very nearly so for cunning, though she meant no harm here. To her, it was very important that the Tarkroth mate -- if they were the last pair, so to Yuan, it was important that they be a pair. From the little that she knew thus far, Beyl'eth's pride could cause her some trouble. She hoped not. Yes, she told herself, it would hurt a little, because she'd really felt love for Billy, but it wasn't as though they'd really had something for a time. They'd only barely started. To a dragon, everything could be compartmentalized. It was a small matter to separate herself at this point. If they'd had something - really had something, then Yuan would move mountains for the one she loved. -------------------- As they discussed what would need to be done and the way to do it, Yuan ate and sat Beyl'eth down again as she was told of what had happened between Yuan and Billy a few nights previously. "I was surprised at how much work it was to get him to lie with me," Yuan said, "and it was more than the language. I could see that he wanted me -- and yet, he didn't want me at the same time, so I see what you tell me about how he withdraws. I was upset then, not so much over him, but I thought that you had died as I flew here. I wanted only to forget what I thought that I had to do the next day to deal with the body of the only friend that I have ever had. I was feeling sick and being with him was a way to set everything aside." She looked at Beyl'eth closely, "Or have I upset you with this?" "Only a little," the demon smiled uncomfortably, "but I am thinking of what you said about sharing. If he saw you as the human, ... Yuan, I have no charms to match yours." "Yes you do," Yuan smiled, "You do not see it, but you are so beautiful to me. Even more than you were on the island. This is how you should look always. He is as you are, so do not think about him not wanting you. He will want you, Beyl'eth. You are very fine to look at. I have a third shape which neither of you have seen. It is a little closer to what you are in size. Before I sleep tonight, I will change it again. I wish to make it plain that I am what I am, and so I will do that, and also, I wish to be a little smaller, closer to the height of my friend, closer to the fine body that she has. I ask my friend for her help. You can guide me if you would, and after that, unless I have a need for the human shape, such as finding myself needing to be among them, he will not see that one again. I wish you to help me to look as you do, other than some things which I must keep as what I am. Help me to become what I wish, as much as it can be done, since I can change this shape. It is the newest one for me, and so it is still changeable. The others are not. They are what I was born as. It should tell you something about your charms if I wish for mine to be like them. Would you help me?" Beyl'eth looked at Yuan searchingly, "I think that I can understand that there are no others for you. In this, you are as I would be without the chance that we talk of -- and of course, we assume that he would want this, so it could turn into the very same thing for me. But while I can see how you MIGHT wish for what we speak of, I think that I can see that you really want this, and thinking of that, I remember now that you have not told me how it was with him, so I think that you have not said something else as well." Yuan sagged a little and looked a guiltily at Beyl'eth, "There is more, but I do not know how to say it. I do not wish to hide anything from you, but, ... Beyl'eth, of us two, I think that you know more of males than I. I have only had a few, and it was done so that they could not see me. You call me beautiful always, but you are the only one who has really seen anything much of me. He is the only male who has ever seen my body aside from the one who was as my father to me. I know now that I did not see him as he is, but I can say that he has a strange beauty which comes to me anyway. I can say that he was very kind to me and so gentle because I think that he knew that I needed that. I cried under him, Beyl'eth, I was so happy with him." She looked down, "I am sorry that I did not say it plainly. It likely means nothing and he will want you when he sees that he has the chance, but, ... I am sure that I love him. We could not speak to each other, but I knew it at the end. Can you see this in me? Does it change anything? I would be happy to be his, and I could share him with you easily. What I am, I think that I must be happy to take what I can find for myself." "I can feel it a little," the demon said, "but, ... "She pointed to the corner of the sleeping bag that Yuan held, "You worry that thing so much that I think you will wear it through soon. When I spoke of his sadness, your fingers almost flew in how you twist and turn it, so your feelings and your worry for him are plain. I have known and played with many males in happier times, Yuan, but I have never taken one because of what I am. A Rohn makes her choice once only. I have never had anything inside me but my fingers -- well, yours too, a little. So this is why you wish to become like a Tarkroth? To share a male with me and try for young with him?" Yuan nodded slowly, "Yes. And, ... there is more as well. I was sent here for a purpose, and I see that it was not known clearly by my mother, so I must search and seek to learn more. But I know that no matter what is found or done in all of it, I have found people who are like me in having some ability. But you have something which I lack and I grow to want it very much. You are a kind which has learned to stand together and lean on each other to be helped and to help in return. I think it is because of the place where you came from. I want this. I am all alone, and I do not wish to be. I seek to belong to someone and a place to belong to as well." If they hadn't been friends as close as they'd gotten since they'd met only a short time ago, Yuan would have said nothing about being with Billy. If they were only a pair of females here with not much between them, Yuan might have tried to do what she could to try for Billy all by herself -- dragons also being capable of selfishness. But Yuan was going for the bigger picture here. First and foremost, she'd help Beyl'eth in any way that she could. Second, their kind should have a chance to survive in her view. And thirdly, she wanted to smirk to herself, if it meant that she might have to share with her friend, she had no issues, as long as she got some. The way that she looked at it, their friendship was the main gift to her. She'd do anything for Beyl'eth even try to guide her without her knowledge if she could. She planned now to be here for a while, so if she found herself with young, she'd have a chance to keep her kind alive as well. She didn't know about the lifespans of these wild demons, but she was fairly confident that as a dragon, she had a long run left to find somebody. She wasn't about to ruin Bey'leth's chance at the last of her kind. Besides, as a human-looking male, he'd been sweet. She really wanted to lay eyes on what he looked like as the male version of her friend. She went back to their conversation. "That is why I want to be as you are -- as much as I am able to make myself as you are. Can I be accepted like that? Will you help me? Beyl'eth hugged Yuan and nodded against her head, "I would help you in anything, Yuan." Yuan smiled her thanks, "I made no joke when I spoke of sharing, though it will have to be seen if it can be." She reached out and moved Beyl'eth's hair back over her shoulder. "I have a practical need in mind for us both, Beyl'eth. Can I tell you?" The demon smiled and nodded, taken a little aback at Yuan's words. "There are only two mountain demons left," Yuan said. "It is my desire that they mate, and you must know why. But what then? If you made enough little ones between you, all that there is for them is another of their own family. It could work if each generation made enough young, and some left after a time, so that there are two groups for each one to choose a mate from, but it is not the best thing. Another possibility is if you and Ayt'han each mate with your own children, but that is even worse, for the confusion and other things which would come from it." She grinned then, "And I can even see that you do not like it, but wait, I only said it to show you another way. If you can accept me as a part of this clan and allow me to mate with him too, and if his seed takes in me as well as it will in you, then we have a better mix of the blood -- two lines, and what comes with that, and though each will be half his, it will be better for everyone. What do you think?" "I think," Beyl'eth smirked as she got up to refill Yuan's bowl for her, "That my luck improved that day when you and I met. I also think that these dragon girls are a low-down and sneaky lot, for the way that they act like a splinter, working ever inward toward what they wish for their selfish dragon hearts." She looked down, as though she could see right through the table and the sleeping bag which her friend was wrapped up in as she sat, "Or maybe it is not for their hearts so much." She plonked the bowl down in front of Yuan, "Eat," she laughed, "I wish for you to grow fat and ugly. Fine," she said, "I think that it might be able to be done. We will make a clan. For that, you and I will have to work together. This is not a place where one like you can take the weather as lightly as Ayt'han and I can. I have a sense that in only a little time, it will grow cold enough to make him and me happy. You would die without help, so it is more than my joke. If his seed takes in one or both of us, I think we will need to help each other more than ever, because we still will need to eat." Yuan nodded earnestly as she ate. "More," the demon smiled with a sigh, "I really liked it when we played, you and I. It reminded me of being a young girl again with no cares. To have found that with you was a wonder, and I want it still, even though we can now speak to each other." Yuan nodded as she worked to get a mouthful of soup down, "Agreed," she grinned, "I have never laughed so hard." "Good," Beyl'eth smiled, "because it will become very important, if you wish for success with him. Tarkroth mating is a strange mixture of things -- mostly because of where we have always lived. If you are in a warm place such as this with your mate, then it is full of play and laughter. If you are in a colder place, then it is done between two who love each other, and offer each other warmth and comfort, and there is much less play. But it is good too, because it binds you to each other. You become a pair of Tarkroth who are strong and endure the climate. It was the best kind of loving for my parents, my stepmother told me, my cousin as well. You speak in low whispers and words then into each other's ears, and all that matters is that you have that part of him in you. The storm fades then while your hearts fly. If where you are is colder still and miserable, it is much closer to just fucking then and trying to warm each other up a little. With the Tarkroth, the females are more forward because they need to be. I was surprised when I saw other kinds of female demons and how they are with males. If a Tarkroth girl was like that, she would never find a male for herself, and never be fucked well -- or even at all in the cold where we lived. We are more ... clear to show what we wish. It may be in the middle of a blizzard outside where one is when you see a male that you already like and know well enough to want him. Rather than standing there freezing as you try to think of what to say to each other, the female shows her consideration by taking what he has to hold it while they talk. It gets the pair past the awkwardness much more quickly and it shows that you care for the poor parts of him there in the screaming wind. It serves another purpose as well, though we girls never tell it to the boys. How are you to know if you like what he has if it has shrunken from the wind and hides in his fur? This way -- our way, you get to know in only minutes if it is what you would want. It is allowed and expected that the pair be against each other to share their warmth and not have to shout against the wind. He will allow you to warm your breasts against his chest for this, out of the same consideration. It will not happen, since there are no other males, but if there were and you do not like the one that you talk with, you only stand close, unless it is murderously cold and there is no shelter, and like that, nothing matters but that you are warm." "What about us?" Yuan asked, "How are we to talk like that?" Beyl'eth smirked, "We are close, Yuan. I hope that you will not mind then, but I will pull you right against me. It is arithmetic. Four tits are warmer than two." She laughed then, remembering something, "When I was eighteen, I remember one very cold morning when I wanted to go to the home of a friend. My brother had been out all night with a girl that he liked. There was heavy snow piled thickly over everything. I remembered wondering where all of the piles of rock had come from. I had never seen so many lumps in the snow before. Then one lump moved and it was my brother and his girlfriend. She still wore her band on her leg, but they had been rubbing together all night, and by the morning, they were frozen together. I laughed at them, and my noise woke up all of the other "rocks" then, all of them trying to pull apart before anyone else saw them like that. I laughed all the way to my friend's home. And at her home, I met her older brother for the first time, so I learned my own lesson the next week. When my stepmother came out to look for me, my boyfriend jumped up and ran away like a coward. I had a lot less of my fur for a time afterwards and my stepmother laughed at me. She knew where I was and what I was doing. She trusted me not to go further. The next night, my boy did want to go further and I told him no, because he was much too hairy for me. He asked about it and I reached over and tore out some of the fur between his legs as I walked away. It wasn't anything about his fur. It was about the stones that he didn't have." --------------------- "This is as far as I can go," Yuan said as they stood together looking at their reflections in the surface which she'd created for this. "I cannot make myself any smaller. Will it be enough?" They looked at each other, and there was only about an inch or so of height difference between them now. Beyl'eth nodded, "It will do, Yuan. The Rohn have always been a little small and the Ch'arnn a little large. I was among the tallest, but you are now in the right area for a Rohn." The trouble was, the witch thought, that her friend looked nothing like what she wished to be, she stood next to her as a smallish dragon girl. A quite lovely one, Beyl'eth thought, not being much of an authority on the subject of dragons, but that didn't matter to her. She didn't see how it was going to work for the rest of it. But over the next few minutes, Beyl'eth seemed to gasp in amazement frequently as one thing after another, one aspect or detail at a time, Yuan became more and more ... well, Tarkroth-ish. Her skin was the right shade, the darker parts, anyway, though it was scaled and a little plated here and there. Yuan tried, but that was as close as she could get to the smooth skin of her friend. Likewise, her neck was longer and her arms were at a lower height than was correct. The neck went in a smooth transition, widening as it reached her shoulders. Her tail was much thicker than Beyl'eth's but it had to be, Yuan said, or there would be serious balance issues in flight. As well, there were cross ribs to her wings to brace them, since she was still heavier, no matter what was done. She did manage to keep her ears though, and they were exactly as her friend's and they'd laughed about it as the witch reached to feel them for a moment. "Just perfect," had been Beyl'eth's pronouncement. Her snout was a little longer and her face did look quite a bit like the classical dragon face, but almost as compensation, Yuan had found a way -- after a lot of struggle where she looked quite insane and caused Beyl'eth to laugh until her tears came -- to make her eyes like the snow ghost that she was trying to become. She was very proud of them, though if needed, they'd become golden as before, since there were abilities which came to her then which she wished to retain. Her horns were the same downturned ones which Beyl'eth wore and try as she might, Yuan just couldn't lose the single row of short spikes which ran down the back of her neck, though the mop of the wild mane which grew on her head went a long way to hide them. Yuan sighed, wishing that she could have gotten closer, but Beyl'eth shook her head. "It is enough of an honor to me that you wish to become my tribeswoman as much as you are able. You are still so beautiful, Yuan. If I brought you to my Quarn like this, you would be mobbed by curious and hopeful males. We would make a fine pair of Rohn girls, and I would be proud to walk with you there, most especially as you are now. You would need me to keep their hopeful pricks at bay -- at least until you decided which ones that you were interested in, and you would need me then too, to sort out the best from among them for you." She chuckled with a little smirk as she ran her fingers over Yuan's bottom, "You should be proud of this. Rohn women have always had bottoms which could lock a male's eyes on them from one end of a Quarn to the other. I have made males fall down, and you have managed to keep yours and make it into a fine Rohn ass," she said with a laugh. She looked at her friend a little critically for a moment, "All that is missing are the winter colors now. Look at me carefully, Yuan. The patterns are important, as they speak of which tribe we are. You may decide how you wish to look, but the ones on me, from my face to my ass tell that I am nothing other than a proud Rohn. It does not matter anymore, I suppose, but if this is what you wish to be, then you should use mine to pattern yourself after. Ayt'han's say that he is a Ch'arnn -- for now." Yuan nodded and tried. She was very successful in matching what she saw on Beyl'eth as she went, turning her friend gently to see all of the patterns and how they ran on her body. "What did you mean when you said that Ayt'han's patterns were Ch'arnn for now?" she asked, "Can they change?" Beyl'eth nodded, "I think that -- if we are successful in what we plan with our poor unsuspecting one, then likely all of our patterns will change to another pattern which will say that we are a new clan -- which is what we strive to be. What is on our faces will stay. So yours must stay also." "Ah," Yuan said nodding in understanding. At last, she stood face to face with Beyl'eth and placed her hands on her hips as she looked into her face. Beyl'eth wanted to ask, but after a moment under Yuan's piercing gaze, she saw the reason for it as Yuan's facial patterns changed to match her own exactly. "Good enough to pass?" she smiled and Beyl'eth nodded grinning, "Oh yes! Any Tarkroth might look at you in wonder since you are still a little different in your lovely body, but that sweet face tells that you are a Rohn tribeswoman -- beyond any doubt." She looked for another moment and then she hugged Yuan to her tightly. "Good," the dragon girl said wearily, "because now I must rest. Changing oneself is never easy, other than from one shape to the next. Changing everything about me is hard work and I am still weak." A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 21 Betl'eth helped Yuan back to bed and after covering her, she asked, "When did you think to show this shape to him? I think that what we seek to do must be thought out well." "He will not see me then," Yuan said, "unless it is in the large shape. I leave it up to you, my friend to choose the time." ------------------------- The valley looked quiet and deserted as Yuan's large shape passed over it once before coming around in her approach. Beyl'eth hung on to her friend's long neck, perched as she was there on Yuan's back just where that neck met her body. The ride had been breathtaking, and that was saying something, since Beyl'eth was easily capable of flight herself. Yuan could reach speeds in level flight that Beyl'eth could only manage in a steep dive, and with her large wingspan, each beat of those long wings seemed to pull them forward. To the demon, it felt a little like being pushed from behind over and over as the great wings beat. The only problem lay in communication, since Yuan couldn't turn her head in flight to look back and speak with Beyl'eth. Her shape was so aerodynamically pure that turning her head would upset things quite a bit. The demon wondered why Yuan wasn't coming anywhere near a flare to land. Instead, she only levelled out at a fairly low height and looked at the ground for a moment before she began to climb again, out of the valley and gaining altitude in a hurry. Billy had broken down early that morning and decided that he was hungry enough now to hunt. So he'd gotten a bit of gear together, pulled on his clothes, picked up his rifle and headed off, looking for sign of deer in this area which was new to him. He knew that deer are creatures of habit, and like to make certain stops during their day. As the new kid on the block, Billy didn't know where those places were yet and he had no idea what the schedule was. The other thing that Billy didn't know was that about a half an hour after he'd gone, a grizzly, likely the only one for miles around who was very late in settling down to hibernate had walked up the valley, and decided that while he didn't know just exactly what had made the tracks in the snow, he was both curious and hungry enough to want to investigate, at least a little. That was how it was that Billy's thoughts of hunting up a deer had flown from his mind as he stared at the bear, who was nearing his slightly slow decision that while the thing on two legs in front of him didn't look all that appetizing, it would be a likely quick and easy kill and food was food. Billy wasn't all that worried, he was just at a slight loss as to how to handle this. He could likely take the animal bare-handed, but with some risk of injury, and most of all, he didn't want to risk any harm to his wings. The rifle in his hands was deadly to everything from gophers to humans and even elk, but Billy had read plenty of documented accounts where grizzly bears had charged over a hundred yards and attacked after having their hearts and lungs shot out. He didn't have thirty yards here to play with. But he had a full magazine; twenty rounds locked and loaded and the red dot was already sitting dead center on the mental 'X' that Billy had drawn from each eye to the opposite ear. He though that, while he didn't want the meat of the bear, that hide would make a nice warm thing to sleep in on a cold night. He was still reluctant. The way that he had it figured, if he fired now, he might be able to kill the thing, but once the bear moved, he'd likely not get a killing shot in and even though he was looking at a surly bear who would likely decide to kill him, Billy had no desire to have to track and kill a wounded bear, though he would to end its suffering. The rifle that he and Hank had gotten out of the lockup wasn't the usual CAR-15 type. I had been selected as 'Evade and Escape' equipment and as such, could fire in fully automatic mode. Billy hated that too in this scenario. He'd want that to stop the bear, but that action was kissing the hide goodbye. So the whole thing was unattractive to him. He spread his wings, ready to just leave. But a strange thing happened then. The Rohn female appeared a little in front of him and off to his left side after dropping out of the sky to stand with her hands out at her shoulder height and rising. The bear made up its mind then and began his charge -- at the female. Beyl'eth threw her arms down to her sides and the bear fell over from the sudden seismic shockwave which radiated out from in front of her. But bears are not known for their ability to reason and this one just got to its feet again and -- Billy had just enough time to admire the Rohn's pretty shanks as he began to run forward, noticing that his mother's band was now around the witch's leg. He threw his arm around Beyl'eth and was headed backwards, the CAR-15 up and firing in what bursts he could manage one-handed and it wasn't easy, since the muzzle would begin to climb after the first two shots. He knew that he was scoring hits, but he doubted that any of them would do much, so he was wasting ammunition and doing exactly what he hadn't wanted to do. He prepared to turn and fly off with the Rohn. Once he had some altitude he could warn her and she could fall free to spread her own wings. In the meantime, the witch was cursing and fuming at him. Before he could turn, He felt another impact through his feet and it was almost as though they were in a low tent. Yuan had landed over them and lowered her head toward the bear. A moment later and the bear was a smoking hulk lying on its back. From where he stood, Billy could see that there was a lot of the animal missing. "Put me down!" Beyl'eth shouted and Billy set her down on her feet. He opened his mouth, but she held up her hand. "Do not touch me," she said, "Never touch me!" She walked out from under the tent and he stared at her. He decided that she didn't know a few things here -- such as how close she'd come to getting blown away by accident or how fast a bear that size could really run if he wanted to. Then she was back, and looking as though she was trying really hard to control her temper while dealing with a dawdling child. "You have to move," she said, "She cannot take off if you stand there." He blinked at her, "Who? What are you talking about?" "Just come here," she said with rising impatience. He ducked a little lower and went to her. When he looked back, his jaw fell open. The beast lifted the sides of the tent and he saw that he'd been standing under and mostly surrounded by 'her'. The wings unfolded and 'she' was rising quickly. He turned to where the Rohn stood, but she was gone as well, climbing to join the large bird -- or whatever that had been. He watched them for a minute until they were out of sight before he checked his pack and changed magazines before he walked off. He'd need to go far now to even catch a sniff of anything to hunt, after all of the gunfire. He sighed to himself before he began to speak to no one in particular, doing a comical impersonation of the Rohn's voice. "You have to move. She cannot take off if you stand there." He switched back to his normal voice and spoke in English, "Well, she can fuck off and you with her," he said, "Oh, and Honey? Don't you worry yourself about me touching you again, just saying is all." He slung the rifle over his muscled shoulder and switched back to his mother tongue as he walked. "I wouldn't touch you if you were the last female on this world. I'd rather try to fuck a hornet's nest. It would likely hurt a lot less, and I wouldn't have to listen to your foul little mouth while you curse me out for doing something nice for you." He was coming to understand a little of what his mother had told him in the dream. But just because he understood it didn't mean that he had to be pleased. Even though he'd been here since he was just a boy, he knew a fair bit about the Rohn. Whatever else she had in the way of ability and witchery, he knew that she absolutely excelled at one thing. That girl could piss him off like nobody that he'd ever met in his life. ----------------------- "Why did you do that?" Yuan asked, as she worked at the evening meal, "I have thought about it. I do not think that he needed or wanted for us to be there. The only time that he looked worried was as I same around to land. He was just starting to run to pull you away then." Beyl'eth didn't answer for a moment, but then she looked up. "I was upset. He picked me up as though I was a child, and that weapon and its noise... I didn't think. I am a little upset now. Ayt'han is not like most Tarkroth males, but I see it now and hope that it is not too late to mend this. He grew up far from where he was born and does not have all of the culture. Only some." She looked down for a moment and toyed with her hair as she thought. "Also, I have grown used to being a little hard in my outlook. I think that it comes from being in a prison. One does not speak meekly there to anyone." She snorted quietly and it turned into a chuckle as she shook her head a little sadly. When she looked up, Yuan saw her smile, "Add my proud nature to all of it, and one may see that poor Ayt'han had no chance." ---------------- Later that evening, long after dark, Beyl'eth looked at Yuan and smiled, "You do not fool me, I know of how you can sleep and yet watch now. Keep my place warm. I go to send things to Ayt'han if I can -- that is, if he will accept anything from me at all." She saw the barest nod returned to her as she got up to go outside. The night was still and cold, the moonlight sparkling from the snow. It was the sort of night to make a Tarkroth girl feel good to be alive. She had some warm food in her, a place to live and her wonderful friend. All that was missing now was the male. She thought of him, remembering the shock of seeing him from the air during their hurried approach to help, thinking that he was in danger from the large creature. He looked so fine then, standing there as he did, his weight on one leg and his wings not quite ready to lift him from the scene. She wondered why she hadn't seen that at the time. Yuan was right, he wasn't afraid. She wondered why she'd been so upset to be picked up the way that he'd seized her. It hadn't been done as though she was a child. She was smaller than he was, that was all, and in other circumstances, she'd have liked that, though not the necessary roughness of it. He'd been trying to get her away from the danger that he'd seen her in. It was a natural reaction -- if a male such as he was cared. She smiled at the thought. She didn't know that it was so, but it was pleasant to hold in her mind. The smiled stayed on her lips as she walked along the ledge a little way. She thought about her circumstances here. Where she's been spawned, a girl such as she was, with the gifts that had been given her naturally, well, back there, a girl like her was a force of nature for the things that she could do. She didn't know if much of that applied in this place, since she didn't know or really understand the nature of the, ... well, of what nature was here, for lack of a better way to think of it. It suddenly came to her as a shock that what she'd done, throwing the shockwave at the animal has been a reflex, and one that she'd just assumed would work here. She hadn't thought about it. And if it hadn't worked, then she'd have been close to being in a spot herself, needing her wings to get away, and that thing had come at her a lot quicker than she'd have ever thought possible for something so large and slow-looking. She sank to a squat, reaching back to lift her mane for a moment and wrap her wings around herself before she rearranged her hair to give the best warmth. It was time to get acquainted with nature here. An hour later, Beyl'eth was smiling to herself a little. This world answered her thoughts almost as her home world had. Her light eyes flicked to a white hare which moved in a cautious series of slow hops across the snow. She wasn't aware of the lynx which tailed her cautiously. Beyl'eth knew it in her mind. She also knew that the hare was pregnant, though not very far along yet. A thought to the cat following her told her that he was quite successful for his kind, and was far from really hungry. There was a space of twenty yards or so between them. She watched as he began to close the gap easily. In another few seconds, he'd run her down and she'd be dying. Her thoughts sent a small and intense puff of wind across the surface of the stream which ran between Beyl'eth and the little hunting scene out there and it was enough to pick up a handful of the cold water -- which she flung into the face of the lynx. When it reached him, it was already freezing and he jumped almost straight up in shocked surprise and ran the other way, his hunt disturbed and abandoned for the night. The hare heard the commotion and froze into place, her ears seeking information and her nose sniffing. "Too much light for you to be out trying to fatten up, young mother-to-be," the Rohn witch whispered. Three minutes later, it was overcast and snowing a little in the small valley. Under the mane and the cover of the wings, Beyl'eth's hands worked to bring herself a little pleasure as she squatted, pleased that she could be a part of the nature of this place. It felt good to gain the sense of belonging that was offered. To the minds of the Tarkroth, there were spirits which must be met and joined with in every part of nature. It was their view, and it worked for them. Her lips opened a little as she sighed in happiness and pleasure. When she quivered a little a few moments later, she turned her heightened thoughts to the male that she knew lay out there, miles away. She sent him warm thoughts, knowing that he slept. If she knew him better, and it they were a pair who had been intimate and loved each other, she could have sent part of her spirit to him to leave soft kisses upon his handsome lips and make certain that he was warm and comfortable. But they weren't those things between them. She smiled anyway as she rose to stand and look out, her snow ghost's eyes surveying the landscape. She ran her hands over her haunches to get a little warmth into her cheeks from her warm hands as her wild mane fell over her backside. The act carried a couple of connotations, normally. If she were alone here, all alone, she wouldn't do it at all, since besides warming her bottom a little, she was applying her gentle scent to her cheeks. But if she had a male who loved her, or wanted to, and she knew that he was nearby, it signalled that it would be fine with her if he wanted to mate. Since there was only Yuan, Beyl'eth did it for herself, feeling a little sexy to do it, that was all. As Rohn went, she was a proud beauty and she knew it. But then she tempered her thoughts, knowing that they wouldn't do her the least bit of good. There were no other Rohn, other than the dragon girl who was now the only other hopeful member of their little tribe of two. Beyl'eth smiled anyway; thinking that even though they loved each other as close friends and as lovely was Yuan was as a female, she'd make a slightly odd-looking Rohn back home. A sweet, sexy thing who would attract many males back home without a doubt, just a little different-looking. But then there was no home, was there? This was home, and Beyl'eth was happy with her friend and what they were trying to build. In a place like this, you needed a tribe, and not ever having had the kind of closeness that one offered, Yuan sought to immerse herself in what it was to be a Rohn tribeswoman. A little funny considering that it was an endangered classification at present. Now all that they needed was their Ch'arnn male, and it would be the smallest, barest beginnings of a tribe and a clan. And if their wishes and hopes could only come to fruition, they might become the root and basis of any clan, a family, or at least a close group. She heard a quiet shuffle and when she turned, she saw Yuan come out onto the ledge. She looked a little farther than half asleep and she yawned for a moment, but she looked no more awake after it than she had the instant before it. "Is the world correct tonight?" she asked sleepily. "Correct?" Beyl'eth asked, "I don't know what you mean." "Is every little flake of snow in its proper place? You take so long and it is snowing a little. If it weren't for that, I 'd think that you must need to see about each star as well." The demon understood and grinned. She walked over and they walked down the corridor. "You got out of the warm bedding to ask me that?" Beyl'eth asked. "No," came the sleepy reply, "I had to pee and on the way back, I saw you." Beyl'eth smirked at the way that Yuan resembled a sleepy child more than a dragon or a Tarkroth. She waited until Yuan was lying down to situate herself and cover them. Yuan looked happy in her sleepy, rumpled way. Beyl'eth hugged her close and closed her eyes as Yuan fidgeted and moved her head, wanting the top edge of the sleeping bag just so, but not wanting to invest the energy to move it with anything other than her nose. Beyl'eth moved it for her and closed her eyes again. "Better now?" she asked, "Go to sleep, Yuan." The dragon sighed, "Ok." Beyl'leth opened her eyes and blinked, "What did you say?" "I said ok," Yuan sighed. "What does that mean?" Yuan pulled Bey'leth's head under her own chin so that she'd know that she didn't want to talk. She wanted to sleep. "It means, ... ok." A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 22 ***Things are pretty much the same here as they were on the world where the mountain clans once lived. To a witch such as Beyl'eth, it's important to know what works, what doesn't and what's different - because some things are REALLY different. Then again, some things are exactly the same - a loaf or bread, a jug of wine, and all that girl / boy stuff. You'd almost think that it would be complicated, but Beyl'eth's a bright and practical girl who tries to think of well, what's important. It's an ability which the strongest Rohn witches share. 0_o --------------- Book of the Dragon Part 7 The next day, he had his deer and though it wasn't his preference, he'd had to eat a little of it raw, since he'd gone without food for a time. He could live like that, but he wasn't nuts about it. As he walked up the valley, he saw her squatting in front of his home. She was looking at him. He looked down for a moment, "What now?" he wondered. He walked to the stream and after setting everything down, he washed his hands and took a drink, sipping the icy water slowly. He picked everything up again and walked up, passing right by her without looking to hang up the deer. He considered and thought that there was plenty of time left in the day, so he went to clean his rifle. He normally did this outside, he thought, but she was there. He shrugged, and sat down on the ledge and began to strip the weapon down, maybe twenty feet from her. After a few minutes, she came closer to him and squatted there. He did his best not to roll his eyes as he worked. "Why do you ignore me?" she asked. He actually managed to keep the smirk off his face. Besides, it was a long list. He didn't know where to begin. He didn't look up. "You told me not to touch you," he said as he laid the pieces down in an orderly fashion, "so I didn't and you left. I'm not very bright, but the way that I see it, if not touching you made you fly away yesterday, then maybe if I ignore you today, you'll leave even quicker." He watched his statement fly right past those pretty ears. She nodded absently after a time as she watched what he did intently. She showed no sign of taking insult at all. She sat for a time after that, "What are you doing?" He sighed, "I'm cleaning this since I fired it yesterday and today. If I don't clean it, it'll jam when I need it, so I clean it after every use." "Did you clean it yesterday?" she asked, as though she was checking into his policy. "No," he replied as he worked. "You said that you clean it after every use, yet you did not yesterday," she said, "I have never seen something such as this, and I wish to know." She looked from the weapon to his face for a moment and then she nodded, "You did not clean it yesterday because I angered you." He stopped cleaning the part that he was working on to look at her, "Now where would you get such an absurd idea?" He chuckled as he shook his head, "That's-" "I can see it in your face," she said with a shrug. He looked down and began cleaning again, "I was a little angry, yes." She decided not to tell him that he wouldn't show it this much if he'd only been a little angry. To Beyl'eth -- when she took the time to think about it -- there was knowing that one was right, and there is being stupid about it and forcing the issue. She held her tongue. "I spent a lot of time walking for nothing. I wasted ammunition -- enough for as many as twenty hunts, and after the noise and commotion, there was nothing to hunt for a long way around," he said. If Beyl'eth had wanted to win an argument, she'd have been pleased to point out that she hadn't asked him to do anything, so the choice to do what he'd done had been his. But it wouldn't get her anything, so she was still. "Why not search by flying?" she asked after a minute. "I do," he nodded as he worked, "but where we stood was the largest clearing in that area. Most of it is heavy woods. The animal that I sought -- what you have been eating, does not see terribly well. It knows this and it listens and senses very carefully. It often stays where the forest is thickest and moves from tree to tree, almost always in cover. You can look until your eyes fall out, flying over the same ground seeing nothing, while they see the shadow above and wonder who the fool is." She nodded and guessed that it was so. "Why do you need that?" she asked, "You are strong and healthy. You can hunt without that." "Yes I can," he said, "and thank you. One day, I'll run out of ammunition for it, and then I'll have to hunt the hard way. I don't need it. But I would rather have it, since then I can hunt and lose only a little of the meat, and the rest, I can gut and clean up a little and then I can even carry it here by putting it on my shoulders. It gets here still clean, not dragged through the dirt and in one piece as you saw. I like that better than having to carry all of the bloody pieces because I killed it the messy way. I only have so many bullets for it, and I wasted twenty for nothing yesterday. I thought that it might be fun to see if I could hit a bear while shooting with one hand and carrying a squirming Rohn in the other while running backwards as she howls at me. I don't have enough hardships in my life. I live for a little challenge." "We tried to save you," she said quietly. He looked over, "Thank you again, but I didn't need saving. I could have just taken off. That's what I was about to do, but you landed almost in front of this. I almost shot you." He worked in silence for a minute and then he looked at her. "Look, I appreciate what you thought that you were doing for me. Thank you for that. But this is not where we are from, and the animals are not the same. That large animal yesterday looks something like one back home, but it moves a lot faster when it wants to. It's also more belligerent than even you are. That's why I grabbed you -- before you lost the argument. I know that you are a witch, but you don't know this place well yet. I am sorry if I angered you. It seems to be a gift that I have." He held his tongue for a moment then, wondering why he'd said that last part. He sure hadn't meant to. "I came to say that I am sorry for my words and how I acted," she said. He nodded, "Thank you again, but you came a long way just for that." She sighed to herself quietly, seeing that he knew that there had to be more. It proved that he wasn't exactly in awe of her and she didn't like that. While there had been many of them, she was used to turning males into blubbering idiots with a dismissive glance or a snide remark. She supposed that she ought to be a little pleased that he was different. There was also the maddening ability that he had to distract her. Like all of the other ones it seemed, he was completely unaware of its effect. That part annoyed her - that he could bind her without knowing how he did it exactly, and hadn't spent a long time learning it - he just did it. He'd thrown her to the floor and held her down and where she'd have normally managed to do something distracting herself - such as set his hair on fire with a thought, she'd been stuck looking at his hand - and liking to look at his hand! Then again, she thought, he was likable and she supposed that she had make some allowances if he'd grown up far from the culture of the mountain people, but it left her on uneven ground herself, and that was disarming her, knowing that she could insult him in subtle ways and he'd never know it, or worse, she could play it dangerously and he would be deeply insulted, and she was still living in the aftermath of that. She decided to leave her bitch side at home and play this honestly. Who knows? It just might work. Besides, she thought, if he was who she thought he was, then he was worth a lot to a couple of females who were every bit as lost as he was. "I also came because I wish to speak with you," she said, "We tried to see you yesterday, but you were gone. Yuan saw the tracks of the animal with yours, and she did not know who was the one following." He stopped cleaning and looked at her, "Yuan? I didn't see her." The witch grinned a little then, "You were standing under her. She has other shapes. That was the largest one." He looked at her a little blankly for a moment before he nodded. "It is good to know that she has recovered then. I was certain that she'd die. Before I forget, please thank her for what she did as well. It is not your fault, really, either of you. And there was no real harm done, other than the waste of the bullets." "How many do you have?" she asked. "I started out with four hundred," he said, "Twenty mags of twenty each. "I've used twenty eight rounds in two and a half months -- twenty in a single day." He smirked, "I am not always as extravagant as I was yesterday, but I was frightened." She shook her head, "You were not frightened, but maybe you were for me. I was being foolish and proud. It is a failing of mine. I am also here to ask for forgiveness for the insult to you. A king of the Tarkroth, and I caused you insult and pain. I am sorry." She bowed low and stayed that way, waiting for either his forgiveness or the words which would send her away. He appeared not to notice, and he applied a little gun oil to a swab and ran it through the barrel with the cleaning rod a few times. "How long are you going to stay like that?" he asked after a minute. "I will leave if you tell me that I must," she said, "Other than that, I wait for your forgiveness, my King." He looked a little annoyed. "Sit up," he said, "All that you are doing is getting your hair dirty for nothing. I am not your king. Your king is dead along with your queen and everyone else. I had a dream. In it, I saw my mother. She told me what happened. I grew up here, but I am enough of a Tarkroth to know that it was her, speaking to me from her death. My family is dead, as I should have been, long ago." He wiped the pieces of the weapon briskly and she was amazed and how quickly he assembled the strange thing. He set it down and rose to stand, looking out over the valley with fierce eyes as he walked to the ledge. "All of them dead, murdered by fat and sweating lowlanders," he growled. "How many? Six, maybe eight thousand at most?" He picked up a rock which had rolled away from the small firepit. He hefted it, "And for what? Why did the people need to die? Because some sweating pig told another one that with us gone, there would be no winter and the summer would be a little cooler. They killed a people for a foolish hope!" He roared in useless rage and sorrow as he hurled the stone. It sailed from his hand and gained speed instead of losing it, rocketing across the valley in a straight line and not in the arc of a normal trajectory. When it struck the mountain face on the opposite side a quarter of a mile away, it shattered and the sound of that was like a howitzer for the loud and sharp crack which came to their ears a second later. "The lowlanders have their wish," she said quietly, "I was kept in one of their prisons for six winters. In that time, the summer grew cooler and they were pleased. But I saw that the snows stay on the ground longer every year, and less and less melts away. Soon, nothing will grow and they will curse the cold as they once cursed us. You may say what you will," Beyl'eth said respectfully, "You are Ch'arnn by more than your markings, but no Ch'arnn could do what you have just done. You have high Ch'arnn blood, and your mother was mighty among the Rohn. That blood you have as well." "How do you know what blood I have?" he asked, "Or that my mother was Rohn?" "What sort of Tarkroth do you think that you speak with?" she asked as a gentle reminder, "You knew me well enough to know to hold me in a binding as soon as you had a clear look at my face. Have you forgotten since? A Rohn could make the rock fly, but not as you did from your hand, pushing afterward to send it in your anger. A Ch'arnn could throw the rock fast and hard, but not that far and not hard enough to do that." She nodded, "You are a king." "No," she heard him say as she looked at his back. He stood still looking away as he spoke quietly and her eyes took in the muscles that even his long mane could not hide completely, and she was thankful that it could not hide his tail and where it was attached. "A king is a king when there are some to rule. With a pack, one might emerge to become the leader. With a few packs, and among a few leaders, a clan may be formed. When there are many clans, a king might rise after a time. I was told that there are less than a handful here somewhere. If that is so, then I will seek to find the others. When I have done that, I will bring them here and someone else may be king." "The small handful are all here," she said, "One Ch'arnn king who looks too low when he thinks of himself, and two Rohn." He spun and looked at her, "Two?" Beyl'eth nodded, "Three Tarkroth. Less than a handful. Yuan has the gift to learn speech now, from the fever and her goddess, she told me. She has changed herself to be as close to us as she can be, seeking the comfort of belonging to a clan. She knows the speech of the Rohn. She seeks to learn all that she can. She wears the marks of the Rohn, and she has the love and thankfulness of her clan lord, and that is me, by right of my birth. You are the leader of the Ch'arnn by the same right, though you are the last. It changes nothing, because the chieftain of the Rohn sees her king and accepts him, as was always done. Just as the king looks too low, the Rohn lord looks a little too high. I am too proud for my own good. But where the king goes, the Rohn will follow. It is the old way, Lord Ayt'han." "Ayt'han am I?" he smiled as he looked back at her with a raised eyebrow, a little surprised that she knew his name. Her beauty hit him full force and he wondered for a moment if she was doing that somehow. He rather doubted it for the moment. The way that she was here carried little of the sultry or at times haughty mannerisms which the Rohn females were famous for. Then again, he smirked to himself, he'd only ever seen a few when he was a boy. He'd met one close up as he'd traveled with his mother to the Quarn of the Rohn once. She was a little stick thing with a bad temper and his brother had teased her all day, trying to make her explode. He smiled then, remembering that she had, too, sending a blast of icicles into Laish's face, making him cry and run to hide behind their smiling mother. The little girl stood there glaring hotly then, but he'd seen her single tear and walked over to say that he was sorry for what his brother had done. She'd smiled at him instantly and they'd gone outside to play in the snow a minute later, the trouble forgotten. When it was time to leave for the evening, she'd kissed him and he'd floated on that for days -- especially since Laish had seen it. This one looked to be trying to act as what she purported to be, a clan lord, and more than that, she was trying to give him counsel. He liked her for it, though he still didn't agree with her. He got to one knee beside her. "Firstly" he said as he laid his hand on her slender shoulder, careful in case she didn't allow it, "That you speak as though you would advise me gives me comfort. I have been here feeling as though I am hounded by my present, my past and the doings of others on a world where I can never go again. If I could, I would go back and leave it a smoking ruin, as was done to the Quarns of our people. But that would be the wrong thing, and my own death if it were possible to go back, and you seem to think that I am needed by my present. Secondly, I will tell you what you already know." He smiled and nodded, "Try not to laugh, but you are a fine beauty who makes me feel pride myself again in what we are. To my eyes, it looks best when carried with pride. It suits you as a Tarkroth and even more, it suits a clan lord of the Rohn, if two may be called a clan. But this assumes that I choose to lead anyone more than just myself and it may be that I wish not to lead even me. Perhaps, since there are so few of us, the leader ought perhaps to be you, chieftain. I have difficulty leading myself to a place to drink, and anyway, you seem to be wise." "Wise?" Beyl'eth snorted, "You have just said quite correctly that this is not where we are from. Also, you are correct in that I was likely about to learn of my foolishness as it regards the creatures here. I am not wise." "I think that you are," he said as he stood up, "You tell me much in subtle ways; that Yuan is well again without saying it unless I ask it, that you are holding the Rohn which are here to a tribal structure -- when there are only two in the first place. Your words speak of the old ways and it says to me that you would keep to them, though there is no need anymore." "There is a need, "she said, "The ways have carried our kind from the time of the beginning." She looked around, "If this is not another beginning in a different place, then it is only the final cruel ending to our people. We have always been proud, all of the tribes. Why can we not be proud and live here?" "There is nothing against being proud, Rohn," he smiled, "Your kind makes much of their pride and much of it is deserved, but even I know that not all Rohn girls are sweet-looking and mighty in their magic as well. I remember hearing it said that often it is one or the other." He looked at her with a small smirk when he saw that she felt a barb in his words which was not there, so he finished the thought, "Indeed, there was one family of them who were famous enough that even a small Ch'arnn boy had heard of them, having lived with one of their finest - since she spawned him. That boy even saw for himself how a small one of their witches -- and far, far too soon for it, showed him what she might be one day -- after she was finished being a little stick girl with a terrible temper." He laughed, "By your face there, I can see that as mighty as you might have become, and as beautiful as you are, doing your clan prouder and your famous your kinswoman as well, your temper has survived intact. I tease carefully," he smiled, "and before you act rashly, I remind you that I am your kin." Beyl'eth smiled then seeing what he'd meant to say, "I had forgotten. It pleases me that you remember me. "She got to her feet and she faced him, bowing low. "But while we are kin -- a little way off, you are also my king. You are the Ch'arnn, and they have ruled always. If you can favor me a little, then I wish not to hear your argument against it, for you will never change my thoughts." She sighed, "Then again, I tie my own hands here. If I say that you are king and you choose to always remind me that you are not, by your thoughts -- " "Then we will starve and Yuan will be the last," he said. "But no matter what is decided, I wish to know how you came by my mother's band there, and before that, I must know how you came to be here." "A bargain then," she grinned a little hopefully. "I will tell it if you will say how you came here as well, and all that has happened since." When she saw him nod in agreement, Beyl'eth was pleased, taking it as a sign that they'd at least gotten past the very strong feeling that she had at the outset of this, where he'd looked so very much as though he'd have been more than happy if she'd gotten all of his hints and gone away. She took it as progress in a way. A few days ago, he'd quite obviously been considering just killing her in rage. The day before, the last look that she'd had of his face as she'd looked back once told her that he was still past being annoyed, but didn't want to kill her, since to him, it would have been a waste of his effort and time. Now, she'd gotten them to where they could smile, and she even remembered the young Ch'arnn prince all that time ago. A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 22 All of the girls of her Quarn spoke of him a little dreamily and told of their wish to have him as their male one day. It was the talk of young girls who knew little, other than he was about as good-looking as a young demon could be at almost seven. None of them knew anything more than that, and the all-important detail that he would be king one day. If it hadn't been for that they'd have seen in one look that he was Ch'arnn and wouldn't have looked twice. They were all dead now, Betl'eth reminded herself a little sadly. Still, she'd always been the sort of girl who never blurted things out as the others did while they'd chattered together. At the same time, she'd already learned that it was important for a young girl growing up in her family to be gracious, since she was the daughter of their chieftain. She remembered listening and smiling along the next day as they all made so much over seeing him when he'd come outside. They'd wanted to mob him then, since he was a prince, after all, but the ring of guards had prevented it while he played in the snow like any boy his age would. There had been nothing remarkable about it ... Well, other than the fact that she was the one who he'd been playing with as they'd chased each other around and laughed. She'd never mentioned it to the other girls, being gracious as she'd been instructed to be in all things. She knew that it was more important at that moment to forget who it was that the queen had come to see -- her father, over some business which concerned lofty and boring things to little girl demons. So she'd never told a single one of them that she'd kissed him, either. As she remembered it, it hadn't been that big a thing. He'd been about to leave, and they'd decided that they liked each other at almost seven and four and a half -- as much as that was possible. There hadn't been any starry-eyed nonsense to it. Their mothers had stood by and told them that the queen and her boys had to leave and that they should say goodbye to each other and they did. But little Beyl'eth wanted to show him that she did like the fun that they'd had playing and she was thankful at how he'd wanted her to feel better, so she hugged him only long enough to kiss him and smile for a moment. It seemed to please their parents and best of all, it had clearly angered his brother. She'd forgotten all about it until her stepmother had come to tell her good night. After her hugs and kisses, she'd asked if it had felt special to have kissed a future king. Beyl'eth had blinked and shrugged, saying no, which seemed to make her stepmother chuckle a little. She wanted to sigh as the memory passed, but she didn't. It had just been an hour or so of playing with someone that they each liked, and they'd never seen each other again, because he'd disappeared along with his brother not long afterward. Beyl'eth had been as upset as anyone -- perhaps more because she'd known him and liked him. But now she was where he'd been all of that time, and they were the last. She really hoped that they could find ways to get along, because it was fairly clear to her that if the last Tarkroth were going to go on, they'd have to have some sort of relationship between them. Still, on balance, Beyl'eth was pleased. She was so pleased in fact, that it began to snow out there in the valley behind him. As long as he seemed to be willing to humor her, she bowed her head a little and spoke in the proper way of their kind for a pair who had met at least once and allowed for their positions. "Beyl'eth of the Rohn remembers the Ch'arnn Ayt'han." To her surprise, he bowed low in the proper way, "I am pleased to welcome Beyl'eth to my poor home," he smiled. She stepped forward with a smile, "There is much to say between us. We may wave our hands in the air and bow all that we like, we are still only three." She looked up at him, "With that said, I must say that I know that you did not grow up among the people." "I did not grow up among any people," he shrugged. "Then I shall make allowances for it if something goes amiss or unspoken, but I think that you would know that we are the same kind, and no matter what the lowlanders say, we are not animals. I may be a chieftain, and you are as well, and all of the other niceties that we can pile onto everything, but I am your kinswoman and it is winter," she pointed behind him. When he turned to look, he was a little surprised. When he turned back, he was a little more surprised to find her very close to him. She slid her arms around his waist while there was still an inch or two between them and he saw her breasts as they peeked out her long hair as if to tease him. "And I wish to say that in the matter of the survival of our kind, it would not matter so much anymore in this place if we shared a mother or a father between us. We are not that close, but we are kin, however. Your honored mother was cousin to my father. We are very much Rohn between us." He looked into her very light gray eyes and he even knew that she was pouring on the ability of her kind to charm and bewitch him. She didn't really need it, he thought, feeling the draw of those eyes and that face. "No matter what we are between us," she smiled a little as she tilted her head a bit to look up, "I am here as a guest, and I seek the warmth of you. It is the custom that you offer it and your protection, since I am a female who seeks it from you." He raised his arms and pulled the Rohn to him gently as his wings moved forward to encircle her. She sighed as she hugged him, her cheek against his, "So good to feel you against me, my King." "I had the thought," he said, "that you know all of what needs knowing of our kind, far more than I. You ought to lead as queen of whatever we become. I would follow you." He heard the soft chuckle and then saw her face as she drew it back to smile at him, and the enchantment was well on the way to completion. "Then I will use what I know always," she nodded just a little, "and that is why, "she smiled as her right hand drifted from his waist in a long and slow caress as it ran lightly over his hard belly on its way down, "I will say that, between us, it is needed that you be king." Her fingers found his scrotum and curled gently underneath it so that she held it just enough to lift it very slightly as her thumb came to rest on the top of his hardening shaft. "Think a moment -- if you can, Ayt'han, for there is wisdom here. I am not making all of these noises to please the sense of importance that you do not have. You are blessed in many ways and I like the way that you do not carry the swelled head of many of the Ch'arnn. I have enough stupid pride in me for all three of us. Think here before you say that I should rule. I am the Rohn. Do you really wish to be ruled by a witch? There is a reason why the Rohn accept the rule of the Ch'arnn for the betterment of all. You would be as a slave to me -- even though that is something which I would never want. I could not help myself and there is much to be decided with clear heads. Please," she smiled, "allow me this. I will not make so many silly sounds over it and I will not bow every minute. Just accept that you are to lead, and the Rohn will be happy to follow in anything. It makes matters simpler, and all that I ask is that I can advise you. We cannot be a nation with a king and clans. We must be simpler -- for what is really important is that we go on and survive here. Allow me this as well," she sighed, as she kissed his lips softly. He groaned after a second and Beyl'eth's heart flew in thanks to whatever spirits were listening as her own soft groan escaped her. After a few minutes, they looked at each other and she thanked him with the barest chuckle, "There is no measure for me to use to tell of how I have needed that -- and this," she smiled nodding a little at how they were there, "I had such fears that you would hate me, thinking that I must have stolen something of Narreth's, and I did not." "Beyl'eth," he said thoughtfully, "what is the first part? It seemed to me that so many girls that I met had her name." "Beyllix Narreth, I am," she smiled a little softly. His eyebrows rose and his mouth opened slowly in awe. "My father said to me that your spawning caused a wave of girl-children, more than usual for when a future king is spawned, and it was because of your honored mother. Narreth took much time to travel and know all of the clans and their lords, so many of the people saw her. She was loved, Ayt'han, as no other was before her. My father said that I was among the last of the wave, and when he took me as a babe to be named at the Quarn of the king, he went to make the marks in the book to register my name and found that almost three hundred girls carried the name of the queen and she met most, if not all of the fathers and the babes over the time, if she was there and not traveling. She blessed me several times," Beyl'eth nodded, "but only twice that I can remember. Once when she came to visit her cousin, my father, and it was when you and I met." She looked down a little and her gaze became more inward in thought, "The last time was after our fall. I was there as a prisoner to search for something of hers, and you know why it was wanted. She came to me there and gave me her band in death, asking me to hide it, so I replaced my own with hers." She looked up and her eyes blazed fiercely for a moment, "I have always lived to my name," she said, "I always will. Another reason why I hold you as my king. It is important to me." Her face softened then, and she sighed as she ran her fingers over his collarbone, "I wish to renew our young friendship if nothing else passes between us. If you think a little, you would see that the little girl made her friend that day and I always bothered my father afterward, asking when we would go to the Ch'arnn to visit. I have always been willful and headstrong, but I think that I learned another way that day from you. I think that our friendship is needed, and I know why, but Ayt'han, if we are to go on as a people, then we will have to mate, you and I." She smiled as she moved herself a little and she moved her hand to change her grip so that she held the hard heat of him and arranged the two of them so that if she went to her toes a little, she could rub herself on it with it between her thighs at a downward angle. She looked down at his chest as she thrust against him gently. Ayt'han saw that her eyes were closed and her lips were open a little. She looked up after a few moments, "I must tell you many things, because you did not learn all there is that a Tarkroth learns in the mountains, and you must teach me about this place. I know what must be for us. It is a simple thing, but I have a heart. I am as any female, so I have a want for a male -- and I have a hope that, though we will need to mate so that the people may go on, I want there to be love between us." She watched his handsome face and knew that she was pleasuring him. She felt more than a little joy at the way that, if she moved herself just so -- and not every time -- his eyes would close. She couldn't sigh into his ear like this for the position, but she pulled his head to her a little and she kissed him softly for several minutes. Unseen by the pair, a thin mist appeared over the old leather band on her leg, and in a second, the ghost Narreth stood there, a few feet away, smiling softly. She placed the thought into her fine son that in spite of the events of the past, he was now so very fortunate. A beautiful Rohn witch would have many suitors, perhaps an almost unending stream to choose from -- if she was in the mood to even look. Before one like her would show her seemingly slight interest in any one, she might just as easily decide on five, and there would be fights between them, horrible, bloody fights, since they would all be strong Ch'arnn. Oh, a prince who appeared among them could be shown respect as was deserved, but in her own case, Ayt'han's father had eleven others in the field who all wanted Narreth for their own. She knew that she wanted the mighty prince from long before, but there were still the tests, and so she'd made besting them -- with no killing -- one of hers. A future king needed to show much wisdom and skill and not only brute strength to pass this one of her tests. It said a lot of him that he'd not only bested them, he'd forged some friendships at the same time. "Remember, my sweet beyllix -- heart of my own -- that there is another in this. Do not forget that one." It came into Beyl'eth's mind as a spoken thought and she looked, her eyes opening in wonder for a second before his kisses against her throat caused her to groan and close them again. "I go now to learn what I can of that one. This must be managed with care," the ghost said, "and the greatest amount of that care lies in the knowing of when to only watch." She walked to the edge of the ledge and looked to her right, far up the valley. As she walked, the lighter parts of her disappeared, until only the dark lines remained, but they were fading slowly as well. The heavy clouds to the north became a continuous mass and she saw what she'd wanted as it came to her. There was a sudden roaring from the wind of it, and the scenery of the little valley vanished in the pounding of the hard wind and the stinging snow that it carried. Nothing was visible beyond the ledge where she stood. Only Beyl'eth saw her looking back with a warm and yet enigmatic smile before she walked into the fierce teeth of the sudden storm and was gone from sight in a second. The pair stopped then and stared at the storm for a few moments standing side by side with Beyl'eth a little ahead. "I've read about the winter storms here," he said, "but it didn't prepare me for this." She stepped back a little to be against him, still off to the side and she reached for his hand to place it on her own haunch. "We are so few here," she said, "and there are no other males. Even so, there is a sense of, ... possession to us. If there were others here, you would do this to show that I am yours, and I would feel more of my foolish pride to feel your hand there. Consider what I am. Only the one may do that and live. "Am I the one?" he asked, still surprised a little. She looked back over her shoulder and a little upward at his face. He felt it hit his chest to see such loveliness in her little smile, "No, but you will be soon, and it matters not anyway. We must pair. But I try to make you see that my heart wishes for you to love me." "What of the test, then?" he asked, "I have not seen many, and none but you since I grew up, Beyl'eth, but you are the loveliest witch that were ever was, surely. Will you not set a test?" He saw her consider in an impish fashion for a moment, but then she reached for his shaft with her other hand and held it against her hip, caressing it softly, "It is not in question, Ayt'han. If this were the Quarn of the Rohn and you came to seek for my heart there, I would not be trying to think of a test that would suit my future king. I would be worrying my brain and my hair into a knot wanting to find a test which would seem proper for such a one, while wanting to make it easy at the same time -- one fit to show that you have what it takes to be king because you would pass it where no others could." She squeezed the hardness against her for a moment, thrilling to see how it caused him to close his eyes and groan very quietly. "I know that if the fall had not come to us, you would have come into your own just as you are, a fine and strong male for me, and you would have sought me then anyway. You would have reminded me in your gentle way of our young meeting as children, and it would have been enough for me to see your thoughtful eyes. You need no test, Ch'arnn. That we two still live is proof that we have both passed our tests." She moved her thumb over the drooling end of him for a moment and took her hand away to suck it for a second with a smile. Wetting the thumb with a slow lick, she held his maleness once more and rubbed her thumb again softly. "Besides," she smirked in the sweetest way, "I once passed a group of four males in my Quarn. Two of them were Ch'arnn. I guess they must have asked of me, wondering what sort of test that one like me would set. I overheard the answer as I was walking away. One of the Rohn boys told the Ch'arnn that it would surely be impossible, whatever it was, and that was only the start. "She is the daughter of the chieftain," the one said, "And to pass her test is only the beginning of the start. To take that one and keep her is to live your life in the test. Every day would be the test." She looked back at him with a chuckle, "I showed that I had heard it with a laugh over my shoulder, "Do not forget about the nights, "I called back sweetly and walked on. Such foolishness, it seems to me now. Living here will be all the test that we all need. To survive it, we three will need to seek ways to make things easier between us, and not harder." She held his hand against her haunch and taught him the gentle movements that she wished for him to know that she liked. "You will need to suffer my own soft caresses, and learn what I try to tell you in each one -- what I am thinking, how I am feeling, and if I wish for more than the touch then. "This makes me feel good," Beyl'eth smiled and nodded at the storm, "Good to be alive and with another. I did not come with empty hands," she smiled. "I found some of your potatoes, and I have made something for you. It warms by your fire." She turned then and amazed him again as she raised one leg high to hold it around him. He stared at her in surprise, but she only smiled, reaching to lift his manhood for him with one hand and sliding her other hand around his thick neck. With little apparent effort, she pulled herself up on him, causing him to have to step forward one step to accommodate her slight weight, and in an instant, she wrapped herself around him and began to move so that she stroked him as she rubbed herself against him. Beyl'eth looked at his shocked face and laughed a little, "I know little, but I can see that there were no hopeful females where you were." She sighed as he brought his hands up to help her. "Ahh," she smiled, her happiness plain in her face, "I have such gifts for you, Ch'arnn." He looked at her and he couldn't help himself. That sweet face and her tiny little grin, even as she humped against him. He'd never imagined anything like Beyl'eth as she was now. He could have sworn what he felt coming to him was from her heart, and it made him smile -- really smile, with nothing held back in caution or out of the wariness which had ridden in him for so many years. She pulled their heads together and after a warm and wet kiss, she hugged him as she worked a little faster, "The love of a Rohn is a hungry thing," she sighed into his ear, "It is a need, once begun with the one we choose. We place a need into that one, and our own grows as well. It is the secret of the Rohn and the Ch'arnn when they pair. Narreth would have taught you of this, but you were lost to her." She pulled her head back as she went faster for them both, and still a little giggle escaped her as she looked at that fine face. "So the teaching falls to me," she chuckled, "but I will do it with more than a mother's soft and quiet words. I am the Rohn, and you will give to me all that you have when we are together and loving, and I will take it and want ever more. It is what we are. You are the one, Ayt'han," she smiled, "If there were hundreds of males here, you would still be the one. I make my choice now as I would have then -- with a look at the spirit that I see in your eyes, right here, right now. I see all that I need to know for my heart there. A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 22 Only say that I am yours and I will tell you who you are to me, fine male, and you will hear words that no other will ever hear. This is for us here, this night," she smiled, "but there is another Rohn for you as well and she will need you and I will allow it. Yuan lay with you and she has said to me that she felt love for you. Between Rohn girls, this would mean death to one for certain, but not here and not her. I ask you to use your mind, Ayt'han. This home that you have is not as good as the other. That one is where we should make our Quarn together, you, me, and lovely Yuan." He looked confused then, "I thought that you --" She shook her head, "No. We only are friends like neither of us has ever had and we are not shy about our need and there was no male for us, though she can be like one. Sometimes there are kisses and caresses as we help each other, but that is all. The touch of another is always better than one's own." She smiled, "Always there is laughter. Yuan and I are close and we both need to be bred by you when the time is right and the Quarn stands with a small clan inside it. If your seed takes in her as well, we rebuild faster, and two lines come of it. We have spoken of it, Ayt'han." She chuckled, "We have talked of it in wishes to each other, laughing as we always do. We have dreamed of it, wanting three in our rumpled bed." "Perhaps that will be my test," he smiled, and they laughed together. "Oh, perhaps," Beyl'eth grinned. She hissed in pleasure and he watched the way that she began to whip her backbone so that at the end of each stroke, her lower lips rode along the length of him. They'd become very slick where they touched there and Beyl'eth used this to their advantage. "We have agreed to share, since we both feel for you inside ourselves. We are likely the only ones who could, for if she were any more of what she wished to be, I would kill her for the thought, but it is Yuan, and I love her for her kind heart and our friendship." She slowed then, and looked at him searchingly. "You can have both, each with the blessing of the other, Ayt'han, the full knowledge and blessing. Tell it to me that you felt the start of love with her, and then tell me if it is truth that you can feel it for me." She stopped then and looked into his eyes, "I use no spell and cast nothing here. Your words are your own. Tell me, and I wear the band on my neck for you always. This is the only temptation that I hold up to you. Tell me, and if you have need, I will always please you somehow and in some way, even if we fight, for it is the way back from fighting. Tell me, and you have a double family and the people begin again." She placed one hand on his heart. "Tell me. If you have want, only tell me." Billy the lost demon had wonders to consider. For days -- whenever he managed to lift himself from his own dark thoughts, he'd felt amazed at everything, ever since they'd appeared in his wilderness. He didn't even know how it was that he remembered how to speak to the Rohn -- and he sure didn't know where his next words came from, either. He knew how he felt, and they were on his tongue. "I want my Rohn," he said with a grinning growl. "I want what is mine to have if you offer it always. I want to feel hearts beating against mine. I want ... a family." He nodded, "I want Bey'leth and I want Yuan. I want what is mine, and I keep what is mine." "For always?" she asked, raising one eyebrow with her little grin, "Both females for always in this way?" Beyl'eth had her answer even before he'd drawn the breath for it, because, ... He didn't even blink. "Always," he smiled softly and her heart flew. "We are yours, Lord Ayt'han," she said with a determined nod as she began again. "You will need to tell her that you claim her, though she already hopes for it. I am your Rohn witch, and I claim you as mine. Now," she laughed a little dangerously, "the choice has been made by us both. See what a high Rohn witch will do for her male and for no other." She began again with a vengeance. By the third stroke, he was as hard as stone, but so very warm to her against her like this. By the twelfth, she lifted herself and reached to move him. It had taken that long to get past her own trepidation. But she knew that she was his now and that this had to be. He stared as he felt her lighten while she did this, floating a little in some way. With the end of him against her lips, she eased him into place and looked at her male. "This is the time. Take me." "I don't want to hur-" "Take your female!" she snarled deliciously, "This is the moment, and it needs to be so." She had such want of him as she still moved a little to feel him just there, just ... there. "Please, Ayt'han," she moaned, "It will likely hurt a little, but, ... I am yours. I need this. Please, you must be the one who does this." Her arm around his neck slid back so that her hand was at the back of his neck and she placed her forehead against his, "It does not matter anymore. It must be. You must claim me. If I do it myself, it will be the same as bewitching you and not a true joining." Her head fell backward and he watched her heartbeat in her throat. "All this time," she spoke to the cliff above her. "to find the one, to have him against me, and now I beg. Take your witch. Claim me, Ayt'han or live as my slave. We will both be miserable," she said and prepared herself to jam down onto him. He moved then, seizing her hips and he pulled her down cruelly, viciously, as hard as he could, hating that he'd hurt her in doing it, fearing that he'd hit the end of her passage and cause her even more pain. He felt it as his hardness forced itself into her, stretching and driving still deeper. Beyl'eth screamed and he watched the muscles of her throat as she did. Her next breath whistled as it flew past the teeth of her pain. She howled then and she hissed. He made sure to hold her tightly, more out of fear that she'd fall from him. He felt her legs tighten around him as she drove herself down even harder, howling again, before she lunged for him and hugged him tightly as she rode through the rest. "It is done," she whispered as she gasped, "The last Rohn witch gives herself to her male. Rocks and boulders, ice and snow, Ayt'han, I feel that you do love me already as I feel it the other way in me. I promise to make you as happy as you make me. We do this now for us, for all three, for this acceptance had to be. You came very close to losing your will if I had taken you first. Thank the spirits of the mountain; you did what we needed then. I am yours instead." She didn't move for a long minute, and he felt throbbing, but he didn't know whose it was. "Ayt'han," she smiled as she nuzzled his neck, rubbing her face under his jaw and making the softest whimpering sounds which raised the hair on his neck. "Mine and yours both, this love. Thank you for acting before I did. It was so close, and it would have been our unhappiness like that. When we are done here, I will serve you your meal and while you eat, I will put on the band." "No," he whispered back and her eyes opened. "You will eat with me. You will not serve me, and you may wear the band whenever you wish, as is the custom. You are not owned. But I do not wish it to be on your neck if we lie together." "Why?" she asked, suddenly confused, "it is my right to wear it and yours to see it on me." He sighed and lowered his head, moving her wild mane away so that he could kiss her neck and throat, "It is my wish then, call it that. I love your pretty neck and I will want to do a lot of this." A few minutes later, Beyl'eth understood everything and hugged herself to him tightly as he carried her to where he slept. The rest of her deflowering was as a dream to her, a dream long in the coming of it from when she'd been four and a half years old and had met -- and liked - the only boy that she'd liked at all for a long time. The first time that he'd roared and she'd howled as he'd filled her, Beyl'eth had been working so hard, her long mane wet with sweat and he'd moved her hair carefully and she'd thrown her head back and gasped as she'd felt that muscled chest against her breasts as he worked her. As she'd yelled out his name, he'd listened as she let out a little sound each time that he contracted, sending more of himself into her. She'd smiled at him as the last two spurts came to her, still making the noises, and he saw her shining snow ghost eyes, as they closed for an instant each time, opening again right afterward, to make sure that he hadn't disappeared. That was when Billy knew for the first time that without any possibility of doubt, he had succeeded at something important, and that someone - who really wanted to -- loved him. ------------------------- The ghost moved up the valley in the blustery wind. It blew hard enough that when it gusted one could hear it as an uneven pounding. She didn't, but she remembered. She smiled then, remembering that now, she could walk in weather such as this and not even feel the weight of the snow as it accumulated on her mane. She couldn't feel it, because it didn't accumulate. Narreth's spirit was pleased. She'd found a way to be with her son again. He knew nothing of her presence yet, but that was alright. The wedding band which Beyl'eth had been given had been the vehicle that she'd needed. Ayt'han would be more than fit to rule the tribes by now if he'd grown up near his Quarn. If he'd never been lost to them all, they'd have likely beaten back the lowlander hordes. A single Ch'arnn was worth several hundred of the weak turds, she knew. If it had been the king leading them instead of desperately defending, if he'd led that day, along with his two strong sons, the people would have lived and better, Laish and Ayt'han would be taking the fight to the fat kings for their insolence and vanity. But that was not the ending that their fates had decreed. At least they were here and safe enough to begin again. Narreth herself wished to see this world and know its nature fully, and for that, she'd need to travel. She smirked to herself. Just as she'd always done. Other than guide them a little, she had no wish or need to interfere. That he lived was enough. That she was with him and able to see him was so much better for a mother's heart -- even a dead one. Beyl'eth -- her young heart-spirit would be the perfect mate for her son. She might have been able to engineer herself a way off her now-dying world to be on this one, and she was so thankful for her young kin, but even Narreth, perhaps the most powerful Rohn witch ever spawned hadn't had more than the barest inkling of what was to be between them. She remembered that day and how the two of them played, the shy son of hers and the nearly always scowling little girl-child who felt lost and didn't know why, though her stepmother loved her and tried hard to be the mother that she needed. Little Beyl'eth almost never allowed anyone to touch her, yet Narreth smiled as she remembered the happy laughter and the smiling little face as her cousin's young daughter hung from her son's neck as they spun until they fell over in a heap. That had been their only other time together, but Narreth had met the little girl before. She'd been there doing her best to stop the hemorrhaging which would take Beyl'eth's mother from her. She'd been the one to ease the babe into the world, and she'd stayed for a time to make certain that her cousin didn't experience a double loss. That time had been one of the reasons why Narreth always sought for news of the little girl whenever she spoke to the chieftain of the Rohn. "What will you tell to me as the name when you bring her to the Quarn of the king to have her spawning and name recorded?" she'd asked. Her kinsman had smiled then as he held his tiny daughter, "I was thinking on it and could find no name which I liked," he said, "But I saw you with her and it came to me to name her Beyllix Narreth. I know that many name their girl-children after you, but for what you have done for me to save her, that requires real honor in a name." Narreth had thanked him then, and right afterwards -- as soon as she could, she'd arranged for her namesake's education with her own mother. The little girl had power -- that much was evident, and other than herself, and she had little time, she knew that there was no one better for the task. She walked smiling as though it was a sunny day, though it wasn't. She felt none of the wind as she walked against it. But her smile faded as she came across an unfortunate here, lying in the deepening snow. Narreth knew nothing of it, but there was once a huge breed of wolf, tremendously successful as a predator and it lived all over this part of this world, even far, far to the south. But things always change, and the large animal's prey had faded out long ago, taking the wolf with it. Much later, the humans -- many of whom had always admired the wolves and -- when others of their kind weren't busy trying to kill the rest of them off, had made an attempt to re-create that one type of wolf. Their success had been called the American Alsatian then, and that was long ago. This poor dying bitch carried much of that blood, mixed with a few generations of Grey Wolf. Her trouble had begun because of her size and the requirement of her body to sustain itself. But where she was here, well, she had no pack, so that precluded running down and killing many of the larger things which she needed to eat. She'd been starving on rabbit, one of the few smaller creatures who were not hibernating now. In desperate hunger, she'd tried to bring down a young elk, but the calf's mother had an opinion in the matter and that was how she'd gotten her ribs broken. She could walk or maybe manage a trot, but now the rabbits were in no danger anymore. Narreth didn't know the names of the creatures involved. She just saw it all in the animal's recollection. "Such a beautiful creature," she crooned softly a she stroked the huge head, doing what she could to take her pain from her, "I feel sadness and how you feel no hope. Have a little courage if you can, and I will see what may be done to keep you from becoming as I am. The way that you and the others look to me," she smiled as she thought things over, "you remind me of what my people were like once long ago. Not on four feet, of course, but winter-wild and free where a mistake or a misstep, even a bit of bad fortune was all that it took." The yellow eyes regarded her in less fear now and Narreth was a little happy. "You are like what we were in the beginning; a creature who needs to eat and hides in plain sight in the snow as a ghost while it hunts. Well I am a ghost, and I can say that the best kind of ghosts are the ones who draw breath." Yuan was cleaning the kitchen, wanting to be doing something as she waited. She knew that she was being foolish, and she felt it. That Beyl'eth had been gone this long was a good sign, she thought, knowing what they'd planned for this. She tried to brighten her thoughts then, telling herself that in all likelihood, her friend was enjoying Ayt'han, and that he'd accepted their somewhat strange offer to him. But then she had another thought and felt worry that she knew that she shouldn't feel. Maybe it had gone badly and her friend would not be coming back to her with joyous news because he'd killed her. She groaned at the thought, knowing that it wasn't likely. But it was there in her heart then and now she worried more. She walked out onto the ledge then and looking down the length of this valley, she saw the way that the north wind blew its icy blast right over her head from behind the cliff, the heavy snow clouds scudding low and leaving heavy snow in their wake. The bit of the valley before here wasn't getting much, but she knew that where her friend was would be getting pounded. That thought didn't help her worried heart either. She knew what she felt for Billy or Ayt'han, or whatever he was called. He had raised hopes in her that she'd never had and her heart had responded. She also loved her friend so much ... She saw something then, far out and coming to her out of the snow. She didn't know what it was, since it looked to her like little more than a collection of fairly vertical lines which seemed to move as a group. Whatever it was, it was moving quickly. A few moments later, Yuan looked down the stone of the ledge at those lines as they slowed and began to move up the incline toward her. She sensed little, nothing like a being, anyway. She stepped back a few paces and as the lines -- or whatever they were came near to the top, Yuan saw more as it appeared out of the air. A moment later and she gasped at what stood before her with a slightly worried smile growing. "You are Yuan, " she said, as she stated the fact that she knew, and when Yuan nodded, she smiled as she said, "I am Narreth, mother of Ayt'han. I hope that you feel no discomfort, but I no longer live. Forgive me if you can. I had planned to look at you and show myself in another way. I know that you can heal as I could once, but there is little that I can do now, and there is one not far from here who needs help. I know what is wanted by both of the Rohn with my son. I would have only told you of my blessing after meeting you, but now, well, if you can help the creature that I have found, I will do as much for you in what you wish as I would for Bey'eth. Will you lend your aid where I cannot anymore?" Yuan stared, and she nodded, and then remembering her manners, she managed a bow as she stepped forward. "Who needs us?" Narreth smiled at the honor that she'd been shown and held out her hand, "She lies there in the teeth of the wind and the snow and she is dying. Hurt as well she is, a poor creature who gives up her hope. If you can bear my touch on your arm, I will lead us there." As they walked together, the snow began to swirl more and harder around them , and it was not long before Yuan lost most, if not all of her sense of direction. Her other sense revealed little more than the topography and little else. "Have you seen Beyl'eth?" she asked, "She was going to speak with Ayt'han, but she has been gone for a long time and I worry." "I left them not long ago," Narreth replied a little cautiously. "Then please, "Yuan said, "can you tell me how it looked to you? They need to pair, and I worry for my friend -- for them both, because Beyl'eth said to me that when they met, they could have killed each other." "Then I can say," Narreth smiled, "that I believe that they will both survive it. When I left them, they were standing together in the way of our kind and my son was kissing your friend's throat. Is it enough, or do you wish to hear of what they do now at this instant?" "This instant, I would love to hear," Yuan smiled shyly as she looked down. Narreth laughed softly, "I have lived inside the leather of my little prison since I gave it to the one named for me. This day, I feel such happiness. If you wish to know the numbers of it Yuan, I can say that thus far, he has spent into her mouth once, her woman's secret twice, and at this time, they both work at coaxing another gush from him into her fine bottom. Ayt'han balked at first, but the bellix has told him that she wants him everywhere this day, though she made her joke that after this terrible task to him, she would relent in her demands long enough for him to eat and regain his strength. She laughs, enjoying his attentions, though she is not as free from the work of it as she tries to make him believe. She will grow weary soon and need her own rest as they eat together. It is my mother's pride to say that Ayt'han is not small in that place. I think that you know this." A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 22 Yuan chuckled and nodded, "I am happy then." Narreth looked over, "Beyl'eth has told him that he is wanted by you both. It would be a bad thing normally, but I was in the band around her leg when you spoke to her of how it should go so that the Tarkroth may begin again. I know you to be a different creature inside yourself. They passed from our world long before we did. We called them the Wotroth, and the lowlanders hunted them out of their caves before they turned their foolishness to us. Beyl'eth feels honor that you make yourself into a Rohn -- as do I. Wotroth were proud beasts on our world, so I think that I see that honor." "Narreth," Yuan said, "Will he like me this way? I felt Beyl'eth's worry that she was not enough for him if I looked as he first saw me. It is one of the reasons that I took this shape." She sighed, "I have not had many friends and lovers, and so I do not know how I look to others much. I know that my human form could rouse Billy, uh, ... Ayt'han. I have heard my friend's words as she tried to reassure me. If you can tell me tru-" "You are fine," she said, "fine and lovely as you were before. You show that you began as Wotroth ,and it is allowed to show ones beginnings. And you show that you are Rohn now. Such honor I feel. Do not fret now. You will need a little confidence when Ayt'han comes to you to claim you as you ask him your question." Yuan looked at Narreth, "My question?" "Yes," the ghost laughed. "Whatever you are, you are a female, as I was once. You gave your body to him so that you might enjoy each other. I knew of your hope. What a wonderful thing to have found a male like him and be loved in that way while neither one could understand the other. Now, even though you had a hand in the planning of this between you all, you need to know, since what she does now changes it a little. There is nothing wrong in a female wishing to know if the male she is to share loves her. Each of you need to know this privately in your hearts, no matter what is said between all three. That is the way of it, Yuan. We females need to know. Have the confidence to ask it of him. And before you fret too much, hear this -- he has claimed her. He comes soon to claim you, You wished for love with him. I tell you now that you can have it, what you asked your goddess for." They came upon the hapless animal and Yuan saw why Narreth wanted her to live so badly. She felt that way herself after only a moment. She spoke her calming words and when the eyelids drooped a little, Yuan bent to pick up the creature and she carried her as quickly and carefully as she could, still needing Narreth's hand on her to guide her. Narreth stared and remarked on Yuan's strength. "I am also a Wot-, ... Wot- Whatever you said." "Wotroth," Narreth smiled. Yuan nodded, "I always have the strength which my mother gave to me." She worked long into the night over the animal, with Narreth helping or sensing as she could. The other hurts were easy, but broken ribs, and not just cracked ones, she thought. She saw the way that the tips of a couple of them were pressing against the creature's lungs so that more than a shallow breath was agony. They talked as they worked, and Yuan slowly got used to the way that Nerreth would seem to fade in and out of sight. She explained the reason for her to have come to this part of the world and Narreth agreed that something was incorrect -- especially when she mentioned the way that the other demons who had been in the group where Bayl'eth had found herself had behaved. Yuan looked over suddenly, "Her spirit fails her, and we cannot bring her out of this yet. I do not know what to do, but something must happen soon or she passes." Narreth looked on, her brow knitted in concern. "I have a thought," she said at last. "It will likely not work as we are two different sorts of things and I am not from this place. She may still die," she said, and after a second, she added a quiet afterthought, "or I fade forever." What is it?" Yuan asked, but Narreth already had her hands on the beast's head and her face wore a look of concentration which soon passed into a rather blank expression. Yuan did note an increase in the drive to live in the animal and so she kept on in silence until she was done. When all that remained was to move the animal to a place where she could rest and recover, she wondered how to get the ghost's attention for a little while, and receiving no reply to her repeated questions, Yuan gently placed her hand over the ghost's shoulder and laid it down, expecting the hand to pass through. They'd had enough trouble getting Narreth's hand to remain on her arm as they had walked to where the animal was. But she had found Narreth to be at least a little solid and that was when Narreth fell backwards and a very surprised Yuan caught her. Narreth blinked and asked what had happened. After hearing it and thinking about it to herself, she shrugged, "I took some of her spirit and gave some of mine for a time. But at the end, I could do nothing." Are you alright?" Yuan asked and it caused Narreth to laugh for a moment, "I am dead, Yuan. I think that it is as alright as I can ever be. But still, something is different, only a little. I may have left part of me behind, but I only used such a small part. It matters little, Yuan. Yuan?" She looked at the girl who would be a Rohn, and still looked a little like a dragon female, and found her standing there in shock. Yuan looked back finally and stared at Narreth for a moment, and seeing that nothing had changed, she still said nothing, but only pointed at the animal. There on the table in the kitchen where they'd spent the last four hours at least, the creature still lay on her side, but she was awake now and looking straight ahead at Nerreth, blinking occasionally. That was the issue to Yuan and why she'd been amazed into silence. The eyes which looked back, blinking occasionally were the eyes of a snow ghost, the eyeballs black, and the irises a very light gray. Nerreth blinked back for a moment and asked, but Yuan said that her eyes hadn't changed. When they looked again, they heard the soft slap of a large tail as it hit the table in a low rhythm. The wild dog rolled upright then, obviously happier now and Narreth stepped forward, not knowing about these creatures and their habits. A large pink tongue came out of her mouth in a blur and Narreth laughed and sputtered, but she held still to receive her new friend's thanks. "Not only me," she laughed as she tried to defend herself, "Yuan did the most!" But it did no good, and bought her little respite. The beast got to its feet and looked at Yuan who looked back in amazement. "I can hear her!" she said, "She asks for help to get down." It took a bit, but between them, they eased the big girl down onto the floor. In an instant, she was on her hind legs, her front paws on Nerreth, and telling of her thanks again with her tongue as Yuan looked on. "Do you know that she leans on you and she does not pass through or fall down?" Narreth was astounded, and then she touched the shoulders in front of her. Half a second later, she was hugging the animal and sobbing a little. "What has happened here?" Yuan asked, and Narreth shrugged, "Something passed - more than what I thought," she smiled, "I can feel her. Touch me, Yuan." When she felt Yuan's hand on her shoulder, Narreth laughed again and looked into the happy gray eyes in front of her, "If you will bear it, I name you Tanra, for you are a gift to me." Well 'Tanra' was as thrilled as Narreth over everything, especially the way that she felt better, but it brought some things to her attention. With her questioning look, Narreth knew that Tanra had even prioritized the list. "She asks to be shown where to make water," she laughed, "First and foremost a girl, and then she asks for water which is not frozen hard. After that, she wishes for a little food, and then she aches to sleep. Come, my friend, and we will begin at the first thing." They walked outside together and Yuan found some meat for the dog. She was surprised when she saw them return. Narreth was sitting astride the animal and rode her as comfortably as if she were the finest pony. "What are you doing? She only just got off the table." Yuan said, but Narreth only shrugged, "She speaks her thoughts to me. She asked for me to sit on her and when I refused, she walked behind me and came through my legs. I know that she is weak, but Yuan, our girl here is very strong." "Not my girl," Yuan laughed as she held her hand up, "I barely got any thanks for my part." Her eyes flew open then as she found herself backed against a wall and then there was nowhere to go while Tanra did her best to rectify her earlier oversight. Yuan tried to push Tanra away, but the big girl was determined, and even when it looked as though she'd finally been satisfied, and she'd begun to turn away, her nose went to one place on Yuan with a great deal of interest. In that second, Narreth knew that Tanra acted on her own will as she always had, but that she also seemed to act a little in response to her own thoughts quite clearly, since Narreth could hear very lucid thoughts from Tanra as she sniffed and wondered about Yuan. After only a minute, Tanra stepped away to Yuan's great relief. "If you would humor me a moment," Narreth said, "please come with me." She led them out onto the ledge and she turned and looked at Yuan, "I am thankful to you for what you have done here," she said indicating Tanra with her hand, "and I am also happy and pleased that you brought Beyl'eth to this place where my son lives. You knew nothing of it, but that matters little, and changes nothing on my heart. I was also pleased that you helped Beyl'eth as you did on the island. She means much to me and she has always lived in my heart. You carry my hopes and blessings just as she does for what you wish for, but, ... I see more to you than this, and I would know." Yuan nodded, "I am two inside me," she said, "I am Yuan, and most of all, I am the girl. But there is another." Yuan stepped away and looked up, making sure that she had the room, and in a second, she stood before Narreth as what else she had been since she was three years old. "I have seen this as well," Narreth smiled, "You are a person who is beautiful in any way that you might choose to be. But like this you are male," she said in surprise, "Does this side of you not feel the need to breed?" Yuan nodded a little sadly, "I had the hope that I can find another like what I am like this, but I think that there is nothing like me anymore. I hope that Ayt'han can be happy with me as a Rohn dragon girl. If I can breed with him and make young, I also hope that some of this comes to the young." "I cannot say," Narreth smiled, "and I share your hope, for something like you are should live as well. It was my want for Tanra when I saw her. She is not much like the other ones here. I do know that." Narreth was correct. Tanra was a genetic throwback, and was even larger than any example of American Alsatian who ever lived. Her shoulders were almost forty inches from the floor and she weighed almost two hundred and twenty pounds. As such, she was a freak, and it had only been natural selection that she perish, not being able to find enough large game to keep herself fed all alone and without the cooperation that canids often use when they hunt. Only the largest gray wolves could reach her when she was in heat, and though they'd tried, none of her suitors had ever been able to give her whelps, another reason why she was not a part of any pack. --------------- "I still do not understand what has happened," Yuan said as they sat watching Tanra make food disappear. "I have no clear idea either," Narreth said, "though it had something to do with the part of her spirit which I am left with, just as she now shows some of mine. This is not perfect," she said, "I still do not live. I am only a little real and it can still change and I am as I was before. I was out in the snow with her and I found that can feel it once more. I can feel many things - wind, as an example. I can touch things and not pass through, and they can touch me." Narreth nodded as she looked at Tanra and smiled, "And the most amazing thing which I have felt yet is the way that it feels to me to hold her. Even a touch brings much to me, but if I hug her, I receive the full measure of the way that she feels. She is as happy as I am and more to be alive. I wish to travel and learn of this world. She already knows much and she wants to tell me of it." She looked at Yuan, "I have found a friend, and if I remain like this, Yuan, your clan has grown by two, though I will not be here much and even if I am, I will remain apart from anything of what passes between you three. I am happy that I met you this day, and I thank you for what you have done to help her, for I feel how she helps me to feel less empty." Tanre stepped over, licking her lips from the meal and her eyes plainly said that she wished to be near to Narreth. Yuan found one of the blankets which lined the bottom of one of the knapsacks and when she saw them a little later, Narreth lay, likely as far into sleep as she could go -- which was not far, wrapped around a sleeping Tanra on the blanket near the fire. The next morning, Yuan found herself alone after she got up. Stepping onto the ledge, she grinned as she saw the pair walking away together down the valley, Narreth's hand over Tanra's shoulder. She called out to them, and they turned to look, with Narreth waving,"We will go to Ayt'han to tell him that he must come to live here," she said. "We will stay at the other place to give you three the time to tell everything between you that must be said. Tanra and I will hunt together so that I can keep her alive. She is winter-wild and still free and I will care for her." Yuan nodded and the two walked off as she smiled. ------------------ The pair were outwardly silent as they walked down the valley, Narreth and Tanra conversing in their heads as they explored their strange shared existence. Narreth found that they could speak most easily to each other if they were touching somehow. As they walked, it wasn't a problem for them, since Narreth stood about five feet, two inches tall, and Tanra was a huge thing, the tops of her shoulders almost three and a half feet from the ground. It was easy for them to walk side by side with Narreth laying her hand on Tanra as they went. What they found was odd to them. Besides the ability to converse this way -- which was a godsend, since Tanra could not speak, they found that their feelings traveled back and forth and could be shared in the same manner. It caused their first disagreement. Tanra was very much Narreth's alter ego in many ways, but one thing that they shared was the stubbornness. Narreth could feel much more now and one of the things was intense cold for some reason that she didn't understand. "Climb up onto my back, Narreth," Tanra said in her thoughts, "You may ride in a little comfort." Narreth had refused originally, feeling that she didn't wish to take advantage of her friend. The three minutes on Tanra's back the night before was fun, but she was mindful that Yuan was correct. Tanra should still heal. "I do not understand the way that you argue about something so simple," Tanra said, "I am larger and I am warm. I am easily twice as heavy as you. I can carry you easily, believe me. I would think that you would welcome this. I know that you are some sort of magic thing. Unless you can make it so that I can ride on your back, then get up on me and ride, or I go no further." Narreth climbed up and rode. "I know less of this then you do," Tanra continued, "but I know one thing. You gave me life when mine was failing. I love you for it. I have never felt so happy as when you lay on me over the night. Forgive me if I have a want that we continue." Narreth smiled as she looked down, "You wish to continue with me. Tanra?" "I must," the huge canid said in Narreth's thoughts, "You were kind to me. You saved me with Yuan. I wish to be with you always." Narreth had never experienced the devotion and the sort of love that canids such as dogs or wolves are capable of rather easily. She'd never had a dog, for example. The Tarkroth didn't keep them. She was a little overcome by the intensity of her friend's feelings on the subject. She eased herself down then to lie along Tanra's back and her hands reached forward around her chest. "I am falling in love with you, Tanra," she said over the canid's shoulder. "I have never felt something so pure as what you send to me. With you near to me, I do not feel as though I am dead and waiting for something which never comes." "Good that you know how I see you." the canid replied with some humor, "Also, it is important to me. You told Yuan that you will keep me fed." Narreth laughed and said that she'd do her best. -------------- The full extent of the connection between Narreth and Tanra remained undiscovered by them until much later, after the meeting with Ayt'han and Beyl'eth. In the first place, there was the strangeness of being dead in a sentient way, though it was not unusual for a strong Rohn witch. That ability was driven and based on the very great strength of Narreth's spirit and the power of both what she'd been in life and what she'd found added to that after her passing. She'd be the first to call it all well and good, but other than what she'd done to get herself to where she knew that her son was, it didn't get her much in the way of a purpose, and as strange as that concept is for humans, it is a very unsatisfactory situation to a very able and powerful, but now deceased snow ghost witch. There are many reasons and purposes to the role of the witch in Rohn tribal culture. While it might be said that every Rohn female is a witch, it is also just as true that not all Rohn are created equally. All of her life, Narreth had aspired to power for her own use, thinking that after her passing one day, she'd become one of the dead snow ghosts of her land. It hadn't been uncommon to find one in the mountains, moving through the high mountain passes. If one had need, these could be consulted and they often helped where they could. They were dead and rather spectral, of course, and it was a rather limited existence, but it had always been this way. That was what Narreth thought that she'd become once she'd died after a hopefully long and presumably happy life, and of course, it hadn't worked out that way. After the fall of her people, Narreth found herself rising from her death to -- nothing. The people were gone, the other specters that she saw and found were only remnants and were stuck in their sorrows. There were no Rohn or any other kind of Tarkroth to help. Spirits fade after a time. Rohn witch ones are no exception, but the strong ones were known to exist for hundreds of years after their mortal deaths. It made for an even more bitter existence. Now she was here, but Narreth had no intention to 'hang around', hovering near her son and his females if they didn't need her -- and they didn't. She knew that. Since she'd found herself here, she felt that she'd been given a wonderful 'second chance' and wanted to learn what she could. With the serendipitous series of events concerning Tanra, she had a companion and even an odd way to actually "be" here. She could touch things. She could be touched, and she was still free from the constraints of maintaining a living body. After making certain that Ayt'han and Beyl'eth understood that they had to sit down with Yuan and tell of how they'd gotten here -- since Narreth considered it important from Yuan's view, she and Tanre remained for a time after they'd gone to join Yuan. She and Tanra used the ancient settlement as a sort of base for their travels. It gave them a sheltered place when there was no need to be out in the weather. Narreth liked to have a small fire to gaze into in the evening and it gave the two of them a place to sit or lie near to converse or for Narreth to dream a little while Tanra slept. And that led to something else which was remarkable. A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 22 To Narreth, it had been a gift to her to find that even as a lonely ghost wandering the now empty land of her ancestors, her body was solid to itself. She couldn't do much with it, but it still left the possibility for a little pleasure. Late one night, a few days after settling in here, Narreth felt the want of it, and since Tanra slept, what was the harm, she'd thought. Well there hadn't been any harm at all, but there had been one startling discovery. Tanre lay sleeping on her front with Narreth lying back against her. It was a position that they often found themselves in, but there had never been anything like this before when they did that. As Narreth masturbated languidly, she reached a point where she raised her legs a little, and one thing led to another, and before she knew it really, she was just humming along headed for a fine orgasm which she could feel lay right around the corner for her. She was being careful about it, trying not to make noise, and she hadn't noticed that Tanra's breathing had shifted -- because she'd woken up - and now lay there with her chin on the floor where it had been and she was staring straight ahead at the fire, not daring to move. Tanra could feel that Narreth was moving a little and she could hear that her breathing wasn't normal, since she normally didn't really breathe most times, other than as a vestigial memory perhaps, but she was now. That had been what had awakened Tanra and at first, she'd wanted to lift her head and look to see if Narreth was alright. But a few seconds after that, she'd felt pleasure from what her companion was doing to herself. They shared this. When Tanra was hungry, Narreth knew it because she could feel it as her own hunger. As long as they were within some yards of each other, one could feel what the other one felt. That was perhaps the biggest reason why they loved to lie together with Narreth holding on to Tanra as the canine slept. It felt as though you were holding yourself as well as the other one at the same time. Narreth could kneel for hours hugging Tanra as she sat and it always amazed both of them. What Tanra felt was astounding to her. It felt so good and though she tried to remain still, there came a part in it where she suddenly let out an involuntary groan of pleasure. And there is nothing which can groan quite like any kind of canine. The larger the canine; the larger and deeper the groan, and the one lying under the snow ghost might just have been the largest one in the entire world. What came out of Tanra as a sound approached what might come out of a medium-sized bear. That sound went everywhere in the chamber, and without much in the way of articles which might absorb the sound, there was a lot of reverb and echo to it. Lying on her friend the way that she was, Narreth got the full measure of it in terms of the sound and the feel of it through her body. She froze and it was only then that she realized that Tanra was panting heavily. It moved her quite a bit. "Narreth? " Tanra began after a second or so of silence, "Narreth, are you alright?" "I am sorry, Tanra," the Rohn whispered, "It's nothing. Go back to sleep if you can." "Please, Narreth," Tanra's thoughts came to Narreth, "Please do not stop. Do that more." She didn't know why, but Narreth was shocked, "Can you feel that?" "Yes," Tanra thought to her as she panted, "Please go on. I like it so much." Narreth grinned to herself, and began again. This time, she made no effort to be quiet about it. As she rose to it, she pressed her head back and enjoyed it, moaning herself in her pleasure, and feeling it as Tanra shivered and groaned along in her own way. It got very loud at the end with both of them making noise, and after only about a minute of lying there thinking about it afterward, Narreth spun and threw herself onto Tanra to hug her tightly. They had their earnest discussions after that, and Narreth felt saddened to learn that for what she was, Tanra's kind just didn't have as many options as Narreth. "So," she began, "from what you say to me, you cannot just mate with a male for you when you wish it -- if he is willing?" "No," Tanra replied sadly, "I must be in my heat then. Why?" Narreth explained that demons and, as far as she knew, human females as well needed only the thought of it and the possibility and their bodies began to prepare, and if not, then a little play with the male brought it on and they could begin shortly after. It didn't seem right to Narreth and after a little thought, they found that Narreth could force something of an artificial heat into Tanra's body in a temporary way. "We need to test this now," Narreth said, "How can we do that?" She looked at Tanra's face and she could even see the hopeful look, "That is easy," she replied, "With a little looking, I am sure that I can find a male. It will be harder if he is in a pack, but if I can find one who is not, we will see soon enough if this works for me. Likely, if this is working, a male will find me first." Narreth was pleased, "Good," she grinned, "I cannot wait to see if you can have this. We will search tomorrow first thing, and I will hide myself." "Narreth?" Tanra thought, and Narreth was a little surprised that she could even hear a slight whine in the feel of it, "Could you ... could you do that again? I liked it so much when you did that." Narreth laughed and nodded, finding the place where she'd lain before against Tanra's side in good contact with her so that her self-pleasure could be passed easily. This time, Tanra turned her head and laid her chin on her foreleg so that she could watch as well. --------------------- The next day, they found that this worked surprisingly well. There was a pack in the area, but where they were staying lay just at the edge or their range. The rest of the area had no pack of wolves in residence -- but it did have a good number of unattached males. Narreth kept herself hidden as they went, though the growing number of males who tailed along behind Tanra did pick up her tracks and the scent of her. But, seeing nothing and no one other than the large and comely bitch in front to them, and not getting anything recognizable from Narreth's scent, they kept following, knowing that she had to stop sometime. They decided that they'd lead the males to where they lived. Narreth went on ahead and blocked all of the doorways with simple wards which gave an unpleasant feeling if one tried to cross the threshold. As any girls would, she supposed, they didn't want anyone snooping. She hid herself just inside the nearest chamber, which was the one where the two of them slept most often. After that, she just settled in and sat where she could watch how this was done while remaining invisible. Wolves are social animals and seek to determine a hierarchy among both males and females. The flaw in their plan became apparent almost as soon as most of the eight males were on the ledge with fights breaking out to determine which one would claim her. Well this wasn't about forming a pack, Tanra decided. She'd been there, for one thing. This had all happened before to her. Somebody would become top dog and he'd give it his all, and the rest could hang around of they wanted to, but they wouldn't be getting any, that male would see to it. This wasn't about a pack for Tanra. This was about having a good time and getting laid. Oh, she'd been here before, she remembered. He'd do his best, but there probably wouldn't be any whelps from it, and that would be that. Tanra waited for it to really begin. She wasn't about to be anybody's bitch ever again. Once it got underway, Narreth was concerned, but she soon learned that she hadn't needed to be. Tanra was bigger than any of them. She just waded in and sorted them out in no time. She'd only gotten bitten once in retaliation and it had hurt Narreth, but not badly. She stared as Tanra set her rules and made them clear. Three of them decided that they didn't really want any part of this crazy bitch and they left to lick the wounds that she'd left. Once Tanra had cowed that big male, he'd been about ready to leave as well, but she knew what she was doing and immediately began to fawn to him playfully. It took him three tries to learn that he wasn't here to lay claim to her -- unless he wanted to leave without getting his load hauled. After that, things settled down to a lot of play which was nice for Narreth to watch, and she sat on needles and pins waiting for Tanra to make her choice. She had to see this -- the way that these beautiful creatures mated. It made her feel good inside for the affinity that she felt for them. She was wet just thinking about it. She thought that the largest one looked really good, though there wasn't all that much difference in size, really. They were all large examples. It seemed that they knew somehow that it was one thing to hope, but Tanra was a mountain that one had better have a good set of stones for if they wished to see her summit. She waited to see which one her friend would decide on, and when she chose, Narreth was surprised. Tanra chose them all. One by one, she went to each of them, nuzzling up against them and showing that she wanted them -- all that they needed was a bit of patience, that was all. The licks that Tanra had given as she reached under them with her nose were her soft promises. The shortfall in their thinking never crossed Tanra's mind as she found herself looking forward to this. But it became apparent to Narreth pretty quickly after a time. When that fine big boy rose up and mounted Tanra, Narreth felt it. She felt the pressure of the weight and since she was sitting, it was a little uncomfortable to her. She rectified that by getting to her knees and leaning on her forearms. She wasn't mimicking anything, it just felt best to her that way. As she watched, she had a perfect side view of the proceedings and saw it as his sheath kissed up against her friend's vulva when his beginning strokes began. Narreth liked the way that it felt to her. It was different, but so nice. As he hardened and swelled, she saw the pink tip emerge more and felt that wonderful part of him nudging, seeking, looking for the way to a bit of paradise. Narreth thrilled at the way that it felt, wanting more, and silently encouraging that big male to make her friend happy. And then, almost before she knew it, almost before she was able to prepare herself, it had begun and she felt his forelegs tighten around Tanra's ribs to hold her still. She felt herself being pounded in the most primal, forceful, and primitive way and it was incredible to her. Narreth had to bite down on her need to make her own noises in this, because canids- no matter which kind or species, do this almost silently. The slight noises that she made brought a pair of the other males to the doorway of the chamber, but they saw nothing, and wondered why their ears and their noses brought some sort of information to their brains which their eyes did not. The sense of smell is powerful to a wolf or dog and they place much in it. This bothered them somehow, but the prospect of the sort of action that Tanra promised got them past it. Narreth was in heaven during all of it, not only for the way that it felt to her, but also for the happy knowledge that her friend was being allowed to have a little joy. Well, quite a lot of joy, really. When they froze, locked together, Narreth felt the sensation of Tanra being filled, a little at a time, one series of quirts into her followed by a short period of stillness as the male's testicles delivered another load of semen to her as quickly as it could be prepared. Narreth loved the gentle way that it felt, and she shivered in pleasure each time. At last, the pair of lovers unlocked and Narreth felt that she could relax a little, since the way that the male had hung onto Tanra was like a death grip to Narreth's ribs. Tanra had wondered how he knew not to 'step down' too soon. He likely wouldn't care much, other than the loss of his chance to give her everything that he had for her, but she was well aware and had been just a little fearful of a sudden disengagement because she'd felt the pain of that before. She was thankful that he knew enough to be considerate. They hadn't started out well, but Tanra liked him an awful lot and she hoped that he'd allow her what she wanted here. She knew that most male wolves wouldn't. After the way that he'd made her feel, well she'd have hated to have to tell him the hard way that she was going to get what she wanted from the others as well - even if he didn't like it. Narreth was happy and pleased for her friend, but it was only moments after they'd stopped when the next contender stepped up. Narreth stared, and suddenly knew with a bit of a sinking feeling that this was going to be one long night. She just had time to grab her blanket and spread a little of it so that she had something to kneel on. The rest of it, she just bunched up as best she could in her fists and she lowered her head, wanting to keep quiet, not needing to watch anymore. Not really wanting to, either. She'd have rather spent some time thinking about how wonderful it had been. But she wasn't given the time for that. Round two was already beginning. And so it went on and on, Tanra lost in the bliss of having all of her boys one after another, never thinking about Narreth -- who felt everything that she did at the same time. The Rohn held her bottom in the air weakly hours later, thinking that she could feel that semen running out of her -- which was impossible. The one time that she had the chance for it, she'd reached back and found that it was only her own juices. She groaned almost silently then. By her count, this one had been the last of them and she raised her head a little to peer out into the darkness. She almost did groan loudly then. The big brute was just coming up again for his second go-round, and the look on his face told that he knew just what he was in for this time and he was more than ready to give Tanra the best of his love. The look on Tanra's happy face was a toothy and very sloppy grin, her tongue hanging out as she panted. Narreth whimpered softly. Tanra quite obviously wanted all of that male that she could get. Narreth lowered her head and just did her best to hang on. But after a minute of the way that he went at her friend, Narreth found herself loving his way of doing it. If it were possible, he seemed to be doing it as though he cared this time. -------------------- The night was getting old when Tanra decided to call it done. She felt tired and a little sore, but on balance she thought, she'd had a great time and this night had gone a long way to make up for all of the quiet wanting that she'd felt all alone those other times when she'd had her true heat and there'd been no takers from the pack that she'd once built up with a male. She still felt the loss. She tried so hard for him, but his seed never took in her, one heat after the next, so she'd lost it all to a bitch who could produce. She'd been more than willing to try with any of the other males but the alpha had prevented it and rather than fight them all, Tanra had allowed herself to be driven away. When she remembered her friend, she was shocked to find that the wards were down and she'd padded over a little stiffly. Her heart had risen to her throat then to see Narreth, the one she loved so much lying there as though she slept. Tanra felt that she didn't - as far as she knew Narreth couldn't sleep and she wondered what she'd done. She should have just taken one male, not five, and she should have accepted her good fortune in what Narreth had done to allow her this. She felt fear and guilt then, afraid that Narreth had been harmed in some way. From what she'd been told, females like Narreth never did something like what she'd just done. Maybe it was because they couldn't. Narreth was such a little thing compared to her. Maybe she wasn't made for this and the way that they seemed to be able to share what they each felt between them. She whined her fear softly. She lay down with a worried groan and nuzzled her friend's face to start licking her throat in contrition. The males all looked on, not knowing or understanding what this was all about. One of them pressed his nose against Tanra's opening and licked a little, hoping to restart things, but Tanra's head came up then in a quiet snarl and he got the hint. She looked up and felt the concern of the largest male as he stood on the other side of Narreth. He didn't know what this was either, but he was empathetic enough to feel what Tanra felt. Another male leaned over to sniff Narreth's wet haunches and suddenly knew that he was very close to losing his face for the thought of it when that big male stood with his hackles raised. Both of the offenders left then and the male lowered himself to lie against Narreth's back very carefully. He didn't know everything, but he knew enough to want to ensure that the one who seemed to be hurt somehow wasn't disturbed by any foolish noses. "Narreth," the Rohn witch heard the tremulous and worried sound in her head, "Are you hurt? Narreth, what have I done to you?" Narreth's eyes opened a little, and her hand reached out to lie over the Tanra's neck, "You haven't done anything bad, Tanra. Who is that behind me?" "The first male," Tanra replied, "the largest one. He will not hurt you." Narreth managed the barest nod, "Did you enjoy yourself?" "Yes," Tanra said, "Your gift to me worked well. I had them all." "I know," Narreth groaned wearily, "I felt it all. We forgot about that. I feel as though I have been fucked more than once by every one of them. I even know your favorite. He lies behind me. Three times, he took you." Tanra was shocked and felt upset, "I am sorry, I did not think either. I was lost in it." As though he knew that he was being spoken of somehow, the male in question laid his head down onto Narreth's hip with a worried sigh. Narreth didn't think about it, and she guessed much later that perhaps she should have, but she reached over and scratched the fur on his head for a moment. "Well, I am not hurt," Narreth said, "Do you like him enough? Do you think that he will stay? I can feel that you want him to." "I do not know, Narreth," Tanra replied, "I hope that he will. I like them all, but him the most. Why?" "Because he looks as though he has a brain in him, and the way that he lies here warms my poor bottom so nicely," Narreth said, "You should try for him and show him how you like him so." "How Narreth?" Tanra asked, "All that I know to do, I have already done." "Then do it some more, Tanra," Narreth smirked, "He is not stupid. Fuck with him until his legs will not hold him up. Sooner or later, your true heat will come to you. If you wish for a pack with him, then fuck him so that your womb stays brimming with seed. He has plenty enough for you, and if these others stay interested, ..." "But what about you?" Tanra asked. "Don't worry about me," Narreth said as she rubbed her friend's ear, "Have I complained?" "Well no," Tanra replied, "I can do what you say easily. I even want to." "Good," Narreth sighed, "I will feel as though I have been fucked by a herd of these womderful things every day. What could be finer? But I warn you now. I will not even try to be quiet about it anymore. Everything was so good, but keeping myself still was the worst." Tanra lowered her head and licked Narreth's face once before she closed her eyes. ---------------------- The next morning, Narreth was amazed that she had actually fallen asleep. It was the first time that it had happened since her death, and it felt wonderful to have done that. She felt really well rested and she smirked to herself about all that had been required to be able to do it. They weren't even lovers in any way, but they shared something wonderful to her. A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 23 ***There's a lot here that is not what it looks like at first glance, but then there's a lot going on in the background in a lot of places. We move ahead, back at the home of Dahlgren. 0_o -------------- Book of the Merren Part 9 "She's got a lot of innate grace," Selena said as they watched Nahl'een practice what she'd learned from her sister that day. It turned into a smirk as the little girl almost fell over for a moment, but the smirk was replaced instantly with a warm smile and encouraging words by the time that Nahl'een looked at her. "You've just got to get used to things," she said to Nahl'een. "It'll seem very strange to you at first, but you'll manage. You're doing so well." Selena saw Nahl'een's face beaming at her just before the girl began again. She almost missed the sound of Ny'Zeille speaking to herself. "What did you say?" "I was talking to myself," the demon said, "but what I said was in response to when you said that she just has to get used to things. 'So do we all,' I told myself." The rogue had no idea what was meant, but she decided to leave it alone. Ny'Zeille has been growing more and more snippy as the day went on. The day before had gone badly enough. When Nahl'een had finally had enough for one day, her grandmother prepared her bath and asked her if she'd mind it if Selena sat in the room with her, and after wheedling the promise of a tale out of it, Nahl'een was happy. Not long after the story came to its end and she'd asked her sister a few questions, she fell silent and Selena wondered about it. "I am happy because of you, but I miss Dahl now," she said quietly, "You know Dahl?" "I do," the rogue smiled, "Maybe tomorrow, I'll tell you about a little adventure that I had with him. Maybe it might help how you miss him so much." Nahl'een nodded and said that she'd like that, and after a moment, she looked at Selena a little curiously. "You miss him too, Selena?" She thought about it, "Yes," she said, "But nothing like the way that you do. I only knew of him, mostly, until I finally met him one day, not long ago. But I did something that I guess I shouldn't have and I don't think that he likes me very much. I stole his horse, and I guess that I made him angry. I'm really hoping that he comes home to you soon. I'd like to say that I'm sorry." "I can help." Nahl'een said as she hung onto the side of the tub, smiling at Selena, "Dahl get big surprise that I have sister, Selena. Dahl never stay angry." No, Selena thought, Dahlgren wouldn't remain angry. He'd just apply that distant coldness that he was famous for. It didn't matter, she decided. She'd found out enough things about Nahl'een and herself to have made this trip worthwhile, never mind the ten coins. She was absolutely smitten with her new little sister and wanted to make up for the lost time. She just didn't know about anything else for now. "Are you ready to get out now?" she asked, "I've got a big towel for you, and after you're asleep in your bed, I have to go see to my horse again to make sure she's got enough water to drink." Nahl'een's jaw dropped, "You have horse too? I ride with Dahl, but I want to learn to ride horse all by myself one day." "I don't know why you would, "Selena laughed, "I've seen you ride Shaevre. You looked like you were doing just fine then. Anyway, you need to get a little bigger before you can ride a horse all by yourself. I'll talk to your Gramma. Maybe I can find you a pony to learn on." "You steal a pony for me?" Selena shook her head, "I didn't say that. I think that I need to teach you about what I do, Nahl'een. I don't go around stealing things from everyone. I usually do it for someone because they pay me to find what they need or want. I've even stolen something to give it back to the one that it was stolen from in the first place. It's almost the same thing, but it's a little different. I need to talk to your Gramma about that too, so you can understand. Don't go wishing for a pony just yet. I think that I'll be here for a while, and you have a lot more dances to learn, little sister." ------------------------------ After going to see her grandmother and walking to her room, Nahl'een yawned and climbed into her bed. To Selena's surprise, she said goodnight to both her and the hellhound on the floor in the corner lying unnoticed by the rogue. The girl addressed the Xer by name and it was not Shaevre this time, but Nahl'een explained that Shaevre didn't sleep in her room every night, and that the duty of guarding her while she slept fell to two different female Xer, though most nights it was Shaevre. Once she'd seen to her horse, Selena wandered for a time, looking at things in the arboretum and the stone garden. Her travels took her not too far from the garden of sighs and she was reminded that she'd wanted to see what was there. As she wandered in, she heard Ny'Zeille calling to her softly. Selena rounded a large curious sculpture and found her friend sitting with Shaevre, who blinked and looked down and away after a moment. Selena found this a little unusual, because since she'd been here, she'd known the Xer to be friendly to her, but also a little reserved whenever Selena was with Nahl'een. "Please sit," Ny'Zeille said, "I've brought you a cup of tea the way that I know that you prefer it. We have a few things to speak of, the three of us." Selena thought the statement very odd. She sat and smiled a little. Shaevre looked away again. "The Xer have long been our friends," Ny'Zeille began, "as I've said. At this home, and related to its function as the home of a ranger, we have been accorded a small contingent of them to act as guards -- but not servants, I must point out. Once you have been here for a little while, you'll find them to be very helpful, especially as they come to know you. While the majority cannot speak to us directly, they all understand spoken human words of almost any language, and if one tries to be a little receptive, you might find their speech coming to you in your mind. "Wait, please," Selena interjected, "I've gotten to know Shaevre at least a little, but I've never seen her like this. I usually say hello when I see her, but now she looks as though she doesn't even want eye contact with me. Have I done something wrong?" Shaevre looked up then, shaking her head vigorously. Her eyes looked a little large for a second before she began to look to Selena as though she felt ashamed over something. What the rogue did feel from it was her discomfort, and so she moved to sit closer to where Shaevre sat on the floor. The Xer seemed to both appreciate the gesture and want to leave at the same time. "As I was saying," the demon began again, "Like ourselves, the Xer are advanced creatures and also like us, they have evolved an advanced sociological hierarchy with many levels and castes. Like many societies, some of those social lines may be crossed, while many may never be bent even a little. This is one of our Xer friend's problems. Shaevre has two things to ask of you, but she is very shy and does not know how to begin, and so she has come to me. You know her as Nahl'een's playmate, friend and also her personal guard a lot of the time. But the Xer which are here are not slaves, and have lives of their own. Shaevre is fairly new here, coming not long after Nahl'een arrived. As she is young, and not of any real social standing, she has not succeeded at making any friends among the Xer which are here, and they are a very social people, so the result is that she is often lonely. She has asked me if it might be allowed for her to seek your friendship. I've told her that it is up to you, and so she's a little stuck. One reason for that is her shape here. She cannot speak to you like this, but she likely could in her other form. She just doesn't know if you would be prepared to allow it." "Well if she remains like this, then it will only be harder to see if we might even be able to have a friendship." Selena smiled, turning to Shaevre. "I think it would be a little one-sided, Shaevre. If we can speak to each other directly, then do what you have to. I won't run away screaming." The Xer looked a little hopeful at that at least, Selena thought, as Shaevre looked at Ny'Zeille as though asking for permission. "Go ahead, Shaevre, " the demon laughed, "Stop being so shy." The Xer looked down a little uncomfortably for a moment and the Selena stared as she watched the hellhound begin to change. As she did, she also rose from a squat into a standing posture. The feet and claws were still there, but they'd changed somewhat. Shaevre's legs looked the same, though longer somehow, if it was possible. From the thighs upward, the Xer's structure became a lot closer to being human-like in its general appearance, though the head remained largely as it had been. Many of the features in that face which evoked the dog analogy in humans shifted, becoming softer. Selena saw that Shaevre had eight nipples peeking out through the soft fur on her front, though the top two sat on swells very much like human breasts. All told and including her ears, Selena guessed that Shavre topped six feet and maybe more. When Arrax was in this form, he easily topped seven feet in height, and also like Arrax, Shaevre was fit and muscular, with rather slim hips, something of a wasp waist, and a deep and very strong-looking chest. "I am not too ugly for you to talk with?" Shaevre asked. Her voice was a bit lower than Selena's and like Arrax', hers carried a gentle accent to it, not unlike what Selena imagined a soft Russian accent must sound like. She'd gotten some English translations of a few Russian classics a few years ago in with a collection of jewelry that she's stolen for a collector. He was going turf the books, but Selena had gotten a bagful for nothing and those romances were her favorites to read. There was no commonality between the Russian here on Earth and the Xerian language. The emphasis was on the wrong syllables, but Selena didn't know any better and wouldn't have cared anyway. Selena was gobsmacked, but she recovered and shook her head grinning, "No, Shaevre. You're very beautiful like this, and you can speak! This is so much better." She held out her hand, and Shaevre looked at it curiously. "While she is not strictly human," the demon smiled, "Selena has learned the mannerisms of humans. Offering you her hand is a form of greeting. You should take it and grasp it lightly for a moment before releasing it." The Xer tried it and they smiled at each other. Shaevre's relief was written all over her face as they sat down on the bench and began to talk. "Well," the demon smirked to herself, "I can see that my task here is done. Why don't you both run along now and find some other place to begin your friendship. I wish to stay here for a bit of fun." Shaevre's face immediately took on a look of concern and she groaned at Ny'Zeille a little plaintively. "You have a lot to talk about," the demon said, "What you wish might take a day or two, Shaevre. And anyway, I can't do everything for you all at once. Ask Selena yourself, and if you find that you can't, I'll be pleased to help, but not tonight anymore. Now please leave." Selena was mystified, but she took her mug of tea and motioned Shaevre to accompany her with a wave of her chin, "Let's go sit by the fire in the kitchen, and I'll make us some more tea. Do you drink tea?" "I have never tried it," Shaevre replied a little thoughtfully, "but I wish to now." Once they'd gotten out of the garden. Selena turned her head as they walked. "I wonder what that was all about. Ny'Zeille seemed almost a little rude at the end." Shaevre smiled a little, "Ny'Zeille wishes for some pleasure this night. She is not shy at all, that one, but I think that she wants to play in the garden a little until Arrax can meet her there." "Oh." Selena smiled, "Well I guess that would explain it, then." The pair laughed as they walked into the kitchen. "Forgive me for asking, Shaevre, but since you are allowed in the garden there, I would think that you must be an adult among your kind." "Yes," the Xer nodded, "I am young for this duty, but I am the age that I feel from you as what you would call twenty-two years. I love the little one very much, Selena, but I have no one to talk with. That's why I asked if I could meet you. " "I think it was a great idea, Shaevre, "the rogue smiled, "I've found another surprise in this very strange place, and I'm happy for it." They became friends over just the gallons of tea, it seemed to them. Shaevre found that she liked it and the talk so much. As different as they were to each other, they seemed to have a lot in common and Shaevre was in a little awe of her new friend. "I was told of what you have done and I have watched you as you danced. It is so beautiful to see that. I wish that I could learn it." Selena shrugged, "Well I'm already going to be teaching Nahl'een. Why can't I teach you at the same time?" "That is not possible, "her friend said a little sadly as she looked into her cup. "It might be, but we would need to ask permission for me to learn, and it could not be while I am guarding the little one. The duty requires that the one of us on her guard must be in the other form. We are better able to protect her then." Selena was a little confused, "Why is that?" "In that form, we are much more able to withstand an attack," Shaevre said, "we are tougher then, but a little, ... limited. Anyway, permission would be needed from Dahlgren, Ny'Zeille, and Arrax. Mostly Arrax. He is most often here when his female is here as well, since they travel together, though sometimes he comes alone. But he is the one in command of us when he is here." "How did you come to be here in this job?" Selena asked. "I should not have been chosen," the Xer said, "I have no real family, and what there is does not even know me, and anyway, it is much too low for me to have been considered. But I am young and fast, even though I am not heavy. I learned what was taught of the fighting well. Our fighters do not live long, Selena, and I needed the work. There are no wars at present, so I left to join this service. This duty offers me a longer life, though until now, it has been boring, other than playing with Nahl'een." Sheavre looked down a little shyly, "Why are you staring at me? I know that I am different -- " Selena shook her head and leaned forward to place her hand on Shaevre's forearm, "No, I've embarrassed you and I didn't mean to. I'm just listening to your voice, Shaevre. I like the way that you speak. I think that I could listen to it all day." Shaevre blinked for a moment, and then she shrugged with a helpless look, "Even if I told to you my life story, I would run out of things to say in only minutes." "What was Ny'Zeille talking about and what did she tell you to ask me about?" Selena asked, "Or is it too soon to speak of it for some reason? I saw how uncomfortable you looked right then. If it makes you uncomfortable even now, then we can talk about it later, if you wish. I'm a thief, and that means that I'm always curious." Shaevre's face grew that expression again and Selena waved her off before the Xer's shyness caused her to want to leave. "Forget that I said anything, Shaevre. You mention it whenever you think that you can. You looked as though you were ready to leave right then, and I don't want you feeling that way, alright?" "Thank you," Shaevre nodded with a very shy smile, "there is something which I would ask -- if I ever find my courage. This place is not one where it can be spoken of." The rogue smirked, "Now you're just being cruel, my friend. To say something like that to me is the same as dangling a baited hook in front of a hungry catfish. I want to know more than anything now. But I understand. I just hope that you'll find it in you to tell me sometime soon." Shaevre looked up, thinking hard and considering for a moment, "Please, Selena, can we walk to your room? I think that I can feel safe enough to talk there." Selena was surprised, but she nodded, "Of course, let's go." Once they had the door closed behind them, Shaevre pulled Selena toward the bed. "Sit with me, please. I have things to say that will need your trust and mine. I wanted some days to get to know you more, but there may be little time." Selena sat down with her eyebrows rising, "What's this all about?" "You said to me that you are a thief and that you are always curious, "Shaevre said in a whisper, "I have something to ask you and much to say. I do not know the ways of the kind of thief that you call yourself, but from what I have seen and heard while you have been here, you are not much like what a thief is where I come from. From what I think, there is some honor in what you do, yes?" Selena sighed and nodded, "I try, Shaevre. I always try to think of how things fit, not just if it will fit in my pocket, though that is always at the bottom of things. Go on, please." "You love the little one, yes? You are sisters and I see love between you growing as it should, I think. I love Nahl'een as well. Listen, Selena, there may be danger soon." Shaevre looked around for a moment as though she was afraid that they were being watched. After a moment when she seemed to be a little satisfied, she grabbed Selena's hand. When Shaevre took her hand away, Selena stared at the gold coins in her palm. ---------------------- "You're paying me to ki -- " "Shhhh," Shaevre almost whimpered as she looked around, "Sssh, you must keep your voice down. This place is for both Merran and Xer use. It is almost as an embassy for both, though it is Dahlgren's home. We must be very quiet. Whispers are far too loud." Selena was startled at Shaevre's strength as the Xer pulled her down onto the bed so that they were on their sides facing each other. "I am sorry," Shaevre began in the barest whisper, "I know that this must seem very odd, but we must whisper about this. Yes, if you look at the barest terms of it. That is what is wanted and required. Ny'Zeille is so smug and acts as though my desire to speak to you is sweet and awkward and she laughs at me for it. It is that I guess, but I needed to be alone with you like this so that I could ask. She knows nothing of this, so ..." Selena looked at Shaevre's face in front of hers. The Xer looked so familiar because of the loosely canine features, and yet there was an other-worldly exoticness to everything about her. She supposed that it was why she always looked to see her for the briefest moment just for a glimpse. It didn't matter, Selena was happy that the Xer had expressed a desire to seek her friendship. Selena liked her anyway. She threw her arm over Shaevre and pulled the two of them so that their eyes met in a straight line. Shaevre's eyebrows rose and the ear that she could see swiveled forward in surprise. "Ok," Selena whispered, "you're confident enough that I'd do this that you'd lay golds in my hand right out of the gate? Explain that to me." "Was it wrong?" Shaevre looked suddenly worried. "No, it is just not the way that things such as this are usually done, and you need to know the one that you're offering a job to a lot better than this. I might not be interested, but I might want to sell the information to one who might be, that's all." Selena whispered, "now please ..." They whispered to each other in the barest sighs as Shaevre explained it all. As she listened, Selena didn't notice that her hand was still on the side of Shaevre's face, and without even thinking, ... "Why do you do that?" The Xer suddenly stopped at the end of her explanation. "Huh?" Selena blinked, "Do what?" A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 23 "You are caressing my ear a little with your thumb." Shaevre hissed softly, "If it is what you mean to do, please do not stop, I only ask." "I'm sorry," Selena whispered back as she began to lift her hand, "You feel so familiar and friendly to me, I --" Shaevre's pawed hand flashed up and kept Selena from removing hers, "You do not have to stop," she hissed, "I enjoy this." "You do?" Shaevre smiled and shrugged, "It will sound foolish, but I like it. On Xer, we do this for friends. It is what we are and means little, but I like it. I am far from any of my friends back home, and I miss it. Please, do not stop." "You mean that friends just-" Shaevre nodded, "It is only small affection. On Xer, if you were in a place like a market where there was an eating area or in a park, you would see many friends talking and reaching to do as you do now and then. Sometimes both do this at once, and they do not stop talking as they do, males, females, everyone, as long as they know each other and are friendly. If you were walking and saw me with another and one of us was doing this, you would know that the other person is my friend." Selena smiled and she began again. Shaevre sighed and it made Selena grin, "You wanted to meet me, and you have. I like you, so ..." Shaevre saw the hopeful smile and she grinned a little as she reached and gently touched Selena's ear. It felt strange to her, but she didn't mind it. "I didn't know that you liked me," Selena smiled, "other than the way that you always listened so carefully to me whenever I spoke in your presence. It's not a fair comparison, and it probably shows my ignorance, but you didn't even wag your tail." "I am not allowed to show how I feel, "Shaevre hissed, "it is the duty. This is the first time that I have seen you when I am off. I am always alone and we are social things. We seek company. We lived as packs long ago, and this is still in us. I can be alone, but here, I am excluded, and ... I am always miserable. I spend most of my off time alone in my room." Selena looked at Shaevre and smiled, "Well, now you have me, so you won't have to be lonely. I find that I enjoy being with you, now that I see this side of you. I liked you before, but this is wonderful. I can talk with you and everything. And it feels really good to be sharing a secret. I've been working alone for so long now that I'd forgotten how good it feels to share a secret with a friend." Shaevre's eyes widened, "But what is asked, ... the payment, ... will you do it? If this happens, I will likely not be -- " "This is for her, right?" Selena sighed, "If I do this, will you be there?" Shaevre nodded, "Oh yes, I must be, I think." She surprised Selena as she lifted her head and brought her lips to her ear, "This must be said even more quietly. If you need to have trust in me, I have another secret to share to show my trust. You must not tell anyone, not even say the words to yourself when you are alone in this house. Many places have listening devices. I do not know about this room. That is why I am careful even here." Selena shivered slightly from the feel of Shaevre's soft fur against her ear. The few times that her lips touched the rim of her ear, she almost jumped and wondered why before she realized that it was the delicious bit of a thrill to her rogue's heart for the way that this had to be so carefully done. She loved a little danger, and there was the promise of that here. "Tell me then," she sighed. "The Xer will leave here very soon," Shaevre breathed into Selena's ear, "This is not known to the Merren yet. It is known to only two of the Xer, and the others are not to be told until the day. Only I and Arrax know, and he must not be spoken to about it either. I do not intend to go back to Xer. I will stay here. If this is found out -- what we speak of here, I will be killed, so you see, I must trust in you." She moved her head back and looked at Selena from close enough that the rogue felt her soft breath against her face. "Will you do it, Selena? If you wish for me as a friend, then you have that already. I will probably need you to tell me how I am to live here. Will you do it?" "Let me think," Selena smiled a little slyly, "I have to see if this will even fit into my busy schedule. A bit of a double-cross to start with, a little adventure and the obvious risk of pain and death if there is failure. From what you say, I might find my ass lost in the wilderness at a couple of points in the plan. A few huge unknowns in this which might end with me being hunted relentlessly... Hmm, and I get to be close to a friend my age that I seem to have just made? The one that I've kept peeking around corners in the hope to see and never knew why? The shy surprise who I now find likes me and would be pretty handy in a tight spot because she can be a tough snarly bitch in a scrape from what I've heard?" She looked at Shaevre, who stared back. "Well, ... yes," Shaevre nodded, "Will you do it?" Selena almost had to bite her own hand to keep from laughing. "You like a little adventure, don't you?" Shaevre shrugged and nodded, "Yes, from what I have heard of your tales, you have not had to face a thousand adversaries with automatic weapons at the same time. This sounds good to me, it would be a pleasant change; not boring and not the kind of thing where think I must pee within the first five minutes either." "There's one thing I need to know, "Selena hissed quietly, "A couple, actually, but they hinge on the one. The big unknown is afterward. This might work out, but afterward, I suppose that I could just wander off with my pay and head on home to my lonely little farm. What will you do then, Shaevre? I've got it bad enough as it is. I don't really have any friends, not that I can trust, anyway. I live alone since I can't find a man for me worth knowing, never mind wanting to love. It's worse now that I know what I am. What about you? I'm pretty sure that you want a male Xer, but from what you say, there won't be any left. Even if there were, Ny'Zeille said that they're snobs to you or something. You could live with me on my farm to start with while we figure out how you can get by. It's a thought that I've just had, and it's something for you to think about, anyway. I think I'd be happy to have a friend again." "There may be one or two," Shaevre whispered, "I do not know if I would be wanted by either of them, and other than my nature, I do not know if I would want the younger one, to say the truth. I only know that I do not want to go back to Xer. It is an option, but it would be an end that I already know and can foresee plainly myself. I would be dead inside of two years, no matter how it would come to me. Here I suddenly feel hopeful in a way. If I am alone here, I could bear it if I knew no one and saw no one. It is only a matter of living. But to be alone on a world of others where I am the only one like me is a very sad feeling. But now I feel very hopeful. It is only a feeling that makes me happy. I want it to continue, and I think that it comes from being near you. I would be happy to help you on your farm. I am happy that I asked to meet you." "I think I know the feeling, " Selena said as she slid the arm that was under Shaevre a little for comfort since the weight was bothering her to a degree, so she reached around with her other hand and touched the muscled ribs of Shavre's side by accident. She couldn't much help herself it seemed -- the Xer wasn't anything like a dog, yet there was the same hopeful, friendly feeling to it. She hadn't really meant to do it, but ... The motion caused the Xer to shiver a little. It took two tries to slide her arm, because her fingers hung up momentarily in the thin wire around Shaevre's neck. "What is this thing?" she asked, "I always see it on you guys." Shaevre blinked, "Identification in case we are killed. It can also be used to help find us if we become separated from a group. Only commanders have the way to remove them from bodies, well, assuming of course that our heads are still attached." "How pleasant," Selena said before she went on with her thoughts, "Going back to Xer sounds like a pretty bleak prospect, I would think," Selena whispered, "It might be a little lucky for us both that I seem to find myself drawn to the friendliness of a Xer fighter that I am getting to know a little. We might make a pretty good team in my line of work. I think that we could make a fairly good living at it if we team up and make a partnership out of it. When I'm short of gold and work, I always go back to bounty hunting. If we work together, you and I would have no trouble at all and we could take the really hard cases -- the ones where all you need to do is make sure that they've got the right mark. Those ones, you can just kill and go for the pay -- and those ones pay the most because of the risk. If nothing else works out, we'd always have it to fall back on. But we'd both be considered a little twisted you know, me especially, though it could work well in terms of our reputations in the trade. But I find right now that I don't really care about that. I like the idea. I think I want that partnership. Are you interested too? I mean for after this work?" Shaevre blinked for a moment and thought about what Selena was saying. "I have found myself happy to be a silent, four-footed bodyguard this last while around you, because I never knew what I would say to you if I had to speak. It was a little unsatisfying, I must admit, but I am a little in awe of you. This is so much better, to be talking like this, because it makes me feel hope for after this job -- like spending years wondering what you could do for a living and then suddenly finding that you needn't have worried at all. I have no trouble killing. It was what I did for pay before. I can do it again." "In awe?" Selena blinked," Of me? What the hell for?" "That," Sheavre nodded with a smile, "What you show me now. I think that one of these rogue girls must be confident and be a little daring or they die -- or starve at the least. I am confident anywhere on the world where I came from. With a weapon in my hands, I can lead others under heavy fire in a battle anywhere and win. I have done it. But I can be fearless when there are others at my back and this is not the same thing." She shrugged, "Here? I know nothing of the place and have no faith in myself, other than for my barest survival. I think that humans would feel fear to even see me. After the first hundred or their arrows I would be in trouble." "Hundred?" Selena tried to keep her voice to a soft hiss, "You'd be 'in trouble' after a hundred? I'm in trouble if somebody draws their bow. Oh, "she thought after a second, "You mean in that other shape you have." "No," Sheavre whispered, "in this one. In the other one, I wouldn't be in trouble at all." "Oh, "Selena grinned, "I am going to like having you as a business partner. I think it would be a lot of fun working with you, Shaevre." Shaevre nodded, "I think that we understand each other, Selena. Keep the golds, take the job, and let us spin the wheel together. If we live at the end of it, I will need a way to feed myself. We could be partners and if nothing else, we will live on your farm as thieves, lady thieves and bounty hunters who look as farmers and we will see what we can make of it. I have never been a farmer, but I am strong." "Good," Selena sighed, "Now for Pete's sake, what was the other thing? We've pretty much admitted to each other that we can make a friendship between us, and it's pretty weird, my friend, and not because of you, other than this big secret of yours." She chuckled, "Listen Sheavre, I can't stand being made to be curious about something and not finding out what it is. I've always been this way. If we're going to do this job and we're planning our careers afterward, can't you just tell me?" Selena was surprised at a few things. Firstly, that Sheavre was really uncomfortable about whatever it was. She looked as though she was ready to crawl under the bed and hide. It was driving her nuts. She couldn't imagine the world where the Xer came from, but she knew that they were a lot more advanced than people here, and whatever had happened in Shaevre's past, she was a veteran of some kind of struggle that Selena likely wouldn't ever be able to comprehend, never mind live through, and she had a thought that Shaevre had more than lived through it -- she'd flourished there. She could understand where the shyness had come from in seeking friendship with someone when you were nothing like anyone else. That she was this uncomfortable about anything else just flat-out astounded Selena. Shaevre took a deep breath and did her best, but it came out as a lot of mumbling. It took Selena some time to get the barest grasp of a few words. She grabbed Shaevre and shook her a little, bringing her face close enough to look right into her eyes. Without even meaning to, and wanting to offer Shaevre some reassurance, she kept looking into her eyes and kissed the top of her snout softly and very briefly. The eyes widened. "It's not unusual here for females who are good friends to kiss each other very quickly. Some do it to say hello or goodbye, and most don't do it at all. I'm trying really hard to encourage you. Listen," she hissed, still keeping to a whisper. "I can see that this stuttering just embarrassed you under the floor, but the way that you're going, we'll be here for a week. Make it easy on yourself. Just take a deep breath, close your eyes and pretend I'm not even here if it makes it better, and then just say it." Ninety seconds later, Selena's jaw hung down, "No, ..." Shaevre was mortified, but she nodded, "Ny'Zeille has something on her mind now. I don't know what it is, but it distracts her and she hardly listens to one like me. I needed to tell her something as a desire to spend time alone with you. Nothing was working. She barely heard a thing that I said, but, ... Selena, I had to get her to introduce us. She is the most suspicious person alive. So it had to be something that I would need to seek discretion for, and if she could enjoy the thought of it, I hoped that it might work. There really isn't a second thing. I only told her that there was." She looked away for a moment and closed her eyes, gathering the courage to say it. She exhaled, "So I told her that I ... like you. I mean more than this." Shaevre closed her eyes then, and waited to be told which hell that Selena wanted her to go to. Selena began to chuckle softly and Shaevre's eyes snapped open. "She's a piece of work, "Selena smiled, "I'll give her that." "How do you mean?" Shaevre whispered, "You -- you're not angry with me for saying that to her?" Selena shook her head, "A week ago, I'd have been angry with you and mortified to hear this. Today?" She snorted, "Not at all. But I can see that I'll have to explain that." Shaevre nodded, "Please, I was desperate." Selena nodded, "It's alright. Listen, I don't know how things are where you're from, but here, I guess it happens sometimes -- no, I know it happens sometimes that people of the same uh, sex are attracted to each other. Since you're so wound up about it, I'd say that it happens among Xer too, right?" She saw Shaevre's nod, "Only I'm -- " Selena held up her hand, "Let me explain. I think that after being here for a while now, I'm beginning to see through Ny'Zeille a little bit. When she was showing me the things that can be on a demon or a half-demon's body that might be a sign of it, she made a big deal about how someone with demon in them was likely drawn to beauty in anyone -- even their own sex, in a sexual way. She even did it in such a way that it got me a little hot for it. Don't worry, "she chuckled, "I've calmed down since then. Now, I have the sense that you're not from high fancy people where you come from, and I'll tell you for nothing that I'm just like you -- but in my line of work, I've had to get a little close to people like that quite often. I've learned a few things, you know? I think that it just happens sometimes, boys liking boys and girls liking girls like that. It doesn't bother me. I don't think that a person like me has much right to look down my nose at anyone, considering that I steal for my living, and I wouldn't anyway. But there's a difference that I think I can see here. If two people love each other and they're the same thing and they mean it, well fine. I don't care. Good for them. But I've met some people who are like that because they're rich and bored, or, maybe they think that they see something fashionable in it, I don't know." She looked at Shaevre and grinned. You know who I'm talking about here, right?" Shaevre nodded and looked very relieved. "So you told Ny'Zeille that you were interested in me that way so that she'd get a little tickle out of it and arrange that I meet you tonight. That's fine, Shaevre. I think that it's a good story to have used." She rolled her eyes, "A week ago, I'd have likely run out of here, jumped on my horse and ridden off, blushing and who knows what else. Tonight, I'm trying not to laugh. But you know you can't just say something like that to her and not expect to be asked about how it went." Shaevre nodded with a sigh, "I know. What do I do?" Selena thought about it, "When is all of what you told me supposed to happen?" "Two days from now," Shaevre said, "You must be ready then, as must I. We will need to talk some between us. I am off tomorrow as well. That is why I told her. When it happens, I must be on duty." Selena shrugged, "Well I know that I don't want to be asked about it, so all I can think of is to do something so that she thinks that she has her answer without needing to ask either of us. That way, we can spend time together. How good are you at acting?" ------------------------- It was a long past dark later when Selena pulled her clothes on to step outside into winter. It had been a few days since she'd worn them, and she smirked to herself. She'd just gotten used to trying to feel comfortable in the warm building and now it wasn't really a thought to her. She wanted to think about things, and there just seemed to be no time for it in the house, other than when she finally got to bed, and she knew that she didn't want to have a lot to think about then. Even as it was, she knew it would keep her up for certain. She walked through the gardens in the thin moonlight, thinking that they must be something to see when they were in season. The wind wasn't too cold on her, and Selena thought that it must be the warmth of the house and the knowledge that she'd be going back inside in a little while. This had all been a little much for her. The things that she'd learned about herself and her sister. Her sister. Those words still felt strange to her. She felt fortunate about it anyway as she wandered out through the outer gate, back into the familiar world once more. Her next thoughts had to do with herself and what she'd learned from Ny'Zeille. That had been an even bigger shock, and Selena knew that she'd have to make a pretty large number of revisions in the way that she thought about things. She thought about Dahlgren then. This had all begun because of him. She asked herself what she wanted from that -- really wanted, and not only the words that she'd tossed at his mother. She came up with not all that much. She felt like an ass, but there was no changing what had happened. All that there was, was what might be made of it. She had a rather vague hope that something could. She was determined that now that she had Nahl'een in her life, she wanted her to stay there for a time, at least. She just didn't know how it could be done. A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 23 Then she thought about what had been offered and she felt better for the promise of something that she at least knew a little bit about -- being a sneak. And finally, she thought about Shaevre and the sort of work they might be able to take on as partners. She didn't particularly like the idea that the Xer who she found herself liking so much was going to be the only one, likely very soon, but she liked her enough to know that they could likely form a good partnership. The thought intrigued her and she found herself looking forward to it. How many times had she found herself with only a wall at her back and needing help? With Shaevre along, ... She realized that she'd walked a good distance away from the house and the grounds and decided to head back. As she turned to go back, she found that she really hadn't been alone. A pair of hellhounds stood near her, as silent as death, only regarding her, but appearing intent on blocking her return at the same time. "I was um, ... I was just heading back," she said as she tried to get by them to walk back to the house. They only looked at her, and yet their demeanor told her that unlike Shaevre, these ones might have been friendly to her inside the house, but out here, it was a little plain that they didn't particularly like her very much. They didn't make a sound, but she felt a bit of fear at the prospect of walking past them and wondered if they'd let her back onto the grounds. But then she saw Shaevre, walking on two legs, striding out toward her. She made one sound, something like a bark which contained a single word in it, and the pair of hellhounds looked as though they almost left the ground at the sound of it. Shaevre strode past them and she glared at the pair, beginning to speak in the Xerian tongue in tightly clipped and obviously angry tones. The others looked as though they were trying to explain something, but Shaevre said one more word and it shut them up. Selena watched as Shaevre leaned forward a little and said one phrase to them and finished it with a one-word command which was shouted loudly and ended in a rather vicious-sounding snarl. The hellhounds turned sharply and trotted off without looking back. Shaevre held up one pawed hand for a moment as she watched the others carefully until they were out of sight. After that, Shaevre looked more like a happy puppy than whatever that had been. "What was that all about?" She asked Shaevre. "Enforcement which should not have been needed, "she replied, "Those two are supposed to be mine to command, as they are below me in rank. But they all play a game here because I have no high place on our world and they ignore me as much as they can. I asked them just what they thought that they were doing out here, watching a guest outside the circle of responsibility, and before they began their lies about being concerned that you would wander off, I told them that you knew the land here far better than they ever would, and that I could smell their dishonesty. I commanded them to return to where they are supposed to be patrolling instead of trying to intimidate a guest. Before they began to play their game of ignoring me, I told them that since we were outside our circle of responsibility here, then I would yank their ballsacks for them hard enough to see whether their eyeballs were attached to them if they didn't do as I commanded instantly -- unless they now wished to challenge me, the two of them at once." "At once," Selena said, "You mean at that instant or did you mean that they were supposed to fight you or something together?" "Just that," Shaevre grinned a little, "together at the same time. They try to look hard, but the hounds here have no stones at all. They all pretend to be Death hounds. It is our word for the hard line fighters in a few units of the Brigades of Xer and the small honor of it remains even after one's service has ended. Well I am a Death hound, Selena. Other than Arrax, I am the only one here. They are only here for the higher pay of staffing a remote outpost. Other than a brawl in an alley back on Xer, they have never seen action before and certainly not what I would call a fight of any kind. They have never served in our military, no matter how hard they pretend at it out here. They wouldn't live an hour in the Brigades, they'd be beaten and killed before they'd found where they were supposed to sleep the first night in Barracks." "But they're bigger than you are," Selena said, "both of them. Could you beat them?" "Any one of the line fighters that I ever served with could kill those two in a breath," Shaevre said in disgust, and then it was clear to Selena in the next instant that she didn't wish to spend another second of her own time on the others. She leaned toward Selena a little and spoke very quietly over Selena's shoulder facing away from the house, "This is where the show begins, I guess. They are listening and hide themselves not far away. Such idiots," she frowned. "So," she smiled, brightening as she slipped her padded fingers between Selena's fingers while she took her hand, "We are here in the human world, where I have little experience myself, and I must rely on my friend to show me how things are out here." They walked for a time all over the flat top of the mountain, holding hands. Selena considered a few other things as they walked. The thought of a working partnership with a hellhound who could handle herself and had the ability to fade from sight was a little tantalizing. "I have a question," she smiled as she leaned on Shaevre a little when they stood together looking out over the surrounding night landscape. There were small points of light out there, from the village below and the occasional night fire of a shepherd. They were far from the grounds now, and Shaevre said that the others were not far from the gate a long way back. "Are you sure that you want to take up the sort of life that we talked about?" "Try to see it from my side," Shaevre said as they walked back toward the gate, "We like each other. When you spoke of being partners and working together -- me as a partner, I knew that I wanted this so much. You are not the kind to sit in a tavern and grow fat drinking ale. You are not the kind who would stay at home and do nothing. From what I have heard in your stories to the young one, you seek adventure -- as do I. I hate being here, other than how I love the little one. I would rather be cold and wet seeking my fortune with Selena any day." Sheavre smiled and leaned back against a tree that they found themselves under. It stood in direct line of sight from the gates. From that, Selena knew that the Xer was willing to go to the next part of their charade. She looked down and thought about it. It had to be done, and they'd agreed on it. Even so, it was very strange to her. She smirked to herself in the darkness. Strange to not, this was already a lot more fun than just wandering around the house, no matter what. Selena stepped over and pressed Shaevre up against the tree. She reached up and had to stretch a little, but she pulled herself up a little better after she'd gotten her arms around the tall girl's neck, and once she was there, she kissed Shaevre hard and said her piece with her body as it pressed against that long lovely frame. Her hand on the back of Shaevre's head kept her mouth captive just the way that she wanted at the moment. They broke apart after a minute and panted a little as they stared and smiled, looking a little dazed to each other. Selena pinned Shaevre to the tree all over again a minute later. She couldn't help it, she'd never been kissed like that. "Listen, Xer," she said, just loud enough to be heard from the gate, "I don't know how this will go. Let's just see if this keeps building between us, and I'm telling myself at the same time, because I already want to use a word here that we are not ready for. I am pretty confident that this will happen, and if we're going to do this as you said, then I am absolutely thrilled at the prospect. It feels to me as though I am awaiting the start of a great adventure. I know that you have your job here, but I can rent a place in the village. When you are off-duty, you will come and stay with me." Just inside the gates, the pair of invisible hellhounds stared as Shaevre kissed Selena in return and ran her hands over the curve of her clothed bottom. They smiled at each other for a moment, but Selena leaned in again and began to kiss Shaevre once more. Shaevre's eyes opened wide, out of the view of the pair of watchers when Selena slipped her tongue into the Xer's mouth. Sheavre groaned once against it and then she sighed and allowed it, even beginning to kiss back. When Selena gave her the chance for it, Shaevre disengaged a little, but Selena tried with some success to tease Shaevre's tongue out of her mouth a little and she sucked the tip of it a little hungrily. They stopped a few minutes later and looked at each other breathlessly. "What - what are you doing?" Shaevre hissed, "What was that for?" "I was giving them a show," Selena smirked as she wiped her lips with the back of her hand. Before Shaevre could reply, Selena went back to it again and they stood there holding each other tightly and kissing as though it was their last night on Earth. After five more minutes of it, Shaevre hissed as softly as she could, "Please Selena, stop. They have had their show." Selena drew back a little and kissed those lips once more, "Sorry if I overdid it," she smiled. She looked up and Shaevre nodded with a surprised smirk, "I feel as though I should thank you." "Well if you feel that way, then you're welcome," Selena grinned, "It was a bit of hard work, but I didn't mind it too much. I think that it was believable." "I think that it was as well," Sheavre chuckled, "I was about to fall down," she hissed into Selena's ear. "I don't know the angles here," the rogue replied in a breath, "It might have looked real from one angle, but if there are any others here or some way to watch us besides them, it was obvious that it wasn't real. That was why I was so ... pointed about it." They looked at each other and Shaevre nodded, "This is surely enough," she said, "Let's go back inside." They walked holding hands as they went in, the two who had been watching them jumping away to give them room. One leaped right into a garden and froze there. The pair walked all the way up the walk, "That was maybe a little too much," Shaevre whispered. "I know," Selena grinned and she sighed, "But I liked it." Shaevre snapped her head around, and Selena laughed quietly as they went inside. When they got to Selena's room, Shaevre closed the door and threw Selena up against it. "I thought that you liked males," she hissed angrily, "Is this what human girls do with a friend that they have only just made?" "I do like males," Selena whispered as she struggled against the strength of Shaevre's grip. "Humans don't do that, at least not that quickly, not often anyway. I wanted it to look real by being real. I like you and I'm sorry if I've made you angry." She sagged a little and looked a bit upset, "I've never done anything like that before in my life, and -- and I liked it. I didn't want to stop. I'm sorry and if you're that upset, then let me go and leave me alone. I'll still do the job." Sheavre looked hard at Selena as they struggled, "You cannot just do that to a Xer. It makes feelings rise in us of being wanted and needed. It is not something that can just be done, and I am one who wants a male." "Now," Shaevre whispered, "I need to know what was really behind that out there." "Why?" Selena hissed back, "We did as we agreed, and I'm sorry that I put that much into something that I suddenly found myself liking to do. I like men. I just found that I also like you, Shaevre, at least enough for that. You obviously survived it. What do you care anymore what was behind it? It's over, alright? Now, if we're done here, please let me go. I'll meet you tomorrow sometime and we can go for a walk outside to go over details. Don't worry, I won't kiss you again." Shaevre said nothing. She only nodded and released Selena, who walked away to give her the room to open the door. Shaevre walked out and closed the door behind her. Selena was a little angry at herself. She hadn't meant to get carried away like that at all. Worse, she felt sad that she'd ruined the friendship that they'd begun. She seemed to be getting quite good at ruining things. She looked at the coins that she'd accepted. She'd declined the gold as pay, saying that she'd use what she needed to cover any incidental expenses which might be incurred and return the rest. In fact, she intended to return it all now. She decided that she'd do this for nothing, and then after the dust had settled, she'd just ride off one day soon after and forget the whole thing as quickly as she could. She felt that she'd embarrassed herself and when she thought about Shaevre being alone after this was over, she felt even worse. She removed her clothing, feeling the warmth of the always too-warm house as she brushed her hair a little. Then she turned the strange light off and got into bed, asking herself what the hell was wrong with her. She had her answer after only a little thought. Shaevre was a girl, but from her viewpoint, both Shaevre and Arrax appealed to her. She was just attracted to them, that was all. Even though she was female, Shaevre's body was harder against her then anyone's, excepting maybe Dahlgren, and she liked how it had felt to her. Yes Shaevre was a female, but to Selena, she'd felt wonderful to hold and kiss. That muscled body was like nothing she'd ever laid eyes on in her life. She'd wanted to lose herself in that soft fur and the gentle way that she'd been kissed in between the forceful ones. It all left her very confused, but she thought that the Xer was beautiful in a feminine way while exhibiting such masculine features, and her voice when she spoke in that soft accent, ... She'd only been lying there for a few minutes, looking up at the ceiling when she heard a soft knock at her door. She got up and opened the door a little. "Did you forget something?" she asked Shaevre, noting that she looked even angrier now. "My quarters are much less private than your room," the Xer said, "May I come in?" Selena nodded and stepped away from the door. Shaevre stepped inside and stood, looking very uncomfortable. "There are two other female Xer here," she said, "They already knew about what we did and stared at me. I forgot about that, and also, I am very sorry for being upset with you. If you would allow it, I will sleep sitting on the floor." Selena shook her head, "I'm still sorry that I upset you in the first place, and I won't have you sleeping on the floor. My bed is big enough for us both to sleep in without touching and I guess that we'll need to keep up the ruse for tomorrow and the next night, so we may as well get used to sleeping in the same bed, if we want everyone to think that we're like that." She got onto the bed and looked back at Shaevre. "Come on," she said, "This is getting more stupid by the second. I said sleep. I didn't say anything else. I'm sure that you'll survive sleeping next to me too." Shaevre walked over and sat on the bed. "Selena? Could we just begin again? We are both not worth each other's company like this. I was upset, but I am not anymore." "Why?" Selena asked, just barely managing to hold back the sarcastic remark that she had on her tongue. Shaevre shrugged, "I survived it, as you said. I had to think about it and I even liked it very much. Why did you do that so, ... so hard? I think that it was more than just for the show of it." Selena didn't blink or hesitate. It wasn't in her to not face something. "Look, I'm very sorry, alright? I did want to do this as a show so that Ny'Zeille could have her little thrill and not think too much about seeing us together tomorrow. We both forgot about the other Xer getting even dumber over it. I liked it, Shaevre. I'm probably as surprised as you are. It wasn't what I'd expected. It wasn't like kissing a girl, even though you are another female. It felt good to me to hug you. The way that your body is, you're quite a bit different from me, and I've only liked kissing somebody that much only once before. Most of the men that I've kissed do it far too hard." "Who was the other female?" Shaevre asked. "There was no other female," Selena said, "I told you. I've never done something like that before, not even the day that Ny'Zeille was feeling me up in the water. The other person was Dahlgren." Shaevre stared, "You have kissed Dahlgren?" Selena felt awkward lying there, so she say up, "Yes." She could see that she'd have to explain, so she told Shaevre what had happened. "I am sorry that it did not work out well for you," Shaevre nodded, "I have always liked him. I think that he is the sort of male that I would like to find one day -- since there will not likely be any Xer here. But that is like a little dream, and I know that nothing like that will happen for me." "Why, Shaevre?" Selena asked, "You're different from humans, but you are beautiful, you know. I was kissing you, wasn't I? You might find someone one day." "Are we friends again?" Shaevre asked, "If we are, then maybe you can help me to find someone, if you still wish for me as your partner after this." "I do," Selena smirked, "I was very angry with myself for ruining what we started. I do want to work with you. I was looking forward to it very much." They talked for a while longer and then Selena suggested that they'd better try to get some sleep. Shaevre had it in her mind to sleep facing away from Selena, but changed her mind and was lying to face her. It led to an awkward moment for Selena. She was about to ask, but Shaevre spoke first. "I had the feeling that you liked to hold my body. You said something about this." Selena nodded, "Yes. To me, it didn't feel as I thought that it would, and the way that you're made, well it felt inviting to me, and I felt a lot of comfort in it. It was another surprise to me. Other than Dahlgren, I haven't ever felt so good holding anyone -- a big surprise to me, I can tell you." Shaevre smiled, "Thank you. It feels good to me to hear that." "What did it feel like to hug me?" Selena whispered. "Not like holding any Xer," she grinned, "It felt as though I was holding someone who was more female than anyone that I have ever known. Neither one of us is very soft. But I liked it. I think that, since we have both survived our misadventure, and we are here pretending to be lovers, I see nothing wrong if you wish to hold me again." Selena smiled and she moved over. They were nervous and tentative, but they finally found their way into each other's arms a cautious minute later. Selena groaned in happiness for the way that it felt so nice. Shaevre moved very carefully to get comfortable and kissed Salena softly only once before she moved her head away a little and smiled. "Good night, 'lover'," she whispered with a soft chuckle. --------------------------- While Selena taught Nahl'een another lesson in dance, Shaevre went to see Arrax and asked permission to go to the village with Selena for a few things and to see how it felt to be outside away from the house, and he cautiously granted it. "You will have to behave differently from how you were last night from what you told me." He smiled, "I have had a lot of enjoyment listening to the complaints of the other females. They insisted that you be moved from the female quarters and I told them to hold their tongues. Before you arrived, they often brought the males there overnight. They like to pretend to be fine Xer females, but they act like they do not care at all who mounts them. A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 23 I told them that what you did ceased to be my concern as soon as you were behind walls at least. It shut them up when I showed them the security files and told them that you had far more value to the service than they did, and if they wished to file proper complaints, then I would be pleased to have their assignments changed to one of the prison worlds. We are always short of guards there, I told them, and there are plenty of males there to warm their beds -- before they were murdered in them. It happens fairly often." Shaevre and Selena walked to the town and the rogue coached the Xer on how to be polite and how not to be. They were stared at quite a bit, but neither of them minded all that much. The only bit of trouble that they had was when Selena insisted that they go to the inn for a pint. "The inn in any village or town is a place full of information for ones like us," she said, "It will likely cause a bit of a stir, but while you are being looked at, I would be getting information. We won't do this today. We are only going for a little drink so that you can see what it is like there." They got about halfway through their pints when the largest of the layabouts in the place swallowed enough of the courage in his tankard to wander over. "What the fuck are you?" he asked as though he'd just seen her. "Thirsty," Shaevre said quietly, "I am thirsty, friend." He snorted, "You're no friend of mine, you flea-bitten mu-" He stared at Shaevre as she held him by the throat, not believing the speed with which she stood up or how she needed only one hand to do it. "Well since we are not friends as you say," she pulled back her lips to grin at him coldly, "then stay the hell away from me and bother someone who fears you. You'll feel better, I'm sure. I know that you'll live longer." He stared at her from where he'd landed on the floor. Selena pulled her dagger from its sheath and laid it on the table as Shaevre sat back down. They weren't bothered after that. --------------------------- Far away, on a slowly freezing world, the contracted head of the Xer operations on that world looked out of the window of his office, watching another Xer assault craft come in carrying the new refugees. It was full of the many relations of one of the many lowland kings. He held up his hand toward a Merren idol on his desk, indicating that he wished for them to wait a little before he carried on with his report. There was a chirp from a screen in front of him, indicating that there was an incoming call and he waved his hand toward the screen to accept the call. "Your highness," he smiled warmly at the now-displaced king as he spoke in the lowland tongue, "welcome. You look harried. It must be difficult to leave your palace under the circumstances so prevalent in these troubled times. We will make you and your family feel at ease very shortly." "It was awful," the king said, "I have never seen anything like it. The throngs at my very gates, all bent on the unjust murder in their hearts, all clamoring that I be killed. As your craft rose to bring us here, I saw thousands of people rioting. There is no order anymore." "Calm yourself, your highness," the commander smiled, "We will restore order for you soon and then you and your fine family will not require this temporary asylum any longer. For now, please accept our hospitality. I will come to welcome you personally very shortly, but first, I must attend to a minor problem on my command craft, but it will not delay me long. Rest and eat." When the screen clicked off, the idol spoke, "He is the last?" The Xer nodded, "Yes. They are all alike, these soft ones, much used to living in ignorance and their own sense of empty importance. Offering your suggestion that they kill off the wild ones was a stroke of genius. It allowed them to suffer the losses and weaken their primitive armies at no cost to my budget. We do not understand it, but you were correct. With the demons in the mountains gone, the winter spreads while the world grows colder. They worry about rioting and are too stupid to think that they caused it themselves, now that their populations are starving for the food which cannot be grown to feed them all." "What is your next step, Commander?" the idol whirred at him. The Xer shrugged, "I have four hundred miners in twenty crews already beginning the preliminary drilling for the magnetite ore in those very same mountains. None of these fools would ever think to go there to look. We are a little premature, but from where we are now, I can proceed in two ways and either one will allow me to deliver ahead of timeline. I have twenty-three thousand troops here on the ground. I could kill off the royal families, all of them, since they all live under house arrest in the compounds that they were all so eager to run to in order to elude the desperate rage of their subjects. Once that is done, I can call for sweeps to exterminate the rest wherever they are found. The benefit to you is that this way allows for the searching of everything to gather whatever gold and riches are here. Other than that, I would order strikes laying down the thermobaric weapons. It will hasten the climate change, but Xer can take that easily. I have provided you with my cost estimates so that you all may decide." One of the many voices spoke up then, "Why not lower the cost by exterminating them all faster for the search by calling for these Death hounds which we have heard of?" "It is not easily done," the commander said, "First of all, those units are not allowed to be a part of any private enterprise such as our efforts here. They are an arm of the Xer military and their use must he sanctioned by the government of Xer." "It would be of little consequence if it were the Xer government who was at work here and not us," one of the voices said, "we see little difference." "The difference is that you are paying for our services," the commander replied, "If you really wish to use them, then make your request through the normal diplomatic channels, but I must caution you - the Death hound units come at a cost that would make you feel faint." "Why?"the voice asked. "Because with them, I can guarantee success. They will take and win whatever objective is asked for," he said, "but you cannot use Death hounds as exterminators. They are trained from the first day to a code of honor. They live by it and it is what allows them to perform far beyond the yield which might be expected. They take care of their own. They even extend some of that honor to their enemies so that the wounded and dead of each side may be removed from the field. But they must have an enemy to fight. Ordering them to attack unarmed or barely armed people only causes them to stop, refusing to advance. They set up their own perimeters then and their commanders begin to call in asking for extraction. They'll fight anyone for the pay -- even other Death hound units, but there must be a proper foe to kill or they do not fight. Their mission statement precludes what you wish to do. And the cost, ... I have all the troops that I need to wipe the lands clean of these idiots. You only have to decide on the expected return of the search. I would lean toward the bombers. All of the Xer but me are out of the critical areas, and once it is done, I can begin mining on a wider scale for the other resources here and I will replace the fighters with workers then. This planet will tumble out of its orbit at some point, but by then, it will be little more than a rapidly cooling core and an empty skin around that. Our operations would be complete within five years, from the date that the population has been eradicated. It is your choice." He listened absently for a moment as they discussed it, but it didn't take long. He knew that it wouldn't. There was too much in the way to mineral resources here to dawdle around looking for baubles. "Very well, Commander," the voices in the idol shimmered, "Order the strikes." "A wise choice as always," he nodded. "I will report in a month. I am on my way now to my main craft to begin." Twenty minutes later, he was being briefed on the plan, but he insisted on one change. "The first craft into each sector is to locate the building and compound where the local royal family is kept. I want those flattened on a molecular level first. The rest of the sector afterwards. Change your flight plans accordingly and we will convene again. With success, I will want to send in seeker craft to find and remove pockets of survivors. Time is of the essence. The longer that this takes, the less bonus for us all." When he was satisfied with the plans," he nodded to the aircrews tasked with the removal of the compounds, "There is little wind, so this will be like the practice range. Good hunting." As the first of the bombers left the bellies of his heavy cruisers, the commander watched as the close air support craft pounded the compound housing the new refugees to get through the normal defenses which the Xer built into all of their off-world structures. They peeled away climbing to make room for the bomber approaching from twelve miles out and slowing slightly. Two slanted pods slid down into place under its belly and twenty-four rockets, each over ten inches in diameter began to race from the pods, two at at time. Four of them were directed at the compound, each one of them dispersing a mixture of ethylene oxide and very fine aluminum microflakes. At the right instant, a small charge detonated in each silvery cloud, and the rolling fireball from the whole salvo obliterated and area of almost sixty-two square miles. The Xer commander turned away from the display in his quarters and thought of his bonus for being this far ahead of his timeline. --------------------------- The day was a pleasant and warm one for the middle of December and the two walked up the long and overgrown pathway toward the serpentine roadway up the mountain. "Thank you for this," Shaevre said, "for allowing me to come along. I know that you didn't need much more than the rope and such few things that you bought." "It was important," Selena said, "not so much for now, but for later. I wanted you to see how things are done out here a little bit, buying supplies and just enjoying a quiet bit of ale as well." "Was it not ... shaming a little to be with me?" the Xer asked, "Everywhere we went, the people stared at me. I suppose it was to be expected. It would be much the same on Xer -- in one of the smaller places. Only the other way around." Selena walked on without looking up, "Would it have shamed you to be seen with me there?" "No, of course not," Shaevre replied. Selena turned, "That they stared was one thing, and expected," she smiled, "but there were a few who wondered if we were a couple. I quite enjoyed it as I watched the tiny wheels spin in their little heads. Bzzzzzz." Shaevre stared, "But --" Selena put her arm around Shaevre's waist, "Stop it, alright? I don't wish to hear the way that you look down on yourself just because you're a little unusual here. I'm sure the on Xer, you're considered lovely and that's the way that you look to me. I was proud to be seen with you, Shaevre. Please don't take that away from me. I don't care what they think. I don't care what anyone thinks. I've never had a friend who felt so good to be near." She smirked, "As far as that goes, I've never slept with my arms around someone who felt so good to hold. I was asleep in no time, wrapped in the arms of my friend, Shaevre. I never fall asleep easily, I never have, and ever since my family was killed, it's been even harder to fall asleep. Last night, I just drifted off." She stopped suddenly, "I think I know why." "Why?" Shaevre asked. Selena stood looking off into nothing for a moment and then she smiled and looked up, "It's because I felt safe." She began to walk again. "Please tell me that you liked sleeping like that, Shaevre. We might even have to become what we're pretending to be after this is over," she laughed, "That way, we won't have to buy you a bed when we go back to my farm and I'll always feel that way." "I did, Selena," Shaevre said looking down, "I liked it." "Why do you say that as though it embarrasses you?" "It doesn't embarrass me -- well not much, and not with you," the Xer said quietly, "I was listening. Do not look back. The large fool from the inn follows us and he has brought others with him. They are maybe thirty paces behind us, or a little more. There are four of them." "What should we do?" Selena asked a little nervously. "Nothing," Shaevre smiled, "only walk just a little quicker. Arrax cautioned me not to cause too much of a scene wherever we went today. He said that the appearance of one of us would cause enough of a stir all by itself. Unless they begin something in the next few minutes, we will not have to do anything." She pulled Selena along and they began up the serpentine road at a trot. They were four rows up with another twelve to go when the men came out of the undergrowth. "There they are! The large man yelled, "Come on lads, I'll wager they've got a bit of gold on them!" Two more rows, and Shaevre stopped. "What are you doing?" Selena asked. "They have no bows," Shaevre smiled, "We may walk from here. By coming here, their lives are forfeit." She pointed to the stone men, "The way is guarded." Selena looked and saw that the rock figures below the men were already moving. She was surprised at how quickly they could move -- and how silently. "I'm a little disappointed," she said as they began to walk again, "I was going to ask if we ought to give them a show as well to bring them closer. But no matter," she smiled as they walked and the first of the men began to realize their peril. Shaevre looked down as Selena took her hand and they walked to the top. As they sat watching Selena's mare graze behind the stables, Shaevre looked troubled. "You know," Selena said with a smirk, "I'm surprised at everything, but about the only thing that bothers me is when you get that look on your face. What's the matter now?" Shaevre sighed, "There is another thing." "Just tell me," the thief groaned, "is this the other thing from last night that you said there wasn't one of, or is this ANOTHER other thing? I hope I get this out of you just a little easier. This is hard on my nerves." "Just be patient with me," Shaevre smiled over hopefully, "I begin to pity you for having to listen to my troubles, but I am thankful." "It's alright," Selena smiled, "I don't mind as much as I make out. The times when you smile at me are worth it." They went back to reviewing what needed to be done. ----------------------- When Nahl'een had gone to bed, they ate a light evening meal in the kitchen and walked past the large fire where Ny'Zeille sat with Arrax, complaining to him about Dahlgren. Selena was careful to reach for Shaevre's hand so that the demon could see it as they walked. "All right," Selena said as she closed the door of her room, "You look as miserable now as you did last night." She looked at Shaevre already sitting on her bed, "What is it? We're supposed to be lovers, Shaevre, don't force me to go over there and torture you with my kisses to get it out of you." "I do not think that it would be all that much torture anymore," the Xer smiled a little. "Really?" Selena chuckled as she pushed Shaevre onto her back and looked down at her, reaching to stroke her ear. "I could do it, you know, I'm even in the mood. I have no idea what to do beyond that, but I thi-" The rest was lost as the Xer reached up and pulled Selena down onto her and her kisses began. Shaevre rolled Selena onto her back and the unlikely demon girl raised her legs and wrapped them around the Xer's hard frame. "You like this?" Shaevre asked in her accent, and Selena nodded as she ran her hand over Shaevre's shoulder and bicep. She so loved that fur. Shaevre's cleft was far different from Selena's. When she was aroused, it looked something like the seamed half of a plum with a slightly elongated end where her clitoris sat there in a bit of a point. She found that it felt good to press it against Salena, and after some careful positioning, she pressed her clitoris under Selena's and it penetrated the half inch of its length. When she did that, Selena moaned for the way that Shaevre's very soft fur felt against her own nub. After a few hopeful and suggestive movements of her hips against Sheavre, they were humping slowly in a minute and it felt so right to them that they went on for a long time, right through several soft orgasms from each side. When Shaevre lifted herself up a little, Selena smiled as she ran her fingers over Shaevre's breasts. Compared to her own, they were larger, but on Shaevre's body, the way that they were shaped and how firm and hard they were, just made Selena think of lying under a very strong man and she wanted to be able to get to them with her mouth. She wasn't being filled and she missed that. But the rest was Heaven to her. When they subsided long afterward, Selena was a happy sloppy mess. "I never knew that it could be like that," she smiled over after Shaevre rolled off her. "Nor I," the Xer blinked in a bit of wonder. "Come on," Selena grinned, "after this, you can't feel as withdrawn as you were before. I can tell you that I hope this is as good for you as it is for me, so what was the other thing?" The Xer looked at Selena a little blankly, "Other thing?" "Yes," Selena chuckled, "has it left your head again? My plan has obviously failed. I'll never get that famous other thing out of you now." She smirked, "What have I got left to use to pry it out of you? You seem to have made me your bitch and everything, and all I wanted was to hear about the other thing. ... well, that's not true at all, I guess." Selena was surprised that Shaevre still seemed to be suddenly shy about it all over again, but at last, Shaevre did make an attempt. "I do not know if you are the bitch here. I only know that I have feelings for you, and ... I guess now that I did before. The second thing is that soon, it will be the time for me to take a mate and go into my heat. I didn't think that I would find a male for me -- and I did not dare to hope for what has happened. I don't know how I would have ever found the courage to ask you, but I had a hope that if we could become close friends -- in a hurry, I suppose, I ... " She groaned to herself. Selena reached over and wouldn't let Shaevre withdraw. "Tell me. Look at us. Look at how we are. If I can help, then you know that I want to. What do you need in this?" Shaevre couldn't even force herself to open her eyes much as she said it. Finally, she raised her head and she looked suddenly angry as she looked down at Selena. "I wish to ask you for your help. If you can help me when my heat is on me, and it will be difficult to do, I am afraid, ..." She hung her head in shame and her voice came so quietly that even as quiet as they'd been before, Selena found that she had to strain to hear it. "If you can help me, ... if you want to and would help me, I ,... I think I will be yours, "she whispered, " Not as a true mate but close. I will never leave you. We do not do this for the short term, Selena. Otherwise I will become a wild thing, seeking a male Xer where there are none who want me. If it had already happened, the ones here would withdraw from me even more, because to mate with me then is to agree to a longtime pairing -- usually for our lives. There is no quick fuck that will calm me then, and once begun, I would kill any female who even comes near to the male who mates with me." A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 23 She sobbed, "Even when the Xer have gone, I will go mad and have to be killed. I have held it back for a long time now, but it will come and nothing can stop it. It happens to us all, but most females find a mate before this age. I have no one. I have already asked Arrax to be relieved so that I can go back to Xer. I do not wish for the mercy killing to be on my record. He has refused, telling me to be patient. If it were anyone else I would feel outraged and helpless, " she said, "But Arrax knows what it is like for a female. He had a mate once, so he knows. He would not say this to me out of ignorance or callousness, and so I must do my best." Selena listened in shock for a moment and then she flung herself at Shaevre. It was hard to do, but she got the Xer onto her back and she held Shaevre's head so that she couldn't turn away. "Look at me," Selena hissed, and Shaevre squeezed her eyes shut in embarrassment. "Look -- at -- me, Shaevre." The Xer opened her eyes and Selena saw the tears of her shame. "You idiot," Selena hissed at her while she strained to hold Shaevre's head, "Stay with me. Don't look away. I'll scream it if I have to ..." Shaevre blinked and stopped squirming. "Look," Selena began, "We're not the same species here, are we? So your shame or whatever this is here is misplaced, since I sure don't feel it. But I think that I can understand it." She kissed Shaevre softly for a moment and then she pulled back. "You need my help? Then you'll have it. You just tell me what you need if there's anything special required beforehand. I'll do whatever you need to help you, just don't worry and stop feeling ashamed. I've learned that shame doesn't look good on you. Happy looks so much better. This is a girl thing, right? So I'm a girl. I might not get all of this, but I'll help. I want to help. Just stop trying to hide under the floor tiles. Look, how long have you been stationed here? I know you haven't gone outside much. Do you know what a dog is?" Shaevre nodded, "I had to study what lives here before I arrived. I am not -- " Selena shook her again, "Shut up and let me speak, please. I know that you're nothing like a dog; you only look vaguely like a huge dog in the broadest terms, and not to me, really. But that's the way that you'd look to any human alive here." "What are you trying to say?" Shaevre blinked, not really following yet. "You're only feeling this shame in your own terms, and I can sure understand that. I might not understand it all, but I understand that part, I'm pretty sure. Now, I would like you to consider something else. There are only a very few of you Xer on this planet. There are millions of humans here. I look human, don't I?" Shaevre nodded, "Yes, but I do not think of you as -- " Selena shook her head, "I know, and thank you, but that's not my point. Compared to you, any dog is a less intelligent being -- as much as I've always liked and admired them. That's just the truth of it. You are not anything like a dog in my eyes. But how would you be seen by a human? Sort of, kind of, a little dog-like in their eyes? Only REALLY big?" "I suppose," Shaevre nodded," but I am not like that." "Well I know that, Shaevre, but look at it from a human' side, and you know that most of them around her aren't all that bright. Consider what they would think that I've been doing with you here." Shaevre stared and her eyes opened wide. "Can you see that you're not the only one in this now?" Selena asked quietly. Shaevre nodded, "Yes, but I do not feel shame for this from their side. I do not care what they think." "Well that's good," Selena grinned as she leaned down and kissed Shaevre softly for a moment, "So here's the thing. I have just had the most amazing time with you and if you liked it the same way that I did, and if you try to get over this shame of yours, then I'll try not to give a crap about what humans think when they see us. I don't want to roll around in their streets with you, but I want to feel a little proud to be seen with you as I did today. I was really proud to be with you. Do you think that you can handle that?" Shaevre smiled and nodded, "I would feel proud to be with you anywhere." "Good," Selena grinned, "I still want a man, and I know that you still want a male too, but we've found something here that's really nice, and we can share it, that's all. I love having a friend like you, and to be able to share this, well, you just tell me how I can help. I'd have done whatever it is anyway. Suppose that I do everything right and get you through this time that is coming to you," she began. "It happens maybe two or three times in the space of what you call a year here, "Shaevre said, "But the first time is the worst for every Xer bitch, and carries the certainty of madness if we remain unmated. How bad it comes to us can vary, from one girl to another, but if nothing is done, we go mad. We can forestall it for a time if we have no one, but not forever, and I am running out of time. What do you wish to know beyond that?" "Well, suppose that we do this right. I would have to do whatever you need every time after as well?" "Yes," the Xer nodded carefully, "if you care enough for me to. I would not go mad without it after the first heat, but it would do much to ease it for me." "That isn't the issue for me," Selena smiled, "I'm getting a clue, as slow as I am," she grinned, "the issue is twofold; do you want me to be the one for you? You said that this is a long-time thing for Xers. The other thing is if we live through all of this and we form our partnership, what happens if you find a male who appeals to you? What happens if I do?" Shaevre smiled a little shyly, "I have never done this as we do, but I already knew days ago that I would love to be with you if there was no male for me. I would prefer a male, but we have such fun and it feels good for me. I would stay with you. You appeal to me more than any male that I have seen, aside from Arrax. I have never had a friend like you. It is not often that Xer females become close as we are even without this part of what we do. I would find myself patrolling and daydreaming of you at the same time. I would be in my bed wondering what it would be like with you. It was nonsense. I am not thirteen years old. I did not wonder about anyone when I was that young. I would no sooner have it in hand when I would see you with Nahl'een and then it was torture because I could not leave, and had to guard her. I do NOT know how I came to this idea. I just know that it is what I want. If you can help me, then I will be happier for it and I will try to be a good partner and helper to you. If I find a male who I like, I will ask if you would allow me to mate with him, but it will change nothing between us. If you find a male, then I will allow this, and if it is your wish and his, I will be happy to accept him too. It all depends on if I am good enough for you -- if I make you happy to have me," she said as she looked up, smiling very hopefully, and Selena noticed - in a very fragile way toward her. "I wish to live with you. I wish for us to belong together. The loving is not the bottom of it, though I enjoy this with you. I want to live my life as your friend and partner and, well, a lover too, if we have no one else for us." Selena made up her mind then, just from what she'd seen and experienced. What Shaevre spoke of didn't bother her a bit, and she already knew herself anyway. This was new and it was strange. Well, so was she to herself, now that she knew that she was a part demon. She was happier now any time that she was within a dozen feet from the Xer. "To be honest," Selena smiled, "I still don't know which one of us is which in this, but I don't care and I never really would. If you want me this much, then I want you too and we can begin." Shaevre nodded, "Selena, we already have. I spoke with Arrax in his cramped little office as I said. I told him that I wish for him to forget that I requested to be relieved, and that you have accepted the golds from me. I don't know why, but I think that it was from the hope that I have been feeling. I knew that I have no other choice anyway." "What did he say?" Selena asked, a little shocked, "You didn't tell him everything, did-" "I did," the Xer smiled, "I am proud of me and us and I told him of my wish and what we plan to do after everything. We were not like this then, but it was enough for me. He understood, saying that he knew that something like this was possible between females, but that it was not sanctioned by our service - at least not openly. He told me that it would not matter anyway in a few days. As far as the task is concerned, he thinks that this is the best possible answer that I could have given him, for some reason." Selena smiled then, knowing that they'd decided and that was all that mattered. She felt hope for them. She knew that it would be strange, and they still wanted males, but she knew that they felt so close and it was what she wanted. "Good," Selena grinned, "now come here and we'll work out who the bitch is later." A few minutes of careful experimentation, and Selena found that she could even ride Sheavre if she was careful not to move too much. Shaevre smiled as she watched Selena writhe as she sat on her, pressing herself down to stay in contact while the Xer carefully ran her padded hands over her breasts and hips. Selena was too busy trying to remain in contact in the relatively small spot where they fit like this, since she wasn't really joined with Shaevre at all and it was a challenge, but they liked it. She was also too busy later when Shaevre helped her to pack her things for the next day. It wasn't until a long time afterward - months, really, that she had a thought which made her stop to consider something. Ny'Zeille had been right after all. A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 24 **There are a few parts in this where there are slight jars from the way that the technological levels of the participants tend to collide. Human culture on Earth has lost a lot, and the Xer are an interplanetary bunch. ~shrug~ oh well.... 0_o ----------------- "I don't know what's gotten into him," Ny'Zeille said, "It doesn't make any sense to me." This had been going on for the past forty minutes, and this was only today's installment. Ny'Zeille had been prattling, mostly to Arrax, for days now with no end in sight. He'd been patient, but now the Xer male had lost interest in the griping of his female. Arrax was leaning over her, but now he sighed to himself and released the nipple that he'd been holding in his teeth gently and lifted himself up to sit on a bench across from her. He was slightly surprised that she didn't seem to notice that he'd done it yet. "Love has never had to make sense," he said, "You act as though Dahlgren has taken leave of his senses." "Well he has," she said bitterly, "He must have, surely. He has taken up with a Red Demon girl! He has mated her, they are a pair! This is insane." "I know all that! You have told me that and nothing else for days!" he snapped, and it shut her up momentarily, but that was about the extent of it. "What is your problem here?" she asked, "He's my son." "But you act as though he was your property or a wayward piece of livestock," Arrax said, "And my problem is that I was under the mistaken impression that you wanted to mate with me since that was what you said to me. I seem to suffer from that delusion quite a bit these last few days. You actually say to me that you wish for my body, and each time, it becomes this. I have understanding and empathy, but if it is not what you want, then why pretend?" "Well I have troubles," she said angrily, "I would think that the least that I might expect from you is a sympathetic ear." "Which is what I have given," he said, not looking at her, "I listened and I gave support to my old friend and lover. But she is not interested in getting past what she cannot change. She would rather go over the same ground again and again. I am not feeling romantic at all anymore, thank you, and in fact, I am feeling a little resentful, though not over the loss of the intimate time. I have my own opinion of your fine son and hearing you natter has gone on long enough to suit my taste. He is grown, Ny'Zeille, and he makes a grown one's choices. You cannot change this." "Oh, I can change it," she said venomously. "I strongly advise you to shut your mouth," he warned, "There is only so much that I can allow to go past without filing a report -- the same as you. You may think that it would suit you to make an effort at what you call changing this, but it is not your place to act here. This is Dahlgren's choice, not yours." "This is family business!" she almost shouted to him. "It is not family business when what you think to do would affect the Ranger on this world. Xer has a stake in him as well as the masters who employ you. This would go far beyond the grumblings of an unhappy mother." Arrax was looking down at the floor as she'd sputtered, but now he raised his head with something less than a smile on his face. "You know, you sound so much like my own mother," he said, "when she is talking about me." "This is different," Ny'Zeille said with annoyance. She didn't know it, but she'd nailed two of his internal buttons squarely. First, she'd led him on by telling him that she wanted to mate when what she'd really wanted was a captive audience for her whining and bitter mewling and this hadn't been the first time. Now she was showing how self-centered she was by saying that any comparison that he might make was 'different'. "How is it different?" he asked, "How much difference is there between how my mother moans of how I waste my life with a demon female who is not my kind, and how you rail about what your boy has done? Who knows what happened? He found a willing bitch for himself and they liked each other so much that they felt that there was more to it than just fucking. It's an old story. It's how I came to love my first female, and it's how I came to love you. What the hell is the problem here, other than your selfish perception and bigoted point of view? Ny'Zeille turned, her mouth open, "Bigoted?" "Have you another name for it?" he asked, more than a little annoyed himself now, "Go on and tell me now that he is wasting the fine family seed that he was given on something which should never have it. And by the way, that's one of my mother's favorite songs to me, how I waste a noble family's seed filling something which should never have it -- meaning you, specifically." "Your mother is a sour old titbag," Ny'Zeille began, "She's never liked me. She --" One of the first warnings in any book on diplomatic dealings with the Xer is the advice to never insult the mother of a male Xer or the father of a female one. Without thinking, Ny'Zeille's finger was straying dangerously near his launch button. The rest was an unintelligible gurgle as Ny'Zeille's eyes bulged from the pressure that his large pawed hand exerted on her throat while her feet dangled from where he held her up to the level of his face. He let her hang there for a moment as he strained visibly to retain control. "You have just crossed a line, Ny'Zeille. I think that you will need another partner," he said quietly, "You will get no more attention from me." He set her down carefully on the bench where she'd been sitting before now. Ny'Zeille choked and coughed for a moment while he watched her in silence. She was about ready to speak when he pre-empted her. "You will want to file a diplomatic complaint, I am sure," he said. "I will have my response ready while I await my notification that I am to be relieved of duty. This would please me. I will include your remark concerning my mother. I would have thought that after these years between us, that you would understand the severity of something like this insult to a Xer. But then it comes into my mind that you are not with me for love, are you? You wish only a hard prick sometimes when it suits only you and a Xer to show as though you are in a great love with him. Perhaps my mother is right. Choose another for yourself now, and speak to me only as it pertains to my duty as contingent commander. Mention my mother again to me in anything even close to what I might confuse and interpret as disparaging, and you will not survive it. Good night, Esteemed Ambassador." As he walked down the corridor far from the surprised and angry demon, Arrax smiled to himself. By the time that he reached the door to his office, he was chuckling, and that lasted long after he'd closed the door behind him. He sat down at his desk to file his report and shook his head with a wide grin. Sour old titbag, he thought, it was the finest description of his mother that he'd ever heard in his life. He waved his hand over the lamp to turn it on. He had a report to write. But all thoughts of the report flew from his head for the moment as he saw the other individual in his office. The large canine-like head nodded to him, "Why have you called to me?" Arrax bowed his head, "I seek you fulfill your request of me, Lord," he said quietly, "But time grows short and I need a location." The other one considered for a moment, and then smiled, "Pick up your stylus, faithful servant, and I will give you the place." ------------------ "Where Gramma go?" Nahl'een asked at breakfast. As Selena's eyes rose from her plate, the girl corrected herself. She'd been trying very hard over the last few days. "Where did Gramma go?" Selena shrugged, "She's been upset over something to do with Dahl. I don't think that he's hurt or anything. It's more like she's very angry with him. I don't know much about it, Nahl'een, I just know that you and I are here alone now. So, what would you like to do today?" Nahl'een looked at her sister a little suspiciously, "I don't dance today?" Selena grinned, "Not if you don't want to today, honey. I guess that I'm supposed to say that you should do that, but I know that you've been trying so hard to learn. Sometimes if you try to learn too hard, you get stuck and it gets even harder." She winked at Nahl'een, "I think that you deserve to enjoy a day off. It's your birthday, you know." Nahl'een laughed and nodded, "What we do then?" "I dunno," Selena said in an airy tone, "I was thinking of going for a ride on my horse. Do you want to come along? I know that I'm not Dahl or anything, but I think that we might have a bit of fun. But we can't go with you looking like that. Have you got any pants?" The trip down the hill to the town took a fair bit of time, but the sisters had a lot of fun as they went, making faces at the piles of stone. Once they were in the town itself, Nahl'een looked up over her shoulder at where they stopped. "What we get here?" she asked, still trying to remember better ways of speaking, "This is a place to buy horses." "Have you ever been here before?" Selena asked. "Ah-hah," her sister nodded, "I come -- came here with Dahl lots of times. He lets me see ponies." "Want to see some today? I've got a couple of golds in my pocket and I know that if Dahl were here, you'd still probably be right here in the same place." Selena laughed. She didn't know that Nahl'een's mouth could even open that far. --------------------------- "What is this about, Uncle?" Xhan asked as he walked down a long corridor with Arrax. "Well for one thing, Nephew, "the old warrior smiled, "I know that you have a bit of a longing in your heart for some adventure, something, some way to get at least a little excitement into your boring and meaningless existence." Xhan nodded, "I would welcome this," he said. "Then it gives my heart sadness to have to tell you that if that is what you truly want, it would be better if you could at least manage to say it as though you wish for me to believe you," his uncle said, "I can help, but there is no use trying to help one who does not even know what it is that he longs for." Xhan straightened up, "Sorry. I wish for something better than hanging around here." "No, you wish for something to happen that is interesting," Arrax smiled, "You only think that it happens everywhere in the universe where you are not, and that is not so. Are you still moping over the bitch back home and hating me for doing the only thing that was right, or have you managed to pull your snout out of your own asshole yet? I have something for you to see and learn, and you will see nothing unless you are ready to." "I am ready," Xhan said, a little coldly, "I see that as what it was and I am thankful to you, Uncle." "Good," the older one said, "now keep the lesson, but forget about everything else. You are not the first male who was almost caught in the trap that his happy prick led him into. Pricks do not think. Forget it, forget her, and do not feel shame. It happens. My first bit of advice to you today is that if you long for adventure, you must get out of bed to meet it. Adventure does not wait outside your door while you sleep the day away and come out of your room at night to walk the grounds with useless guards." "They are not useless, they -- " "They are less than useless, and I will show you this today, "Arrax said, setting his jaw a little, "I grow tired of having to tell you that something is not your fault, and allow me to explain that. In order to advance, you need to know what is what, and the last thing that will aid you in seeing the truth is whatever that worthless academy pretended to teach you. I would much rather have you make your own mistakes than only rely on the shit that they taught you. You were ten times the student that they required. See how easily you passed through. If the place had been worth anything, you'd have had to struggle. That is the way that you learn, not by memorizing what some fop regurgitated to you. Those teachers never saw a fight of their own in their lives, any of them. How can they pretend to teach others? Better to fall on your own nose having made your own mistake. I will pick you up and you will have learned something by it." He looked over and saw that Xhan didn't buy any of it, and he smiled, "Fear not, Nephew. Today is the day that I begin to remove your blindfold." They came around the corner to the Stone Garden exercise area. The entire contingent of Xer was there. Seeing Arrax, they snapped to attention and saluted. He waved his pawed hand, "Yes yes," he said with a weary sigh, "this is not an inspection to see which of us can trim our toenails the best." He looked over at Selena and Nahl'een. "Forgive my curiosity, but, why are you here?" "We saw everyone arrive," Selena said, "We came back to have a bit of lunch before riding a little in the afternoon." "My sister bought me a pony," Nahl'een said excitedly, "From her and Dahl, and a saddle. I want to show Shaevre, but she is here like this," she said, indicating that all of the Xer in the room were in their bipedal forms. "I almost never see her like this." Arrax walked over, "They are here because there are things which we must do today, little one. This will not be something for you to see. This is between the Xer." "Is Shaevre in trouble?" Nahl'een asked in a suddenly worried tone, "She is my friend. If she is in trouble, I want be here for her, I -- " "Shaevre is not in trouble,"Arrax grinned, "Even so, this is not something for young ones to see." He looked at Selena. "Come on, Nahl'een," Selena said, "Let's get something to eat. This won't last long, will it, Arrax?" "No, not long at all," he smiled back at her, "We will have this completed before you have finished eating. Enjoy your meal, little one." He waited until the pair was in the kitchen before he glared at them all. "Shaevre has been at her new rank for a few days now," he said, "I know that you all make much of the military structure in our service. But however you may wish that this was the way that the military is, almost none of you has any idea what that means -- because you have never been there. This outpost carries a remote rating because of its position. It means that there are bonuses paid to be here. It also means that as commander, I can institute a paramilitary stance and that is what I will do today." He pointed, "You three are superior to Shaevre and you choose to ignore her, as you have done since she arrived at this outpost. You three there are to report to her, and you have ignored her as well. That is why we are here today, because whatever you may wish to hide behind, it is not real. Only two of the Xer here have had any real time in a combat role. The rest of you have never so much as smelled a fight. The rest of you are pretenders. And as one who has seen much on many battlefields, "he growled down low, "I can tell you that as a unit, you are worthless. But this ends today, right here, and right now. Here are my instructions: The lower three are to engage Shaevre in bare combat to a knockdown-staydown finish. You may not use your four-footed shapes as that will turn this into combat to the death, and I will then allow Shaevre to kill you. If you had bothered to read the fine print on your application forms, you might have noticed that your lives belong to the outpost commander, and that is me, when I am here. When I am not, there is no commander and you rely on your rank structure. If you seek to lie down, and not fight, or pretend to be injured when you are not, I will kill you personally. This unit is a disgrace, and I do not need pretenders. I need real Xer fighters." He looked around at them all and grinned a little threateningly, "You asked for this duty. Now earn the pay. You three; as one or as three, begin." Xhan thought that this was ludicrous. He knew two of the three lower ranks. They were both heavy males with a lot of power. The female Shaevre would be humiliated and likely injured. For the first few seconds none of them moved, but then Shaevre began it as she walked right up to the largest one -- the one with the plainly evident smirk on his face. He watched as she came to him. He didn't see her as she left him to engage a second one of them. She'd laid him out with one strike. Xhan's jaw fell open. The other female was the only one of them who even had anything to bring to the table. At least she had spirit. As they began between them, one of the higher ranks made a comment about a 'bitch fight' and Shaevre stopped the female with three fast blows to rock her backward while she dealt with the first one who had gotten up by then. She laid him out again and went back to the female. "You're just the right age to be serving in the Brigade ranks, sir," she smiled over her shoulder at the officer with the mouth, "but you are here. I must be wrong of course, but in my experience, it indicates latent cowardice -- not that you suffer from that, of course, that's only my personal experience over two campaigns." Shaevre grabbed the arm which the female was trying to get around her throat and she threw her right into the male officer. Then she used the officer's skull to pound the female's against twice. As she turned, she grinned at the last one. "Ah," she smiled, "the one who has had me so many times from what I have heard from the others. Come here, Lover, let me show you how much I've missed you!" He backpedaled, shaking his head, but he ended up in Arrax' grasp. "In the real world, where we pay you with real gold, you fight or you die. That is what the pay is for. Engage her now," he snarled as he pushed the male back into the exercise area. Shaevre hit him four times, though he was barely hanging onto consciousness by the second and Shaevre dropped him as though he was a turd. In less than one minute, none of them got up anymore. Shaevre grinned, but Arrax pointed to her lip. "Blood. Are you getting slow, fighter?" Shaevre gasped and touched her lip. Her finger came up a little bloody, but it was from one of the ones that she'd hit. She was visibly relieved. Arrax looked down at the male there by his feet as he moved to crawl away. "I have no use for lying filth like this one." He picked him up by one ear, tearing it most of the way off in the process. "Stand up straight or I will kill you myself. It is only about a half-hour's paperwork to fill out. I will not mind, and I'll get a replacement who can hold his jaw shut. The rest of you, and I include the officers here. This female has fought in her career. If you had any brains, you would know that she would fight even harder to keep you alive if this outpost were to be attacked, because that is what it is to be a fighter. You all pride yourselves on your high births. Well not one of you has had a higher birth than I have, and I am here to say that it means nothing here. You are only of value if you can actually fight. If there are only seven Xer here, how many officers do I require? Why do I have three officers out of a force of seven? It is absurd. Out of seven, only four would fight. Three of them can be beaten to the floor by a female one-third their weight in less than one minute. You disgust me. I don't need any officers. Out of seven, I need seven fighters. Out of seven, six of you have just been proven as worthless to me as the back tits on a bitch with one whelp. He glared at the two officers who were not involved, "If you think that I am wrong, then step up and engage this fighter and prove it." They didn't move. "Worthless bags of shit," he said, "your snot-nosed parents must be so proud. My assessment is that none of you six are fit for duty. Shaevre is hereby appointed acting leader. The rest of you are demoted as close to the position of janitor as I can manage. A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 24 This outpost will be closed shortly. I have no intention of passing your incompetence on to another outpost. You have the right to protest, and of course, I will provide immediate transport requests to the mining outposts where you will guard salt for the rest of your careers. Prepare to assist in the packing up. I hope that it is not beyond your ability, for your sake. You are dismissed. Shaevre heard cheering and was amazed to find Nahl'een and Selena as the sources of the sounds. She walked over and hugged Nahl'een as she grinned. "Now Nahl'een, I wish to see your pony." Selena rolled her eyes, "It's not a pony. It's a burro. She's too small to ride a pony. I bought her the only thing that I felt comfortable having her sit on." "She's my pony," Nahl'een insisted. "You can call her what you like, but she's a burro," Selena said, "The nicest burro that I've ever seen. Her ears are too long to be a pony." "Her ears long enough to be horse? Maybe she is little horse. Maybe she will grow up and be a horse." 'Selena laughed, "Well if she shrinks much, with those ears she'd be a rabbit. It doesn't matter, Nahl'een. She's a sweetheart, and it's easy to see that she likes you." "Now Nephew," Arrax said quietly, "Which one of the contingent here would you want at your side if you have to fight or the outpost came under attack?" Xhan looked over at Shaevre, "That one," he said, "the one called Shaevre." "Really?" his uncle grinned. "And you even know her name now. Well I am a little confused since she is not an officer and is of low birth. Why do you see value there?" "She could take on all six of them at once and still win, couldn't she?" "That depends," Arrax replied thoughtfully, "Would she have to leave them alive, or would she be able to kill them? If your hypothetical situation allows her to kill her opponents, then she could do it in even less time, not needing to be careful. But you did not answer me. Why do you see value there?" "Because she can fight." Xhan grinned. Arrax smiled, "You have just become more valuable to me than three officers and three lower ranks combined. Now we come to what is real. Now we come to what is what. What odds do you give our fighter girl there against any or all of the fighting instructors at the academy?" Xhan stared at his uncle and he began to laugh. "I see what you try to teach me," he nodded. "Good," Arrax said, "That is why she will be going with us on a mission this afternoon. Pack for a five night stay, and load your weapon. Be sure to take a full combat load. I doubt that you will need any of it, but it is wise to think of the worst case. You will have a decision to make very soon." ---------------------- Faith had been practicing all morning. It had been a couple of days and her wings had gotten strong very quickly. There had been a few comical crashes in her landings, but hurricanes aside, she could take off and land pretty well anywhere with ease now. Her present challenge was navigation. Things looked quite a bit different to her from the air than they did on the ground. At the moment, she was busy finding her way back to where they'd spent the past few days. She hoped that she could remember all of the landmarks that she'd tried to memorize and she knew full well that the same things could look very different again to her from the other side as she worked her way back. She was trying very hard, because their plan for tomorrow was to head to where he lived. Faith felt a lot of trepidation over it, but she knew that he had to get home and she really wanted to meet his daughter. She hoped that it wouldn't go badly. Dahlgren was pacing her from about a half-mile back and maybe five hundred feet above. They were less than five miles out now and he was glad that Faith had already begun her descent. What it said to him was that she knew where she was and was confident enough in the knowledge to make her approach. He knew that was when she'd be busiest, being new to this. He looked over his shoulder and felt his heart want to seize. He saw the dark streak coming from miles away and stopped gliding to beat his wings hard, trying to gain the speed that he'd need to overtake Faith quickly. She looked back when she heard his call to her and saw his hand signal pointing straight down. A second or so later, it seemed, and he was almost beside her. "Down!" he shouted, pointing, "Fold your wings and drop straight down. Land as soon as you can and try to hide, Quick!" "What is it?" she called out, but he pulled in really close as he passed her, "Spiral down tight and land as fast as you can! Do it!" She looked back and saw something. She didn't know what it might be, other than it was coming fast from high up in a long arc. She folded her wings and felt the air begin to rush past her face as she gained speed. "This way!" Dahlgren called, passing her once more on the way down, "Double back a little." She nodded, and did her best to comply, keeping a nervous eye on the ground as it rose to crush her. Even at this speed, she could already feel the air temperature rising as she got nearer to the heated ground. She looked up again and lost whatever it was for a second. Then she saw it. It had overshot them and was headed down itself. She pulled up a little, feeling the strain in her wings as she tried to brake a little. Dahlgren flew right past her face from right to left and she followed him toward a low mountain rising out of the desert floor. She met him on the slope as he ran to her. "Try to find some rocks or something to hide behind. Let me handle this." "What was that?" She asked. He looked really grim, "That was a dragon." "A what? A dragon?" "Not really," he shook his head, "It was actually your new mother. Get behind those rocks and stay there, please. She's got a bee up her ass, maybe a whole hornet's nest." "Well shouldn't I -- " "No," he said a little sadly, "I was warned about this in my prayers this morning. I'll try to explain it all to you later. My mother and I work for the same people. As strange as it seems, they find that they like you, but my mother has some stupid ideas. Just stay here and stay out of sight. She's in no mood to meet anyone right now." Faith nodded, feeling very unhappy. She had known that it could be a long shot that she might have one day of being accepted. From the way that Dahlgren was acting, that long shot was impossibility. She ducked down behind the rocks. He met Ny'Zeille on the flat plain below fifteen minutes later as they walked toward each other. "What have you DONE?" she roared at him. "Hello Mother," he smiled pleasantly, though he knew that this would likely be anything but pleasant, "It's good to see you, too. I've missed you. How's --" He fell over backward in a ball of flame. Faith almost screamed to see him on his back like that. He picked himself up out of the dirt. "Alright, then it's not so good to see you. What was that for?" "You know what it was for, "Ny'Zeille seethed, "Why Dahlgren? I've been telling you for years that you could have anyone. Why have you done this? Why a Red, of all females?" He was furious himself, but he bit down on it, knowing that he'd need at least half his brain before she did something stupid. He smiled. "Well, she's cute," he said, reaching over his shoulder for his sword. The next fireball was on its way before Ny'Zeille had even noticed the appearance of the sword. She did notice it when he swung to send the blazing sphere right back to her. "How dare you!" she raged and she drew her hand back. "Same question," he said, "Just what is it that you think you're doing here? What am I supposed to feel now, joy and love that my mother has come to save me from what she sees as my foolishness?" "Yes! I've worked tirelessly for too long to --" "To what?" He asked, throwing his own blast at her, though he really hoped that she'd at least sidestep away, which she did. "I know why it was that you worked so long and hard, Mother. You were trying to regain what you saw as the loss of prestige to the family name for what you did when you went against your own parents and took up with my father. You were trying to make up for what you did. When I rose to get where you pushed me my whole life, it still didn't get your asshole parents to forgive you." He swung again and sent her next bit of destruction off into the desert. "Do you think that I never thought of it in all that time?" "You are breaking your vows to the faith!" she yelled. His sword came down, backside of the blade first to the ground in front of him, and the shockwave almost made Ny'Zeille topple over. She was covered in the dust that the wave had stirred up. "Do you think that I give a shit now? You're making this up to suit your anger. Don't play the holygirl with me!" he shouted, "I know that you've pissed off the Great Ones with this. You'd better get a grip, Mother. You've lost the love of your worthless parents over the way that you loved somebody. Don't make the same mistake with me. Stop this. I'm asking you with respect, but I'm not going to beg." "No?" She grinned as she raised her palm in a direct line to where Faith was hiding. Her son's eyes grew wide and he raised his hand. "NO!" There was a bright flash of white-hot flame, and this time, Faith really did scream, but it was cut short. Ny'Zeille screamed in pain as she turned and saw the glare in Dahlgren's eyes, and she knew than that she'd lost as the same white-hot flash came to her, but much more strongly in a blast which was tailored to suit one of her kind to take her to the edge of her own death. She fell in a ball of the blazing heat and blubbered in agony. Dahlgren felt like what a bow must feel like, sending arrows that it did not intend. What had gone to his mother had been sent by the High Council. He lowered his hand and walked to where Faith had been hiding. On the way, he passed his mother where she lay on her back in a smoking heap, trembling. "I'm very sorry, Mother," he said as he walked past without looking. The boulder that Faith had hidden herself behind was shattered, the smoking pieces lying everywhere vitrified from the blast. Faith stood blinking in the sunlight, a little scorched, but appearing unhurt otherwise, though she felt very strange. Dahlgren sat her down and after a careful hug and a lot of kisses, he tried to sense how much she'd been harmed. What he felt was that something had changed, but not markedly and it gave him a lot of hope. "Can you stand?" he asked, "How do you feel?" "I feel fine," she said, though she really didn't, not the way that she'd been before. She felt alright, just a little different somehow. "What happened?" Faith asked, "What was that? Dahlgren, talk to me, please?" She was sounding like a little girl to herself and she hated it, but she didn't understand any of what she'd just witnessed. He kissed her quickly, "Come on, we've got to get out of here. She'll be alright in a day or so, I hope, and I didn't do that alone. She cast on you. The closest name for it that I can give is that it's a way to smite with holy power behind it. If it had lasted for any length of time, it would have likely killed you and removed this mountain. Hurry now, take off and I'll meet you. I'll try to explain as we go. We need to get whatever you want to take along and be gone before she regenerates." "Regenerates?" Faith looked very nervous now, "You mean she's not..." He shook his head, "That was a warning. I only directed it. I didn't even mean to send that to her. I was casting something different. They just took it from her and gave it to me to hit her with, and they added a lot to it. They're trying to tell her something, but I doubt that she's listening." "Who are 'they'?" she asked. "We've got to get away," he said, "I'll try to think of some way to explain it on the way." ------------------------ "Why we,... " "Why ARE we,..." Selena smiled, "Go on, Sis, say it that way." "What means 'sis'?" Nahl'een asked. Selena shrugged, "It's just a way to say 'sister', that's all." "Alright, Sis," Nahl'een giggled, "why ARE we taking Dahl's horse, and Gramma's horse too?" "See? It comes out much better if you say it slowly. They need the exercise," Selena replied. "Why we have packs now? Your things, my things, not need much. I have dolly." "Packs need fresh air too," Selena shrugged. They'd been riding at a relaxed pace for an hour and a half. Selena was a bit apprehensive. Her little sister was doing so well, but this would be her first full day on her burro, and that would mean that there was a real limit to how far they could go. Fortunately, as far as she knew, they were almost where they needed to be, and they were a little ahead of time, by what the sun's shadows told her. They crested the next rise and Selena heaved a sigh of relief. The Xer craft was there waiting for them. That set off another long round of Nahl'een's questions and Selena rolled her eyes. With the animals loaded up and restrained -- which had been yet another adventure all on its own, Nahl'een was strapped into the seat next to Shaevre with Selena on the Xer's other side. "Your turn, my friend," Selena chuckled, "I can already hear it coming --'Where we go now'." "Where we go now?" The girl asked. Shaevre groaned and thought about trying to get Nahl'een away from the uncomfortable part. She knew how much the little girl loved her grandmother. Finally she hit on an idea. "We are going to look for your father," she said, "He has had a big fight and he met someone there. I was told that they liked each other so much that they are together now as a pair. That means -- " Nahl'een gasped, "We go find Dahl!" She stopped suddenly, "What means 'pair'?" "They love each other, and want to stay together, like a family." It earned Shaevre another gasp from the girl, "Family?" "You've really done it now," Selena smirked. "What it means," Shaevre began patiently, "is that Dahlgren has a wife now, and you have, .." "Not have Mother," Nahl'een said thoughtfully, "Mother is dead." She leaned to look at Selena. "What I have?" "Stepmother," Selena said, "probably a really good one who wants to meet you very much." "I need name," the girl said quietly. After seeing a glance from Arrax, Shaevre reached over and activated the headset for Nahl'een. "Her name is Faith," Arrax said gently. Nahleen nodded, falling a little quiet. "Faith." She sat still for a moment and thought. In that time, Selena fell in love with her little sister all over again for it. Without meaning to, Nahl'een could capture anyone's heart in seconds, she thought. She turned to Shaevre, "What means --" Shaevre groaned again, knowing that this wouldn't stop. Selena turned her head and looked out of the window as she found Shaevre's hand in hers. --------------------------- It had been just under an hour. They were over what had once been the state of Texas long ago, though it now referred to itself as the Texan nation -- what there was of it. Nahl'een had finally subsided and gone to sleep in her seat. "Do you think that we can find them?" Selena asked Shaevre quietly. "It hangs on whether they are in the air or not," the Xer girl replied, "If they are flying, I think that Dahlgren will want to keep them higher up, away from birds for today. If they still live, then he will want the speed of the wind pushing them from west to east and he can get that up there -- from what Arrax has said to me. If that is so, we can see them on the instruments. It will be harder to look tomorrow because he will seek to hide down low. I cannot be sure anyway. From what Arrax said, the one that he flies with will be new to flying and maybe cannot go far. If they travel on foot, it will be almost impossible." Selena nodded and didn't reply. She was thinking about Dahlgren. She'd heard why Ny'Zeille had gotten enraged days ago. Dahlgren was paired now and not single anymore. Selena wondered how she felt about that, but she came to a decision a minute or so later. They hadn't been in love, after all. If there was any blame here, it was hers. He might have been a little more forthcoming, but she couldn't fault him for it, and she had stolen his horse. If they were successful in this, she planned to be friendly to him, because of her sister, and hope that she could find a role for herself in whatever came out of it all. It hadn't gone too badly on balance, she thought. The big payoff was Nahl'een. She'd gotten her ten golds from Ny'Zeille finally, and another ten from Arrax through Shaevre for her help in getting Nahl'een out. She just hoped that her sister could adjust to all of these changes, and her best hope of that happening was that they found Dahlgren, preferably before dark. There was a tone in her ear as her tiny headset came on. "We've found them -- we hope," was all that Arrax said, but she felt it as the Xerian cutter began to descend. Shaevre activated her headset and had a brief conversation with Xhan. "Xhan thinks that he has located them," she said, "He has been tracking birds which fly at higher altitudes -- some kinds of what you call geese, mostly. But he kept seeing one flock on the instrument that never changed shape or size, and always flew in the wrong direction for those birds at this time. They have been sinking slowly so Arrax thinks that the other one has gotten tired or cold, or maybe both. We will see soon." A few minutes later, they could see the them plainly and it was obvious that Arrax and Xhan had been correct, Dahlgren was nursing Faith along and she was obviously beat. The way they were, Dahlgren would have has to get them down soon. He snapped his head around as he heard the engines of the Xerian cutter. A few hand signals to Faith and then he began to lead her down. ------------------ They walked slowly now. Dahlgren had tried to get Faith to accept that she was exhausted and to allow him to carry her, but she'd refused and been very adamant about it. "No sir," she said flatly, "You just got done telling me not five minutes ago that your little girl is probably on that thing. I know that she probably don't care much one way or the other, but the way that I look at it, I've got me a stepdaughter. I ain't about to meet her lying flat on my back." "Alright," he smiled, "Here she comes now." Faith looked off into the distance and she could see the strange flying thing out there on the ground. Between that and where she was, she could see a pair of individuals walking toward them. Between those individuals and where she stood, she could see a high speed jumping bean, hopping, running and jumping. "Your daughter," she said, "is she like us? Why isn't she flying?" Dahlgren laughed a little, "She's wearing pants and a shirt." They began to hear Nahl'een calling out to him as she came, "Dahl! Dahl! .... Dahl!," There were even a few 'Dahls' in there where her voice cracked into a shriek in the middle. "She don't look like she's gonna slow down any," Faith laughed a little softly, already taken with the way that the little girl's long pigtails flew as she ran. "She never does," he sighed as he braced for the collision. After a lot of hugs where Nahl'een's eyes were squeezed tightly shut, she opened them and she didn't look anywhere else but at Faith. "Hello, Nahl'een," Faith smiled, "You just gotta be Nahl'een, the way that you tore a stripe across the ground to get to your daddy. You're the cutest thing too." Nahl'een smiled and melted Faith's heart on the spot. But then she amazed them both. "You are Faith," she said, "Arrax told me. Why you talk funny?" A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 24 Dahlgren explained that people spoke differently depending on where they were from and Nahl'een nodded. "I'm sorry for the way that I talk if it sounds strange to you --" Nahl'een shook her head, "Not sound strange. I like it!" Faith was surprised to find Nahl'een hugging her then, but she held on tight and they smiled at each other. Faith grinned, until she saw what looked to her to be a tall, two-legged wolf walking toward them with some sort of weapon in its arms. There was a human-looking female with it. When they were close enough, Faith saw that the creature was female as well. "Hello, Dahlgren," Selena said, "before you get all cold and silent on me, I'd really like to apologize to you for stealing your horse." Dhalgren looked a little shocked, but he nodded, "It's alright. It was a while ago." "Well you told me then that if I wanted to know the rest of it all, then I'd need to find you. Your mother found me first, but you were gone when I arrived." "Selena is my sister!" Nahl'een exclaimed proudly, "I have a sister, Dahl!" He smiled and nodded. Faith stepped over to take Selena's hand, "I'm uh, I'm Faith. I don't know who all everybody is here yet." "Selena," the rogue said, "and this is Shaevre. She's something called a Xer, and they're also called hellhounds. You'll see why if you see them in their other shape. There's two more on the cutter there, both males so they're somewhat larger. We'd better get a move on Dahl, We've got a ways to go yet before it gets dark." They began to walk, and did their best to explain. Faith listened to all of it, but ... Shaevre noted her confused expression and walked alongside, keeping her head on a swivel at the same time as she looked for threats. She expected none, but she'd been a trooper once and still considered herself to be Nahl'een's bodyguard. It suddenly came to her that this was coming to an end, and she wasn't sure about the way that she felt about it. She suddenly picked up on Faith's nervousness and looked over. "You have nothing to fear from me," she smiled, "We have gone to some lengths to help Dahlgren and you." She chuckled a little and Faith looked at the long teeth in her wolfish face, "You are partly the cause of all of this. Today, I am enjoying my life again. I know that it will take a little time to understand everything, but for now, accept my thanks." Faith nodded, and as odd as this creature looked to her, she found herself liking Shaevre instantly once she'd heard her speak like this. As they neared the craft, Faith saw the lowered ramp and another of the creatures next to it. He was armed as well, and though he nodded politely as they approached, he remained until they were aboard before he looked around once more and walked aboard, hitting a control somewhere to cause the ramp to rise up and close with a whine. Dahlgren walked forward and saw Arrax. "I am thankful, my friend, believe me, but what is all of this? How did you know? How did you find us?" "We have little time, Ranger. Be seated and strap in. Have Shaevre provide headsets and we can talk on the way, but we must get moving soon. Come Xhan, I have learned that at least a little of your mother's gold was well-spent at the academy. Take the craft, while I navigate. I will give you a heading to fly." There were humming and very muted roars coming to their ears as the cutter powered up. Faith looked around with wide eyes until she felt Selena's hand on hers, "It can be a little strange," she smiled, "but it got us here. I was nervous only an hour ago. Now I think that this is almost better than traveling on horseback. I'll keep you company, Faith. There's only one seat next to Dahl's over there and there is no way to keep Nahl'een out of his lap unless we let her sit in that seat." Faith chuckled and nodded, "Can you tell me what's goin' on here?" They heard Arrax' voice in their ears. "Aside from the Xer, there are two kinds of demon on this world and others. There are many sorts, but the three are the most widely spread. Dahlgren is one-half of the type that we Xer call the Merren, as are Selena and the little one. The third type we know as the Red, using the Merren name for them. You are one-half Red. For longer than we can know, we Xer have allied ourselves with the Merren. Since there was often war between the Merren and the Red, we fought them beside the Merren, for the Reds have always been wilder. The Merren have always hated the Reds. The Xer have never cared much, but we are driven by gain and there is gain to be had as the allies of the Merren. This is a cold way to say it, and it is not the view that I hold in me, but it explains things better. The Merren eventually forced the Reds to remain on only one plane of existence, and there was peace after this. Recently, Reds have appeared here on this world. They cause havoc wherever they appear, killing many, since the humans here have no effective defense against them. The Xer would not care one way or the other, but our allies are involved, and so we stand with them. And of course, they pay us well. This world was once considered as a feed world for its resources by both us and the Merren. We established outposts here, but the efforts were abandoned once we learned of the humans and their history. The faith of the Merren considers that this world belongs to the humans, and the efforts at colonization were curtailed. Both of our races would already be gone, but for the appearance of the Reds on this world in the last twenty-five years or so, and the Merren faith holds natural balance above all, and so the last outpost remains with one Ranger to stop the advance of the Reds. That Ranger is Dahlgren, or course, since this is his home world anyway. You have found each other, and since the Merren and the Xer share information on many levels, you were known to us, since a little before the incident where you met each other. All that was known of you was that you killed Red demons as well as Dahlgren did for your own reasons and that your name was Faith. If you have a surname, it is not known to us since it is not known to you, but if this mating between you is what we believe it to be, then it is the custom on this world for the female to take the surname of the male. If it is your wish, Faith, we will enter your name in our data as Faith Runei from this point forward." There was a pause, and after a moment, Faith realized that Arrax was waiting for her response. She looked at Dahlgren who sat smiling back at her with Nahl'een and she spoke up. "Yes, uh, Mister um, ..." "Arrax," the voice reminded. "Yes, Arrax, sir. That is what I would want." "Thank you, Faith," he chuckled, "Duly noted, and this will cause the poor Esteemed Ambassador Runei to lose the last of her mind, unfortunately, but as I tried to tell her often, it is not her choice to make. You all should know that the Xer have decided to leave here. It will cause some trouble, but not much. What usually happens is that we would agree to remain, but the cost of our services would rise steeply, since there is nothing here of interest to us anymore. We foresee that the Merren will not agree to the increase and so we will leave. My role here is that I am in command of the outpost contingents on this world and many others. For something such as this world, I would simply order the closing of our efforts and be gone. But I find that in this case, I have reasons to wish to make certain other ... arrangements. Our outpost will be scaled back to minimum with no guards -- other than the automated systems for as long as they might last. Dahlgren has asked the Great Ones -- a council of high-order Merren to recognize your union. This is something which has caused them a lot of trouble for obvious reasons since you are one-half Red demon, Faith. To recognize the union would cause trouble on many levels, and they consider that you are not an enemy by yourself. They have feared that this would cause Dahlgren to turn from their service, and that is not wanted either. So what they have decided to do is to effectively look in the other direction, giving neither sanction nor censure to the joining, though they will note that the Xer have recorded it properly just now. Their hope is that Dahlgren will continue in his role with you, but they now wish for you both to focus your efforts on finding the cause of this outbreak, Dahlgren, and removing it if you can, so that the Merren can leave this world behind in good conscience with the tenets of their faith. In exchange for this service to them, they will render you the abilities peculiar to your position -- in addition to your own considerable ones as your own as long as you live. Before you let your heart grow cold to them, my sincere advice to you is that you consider your position. If you turn from them, you will lose any aid from them in terms of ability and be left with whatever might still work for you here. It is better than the normal way of terminating a Ranger instantly. So be careful as you consider this. Now, I will tell you what you must do if you both wish to survive, and remember that there is your daughter to consider. If you turn from them, they will come to retrieve Nahl'een, for they see another future Ranger in her. My advice is to accept their aid and their terms -- for now at least. I have been informed that you were already aided in a confrontation with Ambassador Ny'Zeille earlier today." Faith looked over and she saw the hot glare of Dahlgren's eyes as he looked at the floor panels while he listened. "From the records of your missions, I have learned that you once met another male, something like yourself, a half-breed, as it were. He is one-half Red demon, and he has much ability. The meeting was by chance and you both recognized each other. Since you had no reason to kill that one, and since he was acting sanely and seemed very intelligent, you felt that you had no cause to take any action against him and you parted amicably. We are now going to a place approximately one-day's ride on horseback from where that male resides. You did not give your names to each other, but I can tell you that he is called Azrael Wannamaker." They heard a bit of a tired sigh from Arrax through their headsets for a moment as he considered how to say what he felt that he had to say. "Dahlgren, you and I have become as friends over your time as the Ranger here, and I can say that I have always looked forward to my trips to visit you with your mother whenever we journeyed there. I wish you only the best, and in case it has escaped your notice, none of this is being done with the knowledge or consent of Ny'Zeille Runei. We have parted over this issue, since I still have a brain and my sense of what is honorable and right causes me to act. You and your mate will have to suspend your hatred of Red demons -- if you ever had such a hatred in you. Azrael is what you are, Faith, and he is not evil or rabid or tainted any more than are you. From the little that is known of him. I can say that he makes his living in the same profession as Selena. You will make your way to Azrael's home and if you do not wish to be hunted down, the best thing that I can think of for the time being is that you will need to ask him for sanctuary, for where he lives is not known to the Merren or your - at present - crazed mother. The reason for the distance is so that the positional data in the craft's records and the particle trails left by this craft cannot be used much by her or others to find you and your family. I may be able to provide additional support, but at this time, this is not clear to me. Unless I approach you, do not come near to this craft if you see it. Hide from this craft or any others. I may be ordered to search for you with Ny'Zeille. I doubt that it would happen, but I wish to take no chances. You and your family here - even though I have not even had the chance to speak with Faith very much -- you all mean much to me and I will not permit the twisted view of a ..." he chuckled, " sour old titbag to ruin your lives. Questions, while we still have time?" "Arrax," Dahlgren said, "Thanks for this. How do you know where Azrael lives? He never told me, and I didn't ask, so there wouldn't be anything in the transcripts of my reports." "The Xer have never shared the faith of the Merren," Arrax said, "We have our own. It came as a huge surprise to me to learn in my research that there is a deity worshiped long ago by humans far from this part of the world. I investigated out of my own interest, and I found that deity to be the same as the one central to my own faith." "So, "Dahlgren said very cautiously, "You got the location in your prayers?" "No," Arrax chuckled, "of course not. I will not tell you, and you will have to trust in the word of an old war dog, my friend. But now it is the time for you to take stock and see what you have to aid you in this undertaking. Selena, what is your plan for yourself?" The rogue laughed, "You're joking, right? I won't leave my little sister, if Dahlgren will let me tag along. I've still got more than eighteen gold on me. That's more than I've ever had in my life before, and I've got my things and my horse. If Dahlgren wants me to come along, and if you'll allow Shaevre to go, then I'm in." "Shaevre is not under my command," they heard him chuckle, "she has already told me of her choice, which means that from the point of view of her commander -- me -- Shaevre is about to become listed as missing." "You're in," Dahlgren smiled, "and thanks for what you've done." "Besides," the Selena laughed as she nodded to acknowledge Dahlgren's thanks, "the way that I look at it, Ny'Zeille will be after my hide almost as much as she'll be after yours. I liked her as my friend, but after you and Faith sort of declared yourselves -- or whatever they call it, she just went crazy, and she'd barely talk to me anymore. She came to me and almost threw my pay at me and said that I could leave whenever I wanted. If this guy Azrael is a thief, well, I guess that I like him already -- if he's got any work for me." There was a brief conversation between Arrax and Shaevre and she looked at Dahlgren. "I wish to come too. I love the little one too much to just walk away. I have Selena and I have Nahl'een. I would come if you want me." Dahlgren bowed his head toward the Xer female, as was polite to them, "I am in your debt. This is better news than I could have hoped for. But horses..." "Your horse is aboard, as is Selena's and she stole that of your mother to cause confusion when she left with Nahl'een," Arrax said. He looked at Selena and he began to laugh. "Some habits are hard to break," she shrugged. "And we have my new pony!" Nahl'een added. "I was going to ask --" he began, "My daughter has mentioned this maybe a hundred times now." "I had a feeling that you were not able to get home as fast as you wanted" Selena said, "and I knew that she wanted to have one, so I bought uh, ..." "P'tunia," Nahl'een reminded her. "Yeah, Petunia," Selena smiled, "the burro that we hope will grow up to be a pony as her birthday gift from you. I also got her a saddle. I wanted to give her something from me as well. It's not every day that you find your sister. We can settle up later unless, ..." "We'll settle up later," He grinned, "I'm just happy that you paid for the uh, pony instead of the usual way that you get horses." "Is it your birthday today?" Faith asked as if she was only finding it out now, "I knew that it was gonna be soon. I don't have much, but I did get you a dress from the town that we were near. I hope it'll fit you." Nahl'een sat and beamed, "I hope so too, but you are big present to me. Dahl need someone. I need someone. Have sister now, but, ... " she laughed, "I have BIG family now!" She turned to Shaevre, "I think we cannot play much anymore, but I am still happy. I still have Shaevre." Shaevre nodded, "I heard what you said to Arrax when you were afraid that I was in trouble today. My friend Nahl'een was afraid for me. Thank you, little one." "Why we hide from Gramma?" It brought them all an awkward silence. "Nahl'een," Dahlgren began, "You can't understand this and I don't want to upset how you think of Gramma, but, ... she's angry with me because Faith and I are together now." "You love each other," Nahl'een said, "I see. What wrong?" "Gramma does not like what Faith is. She tried to kill her today." "She beat you up some, too," Faith added. Nahl'een was shocked, and looked at Faith, "What you are, Faith? You are girl like me, like Selena, like Shaevre." Faith smiled, "Honey? Ima give you a great big hug the very first chance I get. Your daddy said that you're six from what he told me. You've just taught me something." "Xhan will remain with me," Arrax said, "I need two to manage this craft best, and he is skilled. We will begin our approach in a few minutes. Can you see past me, Dahlgren? See the mountains? The largest closest one. That is Cheyenne Mountain. The one that you seek lives there." "Where on it does he live?" Dahlgren asked, "On top, or somewhere on the side of it? It looks a little large, Arrax, that's why I'm asking." "I have no answer for you, my friend," Arrax said, "It was not made clear to me. You have some time to look, I think, and we brought enough food to last some days. It is wrapped tightly in ice in the largest pack. I will tie it to Ny'Zeille's horse when we land." A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 25 ***Alright, I'll warn you now. >CUTENESS ALERT There, I've said it. There's no sex in this chapter, sorry if that's what you need. Ah, there's nothing like a trip into the unknown - especially if you're on the run. 0_o ------------------- Book of the Merren Part 11 The horses were off-loaded and had been led far off. Arrax said his goodbyes and offered last minute advice to them all before he picked up Nahl’een and kissed her while she giggled from the tickling of his fur against her face. He turned to Shaevre and pointed to a large pack at his feet, “You know how I feel about you, fighter, and you know what this is. There are only two at the outpost. I give this one to you. Keep the little one safe, and if we do not meet again, may it keep you alive, wherever you travel.” Shaevre nodded, “Thank you, Arrax. This means much to me, I have no words, … how will you ever explain …?” He shrugged with a smile as he picked it up and handed it over, “I have no idea what happened to this or where it went. I think that the officer who was in charge of the stores and supplies must have made a mistake. It wouldn’t surprise me, he was worthless at anything else that he did but keep his seat warm and eat. I will report it as missing from the weapons stores and leave him to explain the disappearance as best he can. Lean forward a little.” Shaevre lowered her head and in a moment, he had her thin identification collar in his hand, “You won’t need this anymore, but ,… “ he held out a small cube, “This is an emergency beacon. It may take a little time, but any Xer or Merren system in this part of the constellation will be able to locate it. Do not use it unless there is dire need. Remember, the Merren may come to look for you. I leave it up to you to decide if you wish to be found. If you see a Xer craft in daytime by itself with its strobes on – in daytime, remember, it will likely be me. You may transmit on the guard frequency, but if you get no response after three or four tries, shut it off and get out of the area, understood?” Shaevre nodded and took the weight of the large pack with a wolfish grin and she turned to carry it to Ny’Zeille’s horse. Selena found Arrax standing before her, “Walk with me a moment,” he said. “Shaevre has told me,” he said, “It could happen that in a few days, she may be the only Xer left on this world. She knows this. It says much to me that she has chosen to stay here with you. I am not surprised at her courage, for she has always had that in abundance. A long time ago, “he said, “I fell in love deeply with a female. She was a very fine bitch, more lovely to me every time that I saw her. But before we knew each other, her time was coming to her just as Shaevre’s is approaching. The female had a sister who was a fighter. The fighter was known to me, being one of the ones in my command. Having a lot of love for her sibling, the fighter searched for a way to help and arrived at a solution. It would not be the best one for the emotional tie which would come of it, but she saw no other possibility. The sister saw no male that she wanted for herself. As it happened, the fighter was injured in a training exercise and was sent to be healed. Being a young commander and not having many under me, I took it hard and went to visit the fighter personally. I met the sister there, and we paired only hours later, so the fighter’s solution was never needed. I lost my mate a few years later after I’d left the service. Her sister the fighter perished in battle under the command of a fool, so I lost two singular females from my life, as well as the whelps of my female and I. A little after the death of the fighter, a parcel came for me with the personal effects of the fighter, since she had me listed as one to be notified in the event of her passing. I already knew, of course, and it opened the wound again, a little. The fighter and I had nothing between us but our respect and admiration for each other.” He smiled, “I think that I see some of her in Shaevre, now that I think of it.” He held out a thin package to Selena, “I kept everything in the parcel out of her memory. This is the solution that was chosen in desperation for my female by her sister. This is used in those cases where a female has no male and wishes none, but may have a close female friend who would help when the female’s first heat comes. I give it to you both and I hope that it gives you both joy and happiness. If you are successful in this between you, then I want you to know that I am happy that you have found each other. Take care of Shaevre. You both mean much to me and it is my hope that we may meet again soon.” They walked to where Shaevre stood and he and he kissed them both before he stepped back and he and Shaevre saluted each other as members of the diplomatic arm of the Xer nation. Arrax walked back to the cutter to begin the power up for their departure. “Shaevre,” Xhan began, “I wish to apologize. I thought so little of …” “I know,” she said, “Have ones such as me risen in your eyes from it today?” He nodded, “Much. I will come back – if I can. I wish to know you more.” She nodded with a smile, “Please be careful, and watch out for Arrax. The bootlicks may want revenge for their shaming at his hands.” “He has already sent their failed fitness evaluations,” Xhan said, “He scored them too low to be allowed the duty or the pay of a remote outpost any longer. The salt transports have been notified, and they all know that I added my signature to his. I may be still a whelp to him, but I am an officer, and now I seek to learn what he can teach me. Goodbye Shaevre.” He turned from her but before he could take the step, she pulled him back and threw her arms around him to kiss him rather hard. He looked d azed when she released him as Selena and Faith cheered a little. “What was that for?” he asked. “I need no reason,” she grinned a little, “I only wanted to do that. I thought that you needed it.” He laughed a little and then he was gone and they all saddled up after watching the Xerian cutter lift off and climb away rapidly. “Come on, Shaevre,” Selena called out, “You’re riding with me.” She shook her head, “Thank you, no. I will not ride that creature. I am too heavy and would only frighten it anyway,” she said as she and Dahlgren secured Shaevre’s pack and personal weapon to Ny’Zeille’s horse. “If you need this for whatever reason,” he said, “pull here and here, and it’ll be in your hand. That other thing, …” She nodded and stepped away a little, “That other thing requires a little preparation before its first use. I hope that it can wait and is not needed right away.” She grinned at Selena, “One day, perhaps you can teach me to ride one of these beasts.” “Well how the heck are we gonna get anywhere if we gotta wait for you to walk. Shaevre?” Faith asked. A second later, she stared at the other Xerian form and understood the reason for their other name. She looked at the muscular creature and the flinty fur which covered her. “Oh,” Faith said, “never mind, then.” Shaevre swung her head toward Faith and nodded before she began to trot beside Dahlgren and Nahl’een. A minute later they were out of sight, having left the large meadow and entered the forest. ---------------------- They sat near their small fire after dinner in the dark. Dahlgren made sure that the horses were well-staked. Nahl’een sat with Selena and Faith in front of the small tent and Selena had just sent her sister to sit with Faith for a little while. “We’ve got to be sure that you and Faith spend some time together, Sis. The way that this family stuff works best is if we all get to know each other well enough to be close. That won’t happen the right way if you and your stepmother don’t get to know each other.” Nahl’een nodded seriously, “Already know that, Selena.” She turned and leaned against Faith, which surprised Faith but she hugged Nahl’een instantly. “You’re such a sweetheart, Baby. I am so happy I got to meet you today. I’ve been wonderin’ and worryin’ over it ever since your daddy told me that he had a little girl, because I want us to be friends. I never knew my father, and if we’re all gonna be some sort of family, then , … well it’s real important to me, that’s all.” “Is that so?” Selena asked, feeling a little playful, “Well then what am I going to be in it, Faith?” Faith looked over a little uncertainly, but she saw that Selena was smiling at her good-naturedly, so she smiled back a little shyly. “I can’t rightly say, but I can tell you what I hope and I hope that it’ll be alright, Selena.” She sighed a little, “I’m hoping that you and Shaevre – wherever she’s gotten off to, will be my friends. It’s been a long while since I had any.” Selena smiled, “I think we’re getting on that road anyhow, Faith. There was a time, not long ago, when I had sort of an interest in Dahlgren. It was a bit of a crush that never came to be, and it’s alright, but when I heard that he’d paired with someone, I was about on the floor over it, since it happened so fast. Ever since I heard, I’ve been wondering about the sort of girl who could get to him so fast, and now that I’ve met you, well it all makes sense to me. Shaevre and I were talking about it before we got here and we agree now that we’ve met you. If this is all Dahlgren’s family now, well we’re glad you’re in it.” Shaevre came loping out of the undergrowth then and she turned and sat down next to the large pack that Arrax had given to her on the other side of Faith, who found that she couldn’t help herself and reached out. “DON’T!” Selena said, “Don’t pet her, not without her knowing first.” Faith was shocked, “Why? Doesn’t she like that?” When she looked back, she saw Shaevre next to her, sitting on her haunches as she’d seen her for the first time, “I like that,” she smiled, “what Selena wishes to say is that you must watch my fur, it can be sharp when I am like that. Like this as I am here, it is fur. The other way, and if you move your hand the wrong way, you will be cut. I cannot help this.” Shaevre began untying strips of material and unpacking things. “What is all this?” Faith asked. Shaevre smiled as she worked, “I know that you have not seen one of my kind before today,” she smirked a little, ”and that is maybe not a bad thing, necessarily. We come from another world. Mostly, we sell our services where we can and we seek things to trade wherever we go, but we are also a very warlike people and we sell our ability to war as well. It has been said that this is what we do best. I have always wondered if it was meant as a compliment or a slur.” She paused to lift a long cylinder of what looked like metal rods out of its sleeve and she inserted it into a housing with a quarter–turn and several loud clicks. With a few quick adjustments, she spun it freely with a grin to herself and then she began to speak again as she worked on another section, “I come from a poor and unknown family. That would normally have doomed me to poverty, and that was where I was, in fact. When I got near to the earliest age where it was possible, I took the only opportunity that was available to one like me and I joined our military and became a fighter in our Expeditionary Brigades.” Shaevre looked at Selena and saw that she was sipping a cup of tea. They shared a look and Shaevre raised her chin momentarily. Selena passed her mug and Shaevre stopped long enough to take a sip and hand the mug back with a smile. “Now I share this need to drink tea,” she chuckled, “I should have refused your offer in the kitchen and had water instead,” she grinned, “Anyway, I was a very proficient fighter and moved up rapidly, but there is a limit for one from a low background. I left when I could not get past that. It was a time when there were no wars anyway, so I joined the diplomatic corps. It sounds a little strange, but really, I traded on my abilities as a fighter to be security for our outposts on other worlds. If I have any choice, I do not wish to return to Xer ever again. I know that I would die there.” She unpacked a blockish-looking thing with several connectors and she began to plug one or two in, looking for tiny indicator lights to come on as she worked. “We all die anyway, but I would prefer to have some sort of a life for myself. I suppose that anyone would, really. I was contacted and offered some duty on this world. It would be a little different, I was told. The job was regular security, but there was a small one on a Merren outpost who was the adopted daughter of their Ranger on that world. They were both considered important enough to require a bodyguard for the child. I took the assignment and here I am. The trouble is that I lost my heart to Nahl’een here, as most do, I have learned,” she smiled at the girl and Nahl’een grinned back. “Now I go where I am needed by Nahl’een and the one that you have taken as your mate. For at least a time, I still see myself as a guard for the little one, but I am also following my friend Selena. Since we do not know what is waiting for us, I prepare this weapon.” “That’s a weapon?” Selena gaped, “I thought you were unpacking some supplies.” “I am,” Shaevre laughed, “I have the rifle that I brought. It is similar to what the humans had long ago. Once a fighter’s weapons have evolved to a certain point, there is not much possible beyond that on an individual level. This was my specialty in the Brigades, the use of this little beast. It is a squad weapon, to provide fire support. To a squad of Death hounds, this is comfort, to know that one like me is there with them. Often, we find that there is really strong opposition to take our objective, and what is needed then is much force in one unit. Those units are sections of gunners carrying these, and it was my task to lead one such section.” She unpacked another parcel and snapped it into place underneath the cylinder before clicking more connectors into place, which got her more tiny status indicators. She grinned to herself, “Arrax, I love you for this gift to me.” She moved a flexible coupling and snapped it on, and then she unwrapped a harness and began to adjust it. “This is two weapons, really. There are two of these provided to an outpost the size of Dahlgren’s home. Arrax has stolen this one and given it to me.” She stood up, hefting the thing with a quiet grunt as she slipped the harness over her shoulder and made more adjustments. “My personal weapon there throws bullets which is how it kills. They come out of the long tube on it one at a time, one after another, fairly quickly if I wish it.” Shaevre looked down at a hand control and set several switches carefully in the dim firelight, double and triple-checking to be sure. “This one has a long name with many markings which are of more use to stock keepers than fighters. Fighters call this a meg. It is a word that means ‘hot sword’,” she grinned. “It throws the same bullets as my rifle there, but it has six tubes and can shoot much faster.” She turned to point it in a safe direction and she squeezed the trigger on the hand control. There was a whine and the long cylinder spun rapidly for a second. “That’s it?” Faith asked, “It whistles? Ain’t it working right?” “It is working perfectly,” Shaevre nodded, “It can shoot three thousand bullets in a minute. Since there is no need, I will not try it. I only wanted to put it together and test it. All of the indicators show that it will work when I need it to.” She laughed, “You do not wish me to test it beyond this. It is loud and will frighten the horses. It would also waste bullets for no purpose and I have only a thousand which is why it is heavy. I would also have to clean it after that for nothing. It will also throw up to twenty-two very small rockets. I have read that the humans had something such as this long ago, but they hung them on their flying weapons. This is much too heavy to be carried far by a human into a fight. I doubt that one even could.” “Meg is a human girl’s name, a short form of Meghan,” Selena said, “I knew a girl named Meg once.” Shaevre grinned as she shrugged a few times to get it off and then she set it down carefully and put a cover over it. “This pleases me then,” she chuckled, patting the thing affectionately; “Our Meg is a murderous girl in a fight. She is a lot to carry, but she will help to keep you safe.” Dahlgren returned and he stared at them all with a smile, “Now that’s something,” he grinned. They worked out their sleeping arrangement so that Nahl’een would sleep with Dahlgren and Faith during the night as Dahlgren and Shaevre took turns keeping watch. In the morning, they just saddled up and went after Shaevre picked up her weapon. After they were gone, a solitary figure floated down from a tree branch high overhead. That figure looked around and turned to disappear up the slope in a different direction at a perfectly silent run over the leaves on the forest floor. ----------------- Out in the desert, Ny’Zeille Runei opened her eyes and shivered. The sun wasn’t even really up yet and the hardpan could get so cold at night. She felt the tingle in her mind which told her that her employers wanted to communicate with her, but she turned her thoughts elsewhere as she got to her feet and stood wavering a little. She decided to wait until the sun was well up and could warm her sufficiently before she made an attempt to return to her son’s home. She’d deal with him there. By the time that she finally felt warm, she’d decided a few things. She’d take her time flying back, not wanting to brave the cold air at the higher altitudes just yet. When she got back, she planned to go to meet with Arrax and apologize for her actions and then she’d insist that Dahlgren be taken into Xer custody, since he was so obviously unstable that he’d attack his own mother the way that he had. She began to justify everything that had happened. She would indicate her loving concern for her son and once he was back on Merren and safely committed, she’d recommend that she take over as Ranger on this world so that she might have a chance at salvaging the family name and removing the dark smear that Dahlgren had covered it with. Her first project would be to hunt down the girl and rip her apart. She spread her wings and climbed slowly to about a thousand feet to stay a little warm as she slowly flew back with a smile on her face. --------------------------- The first of the transports had arrived and sat with the first load of documents and accumulated data as well as some personal effects and equipment. Arrax walked out and spoke to the crew for a few minutes. He always liked to do this whenever he got the chance for it. The Xerian military was as far-flung as the Merren interests – farther, even, and you never knew who you might meet that you had served with previously. In this case, he knew the co-pilot well. They’d worked together on a jungle world not all that long before he'd left the military. They shot the breeze for a time, and when he judged the time to be right for it, Arrax made a bit of a deal of seeing a small carton in among the gear which was about to be containerized for the trip. He asked if he might go and retrieve it, saying that it was not supposed to be on this flight, and of course, his request was granted. He walked up the cargo ramp past the loadmasters and he reached for the carton, allowing a thin article to slip from his fingers into the carton below, which he then closed fully. Turning, he walked down the ramp and waved to the crew with a grin. If Shaevre’s collar was ever found, it would happen too late for anything to be done about it. -------------------------- A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 25 It was nearing midday when they found their way up the gentle slope and came to the barest hint of a trail. Dhalgren looked at it for a minute and decided that this had to be the way to get to the mountain. He smirked to himself, well they already were on the mountain, just low down it, and the further that they went, the higher that they’d climb, and he could already see a dusting of snow on the tops of what might pass as foothills on this thing. He didn’t even know what they’d do once they got there – wherever ‘there’ was. He had no idea how he’d ever manage to get this Azrael’s attention if he lived around here before they froze to death. He turned to his female and smiled to himself. What he had was Faith, and a whole lot of it. If Arrax said that the man lived here, then here was where he lived. He just hoped that he’d be home, whatever house or hovel that he lived in. They didn’t stop for lunch. When Nahl’een complained about being hungry, Selena handed her a bag of dried fruit and nuts. Nahl’een was happy again. By midafternoon, they came to a clearing of sorts and there was a thin covering of snow there. Seeing nothing in the snow and how the path appeared again in the woods on the other side of it, Dahlgren nudged his horse forward, but he stopped when he heard the low warning rumble in Shaevre’s throat. He looked back and saw her step cautiously over to stand next to him where he sat. “There,” she pointed with a whisper, not raising her arm all the while, “there, and there. See them?” He nodded, “Any more?” She shook her head a little, “No more that I can see. I smelled them first.” “And what do they smell of,” he asked with a curious smile. She shrugged, “Somewhere warm.” Dahlgren peered at them in as casual a way as he could. The three were not large, especially the middle one, and they all wore dark cloaks with hoods far over their faces. They sat on horses, the middle one on a pony, spread out a little at the far side of the clearing in three places along its periphery all facing them. “What is it?” Selena asked, as she rode up a little, “Who are they?” “I don’t know,” he said, “but none of them is Azrael. He’s larger than any of them, from what I recall.” “I know enough,” Faith said, “The one in the middle and the one on the right have Red demon blood. I can smell it.” She looked down at Shaevre who had touched her leg. “Those ones smell the same to me as you do, my friend,” she said, “Remember what Arrax said. This Azrael is just as you are, and you need him for shelter. Arrax said nothing of this, but I would doubt that this male lives alone here. It is the one on the left which gives me the most trouble. I have never smelled one like this before anywhere before last night. I watched her without looking as she sat high up in a tree looking at us. I do not know what she is, but I did not want to kill her for it.” “And that one has probably never seen anyone like you either,” Dahlgren smiled thinly. As they looked at the other group across the clearing, they saw the three look at each other and the way that their hands moved. “What are they doing?” Faith asked, “I’ll bet they’re conjurin’. They’ll probably hit us with something in a minute.” “Faith,” Dahlgren whispered over his shoulder, “Who was it who told me how upset she was when she was judged superstitiously by humans?” Faith looked down for a moment, “I hear you. It’s just that I’ve found that the best way to stay alive is to light ‘em up as soon as I know.” “Don’t you ever make a mistake?” Selena asked. “I’ve never thought about it,” Faith shrugged, “But I see what you’re tryin’ to tell me.” “They are speaking to each other with their hands,” Shaevre said. “Who are you?” the figure on the right called out. “My name is Dahlgren Runei,” he called across, “I - we seek Azrael Wannamaker.” “He is not here,” the rider said, and it was clear then that this was a female by her voice, “What do you want?” Dahlgren eased his horse forward a little more and there was an instant reaction from the others. “STOP!” the one in the middle called out. “That’s a kid!” Selena said in surprise, and in the instant tension, Shaevre flicked the small switches to arm her weapon and the barrels rotated once. The figure on the left horse spurred ahead, staying close to the forest. It happened in a second, but Shaevre held her fire and as she looked up, she was looking at two small crossbows pointed right at her chest from ten feet away. All that she could see of this rider was her dark skin and a little of her white hair. “Nau!” the rider said, shaking her head a little under the hood, “Nau, … No, please. Lower that, lovely wolf, or you will be dead as you fall.” She indicated her weapons with a nod, “Poison. Very fast. I want no accidents through misunderstanding. We are careful, that is all. We try to tell you that there is a trap in the middle there. If you wish to talk, then follow where I go. Do not ride straight through.” The rider turned and said a word to the others and the rider in the middle held out some sort of blade pointed at Faith. Cha’Khah was back on the other side in a heartbeat or two. One of the crossbows was out of sight as she beckoned them closer. “He’s gonna cast somethin’,” Faith warned. “He watches my back because we see that you are about to be hasty,” the one with the crossbows said, “You would die for it. Now, if you can calm yourself, light-haired one, you all must get away from the clearing, especially that small one there on the donkey. Keep her out of the center. Come.” Selena shook her head, “She is only just learning to ride.” There was the beginning of another tense moment, but the one with the blade swung it in his hand and slid it into a holster. He jumped down and walked around the clearing quickly to Nahl’een’s side and looked up, “I can lead you – if you trust me.” She stared down at him for a moment before she looked at Dahlgren and the others as though she didn’t know the correct answer. Dahlgren nodded with a smile, and the figure took hold of the side of Petunia’s bridle and gave her a gentle tug. “My name’s Sariel,” the figure said as he began to lead Petunia, “What’s yours?” When she’d made no reply, he looked back, “Can’t you talk?” She nodded then and followed that with a little smile. “Well she used to talk,” Selena smiled, “Her name is Nahl’een.” He looked at Nahl’een for a second and then he smiled a little, “I never heard one like that before, it’s a really nice name.” With Petunia moving now, the small figure stayed on the clearing side to keep Petunia from making a misstep. Nahl’een looked back at the others with a big smile. The others followed, Shaevre doing her best to hide her grin. Once across, the boy smiled and said, “Just follow, it’s not far.” When everyone had passed him, he climbed up onto his pony again and followed them himself. From the other end of the strange procession, Nahl’een leaned out a little and looked back. “You just keep moving, Sweetie,” Faith grinned ahead at her, “I think you’ll get your chance at a good look soon.” They rode on a little way and then stopped in another clearing, “You will be safer here,” the one who had called out said, “Now, what is this about?” “I met Azrael once.” Dahlgren said before he sighed, “I am here to ask for sanctuary. We are not hunted, at least not this day, but … if I was alone, it would be one thing, but...” “Who are these others then?” the one with the crossbows asked from under her hood. “This is Faith Runei,” Dahlgren said, “My wife.” He pointed toward Nahl’een, “Nahl’een is my daughter, Selena there is her older sister, and that is Shaevre.” Cha’Khah leaned forward to look closer. “You are a strange family if…” She shook her head, “and this is Shaevre. What is Shaevre?” “I am a Xer,” Shaevre replied, looking under the hood for a quick second, “What are you?” “I am careful,” she said, “You do not look as you did when I first saw you today.” “And you do not look as you did when I first saw you last night high up in the tree,” Shaevre replied, “perhaps you are not careful enough,” she smiled, “but I let you live anyway. You did nothing to make me want to kill you.” “My name is Rachel,” the other rider said, “Azrael is my husband, and Sariel is our son. That is Cha’Khah there under the hood. You wish to hide here? Ask Azrael.” She nodded in the direction that they’d come from, “That’s him now.” They looked back and two hooded figures rode around the clearing, slowing as they pulled up. “This man said that he met you once and he asks for protection,” Rachel said. “I remember you,” Azrael nodded,”You are the hunter who seeks my kind of demon to kill them. What happened? And you know that I’m holding back a lot of things that I could say here.” Dahlgren shrugged, “If I make the shortest story out of it. I was sent for some demons, killed them with Faith’s help,” he said indicating which one was Faith, “found out that she’s a Red demon, but we fell for each other anyway, and my demon mother is trying to hunt us. I wouldn’t mind all that much, but she wants to kill Faith, Selena here very likely, and she’d probably like to take my daughter away to save her family’s name for a third time. It’s been a busy week or so.” “It sounds that way,” Azrael laughed, “How long do you need shelter?” Dahlgren shrugged again, “I don’t know, but I am hoping for less than a month. One way or the other, this should resolve itself by then and I may have to act before then. I have some money to pay if it is needed. We are not hunted yet, but we likely will be soon. As far as I know, this place and you are unknown to any who would seek us.” As the adults talked, Sariel sidled his pony next to Petunia. Nahl’een looked at him, “I can speak,” she said a little bashfully, “But I am trying … I want to speak better. I …” She sagged a little in the saddle, “not know what to say.” “It’s alright,” he said, “I can understand you. I really like your name.” “Thank you,” she smiled, “I can … see your face?” “Oh,.. uh, sure, Nahl’een.” She leaned up a little and reached out to push his hood back. Shaevre caught the motion and she nudged Selena, who grinned and tapped Faith on the hand to point. Within ten seconds, all of the females on both sides of this were watching with smiles on their faces as Nahl’een got Sariel’s hood back with a little of his help. She reached again and touched his long white-blonde hair for a moment, and the pair sat smiling at each other. “Azrael,” Cha’Khah said with a grin as she pointed, “These are not enemies and while we sit in the cold being so careful, the two young ones already show us a better way.” She chuckled, “I really think that you should let them stay.” Azrael looked and he grinned, pointing the scene out to Dahlgren. He turned to the Drowess, “Xas, Cha’Khah,” he laughed, “any excuse to get out of the wind, no?” “You know me well, Master,” she tilted her head playfully and smiled as the wind blew the part of her hair outside of her hood past her face. The snowflakes were few and far between, but they were blown hard enough against one’s skin to be felt. “What is it that hunts you, Dahlgren?” Azrael asked, “A demon who is your mother, you say?” “Yes,” he nodded, “She is a full High Merren demon and very strong. There may be others, but I am not sure of this. If she can convince them, she may be hunting with Xer such as Shaevre, but I think that it’s unlikely.” “What is this one doing here, then? Is she a traitor to them?” Azrael asked. “I am no traitor,” Shaevre said, a little coldly, “The Xer work for pay. Until yesterday, I was the little one’s bodyguard. Now I turn from the Merren and my own kind out of my love for Nahl’een. I will not allow her to be a pawn in a Merren game. As far as being hunted by other Xer, it is possible, “Shaevre said, looking through the stiff wind, “But the Xer would want much gold up front. Arrax said that they withdraw their support for the Merren, and from what you said last night, the Merren do not favor Ny’Zeille any longer.” Azrael looked at Rachel, who glanced at the children for a moment before looking at him and giving a small nod. “We’ll freeze standing here discussing,” Azrael smiled, “if you need shelter, then come with us and be safe.” Dahlgren bowed and thanked him. When they’d been led to the sheltered stables, Sariel offered to help Nahl’een down from her burro. It worked eventually, but it caused the pair to end up in a bit of a heap for just a moment. Sariel felt foolish, but Nahl’een was quick to thank him as though it had gone as they’d intended. He pulled his heavy cloak from his pack and put it around her shoulders. There was a difference in their sizes and the cloak almost dragged on the ground, but Nahl’een didn’t mind. “I don’t think I’ll ever forget that,” Rachel smiled standing next to Faith, “Are you her mother? You don’t look -” “I’m just her new stepmother. We only met yesterday and I’ve got a lot to learn and catch up on,” Faith said quietly, “but right now, I’m proud fit to burst.” Cha’Khah walked past leading her horse and Faith reached to put her hand on Cha’Khah’s arm and stop her, “I’m sorry for that back there. I guess I’m a little too quick sometimes.” Cha’Khah nodded, but the severity dropped away from her face, “I can understand. I am the same as you. I have had to learn to hold back as well. You have hated the same creatures as what you are.” Faith looked down, “Yeah, it’s how I’ve learned to stay alive, I guess. But looking around at some of the people here, it doesn’t make much sense anymore.” “I think that you will need to learn to trust a little more,” Cha’Khah said, “But I understand. Vadren and I are far from where we began, so we have learned this too. Our trouble is that the rare times when we meet others like ourselves, we must wait long enough to learn where they are from before we decide whether to kill them or not. My own hands are not free from blood either.” Vadren said nothing as he unloaded his horse, but he looked around at the sky a little thoughtfully and stepped over to where Azrael stood talking with Dahlgren. “The stable should be shut up tight tonight. A storm comes, I am certain.” With the horses seen to, Azrael asked that all of the hoods be pulled back, “so that we each know who our neighbors are.” That led to a long round of questions as they walked in through the North Portal. “What has changed from when I saw you last?” Azrael asked,” Something, surely. I can see this on your face.” “I think that my eyes have been opened,” Dahlgren replied, “at least a little. I now see two kinds of these demons; the crazed ones which I have killed for years, and ones like yourself and Rachel. There is nothing mad or insane to you and you are quite like Faith. I am like you. That is something which I must consider. Also I now believe that I have been led a little astray by the ones who have used me to kill Red demons. I think that they are wrong about you. I even think that they know this a little. They know who I have paired with. Faith has always killed Red demons, even though that is part of what she is herself, and I think that she confuses the two as well.” “Well, I’m learning pretty quick that I was wrong too,” Faith said, “But then, I did have my reasons.” “So now,” Dahlgren said,” the Merren, who I worked for approve of what we have done, but they can’t say that because they’d look like idiots. They now DON’T want us to kill any Reds that we find. They only want us to find out how they get here and stop them from coming. In the meantime, my mother is furious at what I’ve done and wants to kill my wife, and probably me, and the rest too. I almost don’t know here anymore. She’s not like she was when I was a kid. I left her in the desert yesterday injured, but I’ll bet she’s flying now and looking for us. That’s why I ask for sanctuary mostly for my family until I can figure out what to do at the very least.” They neared the first set of doors and Azrael opened them with a word. As they stepped inside, the newcomers stared at the long hallway ahead of them as Vadren and Azreal brought the wheelbarrows so that the supplies which they’d brought and some of the packs of the others could be transported more easily. The walls glowed dimly and it made the hall seem to disappear into the distance. “We’re not there yet?” Nahl’een asked. “No,” Sariel said, “It’s still a walk from here.” “Why we not, …” Nahl’een stopped to correct herself, “Why not ride all the way?” She looked around, “Big enough for horses here.” “It’s too dark to be good for their eyes, my father said.” He sighed, “And anyway, if we brought the horses, then I’d have to shovel up after them. I already have to look after the chickens.” “Oh,” Nahl’een nodded as they walked, “What are chickens?” Selena smiled at Ch’Khah as they walked, “Pardon me, but really, what are you?” Cha’Khah wanted to curse, but then she reminded herself that this person was not trying to be rude. “WHO I am,” she began, noticing that Shaevre was listening as well, “is Cha’Khah Dreile. I was low-born kin, distantly related to the ruler of House Dreile. I was a soldier. I left the darkness underground to come into the light to live. Since then, I have learned much magic from my cousin, Vadren there behind us. He is a mage, a mighty one.” WHO I am, is a good fighter and thief, tomb robber as well. I follow the moon goddess in my prayers and I have a wonderful friend in Rachel, who teaches me as I teach her. I am a teacher to Sariel, so that he may live long and I love him as my own son. I would kill for them without a thought. WHAT I am is a Drow. If you know of Elves, then know that we are their dark cousins. If you ever meet another of my kind, do not ask them WHAT they are, unless you wish to die. I know that you do not know any better, but the way that you asked was an insult to my kind and we are quick to anger over things such as this. Now, tell me please, WHO are you?” “Nobody much really,” Selena grinned, “If we are making introductions here, then my name is Selena Meadesbreath. I am the sister of Nahl’een, there.” She went on to relate the sad tale and then she fell silent, though she still wore a friendly smile as they walked. “Thank you for telling me of this,” Cha’Khah nodded, “I will be very understanding to the way that your young sister struggles when she speaks, but I think that she does well to have begun so late. But you really said very little of yourself.” “There is not much to tell, other than I am a half-demon with little ability save one. I am a thief. Here, …” she handed the startled Drow back several items which she’d managed to steal during their conversation. Cha’Khah stared as she held her returned dagger and three coins. “I would have tried for one of the crossbows but they hang up too easily in your cloak and might have fired. I’d never really steal anything from you, but I was a little bored and I enjoy talking with you. No doubt you are aware of your beauty. I just wanted to see all of the range of your expressions. With luck, I’ll get to see you laugh now, and with no luck, my friend Shaevre there behind us will hopefully save my life before you succeed in killing me.” Cha’Khah spun around and saw the Xer striding silently behind them, her red eyes glowing softly and the six muzzles of Meg never straying from a point in the middle of Cha’Khah’s body. “You remind me that I have been rude, "the drow said, "to the one that I glimpsed last night.“ Cha’Khah smiled, “I have heard of ones like you.” Shaevre nodded and her exhalation as she walked was like a blast of steam, now that she didn’t need to walk silently. A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 25 “I like you better like this - as the walking wolf,” she smiled, “but I wonder what this is that you carry. This is a weapon?” Shaevre moved the muzzles so that they pointed in another direction as she turned the system off. There was no need to waste the limited batteries at this point, since she didn’t know when she’d get a chance to set up the tiny solar charger in the kit. “I wish to know,” she said, “Do you consider me as an enemy to be watched or as a possible ally that you do not yet trust completely?” Cha’Khah smiled, “If I thought that you were anything less than the second one, you would already be dead.” “Then I can tell you that this is our friend, Meg,” Shaevre smiled back, patting the barrels, “She is a hungry thing. Twice today I could have killed you, but the second time, the way that you spoke for us, looking at Nahl’een and the boy as you did, I decided that I like you.” “And the first time?” Cha’Khah asked, “Was it when I had my bolts pointed at your breast?” “No,” Shaevre grinned a little, “it was when I didn’t cut you in two as you rode forward. I saw no need to slay a horse.” Cha’Khah stared and then she grinned. When the tall canine strode forward, she began to laugh and she put one arm around each of their waists, “Oh, I do hope that you like to drink ale,” she laughed, “I like you as well.” “So this Vadren behind us,” Selena began, “You say that he is your cousin? He is so quiet. I don’t think that I’ve heard him say a word.” “That is because he is probably staring at one or all of our bottoms. It is his favorite pastime. Since I still wear my cloak, my backside is likely safe. You wish to hear him speak?” Cha’Khah grinned. “Vadren,” she called out without turning. The rest was unintelligible, but they heard the tone of his reply and it made her laugh, “I told him that I was getting worried for him and that I was trying to find a way to get him a sheep for his pleasure. His answer to me was carefully worded because Sariel knows some of our speech, but I know what was meant.” “What did he say?” Shaevre asked. Cha’Khah chuckled, “He told me to do something which I cannot do – without help of some kind. We are very close, Vadren and I.” They walked on a little, with first Shaevre and then Selena looking back at Vadren as he walked behind them with his staff over his shoulder and his pack in his other hand. Selena looked again to get another glimpse of his dark chest and his really long white hair, since he’d removed his cloak out by the paddock. In the dimness of the tunnel, his eyes were red. He transferred his staff to his other hand and he held up his empty hand with a smile as what looked to be a few snowflakes began to swirl over his palm. Selena stared as she watched the few turn into many and in a second he held a miniature blizzard. He winked at Selena and held up his palm to purse his lips and blow. The blizzard disappeared. Cha’Khah gasped and her head went back as though she’d been shot. She bunched her shoulders from the icy sensation and she stopped suddenly to bend over a little and reach back. She began to pull out one handful of melting snow after another from where it sat at the back of her neck, cursing loudly the whole time. Vadren walked past where the three stood, “Careful , cousin,” he smiled, “Sariel does understand what you say.” He sighed and winked again at Selena, “Cha’Khah hates the cold.” Cha’Khah’s eyes looked as though she could shoot flames from them and she opened her mouth, but Vadren held up his hand. “You had better make it good,” he grinned as he walked backward a little, turning around to walk on, “It will give me the reason to aim a lot lower the next time.” He chuckled as he walked on, “What a place for a blizzard.” Faith saw it all and turned to Rachel, “I’ve never seen people like that before. I mean, I’ve seen people with all kinds of skin color, but …” “They’re Drow, not humans. Most of them live deep underground in large cities. Those two are close friends of ours. Usually, Drow can’t really stand sunlight much. It hurts their eyes and being aboveground sort of saps some of their abilities after a while. We’re not underground here, we’re just below the mountain. It’s good enough for them. Cha’Khah is my very best friend, not that I’ve ever really had a lot of those, but we’re really close, and they both love Sariel.” “Well yeah,” Faith said, “but do they hate each other?” “Oh,” Rachel chuckled, “You mean that?” She shook her head, “That’s just the way that they are, those two. They’re always playing tricks on each other and they fight something awful sometimes, but they're really very close. Would you, um, would you help me with dinner later? I’ve got five more to feed tonight. I hope Azrael and Vadren bought enough. I wasn’t planning on company. Did you bring anything along?” “I haven’t looked,” Faith said, “But I do know that we brought a lot – for four and a half, I guess. I haven’t seen what’s in the pack though. My husband or Shaevre would know better. He and I just got picked up and flown here yesterday. We were in the desert before that. I’m still tryin’ to get my feet on the ground. The last week has been like a windstorm to me. But I’d be happy to help any way that I can,” she said hopefully. “It sounds as if there’s quite a story in there somewhere,” Rachel grinned, “I’d love to hear some of it later.” A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 26 ***This is the second winter inside the mountain for Azrael & company. Now Dahlgren and his family of fugitives have appeared, needing to hide. This chapter's a bit longer because I wanted to move this bunch ahead a bit more. Selena is still on the quiet journey and she seems drawn along like a leaf in a slow stream. 0_o ---------------- They came to the large blast doors and Azrael opened them. When they stepped inside, the newcomers stood and stared as the heavy doors inched shut behind them. There was a gentle boom and then the sounds of the heavy latches moving into place. "Welcome to our home," Azrael said, "You said that you needed sanctuary. If you need to hide, this is the fortress to be in. And you have come in good time. Vadren tells me that there will be a storm tonight. It is already beginning, and it will hide the tracks of our passage on the mountain." Cha'Khah let out a yelling cheer and they all looked at her. "What is wrong?" she looked at them all, "I happen to love a good snowstorm in these mountains." "Yes," Rachel grinned, "from this side of three sets of doors -- especially those last ones, almost half a mile from the snow." "A fine one you are to talk," Cha'Khah laughed, "We both love a good thunderstorm Rachel, but you will not stand out in one with me for long. And I do at least go down the tunnel to look, do I not? Oh, I enjoy the way that the snow flies so thickly and how the wind screams and moans, especially at night, while I am warm and dry." "Have it your way," her friend chuckled, "but it's not the lightning that chases me inside in a thunderstorm. I love to dance in one with you, Cha'Khah. It's the mosquitoes which hound me back inside then. I only have so much blood to give them. You find a way to keep them off me in a warm rainstorm and I would dance with you all night in it." The Drowess' eyes lit up. "I must speak to Vadren later," she smiled as she walked away, "there has to be a way." They laughed at each other and Rachel turned to lead Faith to where she thought her extended family could sleep before they looked to see what might be done about dinner. With the decisions made in a small block of what had once been a section of married quarters, Cha'Khah was summoned. She looked around inside carefully, and then she chose surfaces and caused them to glow in the way that the Drow have always done to where they lived underground. "But, this is not stone," Rachel said, "I thought that you told me that you needed stone to so this." "We do," Cha'Khah smiled, "and these surfaces are made of something you would call gypsum. It is not perfect, but it will stay lit for a long time -- months before I need to do this again. The light is too dim to read by for you, but I think that if you are tired, it will be dark enough to sleep." Dinner was a real mish-mash and it had several sources, but everyone liked it. "What are these rolls?" Azrael asked, "I can't figure them out, but I really like them." "Eat them sparingly," Shaevre smiled, "It is your choice, but I would eat no more than one at one meal. That is why I cut one up for both of the young ones so that they get only a quarter of one each. An adult can have one and there is room for more of something else, but no more than one. They are Xer combat rations and contain everything needed to keep one of my kind alive and fighting in the field. Because of our nature, they are a little heavy on meat protein, but everything is there. I could tell you what the meat is, but you would not know the animal, so just enjoy it if you like it. I am pleased if you do. I have many of these and they keep well in a cool place." "Just tell me how many legs this had," Vadren smiled, "I do not really care, I am just curious." "Six" Shaevre grinned, "And to us it is something like a cow would be to you." "Do I have lessons after dinner?" Sariel asked. The Drow looked at each other, "No, Sariel," Vadren said, "you may have a night away from your blade, I think." "Just so you understand clearly," Rachel looked around the table, "The meal tonight was prepared by all of the grown females here. We barely know each other, but we managed to make a surprising meal and it was a lot of fun." "Yes," Vadren began, but Rachel held up her hand. "Thanks are not necessary, but clean dishes are. Your job." she said. Selena walked with Cha'Khah along a causeway high up in the cavern. Eventually, that led them to maintenance catwalks, and from there to the blast valves high up the back slope of the mountain. "Put on your cloak, Selena," Cha'Khah warned, "We have to worm our way a little from here, but I wish to stick my nose out in the storm this night to see how it goes and to rub it in my friend Rachel's face that we did it." She opened the valve and they crawled through onto the balcony outside. The wind was cold and relentless and they couldn't see very far at all, but Cha'Khah did get a moment to see as far as the other balcony and the hen house was still there. "We come here often in the warmer months," she said, indicating the firepit, "Sometimes we even come for a fire in the winter, but not on a night like this. You can see all of the stars from here." "I wanted to ask you," Selena almost yelled,trying to be heard over the wind. Cha'Khah held up her hand, "Come here!" she cried, "or talk when we are back inside. I want to stand here a little." Selena stepped closer and seeing it, Cha'Khah grinned and they ended up almost nose to nose, but once they'd pulled their hoods up as far as they'd go, it was a little fun, because their faces were out of the storm and they didn't have to yell. "What did you wish to ask?" Cha'Khah asked. "I heard something about dancing in a rainstorm," Selena smiled, "I LOVE to dance in a rainstorm." "Do you?" Cha'Khah laughed a little, "Tell me of it then." "I have the farm that I told you about," Selena said, "It's still there, and I lived there alone before all of this. There are no close neighbors. I feel a little silly to tell of it, but when there's a really nice warm summer rain, and I like it best in the evening when it's dark or almost dark, I ... I go out the back door with no clothes on and I love to dance in the rain for a while, as long as it lasts or stays at least a little warm." She wanted to look away, feeling a little foolish, but she found that there really wasn't any other place to look but at Cha'Khah's dark face and into her now red eyes, since it was dark. Those eyes opened wide now for a moment and then Selena felt the Drow's hands on her hood as she smiled, "You see? I just KNEW that I liked something about you. This dancing is something that I learned from Rachel. She grew up far from people, and when she came back to where she was born to birth Sariel, well, she told me that she ended up alone there with him on top of a mountain. She said that when it really stormed, there would be no animals around and even with her baby, well she was still a woman, no? She told me that she would be sure that her little one was asleep and then she would go outside to dance in the rain. The wet clothes would not let her move well, so she just took them off. She was alone with no one for her and she was lonely and she felt ugly as well. Dancing was a way to feel freedom from everything. It was a way to feel as though she was a part of nature and the world, even all alone on a mountain. To her, it was a small, but very important way to remind herself that she was all things of a woman; still the girl, still the maid, and the mother. I grew up with death very close to me my whole life long, so there was no freedom to feel. Rachel told me of her love to dance one night and it sounded so good to me, so the next time that there was a storm, it wasn't even warm, but I came out here and began, and then Rachel came out to dance with me. It was wonderful to me. She and I love to dance right here in the rain, right where we are now. It is a little primitive, maybe a little sensual, and it is so much fun to do. We like it dark then too, though sometimes we keep the little fire lit if it was already going if we can, and the males are forbidden to watch us. This is something which we do for ourselves. Like you, we wear no clothes." She smirked a little, "It is a little bit naughty, and neither of us likes women especially, but we love to dance together those nights. Oh, we touch a little and it feels so nice to hold Rachel's wet body against me for a moment. We even caress a little, but that is not really the point. And it is only us here, so who is to care anyway? I am a Drow and she dances as a demon. So what? I try not to step on her tail." She looked at Selena's eyebrows for a second as she thought. Then her eyes were back, looking into Selena's. "It is really just a simple pleasure for two girls who are really close. It is a joyous thing for me to do with my friend. I always feel so free and happy then and for a long time after. You have never danced with someone else?" "No," Selena shrugged, "there never was anyone like that for me. Now I wish that I had someone to try it with, but I'd feel ashamed to ask anyone. What you tell of sounds wonderful." "It is," Cha'Khah grinned, "Oh, it is. I am sad now that it is wintertime. I like you more every minute. First a really very good thief, and I saw how you were in making the meal, and now I find another raindancer like me." She pulled back a little and nodded, "No one can see the future. But I think that I wish to make you this promise. Somewhere, at some time, maybe at your farm, I do not know, but ... I wish to dance with you, at least once. If it rains somewhere and I am near, then ask me, Selena." Selena smiled. She doubted very much that it would ever happen, but she looked into those red eyes and said, "I want to dance with you, Cha'Khah, at least once, too." They moved apart then and looked around in the storm once more. "I loved talking to you like that, but I am losing my love of this balcony in this storm," Selena laughed. Cha'Khah nodded and led the way back inside. Not long after dinner, Faith and Rachel found themselves working on a small problem that neither of them had expected to have. There was one bathtub which Azrael had connected to the underground plumbing system. If you wanted a bath, you opened the only tap which worked and you got really cold water. It hadn't been a problem before because Azrael and Rachel could heat water with a touch in a few minutes, though he could do it a bit quicker. They'd just do this for Cha'Khah or Vadren as they were asked. But now there were the smaller two. Each of the mothers offered that their child could wait another night and they could work out some sort of schedule. "It's a little silly, isn't it?" Rachel smiled, "they're both just kids, but they're not little enough anymore to just toss them in and wash them together. Then it could be us who alternate nights. Sariel refuses to let me wash him anymore anyway. He shows this really stern face and reminds his mother that he is learning to be a combat mage." She chuckled, "I enjoy the routine so much that I pretend to forget the next time that he needs a bath, just so I can hear him say it all over again." As it turned out, the 'ladies first' rule prevailed, but that was the start of the troubles. Nahl'een had insisted that she'd learned to dry herself well enough to be allowed to do it. Not knowing any different, being a new mom, Faith had allowed it. There were two doors to that particular bathroom, since it was in a single females block of units near where most of then had taken up residence. The other door opened and Sariel walked in with Rachel and Nahl'een chose that moment to squeal and fly out through the first door. Faith lost track of her, though she looked awfully hard, and when Rachel walked out through the door to see if Nahl'een had been found yet, Sariel left via the other one. The result wasn't a panic, but it bordered on silly. Cha'Khah and Selena heard the commotion and asked. When they heard what the trouble was, Cha'Khah smiled, "Firstly, they are children, but they are demons, no? Sariel is often like this, since we have no clothes for him with holes for his wings or his tail. I am no mother of a little one, but ... they are demons. I am more worried that they are not hurt flying in the cavern, but I think that I can help." Sariel looked over, "Are you cold? You're shivering a little." The two sat perched side by side on a catwalk high above the cavern floor. They looked down and watched the progress of the discussions. Nahl'een nodded, "Still wet. Not really finish drying hair." "Well, why did you fly out then?" he asked. She shrugged, "Not know. I wanted to play." "Me too," Sariel said as he extended his wing to cover Nahl'een as much as he could. "Thank you," she smiled looking over, "I like your hair better like this." They fell silent as they sat together looking down. "We be in trouble for this, Sariel?" Nahl'een asked. "I think so," he said with a small sigh of resignation, "Me more than you, Nahl'een. I was the one who ran through the door without knocking first, and I flew out when I saw a chance for some fun. I don't think you'll get into trouble. I started it." "Ah," she nodded, "What is ... What we do wrong?" "I guess it's for just flying away." He looked down and listened for a moment, "And I think your mom is upset because we're not wearing any clothes." "Can't fly with clothes," Nahl'een said, "Feels good to fly. I not fly in two days. Always fly at home." He looked a little pained, "I think it's because you're a girl and I'm a boy. Your mom doesn't think that it's right." Nahl'een looked a little annoyed, "So? I not know this ... what this is, place in mountain. Need you to show me. Why we can't fly together? I like you, Sariel. Never have friend to fly with before." He smiled, "Thanks, I like you too. It's fun not being the only kid." "Ah-hah," she giggled, "Sometimes I stay with nuns where lots of kids stay, but none like me. Have to hide what I am. Never feel good. Now I have friend to fly with. I not care about girls and boys." "I can make clothes," Sariel said, "out of my head when I need to. See?" Nahl'een looked over and nearly lost her grip on the railing. "How you do that?" she asked, looking at the jeans and the shirt that he appeared to be wearing. "Maybe I can teach you later," he said, as the clothing flickered and faded from sight. "My dad taught me." "Why you make them go?" she asked. He shrugged,"You don't have any. If we show up and only I've got clothes, your mom won't know why and she's already mad." The girl looked at him and smiled as she thought about how he seemed to think about her. "I have lots of new things now. Not have home anymore. But I have many new things and I have new friend on my birthday." It was all that Cha'Khah could do to keep it together as she levitated nearby. She actually had to work to maintain a severe expression. She'd heard the whole thing. They both gasped as Cha'Khah materialized out of the air in front of them. Nahl'een didn't know, and Sariel had forgotten, but Drow can float, and they can hide just as well as demon children. She leaned forward and grabbed them by the arms. "Listen," she said quietly, "You have upset things. Faith thinks that she does not know much about being a mother. No matter what words come from her, this is what is underneath. She thinks that this is her fault. She feels badly because she thinks that she is not a good mother. This is wrong, but that is how she feels. She thinks that she has failed at something after only two days. We will go down now and you will both say that you are very sorry to BOTH mothers. What comes of it is what comes, but you will tell Faith that she did nothing wrong. The way to getting a little freedom for a young one is through acting the right way, and that is not by flying around like a pair of crazy little cave bats. Think. Do you want to be found by Cha'Khah, or do you want to be found by your fathers? They will start looking for you soon." Nahl'een wasn't sure, but after conferring with Sariel, she took his advice and chose Cha'Khah who nodded and she led them down. By then, Selena had gotten a chance to get Faith unwound a little and it all worked out. Nahl'een hugged Faith tightly and said that she was very sorry. When Faith said something about clothes, Selena pointed out that Faith couldn't fly with clothes on either, and that seemed to get Faith pointed a little in the other direction. Rachel wasn't upset at all and the two talked for a while afterward with Rachel telling Faith that there wasn't anything to really be worried about. "You've been trying to live like a human and you've only just started like this. We're not humans," she shrugged, "We're part demons. If there weren't any humans on this world we'd only wear clothes outside in the cold. Relax, Faith. Let's be happy that they're getting along for the moment with no fights yet. As long as they don't crash onto things, I don't mind it if they fly around a little. It's freezing outside, but this place is warm and big enough for them to play and fly in. Let them fly, they're kids. And by the way," Rachel said, "I hear that you've just learned to fly yourself, is that right?" "Yeah," Faith nodded, "I've only been at it for a few days." Rachel smiled, "Then you ought to fly around here a little yourself every day if you want to keep those wings strong. I do it myself just for that reason, since it's winter out there. We could fly together for the fun of it, and it can't hurt to have another mom in here who can fly when you need to get hold of your kid in a hurry. What do you say?" "I like that," Faith nodded chuckling. The children had been put to bed, and the women were in what had once been a lower ranks bar with tankards of ale from the small casks which had been bought that morning. Dahlgren sat with Azrael and Vadren at a table in the corner, talking and listening. It was mostly pleasantries, but it wore thin a bit quickly for Shaevre. She thought that, on balance, it wasn't a bad thing that everyone was getting to know each other. They were a bunch of individuals with a lot in common on a lot of levels. There just wasn't a lot of commonality there for her, at least not so far. Cha'Khah nudged Rachel and pointed to Selena, "I have found another like us," she laughed, "Selena is a raindancer." Rachel laughed, "Really? You as well?" Selena shrugged, "I like it." "What is that?" Shaevre asked, "To dance in rain? This is common on Xer. The clouds gather and all watch to see if it will rain. It happens seldom, perhaps twelve times a year, so when it rains; it might rain for a week, sometimes heavier, sometimes only a mist." "What happens if it rains?" Rachel asked, "If it rains that rarely, it must be a celebration?" "Always," Shaevre smiled, "The rain comes, and if it is only a little warm, the dancers begin out of joy." "Who are the dancers?" Cha'Khah asked. Shaevre shrugged, "Maids mostly, because they are young enough to feel their joy. Girl children too, and then their mothers may begin as well, feeling less foolish then. It happens mostly in parks and open fields, someplace a little out of sight. I danced in the streets when I was a little one, but I never danced as a maid. I stopped dancing by then." "Why?" Faith asked. She shrugged, "By then, I had little to feel joy over anymore. I joined the Brigades to earn as much as I could before I was killed. If I stayed, I would starve, and one does not dance if one has an empty stomach. In the Brigades, I did not go hungry, but I was never in the place to dance in the rain. Wherever I was sent, the rain was always cold and I was often up to my knees in cold, wet mud and bodies." A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 26 "But you aren't there anymore," Selena smiled, "if it rained warmly here, I'd want to dance with you." Shaevre smiled and nodded once, "You're right, Selena. I think that I would now." "Wait a minute," Faith said, "What you're talking about here, you mean that you just start to dance just 'cause it's raining? Shoot, I've done that before. I'd bet that it rains even less often where I've lived. I can remember a few times when I was in a little cave that I used to hole up in now and then. I'd be making myself something to eat and then I'd hear it start right outside. Why, I'd run right out and get wet every time, just because it felt so nice to do that." "Look," Cha'Khah laughed, "we are up to five dancers in a group as unlikely as us all. I am really sad that it is winter. And you know that if we had the chance of it and we all began, then your Nahl'een would want to dance with us." She sat back and sighed, "That would be something. I hold it as a very warm thought." She looked at the males who sat listening and she grinned, "And warm thoughts are all that you all may hold of it." Dahlgren's eyebrows rose, "I don't understand." "It's something a little silly and it's a lot of fun," Rachel said, "Cha'Khah and I have done it a few times and really, it's just a girl thing. We just get happy and laugh a lot and dance in the rain for a little while. That's all there is to it, and we don't let males watch. It's just for us." Shaevre sat down across from Cha'Khah, "May I ask something?" The Drow nodded, "Of course. Ask." "I was told that you come from an underground city. Yet I can see the joy in your face only to think of dancing in rain. How can this be? It cannot rain where you are from." Cha'Khah smiled a little coldly at her memories, "It does not rain there. The cities are ruled by cruel females, and everywhere there is plotting and misery while the rulers of all of the houses tell themselves that they are happy. If they are, they are perhaps the only ones. Perhaps if it did rain there, it would be a better place. I learned from Rachel, and I can say that to me, it is such a simple joy." She reached across the table and placed her dark hand on Shaevre's forearm, "From what you said, I think that there is something between us that we share, wolf-girl. You have seen battle and death, perhaps more than I, and that is much." Shaevre nodded, "Far too much, but it was what kept me fed. I do not know, but I think that what fighting that you may have done carries maybe even a touch of honor, in a few brief moments, yes?" Cha'Khah had to think. "A little every now and then, mostly is was grisly work, just trying to get it done and live -- with luck. How was it for you?" Shaevre looked down at her ale, "The only honor might be between the fighters of one side to each other. The leaders were always fools and caused needless losses. The rest?" she shook her head, "pure slaughter. Consider that each of us carries a way to kill many others. If every projectile was not wasted or missed, each one could kill two hundred in a day. But that never happens. Most shots miss." "Is that from this Meg that you carry?" Cha'Khah asked, her eyes opening a little. Shaevre shook her head, "I can, I also have a weapon like this. But Meg?" She laughed bitterly, "Think that for every twelve to twenty fighters like that, there is at least one like me who has a meg. If I am careful, and only use three shots at a time, and every three kill one, I could kill over three hundred before I need to load again, and a meg can throw rockets, over twenty. Each can kill several. Look at me," she said, "Imagine a thousand of me -- two thousand, males as well. When the rifles and the megs run dry, we do not stop. It goes on until it is over or we are dead, I have killed with nothing but my hands and my teeth. Where I am from, war is a very dark thing." Shaevre felt Cha'Khah squeeze her arm gently and she looked up. "This is past for you and I," she smiled and reached to take Shaevre's furry hand in both of hers. "Do not think of this too much. Think as I do, as Vadren does. We left it behind -- you as well, from what you say. Think only that you lived through it all. We were both fighters and we are still alive, Shaevre. That is the important thing. Think that you are making friends here." She looked across at the Xer's face and she smiled, "You are different. I can read your thoughts because it shows in your face. Look around you. There are two very different kinds of demons here who now find that they are the same under everything. Look at Vadren and me. We are different too. You belong here with us," she nodded, "we are all different." She pointed off in a direction toward where all of the sleeping quarters were. "There are two children there who knew at once that they are not the same thing. Did you see how long it bothered them? I think that you and I could have killed each other before we met. Now, I am happy that you are all here, though I do not know how this will work between us all. I could think on it until my head hurts, but I think that I will look at it in the way of those children and only smile." She smiled widely then and said, "When it was time for the children to go to bed, I felt in my heart the way that you and the girl Nahl'een are so close. To see you pick her up and hug her with her little arms around your neck and how she shut her eyes and smiled, it was something, Shaevre. If I had no reason to know why you are here, I knew everything after that. I know that we are not so different, my wolf-girl friend. We have both lost our hardened hearts to a small one; I to Sariel and you to Nahl'een." Shaevre looked for another moment and then she nodded, "We have gotten here, and I like the way that you think. Thank you for this." I am having other warm thoughts now," Cha'Khah smiled as she looked at Azrael, "Can you think of a few places where we could use someone such as Shaevre to keep everyone down as we leave? How many times have you wished for this?" She indicated Selena and grinned, "How many do you know of, Azrael, who could steal from a Drow such as me? Who would dare to do such a thing and grin and laugh at me as she did?" She patted the Xer's arm, "It may be that we have work for such a fighter and her proficient thief friend. But first the matter of what hunts you must be resolved, and that is for another day. Tonight, I am making friends in the ones who need to be hidden. Have we any more ale, Rachel?" ---------------------- Out in the world that night, there wasn't much stillness with the storm in progress. Inside the mountain, it was quiet, thought it was not completely still. Nahl'een slept in a different bed tonight, one that she'd gently been told that was hers now for the time being, in a room of her own with very softly glowing walls. Not far away in another room of this apartment, Faith sighed and kissed Dahlgren as they made love quietly. The scene was repeated almost exactly on the other side of what might pass for a 'street' in this community. Sariel slept in his room and down the hall, Rachel rocked her legs back for Azrael. Far down a long hallway, in a set of offices which they'd taken for themselves, Vadren looked up at Cha'Khah as she smiled and rode him on their bed in bliss. It was in a place far from there, in a set of detention cells that Shaevre had spotted and asked about that she and Selena lay on a bunk. It had once been built as a precaution and they had never been used, but there had once been over two thousand humans down here. One never knew what might happen. "Why did you want to be here?" Selena asked as she kissed her way up Shaevre's belly, "I don't mind, but it is a little strange to me." "The bars," the Xer sighed, "I am what I am, no matter what beautiful Cha'Khah might say, though I do try to take her words to heart. This place is like a den to me. It is a natural place to breed and have whelps -- not that I wish to. I think that my time comes very soon now and I want to have a place where I can be until you can do what I need. It is only a precaution that we will likely not need at all, but if I feel this coming and you are not near, then I will come here and lock myself inside. I do not know how bad this will be, but I wish to harm no one. Some of us only sit and whimper or cry, but most make a lot of noise at the least. I have heard of many who grew very violent. Some," she sighed, "some had to be killed." "I can tell that having a Xer girlfriend is going to be an adventure all on its own," Selena giggled a little, "Do you think that these bars can hold you?" "I have a hope that they can, and that I will not be too bad. If I grow wild and lock myself away here, do not fear, Selena. You alone would be safe. You are the mate that I want for me," Shaevre whispered as she kissed the half-demon softly. "I ... I --" "Don't," Selena said, "Not yet. Don't use that word yet. I'm sure that I feel pretty much the same, I'm just not ready to hear it yet. The word is so true about our friendship -- I've never had a closer friend, and that word applies completely. The rest -- this, we have to see if it's deeper than just the fun and pleasure." Shaevre nodded, "What was in the package that Arrax gave you? Have you not even looked inside?" "I have a clue," Selena smiled, "I've been trying to decide if we ought to use it now, that's all. We sure couldn't have tried to last night. Want to play a little more?" "I want to do anything with you, Selena," Shaevre smiled as Selena got up to look in her pack. She returned to sit on the bunk with the Xer as she began to unwrap it. "This has to be something for me to use on you to keep you calm," she giggled, "well, maybe not at first. Have you ever had a male at all?" Shaevre nodded, "Yes, once. It was mostly for fun and curiosity. I felt nothing for the male, but I liked it, I guess. I thought that he was selfish and quick. It was over before I really got to feel very much. We just got started, it seemed, and then he was locked with me and filling me. That part felt nice, but I know that it could have gone much better from what I have heard from other bitches my age." "Well, if that's what it was like for you, then I'm going to try to do it a lot better for you," Selena grinned a little as she worked at the old paper wrapping, "since I don't have to be in a hurry to squirt. I saw the way that Xhan looked at you yesterday, by the way." "I think that he is learning to see me a little differently now," Shaevre smiled, "He is good to look at, but he is not as good to look at to me as Arrax." Selena stopped and looked at Shaevre, "Oh yeah, "she nodded with a grin, "Arrax even looks good to me. He makes such a big deal about being old, but, ..." "He is only older," Shaevre smiled, "He is only at most, maybe ten years older than I am, Selena. He was a few months older than I am when he lost his family. Have no fear, he is still well in his prime as a Xer male. We live long -- if we are not killed -- and he will be a true force of nature to any Xer bitch that he takes for a long time to come." "He doesn't have to have a Xer, " Selena said as she looked over, "He was with Ny'Zeille. I mean, I just had a little daydream right here. What if we could both have him? Wouldn't I be able to handle him, or would he just be too violent or what?" Shaevre looked at Selena for a moment, "I do not think that he would be any more violent -- as you say - than what I imagine that a human or a demon male might be, though there are three things which might be very different, from what little I know of human or demon males. A Xer swells fatter near the base. It is made to lock him to a female. This would not work on you," she looked over with a grin, "though it might feel very good, I think. Another thing is the way that Xer's ... squirt, as you said it. If he stays in you, he would do that many times -- a lot, but I think that you would need to be careful to keep him in you the whole time that he does. It is the third thing that bothers me a little for you." Selena stopped unwrapping again. "Well are you going to tell me?" Shaevre looked at Selena, "This would be the dangerous part for you. " she shrugged, "When he feels that he gets close, a Xer male always bites the bitch he is mating with," She touched Selena over her shoulder beside her neck, "here. It is to hold her so that she will get all of his seed, even as they lock together." "I'm not really put off my little daydream just yet," Selena grinned, "Sometimes I think that I would kind of like something like that." Shaevre shook her head, "A danger comes with that if he bites hard enough to break the skin. You remember that he spoke of abominations. It might be passed from one to the next by a bite now, but how do you imagine that the first one was bitten?" "Oh," Selena said, "Well again, he was with Ny'Zeille and nothing happened to her, but I get your point. It was just a nice thought, that's all. I thought that we might share him," she giggled, but she stopped suddenly as she looked down, "Whoa, ..." She reached in and held it up. "I thought that I was just supposed to uh, poke you with this, but, ..." She looked at the straps on it and looked over at Shaevre. "You may poke me with that," the Xer smiled, "and you may do that as you wear it." She laughed, "I think that I really can be the bitch here." She took it and held it for a moment, "It would fit you as well," she pointed at the part that the wearer was to insert, "You only need to adjust to the swell here. It was made to be used by a Xer couple, but I am sure that it would work for you. You are big enough there, bigger than I am. I am the one who must open enough to take this part. You have to push it a little at a time, until you get the fatter part near to me. Warn me when you want to ..." She thought about it for a moment, "or perhaps I ought to say when I am ready for it. Then you must hold it there in me. Wiggle it a little and wait for me to help get us apart after. This fat part will lock us. Do not try to pull out without warning me." "I think that would hurt, wouldn't it?" Selena asked, "are you sure that you want to try it? "I need to, Selena" Shaevre said as she stood up to take it to the sink outside, "Can you bring me the water there? I want to wash this first." ---------------------- "Well this feels interesting," Selena smiled as she worked at getting her end of the thing inserted. Shaevre leaned over to kiss her and took over as she moved it for Selena, "How is that?" Selena sighed, "It's really different, but I'm starting to like this a lot. Do you think you're ready for this boy?" "I need a few minutes," Shaevre said, "This will feel cold to me. Xer males are as hot as the females. Remember how you always tell me that you like how hot I am inside?" Selena nodded with a quiet groan as Shaevre kept up her gentle motions, now that Selena had it all. The Xer sank to her knees and began to use her mouth to wet the dildo as much as she could. She chuckled as she withdrew it from her mouth, "Do not look too happy. I need you to be the male this time. We can try it the other way after." When she thought that it was enough, she got onto the bed and looked over a little hopefully, "Come and make me yours, Selena. Maybe this will get it started in me, I do not know, but I know that I want you to mount me." Selena got onto her knees on the bunk and leaned down to line the thing up as carefully as she could before she moved to mount Shaevre and lie down on her. She was careful as she began to move the just the tip in and out. She didn't want to delay the insertion of most of it for too long, because it would get cold for Shaevre. The position was different, but she remembered seeing dogs do this and the male didn't just plunge straight in. Shaevre sighed and a few seconds later, Selena saw that Shaevre was beginning to rock her hips back a little in tiny amounts. "More," Shaevre groaned, and Selena complied. "More, ... oh, ... more, please, Selena." As much as Selena loved the feel of this, she made sure to keep a watchful eye on the thicker part and how it was now nearing Shaevre's opening. "We're getting close," she warned, and Shaevre looked up into Selena's eyes. Selena smiled at what she saw in Shaevre's face, but then she shook her head. "Don't say it," she warned, "don't Shaevre." She saw Shaevre's grin and before she knew it, Shaevre had rolled her hips back so far and reached for Selena to pull her so that she had the swell inside of her. Her bucking quickened, but it was only in very short strokes, "Fuck me, Selena! Fuck me," she cried out. Selena tried to comply but she was afraid of hurting Shaevre with the fat, bulbous swell. "I'm afraid," Selena said, "I don't want to hurt you." "Harder, ... "Shaevre begged, "please Selena, I need it now." Selena looked down at the shaft and she saw a little blood." You're bleeding!" she said, and then she felt her heart stop as she saw Shaevre's face. Her tongue hung out of her mouth and her lips were pulled back into a feral grin. Shaevre grunted, "It begins, Selena. Please, give it all to me now, I need you so much!" Selena began to slam into Shaevre now, and it only drove her wilder. Selena felt her lower back beginning to complain a little, though not much as she kept up what seemed to her to be an assault to her. It didn`t matter what she did or how hard or even how slow or fast she went, Shaevre was happy but wanted more. The way that the Xer looked at Selena was a little haunting as well. Selena told herself that this was only she and her friend enjoying each other, but the edges of that blurred a little as she considered it. She grinned at Shaevre, "This is only us fucking a little, Shaevre, and I`m happy that it`s good for you." It had been a little way to toss out a test, since Selena wanted the safety of being in love with her friend, just not being in LOVE with her friend. It made sense to her, if nobody else. Shaevre even knew what Selena meant in an instant. "This is ... only us ... fucking, but ... I will need it a lot. Let me deal with ... my troubles and do not worry, Selena. Most Xer ... choose one only for their devotion. You ... worry about nothing. Now fuck me ... because I need to love you.`She groaned and arched her back as she stretched in pleasure. "It will all make sense," she growled, "I promise it." Selena's thighs slapped softly against the furry haunches and she was a little amazed at how Shaevre could hold her tail aside that way. It never moved an inch. They went on much longer than Selena would have wanted to, but Shaevre was insistent. She kept calling out her love to Selena, and Selena went on and on, the thing inside her feeling wonderful, but she wasn't being allowed to enjoy it much. She was afraid that she was hurting her friend, no matter how much she seemed to be enjoying it, but she did make a bit of progress for herself as she learned that she could enjoy it if she clenched on it more, as strange as the swelling of the thing in her felt. Selena heard herself begin to pant. Shaevre had been panting for twenty minutes or more by this point. "Tell me," Shaevre whined softly, "Please tell me that you love me, Selena." It was such a plaintive little thing, but it brought Selena to a halt and they stared at each other for a moment. Selena reached for Shaevre's face and stretched a little to kiss her as softly as she could while they grunted a little. She looked at Shaevre and thought about them on her farm, or walking as stealthily as they could to steal something out of a castle. She saw herself looking down to see them holding hands and then looking up into that face. She sighed. This would work, but Selena knew that it wasn't what either of them would really want. They knew that they loved each other, but this would be constant -- a way to go on if it was all they'd managed for themselves. But there wouldn't be the thrill of being in love, and they both wanted something else in their hearts. A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 26 Still, she thought, they meant a lot to each other, and she could see them living together comfortably. "Is this what you want with me, Shaevre?" she wiggled her own bottom from side to side very slowly for the feel of the hardness inside her, "Can you see us doing this when we're not young anymore?" Shaevre looked back and nodded a little, "It will not be so bad, Selena. Remember that you can still take a male. I only know that I love you and, ... and I want to be in your life." Selena smiled, "We're not negotiating here, sweet Shaevre. I do love you. I only need to know if it's what you want when your time comes. If this is how Xer love is, I know it lasts, so we need to think a long way down the cart path." Shaevre rocked her hips a little and they both groaned quietly. She smiled up, "You mean that? That you love me?" Selena nodded, "I do, it will need to grow, since you're so much faster than I am in this, but I love you, Shaevre. I never thought that I could ever have somebody like you." She kissed Shaevre for several minutes as they moved in little ways for the sensations. "You will never be cold at night anymore, ..." Shaevre teased and Selena laid her head down with a smile while they just fucked slowly for an hour or more. "Do you want to try to finish?" Selena asked. "We should do that for you," Shaevre smiled, "I had mine before you stopped to ask me things. I love this, but you should finish." She began to rock her hips again and Selena was swept along. Before very long Shaevre was feeling it for the second time and they began to fuck furiously. They didn't make much noise at all, other than their quiet grunting, but they managed to say everything that was in their hearts from an inch apart. Finally, Selena cried out softly and Shaevre held her tightly as they both froze looking into each other's eyes, and then they were still for a long time. "Can we get apart?" Selena asked. "I think so," Shaevre replied, "but we'll need to wash." Selena looked down, "It's not bad, I'll try to pull out." They ran for the bucket of water that they'd brought and it took only a minute. "That was it?" Selena asked, laughing quietly, "That was the whole thing? I was afraid that you'd make a lot of noise and howl and yell and, ... and I love you, Shaevre." The Xer put her arm around Selena, "I did not know how bad it would be. I thought that it would be much worse. It seems as though I got off lightly and now I feel foolish, but the madness would have come as it comes to any who deny this from their bodies. If you want more noise, then leave me locked in here and stand outside to tempt me. I promise to howl the place down then. I didn't think that it could be this gentle, but I will need you a lot in the next few days, and ... it is my nature, I am afraid, but I will want to make this place darker and closer in for the feeling. We always wish for a den at this time, and I feel it in me." "I get to do this a lot and we even get to decorate?" Selena laughed a little and kissed Shaevre, "I think I'll manage, but you have to promise me that I get to have the other end of our toy at least some of the time. But I'm wondering about something. Why weren't we locked together?" "We were when I had my joy," Shaevre said, "but we could still pull apart. I think that it was made a little small." She looked down and lifted the dildo with a tiny little smile. "Would you, ... do you wish to love me again? I promise that you will have your turn then." Selena held up two fingers, and Shaevre nodded her agreement. ---------------------- Book of the Merren Part 14 Ny'Zeille hadn't expected to see anything like this as she approached Dahlgren's home. The top of the mountain was busier than she'd ever seen it before as she landed in the gardens and walked to the entrance, looking at the Xer moving things into the back of a Xer cutter, not unlike the one which Arrax often used, though the markings were different. Another one sat nearby. She strode down the corridor to Arrax' office and found him doing paperwork. "What's going on here?" she asked. He ignored her. "Look, Arrax," she began, "I am sorry for the way that I acted. I was upset. Who wouldn't be if their son acts so irrationally? He attacked me, you know. He hurt me and I --" She stopped because she'd thought that she'd heard him say something. "What did you say?" Ny'Zeille asked. He raised his head from his work, "I said, please get out of my office. I am rather busy right now arranging transport for everything. I have no time to listen, and just as much desire to hear your noise." "Transport? Why?" She asked. "Because we are leaving," he said, looking back at his arrangements. "Leaving?" He looked up at her then and he slammed his fist onto the desk. "You are wasting my time, Ambassador. The outpost is closed. If you wish to speak to me, then it will cost you the standard fee. But you will need to arrange for an interview. I have no time. Go and ask your questions to your own people. If you stay here, I will begin to bill your government for my time -- beyond what I am already billing them. This outpost is being closed by both of the parties involved. If you were to pay any attention and answer your calls, you would know that. They have been trying to reach you for days. It is known that you attacked Dahlgren and his new mate. " He pointed to the ceiling as though it was the sky, "It was seen, Ambassador. You attacked your own son, the Merren Ranger, because you don't like who he has paired with. If nothing else, that earns you a rather expensive ride back to Merr on whatever transport that you might arrange. "Why?" she asked. He shrugged, "Because I am not going to Merr. I have no need to." "Couldn't you just drop me off?" she asked. "Couldn't you just pay for the expenditure from my fuel pod life?" he smiled in return, "In case it has slipped your mind while you've been trying to kill your own offspring and his female, I am not your male anymore. Nobody rides for nothing. They knew that you'd come so your employers were ready. I've seen the satellite feed myself. Good luck trying to blame your son for that one. In case you weren't paying attention, that was not Dahlgren's strike which fried you out there. It was what you were about to send to Faith. They took it from you and sent it via your son. You've violated a lot of protocols in the last little while. If I were you, and I am pleased that I am not, I would think of something to tell them that is not a bald lie. The outpost will be closed. No one knows where the Ranger is, and no one knows where Nahl'een is at the moment, either. You left her here while the Ranger was not present. The protocol which is to be followed at such times is clear. Nahl'een is to be placed into the care of the orphanage then. The Xer do not carry the responsibility for her sole protection in that event since the Merren would not pay for that." "But I left her with her sister!" Ny'Zeille objected, "I asked her to look after Nahl'een." "You lie," the Xer said, "I had to present the house security feeds to them as well. There is no record of you saying much more to Selena than your advice to her to leave before you returned. You said nothing about watching Nahl'een. And you left Nahl'een in the care of her sister, you say. Her sister," Arrax repeated, "Where in the protocol is she mentioned? And as long as I'm asking, since I am curious, what does this sister do for an occupation, exactly? I seem to recall hearing you tell me that she is a professional thief. Brilliant. Maybe she's decided to move up to kidnapping. I'm only asking to give you clues as to the sorts of things which you are about to be asked. Go on, ask me where the Xer were when this happened. I was flying final geomagnetic surveys with my nephew. No arrangements were made with me for Nahl'een, so I went about the business for which I am paid. Now get out of my office please." Arrax bellowed and a Xer came running. Ny'Zeille didn't recognize him. "Draw a rifle out of lockup," Arrax barked, "Load it up, get back here and keep this person out of my office. Warn her only once. After that, shoot her." Ny'Zeille smirked, "A rifle. Really, Arrax, do you think that I can be harmed by a --" "No," he said, not looking up. "I do not. But I know that it'll sting an awful lot and if you kill him, I'll be justified in killing you," he looked up, "And you can be killed by a Xer like me. Do not give me the opportunity after you insulted my mother. Good day." She walked in shock to the chapel. The usual calming sense that she felt when she came there was conspicuously absent. The atmosphere in the room set her teeth on edge, and the idol was already speaking before she was even close. "... violated protocols. You have caused unwanted attention to be drawn to yourself. You have been derelict in your duty to the little one's safety. You are recalled immediately. You --" "Shut up!" Ny'Zeille shouted and the room fell silent. "Explain yourself," the idol said in a multitude of harsh voices. "You acted without permission in direct contravention of your instructions. You were not instructed to attack the Ranger. You were not instructed to seek them out. You were not instructed to attack Faith Runei. You -- " "Who? She asked, "Faith who?" "Faith Runei. They are paired. You were about to attack the mate of a lawful Ranger. " "When did you recognize the union?" she demanded. "It was recognized by the Xer. The Merren share information." Ny'Zeille grinned coldly, "That allows you to recognize the union without giving it sanction. How convenient." "Change your tone!" the idol warned. She bowed onto one knee instantly, "At least allow me to clear my name," she said. "There are enough records to render your request impossible to grant," the voice stated flatly, "You appear to be too distraught to reason." "You want reason?" she asked, "where was the Xer Shaevre after the disappearance of Nahl'een?" She has an emotional tie to the girl. You find Shaevre, you'll find Nahl'een." Arrax sat at his desk waiting for the call. He sighed and walked to the chapel. "Where is Shaevre?" Ny'Zeille snapped. Arrax looked at her, "I suggest that you rephrase your question and ask nicely, Ambassador, or I will not answer." "Rephrase your question," the idol instructed, "Commander Arrax may not be addressed this way." "Fine," Ny'Zeille said, rolling her eyes, "Pardon me, Commander. Where is the Xer Shaevre?" "All of the Xer in the contingent have been reassigned. What do you wish to know?" he asked. "Where was Shaevre the day before yesterday?" "She was with me on a geomagnetic survey." "You told me that Xhan was with you. You said nothing about Shaevre." Ny'Zeille said a little pointedly. "I did not volunteer the information about Shaevre," he said, "She is a lower rank. I assumed that you might wish to know the name of any officer who was present." "Where is she now? I wish to speak with her," the demon said. "This Xer mission here is closed, "Arrax replied, "The Merren declined the offer of our continued support at the higher rate. Our work here is now for Xer alone as we leave. The information that you request is classified, from the time at which our offer was declined. This is standard practice and the Merren are aware of this." "We show a trace fix for her in the foothills of the Colorado Rocky Mountains on that day, "the idol stated, "It is only a transient fix. What was that, Commander? That occurred not long before your offer was declined and we wish to know, since at that instant, you were on our clock." Arrax looked a little uncomfortable for a moment, but he held his gaze steadily on the idol, "The on-board lavatory on that craft had malfunctioned. I will make the service request for the repair available to you. The Xer that you ask about had to perform a biological function and eliminate waste." "Where is she now?" Ny'Zeille asked. "The identities and whereabouts of the Xer elements is classified information, Ambassador," he said wearily, "You know this. The members of the contingent are or were reassigned. I do not know the present whereabouts of all of the members at present. Most of them are bound for our mining deposits, I believe. I do not know if any of them are still here, and frankly, I am a little busy. Is there anything else that I might help you with?" "No Commander, that will be all. Thank you." After Arrax had gone, Ny'Zeille turned to the idol. "He's lying," she said, "Give me a chance to clear my name." "Your name," the idol droned, "is falling more out of favor more every time that you open your mouth. Give it up, Ambassador. The Xer will leave and we will find Dahlgren ourselves. You will report to the council on Merr to face an inquiry for your misconduct." "Give me two days to clear my name," she said, "and I will submit willingly." "You will submit by your own will or by ours, Ny'Zeille. But we will give you one day to complete the total loss of your dignity, since you seem to be so bent on it." ------------------ He stared over the desk at the demon, "You can't be serious... Do you have any idea as to the cost? The Merren will not pay for anything like that." "I will pay for it myself," Ny'Zeille nodded, biting her tongue to hold back the comment that she'd have thought that he might have been able to arrange a discount for her. It was obviously not on the table, from the way that he looked at her. "To be clear," he said, "You wish for transport to where you surmise that I tried to deceive you as to why Shaevre disembarked, even though I have shown you that the records show that she was onboard afterward? And you want to hire a team to search and apprehend ... You have lost the last of your mind, Ny'Zeille." "I also wish for Xhan to be the pilot," she said, "I don't trust you." "I do not blame you for that," he said, "but I reserve the right to go as mission commander. There will be too many Xer assets in this to leave the responsibility in Xhan's hands. He does not have the experience yet, though he is a fine and able pilot. You must know that this is absurd, Ambassador. It would cost you more than you have to your name, very likely." She rolled her eyes, "Just give me a price, Commander." Arrax began to work on it at the screen in front of him, "You are only asking me for this because you know that your request would be declined if you tried this with the Xer directly." "I know that you have the ability to arrange work on an ad hoc basis, Commander. You kind are all about ways to make a profit," she smiled, knowing that the remark would be taken as the slight that it was. She knew that she was going out a little far here, and really ought to be a lot more gentle, but his recent attitude to her had more than pissed her off. "Here," he said, pointing. "If you can stand that much on the scales, then do it and I'll make the arrangements. It's your gold. That will buy you the flight there and back, four hours of search time, a team of six - " "I want them armed," she said, looking at Arrax' face closely to see how he'd react. He didn't blink as he went on with a nod, "Armed, standard assault rifles. I have already factored that into the cost. I hope you don't want more than that, since the price gets ridiculous above that. You're looking to find Nahl'een. The sister is a thief, not a fighter. I figure a six-member armed team on one girl bodyguard ought to be enough to handle it, IF I lie, as you quite obviously believe. And neither my employers nor I will be held responsible. There will be waivers for you to sign. I know that you won't care, but I am furious with you that you do not believe me, though I guess that I really ought to know you by now. I think that I will now begin to really enjoy your decline into final disgrace, since you've worked so hard on it. Do you want to play or not?" Ny'Zeille slid her diplomatic card into the reader, and then she placed her hand on the screen, "I can provide a retinal scan if you'd like." He shook his head, "You've spent enough time on cameras here and your scent is known to the Xer database. That and this will be sufficient. Enter your release number and if it is accepted, the funds will transfer when the signal reaches your financial institution. In the meantime, there are enough Xer finance units between here and Xer to handle and approve the request. It will be your problem if there are not sufficient funds then." He sat back and wondered just how stupid she was willing to get for this, but he had his answer in a moment. As she entered the codes, he thought that her expression was something like the ones that he'd seen on gamblers in the interstellar casinos, the ones who already knew that they'd dropped too much and now had some insane notion that the jackpot was only another spin or two away. ---------------------- They sat glumly in the waiting area, six washed-up hellhounds, bitching and commiserating quietly to each other at the unfair turn in their luck. They'd leafed through all of the periodicals months ago as they'd wasted time during their shifts. Today, they'd all just done it again, waiting for the order to climb aboard the transport to the salt outposts. They heard quiet footfalls out past the closed door, and looked up, one after another. They were a little surprised at who it was who walked through when it opened. "There's been a possible change of plans," Xhan said a little carefully. "Are they going to send us to guard the refuse planets?" one of them asked bitterly. "No, not yet, at least," Xhan smiled, "but there is a job on the go, a search and apprehend job. I thought that you had it a little tough the way that my uncle rubbed your noses in things. It was a bit unfair to ask you to go up against that bitch. I think it might have gone a little differently if my uncle hadn't been standing there. You probably would have killed her." A couple of them nodded and before the comments could get too crude, the young Xer officer raised his hand, "Listen, I thought that you might like to have a shot at getting a little of your own back. The Ranger's kid is missing, and it's believed that Shaevre helped that thief to kidnap her. We've got a two day-old fix on Shaevre. If you want a little payback, I need a team. I can guarantee that success in finding her will get you off the shit list, and maybe even go a way toward restoring your rank and pay, but I can't guarantee that part yet. I need you to do this, find Shaevre, find the girl and bring her back." "What's the rule on this hike?" one of the lower ranks asked, "The kid is gold, so ..." "Right," Xhan grinned, "the kid is gold, so she needs to be safe and kept that way. The thief is copper, so if she gets a little roughed, well that's alright. I won't be looking that hard at her face. The Commander will be along, but don't try to talk to him, he's some pissed at being double-crossed and what this does to his reputation. You deal only with me. The customer will be along, but it's the same. You talk only to me." "And the bitch?" one of the females asked, "You haven't mentioned her in this. How do you want her handled?" Xhan smiled, "Once you're in place and the kid is in the clear, it's weapons-free on Shaevre. This has been pretty embarrassing to us, so we'd rather not bring her back alive. Shoot the shit out of her, we'll clip her wire and leave the body there. You game?" ------------------------ "What will you do, Uncle, when this is all over?" Xhan asked as they ran through their checks. Arrax shrugged, "Well I know what I had planned to do, but plans have a way of changing under one's feet. You know how I enjoy looking into the past of a place if it is possible and I have the chance of it, yes?" A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 26 "Yes," Xhan nodded as he looked over the displays, "You are a little like an archeologist. I have read both of your publications." "I wish to do a little of that on this world," the commander said, "in fact, I have already begun, a little. I came alone once to complete my evaluation of the outpost, and I arranged to have the time coincide with my vacation time. I found much of interest to me, but not so much on this side. I found more of interest to me on the other side of the planet. I wished to return to do more, but I needed a way to travel without using a Xer ship. It is a waste of resources and a misuse of my position. Back then, there was still a maintainer stationed here. That is long over now due to cost cutting, since this is really an unimportant base to us, but not to the Merren. By chance, I walked out one evening to speak with the maintenance person who was stationed here then and I had a revelation. After I completed his evaluation, he showed me what he had been doing with his own time after his duty. There was an old craft there; it had been unserviceable when he'd arrived and it was older than both of us. It was a supply skiff, worn out from hauling things up and down from supply craft and discarded from not long after the building of this place. But you know from your studies that we Xer make everything in a modular fashion, so that replacement parts may be fitted and plugged in easily. He had been tinkering. He had replacements for much of what was needed for the skiff and had rebuilt it well. He'd done it all to keep busy, and used what was already here. To my amazement, he showed me that the skiff would start and that the systems were completely functional. Since the craft had been written off the books, he had requested that he be allowed to purchase it for less than their scrap value -- not the salvage value, which was higher, and it had been permitted. He had a little fantasy of using the skiff to travel a little after his retirement, but since the work had not been approved by Xer inspectors at each step, he found that he could not renew the craft's certification for use off-world in Xer-controlled space. So there he was, the owner a useless craft. But he was bored and he began to work on improving it. He was that kind of individual. When we talked, he was only a few months from his retirement, and he said that he had no idea what he would do with the thing, and that he couldn't even sell it, since there was no one here who would buy it, and it was not certified to go off-world." Arrax looked over the logs of the cutter as they worked, and after a moment, he became aware that his nephew was waiting for him to finish what he had been saying. "Well?" Xhan smiled, "What happened?" Arrax grinned, "Well, I offered to buy it from him. It would give him more for his retirement, and we arrived at a price in minutes. I told him that if he could assist me in the ordering, that I would buy whatever improvements that he thought it needed, and he was happy that he'd have work in his spare time to last him to when he left to go home." He looked at Xhan in a conspiratorial way and smiled, "He installed everything that he could order and I was able to get it very cheaply, due to the supply depot wanting to be rid of such old parts stock. It was delivered in my name on the supply ship which brings the normal supplies here." Xhan blinked, "But what good is it all? You cannot go off-world with it." His uncle laughed, "I do not want to go off-world with it. It may not be up to the stresses of reaching escape speed for this world's gravity, but I do not want it for that. I want it for use here. It is certainly up to that. I want it for when I retire. I have decided to retire here and stay for a time, working at my pastime of searching for the past. The fuel cells are new and full and I have a spare set, and they will last a long time. The skiff will do to carry me and whatever I find around, and when I am ready, I will send a call to Xer and wait for passage home with my things. It will take months, but I am patient and have no need to hurry. That is what I will do after all of this. When the outpost is closed down completely, I will still have access to the communication systems and I can make my call when I am ready. In the meantime, I will travel and enjoy my life, especially now that I am with no female again. I only need a place to live then. I cannot live here. But I am hopeful that I will find something, and I can live on my craft until I do." He looked out of the ramp opening and sighed, "But before any of that, we have to earn a little of the Ambassador's money and fly her on her little hunt -- and she waits there now." Ny'Zeille walked to where the cutter sat and Arrax beckoned her to walk up the ramp. He put on what he hoped would be one of his last official smiles for Ny'Zeille, "Watch your step up the ramp. The team is already aboard. You're the customer, but they won't speak to you. They deal with Xhan, and you do too. That's standard Xer practice as well." She walked up the ramp and it began to whine its way up behind her. Ny'Zeille looked around at the team, but she didn't recognize any of them. They all wore communication gear and they were bipedal as they sat, holding their weapons. Beyond barely interested glances as she walked aboard, they didn't look at her. She was a little surprised, but then she remembered that Xer were not normally known for their chumminess, unless they were being paid to be friendly in these kinds of situations. She was shown to a seat and she strapped herself in as the engines began to hum. "I specified that I wanted Xhan to be the pilot," she snapped. Arrax rolled his eyes as he turned from the controls, "And that is what you have. I am acting as the co-pilot on this flight. Relax Ambassador; I've cut you a deal. This ship requires a flight crew of two for this sort of thing. If you like, I'll shut down and have Xhan go to find someone who is willing to act as co-pilot, but that would be an additional cost and it would be up to that person to set his or her price. Your clock is already running. How long do you want to sit and wait?" She nodded and waved her hand, "Let's just go." ----------------- The day was dark and overcast in the mountains, and it was still snowing somewhat. Sariel and Nahl'een were out at the chicken coop when they heard it. They looked at each other and did as they'd been told, Nahl'een going back inside first followed by Sariel. He looked up for a moment as he reached for the basket of eggs and pulled it inside. They closed the blast valve which had allowed them to get to the chickens and then they went as fast as they could down below. The adults stood around the pair as they tried to get clear meaning from what a pair of excited children could tell them. Shaevre listened more closely than the rest and she had questions, but afterward, she summed it all up. "It sounds like a cutter, but they said that it was dark. That makes it a Xer cutter, and not one used to support Merren diplomatic flights. Was it low or was it high?" Sariel said that it was very low, but she knew that he'd never seen one before. Nahl'een said that it was a little high and not moving very fast, but not crawling either. "Did you see lights?" Shaevre asked and they nodded, "Flashing ones, " Sariel said, "They all flashed at the same time -- together." "What does that mean?" Rachel asked. "It is Arrax, and there is danger," Shaevre looked up at Rachel. She left Selena to explain who Arrax was to the others. She was off at a run to get ready. She almost ran over Nahl'een as she stood with Sariel on her way back. The girl looked worried. "Why do you have to go outside?" she asked in a small voice. "Little friend," Shaevre smiled, "I must know what is going on. If your grandmother is there, it will not take her long to find this place, and then none of our friends would be safe. I do nothing more than I was always ready to do." She looked at Sariel, "I do not know what you can do with this blade that I saw you with, but if you have ability, then use it to protect your mother and my friends here if you must." She smiled at them, "I will return, Nahl'een." As she stood before the blast doors, waiting for them to open, she was joined by several others but she was adamant on a couple of points. "I must try to talk with Arrax very carefully," she said, "I do not know the situation, and it is not the right ship, but he told me that if the strobes were flashing in daytime, it would be him. They always flash as a warning to other craft close by, but out here alone, they would not do this, so it is him." She looked at the others, "Keep Nahl'een in here with Selena, at the very least. I must go, why do you come?" she asked Cha'Khah and Vadren, "This is not your fight. If a Xer craft is here, it may contain other Xer fighters to hunt us." "We will come." Vadren said quietly, "We will not close a friend outside and sit in the dark. You would do the same, Shaevre." She looked at them for a moment and then she nodded, hefting Meg onto her shoulder, "I need a cloak," she said, "something to break up my shape in the snow." A moment later, Shaevre strode down the long passageway wanting to shake her head. She was very surprised. She'd thought that she'd go alone, but now walked with Dahlgren, Faith, and Azrael. Behind them, the two Drow strode as well. As soon as they were outside, the others worked out a tentative plan while Shaevre looked at the little box in her hand. She took a deep breath and was careful not to turn on the beacon, but after a minute, she switched it to the guard frequency and turned the transmitter on. Arrax responded after the fourth attempt, just as her finger was about to shut the device off. His voice sounded tight and clipped, but he outlined what was going on in the briefest terms. --------------- "This is where Shaevre got off for less than three minutes," Xhan said to Ny'Zeille as they stood on the lowered ramp while the craft hovered along the open meadow slowly, throwing up enough snow from the tilted thrusters to make visibility impossible. "Could they hunt her from here, even though snow has fallen if Arrax lied to me?" Ny'Zeille asked tersely. "If there are signs to follow, a Xer can track there," he said. "Send them out then and let's get started. Land and drop the ramp or whatever you need to do." "A team of six on their way to you - eventually," Arrax said as he looked out once they were down. Ny'Zeille stood in the snow observing as the six circled the area at a run. "I must be brief," he said, "We are down where I last saw you. Good news -- the six are the fools from the outpost staff playing at hunting. Bad news - the Ambassador is with them. Out." ----------------------- Shaevre turned the box off and shrugged into the harness of the weapon system before she asked for help to pull the cloak over everything. She put on a pair of goggles and adjusted them, "Listen please," she said, and the others came to her. She turned the receiver on again and inserted the earpiece as they gathered. "There are things that I have learned from Arrax. The cutter is where we landed. There are six Xer to hunt us, but the main trouble is that Ny'Zeille is here with them. She will probably use them for their noses -- to find this place. That must not happen. The Xer may have trouble getting in, but I do not wish to test the strength of the defenses here against the demon. They will be here in maybe an hour and a half. I go to hunt the hunters. They will not pass me." She looked at the expressions on the faces of the others and nodded, "Xer run very fast if they have a scent and they hunt. Also, they will come hidden, little more than shadows on the snow. Look for moving tracks. We are hard to kill. Leave the six to me. I think that we will all be needed to deal with your mother, Dahlgren. Someone who is wild with rage does not think, and they do not feel pain the same way either." She raised the weapon and slaved the image in the goggles to a floating impact point that she saw in them, an infrared laser dot projected from the center of the rotating barrels. When she was satisfied, she turned everything off. "What are those things on your head for?" Cha'Khah asked. "To help me spot my brethren and to lay the point where the bullets will land in the right place. If all goes well, do not hurry after me too much, Dahlgren. I wish to remove the hunters, or the game will become the worst sort of brawl. You have never seen fighting such as the Xer fight," she said to Cha'Khah and Vadren, "hang back a little and do not let yourselves be seen too soon. I will need what help you can give against Dahlgren's mother, I do not wish to have you in Meg's way. " She pursed her wolfish lips and blew a single note for a second. "When you hear Meg sing, then move up carefully, but stay low." she said as she turned and began to run with the pair of Drow running lightly on top of the snow after her. The three half-demons looked at each other and a minute later, they'd decided to approach from two directions near the area where they'd spent the night on the way there. They took off and split up, Azrael on one side, Dahlgren and Faith on the other. --------------------- "There," Ny'Zeille cried out triumphantly into the headset that she wore, "You see? They run now, on the trail of Shaevre. I knew that you lied, Arrax." Xhan requested an update from the Xer on the ground and looked toward the now-excited Ambassador. He shook his head, "No, they think they may have found where she stood for a time, but they have found tracks and scents of horses under the fresh snow. One of the team has identified the scent of one horse as your own, Ambassador. They follow this trail. It is the best chance." She was pleased. She hadn't even noticed that the horses were missing, but it made sense to her. "Your nephew rises in my opinion, Arrax, while you sink. When this is over, I will demand an investigation from the Xer into your involvement." She turned and ran after them. Arrax grinned at Xhan as he pulled the markings of his rank from his body and began to shrug into a battle harness, "Stay on the secondary channel as you listen to her garbage on the tactical one. I may need you for close support. If they meet between here and wherever the girl is hidden, you can reach it in minutes once you are in the air. Be ready, Xhan." "Where are you going?" the young officer asked. "I do not know if Shaevre and the others have found this Azrael, but I must assume that they have. Those ones may know nothing of what comes to them. Also, there is Nahl'een to think about, and somewhere out there is our warrior. I will do my best to keep her alive." He ran down the ramp and Xhan watched Arrax fade from sight as he ran in a slightly different direction. --------------------------- Shaevre listened to the rhythm of her breathing as she loped. She couldn't run as fast as she normally would due to the weight of her weapon system. She had always been able to take up to seven steps for each inhalation or exhalation when she was in fighting form in the Brigades while wearing a meg. She knew that she'd always been able to count on six steps per breath. Here today she was holding her own at a steady five with about every third or fourth count coming out at six. She resolved that it was likely due to tension and uncertainty, and then she threw the notions aside. If by some wonder, she lived through today, she resolved to run a lot more. The difference in gravity slipped her mind entirely. She also hadn't considered that she'd been running like this for thirty-five minutes carrying well over two hundred pounds of weapon. Whenever she'd thought about that back in the day, she'd always grinned that once it began, Meg would get lighter every second. Today, she carried a lot more on her mind than she'd ever done going into a fight. Back then, it had been simpler. There was the distinct possibility of being badly wounded or killed then, as there had always been. But she'd had only her life to lose and fighting pay was what kept her fed then. Today she had other things on her mind. She didn't know what was wrong in the demon's brain to cause this, and she didn't really care. She only thought about Nahl'een being taken off-world to be trained from this young age to be a Ranger somewhere, indoctrinated in the same garbage about balance which the Merren believed. She snorted, how many fights in the Mornian campaign were really these stupid attempts to rebalance what the Merren saw as wrong -- and it was done with how many divisions of Xer fighters who also didn't belong there? To Shaevre, who loved the little girl, this was a crime that she'd not allow to occur, not while she had a say in its outcome. Her thoughts ran to Selena, and she felt tears come to her that she pushed down instantly. They'd only just begun. She wanted to spend her life close to Selena; they'd had so much fun planning their daydream about sharing males between them. There was no exclusivity to this, other than they loved each other, but that didn't rule out enjoying a male with each other, it was something that Shaevre really wanted to do with her friend someday. At that point, Shaevre knew what was different about today. She was afraid, though not for herself all that much. She felt a fair degree of certainty that she wouldn't be walking away from this one, that was all. Shaevre slowed to a slow walk as she strained to listen. She smiled after a moment. If these were Death hounds, they wouldn't make a sound, but the ones that she hunted were loud by comparison, actually speaking to each other as they came. She could even hear the snow squeaking under their feet as they walked. She shook her head. She was hunting buffoons. After a look over her shoulder and not seeing the two Drow, she looked around for a commanding position and then she grinned as she saw it, a boulder a little close to the torn trunk of a tree broken off in a lightning storm years before. Looking at the landscape here, it was a natural thing to follow up the middle of the shallow draw in the woods if one was an amateur. Amateurs walk the path of least resistance and don't think about what they might blunder into until it is too late. With a little luck, these ones would walk right up the draw and not see what it was that killed them all. This would be about perfect. She stepped over to it and began her preparations, hunkering down a little and leaning into the boulder on her left. She drew the cloak over herself a little more and settled in to wait, making sure to cover her snout to hide the steam from her breath in the cold mountain air as best she could. Ny'Zeille flew above, trying to draw a line from where she saw her team laboring up a hillside to what might lie beyond, some sort of house or perhaps a cave where the fugitives might be hiding. Xhan had told her that the team had been instructed to get Nahl'een out first as carefully as possible before dealing with the others with prejudice. If it was needed, Ny'Zeille was prepared to use a lot of honey in her voice to draw the little one out after deceiving anyone with her. --------------------- Shaevre saw the demon high above and faded out of sight under the hood of the cloak. She'd been here for over twenty minutes and she now wore a light dusting of snow herself over the cloak. She watched the demon wheel around to head the other way and knew that her quarry was just over the lower ridge three hundred feet distant through the thin winter forest. When she saw the first of their motions up the draw, she slowly drew back the cloak from the barrels of her weapon and armed the system. The barrels rotated ninety degrees and then stopped. Shaevre saw the ready indicators next to her right thumb on the grip. She reached up slowly to turn on her goggles and waited as the two systems acquired each other. A second later, she saw the impact dot and reticule in her right goggle lens. A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 26 What drew her attention was the display in her left lens. It showed other versions of the status indicators in the heads-up display; battery state, total number of available shots, number of rockets ... That was it. She focused again and saw that the rocket count was in two groups on this model. There were twenty, and then a little to the side of that, it showed two more. The type designation indicated that those two were heat-seekers, where the others were unguided, you just pointed and that was it. But the last two... She focused on the left and saw that there was a lock indicator for the heat-seeker type and wanted to groan. The ones that she'd used in her day had been largely useless, designed more to give the meg gunner a safe feeling if they were faced with low-flying craft. They'd always just been dead weight to Shaevre, since every time that she'd tried one, they'd either never acquired the target or they wouldn't hold their lock on it. She glanced up again and saw NyZ'eille coming back for another pass. This was her fear. The dolts thrashing around in front of her were little more than hazards to each other to her, but once she began this, Ny'Zeille wouldn't just hang around up there waiting for the outcome. And the fools were getting closer every second. Soon she wouldn't be able to wait any longer. --------------------- They were winded from their loping run and this uphill walk up the draw didn't help things any. "I want to get my teeth into that bitch's throat," the largest of them hissed and rumbled. "I owe her a lot of payback." "Shut up and walk," one of the officers said, "I can't see a thing for your fat back end in front of me. I have a score to settle too, but I want to see if I can at least see a little ahead once we get to the top of this." -------------------------- One hundred fifty, Shaevre thought, getting close. She could see the dark outlines in her goggles clearly now. She glanced up without moving her head. If this went on like this for much longer, then Ny'Zeille might spot Dahlgren and Azrael who were coming somewhere behind her, she mistakenly thought. If the demon spotted Faith, she'd attack instantly, Shaevre knew, and that fight would be behind her, where she'd be of little use, having to deal with these idiots first. She waited, her thumb on the fire selector and an idea in her mind. Would this even work? She tended to want to doubt the heat-seeker's ability; they'd never worked for her before. But that was a while ago, and this was a newer model of meg. Even if it did, could she handle seven threats at once? As Ny'Zeille passed into her field of view once more, heading away, she raised the muzzles slowly and selected the heat-seekers. To her amazement, she saw a six-tenths lock flashing on both missile icons in her display and heard the rattle in her earpiece that they'd acquired and locked onto the demon. Five was supposed to be enough. The only thing that she could think of was that the sky offered a cold background and demons were warm -- at least this one's asshole seemed to be. Shaevre decided to roll the bones. She held to see if the lock signals wavered or dropped out, but they didn't. "Come down here and fight like poor people," she whispered. She selected ripple-fire and squeezed. Her view was obscured instantly as the small rockets leapt out of their tubes one behind the other and she lowered the muzzles and switched back to the gun. The little beauties were on their own now. Shaevre wanted to smile. Even if the demon looked back now ... She settled the impact point in her goggles onto the fat bastard there in front of her. The usual stupid grin turned into a look of alarm from the sound of the rockets and what he saw in front of him. As the first of the missiles slammed into Ny'Zeille from behind, Shaevre's finger tightened on the trigger button for about a third of a second and Meg began her short, keening, single-toned song of death. The six barrels spun and in that short time, ten projectiles snapped out across the distance. Eight were good hits and two of them passed through the target cleanly, hitting nothing but the officer behind him. The heavy Xer that she'd aimed at fell, torn mostly in two as the empty casings flew sideways from Meg's ejection port. In the sky above, Ny'Zeille's world became one of smoke and pain as the second of the pair found her. With no structural metal to trigger their proximity fuzes, both missiles were detonated by their impact fuzes, and the metal shards in their little warheads ripped through her flesh. Her wings folded and she fell to earth in agony, landing hard in a heap of scorched flesh. ------------------------- "The team is under fire," Xhan's voice spoke through the earpiece in Arrax' ear. "At least one is down and they call for support." Arrax kept running, "Do not acknowledge," he smiled, "or ask them why six of them can't manage to kill one female. Remain on the ground. They are frightened, that is all. One person shoots and they call for help. Such fierce fighters, these pretenders." --------------------- Seven miles away, Azrael saw the explosions and turned. Faith called to Dahlgren and pointed. They turned together. On the other side of the ridge, the two Drow heard the short whistling tone of Meg and began to run cautiously. Meg's barrels hadn't even slowed to a stop when Shaevre had the female officer in her sights and as that one raised her rifle, already squeezing the trigger before she'd even looked to see where the threat to her was, Meg sang again, the shrill snarling whine ringing through the mountains for only an instant once more. The rest of them were all firing in panic now, and Shaevre knew that likely none of them even knew where they ought to be shooting. It was almost beyond her comprehension as she watched the twinkling of the muzzles on their rifles. Behaviour like this where she was from would earn you cracked ribs from an angry leader, if nothing else. She looked out farther and saw the officer who liked to watch 'bitch fights', she remembered. He was running in the other direction, back the way that they'd come. Well that would earn you something completely different where she was from, so she raised her impact point and squeezed to make sure that he'd get it. He'd have fallen on his face, but the twelve rounds which found him stitched up his back and the last three removed most of his head. By now, the fools had found her and they began to try to concentrate their desperate fire in her direction. But their rifles ran dry one after another from their wasteful shooting and they all needed to reload. As they frantically reached for more magazines, Shaevre gave it some thought. Out of six, two were dead and one probably so, wounded at the least. That left three terrified goons trying desperately to get their fingers to work so that they could reload. She looked off to where Ny'Zeille had landed and groaned to herself. The demon was moving a little. Two heat-seekers up her ass and she was trying to regenerate. If the others didn't come soon, she'd be at this all day, just trying to kill the demon. She switched to rockets and sent a few off that way with her love. Saplings fell outwards from the point of impact and some just disappeared as Shaevre created an instant clearing around the demon. She knew that this likely wasn't the end of the Ambassador as she stepped out from cover to deal with the rest. She walked quickly, firing short bursts as she went. This wasn't even a fight, she decided. The last of the three was the one who'd liked to tell fanciful lies to the others about how many times he'd 'had' Shaevre. When she walked up to him, he began to beg as he held onto his midsection. "You told stories of being a Death hound, and of fucking me," she said as she looked down, "What do you want me to do? There is no way that you will live more than a few minutes like this. I don't know which is the bigger fantasy -- you fucking me or that a stricken Death hound begs for his life." She pointed the muzzles at his face, "Ask me for what a real Death hound would ask from another and I will grant it. Hurry." He squeezed tears from his eyes as he blinked and she knew that he was still in denial about his fate either way. "Please, "he began. Meg's muzzles spun and ended his suffering. "Near enough," Shaevre said as she turned away, pleased that she'd managed to keep the burst so brief. She looked and saw that Ny'Zeile was still struggling, so she selected rockets again and fired two, carefully aiming each time. They exploded, but when the smoke and disturbed snow cleared, Shaevre still saw movement. She really hoped that she'd have a little help soon. A spray of snow kicked up into her face, and Shaevre was reminded of the last lower rank, the one who had actually put up a fight in front of Arrax a few days ago. She turned and strode off in that direction. The wounded female lay on her front, using the upper body of her fallen comrade to hold up her weapon and hide a little. Her gut was shot out and she knew that she'd be dying here, but until then ... "What is she doing now? Vadren asked Cha'Khah as they watched. Cha'Khah shook her head, looking at the two enemies as this scene played out. The one lying down tried to aim and fired in short bursts while Shaevre walked toward her with Meg singing in short notes as she did. The wounded Xer was hit twice more, but she still lived until the two of them looked at each other across maybe ten feet of ripped up and bloody snow. The female's rifle was empty again and she reached back for another magazine as Shaevre watched with her barrels up. "I am sorry now," the female gasped painfully while she reached backwards for the magazine on her harness as she lay mortally wounded, "You deserved better from me." Shaevre made no reply as she looked down. "If I had not been such a snotty fool, I might have made a friend worth knowing," she sniffled a little. Her hand twitched behind her as she yanked to bring it forward, but Meg was already whining her tune by then and the female slumped in death. "No," Shaevre said, as she nudged the hand out of the way with her foot to see the pistol that it held, "You'd still be the treacherous one that I would never trust." "You filthy slinking cur," the words came to Shaevre from behind her. She spun and saw Ny'Zeille struggling to stand from where she'd crawled to get nearer. Shaevre had seen filth and gore in her time, but what she was looking at now was horrific, since it was healing itself before her eyes. "I will burn the hair and flesh from you, and then I wi-" The demon shuddered and twitched while Meg shrilly howled out a longer burst. Shaevre groaned, knowing that she couldn't win this and she selected her rockets again. As the second one detonated, she felt a little stinging from shrapnel herself. She was too close. They were barely far enough apart for the rockets to arm themselves in flight. She needed to get more room between them while her rockets lasted. As the demon writhed in the snow, the Xer ran off a little way and turned. She had twelve rockets left as well as almost eight hundred rounds in Meg's magazine on her back. It would have represented a fair bit of comfort on any other battlefield to Shaevre, but here, it was likely only enough to keep this insane thing off her for only a little while longer. After that, she'd be down to turning into the flinty-furred beast that she was and she'd have to do her best to rip out Ny'Zeille's throat before she was killed herself. As good as she was, Shaevre knew how this would end. She wasn't Arrax, and Ny'Zeille was a high demon. Shaevre thought about going back to the dead female and grabbing the pistol in case she needed it for herself. Ny'Zeille rose once more and held out her hand slowly to cast in Shaevre's direction. The Xer groaned when she saw her next rocket miss and she opened up on the demon in desperation. Ny'Zeille roared out in pain, but a second later, she twitched in a different way and Shaevre let off her trigger. But the whine still rang in her ears a little quieter, and when Shaevre looked in the direction of the sound, she saw Arrax standing there with a meg on his own shoulder. He was grinning. Shaevre stared at the look of happiness on that male's face. Shaevre laid the impact dot squarely on the demon's breast and her meg howled once more. Arrax was not as light on the trigger as Shaevre and between them, they caused the insane demon to lose flesh quicker that she could heal herself. Shaevre sent another rocket to the demon. As it exploded, the demon shrieked and thrashed for a moment and then she was enveloped in lightning from Azrael's hand as he flew past overhead. Bright green tendrils rose up out of the snow around Ny'Zeille to envelop and entangle her as she struggled. Vadren held out this staff and sent sheets of his own flames to assist. Cha'Khah added to her tendrils with waves of acidic liquid from the surfaces of the tendrils wherever they touched the demon. Before Shaevre could recover from her shock, Faith landed not far from Ny'Zeille and they stared at each other hatefully for a moment. No one could explain why afterward, but they all stopped when Faith held up her hands as a request. Ny'Zeille began to laugh in a way that brought Shaevre chills. "The one that needs killing most comes to me willingly," she howled and cackled, "Come closer and let's finish it." She waited, holding out her hand, keeping the power of her hatred back to hear what final weak wisdom might come from the one who had ruined her life with her appearance and ability to corrupt her son. "Tell me your final thoughts, you blighted thing," she smiled as she began to heal herself more quickly. Faith nodded as though she was in a trance and she opened her mouth to speak and her hand reached out toward the demon as though drawn there, but her will flashed from her fingers toward the demon instead of her words. Ny'Zeille's eyes rolled back in her head while the first of the blue flames licked at her skin, and Faith said her deep and meaningful words in her soft accent. "Oh, fuck you, you spiteful old bitch." The flames flickered and snapped from Faith's hand for a moment longer and then it stopped abruptly. Faith looked at her own fingers in shock while what was left of Ny'Zeille groaned in its final agony. Azrael and Dahlgren had landed and Azrael immediately began to continue the destruction until Dahlgren stepped over and with a look of sadness, he drew his sword and swung in one motion. Before Ny'Zeille's head had stopped rolling, Faith fell forward onto her face. Dahlgren knelt and rolled her onto her back, his face a mask of shock as he brushed the snow away. "Faith! Faith, what happened? Where are you hurt?" Faith could only whisper, "I guess it's the thing that she cast on me before. I felt a little different, but I thought that I'd get better, I -- Dahlgren -" Faith's body went rigid for a moment and then she was gone as Dahlgren hung his head. A pair of tall dark forms walked silently toward the group as everyone but Dahlgren stared and both Arrax and Shaevre dropped to their knees and bowed. Azrael and the Drow stood transfixed as they watched them come. The pair were dressed in what looked to be some form of short and tightly bound skirts, though the larger of them was plainly a male. Though tall, they were both of a roughly humanoid form, save for their canine-like appendages and heads. The male reached toward Ny'Zeille Runei. Her head was eight feet from her body, but it screamed piteously for a moment while her burnt body twisted once and then she was still. When the male drew his arm back, he held a vague shadow in his pawed hand. He looked at the others thoughtfully for a moment as though deciding how to say what he wished to say. "This one does not belong here," he said, holding up the shadow, "but I hold a place for ones such as this. When we are gone with her, none will remember that she was here. In a little time, none will remember her name," he said as he turned, "not even the ones who wait for her return. Not even the son whom she saddened with her hate. Not even the little child who loved her the most. This is the way of things. Everything passes, the pain as well." Dahlgren looked up as he felt the touch of the tall female on his shoulder. "We have regret," she said, "we were far from here when this began. Even for me, there is a little time needed to travel. It likely means little and is cold comfort, but Faith Runei will hold a high place in my husband's realm." "There are eyes that her kind has, in the sky above which are used to watch, lord, "Arrax said to the other one, "They will have noticed all of this here today." The tall one smiled a little and pointed. Arrax looked up and saw the glow of a bright pinpoint of light moving in an arc across the sky. "Those ones fall now," the huge jackal said, "They fail, they all fail. It is not their place to watch. It is ours. Nothing was seen by any watcher, servant. You are all gone from their sight." Shaevre saw a pair of graceful legs come into view before her. "Rise warrior," the female said softly, "You bear wounds. You have been injured this day. I remove the shards gently over time so that the blood will wash the wounds and there will be no scars for you from this. A kindness for your courage," the gentle face before Shaevre smiled, "there is enough to feel sadness over." "I -- I never knew, "Shaevre whispered as she stood and stared. The female was like her, though with short and sleek fur, "Forgive me, I did not believe." "You know now," the tall jackal smiled with a nod, "it is enough." "You have done well Arrax, last faithful servant," the male said to Arrax, "With some good fortune, you may have found others like yourself in what you wish to do later." "First, I have a lot of reports to write over this mess," Arrax said, "Six Xer killed and one Merren ambassador dead, though the Merren may be glad to hear that the problem has removed herself. She did exactly as I knew that she would do, though my friend lost his mate." The quiet one nodded, "Make of this what you will. Hide for a time, and together we will seek to remove what began all of this. You will be needed. Let this day mark the beginning of our renewed aid to an old world." He looked around at them all, seeing the amazed Drow as well, "There remain things to be done, but there is yet time to speak of this. You have choices to make, Arrax; choices to shape your lifetime and those of a few others near to you. Choose well and wisely. Think of us in your prayers and we will speak again." The pair nodded and turned to walk off. The group watched as they walked away, fading from their view long before they walked out of sight. Shaevre walked to Arrax slowly, "Arrax, ... I am sorry if their hunting us causes you trouble." He looked up and turned to her, "Trouble? Useless gatekeepers hunting an armed Death hound? How else could it have ended? You have removed six loose ends for me," he nodded as he put his arm over her shoulder and grinned, "and I am very happy that you live." "I am happy that I live," she smiled a little, "and so happy to see you. Thank you." The others walked to them. "What, ... who were they?" Azrael asked. "To you, no one," Arrax replied, "to humans far from here long ago, and to us," he said quietly, indicating Shaevre and himself, "Gods. Living gods." He looked off into the distance, "I now have fewer troubles than I have had in so long, and more new ones than I've ever had in my life. I am so sorry for your loss, Dahlgren. I have no words to speak which will give you any comfort." He stood with Dahlgren, placing himself in the way so that the others couldn't see it as the ranger wept a little before stepping away. A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 27 ***This was a chapter which gave me a lot of trouble, since it takes one of my fave characters in this to where she needs to be while at the same time leads her away from something that she really wanted. It took a few tries to get this as I wanted it. I`ve stopped it at a point for length, but if you`re big on Selena, just hang in there. Her journey isn`t done after this - and she`s still the same girl, just really embarrassed after this part. 0_o -------------- Book of the Merren Part 15 Shaevre lay low in the bath with her long legs hanging over the sides of the tub as she talked quietly with Selena and allowed herself to be sponged gently, since regular washing was out of the question until most of the bits of shrapnel had been found. "One of the first things that I will do is seek something which I can use as a bathtub for me. I know that I am too large for the humans to have thought about when they made their bathtubs, but I ache for something better." Selena nodded, "How was Arrax? I wish that I could have been there too. I'm not afraid of a fight if it has to be, but I think that I'd have been pretty useless out there. I would have liked to get another look at him, though." "Well I looked at him on your behalf," Shaevre grinned, "and I can say that he still looks as fine to me as ever. Better even." She sighed, "There are moments when I look at that male and I almost ache to be the one to give him whelps." Selena laughed softly, "I'm not even the right kind for him, but I know what you mean. I've had the same wish before in a passing moment. He's huge and so strong, but he's always so gentle and friendly. I've seen him with my sister and I've had the same thought then. He`d make the best kind of father. From what I've learned, Xer have such a strong family structure. I'm not a Xer, but somehow I'd love to be able to hold the place in his heart as the one who bears his children." "Would you?" Shaevre asked as she sat up for a moment, "Do you mean that truly, or is it only a little wish?" "Well you know that it's not possible," Selena chuckled, "but I guess it's been a little daydream that I've had with some sort of longing to it. I do know that I'd love to be his -- as long as I still have you in my life. Why are you asking this? I wouldn't admit this if it wasn't just us here." Shaevre took Selena's hand in her wet one and leaned forward, "You know of what was said between us all outside before Arrax left to go back. I heard it as it was said, and I had a thought, so I approached him. If he is successful, he will need to hide as well for at least a time." Selena nodded, understanding it up to that point, "Go on." Shaevre leaned back to enjoy the soothing heat of the water before it cooled. "I mentioned that if he could do this, then he would need a place to stay in this mountain fortress. I reminded him that he had no female for him on this world. I suggested that he might wish to stay with us -- you and I, and he told me that it was a thought that would warm him before he returned." "What -- what does that mean? Selena asked, "I think there's a Xer turn of phrase in there." "There is," Shaevre smiled, "If it happens and he accepts, then my half-demon girlfriend will have to make a choice. I will not leave you, but I wish to mate with Arrax and he has as much as accepted since he said the correct phrase and then he took my hands in his and he kissed them. It ought to tell you something of how he regards you and I. He is too refined and polite to accept in the way that a common Xer male would. If you would give life to our daydream where we share him, then you and I will need to try to think a little differently because it is very possible. It will be different for me as well, but I have decided how it must go with a male such as Arrax for us. "What?" Selena laughed in her astonishment, "OK, you'll have to explain all of the mysterious Xer things in this for me. You're telling me that you've what? Offered yourself to him? I know you already, Shaevre. How do I fit into all of this?" Shaevre shrugged, "It cannot be that hard for you, Selena. I know you to be a very shrewd girl. But I understand how the 'Xer things' can confuse you. I only laid out the facts that he and I are the only Xer here. We say other words to each other, but I was certain that we liked each other long ago, and I have a strong feeling that he likes you. In fact, I know that he does. I used all of the careful Xer speech, but in so many words, I told him that he and I should mate, and he agreed in a careful way, because we are Xer after all. But then I told him that you and I are as a pair. He knows this already. I only said that such a pairing would need to last long for the whelps and that even though you cannot give them to him, it changes nothing in my eyes. He would have to accept you as well as me." This was growing more strange to Selena by the moment, but she knew that she could never wend her way through the canyons of Xer conversation for something like this. "Now I wish I'd been there even more," she said with a grin, "I'd have loved to see his face at that point. Did he stare? What was his reaction?" Shaevre tried to remember exactly, and after a moment, she looked at Selena and said, "As I recall it, he blinked once and he agreed to this level of the courtship." Selena's jaw dropped open, "He agreed?" "You must remember something," Shaevre said, "We have both admitted to each other that we would want him. There are no Xer other than he and I. We would likely mate under these circumstances if we hated each other at first. I only saw our chance. Between two Xer all alone here, we would find ways to love each other. He likes us both. Why not pair this way? The only thing here is that it is for long with us. Our naughty little daydream can be ours to have, but he gets two females, and we get one wonderful male. You must do as I do and take my lead. He is worth the trouble of it and more. We will make him an evening of food and company at some point, and then you and I will kneel before him and offer ourselves for our lives if he will do the same. The kneeling is only because we both wish for him. Without this, it would be he who would kneel. If he accepts, then he will have two females for a very long time." She smiled, "Xer courtship is sometimes direct and sometimes hidden. For something such as this, it must be more talk before anything else, so that all in it know clearly. I decided and said words to him. He accepted in a preliminary fashion. We made our compliments to each other over our bodies, and he told me to tell you that in the framework of this discussion, that he is honored to be considered by such a fine bitch as you. Those are the Xer words that are to be said in such a case by the male." "You -- you've negotiated for me?" Selena gaped. She didn't know what to think, she -- "Why not? I saw the chance for us after our talk of wanting to share him." Shaevre said, "I am only speaking plainly. You and I are friends and though it surprised us both, we are lovers and have the chance for this, Selena. Tell me that you do not want Arrax for your own. After the dark day that I have had, I need a good laugh. All that you need to consider is whether you want to take him as your mate and if you think that you could share him with me. You and I would have a strong and powerful male for us both. He knows the way that we are between us. I know that he longs for a good female, and he knows that he has the chance at two. It must be done in this way because we normally only take one. The words are to prepare us all for this sort of multiple pairing, him as well as us. He does not want anything less than our love for a long time. He has passed the point where a Xer male's nose turns into the wind to sniff for a bitch. He knows us and we are what he desires. He is not a stupid male and he had a heart in him, a big one. He has to prepare himself by considering this. That is where it lies at this point. Oh!" Shaevre sat up and took both of Selena's hands in hers, "I am to do this for you from him. He told me very carefully to make sure that I show you this as his response, just as he showed it to me." She lowered her head and Shaevre kissed Selena's hands very gently for a long moment, licking them carefully as well. When she looked up, she smiled, "I know that this means little to you, but if you were a Xer bitch, this is a gesture that you would smile softly at and hold the memory of close to you forever. It means that he has love for you in his heart. He also gave me words to say to you. I do not know what they mean, but he said that you would know. He said that you have already chosen wisely for the time ahead and that if this begins between us all, then your choices would never fail you. I think that he meant that he and I are your choices for something." Selena nodded and was silent for a moment. She tried to see herself with the men that she'd had in her life, and even any that she might wish to have. Dahlgren had chosen Faith. It had been terrible for them all, since they'd all liked her so much after so short a time. Faith had been just that sort of girl. Now they were all very saddened as Dahlgren mourned his loss, though with the help that she planned to give them, Nahl'een now had her family. Selena knew what she had in her heart, but this was a new wrinkle that she hadn't seen coming. With a little thought, Selena decided that as much as she liked Dahlgren, there was likely no way that she could get closer than her role as the sister of his adopted daughter, especially since it was rather well-known that she was with Shaevre. The two of them didn't think that it was a barrier, but Selena thought that from a male's point of view it could very well be one. There wouldn't be a barrier at all from Arrax' view and thinking practically -- which meant setting the downright sexiness of the thought aside with difficulty, she'd have one beast of a male who had already shown that he could handle having a female of another species and quite obviously liked her as much as she liked him. Then she thought of Arrax and Shaevre. They weren't like her on the outside, but there was something like kinship between her and Shaevre that was more than two females who made love together. Whenever Shaevre said that she wanted to spend her life with Selena, she felt such a good feeling in her. Then she thought of Arrax. The thought of being one of his females brought a want out in her only to hold in her mind. The thought of him with her legs around him, ... It was the strangest thing. She'd had a few men in her day and she liked a good tussle in a bed. But that was nothing to her like the way that it felt to her when she wrapped herself around Shaevre and held on tightly. It had to be like that with Arrax as well, but with all of the pure maleness added to it. It was hard for her to do, but she slowly pushed that from her mind and tried to see Arrax in her life, day after day, night after night, eating with him, traveling together, hunting and anything else that came to mind. She thought about how it would be to be seen with her two mates as they walked into an inn for a tankard of ale. It was another hypothetical situation in Selena's mind. If this happened, she'd likely never go into a place like that again. If she did, they'd be stared at and she'd see the thoughts of the males as well as the females plainly on their faces. She asked herself if she thought that she could handle something like that and she had her answer in a heartbeat. Let them all stare. She'd feel nothing other than pride to go anywhere with the two Xer. Then she had the crazy thought where she saw herself there with Dahlgren as well. She had no idea where it had come from -- she only saw them all walking into a place like that and everyone knowing that she belonged to them all. She pushed the thought away quickly, deciding to consider it later in a private moment. There was something there which intrigued and enticed her, and it was the strangest thing because she wasn't the sort of girl who could manage to have even one person interested in her at the best of times. Something always went wrong, and to her mind, it was usually her who ruined it anyway. When she slept in Shaevre's arms, she felt so safe and warm. She loved it when their limbs were intertwined and they slept with Selena's face against Shaevre's powerful chest. She smiled to herself. Something as strong as that would likely seek the same comfort against the massive chest of Arrax. She could see them together asleep. Selena sighed and Shaevre heard it as she watched her lover consider. The Xer wanted to hold her rogue tightly for the sweet little smile that she saw as Selena looked up into her eyes. "I'll really never be cold again," she said. "I want it. Just as you said, if you were all alone here, you'd find ways to love each other. I can do the same." Selena was shocked as she felt Shaevre reach to pull her. She did her best to help and her world blurred around her for an instant and then she was soaking wet as Shaevre eased her into the tub with her. They laughed and then Selena threw her arms around Shaevre to kiss her. ------------------ They stood in the trees at the edge of the woods together waiting. The gray dawn was just barely past and the air was still and cold as snowflakes danced down slowly around them. Shaevre stood ready with Meg just in case and Selena hugged her cloak to her and shivered. They'd traveled all night and were tired and cold. "This is miserable," she said, "I've always been able to take the cold my whole life, but I can't stand to freeze in one spot standing up while I'm falling asleep. I hope that nothing's gone wrong. It's been a week." Shaevre looked over with a small smile, "It was supposed to be a week, Selena. He is not late yet. We are early. Save your fretting until he is overdue." They stood for maybe twenty minutes in silence before Selena turned to the Xer, "When would you consider him to be overdue?" "When it begins to grow dark," Shaevre said, almost knowing that her reply would bring a response. At times such as this, she thought to herself, she could see something of a family resemblance between Selena and Nahl'een. The rogue had all the patience of her kind, but even so, ... "Well I'll be dead and frozen by then," Selena grumbled, "I'd much rather fret now while I can." She turned to walk away. "Where are you going?" Shaevre asked. "I need to pee," came the reply. Shaevre smirked, "Again? You always need to pee. I think it comes from your craving for tea." Selena said nothing as she trudged off to find a suitable spot. She settled on a birch which had grown as two trunks and she kicked the snow away from the base. Shaevre thought that she could hear something far off down the long meadow. From where she stood, she could just make out the ridge of mountain foothills there as white shapes in the softly falling snow. She wasn't sure if she'd heard anything. She pulled out the little transmitter from her own cloak and turned it on, hoping that the battery was still at least a little alive in the cold. When the indicators came on, she checked to make sure that the beacon would stay off and then she turned on the transmitter. She heard nothing but soft background, and she pressed the transmit key very briefly three times about a second apart. The radio responded instantly with two quick clicks of its own. "He comes," she said over her shoulder. "Well of course he'd come now," Selena groused, "I'm in the middle of a piss. I should have thought of this an hour ago. It would have brought him here sooner." She did her best and got to her feet to pull up her pants and leggings before kicking the snow over the spot. "I cannot understand it," Shaevre grinned a little, "This should be easy. Your kind has no fur there. Why do you not just stand? Xer girls do this, as I have said." "I did try it," Selena said, "You convinced me and I tried. You had a wonderful time laughing at me as I wet myself. I'm not doing that again." She heard Shaevre make an impatient tsking sound, "I told you to try so that you would learn. It takes a bit of practice since you have not done this your whole life. You should have tried without clothes the first time. But you just drank yourself full of tea and then you gushed everywhere standing with your pants around your knees. What was I supposed to do? You looked silly, even though I felt for you. Are you ready at last?" Selena nodded as she scooped up a handful of snow to wash her hands with, grimacing, "Where is he?" Shaevre pointed off toward the mountains, "Hear it?" Her friend saw nothing, but she heard a soft whine far off, "I can't see him." "He is a minute or so out," Shaevre said as she looked. "A minute? I rushed because I thought that he was here." Selena saw the faint smile on Shaevre's face, "And now you are ready, no? Come, back up into the trees. We still need to be careful." They hid themselves under the edge of the forest in a spot where they could still see a wide view of the meadow. About a minute later, they heard the quiet roar and saw the snow as it kicked up around a large object which hovered over the meadow nearby. "What's that?" Selena asked, "That doesn't look like what we rode here on." "It is an old supply skiff," Shaevre said, "Arrax said that he bought it. These are still used today, since they are a good design, but I have not seen one fly in a long time now. I can see that it is old, but it wears new paint, and there are no unit markings." Her eyes widened as they went to the pods which hung under the wings inboard of the engines for a moment. It was hard to see in the blowing snow. "This one is armed," she said in surprise and a little alarm, "They are never armed outside of a war zone. We are dead if that is not him." They watched as it hung in the air for a moment, looking like a foreboding thing. Then they saw the strobes begin to flash and Shaevre keyed the button on the radio three more times. Selena noted that the muzzles of the meg never wavered from where they pointed at the craft -- dead center on the windscreen, as far as she could tell. "Communicator check," Shaevre heard in a voice that sounded like Arrax but the transmission had been too short to be sure. "Functional," she said carefully, "Authenticate." "Mornia has one very cold moon." Shaevre grinned as she heard the tone of his transmission. "As I have heard," she replied. "What does that mean?" Selena asked. "Mornia is a dead world with no moon," Shaevre said, "The war left it ruined -- another shining example of why the Merren are haughty fools. It is Arrax. I hear his voice clearly. Look, he lands now." They saw the skiff settle onto its runners with the cargo door facing them. Shaevre was still careful as she watched the ramp come down. The rear of the craft looked to be loaded, but at least there were no Xer troopers there with weapons. "Come Selena," she said, "Let's go." They walked out from the woods and up the ramp. "What is all of this?" Shaevre called forward to Arrax. "Food," he grinned, "if I have a new home now, then I wish to have something in my hand for the landlord. Take off the meg and help Selena into a seat. Join me here. I think that this is the only Xer craft on this world now, but I will not be happy until it is hidden." Shaevre nodded, "How is Xhan? Was he sent back to Xer?" "Yes," Arrax said, "He joins the same brigade that you and I served in. He has a new commission, and he says that he hopes to do a better job at leading because of you and I." "I wish him well," she said. A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 27 "As I told him that you would," Arrax smiled, "He will stop to see his mother and then he begins to learn all over again, but with his eyes opened." With everyone in place, Arrax lifted off and sought to stay a little low through the mountains as Shaevre guided him. "You have guns under the wings," she said as she looked at the pods out there, "Why?" "Because my old friend who rebuilt this skiff found them in crates in the back of the supply lockup," Arrax grinned. "They were covered in dust and filth, but when he opened the crates, they were as new, never used. The rounds are still standard, and I caused a few boxes to be miscounted. The covers are in place. Only a Xer fighter would know what they are." He laughed, "I spent all of a day hanging them on by myself. I had to wait for that. I needed to be alone when I did it. Now will there be room for this in the mountain or must I build a shed?" "I have measured, as you asked," Shaevre nodded, "there is space, but it will be tight." "How come I'm inside and I'm still cold?" Selena asked from the seat behind where Shaevre sat. "These are a great design, for a smallish utility hauler, "Arrax said as he looked over his shoulder at her for a moment. "They are tough and reliable, but the only flaw is their openness inside. As soon as the ramp moves to go down, you lose your internal atmosphere. If you are to supply a place with a bad atmosphere, then the crew need to wear suits as they fly." Shaevre turned to look back at Selena with a grin before she nudged Arrax. "I can translate for you," she smiled, "Selena would listen to you all day, but what she is really asking for is for the heat to be turned up." Arrax nodded and complied. They flew around the mountain and Arrax made one low pass before he came in slowly and set down near the South Portal. Azrael and Dahlgren walked out and showed Arrax the maintenance garage and as Shaevre had said, it was a tight fit, but it worked. "Leave everything for the night," Azrael said, "I will help you tomorrow." "I cannot," Arrax smiled, as he indicated the crates in the back of the skiff, "I've brought food. The outpost is closed and this was in the cold room to be thrown away. I have a crate of, ..." he failed to think of the word and then said a few words to Shaevre, asking for help. "He has sausages!" she laughed, "Enough to feed all a few times. And the four barrels there are Xerian beer." "Beer?" Vadren asked, "Is it good beer?" Shaevre chuckled, "Vadren, it may not be as good as what your fine Drow taste demands, but if you drink enough, you can get stupid, so ..." "I will get a wheelbarrow," he said with a laugh, "we cannot leave these treasures here, Azrael." ------------------------- Cha'Khah sat up at the table and let out a loud belch accidentally. After apologizing with bit if a giggle, she leaned over to speak to Arrax. "This ... this craft of yours, "she said, "How many can it carry?" "It may be flown by one," he said, "but two are better over long distances. It seats them and three more in comfort. It can carry twelve Xer in total along with their weapons, though it would be crowded in the back -- and that is two in front to fly and ten fighters in the back. The last seven would have only benches to sit on and belts to hold them in. Since Xer fighters are larger than most of us here, I suppose that it could carry two more in even less comfort. It is used in battles to take fighters to the action and to then bring more." He set his tankard down and reached for another sausage and a slice of bread, "Mine was used when the outpost was being built to travel up and down all day bringing material down. I know nothing of it before that. It might have been used as an assault skiff before that. It has places to mount things for fighting. They make poor fighting ships against other craft, but they can be used as close air support." He rolled his eyes a little, "It is a role which they were not designed for, and most do not last long like that, so I do not think that mine ever saw any fights." "Why not?" Selena asked. He shrugged, "Because mine was abandoned since it wore out. The ones in fighting units do not usually get old enough to wear out. They usually live much shorter lives." "How far can it go," Azrael asked, "if you had a reason to want to go far?" "The fuel cells are new and full," Arrax smiled, "Try to think that it was made to travel far out in space -- between here and Xer is a two week trip in a cutter, and that is what the crew would feel as they slept. We have faster ways, believe me. But ones like mine can get there in about six months. The fuel cells in it would be about half expended on a trip like that. Here," he said, "I can fly around the world enough times for you to get tired of the scenery, if I fly high and fast. Where do you wish to go?" "Nowhere, at the moment," Azrael replied. "So it could go to Lozenjellis?" Dahlgren asked, "A large city on the coast to the west?" "Easily," Arrax nodded, "What is there that interests you?" "Nothing other than something which I saw the last time that I was there hunting. I stood on the beach and I saw a flying beast far off. It was flying to an island off the coast. It had done this several times that day. I thought that, since the sightings of demons come from right in or very near to Lozenjellis most often, then there is a higher likelihood that whatever brings them might be there. Could we fly there one day?" Arrax nodded, "Yes, certainly. At the least, I need about a week to get the skiff ready to use. Right now, things were a little rushed. I just need to make things secure and find a place for everything. If I could, I would feel a little better if we could wait about two weeks before we go there. I want to see if I am hunted by the Merren. No Xer will hire on to hunt me, but the Merren have a few craft of their own. It is doubtful due to the expense, but it is possible for them to divert one of their passing cruisers. My skiff is no warship." As they ate and talked, it became clear that Arrax would fit in to their strange and growing family. When Azrael broached the subject of seeking old treasure, the Xer's eyes lit up and everyone knew then. He mentioned a few of the places that he'd been on this world and offered a few ideas about likely places that he knew which ought to contain some attractive prospects. Much later, he walked with Selena and Shaevre to the portion of the underground complex where they stayed. He could see that the pair of them were tired. Shaevre was a little weary, but Selena was obviously beat. She kept looking at him, though, as if she was a little afraid that he might not really be there, other than in her tired imagination. They tried to show him where he could sleep, but he smiled and said that he could see that their day had gone a lot longer than his. "Shaevre has told you?" He asked Selena. She nodded, "But I don't think that I can even follow any regular conversations anymore tonight, never mind Xer ones with all of their hidden meanings and such." "That was not why I asked," he smiled, "Only show me where we might all sleep and let me do what I can to soothe you and ease you both into sleep. Over the past week, I have had a lot of time to think, and I have decided to accept whatever comes with you both. Since I have learned that the females who think so well of me have been awake over a day now and traveled through the dark and cold night to meet me, then it is my task to take care of them." When he saw the bed that they'd prepared, he helped them into it before he got in carefully himself. He allowed them to lie on him or against him as he stroked their backs and hugged them as he spoke of little things that he liked about each one. They turned their faces up to look at him and he felt something that he hadn't experienced in such a long time. His kisses were soft and gentle and they sighed quietly to each other. "I feel so small," Selena sighed in a whispering voice, "I feel like a very loved child. I've never felt something like this with anyone before you, Shaevre, and now I feel it even more." She lowered her face and Shaevre rolled back a little to offer Selena a breast as Arrax rubbed Selena's back very softly. Selena's leg was over Shaevre's and the Xer lifted her leg to carry Selena's with it, spreading the half-demon's legs wide in a gentle way for Arrax, who moved down so that he could lick them both if it was what he wanted. He was careful not to try to arouse either of them. He only wanted them to know the way that he felt as he caressed Shaevre and slipped a thumb inside of her. His tongue was put to work and licked Selena in gentle and very broad strokes. Her whole bottom end was wet in minutes and she whimpered as she sucked. After a few minutes, Selena shuddered a little. She let out a quiet groan and released Shaevre's nipple for a moment. "I don't know how exciting I can be anymore tonight, but if you want me, Arrax, you can fuck me a little." "That is not what you need now, Selena," his voice came to her, "you need rest. I wish only to ease you to sleep." Selena inhaled slowly as she felt his warm tongue against a different and very sensitive place. She lowered her lips to Shaevre's nipple and began to suck contentedly. "This is the other side of Xer loving," Shaevre whispered after she'd kissed Selena's head. "Then I think that I was born the wrong thing," Selena sighed, "I want to be a Xer now." Arrax kept up his gentle work and Selena began to drift off. Shaevre moved to ease the girl down beside her and Selena asked why in a sleepy voice. "You stopped suckling and I knew that you were asleep," Shaevre smiled as she kissed Selena's face, "You look so much like the child that you mentioned earlier when you are like this, so sleep, little Selena. You lie with two Xer who love you. You cannot be any safer than this." Arrax got to his knees and as Selena drifted off, he slid into Shaevre slowly and they smiled at each other. Shaevre looked up in the darkness and felt her heart swell. This had been little more than a wild hope to her not long ago. She'd wanted Arrax from her first look at him, but their stations and the duty in Dahlgren's home precluded anything such as this. She hadn't known that he'd even wanted her then. No one had wanted her, she'd thought. But she'd been wrong, she knew now, so sweetly and deliciously wrong. She reached for his hand when she saw him begin to move it forward. Grasping it, she brought it to her breast, the wet one from Selena's suckling, and her eyes closed in happiness when he began to roll the nipple between his finger and thumb. "Slowly please Arrax," she sighed, "You are larger than the toy that you gave to us. If you wish to claim your females, then let it be at a time when we can give ourselves to you as you deserve." "I think that it is you both who deserve more then," he smiled, looking down at his idea of perfection in a Xer female. They loved this way for a time until Sheavre came quietly. Arrax stopped and withdrew slowly. He'd been careful not to enter Shaevre far enough to press the wider part of him inside of her, knowing that it would really begin if he did. "Lie down next to Selena, "Shaevre smiled, "She loves to feel our warmth against her. And before you do, know that you have my love." "As you have mine," he said, leaning down to kiss her. Arrax moved to lie against the other female who was capturing his heart, and it wasn't long before he was a little surprised when she spread her thighs apart. She wrapped her leg over Shaevre's thigh and smiled as she pressed her cheek against the swell of Shaevre's chest. Shaevre smirked, "For one who wishes to be a smaller Xer, our girl here already knows what she must do for her male." "Of course I do," Selena sighed with a little yawn, "You showed me how to work the machine in my room at Dahlgren's house, and when I found that I had a girlfriend, I used it to look up your kind's mating habits. Do what you gotta, Arrax, just don't shake the bed or crush me too much. That's for tomorrow." She groaned softly as she pushed her bottom back to show Arrax that he was welcome between her haunches. He didn't penetrate her, and after a minute, Selena lowered her hand between her legs to hold him against her. He was still gentle and slow, though his strokes were longer toward the end. Selena floated in a comfortable place just this side of sleep and the first of his ejaculations wet her fingertips hotly. He reached with his hand to hold hers in place and trembled against her for a few minutes. Now and then, another quiet gush would come from him, and by the time that his last one was ended, both of his females were asleep. He lifted his head slowly and looked at them in the darkness for long minutes, as if he were afraid that they'd evaporate or otherwise disappear if he looked away for more than a moment. His gods had been so kind to him to allow him something like the love that he knew that they could all share between them. At last, he eased himself down and reached around Selena to hold her. Her hand rose from between her thighs wet with his semen and she grasped his hand with it and held it to her breast. He thought it a sweet thing to see as he flexed his fingers slowly so that he held her small breast in his hand. It was a bit of a moment to him for the tender way that it was done. He thought about his seed against her skin, maybe a little of it had gotten into her hair. He hoped not, feeling a little sorry about it. But there was nothing to be done about it now, so he kissed Selena's shoulder softly and prepared to fall asleep himself, until her soft voice came to his ears as she whispered, "I love you, Arrax." He felt a tear form in his eye instantly. How long had it been since he'd heard it said to him in this way? He didn't know at the moment and was too happy and tired to do the math. "I love you," he whispered and he closed his eyes. -------------------------------- Selena had been feeling a little off since she'd gotten up. There wasn't a thing wrong that she could tell, really. Something was just different, that was all. They'd eaten and walked to the garage to begin the work that the skiff needed. Arrax could have done most of it by himself and he said so, but he knew that they all needed to talk and the closed garage door and the raised ramp of the skiff would provide the place for that. Shaevre and Selena sat lounging comfortably in the rear seats, since with the armrests down, they had the space to just loll around if they wished and they were quite happily lolling in each other's arms. Arrax smiled at them as he ran some diagnostics from the pilot's seat. With that done, he stepped past them and produced three large mugs and filled them from a small on-board water supply. Inside of two minutes, he presented them each with a steaming cup of tea. They were amazed. "Are you always this considerate?" Selena smiled, "First, you put us to bed and made us feel like spoiled girls and now this." "You have to think of this from how I see it," he said, "I was unhappy with my life, and I had chosen to retire, not wanting to return to Xer. I like this world for its space, and I enjoy looking for things of value and secrets of antiquity most of all. I learned of this skiff and then I had a way to go where I wanted. I had planned to end things with Ny'Zeille from long before last week. She does not share my interests. She likes to sit and act the queen and I like to be outside, just as you do. I had no one in mind for me," he said as he brought the mug to his lips. "I have always thought that I had the love of a wonderful female once, but all of that was lost to me with her death, along with our little ones. That was my chance at life and love, I'd told myself. After that, Ny'Zeille and I had a love between us, but it was turning sour slowly. The issue over Dahlgren brought it to a hasty end. I have always liked him, and yet, over his sudden love of Faith, she grew, ... well, we all know. But there was Nahl'een and you to consider, Selena. With you both safe and Ny'Zeille dead, I felt a little lost, now that the end was coming to my career. It was told to me that our service had no further need of the outpost and the Merren had grown tight-fisted in what they would pay for. With no Xer there, and no Ranger, as well as a very unpleasant incident, they have decided to wash their hands for now, it would seem. At that point, my friend Shaevre surprised me and spoke of how you both felt, saying that the last Xer on this world should mate, but that you wished to have me as well. Thank you for this honor, both of you. While I worked to finalize things at the outpost, I had time to think." He set down his mug and reached for their hands. "I have the chance at two hearts who are already joined and offer me a place with them in their lives. I have asked myself many questions -- do I wish to have two females? Can this work? Do I wish to father whelps at this point in my life? All of these things and many more." He kissed their hands for a moment. "I was brutally honest with myself and after a lot of soul-searching; every answer came to me as 'yes'. That is why I wished to be with you last night, so that we might show each other a little of how we feel. I have such feeling in me for you both. Even so, we need to grow our love for each other, and there will be times when one or the other of you will need the help and protection of the other two. If we begin to make whelps, for example, and when you finally step into what you are, Selena, you will need us too." He turned to Shaevre and gave her a brief explanation of his surmisal. Shaevre agreed that if this were so, then she wanted to do whatever Selena needed when it happened. "I do not know about this 'Crowned One' that you speak of, but if it comes to pass, I will be there for her with you, but, ... what help will she need?" She looked at Selena who shrugged and said, "I don't know. I don't even know if it will happen, as much as I trust Arrax. I'm very nervous about it, and I really hope that if it does happen, then it'll be about as violent as your heat was when it came." "So what are you saying to us, Arrax?" Shaevre asked. "I am saying that I want this with you very much," he smiled. "Well, if that is so, " Shaevre smiled softly, "and if it were only you and one hopeful female here, then you would be busy wooing her." She turned to Selena and kissed her, "Arrax and I know that you do not know the way of Xer courtship. That is why I say these things to him in this way. I Iove it when the grim fighter makes the thief smile. This is possible back on Xer, what we think to try for, but it must be couched in the most flowery terms and sometimes the use of intermediaries between the three parties. I have seen one set like this, and to me, they seemed happy," Shaevre said, "But after they told me of how it all had to be done and the length of time that it took, I developed a suspicion that they all agreed so that they could just get on with it. I think that they knew what they all wanted to begin with. The rest, all of the chattering was only to see if one of them would drop out." Selena laughed a little and said that it sounded like such a test to her. "Well we are here," Shaevre said, "and there are three of us. Normally, it is the male in the couple who might fawn a little and get to his knees to ask the female to consider if she might want his love. With a double-pairing, it is the females who would do this. There is a very small bit of submission here for us, but it is really only a remnant from when we lived in packs. The two females need to agree on their place between them in the pack. The prime bitch would have been selected by fighting. We have no need for this, Selena." A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 27 "Yes we do," Selena smiled, "We need something. You and I have been together for a couple of weeks now, Shaevre." She looked at Arrax, "We still don't even know which one of us is the bitch between us," she giggled. "I can't fight you and I wouldn't even want to over this, unless I'm allowed to tickle you. That's something that I can beat you at." She shrugged, "I just know that I want you and I also want Arrax. I'd just let Arrax decide. As long as we're pretty even and there's a lot of love for us all, I don't care." The females grinned at each other and both turned to smile at him expectantly. But before Arrax even had a chance to look confused, Selena lost her self-control and began to laugh. "We're supposed to kneel before him and ask, you said," she smiled as her laughter wound down, "Look at it from my side, and I mean no disrespect to anything Xer, since I'm sort of trying to be like one in this, but it looks so funny to me. I close my eyes, and all that I can imagine is one of those dirty videos or whatever they're called. I found some on the machine in my room at the house." She set her mug aside and moved to her knees, pulling Shaevre with her, "Arrax, we're both really happy that you're here and we both love you. I can't think of anything else that needs to be said other than to suggest two things to you both. I think that if there needs to be a prime female between Shaevre and I, well then I think that it ought to be her. She's the one who can have your babies, though I know that I'll love them too. She's also stronger than me, if that means anything here. So let's just start this. I want to begin, and we're wasting time." "I do not agree," Shaevre said, shaking her head, "but I will accept the position in our pack if it gets Arrax inside one of us a little sooner. Will you have us, Arrax? All that I wish to hear is that you believe that you will love us both as equally as you can and that any work be shared between us -- and I include washing and cooking. For that, I will bear your whelps and we will both do our best if you will for us." "Wait a minute," Selena said, "We have to allow for his protection. I read about all of this stuff. It's his job to keep us safe -- as silly as that seems looking at you here, Shaevre, but fair is fair, and I don't think that I want him washing my clothes. I'm afraid to think of what I'll end up with. So let's drop the washing part, and I'm pleased." She felt Shaevre's hand on the side of her head as she was pulled close to the Xer female, "No you would not be pleased," Shaevre chuckled, "That was not what was meant, oh learned reader of all things Xer. We seldom wear clothes, unless we are to be on a truly harsh world. When I mentioned the washing, I meant washing ourselves, Selena. Xer are very clean as you know," she nodded, "We like a bath, but it is wondrous to bathe with another who cares for us. But," she sighed in a dramatic way, "I know that you know everything worth knowing about us, and if you do not wish to have this fine male to bathe you, I will understand." "Hey!" Selena objected and Shaevre laughed and smiled up at Arrax. "Do you think that you can stand having us? We are like this often." "I cannot think of this in any other way," he smiled, "But I am still waiting, and I grow older while you both play." "Come on, Selena," Shaevre grinned, "we must both ask him, before we find that he has passed on and is only a pile of bones before us -- with the most important one missing. Take off your clothes, I do not know how this is done among humans, but I know that demons never make their choices wearing anything." "I have to be naked to ask?" Selena looked surprised. Shaevre rolled her eyes, "Yes, my heart, you wish to use all of your charms to help when you ask. That is why they are there or, one of the reasons why. If we have gotten this far with him, we can have a little expectation that he will accept us as his now. What do you think will happen when he says yes? Are we to stand and drink tea?" Selena blinked for a second, and then she was throwing her clothes off as quickly as she could while the others chuckled. She threw herself to her knees beside Shaevre again and looked up, nudging Shaevre. "What now?" Shaevre asked. "Offer us," Selena said, "You're the main bitch here." Shaevre groaned and Selena leaned forward, "Arrax, I don't know the words, but would you please accept me as your female? I -- I love you, and I want to be yours. Please be our male." "Selena speaks for my heart as well," Shaevre said, "We will walk with you as your females, a pack and a family to ourselves. We wish this and wait for your word." He nodded with a warm smile, "I cannot think why I am wanted by two such fine ones as much as I see. I accept and will do as I must for our pack, uh, ... family." The two females rose to stand against Arrax and he found himself in their arms. "It's alright, Arrax," Selena smiled, "I want you to use that word for us. I'm still the same girl that I was, just a little confused at all of the things that I seem to be as well. That doesn't matter, but what does matter very much, I've found after making love with Shaevre a few times, is that when I think of doing that now, I feel less like who I was, and more like one of you. It feels so much nicer to me like that, so this family that we're becoming, well, I don't mind at all if you call it a pack -- as long as I'm in it with you both." Their kisses between each other began then and after a few minutes, Selena heard Shaevre's whisper in her ear. "You have made me the main bitch. Do as I say now and begin to show our Arrax how we thank him for his kindness in accepting us both. Kneel and begin to love him with your mouth. It is not much different, I would think, but you need to learn to please him there. It is important. I will join you soon." Selena felt Shaevre's quick kiss on her ear and she nodded after breaking her kiss with Arrax. She knelt slowly, sliding her fingers against his hard body as she went. She took her time since, given how tall he stood, there was a lot of him to love. At last, she was on her knees looking at that hardness in front of her. She found that she had to kneel up fairly straight to have her mouth at the right level. She reached out and took his scrotum in her hand, trying to hold it and marveling at how large it was. It felt so heavy, she thought. She leaned forward and kissed the end of him softly, liking the warmth of it on her lips. This was what she'd wanted, she told herself; this was what she had just willingly traded for. She hadn't even had him inside of her yet, but she'd said the words that she felt so strongly and she'd allowed herself to become a Xer male's bitch. She knew what it meant. She knew that Xer choose their partners for life, if it was possible and with her words, she'd very likely just said goodbye to ever making love with a human or a demon again. From now on, she'd be pleasured by a large and very strong beast whose maleness resembled a larger and much thicker version of what she'd seen on wolves. And yet for all of that, Arrax had showed himself to be the most gentle sort of lover to her the previous night. She felt no hesitation. She wanted the kind of love that she knew that the Xer shared. She thought about that and saw them in that stupid daydream in an inn common room again. This time, she knew what they'd all think. They'd all know that she took one of these into her every night. She kissed it again and smiled as she looked at it. This was hers now. She opened her mouth and took him in with a little groan. She suddenly wouldn't have wanted it any other way. "See how eager she is to begin," Shaevre hissed into Arax' ear as she kissed him there, "She hungers for you just as I do. I give her much credit for this, trying to learn to be as one of us. She tells of never feeling so strongly as she does when she wraps that fine body around her Xer. You are her other Xer now. Wait until you feel that from her, it will surprise you. I love her so much, Arrax. You will find that she carries your heart away as easily as her little sister can capture you with one tiny hug. They have this magic to them. You cannot resist it. She defeats me with a single embrace each time. Treat her well, and you gain even more of my love for you." Selena saw Shaevre moving down to join her. After getting comfortable, Shaevre began to whisper into Selena's ear, "You do so well. I have only had one male fuck me, but this I learned to do on the streets where I grew up. With a little practice, you can get what you need from a male who has some coin, and if nothing else, the amount that a Xer gushes will give you a meal if you have nothing else to keep you alive. Watch me now." Selena leaned back with her arm over Shaevre's shoulder. It wasn't long before Shaevre began to moan a little and Selena saw her begin to squirm as well, so she reached down and ran her fingers over Shaevre's wet sex as she watched. She could tell that Shaevre had something of a repertoire of movements to use and tried to memorize what she saw. Shaevre stopped and kissed Selena for a moment, and Selena had Arrax in her mouth again as Shaevre slipped her long tongue under those heavy testicles for a moment before she pulled back to watch Selena a little more. Selena felt Shaevre's hand on her head a moment later. "He surely loves the way that you do this for him," Shaevre hissed, "but remember the fat part of him at the base. You wish to be a Xer bitch and you do so well, sweet one. Now think that you must reach out for that to squeeze with your lips a little. Shall I show you?" Selena released the shaft and before it had bobbed twice from Arrax' strong pulse, Shaevre had it once more. Selena watched in a little disbelief as Shaevre slid it between her softly closed lips, sucking gently as she took more and more of it in until her lips reached and opened to take the bulbous swell of the base in. Selena looked up and saw that Arrax' head was thrown back and she felt the groan from him in her hands. She hadn't even noticed that she was holding on to his hips until now. "My mouth isn't as deep as yours," she said quietly in a disappointed tone, "I can't do that." Shaevre pulled her head back and held the shaft to point it at Selena's mouth as she pushed her head forward gently, "I know this," she said as Selena's mouth opened and she began again, "but your throat is. Try anyway for our male. Allow it into your throat and fight the reflex if you can. Any male aches for this from his bitch, and look at the one that we share, Selena. There are thousands that I would not look at, but this one is worth a lot. He is the finest that I have ever seen. Think of your love for him and try." Selena pressed her face forward and little by little, she worked the tip against her reflex. Shaevre knew what was happening and she held Selena's head there gently, "Suck a little more, my heart. He is getting close. All that you need do is squeeze him as you saw me do and swallow when he releases. Reach for that hard knot with your sweet lips and give him bliss. Only a little more, Selena. You are so close. You must surely feel it against your lips." The pressure was still there on her head and Selena thought about what Shaevre said. She pressed forward and her lips found the swell. The last inch seemed like a mile as she rose on her knees more so that she could straighten her throat for him and then she had him, squeezing softly as she heard him roar out quietly. The shaft in her throat twitched and bucked, but Selena wasn't going to lose it now. She hung on determinedly in her joy at achieving this. "You have done it, my love, and I am so proud of you. He is surely done with his first gush now. Pull back a little and see. If he gives no more, then let him go and I will take a turn. Did you get any to taste?" "I don't think so," Selena said as she fought off the gag reflex, though it wasn't too bad. "I can taste a little." "Try to get some of the first," Shaevre said as she leaned in to kiss Selena, "Some like the first and some prefer the last for the taste. I like it all," she grinned as she moved her head to hold him in her mouth and suck him gently now. Nothing happened as Selena watched, and then Shaevre groaned and she could be seen swallowing the next gush from him. When she was done, she held it for Selena. "How many do you think we'll get from him?" Selena asked before taking her turn without waiting for an answer. "Certainly four and maybe six," Sheavre said, "He is a fine male. We would get more if he was fucking us. They always give more then, I think." ______________ Selena writhed as Arrax lay between her legs working her with that tongue. Shaevre grinned and ran her hand down Selena's hard belly and then back up over the ridges of her abdominals. She leaned over her and began to squeeze her breasts. "Until I saw Selena, I never had the thought of taking anything other than a Xer to my bed. Now, she is a part of me." She looked down at herself and saw that a little of Arrax' semen was leaking from her. She was a little surprised since she'd thought that Selena had gotten it all with her tongue not long after Arrax had put it in. She sat back on one haunch and with a little bit of a stretch, she licked it away herself. She thrilled to see the way that Selena's hips lifted up to wave up and down in the air a little in response to what Arrax did to her. "Such a sweet toy she has too. Do you think there is room for us both there, Arrax? We might work together to pleasure our girl, ..." Arrax nodded and they pushed Selena's legs farther apart. The two Xer began to lick and probe Selena feverishly, though they soon found that it worked best if they rolled Selena onto her side a little and divided the up the front and the back between them. They caressed her as much as they could and grew insistent in how they drove her with their tongues. Selena was on her face groaning incoherently for many minutes, stopping to shake and yell on occasion, though sometimes, she only lay with her eyes closed, saying "...fuck, ...oh, fuck..." The strange feeling that she'd had earlier in the day now returned to her in force. She didn't feel ill or anything other than different, and after a moment, she found that she felt better as she accepted the feeling. But there was something. She found her head at a slightly different angle, and when she tried to move it, her head moved vertically a little bit as well and she heard and felt a small thud against the floor plates of the skiff under the blankets that they'd put down when they'd begun to make love. She opened her eyes and her hand was in her field of view and she stared. It was red, a bright, full, vibrant shade of blood red. She wiggled her fingers and moved her hand, thinking that she was bleeding somehow, but she wasn't. Her hand was dry. Worse, she could see something else at the edges of her vision. She reached for her cheek and hit something hard with her hand, making her hand smart a tiny little bit and feeling the impact in her skull. Sheavre lapped between Selena's cheeks in happiness. She was delighted to do this for her lover and she loved the feel of Arrax' body against her as they lay facing each other while licking Selena. But she felt something move against her forehead which was most definitely not the cheek of Selena's flank. That was where it had been since they'd begun this in the way that they had. She opened her eyes and she saw ... red. While this had been going on, Arrax had noticed that his tongue had become constricted in Selena's channel -- even trapped once for a moment. But it slid free again and he lifted his head to look down. "What -- what's happening to me?" Selena wailed, "Shaevre, Arrax, ... help." She trailed off, feeling foolish since she wasn't bleeding or in any discomfort. Actually, she felt fine. Shaevre lifted herself up, feeling something slide down the fur of her back. She stared at Selena. Arrax gaped and whispered, "It has begun." The Xer looked at each other and then Selena was in their arms between them as they held her, asking what was wrong, and trying not to lose their eyes to the horns on Selena's head. Selena hissed once with her eyes squeezed tightly shut. "Where does it hurt you, my heart?" Shaevre asked, the first of her concerned and worried tears coming to her. "I don't know, I -- "She looked and almost bumped Arrax' chin with a horn. Selena groaned, "I have, ... a tail, a - and you're on it, Shaevre." Shaevre lifted herself and meant to move the tail, but it was moved as soon as her weight was off. Selena looked up, "Arrax? Is, ... is this what you told me about?" He nodded slowly, "Yes, it must be. You are as I saw you before. Is there pain?" Selena looked away, "No, I feel fine. I just feel ... different, as though all of me is tingling." She looked down at herself and gasped. Her body was very different like this, fuller, rounder in places, and there was the weight of fuller breasts there on her chest. Now Selena was frightened. She looked over, her face a mask of fear and worry, "Shaevre please," she said in a small voice, a little different as it seemed to want to settle a bit lower, "... tell me, I need the truth and you don't ever lie, am, ... am I ugly?" Shaevre sat with her mouth open as it had been for over a minute now and she slowly shook her head, "No Selena, you are still beautiful. But you are red. It is fading now and growing darker. You have that tail, and you have ... horns." "How many horns?" Selena raised her hand and began to feel, groaning a little as she found each one. "There are seven that I count, "Shaevre said, "but you are not ugly. Far from it. You are still very beautiful, only now you have a different kind of beauty." Selena turned to Arrax and he pulled his head back with a grimace from the way that her horn had hit his chin. "Sorry. Arrax, how do I look to you?" He smiled then, and Selena felt so much better, "You are just as I saw you, very lovely." "Looking at you," Shaevre said quietly, "I feel very primitive to see you. It makes me, ... want you. I have always wanted you, at any time, but here, like this, I want only to ..." Shaevre's world flashed by her as a blur in a background of Selena's low laughter. She found herself on her back, with Selena moving her legs apart. "Well that is good, lover," Selena heard herself chuckle low down in her throat, "Because I want you the same way." Shaevre looked up in confusion and alarm, "Selena? Are you alright?" "I'm fine," Selena laughed softly, wondering at the sound of her voice as well now, "I'm not crazy, I don't think, any more than I ever was, I guess. I just ... I felt your thoughts as you spoke and I want you so much now. I love you," she said as she began to rub her mound against Shaevre's. It was the familiar feel to Shaevre and she rocked her hips back to pull Selena into a better position for them both but another change became apparent then. Every other time, Selena had been forced to stretch to kiss Shaevre. Now she could do it easily. They both groaned as they humped. "Your skin is turning redder again," Arrax said as he watched them. Selena nodded and she suddenly slid a little lower down on Shaevre, who reached for her to pull her up again, thinking that this had been accidental. "No Shaevre," Selena grunted a little. "Wait a moment." Shaevre nodded, not knowing what it was that she was waiting for, but then she felt it, something moving a little between them. She grew a little alarmed and was about to push Selena off when she felt that something slip just inside of her and it felt nice to her as it grew. Selena began to shift this from a little humping to something much more like fucking. A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 27 "You're -- fucking me!" Shaevre smiled, "That's so nice, ... what is it that you're doing?" "I think that it's my nub, the one that you love to tease with your tongue and kiss with your lips, the same one. It feels bigger now, so ..." "It feels good to me, Selena, so don't stop. What you have there is not large, but it feels sweet to me to be fucked like this by you." Arrax sat astounded as he watched. "Spread your legs a little for a moment," he said as he moved a little and looked to see what he could, "I cannot tell how long it is, but I can see at least this much as you thrust, " the two females looked over at him for a moment, he held his fingers a little over three inches apart. They fucked like that for over twenty minutes, and Shaevre came twice in that time. Selena came only once, but from the sounds that she'd made then, Shaevre knew that it was heartfelt and she felt quite proud. As Selena got back onto her knees, they all looked at her clitoris, as enlarged and angry-looking as it appeared to them. As they stared, it moved a little as it shrank, as though it was seeking Shaevre's vulva again. Finally, it was just as Shaevre knew it to be. "It looks sore, "Shaevre said, "Does it hurt you like that?" "A little," Selena replied, "but I would love to do that all over again with you." She looked at her arm, "I thought that you said that my skin was redder." "It was," Arrax nodded, "the whole time that you were with Shaevre, it was almost glowing bright." Selena looked at Arrax and she grinned, "I cannot believe that I was about to forget my other mate," she smiled hungrily, "I want my male in me now." She got onto her hands and knees, moving around the cramped cargo area of the skiff as though she was a large predatory cat who had found herself in a small place and couldn't stop circling. Her tail flicked and twitched as she went around a few times, but she did stop eventually, with her haunches pointing directly at Arrax, her hips moving suggestively and the end of that tail caressing her own lips as she leaned down low with her arms out in front of her. "Come to me, Arrax. I'm to live in a pack with you and Shaevre and I want to be fucked by a male, my male who I share with her." She moaned low and growled in a voice that sounded a little pained in the desire which it carried, "I need to be fucked like I've never been fucked in my life before. Come and mount me." Arrax moved forward, his maleness standing out in front of him where it had been since she'd begun to move her hips to him. He sank to all fours himself and Selena whined a little as she felt that amazingly long tongue against her again. She looked back. What she saw made her cry out in joy to see Arrax on his hands and knees as he licked and nuzzled against her. She reached back and rubbed his head, laughing at the way that it caused him to snarl a little. She laughed and rubbed him again before she turned away to present her sex to him fully. He rose on his knees and grabbed her hips as he thrust against her. He seemed to be having a little difficulty and worked to find a solution as his hands grasped her ribs a little tightly to hold her still, but she didn't mind it at all as she tried to buck back against him. The hardness that she felt rubbed against her for a few seconds and then he was inside her, pounding at her as hard as he could, even though the angle wasn't the best. There was no nicety to this at all, and Selena didn't care. She was a little amazed at the sounds which came from her throat. Shaevre moved to the other side of the pair and she watched with her mouth open. "He is very near to all the way in now," she said in a quiet and awe-filled voice, "soon, he will give you everything." Selena felt a little frantic at her slight frustration. Everything was what she wanted from him. It was what she needed now, but this position placed her solely at the whims of his body's motion, and they didn't really fit. This was uncomfortable for her, she almost had to stand on her toes bent over and legs bent. It had to be uncomfortable for him as well. Then she felt the widening as the base began to hit her and she groaned in pleasure. When he was fully inside of her, Selena howled and shrieked in her joy. The orgasm was full and satisfying, but it came too fast and she knew that she wasn't built for him like this. He was so much larger physically than she was. Besides that, he wouldn't stop for her to savor it, and that was what she wanted now. "Stop Arrax, "she said, "I want to change things a little." He slowed and then stopped. When she looked back, Arrax looked confused as he eased her down. "I am sorry, I --" "Not your fault," Selena smiled as she moved away and sat down on one hip, her tail flicking one of her nipples. "I know that you can't finish like that. I'm too small and you have to hold me almost in the air. I found a little bliss, but I want you to enjoy my body too." He watched as she lowered her head, her long tongue sliding down her front to lick herself. This was very different from the way that a female Xer would do it. There was no stretching for her at all and he saw her eyes as they watched him the whole time. He was rock hard again in seconds. Selena grinned, "In fact, I've just given myself an idea." She leaned back and lay down on the floor, planting her feet on the floorplates and raising her hips as she did. Arrax was mesmerized as he watched the way that she moved her bare lips before him. She bucked a little as her tail rose up to help her once more. "Let's try again, Arrax. You're too good to see and feel against my body. One touch from you and I want to melt into you. Move up on your knees again and take me. Make me yours the way that you own Shaevre already. I want to be a part of this pack and until you take me and we finish, I feel so lost." He moved forward and it almost broke his heart to see her like that and she offered herself in more than words as her hips bobbed at him a little. "Help me," her sad little voice came to him, "Help me Arrax, make me yours too." She sighed, sounding a little as though she was in the throes of a fever and suffering, "It is not fair," she moaned, "All that I want is to be in a pack of Xer as one of them. I love you both so much. Why can't I have this? Am I just too small, or -- or am I aching for a male who is too large for me?" Her head lolled from side to side listlessly, "I need this," she moaned, "I need to belong to you both, or I will ruin much in my want." She sobbed, "I have never belonged anywhere." Arrax slid his knees underneath her haunches and as he rose up, he aligned himself and slid inside of her slowly. As his shaft went in, her hips hitched and bucked in tiny motions as she welcomed him inside of her. He rolled further onto his knees as he took her hips in his hands again and began while her legs wound around him. The angle was a little off for them both, but his eyes opened as he watched her correct it for them as she forced her pelvis forward. Arrax stared, looking at the way that he held her and how the rest of her incredible body lay limp before him in the floor. He wondered if she was insane or unconscious for the way that she lay still. He was relieved to see her head loll from side to side again as her skin grew brighter red. "Fuck me," she said smiling at nothing, "Fuck me as hard as you want to. I love you both so much." But he didn't. He felt her sadness in her and so he made love to her instead. Selena began to cry bittersweet tears as she felt his hands moving over her body. "Sheavre," he called softly, "Help me to love our sweet girl here. She begs to be loved, I can feel it." Shaevre moved closer and she leaned down and began to coo softly to Selena as she kissed her, telling her how beautiful she was and how they loved her, touching Selena's body in gentle caresses all the while. "You belong to us, Selena. You are as much a part of the pack as I am. We need you too." They looked at each other and wept a little, happy to have this love with Arrax. He carefully slid his hands under the middle of her back to balance her so that Shaevre had access to all of Selena's front. Shaevre began to kiss the immaculate body in front of her, wanting to worship it at the same time. Her travels took her all the way to where Arrax worked steadily to plough Selena gently, but deeply and well. The swell at the bottom of his shaft kissed up against Selena's lips and he held it there for a split second to wiggle a little against her every few strokes. Shaevre stretched her tongue and licked there as much as she could. "Can you feel me, Selena?" As the feeling inside of her grew, Selena's abdominal muscles tightened and rippled for them. When Shaevre moved back to allow a little more room, she stared along with Arrax as Selena rose up from a position where she'd lain with the upper part of her body limp against the floor to one where she hung horizontally for a moment, her body as stiff as iron. He hadn't even felt her weight shift, she'd just levitated upward and her hand flashed out to Shaevre to pull her close. "Shaevre, "she hissed into the Xer's ear, "Something is wrong. He will give me all that he has for the moment very soon. I feel this by knowing it, but it will not be enough. I will need more -- much more. I -- I ache for male essence now, it's what I need, ... She grabbed onto Shaevre's mane and whispered desperately. Shaevre's head was turned and she was looking right into Arrax' eyes and she saw it. He knew what Selena was asking, begging for her to do. He nodded, "She is like no other Crowned One that I have read about. Look at how she holds herself up. This is not me -- it is her alone." Selena lifted herself higher and Arrax settled down a little to fit her better. Selena stared into his eyes as she humped against him with serpentine motions of her spine to whip her hips into him. She didn't blink once as he stared so lost in the eyes of the demon. They shuddered together for a moment as her orgasm came to her, but Selena was determined now. This was what she wanted. Somewhere inside of herself, she knew that right now, this change was not complete and she needed it more than she needed to breathe - and he had more to give her. ------------------ Shaevre ran down the long corridors, seeking. She found them all sitting in the bar again, drawing up a few plans as Nahl'een chased Sariel through the air in the larger cavern, shrieking in laughter. The adults stared at Shaevre when she forced herself to say it. "Selena, ..." she puffed a little, "Selena has changed and she becomes a Merren demon -- the highest sort -- Arrax said, and she needs. She cannot ask for herself, but she needs much." "What does she need?" Dahlgren asked, feeling concern for the rogue rising up in him instantly. He knew what this was, and from what he'd learned, studying what the Merren masters had said was forbidden to know, her power came anyway, but it needed tempering or, ... Shaevre's gaze didn't waver. She looked at them all and said it. "She has turned into a Crowned One as Arrax predicted, and he said that they often seek and take Xer to give them their strength and calm them the first time, but she is more than he knew possible and he and I will not be enough. She needs males, or she will hunger and rage." They tried to sit her down, but she refused, saying that if this didn't happen, then her strength would be needed soon to restrain Selena. They had a quick discussion, mostly out of disbelief, but gradually, they understood. "What is this?" Azrael asked Dahlgren. "A Crowned One is the thing that the Merren fear more than anything. They can come close to tearing a world apart," Dahlgren said, "Once they come into their own, they always destroy Merren order and kill the High Councils." Àzrael smiled, "How is that a bad thing, exactly?" Dahlgren shook his head as he looked over at the others, "But that's when they've been tempered and calmed. The females are the most powerful, and if she's what Arrax said, then this mountain would be less than a thought to her to destroy. I learned a bit about them. They are only like this when they've just been made, and they can control this easily -- after they get the strength that they need from others. Selena will still be Selena -- I think -- but now she needs, as Shaevre said. When a male one of them appears on Merr, they just fuck every female that they can grab before they calm down and begin to tear Merren government apart at every level. The females don't kill the ones that they grab but they have the same need." Cha'Khah stood up with Rachel and walked to the door, but they turned to Azrael and Vadren and nodded, "Selena is one of us," Rachel said, "Do what she needs." Cha'Khah nodded her agreement to Vadren, "I hold her as a dear friend already. We have already lost Faith. Do what she needs, cousin, and help her as you can." She tried to put her light-hearted stamp on it anyway as she grinned, "You might learn something new and I insist that you tell me everything later. For that, I might give you a night to regain your strength yourself as I listen." "Not likely," Vadren said as he stood. "No," she agreed with a laugh, but she turned to Shaevre, "I wish to have my male back after this." Shaevre nodded. Nahl'een came to the pair of females a little curiously with Sariel in answer to their calls, and she found herself being picked up by the Drow who offered a warm smile, "I have been watching you for a time," she said, "It is said that you seize and hold the hearts of those who come to find themselves loving you. Well I am now one of those and I think that the time has come for me to accept another young pupil for my teaching. I can see that you have ability, but I think that one day, you will need what I can teach you. Come Sariel, let us teach your pretty friend some of the ways of Drow fighting together and Rachel can begin to show her what a demon girl must know how to do to fight as well." In the bar, they all stood up, a little slowly and in a good deal of confusion to follow Shaevre. Shaevre put her hand up onto Dahlgren's chest and leaned to whisper into his ear, "Selena asks that you do not come -- she is in the throes of this change, but she already feels shame for it and begs that you stay away. Unless she needs one more, she could not bear it if you saw her this way." She leaned in a little more and kissed his cheek softly, "From her for your understanding. This was not what we planned and we see now that it cannot work as we all wanted. Selena does care for you, Dahlgren. I say this as one who loves her and it is truth. She always has. Right now, she cannot help herself and is driven from inside her. She begs that you do not come. She just could not bear the shame for what she needs if you were there to see her like that." He nodded, and walked past Shaevre without a word to watch his daughter and the others as Rachel and Cha'Khah began to teach Nahl'een, mostly because it was time for her to know a little about using what she had been given, but also to keep the young ones from being too curious. ------------------------- Selena didn't know why, but Arrax's words to her about Crowned Ones wanting Xer for their mates made perfect sense to her now. As she came to understand what even Arrax did not know, her skin began to glow softly. She writhed against him harder and to him, it was a little painful, the way that her pubic bone ground against him. She saw it and she felt what he felt through him but she didn't stop. She couldn't stop. All that she knew was that this was how the Xer did it, though perhaps not in this position. She'd seen it when Arrax had claimed Shaevre as his and she'd taken him as well. They'd stared into each other's eyes then and said nothing while their hearts screamed. They lay claim to the ones that they love if they were anything higher than the lowest sort of Xer. She had already claimed Shaevre and they were bound for their lives together, but what had begun as a love had to go beyond that now. Selena already belonged to Shaevre as well. Now she needed to belong to Arrax. They knew nothing of her reasons, other than it was the way that they all loved each other. Selena alone knew the true reason why Crowned Ones often took Xer for their mates. It was to keep their spirits still by loving them hard and often the first time. After that, the way was clear for the emotion of love, but the first time, they needed so much. She was saddened to think of her desire to actually be accepted as a Xer falling away from her. It was what she'd wanted so much, but there were only two here, and she wouldn't ruin that for them as she'd ruined other things. Selena closed her eyes and just fucked for a time, reveling in the strength of the feeling from this powerful male. She opened her eyes before the garage door opened. She knew that the other males had come, and she knew that they were likely very confused, but this was what she needed, and she'd fix their confusion for them. She also knew that Dahlgren was not among them, but she wasn't sure why just yet. Selena didn't know about all of the other sorts of creatures in the universe, but she knew one truth: If a pair of Xer, a powerful male demon and a Drow mage couldn't love her into a puddle, there was no one who could. She had a silent hope that she wouldn't need to send Shaevre for Dahlgren. She supposed that she ought to be feeling rather supreme and powerful herself, but she already didn't like this since it was just one more thing which would stand between her and the male that ... She pushed the thought away angrily. Another thing ruined. Her self-control began to fade before Arrax' eyes as he still looked into hers. Her eyeballs twitched a little and then they rolled right back into her head. His mouth fell open as he watched her body turn a bright salmon color as Selena's breath began to whistle in and out of her. Shaevre moved close by and her kiss against Selena's cheek almost earned her a black eye from the horn which hit her as Selena snapped her face around in her hunger for that kiss. Shaevre pulled back to get out of the way, and then she leaned forward, seizing Selena's head and kissing her as hard as they both needed. But Selena came then and Shaevre backed away as her lover wailed and shrieked, leaning back and thrashing against Arrax at an impossible angle. She was against him with her legs around him, but her body floated out from him horizontally, and her head hung down backward, every artery in her throat showed visibly as it throbbed to her wild pulse. Her stomach rippled and her breasts seemed to move a little by themselves and Shaevre moved forward again to cup and squeeze those lovely tits. As soon as she did, Selena turned her head and Shaevre moaned loudly as Selena's long tongue flashed out of her mouth to slip right into her, one side dragging hard against her clitoris as the rest made an impossible right turn to slide deeply inside of the Xer female. Selena looked crazed as she fucked Arrax frantically, her slender shoulders rolling from left to right and back. Shaevre watched as Arrax seemed to rise up a little and he bellowed as his orgasm ripped into him. Selena fell backwards and Arrax seemed to hunch over her as their little world in the back of the skiff crashed to a sudden stop. The rest of them stood and stared as Arrax held onto Selena tightly and they could all see it as he pumped into her again and again. She waited, knowing the way that Xer finish and she mewled to him softly whenever he sent a little more into her. Finally, he eased her to the floor carefully and got to his feet to step away. A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 27 Selena looked around at them all and grinned, including Shaevre, "My four lovers," she growled a little low in her throat, "Thank you." She laid herself down and writhed on her back, waiting. With a careful thought from her, they lost the last of their inhibitions. She ran her hands over her breasts, leaving one there and sliding the other down to her wet sex, "Come fuck one like you've never had in your lives." Azrael was the first after that and Selena held him tightly as he took her. She looked up and was so taken with him for his masculine beauty and she couldn't keep her hands from his demon skin, watching the muscles above her move. She knew that they were here to help her and to her, it was no small thing that they'd come. She constricted her channel around Azrael tightly out of her consideration. As he began to pound her demonic ass hard into the blanket-covered floor plates, things in the skiff began to shake and rattle from the force of his strength. Selena felt herself nearing her peak and she hung onto him as tightly as she could when he eased himself down onto her and raced to his own finish. She stroked his hard back softly, trying not to dig her fingers into his flesh. Her head went back and her eyes rolled back into her head again as she came so suddenly and hard, howling in her joy to receive more male essence to join and mix with her own. As they lay there gasping, she pulled his head down, and whispered into his ear, thanking him and making her own offer to him then, "Fuck me three more times in your turn, and I will bless you for your female's kindness to me and for your own. She is already blessed and she knows it to have one like you for her heart, as are you to have her for yours." He lifted his head and thanked her as well, and then Selena was surprised at the tenderness that she felt from his kiss on her lips. When Azrael stood up, Selena looked at Vadren and grinned, "The legend," she smiled in a whisper of awe, "Come and please me, mage, and we will see what magic we can make together. You will need no other wand or staff besides your own fine one there." A little to her surprise, what she felt from him was more than a little enthusiasm. Vadren was looking forward to this and it made Selena throw back her head and laugh in joy. She allowed it as she took him when he said his incantations. They were instantly writhing together in a bed of fragrant flower petals, and she reveled in his affections. She felt his hands on her everywhere * as she lay on her back on him being banged for all that he was worth, but then she looked down at herself and saw that his hands were holding her -- it was just a sincere touch that he'd added, the other ghostly ones that she felt caressing her so wonderfully. But they didn't remain like this for long and Selena knew why because she felt it from him. He loved to fuck like this, and he had more than enough length and girth for it, but what he really loved to do then was show his female that he cared and that she was his for the moment in this by reaching around her neck from behind if she was the right size for it and kissing her neck and throat to say it. Her horns precluded his gesture and she sighed, wanting to feel that now. She asked to change their positions out of consideration for him and it was a thrill to her to be taken on her side, face-to-face by the handsome Drow. She wrapped herself around him and cooed to him in her bliss -- he was so good to have inside of her and she wondered, since she could feel how many females that he'd had, how any single one of them could love with him like this and then watch as he got up to leave at the end of it. She was sure that in her past life as a rogue, to see that body leaving her would cause her to cry quietly -- and hate him if he never came back to do it again. Selena came three times with Vadren this time, twice very softly as she felt how much he had in his heart for someone, and the second time that she came, it was with small tears in her eyes as some foretelling of his future came to her. She knew what his lovely female meant to him for all of their jokes and fighting. She saw that he'd lose her to another, and she knew that he'd be happy for her, but then she saw him alone for a time afterward and the look on his face when he was alone was something that she hated to see, for a face like Vadren's shouldn't ever look like that, she thought. She knew something then with certainty. If she'd never met the others and she'd stumbled upon Vadren, he was the sort of quiet male that someone like her could hold herself against forever and be happy for it. But that wasn't in their cards, and so Selena whispered her secret for only him to hear before she wrapped her limbs around him even more tightly and her internal muscles clenched on him to make him fuck her harder once more and they cried out together, her eyes rolling back again as she took what he gave to her. Each time -- for the first three times that she had either Vadren or Azrael inside of her, she whispered something for only that one to hear as her thanks to them for this and for filling her with their fine seed. She planned to show Arrax and Shaevre what they meant to her afterward, but for now, for the males that had been leant to her for her need, she told secrets for only them to know. He stood and looked a little dazed as he considered what she'd said to him. Selena didn't look at him as she held out her open arms to Shaevre and they were loving together a few seconds later as though it was their first time. She had them all, over and over, four times each, and her favorite time was when Azrael and Vadren took her together and she was stuck between them shuddering almost constantly, screaming for everything that they could give to her. Shaevre stood with Arrax as they watched in amazement. "How much more?" she asked in a whisper, but before he could answer, they saw her looking at them over Azrael's shoulder as she cried out when she felt Vadren coming and Azrael so very near to it at the same time, "Just one more," she hissed through her gritted teeth, "I want my mighty Xer again!" After that, they saw her eyes roll upward again and she moaned her thanks to the males who she loved with at the moment. Shaevre was on her knees, working and sucking to get Arrax ready for the last lap when Selena came to her and kissed her neck as her hand slid down between Shaevre's long thighs, "I am afraid that our little plans for marriage have been changed under our feet," she cooed softly with regret, "I think that I will always need you, my beautiful lover, but I think that I see that while we will stay close to each other, our lovings will not be as often as before." Shaevre pulled her head back and she kissed Selena briefly, "I know. I will always love you, Selena." Selena reached up to take Arrax in her hand and stroke him, "I will never stop loving either of you," she smiled earnestly, "just not often." She stood up and reached for Arrax. "Come, " she said, "love me once more, Arrax. It is your seed that I ache for now." She laid herself down and beckoned to him, so he sank to his knees once more. But he stared as he watched her rise from the floor with nothing under her, reaching down to find him with her hand to align herself and she was on him then, impaled and writhing so blissfully and slowly, enjoying this and making it last for them both as the thickest part of him, that wonderful love knot which the Xer have for their females kissed up against her lips and parted them wetly. They were lost in each other then, the others in the back of the skiff forgotten then and Arrax saw nothing but her against a backdrop of green rolling fields and sunshine as they copulated, meaning it, and gradually allowing their need to overtake them. Arrax knew what this was and he matched her in his emotions, because he knew that in a very real sense, she wasn't saying good bye so much as she would be saying so long for at least a time. He took a deep breath and began to plough her hard, both of them crying out now and then as they continued. The three were alone again, Azrael and Vadren had gone quietly a few minutes before. This time when it came to them, their climax was almost silent, but that took nothing away from its power for them both. Shaevre backed away a little and her eye took in a lot of details. Selena was almost white-hot in the throes of their spasms -- him giving and her taking from him. She saw the way that her friend's pelvis was at that crazy downward angle once again, her legs sticking straight out to either side of Arrax, twitching in tiny motions. She knelt staring at Selena's left big toe as it twitched and curled slowly over and over. As she watched, a little mesmerized, she heard a sound like a flag unfurling. The sound seemed incongruous there and not seeing a cause, she discarded it as her eyes took in other things in this long moment. Selena's knees bent slowly until her calves and feet hung limply in the air above the floor. Shaevre felt a lot of awe for the power of their male as he almost sat on his haunches holding Selena to him tightly. He seemed to blur a little now and then. She'd just never seen a noble Xer as he ejaculated before. It came to Shaevre as a shock that it happened because that was when he filled her again and again in the way of their kind; a male only came once if he was either very young or very old or sick. What was normal for them was up to a dozen spasms or more, spaced out over perhaps ten to twenty minutes. But noble Xer males seemed to vibrate because they came so hard if it was meant. She thought back to when he'd taken her, and she smiled as she remembered it. He'd done it then as well. What was remarkable to her was that, as far as she knew, males didn't usually achieve orgasm when they were hunched over like this, or at least, they preferred not to. She stood up a little and she walked around them for a better view. She saw Selena's eyes open wide and staring into nothing above her. They were almost perfect in their motionlessness, but not quite so. They twitched a little as well. It happened just when Arrax growled each time that he sent more of his seed into Selena. For her part, the only sounds that she made were a tiny gasp and a tight little gurgle in her throat whenever he did it. After it was over, Selena sighed in a whispering sort of way until the next one. From where she stood bent over, Shaevre could see that Arrax' lips were against Selena's flesh just on the muscles of her shoulder. From what she knew of her own anatomy, there was only one way that his mouth could be open that wide against her skin so that his lips could lie relaxed against her. Shaevre stood up and waited through another four of his contractions. It brought her count to ten. Selena's skin was passing through red and into a deep purple now. It was fading a little in its intensity as well. Shaevre sighed as she leaned against the back of a crew seat. For good or ill, maybe their lover was going to get her wish and become a Xer herself. As he'd given in to his feelings in the middle of his passion, Arrax had bitten Selena. She looked down then and she saw the source of the strange noise a little earlier. Selena's transformation was complete. The sound had been her wings falling back onto the floor. They glistened wetly to her in the dim light of the skiff's interior. She bent down next to Arrax' ear, "If you have killed her with this," she whispered to him in their language, "I don't know if I could forgive you." She saw his eyes regain their focus and they watched her for a long moment. He released Selena's shoulder and looked up, speaking to her strictly in their tongue, "She will not die from the bite which marks her as ours, my heart. It takes much more than that to kill a Crowned One or the Merren would have used Xer to kill their destroyers in the same way that they have always used us to deal with the things which they think themselves too good to soil their hands with. " Shaevre hissed as she saw the depth of the bite and how quickly the blood began to run. She sighed, at least Selena wasn't already dead. She knelt down and cradled Selena's horned head, "Are you alright, Selena? Can you hear me?" Selena blinked twice and her eyes found Shaevre. She smiled, "You are so lovely, Shaevre, even upside down." But her expression turned to one of concern as Shaevre burst into tears and hid her face by laying her forehead down against Selena's as she cried. "What's wrong, Shaevre? Have I done something wrong?" The Xer shook her head, "You've been bitten!" The rest was unintelligible as she bawled. Everything seemed so surreal to Selena today, and this had to be the peak of it; her grim fighter crying like a child. Arrax eased her down and he backed away to sit with his back to a panel as he looked, feeling more than a little honor at what he and Sheavre had done. Selena felt the place where she noticed the discomfort and she raised her hand, passing over the place as though brushing off a bit of dirt. The wound was gone. Only the mark of the bite remained. It wasn't even a scar; it became a pattern in her skin before their eyes. "Oh this," she smiled a little sheepishly, "Other than his mark on me just like the one that he put on you, I'm fine." She looked from one to the other, "This is the same as a ring to Xer, isn't it?" Shaevre nodded, "They are hard to see on us because of the fur, but another Xer sees them instantly. The marks last as long as the love. If we lose this pairing, it will fade in little time." She glowered at Arrax a little, "I could have marked her as well, Arrax. She has taken me to the same height in my passion, but I managed to keep my fangs out of her flesh. I am a little angry over the fear that I felt that she would die. I know you in all other things, my love, I just didn't know how strong the drive is to mark what is yours." "Ours," he corrected, "and I'm sorry that I upset you." "Ours," Shaevre said in the Xerian tongue. "Ours?" Selena asked in the same tongue and they smiled at her, "Yes," Shaevre nodded, "You are whatever you have become now, but you belong to a pair of Xer who love you, as we belong to you. We know that things must be different, but, ..." Shaevre smiled so warmly as she said the Xerian phrase for it. "Our hearts are yours and our den will always have a warm place for you to lie with us." "But what happened? I must admit that I know little more than the Xer things in what came to you," Arrax said. Selena smiled, "Then I'll explain what I know -- what came to me in the middle of it all in a minute. What is that smell?" "Your wings have come to you," Shaevre said, "They are wet and there is a little blood." ------------------ "So that's why these Crowned Ones need Xer. It comes from when the Xer were closer to demons. There is a purpose, a very old purpose. One like me can never trust a Merren to mate with while I draw the strength to hold this back on me and I needed your vast strength and toughness. I also needed the drive and power of what I got from Azreal and the ethereal knowledge that I took from Vadren along with his sweet way of loving. It wasn't my intent, and I didn't know it then, but I think I need you both a lot more than I thought, and I'm happy now. I've never been so happy in that way. I heard what you both said. If you still mean it, it feels really wonderful to belong." "We meant everything, words which are said only to other Xer who are close to our hearts," Shaevre said, sniffling, "But you were bitten. Abominations die. I don't want to lose you." Selena hugged Shaevre for a moment, "Stop crying, or Arrax will have to open the ramp to save us from drowning. I am sure that it won't harm me any more than his passionate bite has harmed you. You're Xer, and I'm, ... something which needs them. When you and I were fucking, Sheavre, I wanted to bite you so much, and I almost bit Arrax as we looked into each other's eyes. I sure hope that I don't have any more revelations waiting for me, but there is one that I'm pretty certain of." She looked at them a little uncertainly, "I can now speak Xerian, and I know much more than that. How deeply do you want me in this pack of ours? Would you both bear my marks on you? Because you may not have a choice. We have mated with each other since I changed, and fluids have been exchanged. I know what I felt with each of you. We have touched," she pointed to her breast. "You both may never be able to return to Xer again, ever." Arrax jaw opened in realization, "I would bear your mark with pride." He turned to Shaevre, "Selena thinks that we may become horned from this." Shaevre nodded, "I as well, as long as we all live through it. I would bear it proudly to be seen as belonging to you both." Selena sniffed again, "Gah! I can't stand me. Arrax, could you please open the ramp? I want a little fresh air." As the ramp whined down, Selena got to her feet and walked out down it. She stood on the cold concrete floor and she flexed her wings carefully. The mess on her wings rose from her in a thin cloud of mist and dust and then she smiled at them, "A few days and a little quiet practice, and I'll have a big surprise for my little sister the next time that she makes faces at me from one of the high catwalks in there." She shook herself as though she was imitating a dog, and she stood as she'd been all of her life up to now. With a careful thought, she was horned again. She looked down. The purple had faded to a bluish-gray and it had grown pale. There were a few patterns to her skin now. She shrugged, "I'd kind of like this better if it would stop. I'd just like to be one color for a while. So really, I look alright?" Arrax smiled and beckoned to her. As she walked back up the ramp, he opened a crew locker. There was a mirror on the inside surface of it. Selena stared at herself for a long time, her fingers running over the horns which ran alongside her cheeks. "You know that she is just like those birds which they sell as pets, "Shaevre muttered to Arrax, "We will be here for hours as she looks at herself." "My hearing has improved too," they heard Selena say, "but it makes me happy to hear you. You're not upset anymore." She walked back down the ramp and went to the outer doors. They swung open for her and she walked out into the sunshine of a bright winter afternoon. Shaevre and Arrax walked out to follow her. "As far as I know," Shaevre said as they stared, "those doors are charmed by Azrael. How did she get them to obey her?" "She wears the horned crown," Arrax said, "There is much that she's always had and never knew." They walked after her and saw her as she stood regarding a low stump a little ahead of her. "I worked so hard with Shaevre to clear this and make room so that you could land here," she said to Arrax over her shoulder, "I must have tripped over this thing a dozen times, and I couldn't get it out any better than this." The wood of the stump groaned and creaked as it was torn out of the ground slowly to rise hovering in the air while she held it there with her mind for a moment. Then it was nothing more than a cloud of yellow sawdust raining down to land on the ground. Selena turned and they walked back inside. The loading door raised shut behind them when Arrax hit the button on the bulkhead of the skiff. Inside the skiff once more, Selena was very pointed about it and they tried it again carefully, until they'd worked out a way for him to mount her from behind, but after a quick and satisfying orgasm for herself, she was just as pointed and insistent that Shaevre finish him this time. "I only needed to make sure there was a way." A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 28 ***This bit happens concurrently as Selena struggles with herself and feels badly for what she was driven to do. 0_o ----------------- Book of the Merren Part 15 They walked back together holding hands. Nahl'een was the first to see them as she stood with Sariel. She wasn't looking, but when they got within a certain distance, Nahl'een just felt something and turned her head. She stared for a moment and then she was off flying to her sister as fast as she could go, and calling out her name. Nahl'een gasped and came closer when she'd landed, "Selena? You look, ..." Then she was against Selena and crying a little. Selena dropped to one knee to comfort her sister, but Nahl'een smiled through her tears, "You look like Mother now, but with horns and wings, and ... not sick. I remember now. You just like Mother." Selena smiled warmly and she let her sister slip her arms around her neck as she picked her up. She looked at Nahl'een, "I love you so much, Sis." Nahl'een hugged Selena tightly and they smiled to each other. "I love you SO much, Selena." The older sister smirked, "I'm not gonna even start that with you today, cutie. We just get silly with it, don't we? Telling each other that we love each other SOOOO much." "Ah-hah," Nahl'een grinned, "that's why I like it." "Hey, how come you're the only one who doesn't bang into my horns when you hug me?" The girl shrugged, "Not know." She reached over Selena's shoulder and touched one of her wings, "Sis is cave bat now like Nah'leen." "You have the same skin color now," Arrax said. Selena looked, "Yeah. That is, if it stays like this. I need a bath in the worst way." "I miss when you give me baths," Nahl'een said, "Not have bath like that anymore. I miss your stories. If you have bath, I can come? I can teach you how to wash wings, Selena. I can help you now." Selena leaned back and laughed, "You have the best ideas sometimes." She set her sister down and held out her hand, "Come on, Sis, let's go and you can teach me now." Nahl'een beamed and took Selena's hand. They set off together like that, and the others watched as they walked away, laughing and joking. "I like that," Shaevre smiled, "I have always liked how they are between them, since they found each other as sisters. Now they look like sisters, or like a mother and her girl, maybe. It is nice to see." --------------------- After dinner that evening as the children chased each other through the air of the main cavern, Selena was absent though she came in after the Vadren and Azrael had gone and sat for a brief time as they'd all known her before, since none of her clothes would fit her otherwise. The other females listened to her well watered-down and vanilla version of events. She let them all draw their own conclusions and she sat looking very embarrassed when she was done. Dahlgren was also not there. "I'm sorry for turning into a raging slut like that," she said with a quick look around, "It wasn't something that I could help and I'm very thankful that I had people who cared enough about me, both to do what I needed and also, I'm thankful to you two for allowing me to borrow your males." She pulled out her chair, "If you'll excuse me, I'd like to be alone now." Shaevre looked up, but Selena shook her head, telling her that she really wanted to be alone. She was gone before any of the others could really react. Cha'Khah put her hand on Rachel's, "I am going to speak with her. Selena feels shame for everything, and I do not think that it is deserved." Rachel shook her head, "Give her a little time first. She wants to be alone, we just have to go to her before she starts to wallow in it." After that, Arrax spoke of what he knew of the sort of being that Selena had always been and never knew about. --------------------- Shaevre found Selena and took her outside for their walk where she saw Dahlgren by Faith's grave. When she returned alone, Selena went for a walk, heading away to the maintenance areas, since she knew that they were usually deserted. She was still a long way from them when her tears began over the shame that she felt. Selena looked at the dark surface of the water in one of the underground lakes. She didn't know what she'd gotten out of her wanton display -- half of the time, she was as surprised as anyone else at the sorts of things which had come out of her mouth. She thought back to when her life was simpler and she was only a poor thief whose only trouble was trying to stay ahead of the law while using it to her advantage and wondering how she was going to keep herself and her horse fed over the winter. What the hell had she become? She squirmed a little uncomfortably. Even the bath hadn't gotten out all of the semen that she'd been filled with. Hours later, and she could still feel it. About the only good thing that she could think of was that as what she was now, she was very aware that there was no egg in her on its way to her womb from her ovaries. She'd been given conscious control over when she conceived as a part of this. All that she'd need was a virile male, if she wanted to spawn. Selena avoided everyone for the next few days. On the third evening, she was back, looking at the dark water, and thinking that she felt a little better. She didn't notice the others right away as they approached her from a long way down the corridor. But she heard it as Shaevre whispered her name softly, and as she turned, she found herself in the Xer's arms being hugged and kissed right in front of Rachel and Cha'Khah, who plainly didn't think anything about it. "We wanted you to know," Rachel smiled, "that we don't think anything bad about what happened to you a few days ago." Cha'Khah nodded, "It was what had to happen, Arrax told us." She smiled, "We are all females, Selena, and neither Rachel or I are so worried about losing our males over this that we would look on you with anything other than our care and concern for you. We were your friends before this. We are still your friends now." She smirked, "We only hope that you know your good fortune. We certainly do. Any of us might see a male and have the thought and wonder a little what it might be like with him. You did get to try with two others, though perhaps not in the way that you might have preferred." "Yeah, "Rachel laughed, "At least you got to go for a little variety. We'd both like a shot at what you and Shaevre get to hold onto, but we know that it can't happen. It's a nice thought, though." Cha'Khah nodded with a chuckle, "I am waiting to hear Vadren's answer to me when I finally ask him tonight how it went. He will be stuck then, not wanting to tell me that it was wonderful -- even if it was -- and he knows that if he says that it was not, then I will not believe him either. Oh, this is a fight that I cannot wait to have. Thank you for this, Selena." "But," Selena began, "Cha'Khah, the way that I see this, both of you did me such a kindness. Now it sounds like you'll make him feel guilt for it." "Not really," the Drowess grinned, "Vadren is a good male, a very mighty mage and though he is sometimes thoughtful, he is not weak. I will ask my taunting question and he will tell me that it is none of my affair. He wil remind me that I gave my permission. And he would be right. But I won't care. I will give him a fight for it anyway." Selena was stunned, since it made no sense to her and Cha'Khah could see it in her face, so she leaned a little close and though it was said a little conspiratorially, it was loud enough so that they all heard her, "I love to fight with Vadren," she smiled, "I always have, and the loving that I get for it after is the best for me. THAT is why I do it, never to hurt his feelings. He is worth too much to me for that. I just never tell him, that is all." "So if you're feeling a little better," Rachel said with a grin, "then you ought to smile back at us just a little to let us know that you understand that we're fine with it all. We're just a little jealous, that's all. I mean, you did get to play with three males. That must have been something." Selena nodded with a weak smile and she was going to leave it at that, but Shaevre added that it hadn't only been the one time, and that Shaevre had had them all four times each -- her as well. Rachel's jaw dropped and she laughed, "I think that I ought to be bowing to you out of admiration. Holy cow," she chuckled, shaking her head. "C'mon, Shaevre honey," she laughed as she took the Xer's hand to walk away, "Ok, tell me what it was like on the way back. Maybe I've been living my life on the wrong side of the damned street or something." They walked away together and Cha'Khah asked the question that she'd come to ask. -------------------------- They crept out through the narrow opening to stand in the cold night air on the maintenance balcony. The night was still all around them and the light of the full moon shone brightly as it reflected from the snow in the mountains. "We are a pair of fools," Cha'Khah muttered quietly after a minute as they stood in their cloaks "We are a pair of friends who seek to help each other," Selena said, "Tell me when you're ready to start." "If it were not winter, I would have already finished my dancing for the goddess," the Drowess said as she drew her sword and threw off her cloak to stand naked on the balcony. "I am ready." Selena dropped her cloak from her shoulders and evaporated into a slightly shimmering cloud which wrapped itself around the dark body of her friend and vanished. Cha'Khah let out a long pleasured sigh, "This feels so good, Selena. I am warm. Even the bottoms of my feet!" "A kindness for my friend," she heard in her ear. She began her steps and in the relatively small space of the balcony, she danced for her goddess as Selena kept her warm. While it lasted, Selena was memorizing the steps, seeking to learn from Cha'Khah's movements. Cha'Khah danced for twenty minutes and stopped, feeling better at last to have done it. "Thank you for this, Selena." "It was nothing," she heard next to her ear, "Would you teach me to fight with the blades? I want to learn this. You do it with such grace." Cha'Khah shivered in a little pleasure, "For one who caresses me so nicely? It would be my honor. I cannot wait to dance in the rain with you and Shaevre." "Neither can we," she heard the soft smile in Selena's voice, "Are you ready to help me now? It'll be cold for you, but I'll try to keep it brief. It's something I have to do, and I don't want to try inside if I fail." Cha'Khah nodded, "Do as you need, but I worry for you. What will I do if you fail?" "That is why I need you. I want you to remember where I fell, and go to get the others then -- if it happens." Cha'Khah put on her cloak again and Selena warmed it for her for a moment. The Drowess knew it at once when she'd left her and she looked to see Selena standing on the edge of the balcony nude in the icy moonlight. "Are you not cold?" Cha'Khah asked, "I want to hold you to me to warm you now myself to see you like that. I was freezing before you warmed me." "That is a nice thought as well, but I can bear this," Selena smiled, "just watch me carefully in case I fail, that's all. I won't be long." She spread her new wings and leapt from the small parapet and Cha'Khah was alone. She stepped to the edge and looked over. After a moment, she saw Selena soar gracefully away from her over the tops of the trees far below. As she watched, Selena moved her wings and she began to climb astonishingly quickly. She's seen the others fly often, but she'd never seen one of them gain height so quickly or effortlessly. Selena turned then and dropped like a shot, her wings folded a little to gain speed. As she passed overhead, Cha'Khah ducked with a grin and she jumped up to let out a happy cry of encouragement to see Selena rocket around in a turn and slow gracefully to land before her. Cha'Khah threw her arms around Selena and laughed, "That was your first time and you fly like that?" Selena looked at Cha'Khah with a small shy smile, "I only wanted to try a little." The Drowess leaned in carefully around the horns and she kissed Selena's cheek, "That was wondrous. I have heard of some beings in human legends, and I think that you must be one like that. Angels, I think they are called." Selena laughed a little, "It is a nice thought and I thank you for it, Cha'Khah, but I can't be one of them," she said as she slipped her hand under the Drowess' cloak to squeeze her flank a little affectionately for a moment. "I love to fuck far too much to be one like that," she grinned. "Oh," Cha'Khah smiled, bending to pick up Selena's cloak and put it around her shoulders for her, "I had not heard that they led such dull lives." They worked their way back inside and after closing the blast valve again; Selena kissed Cha'Khah softly in thanks. "Go and take that magnificent body to Vadren. I wish you both great pleasure this night," she whispered as they parted company. Selena walked down and headed back to where the she'd moved with Arrax and Shaevre, into a set of rooms intended for a family. It was in the same section as where Dahlgren stayed with Nahl'een. On the way, she tried a few of the steps and movements that she'd learned from her friend the Drow, smiling to herself as she skipped and danced. She stopped when she saw Dahlgren as he stood alone outside his unit. "Hey," she said. "Hi Selena," he smiled a little, "I was just, ..." She stepped closer, "You can't sleep either, can you? I know that I've already said it a few times, but I'm really sorry about what happened last week." He nodded, "Thank you. I guess that you needed a walk as well?" She shrugged, "Yes, pretty much. I felt really embarrassed over what I did, I still do. I also wanted to try out my wings outside. I guess that I wanted a softer landing if I crashed the first time. It didn't happen, but I took Cha'Khah with me since I know that her night vision is as good as mine or better so she could get help if I got hung up in a tree or something stupid like that." "So you can fly then?" he asked. She nodded, "I'm finding that there are a lot of things that I can do using my will to help. I think that's why I was successful at flying. I have so many good things happening to me," she said quietly, "but I'm always a little sad for you and the load that you're carrying. I'm still upset over what happened to Faith." She looked off into the darkness, "I try not to think about it, but it happens anyway. I'm a bit upset over that and there's a feeling in me that it wasn't fair. I'm happy that I can fly, and angry that I lost the friend that I was making in Faith. It's a long and slightly confusing list, Dahl. I really feel for you and Nahl'een over it." He smirked and she heard it so she turned to see him looking down with a smile. "I found that everything that I was striving so hard for all of my life was pretty much a pack of lies. I guess that we've both found out a lot of things since we had that drink at the inn in Bruster. I was thinking of going to the bar to maybe have a mug of that awful Xerian beer. I was just waiting to be sure that Nahl'een was asleep. I stepped outside and saw you." "Well if you'd like some company, I could use one too. I think it's growing on me." Selena smiled, and they set off together. After two mugs each and learning that misery always loves a little company, they both felt better. They weren't exactly singing, but it was an improvement. "I'm not sure how to say this, Dahl," Selena began, "but I guess that I want to tell you that I've had some time to think about Nahl'een, and no matter how I look at it, she needs me and I need her. It leaves me with a bit of a problem." She snorted, "Which is something that I seem to have more of now than ever." "I know," he said, "it's not too hard to see it. She sees you as her sister, and after all of this, she's not in any sort of shape for another huge change in her life. She's had nothing but huge changes." "She needs stability," Selena nodded, "so that's why I was going to ask if you'd mind if I stayed here with all of you. I don't know what this is all going to become, but I know that Cha'Khah, Vadren and Azrael are already looking at jobs that they've had to turn away before now. I'd want to stay just for that, but my sister, well, ... I just know that she needs me, so --" "Why are you even bringing this up, Selena?" he asked as he looked at her, "There's nothing to even discuss here. She needs you. I nee-" He stopped, embarrassed and a little upset that the beer seemed to have loosened his tongue. Selena nodded, "That's why I brought it up, Dahl." She smiled a little. "She's got me. I'm just having a lot of trouble trying to define my role for her. I can be her big sister without a thought. Shoot, that's come to me as easy as breathing, but there is another role that she seems to want me to wear. It's another thing that's on my mind." She looked down at his hand on the bar, wanting to reach for it and knowing that it wasn't really the right thing to do -- especially after today. "I could do that as well." She laughed a little, "I think that it's even something that I want, deep down inside me." He watched her face as she looked down. She looked about as embarrassed as he felt. "That would be about as screwed up a family as I can even think of," she smiled toward his hand, "And I think I'm pretty much an expert on the subject of screwed up families. I guess that I could do it, though. I can be her much older sister and a lot like her mother at the same time. The roles are close, since the point is to help a little kid grow up." He let her hang there a moment and then he moved his hand to put it over hers. "And just where does all of that leave Selena?" he asked very softly. She smirked, but she didn't look up, "It leaves her a lot richer, living in the bright sunshine of my sister's little heart." "Which you already have anyway," he said. She looked at his hand and smiled, "Yeah, I guess that's so. I think it still leaves me wondering if I could have something back one day." She leaned away from the bar and she looked up at him, reaching out to touch his hair, "That was before I turned into a sort of Xer wannabe and Miss High Merren Slut of the Week. Thanks for understanding and not coming to see how low Selena can get." He didn't see it right away, but Selena had to blink furiously a few times to keep her eyes from betraying her as she turned her head. She looked away a little sadly and leaned onto the bar again. "I used to see you now and then, and every time that I saw you -- just the first time each day that I did, it always seemed to take my breath away for a moment. It hasn't happened in a long time, but my life has been nothing but a long roll down a hillside inside a barrel the last while. I'm more than a little Xer now as well, but we've talked about it, and they see that the three of us need each other somehow; at least my sister and I need each other. But as much as I love them, they need each other more then they need me -- at least until they have that first bunch of whelps. I thought that I had a place for me with them, but I know that it can't happen. I'm just like them in some ways, that's all. Arrax says that there will be a time when I'll need them, but I don't know what he's talking about. Sometimes he talks so far ahead in terms that are nothing but vague to me. I was just wondering if there was a chance that I could get to where I had that feeling back the first time that I saw you every day. I know that right now, we're both upset and all, but one day, you know?" A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 28 "What would it take for you to have that feeling back?" he asked very quietly, "Maybe I can help." "I dunno," she smiled, looking up, "Maybe if I looked at you for the first time in a day from really close up." Dahlgren snorted with a little grin, "I know that feeling, I'm getting more than a little of it now." He sighed as the grin faded, "I thought that I'd have a great big hole in my chest -- and I was right, but, ... it hurts so much, and though everyone feels for me, I'm the one left alone with myself at night, wondering what I could have done to prevent it, and coming up with a thousand things which only make me feel worse." They looked toward the door as Nahl'een wandered in, looking as though she was about to cry and complaining about a dream. Selena smiled and bent to pick her sister up. Dahlgren stood watching as they hugged, and Nahl'een asked Selena if she'd take her back to bed. Dahlgren smiled and told her to go ahead, "I'll just wash these mugs. Rachel has taken ownership of the whole place. I really like it, but this is the other side. I don't want to face her accusing stare in the morning." "Neither do I." Selena laughed as she carried Nahl'een out. Nahl'een was back in her bed with Selena sitting on the edge of it, listening to Nahl'een tell of her dream. "You went away, Selena, a -- and --" Selena shushed her sister, "I'm not planning to go away, honey," she smiled as she stroked the girl's cheek with her thumb, "Nope. I'm staying near you, so you see, your bad dream was a mistake. Just close your eyes and try to find a better dream." "You stay with me a while?" Nahl'een asked. Selena kissed her, "Nahl'een, I can't. I'm really tired too. I was just about to go home to my bed." Nahl'een put a tiny amount of whine into it, "Just until I sleep, Selena?" Selena looked over her shoulder at Dahlgren as he stood in the doorway. "That's up to you, Selena. It's fine with me, no matter what you do." Selena shrugged with a smile and lay down on top of the blanket and put her arm over Nahl'een. A second later, she felt her sister's arm on her as well and Nahl'een sighed happily. She wasn't sure when it had happened but Selena had fallen asleep. She woke to find Dahlgren covering her with a blanket, but she shook her head, and looked at her sister. Looking back, she asked, "How long?" He shrugged, and whispered, "Maybe half an hour." Selena sat up very carefully and stood up. She joined Dahlgren at the door and before he had time to react, she put her arms around his neck and mindful of her horns, she hugged him and kissed him very softly. "What was that for?" he asked in a whisper. She smiled, "For bringing back that feeling for just a second." He was walking her to the door, but she bumped into him in the hallway and he looked at her curiously. She pointed, "Isn't this where you sleep?" He nodded, "But -- " She took his hand, "Come on, I've got the strongest feeling that I'm right where I belong now, and before anything else happens, I want to sleep next to you, if that's ok. I know we've both got a lot of things on our plates, but unless you have a problem with it, this is where I want to be right now. I want to talk with you from real close up because I've always liked that and I know that you do as well, but I really need to see if I can have one of those moments when I wake up." She smirked a little, "That's what I really want to do and I know that I used to be too shy and cautious to even say it. But I figure that I really don't have much self-respect to lose anymore -- after what I did a few days ago, so if you don't mind ..." He looked at her in a bit of shock, but then he nodded. They lay in bed whispering and kissing very lightly for a while, until she pulled back to look at him and smile, "How does this feel to you? Does it feel right, or does this feel like something that we shouldn't be doing?" He looked at her and reached out to touch her face, "I haven't said a thing to you or given you any reason to think that I'd judge you for what happened to you. I know that there was a part of you that needed something like that to happen. Maybe I should crawl out from under my rock a little more, so here, ..." He kissed her more definitively, and not as the fleeting little things that they'd passed between them, "I'm not upset with you, and I'm not judging you at all. I feel as though we're doing something that we should have been doing a long time ago." She smiled slowly and let out a sigh, "That's what I mean. I feel the same way. I started out as a human and I found out that I never was just a plain and simple girl. Now I've learned that I'm not even the plain and simple demon that I thought I was -- I'm just hoping that I'm still WHO I thought I was. I've been down the road and I've even kidnapped my own sister to keep her with her father. But they're still not a family, as hard as they're trying, and I'm still looking at the same man that I wanted before -- when my life was simple. I only robbed and stole, and hunted bounties now and then. Now I've got more horns on my head than any three cows. I can tell that you still like me, horns and all. All I'm saying is that I think that we ought to just do this. Just let me stay." "I thought that you meant stay here with the rest of us," he said. "I did," she smiled as she moved his forelock out of his eyes, "But now, I guess I'm asking that you let me stay in your lives, from really close up, and right now, I want to beg that you let me sleep with you tonight. I can't think of a place that I'd want to be more than here. If you're so understanding about everything, then I want you to understand something else." She rolled away from him and he watched as she held her tail to the side for him, "Come on, Dahl. Let's go back to how we started. I'll take care of you tonight." "But Selena," he said, "You belong to a Xer pack now. I see the marks on you, and I saw the horns that you put on them at dinner. I know at least a little about the Xer, and they're incredibly, um, exclusive in their relationships, and I'm not the kind of guy to want to exactly share a lot either." In an instant, he saw her as the rogue that he'd wanted so much to get to know. She'd changed her shape for him. "It's alright, Dahl. This is for you." She pressed herself back against him and despite his objections, his body wasn't listening and he was hard in a second. He moved forward and slipped his hardness between her flanks with a quiet groan. It lasted only a minute before she asked him to stop. "I've just realized what I really should have done under your tiny tent in that snowstorm." She moved away and changed her angle, before pressing back and lifting the blankets so that she could move her leg back over his. She reached to guide him into her before she pressed back slowly with a quiet groan, "Now, fuck me, Dahlgren, before the roof comes down or I suddenly grow horns out of my ass. I don't care, but I think that we ought to try to be quiet." She rolled the top half of her back onto the bed so that she could see him and she reached to touch his face. "Listen to me," she smiled. "They are exclusive, but then, they don't usually make their loves into triumvirates, either. I belong to a pack of Xer, Dahlgren, but that pack belongs to me just as much as I belong to them. Whatever I am now with all the horns -- well that needs Xer. I didn't exactly get a manual to read beforehand, but I just know, and you'll have to trust me on it." She smiled as she moved his hair out of his eyes and sighed at her pleasure for a moment. "It's not a marriage, Dahl. It's a marriage for Arrax and Shaevre. There's something in them that needs me now and then, and I need them too, every once in a while. They want to speak with you about it. They know there are others who need me, like my sister and her father. They think that I should be yours, but that's up to you. I can only try to get you to see that I need you both as well." He stopped and she moved away from him so that he could lie on her. "Come here, Dahlgren. I want you, just like I've always wanted you. I even need you in a lot more than this." He moved to lie on top of her and they were amazed at how it felt a few seconds later just to lie like that. Dahlgren listened as he began again slowly. "All that you need to do is think about me, and if you want me. I want to stay in Nahl'een's life, because I have to. She needs me, and it's obvious that she sees me as more than her sister. You need me too, and what I'm trying to say is that I need you both so much." She reached up and touched his cheek for a moment, "I asked that you not come to me that day because it would have broken my heart if you did. I needed them all for that one time, and I won't ever do that again. I got what I needed and frankly, having to sit through dinner after that was awful. I'm not that kind of girl. I'm really just a one-guy kind of girl. I've always been that kind. It's just that I also belong to a small pack of Xer, but other than being with Shaevre and Arrax now and then there won't ever really be that much to it." She smiled and rocked him a little, "I don't think that I've even got any right to say this, but I want you as my husband, Dahlgren. You just have to decide if you can handle sharing your wife with a couple of Xer once in a while, because I need them as well, but I know that I need you more -- and much more often. We've talked about it, and they agree. They'd allow it. They even want it. That pair of Xer love Nahl'een and you as well." Selena opened her mouth and Dahlgren was right there, his kiss taking her away with a soft groan that they shared as their tongues slid over each other. She felt him grow hard as stone after that, and he pushed himself up to look down on Selena. "You're so beautiful," he sighed. "Share your heart with me, Dahlgren," she smiled, as she reached up to touch him and caress the muscles down his ribcage. He flinched a little out of ticklishness and she gave him the warmest grin for it. "I'll share everything that I have -- everything that I am with you and that little girl. I'll take care of you, Dahl. Just give me a chance and I'll never stop taking care of you both." She reached to hold his bottom and pull him as she raised her legs, "I belong to them a little and sometimes I'll probably mate with them again at some point," she sighed, "the rest of me is dying to be all yours. If there was a way, I'd be yours all of the time, but there's something that ties me to them, and they understand it. They want me to be with you. I just don't know if you can accept that." She felt it in him, straight from his heart. She felt just the beginning of his acceptance and something else -- it was exactly as she'd felt it one night in a blizzard, but now she knew what it really was. She sighed as she watched him smile at her, "Who's making an offer now? I'm not exactly in a position to clamp my hands over my ears and refuse." "You can try," she smiled, "but I'll only get up on top of you, and I'll still fuck you just like I really should have there on that mountain. Open your eyes, you incredible demon, we need each other. What I'm offering is forever for us. You can refuse, but you know that you're only going to be hurting yourself and Nahl'een as well as me." She reached for his face there above her, "You and I have had this between us from that night on the mountain. I made a big mistake there, and then I made another at my house. What I should have done was get my wet ass up out of the grass, take your hand, pull you to my bed and just accept the love of a wonderful male who wanted me. This is your home and I'm here under you. We're almost there now and everything. Don't make the same mistake that I did, Dahlgren. It just costs us all far too much. I already feel what you want inside you. Your body knows me and here we are. Just nod to me and let's fuck, though I'd much rather make love with you. Let me take care of you both while we all get over what we've lost. I'll still be here for you, from right now. I won't let either of us screw this up again. Let's just start this quietly and just be a family. I want you to breed me so we can have a little one to torment my sister. I can't think of anything that I'd want more than all of that." She reached and wiped a fearful little tear from her eye and he knew how far she'd crawled out on a limb to tell him this. It was no stretch to him to feel that she had a real fear that he'd refuse to try or just tell her that they'd see. "Please Dahlgren, if you don't mind what I am now and what I did that day, let's just fuck real slow, at least to start so that I can look at you for a while. We can talk about everything in the morning." Dahlgen accepted then, and he began to really try for Selena. They slid together tightly and it was the most tender thing between them. She tried, but her cry still came out quietly and he came right after her from the way that she contracted and held him tighter as he pushed his last strokes before his seed came. "That, ..." he smiled, That was, ... I can't even say it." "I know," she chuckled, "I was here too, remember?" She sighed, "I always knew that it could be like this for us," she said as she ran her fingers over his back. "Is there something that you want to say to me?" "Uh, thank you?" She actually giggled quietly, "No, not that," she smiled, "because I'd have to thank you as well. Let's just assume our thanks to each other. I meant something else." Dahlgren raised his head and whispered, "I'm still hurting over Faith, but I'm not going to be an idiot about this. I accept you, Selena." He waited as she gasped and smiled, "I never thought that I'd hear you say that to me. I accept you, Dahlgren. We're probably the most screwed up family on the planet, but I don't care at all." They should have gone to sleep, but they didn't. Dahlgren moved to lie beside Selena and they just spent a long time caressing and whispering and it felt wonderful to do that. Selena had always liked the way that they could talk like this, and she was so glad that it remained unchanged from when they were in his tent. "Have you ever, ... have you ever looked at Shaevre as more than a hellhound?" she asked a little cautiously. "You mean back at the house?" he asked, "I only ever saw her on four feet then. I always liked her the best out of them all. I used to sit and talk to her. It probably sounds a little stupid, but I'd start out on the bench with her sitting on the floor, and I'd talk to her. I was always surprised, but just at the end of it every time, she'd put her paws on the bench on either side of me and she'd sort of stand on her back legs a little so that I could hug her once. I liked that. It wasn't until later that I saw her other shape, and with everything that's happened, I haven't really had a chance to talk with her very much." He sighed a little, "Which doesn't seem right to me, somehow, since I feel as though I've been ignoring her, and I'd never meant to. Why do you ask?" "Nothing much, I guess," Selena smiled, "she still likes you. She always has. When she and I first started, we used to lie just like this and talk. We used to share little fantasies about sharing a male. We only ever talked like that about two, and you're one of them. I'm pretty sure that Arrax will want to talk to you about what he sees as the unevenness of this. I think that he'll offer Shaevre to you as compensation for that. I know that she'd be thrilled to try it." The expression on his face made her have to stifle her laugh, and she kissed him afterward, "Sorry if I stopped your heart for a second there." "I like her body," Dahlgren said, "but I wouldn't know what to do with her, and she must be pretty long when she's stretched out on a bed." "She is," Selena grinned, "really long, but if you're curious about what it might be like, Dahl, you can always try with me." He stared at her as she changed right here next to him and he found her hands holding his head as she kissed him. She pulled back and smiled a little coyly, "Wanna play again?" -------------------- Nahl'een woke up and walked to wash her face. Dahlgren had been pretty insistent about it, and always left the bathroom sink full for her every night, so that the water wouldn't be as cold as it would be otherwise. She got it done and brushed her teeth as well, before she wandered out. She wondered where her father was. He was almost always up before her. She smiled to herself. If he wasn't up, that meant that he was still sleeping and it gave her a little problem. Part of her didn't want to disturb him, but all the same, it was a chance to run shrieking into his room to wake him up with one of her hugs. She walked to the doorway and she was suddenly very glad that she hadn't given in to the urge to shriek and laugh. Selena opened her eyes and looked at Nahl'een standing there looking back. "Hi, Sis," she smiled. She got out of bed very carefully and walked with Nahl'een, "Are you hungry for some breakfast?" "No," her little demon girl said, "I mean, yes. What, .. why you were in Dahl's bed?" Selena smiled, "Well, if all of the things that happened to you hadn't happened, and if our father hadn't been killed, you'd have had the same sort of early childhood as me. You wouldn't think anything about the way that grownups sleep together at night if they love each other. When I was little, smaller than you, Mother and Father slept together every night," she said as she led Nahl'een to the front door. "Come on, let's see if Rachel has anything cooking. I've forgotten whose turn it is to make breakfast. I just know that it isn't mine." Nahl'een blinked, "But, you are not --" "No," she nodded as she got down to Nahl'een's level, "I'm not your mother, but I'm your sister and I love you, and Dahl isn't your real father, either. He's a man who adopted you so that you would have a father and he loves his daughter very much. We talked a lot last night, and we decided that you need a mother too. I'm not her, but that doesn't matter. Dahl and I love each other, and I guess that it's going to be the family that you have. Kids need to have a family, you know." It took Nahl'een a second to think about it and she was hugging her sister a second later. She didn't mind, and after a few more seconds, she was thrilled. "I am lucky," she smiled as she hugged Selena again. "So am I," Selena nodded and she carried Nahl'een the rest of the way. Cha'Khah was cooking the meal and Nahl'een got down to sit beside Sariel, since that was where Cha'Khah always placed her plate whenever she cooked. "Good morning, Ugly," she giggled. "Why do you always say that to me now?" he groaned. "I never call you names, do I?" "No," Nahl'een said, trying to look contrite and failing at it. "I think that you're not seeing this the way that a girl might, Sariel," Selena smiled, "See, a girl like Nahl'een might really, really like you. She just doesn't want to come out and say what she really means to say. That would be like showing you her heart, and she might not dare to do that." Sariel was listening as Cha'Khah laid her breakfast down in front of her, and Selena could see that the Drow was listening intently as well. She picked up her cutlery, "What she might be really busting to say inside her might be, 'Hey Handsome, what's cookin'?" Cha'Khah grinned, "Really? I never knew this." She turned to look at Nahl'een, "Is that what you are really saying like that?" "No," the girl said as she shrugged, "It was a bad thing to say. Sorry Sariel." He nodded but said nothing as he ate. Nahl'een looked at him for a moment, and then she tossed her sister a tiny grin as she lifted her wing and put it over his shoulder a she began to eat. A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 28 He stopped and looked over and she carefully winked at him. A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 29 ***Ok, I'll admit it. I've got kind of a thing for Drow girls. As a writer of course, heh heh. So for a long time I pondered over whether Cha'Khah would ever even see somebody who could get to her heart. This is what I came up with and I hope it's enjoyed. 0_o ------------------ Book of the Mountain Clan Part 5 It was driving him insane, he thought to himself as he sat on a folded up blanket behind a wide old stump and looked down over part of his small range. He'd freeze to death before he'd ever see anybody like this. He knew that he had to remain still, while at the same time, his body was trying to do the natural and correct thing and shiver to at least make an attempt at keeping itself warm. He started to think about asking himself the obvious question, and that was 'Am I already nuts?' as he sat there. Anybody with a functional mind would be inside and warm. He already knew the likely answer. Anyone with a brain wouldn't even be here. They'd have a real life, and not need to do stupid shi- He snapped his head around at a slight sigh in the woods not far off, already cursing himself in his mind. It was a load of snow sluicing off the branches of an evergreen. They just did that. Often. He was even angrier with himself that he'd moved at all. He knew better than to move suddenly. Out here doing something like this, you moved very slowly and with a lot of care if you moved at all. Barrett Ransom was a reluctant privateer cattleman, trying to keep his little herd alive through a Colorado winter all alone. Any real cattleman knows that you can't really do that alone, and Barrett was no different. He knew it too. He just didn't have all that much choice in it. Everything that he had, pretty much, was wrapped up in that herd. But this was where his land was, handed down to him from his Pa, who got it from his father and so on. He'd grown up out here and he knew these mountains well. He also knew what the isolation could do to a person. He was a little tall and these days he was even leaner from the impossible and never-ending series of tasks that his occupation demanded of him. Who the hell had time to eat? Not that there was all that much, and what there was had to be managed well. He'd gone light on himself and a little heavy on his herd whenever he'd had to go to town to buy supplies. It was about all that he could do. Barrett had tried to make a life for himself as a few things by this stage of his life. He'd always been a bit shy and he guessed that was due to where he'd grown up. He could manage being around a crowd of people for short periods, but he wasn't happy there. He was more comfortable with a small group of people that he knew well. These days he was really comfortable. Hardly anyone even knew him. He'd tried various occupations and had been just about to leave the banking business, not being especially fond of not being allowed to defend himself if the place was being robbed. He figured that he could handle just about anything, but not when the boss tied his hands by not even allowing Barrett to wear his old shooter on his hip at work. That was why he'd been leaving. Three robberies in a week was getting to be a bit hard on his nerves. But then pretty Carlene had moseyed in and with a few soft bats of her eyelashes, he was hooked. They were married within two months and he was as good as chained to his teller's cage. Carlene seemed to think that it did her some kind of good to be able to tell her friends that her husband was a banker – which of course, he wasn't. He was prepared to do a lot of things for the love of that girl and the hurried and half-hearted way that she'd let him near her very occasionally, though in his heart, he wanted to really make love with his wife. Apparently, married life wasn't all that he'd heard that it was supposed to be, but he struggled on for a time. It was during the week that he had to work late and prepare the annual reports that he'd learned that having a pretty young wife could be just fine – as long as you weren't her hardworking and dedicated husband. He'd worked his ass off so that he'd be able to come home an hour and a half early the last night with the frilly new dress that Carlene had wanted. He'd made the last payment on it that day and had picked it up on his lunch, not eating so that he'd be sure to have the time to do it. He'd walked in on Carlene while she was otherwise engaged, and she wasn't being half-hearted about anything then. His defense attorney had done his best, but ... He'd done the five years for beating the banker's son half to death and of course, on the day that he'd been released, Carlene had already been gone for four and a half years by then, not that he'd wanted to see her. He did get a letter just before he'd been released, though. It was from the administrator of the sanatorium where Carlene received care and they wanted money for the drugs which were needed to keep her from trying to kill herself. After leaving Barrett, she'd gone to Tellandride or someplace like that to take up with a banker. Barrett figured that there was a pattern there. A bunch of demons had gone through town and after ripping her banker to pieces in front of her, she'd spent the better part of a week with two of them, begging for her life and offering to do whatever they wanted if they'd let her live. He figured that they couldn't have understood each other, and they had let her live, but she'd done everything that they'd wanted anyway, a lot of it, from what the letter said if you read between the lines a little. When she'd been found, she was squatting naked and filthy over the half-eaten banker's corpse cutting off another piece of him for lunch. She'd been upset when they'd dragged her out of there, growling the whole time. Barrett Ransom had spent a little time considering and when he was a free man again, the first thing that he did was to buy one bullet. He mailed it to the sanatorium. Since then, he'd done other things for a while, but he'd finally gone home. What he hoped to do was to get through this one winter alone. If he could do that, he'd be able to make a real start next year, and he didn't plan on doing it alone, either. With a bit of luck and care, he might almost be able to afford to pay somebody to work with him. He sighed and then wanted to curse himself again for making the soft sound. Out here, now, that was a loud noise. For no reason that would come to him, he thought of the closest that he'd come to happiness. He hadn't done it in a while, he thought, not since before the snow because he didn't have the money now and he couldn't get through the snow-filled passes anyway. But every once in a while, if he had the gold, he'd go into town and head for the cat-house there. They used to have one girl there - Katy her name was, and he'd pick her and she'd take him up to her room because he'd bought her for the night. All they ever did was talk for a while and go to bed together. They'd talk for a while in bed too – just like they were married and happy. Barrett would always let Katy do whatever she wanted, whatever felt good to her to do, and if she'd had a busy evening, well then if she just wanted to hold him close and go to sleep, that was fine with him too. They'd even talked about really getting married. Katy had said that she wasn't all that much of a town girl anyway; she'd have loved to do that and be his wife. But somebody else had a similar idea and had beaten Barrett to it. That man wasn't anything like he knew that Katy liked in a man, but he had a big old house and with his deep pockets, she'd never have to lift a finger. Barrett figured that it must have sounded better than being the wife of a struggling cattle rancher stupid enough to try to make it work in the foothills of the Rockies. He wished her well when he'd said goodbye the last time that they'd seen each other. He decided to pull his mind back to this part of the world and what he was trying to do. Like any businessman, a rancher has to try to build against losses in case of hard times – should they happen. Barrett had a few head extra, just in case. Where he was, you never knew what might try to make a meal out of one of your steers. He'd done alright up to a point., not even losing one, but that was changing, and he'd been going on even less sleep lately trying to figure out just what was feeding on his cattle. It looked to him at first blush to have been people poaching from him. The snow told him the strangest tale. He might see a bit of blood near the place where the steer had gone down. Whoever it had been hadn't tried to butcher it there, it looked to him as though they'd carried the steer off without leaving much of a trace. Worse, he'd seen no human-like tracks. What he had seen had knocked him for a bit of a loop. The tracks only went so far, leading into a clearing just over the low rise. Once they reached the clearing, they disappeared. Not petered out or faded away, they'd just stopped. Barrett had seen demon tracks before. What he'd seen on his land had not been left by demons. If he'd had to make a guess, he'd have decided that it was a really, really large dog, but that made no sense either. Half of the tracks were missing. He'd found only rear tracks. Now he tried to picture one or two huge dogs walking on their hind legs. How would they even be able to carry a steer between them? If somebody had tried to tell him a tall tale like that one, he'd laugh them out the door over it. But he was still out a couple of head of cattle, no matter how it had been done. He'd been out hunting for more sign and going on even less sleep the first time that he'd seen her. He caught just the quickest glimpse as he was passing by a nearby tree trunk. He'd frozen then, not believing what he thought that he'd seen. Sure enough, when he'd backed up a step to look again, there was no one there. Not even one track in the snow. The next time, he'd been over a mile away a day later. This time, he guessed that the mirage or hallucination must have lasted for over three seconds, long enough to see details over the sixty feet between them. A cloaked figure stood in the heaviest part of the woods, facing a little away from him. He was at least able to suppress the gasp that he'd felt coming as he'd stared at the strangest and most lovely woman that he was not sure that he'd really ever seen, or something like that. The bit of her face that he saw was as black as the night, and he'd had long enough to blink twice to be sure of it. Barrett Ransom had seen black women before. He'd just never seen one who had long straight hair as white as the snow at her feet, and she wasn't old. She hadn't even been looking in his direction, but he'd seen part of the profile of someone who had literally caused him to stop breathing, for fear that she'd know that he was nearby. He wished that hood was back and off her head. He'd have bet money that the rest of her face was as lovely as the little bit that he saw. He wanted to get a little closer, but he wasn't as stupid as he kept telling himself that he was when he'd ever had one of his finer moments, such as picking up the coffee pot from the stove without a hand towel over the handle. But he had given in to the impulse just a little, before his brain had kicked in to stop him. In that tiny slice of time, his weight had begun to shift, just a bit, and that was enough. The snow under his heavy boot had just begun to make the slightest noise and well, ... That had been enough as well. She moved out of his view behind a tree and when she did not re-emerge, he walked to the spot. And of course, she was gone – as though she'd never been there. And of course, she wasn't anywhere to be seen. Worse, and, ... of course, there wasn't even one track in the snow. He'd had to think about it, seriously wondering if he was going mad. He replayed the scene in his mind a few times, and then he knew that he wasn't losing his mind. At least he was a little sure of it. As clearly as any other detail that he could remember, Barrett could remember seeing her shadow quite clearly as she'd stood there. He didn't think that he was bright enough to remember to put in a shadow if he was hallucinating what he'd seen. He went back and did his evening chores, pausing to glance around a lot more often before he walked to his lonely home. He hoped that he wouldn't lose another head of cattle that night as he ate his dull and sparse meal all alone, before he blew out the lantern and sat by the window with his father's ancient rifle handy. He was lonelier now than he'd been for a long time as he sat at the table scratching his short beard a little with his fingers. He hated having a full beard, but it was winter. Even so, he cut it short when he couldn't stand it anymore, but then it was a little itchy for a while afterward. He didn't know how he managed it, but every time that he cut it, the weather turned cold within hours. After dozing off more than a dozen times, he shrugged and laid down on the couch. It was as stupid as anything else, he told himself. He was losing cattle and couldn't determine the cause. Now he was seeing a beautiful dark woman outside in the forest where nobody would be if they didn't have a reason to be there at this time of year. Somebody more lovely than his fool mind would ever be able to come up with. He didn't even dream of women like that. He didn't have the imagination for it. He thought about her for a few more minutes as the thin light of the sliver of a moon came in through the window which faced his feet. Barrett groaned as he sat up and went to get himself a handkerchief. He doubted that he could ever get to sleep if he didn't help himself a little. He'd added one too many logs to the stove and now the heat would only make him sweat, so he decided that if whatever was taking his cattle came tonight, he'd just take a little longer to get there, he supposed. His clothes came off, and at least he felt a little better. He wanted to curse again. He was a grown man, not some teenager, and here he was, stone hard from thinking about someone who hadn't been there – who couldn't have been there and left no sign of her passing. It didn't matter much, he thought. There was nobody in his life anyway. What was the harm in a crazy cattleman jerking off thinking about a girl in the forest in the middle of winter? It didn't matter now and it wouldn't matter in the spring, after all of his cattle were gone, stolen in some mysterious way while he lay here masturbating. He tried not to think about it as he stroked himself with one hand and squeezed his testicles a little with the other – just the way that Katy used to do it for him. As long as he was fantasizing, he decided that he may as well imagine that the woman in the woods was looking at him with a soft smile as though she cared. That had been two nights ago, and it had startled him at how only thinking about that woman made him come so hard. He'd even sat up – something that he never did then. He stared at the handkerchief in his hand, clamped loosely as it was to catch his semen. He was amazed as he looked down. He couldn't see it, but he sure felt it as he kept ejaculating, about twice as long as what he'd have thought was usual for him. It was too bad that she was likely not real, he thought. She probably wouldn't want to have anything to do with him if she was, but it would be nice to meet her once. What Barrett didn't know that night was that his mystery woman actually was smiling softly – through the window at him. She'd watched the whole thing and even then, she'd wondered about herself – when she wasn't staring at him in wonder. With the eyes of her kind, seeing in through the front window into the darkened room was nothing. The sliver of a moon gave her all the light that she needed as she watched him masturbate. Normally, she couldn't have cared less, but right then, she actually took a little time to wonder what he was thinking of. As a rule, Cha'Khah didn't like human males. She never had. She tended to put them into the same category as pack animals, only less useful to her mind. You could get a man to carry something for you, but all told, a donkey would do that and not even expect any conversation for it. But this one seemed to fascinate her somehow and she knew it, though she had no explanation. He'd come to her attention by accident, and it had been her fault. They'd needed meat for their meals and that usually meant having to go hunt for something. It had turned bitter cold then and Cha'Khah's enthusiasm for the hunt fell off a few minutes after she'd stepped outside with Shaevre. Most 'regular' elves aren't much affected by cold, but some, notably Drow, are affected, since the places where they originated were always a pretty constant temperature, underground as they were. Her cousin Vadren never said a word about feeling cold, but though she could stand it, Cha'Khah hated being in the cold and she said so often. It was about the only hardship that she ever mentioned. Of course Shaevre came equipped with a fur coat, and found a day in the cold outdoors refreshing. As it happened, Shaevre had reason to feel a little bit of disappointment while Cha'Khah had reason to rejoice. After a rather short and easy hunt, they'd found plentiful game which just seemed to be standing around, ... Their mistake came out of Cha'Khah knowing what a cattle ranch was roughly, but not ever expecting to find one here of all places. Steers wandering around in mountain meadows, almost asking to be allowed onto your plate. With the cold wind up the back of her cloak, the Drowess was more than prepared to oblige their requests. Shaevre knew less than Cha'Khah, having spent little time on Earth as yet. The long and short of it was that they'd killed and taken two cows over almost a month before both Dahlgren and Selena had asked where the meat had come from. That presented them all with a problem. Azrael had looked, and he told them all that the rancher was running a one-man subsistence show, or not far from it. He was doing all of it alone – work that normally required several at least for the number of heads of cattle that he had. He was also taking a big risk in doing so. A misstep, being gored by one of his animals, and he was looking at a long and slow painful death. They'd decided that the right thing to do was to pay for the cattle, but they didn't want anyone to really know that they were there. Cha'Khah had nodded and said that since it had been her mistake – when really, she should have known better, as she said, then it was her task to make the required amends. That was when she'd seen Barrett Ransom, the tall, lean rancher with the thoughtful light gray eyes and the sandy brown hair. And he had a close-cropped beard. Of all of the strange things that she'd seen and done in her life, she doubted that there was anything more uncharacteristic of her than this – her fascination with his close-cropped beard. Until she'd come topside into the light with Vadren, she'd only seen beards on the dwarves, and she didn't like them either, whether the dwarf was male or female, it didn't matter. She didn't like them, and she didn't like their beards. She'd since seen human males with beards as well, and the sight had done little to endear them to her. But on this male, she was absolutely fascinated with the facial hair that she saw. It was short, for one thing, and it didn't hide the strong line of his jaw. It even accentuated it to her mind. She'd found herself smirking at him as she'd watched him work, being a little tantalized over wondering how something like that might feel against her skin. A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 29 She grinned after a moment the first time. She imagined that it must be a combination of softness and bristles, of light scratches and mildly intoxicating itches, a feeling which begged to be scratched lightly if it became a little much. How that would feel as he kissed her made her almost want to chuckle at the thought and she also saw his luxurious mustache. That would be another first to feel against her skin. As long as Cha'Khah engaged in this little kissing fantasy, she decided that she might also like to have him kiss her on the mouth as well. She'd been within ten feet of him, staring and even warning herself that she was beginning to feel rather smitten. That was the thing, she realized. That she was fascinated, and she even KNEW it as it was happening. It might have told her the degree to which it was happening when the tough and hardened Drow warrior that she was almost laughed out loud at the way that she felt herself becoming as besotted over him as any thirteen year-old human female over a boy that she liked. She had to back away a little carefully then. She was trading on her ability to disappear, but she knew that humans can sense themselves being watched by another. He moved in her direction once, and Cha'Khah had to levitate away quickly and she watched from a safer distance in case she completed her regression and let out the full-blown, adolescent, chest-heaving sigh that she was certain lurked just around the corner in her. So that evening, she reported that she hadn't quite managed to solve the issue, but that she'd work at it in the morning. She spent the next day watching him again, noting that for a human, he was uncommonly strong. It caused her to stare at him as he worked in his heavy clothing, and she wished that she knew what this one male looked like underneath them. She even caught herself then, reminding herself that she didn't like human males. Then she heard him as he spoke to a yearling calf in the snow and she almost melted at the sound. She wondered what he'd do if she allowed him to catch a glimpse of her. After all, she knew that many humans held a fair number of fears in the current age and they had good reason to in many cases. Cha'Khah felt a pang of regret then when she thought of how many humans feared the Drow. There were a small number of her kind on the surface, and if they weren't feared, they were usually shunned and looked at with severe distrust because of their legendary skills at quiet murder. Cha'Khah was more than prepared to concede the point, and for maybe the first time, she also felt a little sad over it, whereas up till now, she hadn't given it a thought. She amended that after a moment of introspection – until this moment, she couldn't have cared less. But she found herself caring about it now, so she allowed herself to be visible where he might see her if he was one who paid much attention to what went on around him. She was careful and allowed only an instant before she returned to invisibility and floated upward. She watched as he looked around and knew that he'd seen her. She also knew that she'd confounded him a little, because other than their ability to hide by invisibility and the way that they could float for a time, the Drow share many common traits with the other types of elves. Like all of the elder races, Drow can run on the softest snow and leave no mark. The next day, she'd allowed him a slightly longer look, long enough to hopefully be certain of what he'd seen, but she found that there was something not quite as satisfying to it that time, because he looked a little upset, and she had the impression that it was not because of what she was. That evening, she'd followed him home again and she was very glad that she did. It felt a little naughty, but her kind was never bothered by something such as this. She'd gotten to see his body, and she was astounded to find that, not only did she find him attractive; she learned that her fascination ran deeper than she'd have ever been prepared to admit to herself. She stood in the darkness outside and stared at how different he was from Vadren. She saw a bit of soft hair on his chest, and wondered what was wrong with her. She'd never found hairiness to be the least bit attractive, and look at her now, she thought. At least outside where she was, she could allow herself the tiny sigh which came to her when she thought of running her long dark fingers through that. She wondered how it might feel against her face. She felt a little wet, and she hadn't even really watched lower than the thin line of hair that led her eye down to, ... This was beyond belief, she thought. She'd seen males masturbate before, never in a setting where she'd been able to watch with anything more than a feeling of boredom. It had usually happened when she'd been sent somewhere to seek information. She'd even had to hide in a room where it was happening – a guard room where a map was to be found, and she'd had to wait while the guard there pleasured himself. Once he'd finished, he'd left to go on his rounds and then she'd stolen the map. But this was different. She didn't mind watching the human. It gave her time to appreciate his body while he was naked for a little longer. She'd almost forgotten about the cold completely. But it was afterward that Cha'Khah had her epiphany. As he'd lain there and pulled a blanket over that fine body, Cha'Khah the soldier felt a longing in her to go to him and if she could only have the second of her sudden wishes, she'd have wanted to pull the blanket up for him and leave him with a kiss as he slept. It was the first of her wishes that caused her to turn from the window to return to the mountain where she found a quiet out of the way place to please herself and dream of her first wish, feeling more than a little longing that it might come true, but doubting that it would. ----------------------- "I do not know why, I just like him, "Cha'Khah said to Shaevre in a soft whisper as they watched him sit through his lonely vigil. The pair sat invisible on the hillside, looking down at Barrett as he froze and did his best to guard his herd. Something such as this was not easily done, given that he was looking at steers, and steers were most definitely not like sheep who liked to graze together. It had taken him most of the day to get them somewhere near to his home and then he kept them there by laying out a lot of hay. "He is nervous and something bothers him," Shaevre replied, "something more than his missing cattle. I would not mind it, Cha'Khah, but he is armed. From what I know of them, these old weapons that they have are like ours, Arrax' and mine, though they are primitive. As you have said it, they spit death, and ... well. I worry for you, my friend." "I will be careful," the Drowess said, "but if we leave it to me alone, he will never get his money. I will spend the winter out here only watching him. I have never really had less than absolute faith in the way that I look to males. Now I have the strangest hope that I am enough to hold his interest. I have not felt like this since I was a young girl." She looked and saw the little grin on the Xer's face as Shaevre laid her assault weapon across her lap and nodded "Oh, I have little doubt that your charms are sufficient." Cha'Khah rose into the air and she landed some distance from him and began to walk as she became visible. After a moment where Cha'Khah wondered when he'd notice her, Barrett's head turned very slowly toward her. He'd told himself that he wasn't going to give his position away with a sudden movement this time. If he was going to catch the rustlers, he would do it the right way, by using his brain. No sir, he told himself, he was alone here, but he had to keep enough of his cattle, or he'd starve. That lasted until he saw her in his peripheral vision. Then he snapped his head the rest of the way around toward her and stared. She was a hundred yards off and walking, a dark figure in a hooded cloak walking toward him in the late afternoon sunlight at the edge of the woods. To him, she seemed rather tall somehow. At this distance, he hadn't noticed yet that she was not sinking into the snow. Cha'Khah looked at him from under the darkness of her hood and wanted to grin, though she kept her face impassive and friendly in a neutral sort of way. The way that he looked sitting there on his blanket reminded her of the way that Sariel had stared at her the first time that he'd seen her. She wondered if that was a human trait – the way that the good-looking ones gaped at her in such an endearing way. She found it hard not to laugh a little. She was the only one who heard the quiet little sigh escape her as she walked. If he stayed on his backside like that, it was going to be so hard not to tousle his hair the way that she loved to do that to Sariel, but then, Sariel was just a small boy. She was fifty yards away when she allowed her cloak to fall open, revealing the dark Drow armor that she wore underneath. It had been tailored for her by one of the best fitters in her homeland and it hugged her form tightly while allowing free movement and yet providing protection against blades and projectiles. In the underground, it was dull black, the same as anyone else's armor there, but she'd only learned once she'd seen it in the full light of the sun that in daylight – where it was never meant to be – it was really a very deep and dark blue. That was the color of the material. She doubted that even the maker herself knew of this. It also bore the markings of her house, though they were meant to be subtle in style. It had pleased Cha'Khah the very first time that she'd cleaned it using human saddle soap that the dye was removed from the markings and what was left beneath came out - again, only in full sunlight – as pale yellow lines which contrasted rather well with the blue, though one had to be fairly close to see them. In the dark, she was as hard to see as ever, but in the light of the sun, seeing it for the first time, Cha'Khah had laughed. What she'd paid for had been fighter's armor, and that was what she'd gotten, the finest and toughest that could be made, but it was only here on the surface, after so long that she'd learned the truth. This armor had originally been commissioned by the Matron of the house herself when she was younger and ready to begin her fight to the top. That had never happened though. The way had been cleared by a little crafty murder instead, and this armor had never been sold. The maker had only kept it along with the commissioning fee, and seeing that Cha'Khah was very near the same size and build as the Matron had been then, she'd fitted it for the young fighter and re-dyed it carefully. Cha'Khah had gotten armor far better than she'd ever have been able to afford and the maker had gotten paid twice for the same armor. Barrett stared, not really believing his eyes. He'd never seen anything like this woman, and that was before. Now, he was well into being astounded, feeling awe and wonder as well. He wasn't sure, but she looked to be wearing some sort of armor, from the little that he could see. He'd never seen armor before, other than in some really old books one time, and this didn't look much like that. From what he knew, armor clanked and clattered. She wasn't making a sound. His eyes went to her long legs and then he noticed that she was wearing high boots. His mouth began to fall open as she walked in long strides. The cloak was open, and even so, it hid a lot of her from his view, but he'd never ever seen a woman strut like that- not in his life. Cha'Khah was having an increasingly difficult time holding her expression as she walked to him. There was a word that she was trying to remember because the way that he looked to her like this reminded her so much of Sariel when he was in awe of something. It wasn't just that, she knew. It was him. He just looked so good to her. She couldn't get over it and that amazed her. For the first time in her life, Cha'Khah just liked a male – who she didn't know at all, really – so much that she was infatuated, and it came as both a shock to her as well as an absolutely wonderful feeling in her breast. For the most part, Cha'Khah had been like any other Drow female in the way that she'd been raised. Males were little more than annoyances, mostly. They were considered stupid and rather vapid creatures, though their strength came in handy occasionally and she'd found a very few who were good to fuck with now and then – as long as they knew their place. Her view had changed over time little by little. She didn't like the way that she was treated herself in Drow society, and once that feeling had taken hold in her, it wasn't long before she really started looking around, and then she saw that she didn't like the way that half of the population was kept under the same gritty heels of the few privileged and nasty old cunts who were the only real beneficiaries of the whole show. She might not have had much use for males, other than the one thing, but they didn't deserve to be beaten and whipped if they raised their eyes from the ground. Once she'd really gotten to know and sleep with her distant cousin Vadren more than a few times, she came to know things about males a little more, such as the way that if they had a brain and a heart, they tended to keep their feelings hidden away. Her revelation that male hearts were the same as female ones had astounded her. Only the armor that they built over those hearts was different, that was all. But you had to find one whose heart wasn't hidden away completely yet, and he had to have that brain as well, or they were like cattle if they were a little meek, or dull and even cruel brutes if they weren't. She found her gaze wandering over him as she walked. There were those thoughtful gray eyes again, a little wider, certainly, but that didn't matter. And there was that sandy brown hair that she found herself wanting to run her fingers through – something that she doubted that many females of her kind ever found themselves wanting to do. All Drow had white hair. Since she'd come topside, she'd learned to appreciate the different colors and varieties of the inhabitants. She still didn't like human males, but she now couldn't imagine one with a nicer shade of hair, well, other than the white-blonde shade of Sariel's long hair, but then he was the child of a pair of half-demons. She sighed to herself again. This one kept his hair shorter. It was a little overgrown now here in the mountains, but she could tell that he liked his hair shorter. She even liked that. The word that she'd sought came to her at last. It was something that she'd heard her friend Rachel say now and then and it was sometimes used in appreciation of the appearance of someone of the opposite gender. It could be used as a term of endearment as well and that was how she'd first heard it, when Rachel had used it to address her son, but she'd also used it almost as a form of categorization of the type of male that appealed to her. Well now, Cha'Khah thought that it certainly applied to this male, if she understood the terms of its use correctly and she hoped that she might get a chance to hear Rachel's appraisal. The way that Rachel would say it, he was 'a cutie, pure and simple'. Cha'Khah decided that she was close enough now to maybe try to use what she'd been given in a way other than to stop an opponent in his tracks so that she could kill him. That was the furthest thing from her mind now. She just hoped that he might like her enough to get past their differences. She reached up and pulled her hood back, giving her head a shake to free her hair as she smiled at him. He jumped to his feet and sank to his knees in the snow. He was amazed that this apparition could make a sound at all, never mind the slightly saucy bit of laughter that he heard from her now. She was so beautiful, he thought. He blinked over and over, but she still walked on, getting closer. His heart seemed to have hit his ribs and he was sure that the snow up over his knees was all that held him up now. Her snowy white hair was in a topknot, and even so, he could see from the front where it spilled over her apparently armored breasts that it must hang past her backside if the topknot were undone. But that wasn't what held his gaze now. It was her long ears. They protruded through her hair like an elf's ears would. He'd seen elves before, and none of them - male or female - would even give him the time of day. Why in the world would she smile at him? This one was black. He'd never met one of those before, but he'd sure heard tell of them. He tried not to let what he'd heard get in the way, but as far as he knew, the only time that they smiled was just as they were killing you. His eyes flicked to another detail in this. She'd been far off when he'd first laid eyes on her and he hadn't looked away the whole time. She hadn't made one track in the snow. He had his old rifle in one hand and his other hand was in his pocket, holding a thin object. Looking it over and given the spotty second-hand talk that was all the information available to him, he didn't like it one bit. He didn't want to, ... Lord, he really didn't want to do this, but he was all alone here, and all that he knew was that these people moved quicker than lightning and could kill a man silently as soon as blink at him. Barrett Ransom cursed himself again. It came to him as only fitting somehow that he'd seen his own personal goddess now, right here in the flesh. She was wearing some sort of armor, right down to well-articulated gauntlets which plainly showed him that inside them were long and probably lovely graceful and slender fingers. She had long legs that a part of him now wanted nothing more than to feel around his body in the dream that he knew would never happen to him. He'd seen his goddess and she was here to kill him for his cattle. "That's close enough, Miss," he said, trying his very best not to sound like the asshole that he thought he must appear to be to her. But she didn't appear to have understood him. That forced his decision. The fingers of his right hand released what was there and he moved his hand to hold the gun with both. He knew full well that he was probably being stupid again, but that was alright, he decided. It was likely going to be the last time in his life that he was going to be stupid. He felt a little relieved about that as he raised his Daddy's old rifle and worked the lever. Maybe she'd understand this. He sure hoped that she'd stop. He watched her pretty oval eyes widen in alarm as her mouth opened. "No!" she said, "No please, wait!" He was nowhere near getting the old Winchester up to his shoulder yet. In the sticky slowness of this, he knew somehow that he wouldn't have time for it. He saw her lovely arm move to her cloak, one of two arms that he'd have loved to feel around his neck a little tenderly in that stupid daydream of his, the stupid thoughts of a backwoods idiot who was going to die over some cows. He heard a strange shout and a metallic sound come to him from up the slope to his left, not far off. The words of the goddess changed slightly as she disappeared into thin air. It didn't sound so much as though she was saying 'no' anymore. Cha'Khah was running out of time. She'd heard Shaevre cock her assault weapon and knew with chilling certainty that would come next. She'd seen for herself the way that Shaevre had fought down six of her own kind and one demon in only a few minutes. They'd been in different places and had fought different wars, they looked nothing like each other, but there was one deadly trait that they shared. Just like Cha'Khah, ... A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 29 The girl never missed. Never. Cha'Khah was furious with herself for allowing her personal little wants and infatuation over a male of all things to get in the way of a simple bit of business. Her stupidity was now likely going to cost an innocent man his life if she didn't act instantly and for what? Her hope that he might like her? "Nau!" she shouted, switching to her mother tongue without meaning to. She couldn't let this happen. If she didn't get to him in less than a second, she knew that Shaevre's concern for her would leave the cattleman dead on the slope of his range. She was glad that the Xer had left Meg at home. One keening burst from that weapon and there wouldn't be enough of him left to feel sorry over. Barrett blinked and the woman was gone. Before he could turn to face whatever the new threat up the hillside was, he was amazed to see the dark woman right there in front of him, less than three feet away. He'd never seen violet eyes before. He knew that he'd never get a last request, but he suddenly knew what his dying wish was. He'd never get that either, but he'd have liked so much to have been able to feel a kiss from those lips, just once. Just one time. He blinked once more as he felt her wrap her fingers around the barrel of his rifle as she pushed it away to his right. He felt a light impact against his chest on his left side and looked down. What he saw looked like a small black arrow sticking out of his coat, but the sting in his chest told him that it had gotten through. He felt heavy and slow a heartbeat later. Then he saw that she held something like a pistol in her right gauntlet. His eyes drifted up to her face. She wore a hard expression there, but as his vision darkened, he saw that it changed and she looked very sad. He blinked once more and he was watching her mouth move. It wasn't until he felt his knees buckle that he realized that she'd said that she was sorry. A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 30 ***Cha'Khah is one of my favorite characters in this. I put off writing this scene until I felt that I was ready to do it justice. If you've followed this, you'll know that she's a pretty complex girl. So what would it take to get her to step out from behind the barricades that she's erected all around herself? I couldn't answer this at first. Would she see someone that she likes and pounce on him, or would she play shy - and blow that all to hell in an instant? So I pondered it for a while. How does one reach Cha'Khah's heart? Well he'd have to be a certain type, for sure, and then how would she react? Of course, by now, we all know that she's seen someone that she likes. It's uh, ... it's probably why she shot him. 0_o -------------- Book of the Mountain Clan Part 7 Cha'Khah was beside herself, angry with herself for liking him, and angry enough at him to want to kick him in the face. He'd pointed a weapon at her -- and all that she'd wanted to do was to talk to him. She knew why he'd done it and she was even mad over that. She realized that she'd never stood a chance in this. He couldn't have ever met another Drow, not here, and the merchant in the town that she'd met had left the next day over a year before. And somehow the tales of her kind had reached his ears anyway. Or maybe he just didn't like dark people. It wasn't common anymore, Azrael had told her, but it was still possible. Fine, she told herself, it all boiled down to her finding another reason not to like human males. She was rapidly going back to the comfort and safety which her usual attitude offered. When you don't give a flying fuck about anyone, it's a lot harder to feel hurt. She looked at him, deciding that she'd take her time applying the antidote, and if she spilled a little and it ruined his clothing, it would be his problem. He shouldn't have raised the weapon. If he ever had the bad luck to meet her again and he raised one finger then, she'd kill him for it and laugh. Shaevre chuckled at her and it made Cha'Khah even hotter, "Why do you laugh?" She asked. "I am not laughing over what happened," the Xer said, "This has now become even worse." She smiled warmly, "I am seeing how much you liked this one. I am sorry for what happened, Cha'Khah, but it is nice to see that you still have the heart of a young female inside and under your hard shell. I learned this about myself, and I took it to mean that the wars had not ruined me after all -- you told me this yourself. You should listen to your own advice a little. You should think about it when you have calmed yourself." She reached down and picked up his ancient rifle to examine it out of mild interest. "You and I have become good friends, I must admit, Shaevre," Cha'Khah growled, "but you need to learn a little more of me. You'd know then that now is not the time to try to make me feel better, though I thank you for your words. I cannot believe that I have made such a mess out of a simple thing." "How long do you have to apply the drug?' The Xer asked as she worked the action of the piece. She set it down and knelt to search his pockets. The Drowess shrugged, "Perhaps an hour before it starts to kill him. The longer that I wait, the harder his limbs will spasm from the antidote. With luck, he'll beat himself senseless with his own fists from the pain." Shaevre looked up, "I think you had better hurry. I see that you feel bad enough now. I can say that this male that you liked is either a fool, or he cares for you in his way." "Now you try to make a joke to me," Cha'Khah scowled, "and I have said that I am in no mood -- " Shaevre held up one object between her furry thumb and forefinger, "The weapon is empty. He had only one shot, and it was in his pocket. This is what the weapon needs to shoot. Either he is mindless, or he wanted only to warn you off. He did try to tell you to stop." Cha'Khah stared for a moment, her jaw opening in shock, and then she threw herself down onto her knees beside Barrett. "Help me, Shaevre," she said, "Everything that I see about him tells me that he is a poor man. I will remove the dart, and then we must act quickly. I will need his coat and the shirt underneath off him when I give him the antidote." "Why?" Shaevre asked, watching the Drowess work the tiny lever which folded in the barbs on the poisoned dart. "He deserves what I have done no more than he deserved the loss of the cattle. The longer I take, the more harm I will do, and I do not want to ruin even his clothing from my stupidity." When they had the dart out and his shirt off, Cha'Khah worked feverishly, right up to a point. "What are you doing now?" Sheavre asked. Cha'Khah paused for a moment and spit some of the antidote that she'd sipped into the snow. She made a face at the taste, "I have a tool to draw out the poison, but it does a poor job. I have never cared much before, but I want everything out. I lined my mouth with the antidote to keep the poison from affecting me while I suck it out of the wound. This was taught to me, but I have never seen the need to want to do it for anyone." Shaevre nodded and watched for a time. "Is it out of him yet?" The Drowess nodded as she spit into the snow, "Yes, all that I could find." "Then why do you suck here and here?" she pointed. "Never mind," Cha'Khah said. Shaevre helped as much as she was able, finally carrying the unconscious rancher to his home. "I know how badly you must feel," she said, just before she smiled, "and how much you like him still." Cha'Khah nodded as she opened the door for them. She sighed heavily, "It will do me no good. I only want to get all of this past me and be gone now." "You could kiss him once," the Xer suggested, "he will know nothing of it, and at least you would know -- " "Stop, my friend," Cha'Khah smiled sadly, "You make it worse now." ------------------------- He heard sounds, muffled and soft from around him. The way that it sounded, he was not out in the woods anymore. He wanted to open his eyes, but the commands didn't seem to be getting that far from his mind yet. He was able to make out two voices a moment later, the one attached to that sweet laughter that he'd heard and another, deeper one, which oddly enough, sounded female as well. Both voices carried accents of some sort and he noticed that they were not the same accent between them. It was all a bit much, considering that he felt like shit at the moment. "I have added two more pieces of wood to the heating system," the deeper voice said, "You should close this control here if it gets too warm. It is already too warm here for me." Barrett managed to open his eyes, and he stared at the source of the deeper voice. He might have been scared to death and as confused as hell, but he did manage to maintain at least a little clarity of thought. "If that stove is full of wood, then you'd better close that damper all the way, unless you plan to have me die when the place burns down from a chimney fire." When the one with the deeper voice turned its head to him, he wondered why he wasn't pissing himself in fear, and the dog-like tracks that he'd seen suddenly made sense. "You stole my cattle?" "Yes," Shaevre nodded, "We did not know that they belonged to anyone," She turned her head to Cha'Khah, "I must go. Will you be alright?" "Yes," the dark woman answered, "though I've managed to almost get him killed with my foolishness. I have everything that I need. Thank you, Shaevre." The dog-thing nodded its head and after closing the damper as Barrett had instructed, she opened the door to go. "We think that you will be angry," she said," and we can understand it, especially now. But you really should thank my friend. When you raised your weapon, I was about to kill you with mine. We have made an error and we sought to correct it, but it went wrong. Please do not think of her too badly for what happened. She saved your life." She picked up her weapon from where it leaned against the wall next to his by the door and ducking her head carefully, the tall Xer turned to go. "What the hell are you?" Barrett managed to ask, "And that thing, it looks like some kind of rifle, but it's so big." "It is near enough to be called that, even by me" the Xer nodded, "but it is made to kill ones like me when we war. We are hard to kill. If my friend can ease your feelings, you might ask her of it. I must go, it is too warm for me here," she said, indicating her fur. She walked out and closed the door behind her. Cha'Khah looked at him from where she sat on a chair, "Are you not going to ask what she is?" "I'm really not in the mood," he said in a low voice, "I'm waiting to see what you're going to do to me next while I try to figure out what I did to deserve this." He felt a little sorry for his tone, seeing the way that it caused her to look down, but not much. "You did nothing," she said to the floor, "I made a mistake, and then another, and after that, I wished to do the right thing and make it better if I could." She sighed, "But then I erred and made another mistake, and you did what you saw as right -- which it was -- and of course, I made another mistake then. If it were not for Shaevre, you would be in great pain now or soon. I am here now to try to fix what I can, and then I will go. I will not bother you again." Barrett found that he could now feel his extremities. But he couldn't move much at all. "You are tied to the chair," the dark one said as she got up. She looked disgusted with herself for a moment. "I have no fear of you and I do not wish to harm you. I will free you in a few minutes, and I really am very sorry. It probably means nothing to you, but if you knew me at all, you would know that perhaps the thing that I hate most of all to do is to apologize. I see it as a personal flaw, but it is there." She looked down for a moment and sighed, "I am sorry for everything. I shot you because we thought that you were about to act in the only way that you could from your side of it. My friend would have killed you in only a moment more to protect me, so I shot you to save you from her weapon. All of this is because I made a mistake and we came to tell of it and try to make it better if we could. The bolt that I shot you with was tipped with a poison. It is used where I come from for abductions. It acts quickly, but will not kill for some time. That is why you feel drugged, because you were, really. When it passes with an antidote, it usually causes strong muscle spasms in most, but you seem to have escaped this because I started the antidote in less than two minutes. A good thing, because those spasms are sometimes strong enough to break bones, in the legs for example." She hung her head a little, "Another good thing is that I remembered which weapon carried the slow poison. The other one works just as quickly and kills in seconds." She sighed, "And there is no antidote which could be applied fast enough to prevent death. You are tied so that I may undo some of the wrong that I have done. I need you to be still then." "Wonderful," Barrrett said quietly," so that's why I'm trussed up here like a turkey. Where's my shirt?" "I had to remove it," Cha'Khah said, "There is the antidote to counter the drug and I wished to apply it before you suffered real harm. The antidote stains clothing badly. We removed your coat and shirt for this where you fell and I brought them when my friend carried you here. That is why you probably feel cold. I also found some thread and I have repaired the holes from the dart in your shirt and your coat," she said, rolling her eyes. "Now, I wish to heal the damage to you." She stood up and removed her cloak. He could see that her shoulders were not quite as broad as he'd thought. Her armor included spalders over her shoulders. The edges of the ridges on them looked to be sharp. He could see that she wore swords as well and he wondered about that as she removed them and laid them on the table beside some things which he couldn't identify. She noticed his expression. "Ask me what you will," she shrugged a little sadly, "I am the one who has ruined your day -- and put holes in both you and your clothing." "I have a lot of questions," he said, and she was at least a little pleased that he didn't seem to be quite as angry as she knew that she'd have been under circumstances like these. He did look annoyed though, even more so after he'd looked down and seen the thin hole in his pectoral muscle and the angry redness around it. "What's all that stuff on the table next to the swords there?" She moved a few things around and opened a container of some liquid, "I am about to make sure that there is no more poison in the wound. There will be only some brief pain, and then I will clean the wound and medicate it before I close it. I can do better with flesh than I can sew. There will be no scar or mark of any kind and the wound will be healed. It is not something that I would do for most people that I shoot. But then, I do not ever try to meet many humans either. This is all my fault. Why was your weapon empty?" she asked. "It's a long story, and I'm an idiot," he said, and looked away. He felt the hardness of her gauntlet against his cheek as she turned his head, "Human, I have made many errors here, but I try to correct them. I wish to know why you did not load your weapon, and yet you made as though to prepare it to shoot me. We have enough differences between us to make things harder than they need to be. Once I knew of what you did, I worked very hard and quickly. Before I knew, I was angry with you for raising it. I would not have tried so hard. Another good thing, because it was Shaevre who noticed that the weapon was empty. I was too angry to care much until then. Well I am not angry with you anymore. I am only angry with myself. I know that you have many reasons to hate me and I cannot say that you would be wrong. Only please tell me why." Barrett looked down for a moment, "That thing over there against the wall is older than anyone knows. Some ancestor of mine brought it with him when he came to settle here and it's been here ever since. Living here, you need a rifle like that. In the past, it wasn't just animals who'd come to raid here. I don't know what happened hundreds of years ago, no one does, but when you're starving and stumbling around in these mountains and you see cattle and crops, well a gun is maybe the only thing that'll change your mind. But it doesn't always work out that way. It's never happened to me, but a couple of my family have needed to use that. It's killed men before, a few times. But when you're out there facing somebody who might want to kill you to get what's yours, a lot of things can go wrong in less time than you'd think. At least once, a man was killed by mistake and out of fear. It's something that I always keep in my mind. That's why I only carry one cartridge for it, and I never carry it loaded. That way, I need to think before I can use it." Cha'Khah nodded, and understanding at least a little, she found that she could respect his view. "What do you know of my kind?" she asked, "I saw your face change when I pulled my hood back. I wished to show that I was friendly, but I saw something else in your face then." "I don't know anything about you," he said, "but all that I've heard is that you can kill somebody before they know it. I'm missing some of my herd, and I thought that you were here to take another one, but maybe I got in your way." He watched her hair fly at how hard she shook her head. "No," she said, "I think that I can see it, but I was here to offer money to pay for what we took." She leaned forward and placed her hand on his leg as she did, "You may have heard things, and I cannot say that what you heard was wrong, not knowing it, but you need to know something that is truth from the mouth of one who IS what was spoken about. The ones who were spoken of to you, I am not one of them anymore. I can offer you only truth, human. You will have to decide if I lie, but those ones that you heard of," she said, looking directly into his eyes to make her point. "They do not come alone, and they NEVER come in the daytime. Only at night. I am a Drow and my kind loves the darkness." She chuckled to herself, "And they would never come to you to pay you for anything." She leaned back and took her hand away as she did. "I understand some of it now, but if you felt threatened, why did you not load the weapon then?" He tried to shrug, "I don't really know, but I don't trust everything that I hear in the barroom of an inn. There's a lot more bullshit there than truth. I only knew that I didn't have enough of a reason to shoot you. I had the round in my hand inside my pocket, but even though you're something that I've never seen before and you seem to be able to move so fast that I can't see you do it and walk on snow and leave no tracks, well, that's no reason to want to kill somebody, at least to me it's not. So I left the round in my pocket and I hoped that if I worked the lever that you'd get the idea, since you weren't listening to me when I told you to stop. Besides, if what I heard was true, you were already too close for me to have time to load the rifle, and until all of this happened," he said, looking down to indicate what had been done to him, "I kind of liked you." Cha'Khah's mouth fell open. "You -- you say that you liked me." He nodded, feeling foolish and she laughed for a moment, "This is the most unkind day for us both," she said with a sad shake of her head, "I have heard that humans tell each other not to believe what one of us might say to them. That is probably for the best with most of us." She smirked, "I can almost hear the words that human mothers say of us to their children to keep them in their beds at night." She stood up and turned away to look out of the window. Barrett watched her, thinking that she didn't look quite so fearsome now. She looked really nice to him until the mild throb from the wound in his chest reminded him of the way that things were. "Well," she said, "it seems that I must be more cursed than I know. After all of this, who would ever believe me?" He watched her look down and he thought that he could feel it when she laughed at herself a little bitterly for a moment. "I came to find the one who owned the cattle that were taken. I found you. I am here with my cousin. We are the only Drow in this area as far as we know, and we are not here to hurt anyone. We only sought to get away from our miserable lives and begin here -- where everyone hates or fears us." He watched as she spoke to the window quietly, "I found you. I do not like human males. I never have. But I liked you." She was silent for a moment and then he heard words from her that he didn't understand and he asked her about it. "Nothing bad to you," she said sadly, "I only curse my foul luck." She turned then went back to the table to resume what she'd been doing and he could see that she just wanted to be done here and go. "Before I forget what I did to cause all of this, say how much for the two animals which were taken. I did not see any markers on your land and old fence here mostly means little, there is so much of it which leads nowhere from long ago. I was hunting with my friend and I saw the animals. I did not think, and I am sorry. She did not know any better and I should have. If I had known that you ranched here, I would have left your cattle alone." She looked up as she worked, preparing, "I know that you likely do not have much, and the loss of those beasts was probably a blow to you. It is my fault, and though it was not meant, I stole from you twice before I knew of my error. Today, I only wanted to speak to you, not harm you as I have. Only say how much, and I will pay it," A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 30 She smirked to herself a little, "before I cause any other harm to you in error." Barrett looked at her and as far as he could tell, she was being sincere with him. What she'd said about liking him surprised him and he wanted to come up with something to try to use to give himself more time. He thought about it, "They were second year, and they'd have gone to the yards in the spring. I didn't have as much money as I wanted and I knew that I'd lose a few, so I didn't buy as good as I wanted to so that I'd have enough to buy a few extra head. They were about three quarters grown and fattened. I'd say that thirty-five gold ought to cover my loss." She raised her head,"For each one?" Her expression made him smile just a little, and while her actions had caused him a loss, they were spare head, after all, and if they'd have made it to market, they'd have been gravy to him. He saw no need to gouge her for her mistake. "No, for both. But for that price, I'd want to know the name of the lady who shot me and tied me up like this." Cha'Khah couldn't help her little grin, "Well then, if I have to set a price to my own name, then perhaps I will leave you thirty gold on the table here, clean up the damage that I have done to you, loosen your bindings a little and just go." She watched as his face fell a little, "Look," he said apologetically, "I don't know anything about uh, black elves, and I'm sorry if I offended you. I didn't know that I'm not supposed to ask you your name." To his surprise and heartfelt relief, she smiled, "I am not offended. If I was in a mood to be offended or if I was feeling more like what all of the females where I come from are usually like, then I would kill you now for saying what is obvious. What is wrong if you say what you see? My skin is black, and everyone knows that we are a sort of elf, related to them as we are, but we never say this. We are too important to ourselves and we hate the other kinds so much that it is a very reluctant admission that we might be forced to make, that we are elves." She'd said the last words of that looking as though she wanted to spit and then she'd laughed at herself. "Just so that you know a few things which may be useful in your travels, my people, and I have left them far behind me to your good fortune, are known to others here as Drow, or THE Drow. Sometimes we are referred to as Drow Elves, though that is already nearing an insult to some of us. We call ones like you Rivvin. To me, you are a Rivvil, a human, and the word is no insult. It is just our name for you. There is no love between us and the light-skinned elves, only bad blood and hatred. What you should keep foremost in your mind are a few simple things. To insult us is to ask for your death most often. We are proud and arrogant, it must be said, and I feel no shame in saying it if it keeps you alive in meeting one of us. Most of us live under the earth in cities and seldom if ever come above. Only a fool such as I am would come out in the light of the day, for the sunlight hurts our eyes and saps our abilities. If it is night and you see several, it is a bad, bad thing for you, and you might easily die then only for having seen them because if they come, they do not come in friendship. Most would never have the thought of it in their minds at all. We come if there is war above that we cannot get to under the earth. We come if something was taken from us, or sometimes we come if there is something that is needed by us. I took two of your cattle, but if I was like most, I would not pay you for them. I would kill you and take them all, though cows are a poor example; I am one of the few who like the taste. I have heard it said that we are evil, but that is not so. We are greedy and we seek for quick gain, though some of the high ones are evil in my view. But you are not likely to ever meet a high priestess or a queen. Even if you did, it would matter little, you would likely not survive such a meeting anyway." She smirked, "I doubt that I would, over the way that I left." She smiled then and gave up trying to hold back, so she reached to give in to her urge and tousle his hair a little, since there wasn't much that he could do about it, "The difference is," she smiled down at him, "that I like you. But I am not like most of my kind. I left everything behind to come up and live on the surface. There are a few others, and some even live a little among humans, but something that you must always hold in your mind is that you cannot ever trust most Drow. We trust no one, not even others of our kind, very much. It is a wonder that we even trust ourselves." She nodded to him, "One of many reasons why I left. And there was nothing wrong in it if you ask my name. You may always ask, Rivvil, always. I know that we are different, but even I have seen that if all of the kinds of beings here -- and all of their types keep only to themselves, then there is nothing but mistrust and hatred waiting for us all. I learned this as I stepped out of the darkness. Most fear us or at the least mistrust us. We mistrust others and even ourselves. It forces my cousin and I to live almost alone, but still it is better than what we left, and always I try to hold a little hope." She looked at Barrett with a bit of an impish little smile, "Or do I bore you with all of my foolish talk?" He shook his head, trying to hide the fact that her little grin had made him ache a little to kiss her. "No," he smiled, "not at all. I could sit here and listen to you all day, and, ..." he looked around and tried to shrug, "my hands are tied. Where else would I want to be? I've been dying to get a look at you all week so far. I'm uh, ... I'm being really obvious here, aren't I?" "Yes," she chuckled, "but so am I. I have made an admission to you which I would never make otherwise and like everything else about you, it confounds me a little. I have never liked human males. It is not their fault, it is just that way." "What do you mean?" he asked, "and why are your eyes slowly turning red?" "It grows dark," she shrugged, "Our eyes turn red in the dark. We see well then. If you have never heard of the red eyes of the Drow, that is because few live to tell of meeting one in the dark. It is only to see with," she said. She smiled at him and he was glad that he was sitting down. She had that much of an effect on him. "I have been here on the surface for almost five years, "she said, "In that time, I have not seen one human male that I liked to look at, never mind wish to speak to. You have been trying to see me all week, you said. I have been watching you for all of that time. Today, though I ruined everything, I decided that I would try to speak with you." He looked doubtful, "I know I'm not the brightest, but I think I'd have known if you were around." "Maybe," she said, deciding not to demonstrate, "and then, maybe not." She leaned down and smiled at him, "But we were speaking of your cattle. You give up too easily. Drow love to bargain, you know. You were trying to buy my name from me. I would have given it for nothing, but you began this and now I find that my name has value to you." She set down what she'd been preparing and began to remove her gauntlets, taking the spalders and the cuirass off next. She looked at him since he'd said nothing, "I'm sorry, it grows hot in here and I was getting uncomfortable. Do I offend you?" He rolled his eyes and chuckled, "No, ... you just go on ahead. Take off everything if you like. I'll just sit here and , ... I dunno, explode or something." "Explode?" she looked at him blankly for a moment before she smiled, "Ahh, I understand. You enjoy watching me remove some of my clothing, yet you are tied to the chair." Barrett smiled a little softly, since he couldn't help himself, "Something like that." He was looking at the thin long-sleeved mail shirt that she wore as she undid it, reaching behind her head to do that. If she was aware of the way that it caused her breasts to stand out a little more prominently, she said nothing of it as she watched him with a coy little smile. "I just hate the way that I'm so obvious about everything, "he groaned a little theatrically. But he shut up and sat up as much as he could a bit expectantly when she pulled it over her head. Cha'Khah looked a little perplexed at his expression. She looked down at herself and then back at him, "It is winter outside. Have you any idea how a cold mail shirt feels against - oh, never mind," she giggled a little, seeing the pronounced lump in the front of his trousers. The disappointment on his face at seeing the lighter cuirass with its corset-like fit and the breast cups was clearly evident. Like the outer armor, this was a deep blue with a golden motif which began at the lower edge just below her navel and ended under the ribbed cups. In this light, it looked almost black. Cha'Khah smiled to herself as she turned to get the things that she needed. She was surprised to find how much fun she was having with this. "How many pairs of trousers do you own?" she asked airily as he looked at her long hair from behind her. "I don't know, off the top of my head," Barrett shrugged, "why?" "You wound is seeping a little and it gets near to your trousers, "she said as she set down the tincture bottle which contained the antidote, "As well, I will need to use more of this, and it runs faster than water. You are not on your back now. If this touches the fabric, it will flow through quickly and stain a blood red and people will look at you and think that you are dying or something." She nodded as though she'd made a decision, "They will have to come off." Barrett's jaw flopped open, "What?" "It does not matter to me," she said with a small shrug as she set everything down and leaned over him to undo his pants, "but I can see that you are not wealthy. I don't mind, I like you. I only try to think of you. Lift yourself." "Jesus!" he muttered, but he complied, "Getting shot by you is sure turning into an experience." Cha'Khah said nothing to him, though to herself, she admitted that it sounded like such a good idea now -- for them both. She gave a thought to Vadren and remembered that though they loved and cared for each other in many ways, they'd often spoken of chance meetings and opportunities for what they each really wanted. He'd always told her that if she thought that she saw a chance for herself, that she should follow it to see where it led her and he would do the same. She only looked down once as she helped to get his pants to his ankles. But that was all that it took to make him feel better when she'd given him that sly little grin of hers and said only, "Very nice." Then she was back to business as though it wasn't even there. She was enjoying this, not so much over his confinement -- she just liked him, and she was perfectly safe here, after all. The number of ways that she could do him harm far outnumbered however many ways that he possessed to do much of anything to her. She could tease him if she wanted, and if she changed her mind or if he showed himself to be a dull brute, she could always leave. She just really didn't want to, because Cha'Khah was feeling a little hopeful and it felt wonderful. She could look at him like this all week. She made a bit of a show over looking at his wound in a concerned fashion for a moment and she touched his chest next to the wound as though trying to get a better look for a second. He felt it as she splayed her graceful fingers out through the hair on his chest, but when he looked down, she was removing her hand and her expression was a little unreadable when he looked up again. Taking her hand away after giving in to the urge to feel that hair was a lot harder for Cha'Khah to do than she'd have ever thought. "Say how much for the cattle and my name, and then remove what you would ask of me if I wished to know your name as well," she smiled as she leaned over him, doing her best not to look down while at the same time allowing him a look into the breast cups for a moment. Her long hair tickled his erection. She knew it and moved her head a little only once. She was almost sure that she'd heard his quiet little hiss through the clenched teeth that she smiled at innocently. "What?" he asked, "Oh, um, ... forty." "Too much, "she said, shaking her head, "I should have mentioned that if a merchant holds his prices too high and cannot be moved, it is considered an insult to the other party." She walked to the table with the same strut that he'd seen earlier to pick up her dagger and he stared at how she could make it dance in her hand, "Did I tell you how we react to insults?" "Thirty-seven," he groaned, almost wanting to cry for the way that she walked back and laid her hand on his thigh as she laughed, "Why are you laughing?" "I am not laughing at you, my new and nameless friend," she said, as she reached to move her hair behind an ear that he now wanted so much to kiss. The thought of licking it slowly all the way to the end and then sucking on it a little, ... "I am thinking that this starts to sound a little like one of Selena's tales. She is another friend of mine." Barrett looked at Cha'Khah, knowing that if his life ran only a little true to the course that it had always taken, he'd for damn sure never meet anyone like this ever again. The way that she looked to him, the thought made him a little sad. He couldn't remember ever wanting to get to know someone as much as he wanted to know her. It's not every day that one meets his goddess and knows it. "Is she another Drow?" he asked. "No," she said, "Selena is half-human and half --" she stopped to think about it. If he'd reacted this badly to meeting a Drow, ... "something else. She has had many adventures and she tells such good tales of them. Why did you look sad for a moment?" "It's nothing, I guess," he said. "It is something, I think," she replied, "We were enjoying each other, and that is rare for our two kinds together, from what I know. My language is not the same as yours, and mistakes are easily made. More than anything, I fear to make another mistake with you. I have done you so much harm. If you wish, then I can do what is needed and leave the gold. I will untie you." "No," Barrett said, "please, don't do that." He hung his head a little, "I was just thinking that I've never met someone who can make me feel like this, and I just had a thought that I'd better enjoy it, because I probably won't be very happy when you're gone. I live here alone, obviously. It gives me too much time to think, ... about being alone and, ... wishing that I wasn't, ... so alone. My price is thirty-seven, but you never said whether you accepted it or not." Cha'Khah looked at him searchingly for a long moment. "That is why I seek to play this game with you," she said softly, "We are different, but we like each other. I try to give us a safe way to talk after stealing from you and shooting you. I am not good with words in this tongue, so I do this. I have you at my mercy here, no shirt, and naked." She smiled and bent down again, "You must know by now that I have no wish to harm you, Rivvil. I saw how you looked at me, and I see the way that you look now. It is quite unlike me to be here like this, but I share the same fascination with you that I see that you have for me. Do not give up so easily. I am not finished with your wound yet, and I do not want to leave right away after I am done. I am sorry for what I have done, but I enjoy being here with you." She reached for his cheek and she leaned in to kiss him very softly for a long moment. She sighed, and he groaned, and afterward, they grinned at each other. "I have a male here. He makes me feel good inside and he even lets me talk him out of his clothes, though he feels shame to do this. I want him to know that it is alright, that I like him very much. I do not know the right way to say this to a Rivvil, that is all." She smiled, "Ha! I have wanted to touch this hair on your face since I saw you for the first time. I have wondered how it would feel and now I know that I like it not only to look at. I was going to ask for a price to be allowed to touch it, but I have already done it. I wish to finish healing you before there is a scar, so I should begin." She stood up and began to remove her breeches by opening fasteners at the crotch and the inseams. "That's a nice touch," he grinned. "Well I am a girl," she said, and we must, you know, ... sometime," she said as she unfastened the garment at one hip. She stood in a leather undergarment, very similar to the bottom of a bikini, though it was fastened to the corset-like cuirass by a single leather strap front and back. And of course, she still had her long boots on. "God, ... Damn!" Barrett hissed. She turned to look back from where she stood at the table, "You like it?" He nodded and she smiled as she walked over to straddle a low stool, "I used to like to wear it because if I had to fight, it would make a male stare -- something like you are doing now, "she chuckled, "I didn't care if he liked it or me, only that he stood staring long enough to die. I saved a lot of time like that." "I was going to ask you how much for you to take those pants off," he smiled a little, "but you've already done it, so thank you." She frowned for a moment and then she grinned, "My bad luck, then. But we are even now." She shook her head, "The height is wrong like this." She stood up and said, "Slide your bottom forward toward the front edge of the chair, but not too close." When he'd moved with a little of her help, he found himself leaning backwards a bit because his hands were tied, but when she'd asked if he was comfortable, he'd said that he was fine. His eyes almost left his head when she'd straddled him very carefully then and began to work on the wound. She knew that he was likely going to leave a wet spot on the outside of her leather garment, because she could feel the way that his hardness was pressing there, but that was fine, she thought. It was surely nothing like the one that she was leaving on the inside. He groaned deeply when she'd shifted once and she stopped to look at him, "Am I hurting you?" Barrett sighed with a crooked little smile and tried to shrug, "Yeah, but in the nicest way." "I meant your chest," Cha'Khah smirked. "I meant my heart," he chuckled and though he didn't know it, he came very close to having his wound forgotten again. "You must be a good boy for me for only a little while," she whispered, as she leaned in to kiss him once. Then she did it again, "I spent a whole afternoon wondering how a female might overcome the obstacle of the hair on your lip. I have never kissed someone with that." She smiled, "And now I know that it tickles and it feels good and I am pleased to know it." He hesitated for a moment, "Uh, ... how much would you want to do what you have to do to me without that armor on your chest?" Cha'Khah blinked a little angelically, "But, ... I wear nothing under my, ... " He nodded, and she smiled, "To say the truth, I now want to do this, but you asked for a price. So, whatever will settle us for the cattle and our names, as long as it is no more than thirty-five gold. I have a bit more, but it is all that I can spend for my foolish mistakes, and you need the money as well. Do not go much below that or I will feel as though I am cheating you. You should know your good fortune to have a Drowess say such a thing to a Rivvil. It surely has never happened before." "Thirty-two," he said. "Are you certain?" she asked. When he nodded, she got up and produced a purse from somewhere in her breeches. It amazed him. That amount of golds was a little heavy and he hadn't heard any clinking when she'd taken them off. He watched her count out the money and she left it in a heap on the table after asking him if he'd seen that she'd counted it fairly. A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 30 When he nodded, she laid another two gold down, "The knowing of your name has become more valuable to me, and also, I have hurt you." She turned and lit the old lantern. When she had it adjusted, she set it on the stool that she'd used earlier, removed her light cuirass, and sat down on his lap again, just as carefully. "Very nice," he smiled. "Cha'Khah," she said and he asked her what she'd said. "My name," she said, "My name is Cha'Khah. Cha ... Khah. Only it is said a little quickly. Cha'Khah Dreile. My name is shortened. There is a lot in between the 'Cha' and the 'Khah'," she smiled, "but we have already taken too long with your wound." "Cha'Khah," He grinned, "That is the nicest name, I swear. My name is Barrett Ransom." "Bare -- ett? Barrett?" She tried experimentally. "A fine name," she grinned. He tried not to flinch as she worked, but there was now some irritation and the wound was tender. "You can't possibly see very well by the light of that lantern, with it sitting like that," he said, "Why don't you move it closer, or move the table closer and set it there?" She didn't look up or stop, "I could do this with nothing if we sat in a cave at midnight," she said, "We see well in the darkness. I moved the light for you, so that you could see me well, Barrett." He didn't know what to say, so she said it, "I want you to see me well," she said quietly as she looked up for only an instant before she was back at it, looking down with her concentration showing on her lovely face, "I know that you like my body, and not only as a male. I know that you like me, and, ... and I like you very much too." He wanted to say something a lot nicer than what came out of him the next instant as he threw his head back and grunted heavily for a moment. It burned like the devil, and then it was gone and he sagged back down. "Cha'Khah, you said there would be a little pain." She shrugged, "I said that there would be some brief pain. The dart was old and a piece chipped off. I had to get it out, Barrett. Sorry about the pain. You did well, though. A Drow would have made no sound so as not to appear weak, but that is our foolish way. I think that for what I did then, most humans would have screamed. If I had said that you must be silent, I know that you would have done it, so I am proud of you." "How do you know that?" he smiled through the way that his skin smart, "I might not have been able to do that. If it had gone on longer, I might have cried like a little kid with a skinned knee." She shook her head as she worked,"No, you make sport now. I was a soldier and I have seen much. You would have been silent if I asked for it." She looked up, "I can tell these things." She finished up and he could see that she was ready to get off him. "Come here Cha'Khah," he whispered, "I can't move like this, so you'll have to come here. I want to kiss you, and then I want you to put your head on my shoulder so that I can feel your ear against my cheek and, ... and I swear that right now, I think I'll die if I can't smell your hair and feel it on my face very soon." One of the big differences which lay between Cha'Khah Dreile and the vast majority of female Drow was that in her, the want to get ahead or achieve gain had been removed from her, shaped as she'd been by the events in her life. She didn't care about these things. What Cha'Khah had always wanted more than anything was to be loved, something that most of her kind regarded as weakness. She knew that this was very different from the way that relationships begin for humans and for Drow, but she didn't care. What he'd just said went a long way toward healing some very old hurts in her. She flew at him with a whimper and she heard his sigh as she threw her arms around his neck to hug him. She did it because she suddenly needed to. That was all that mattered. She looked into his eyes searchingly for a moment and then she kissed him, really kissed him, before she sat up a little and leaned forward to let him feel her warm breasts on his skin because she wanted to feel his chest against them as well. This next time, she moved in a little slower, wanting to feel that hair on his chest as the bottoms of her breasts grazed along on her way in. She was hopeful that it would feel good, and she wasn't disappointed. It was a little thing, but to Cha'Khah, the sensuality of making love of any kind was all about small details. Anything less to her was just something which reminded her of what she'd left. That was the way that most male Drow went at this -- direct and to the point, missing all of the things that Cha'Khah liked. He smelled her hair and he kissed her neck a little through her white mane and then he softly rubbed his cheek against her ear as he listened to her soft sigh. Barrett was so careful about it when he moved his head a little to kiss her long ear, and then he pressed his cheek against hers again. "Listen," he whispered to her, "I don't want to have those two cows between us. If you have to hear me say it, then I forgive you for stealing them and even for shooting me. I'll get through the winter. I just want to find some way to know you really well. I don't even know what I'm doing and I'm just as scared as you are to make a mistake, but I don't want you to just go after this, alright? Please Cha'Khah, I want to know you, everything that you care to tell me -- anything." "I am afraid," she whispered back, "I have never been so afraid of anything, Barrett." "That's alright," he said, and she felt his smile against her, "I'm really afraid too." She pulled her head back then and he watched her scratch her cheek a little. "Such a sweet tickle," she smiled. In that instant, Barrett Ransom was lost and he knew it. He looked down. There was no hole in him. There was no hole or puckered crater or any indication that anything had ever happened to him, other than a small reddish spot, not much larger than the shaft of the bolt from her pistol crossbow. She saw him looking. "The reason that I allowed so much time to close the wound is that I knew that there was no poison in it anymore. I did not want to do much more than get the dart out when you fell, and that is easily done once you know how to fold in the barbs. But once that happens, you must begin on the poison quickly. The effect speeds up when air touches the poison, so I had to act right then. I got your shirt off and ... I sucked the poison out myself." "Why?" Barrett asked, "I'm very thankful, but I'm not sure that I understand." She looked at him, "I had to hurry then, Barrett. Shaevre showed me that I had misjudged you. I was really angry until then. I think that I was so angry because until you raised the weapon, I was so hopeful. I am never hopeful. That's when I knew that I was making another mistake to add to my pile. I did not want you to suffer something else because of me." He stared at her for a moment and then he shook his head in wonder, "You are the most surprising, beautiful woman that I've ever met. What are those other red spots a little lower down?" Cha'Khah shrugged, "I liked how it felt when I did it, so I did it somewhere else. Shaevre stopped me before you froze to death." Barrett laughed then and she moved a little. "I hope it was not wrong to do that, Barrett, but if it was, you may consider it your turn now." When he looked, Cha'Khah was reaching up to untie her topknot and he was looking at the loveliest pair of breasts in the known world -- as far as Barrett Ransom knew, and if they weren't, well then from his point of view, then God must surely be a female and have quite a set herself. The position was a little difficult, so she offered her breast to him with one hand and when the first of his kisses there began, she held his head for him with the other. Cha'Khah sighed and after a few minutes of having her breasts loved as they'd never been loved before, she knew why that was. Vadren liked to do this as well, obviously. But he did it as a Drow and -- if she could categorize this -- a little forcefully. Even though Vadren was a kind and thoughtful lover, what Barrett did now surpassed what she'd felt when anyone else had been allowed this, and she knew that it was killing him not to have his hands free as well. Cha'Khah held the notion that as far as sex went, there were three sorts, or perhaps intents which might drive the event. The way that she'd categorized them, lust was the first, it was the only kind that she'd really ever experienced. But it was a goal of hers to experience the third kind, where it was meant as something given by a pair to each other as a function of their love. The second kind was out of the love itself. She knew that the first kind was evident here, but she thought that she could feel that the second was easily possible, and that startled her a little, because it opened up a glimpse of her goal to her. Barrett felt her move up somehow, and then he felt the beginnings of her testing pressure against his abdominal muscles. "Is it alright, Barrett?" he heard her ask, "Can I do this a little?" He lifted his lips from her nipple and nodded, "Sure, Cha'Khah. Go ahead if it feels good to you." He tensed his stomach for her and was rewarded with the way that she moaned and sighed as she rubbed the leather of her garment against the ridges of his abdomen. He didn't mind at all, he just didn't know how she could do that this far up on him, having forgotten what he'd seen just before she'd shot him earlier. As her magnificent dark breasts nudged his face over and over, his beard tickled her in just the very best way and he kissed them again and again. When she became a little more urgent, she got up and removed the last of her garments with a soft and rather shy smile. He knew somehow that shyness was not something which was exhibited very much by her kind, and so he took it for what it must then be. Cha'Khah was hopeful that he'd like what she had. A moment later, she confirmed it when she asked him, and he smiled at her snowy pubic hair and said that it was as lovely and captivating as the rest of her. "You don't understand, Cha'Khah," he said quietly, "It's not a matter of you being good enough for me. I'm looking at perfect when I see the smallest part of you. I just hope that I can hold your interest. I'm just a fool on a mountainside. You're a goddess to me." She sighed a little and her smile widened, but then Barrett stared as he watched her begin to rise off the floor to hang in the air over him. She raised her legs and spread her knees as she ran her fingers over her cleft and spread the lips there so that he could see her glistening wetness. To Barrett Ransom, it was flat out the most erotic thing that he'd ever seen in his life. "Such a thing to say to me, Rivvil," she chuckled in that slightly smoky way of hers. Neither of them knew it, but just those words from her caused the end of his hardness to seep its wetness as it throbbed in such a deliciously painful way to him. "I have found me a male who can make me wet only to see him even clothed, and yet, as I ache for him, I also ache to feel his heart against mine. You need have no fear that you hold my interest, sweet Barrett. I begin to think that I have found a god for me as well." She levitated nearer to him and rose up a little more, watching his face with a little trepidation and with great interest as she brought her soaking wet sex to his lips. Barrett was careful to plant the first of his kisses very softly, so that she'd know what he wanted to show her. Cha'Khah gasped in happiness as she caressed his head to let him know that she'd understood it before she pressed him a little more urgently and tried to buck her hips against his face gently. But Barrett still had a small surprise for her. He wasn't thinking of it too much that way, he just knew that he had something which she'd likely never experienced. He backed his head away. "Careful, Cha'Khah," he smiled up at her, "Look at my face. If you'd done that just after I'd trimmed this you wouldn't like me at all anymore. Even like this, you can't just jam up against it. Just come here slowly and let me do this for you." He moved his face a little against her. Nothing hard or quick; he was mindful of how whiskers could tease and also irritate the most tender parts of a woman. But he'd had Katy to teach him how to use it the previous spring and he'd taken the lesson to heart. He'd just never had anyone to do this for since Katy had gone away to get married. He leaned in now and then as he began. Every once in a while, he'd tease the insides of her thighs and go a little higher with the teasing to where her legs met her body. He kissed and gently tilted his head before he slid his tongue in and dragged it out again slowly. Within a ninute, Cha'Khah was past marveling at this -- she was well into thinking that he could drive her mad in this gentle way of his. She was concerned over one thing, not knowing human males and this one especially. The truth of it was that she needn't have been concerned really, but she had to know and so after a minute, she summoned the strength from somewhere within herself to push herself away a little. When Barrett looked up, he saw his goddess smiling down at him, "It is good? I need to know, wondrous Rivvil, for I am a very wet Drow girl. After finding one like you, I do not wish to offend you with how much I can make for you." He snorted a little in amazement that she'd even ask such a thing, "Cha'Khah, I've only done this a little, but this is the best thing I've ever tasted in my life. Please bring it back to me, honey, I'll take all that you can give me." She moved closer again with a happy little cry, "Then this is for you, Barrett, I have so much to give you, and do not ... fear. ... You do ... me such ... " she sighed, "Such good." Cha'Khah didn't bother to try to speak after that, her sounds ranged from sighs to anguished keening cries as she hung in the air, holding his head to her sex. She bucked as gently as she could, but it was still forceful at some points and Barrett didn't mind. He licked and sucked, working the hot little pearl there as he did. She amazed him at how much she could give him, and he loved the taste and the scent of her, so sweet and while he'd noted a bit of a tang to it whenever he'd done this for Katy, there was none of that to Cha'Khah's juices. It amazed him and he sought after what it was in his mind. He wanted to laugh in joy when he knew it, though he couldn't. He didn't dare stop for her until she'd let him know that it was enough. But Barrett Ransom knew then that he was at the gates of his own personal heaven when he knew what the gentle flavoring was. Along with the female taste and scent, Barrett was loving something with just a hint of the nicest spice in it. It, ... it tasted as though it had ... something a little like ... the barest hint ... of ... ginger and cloves to it. He groaned in joy as he worked. Barrett was in hog heaven. He knew it when she was contracting internally, feeling it in the muscles a little, every time that he 'did it right' for her to his mind, he'd feel that and he'd get a little wave of more wetness from her. He could drown here in happiness, he thought. Cha'Khah was surprised to find herself saying his name in her sounds and it pleased her a great deal. She seemed to be finding such hope in this, and said a little prayer to her goddess as best she could that this was not only her foolish desire at work. As she found herself mounting the slope in her mind, she had a thought of the so-called friends that she'd left behind in the Drow underground. She knew the way that they'd look right now if they could see her. They'd wrinkle their noses and make snide remarks about her fucking with lower creatures. Well she'd had plenty of Drow males, and other than Vadren, they'd all been the same, just as they were in anything, self-serving and out for only themselves. Unless it was specified what was to be done as a bargain beforehand, Drow males only fucked for themselves and why not? The way that they were treated, most of them, what else could one expect? If a Drow woman wanted one of her slaves, she just took him to bed, and he had better perform for her or else. No wonder they often treated it as just another task. She looked down at him busily at work on her and laughed a little in joy, but that faded as she began to rocket toward her orgasm, gathering speed along the way. She'd already had a few little ones, the same as she'd ever gotten from a Drow male only much nicer. This ... this was ... this, ... oh ... oh ... Cha'Khah wailed for a moment and then she gave in to it and threw her head back to scream out Barrett's name as she bucked her hips three times. At the end of each stroke, she paused. Each pause was longer than the last and after three she just just shook. Barrett was awash suddenly. She gushed onto his face and he did his best, but ... "No," she whispered softly as the waves rocked her, "no, ... stop. Only ... only suck, my lover. Th-this is ... for only you." She heaved a sigh when she heard his soft groan. He pulled back for only as long as it took him to beg her to release his hands, and then he was back, his face nuzzled against her, sucking softly and aching to do more to prolong her afterglow. His hands were free then and he groaned at how it hurt a little to move his arms them, but this was important to him to do. He took her thighs in his hands and ran his palms over her very softly, though it was killing him a little to do that. But he knew that if he could forget about what he wanted for the moment, then this might make a far better start to what he wanted more than anything - to have his first touches of her be caresses. He reached with one hand to hold her breast and she clamped her hand over his with a quiet cry. She raised her head in midair and cooed to him as the waves went on and on, fading a little slowly. She held his head tenderly in both hands, running her fingers through his hair. He looked so happy with his eyes drinking her in. He didn't look to her to be doing it only for her. He didn't move now, he just sucked gently. Nectar of the gods. He'd heard it called that, the juices of a woman's arousal. He'd always liked it too, but this was different because it came from her. He looked up through the soft white glow of that fur of hers and mapped out the extent of it with his eyes. Most of the short thatch, he couldn't focus on, of course, but where he could, he was fascinated at how it faded out, but never quite did, the way that it tapered off to an almost invisible stripe. He blinked and reached for her ribs so that he could feel more of her wonder. She was pure silky moving onyx to him, with soft hair that turned into just the barest little trail, a soft white stripe that ran up over her hard belly to end at her navel. It was white as well, but he wondered if she even knew that it was there. You had to be this close, he told himself. He reached around her hip and found that he could get to it and he softly ran his fingers along it once. He watched her head come up again to smile at him. What he felt then was the beneficence of his goddess in her gaze. He hoped that he was doing this well for her. He knew that there likely had many who'd worshipped at this shrine, but he felt an earnest desire to offer her his best. "Ohhh ..." she sighed quietly as she felt another soft little gush leave her as it slowed, "Only drink what I give, Barrett. You are the one, ... drink, ..." Her voice faded off as did what came to him. He felt as though he'd had a gallon of her, but it really hadn't been much until near the end, it had only been a little more than it took to keep him amazed and happy, though when she came it had been quite a bit. He couldn't look, but he felt soaked. A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 30 He looked up and the goddess who he now worshipped leaned back in space with her head back and her chest heaving. To his amazement, a little more began to come to him and he moved his hands to hold the sides of her haunches. His hand slid from her breast to the hard ridges of her stomach and he ran his fingers over her so softly and for no reason that he could understand, he pet her from her breastbone to her belly a few times. He just loved the way that her cheeks kissed against his collarbones and chest. Each contraction as it came to her caused her abdomen to tense a little and he marveled at the way that her inky stomach rippled just in front of his eyes. She wasn't shooting into his open mouth anymore, not even flooding him in waves like before. It was just gentle little pulses which wet his hungry tongue. He heard her whispering something over and over, just a softly whimpered little something which he could barely hear, a sentence of some kind, and each time that she said it, he felt her tense and then a few drops more came to him until she finally stopped. When it finally subsided, there were only the sounds of their breathing. She felt him move and looked as he pulled her downwards a little. She allowed it and he reached to hold her hips as he rested his cheek on her mound and closed his eyes. She reached to touch the face which to her had been more ruggedly beautiful than anyone that she'd ever seen from her first sight of him. "The Dark Maiden bless you, Barrett Ransom," she said quietly, "for she surely has blessed me." He didn't open his eyes, he only smiled as though he was having a wonderful dream as he slept. "So, I did it well for you, Cha'Khah?" Cha'Khah nodded as she slid her fingers along the strong line of his jaw, "You did it so well." She sighed, "Leave it me to find a way to test the legend, and I break it in the first attempt and find the sweet secret in the amazing and tender kisses of a fine Rivvil. If you all share this ability, I must carry the knowledge to my death, or all of you will be enslaved by armies of cruel females." She looked at him very sadly, "And they would find a way to ruin every single one of you. It is what they do best." He raised his head and she felt how easy it would be to fall for him. But it cane to her too late already. She was falling now, as far as she could tell, and it felt wonderful. "Are they really that bad?" he asked. "No," she said, "only that selfish. I can say this, I was there." "What were you saying at the end there" he asked, "I heard you saying something over and over, and what was that about a legend?" Outwardly, she was a little embarrassed, but inwardly, she was amazed that he'd bother to ask. "Why do you wish to know of this? I was thanking my goddess for finding you." She looked at his face. He'd moved a little so that he could hold some of her in his field of view, but he hadn't lifted his face from her. He looked so happy and sweet like that. "I'd want to hear anything that you have to say to me, Cha'Khah. I love to listen to you." She was surprised again, "You wish to hear of an old legend when I have not pleased you yet? What sort of male are you? I am happy to hear it, but also, ... I am surprised. I have only known one other who would not now demand his pleasure from me if I took too long." He raised his head and grinned that crooked little smile of his again. She was coming to love the way that it felt to her to see that on his face when he looked at her. "I might be showing too much of myself here," he smiled, "I guess it's that being really obvious thing again, but I'm right where I want to be - for now, anyway. I know that you want to make me happy here. I know you well enough for that, Cha'Khah, but, ... well, I love doing what we just did, and I can't say that I've ever really had anyone who would let me do that as much as I ever wanted to. Maybe I'm saying too much here, I dunno." He looked at her sex and everything on her that came to his eye for a moment. "I've never had good luck like this, never known anyone who seems to like me this much either." He purposely kissed her lips there softly for a moment, not doing anything else, and then he said, "You say that you struggle with English, but I think that you're pretty good at it. You just stumble every now and then. That bothers you, but I like it. You have an accent and a voice that I love to listen to. I think that you could cuss me out and I'd like it." He laid his head back down and looked up at her, "So if it's not something that's forbidden to tell a Rivvil, I'd be pleased to hear what you were talking about." She didn't know what to say, so she just tried to do her best. "Most of us worship a cruel goddess. We have many names for her, and I will not say her name here. I wish never to say the name again. But some of us pray to a kinder goddess. When I can, I dance for her in the moonlight and I always ask her to show me a better way to be. Thus far, I believe that with her help, I have made friends where I had none who were worth the name before. I have one who is my very closest friend, and through her and her young son, I know that I am on the path and I am becoming a better person for it. There is a proper name for her, but to make it easy for you, let us call my goddess the Dark Maiden, and she leads those like me out of the darkness. There is an old legend, not well-known and not believed by any who follow the Spider Queen's faith. The purpose of a male is to provide his life essence to the female. I do not speak only of making young ones here, but that is a part of it. A female can take this essence in many ways and several places from him, and this she must do. It is her purpose to be the vessel for him just as it is his purpose to fill her. Where I come from, no one cares about this, unless they seek to make their little ones. Few care about love, Barrett. The legend goes that there was once a goddess long ago, whose name has been forgotten. She fell in love with a male. But he was grievously wounded in a battle one day and even the cause of it and the name of the foe have been forgotten. Though the male triumphed, he was dying. What the grieving goddess did then was to offer her sex to him. He was weak, but he kissed her there and after a time, she was able to give him back some of her own essence. It makes a pleasant and slightly naughty tale told most often between young females only just coming into their own. No one believes it much, but it is said, that if a girl loves her male and he is the one for her, then she will be able to do what the nameless goddess did for the one that she loved so much." Cha'Khah smiled a little shyly, "We do not finish like I did when we do this, and I have never done that before, not ever in my life. I am wet then but not like that. But then, no one has ever taken me as far as you did, Barrett. Anyway, it is only supposed to happen after the pair have loved for a time, not the first time." She shrugged, "But I am always doing things that I am not supposed to do, for one of my low birth and, ... everything. When I found myself so high on my mountain over what you did, I just knew that I could do this. I had no choice, really, it just came into my mind and my body did the rest. I have never been loved there like that, and I thanked my goddess for meeting you. Once it began in me at the end, I said 'Goddess be praised' each time that I found that I had more to give to you. I was praising the Dark Maiden for allowing me this for you. I knew that you would see it as a gift to you." "What happened to the goddess and the male in the stor -- uh, legend?" he asked, "Did he live?" She shrugged, "No one knows more than it is said that what she gave to him was her moisture and with it, some of her essence. He was healed and made better than he was, becoming godlike as well in a way so that he would not grow old and die. The ending of the legend says that they walked out of the underground and into the light and were not heard from again." "You said that I am the one," he said, "How did you mean that?" "It is something that is said between lovers among us," she replied a little evasively, "We seldom mate for love, and even so, there would still need to be some sort of gain in the pairing, either over money or position. I have never been like that. Imagine how ridiculous it would be for a couple of us to shout that we love each other while we fuck. That is why it is said that one's lover is the one. It means nothing among them, it is only some words to throw while they fuck. It means little." She'd been looking at him as she spoke. Sometimes, he was looking at her face and sometimes he was looking at some small feature on her body that might have caught his eye for a moment. But he never stopped listening, taking everything in as he sat in the chair with his cheek resting on the mound of a Drow female who held herself in midair for him. She caressed his ear and then his cheek, amazed at how good it felt to do that. Their position here didn't even seem odd to him now. "You said that you aren't like that, Cha'Khah." He said it with his lips grazing the inside of her thigh as though it was the most natural thing in the world to him to speak to her like that. "You said that you're different. I've been listening to you tell me that in several ways for as long as you've been speaking to me. I've got a lot to learn about you, and I really hope that I might have the chance to do that, but, ..." He raised his head again to look directly into her almond-shaped eyes, "If you're not like the others, then you couldn't have meant what you said as though it was just words to say. You meant something else, I think." She stared at him a moment and then she laughed softly. The sound thrilled him to hear every time that she did it. "My fine Rivvil seeks now to tie me with my own words. I think that I have said too much." He shook his head, "I don't think so. I think that you meant that you'd want me to be the one. I think that I'd like that. I've only been living my life and talking to steers. I'm not the same as you, but I don't care about that. I'm probably not what you'd really want, but I'm here." He pulled himself higher suddenly before she could really react, not expecting it. Cha'Khah had looked down as he'd begun, because she felt uncomfortable now, but his hand flashed out and he held her face gently and tried to get her to look at him. She resisted. "I'm only trying to tell you that it's what I'd want," he said, "I'm not asking you anything here. Look at me, Cha'Khah." He watched as her face turned toward him. "I'm just a fool on this mountain," he said, "I don't know much about you, but I know that I'd be upset if you just did your disappearing thing again. I love it if I can only touch you while you breathe. I'm not some, ... whatever you do for a living. Hell, I'd probably embarrass you in front of your friends. But I like you so much, and if you wanted somebody like me when your friends aren't around ,..." "You do not even know what you are trying to say, do you?" she looked at him with a very small smile. "No," he said as he moved to take his hand away, "I guess not." Her own hand held his where it was against her face. She turned her face to kiss his palm and they looked at each other for a moment before she began to nod slowly to him, "Well I do know what you wish to say, and I accept." "Huh? You -- you do?" he asked. "Yes," she said softly, "I accept. We already share the beginning of a friendship and more. We are very different, but I find more in you that I care for each minute that I spend with you and I can see that it is the same in you. We will have to be careful because we still do not know each other well, but I want this with you if you feel as I do. But I have rules, Barrett. Will you hear them?" He blinked at her in shock, the way that she looked so serious, but he nodded. "Good," she said, "then ease yourself back down to the chair." She helped him down and then Cha'Khah poured herself onto him, still in the air somehow, but she was at the same angle as she moved one of her long legs over him and held herself there as she looked into his face and she began to speak. "Your poor backside," she said shaking her head, "Please stand up." When he rose, she smiled and sighed, liking him so much. She stepped forward and put her arms around his neck and very carefully tried to see how they fit together standing like this, "First, I demand that you hold me in your arms." He blinked at her. "Well?" She asked pointedly and he took her in his arms so that she giggled a little and told him that she was really asking and not demanding at all. "You called me perfect, but you are mistaken," she said, "You should know that your Drow girl has a temper." "My Drow girl?" he asked, looking confused now -- more than he thought that he normally did. Cha'Khah nodded, "You wish to know me, you said, and without our meaning to -- not without abandoning the way that I usually am, - and I think that it was the same for you from what I feel, we find that we like each other enough to love a little. Well I am not the sort of girl that I once might have been, who can love a little in stolen moments now and then. I do or I do not, that is all. I am a girl who gives much, or not at all, Barrett. You said to me that you wish to know all that you can about me - anything, you said. Everything, you said. How much do you wish to know of me truly? Enough to pass the time of day beside your fence to talk of the weather, or do you wish to know me more?" "Just as I said," Barrett nodded, "I want to know everything. I want to hear your voice, especially if you're telling me something while I can feel you breathe against me." Cha'Khah smiled then, "Good. Because I believe that I have someone here with me that I wish to know of as well. That is the first remarkable thing, because I choose the ones that I hold close to me, and those ones have my heart. The rest? They do not get much of my thoughts, if any. I wish to know you, Barrett," she said quietly as she ran her fingers up his chest and along his collarbone. She smirked to herself, feeling surprise to admit what she felt, "I wish to know it when Barrett is hungry, or when he is tired. I wish to know his thoughts and how he feels. Most of all, I wish to know how Barrett loves someone. To know these things, then Cha'Khah needs to be Barrett's Drow girl. If that is what I am to become, then you must know that I have a temper. People have died who have angered me. I grow better with it and I try hard to tame it, but it is there. If you do not wish to test it very quickly, then you should stop speaking to me as though you are dirt, for I do not rub myself against dirt. Remember this, Rivvil. I wish to hear none of this from you anymore. Every time that you added this to your words, I have felt my indignation rising. You are a fine male, no matter what you may think. You may not have riches, but we will see what may be made of that. Remember this as well since we seem to be trying to find more than ways to make me cry out -- you are what I want, Barrett, or we would not be here together like this. I could have been waiting for you here and once you came, I could have told you what was done in error to your cattle, thrown down a few golds and left, But I didn't do that because I wanted you -- enough to cause you even more trouble though it was not what I ever wanted to do. I kept wondering what I was doing, feeling such interest in a human -- when I never have before. Think of that if you must, because it says much to me about you. You are fine enough to make me want to meet you. The rest is my foolishness. I know that you forgive me for it, but I am still in a little disbelief -- just as I am to stand here with you. I cannot believe my luck all of a sudden. Look," she said, as she muttered a word and a shining surface appeared before them like a large mirror, "Look at us. We stand together, a pair of friends who seek more. That is what we are. The next rule here is that we are not different inside ourselves to each other. We are exactly the same. If you hold the thought as I do, then like me, you will not see the obvious because it does not need to be considered any longer. It only needs to be accepted and both of us already accept what we are. Now I wish for us to accept what we might be. We are not a Drow and a Rivvil any longer. We are a pair of friends who seek to be careful lovers and can hope for even more then. I see no Drow and I see no Rivvil, Barrett. I see dark and I see light, and those things belong to each other as the female seeks the male and so forth in both ways. Can you see this?" He nodded, "Yes. Do you really know what I wanted to say?" "Near enough," she nodded as she ran her fingers over his chest, "You were trying to offer yourself to me as my male if I wanted you at some unspecified time in an unspecified way in the most absurd way of hiding your fear of my refusal that I have ever heard. I was only hiding behind my silence. I give you the point that you showed more courage, but it was getting us nowhere. So that we may begin this, I accept you as my male, Barrett, and I give myself to you as your female and we will see what comes. Why not? I have never done anything like this so quickly -- but then, I have never held one like you. I was told once that sometimes, one has to make their own luck and if this is the chance for us, then this I seek to do with you." She nodded to the mirrored surface, "Look there and feel it or close your eyes and try then. Can you feel what I speak of? Is it worth the risk to try with me?" He didn't need to look at anything other than her red eyes -- he knew the answer. He kissed her cheek and then her ear, "It's worth everything, Cha'Khah but-." She nodded, "Are you about to ask how this or that might work between us? Is it really that important, or is it more important to allow this to happen and then carefully seek the solution to any trouble together?" "The second one," he smiled, "but what about your friends? I'm not really --" She reached up and ran her fingers through his hair with a soft sigh, "You will not embarrass me before my friends. I would be proud to stand beside you anywhere, Barrett. I do have a concern, but it is not that. Look at how you acted when you only saw a Drow. There are ten of us living near here, a strange group we are, but only two are Drow. You saw Shaevre and I thought that your eyes would leave your head, but you had courage and spoke to her. If you wish to meet my friends, you will need more than that. I will tell of it later, but for now, Shaevre is one who calls herself a Xer. There is another of them, a male, but he is like her, with a mind and the wisdom to use it. The rest are all human -- in part. The other part is demon -- two kinds who hate each other, but not these ones. They are two couples and each one raises a child between them. You could lose your mind in fear, Barrett, but I live with them and they are closer to me than my family ever was. If you can see you and I as I do, then you might find very strong friends for you among us. They all know of you and my mistakes. They all wait for me to fix the wrongs that I have done to you. Imagine the monsters that I live with who know what is right and what is wrong." She looked down and smiled a little shyly, placing her hand on his shoulder to give herself the courage for her words. "I wish to pair with you, Barrett," she smiled as she stretched up to kiss him, "Do you accept my rules? I do not think that they are too much, are they? Say your rules to me if you have any." A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 30 "I might have one or two," he said, "and the first is that you let me do this," he smiled as he bent a little and took his boots and pants off, "You're standing here and saying things that are important, and I'm standing here with my pants around my ankles. It sort of takes something away from the seriousness like this." She chuckled and nodded her agreement, waiting to hear his rules or conditions, but when he was done, he stood up and shrugged, "I don't really have any, Cha'Khah. I'm wondering if I'll ever stop being amazed again." As he laid his pants on the chair, he looked up thoughtfully, "I do have one rule. Stay away from bankers." Cha'Khah slid her arms around his neck and looked up into his gray eyes, "I do not know what these creatures are, Barrett, but if one has harmed you in some way, only show him to me and I will know what to avoid and if I can, I will kill the one for you. Oh!" her eyes flew open, "I have forgotten everything. Shaevre and I brought food and drink as an offering of friendship, but it all went wrong. The pack lies forgotten outside the door, if she did not take it back." He watched her look from one side of him to the other, looking around him a little at one point without letting him go. "The lantern burns oil," she said, "I set the wick low, but it burns still. This costs you, I think." Before he could reply, she looked at the wall, seeing a stone hearth there. "Why do you use the black thing to burn wood for warmth? Does the hearth not work?" "It works," he said, "but it's not as good at heating the place as the stove, and it's a lot harder to cook on. I just have to open the damper and light the wood in it, why?" "If you have the wood to spare," she said, "then I ask that the hearth be lit. When I was a young one, I would read books that I bought from merchants with my coppers and after hiding them away and reading them, I would sit before the hearth to dream. I spent hours over many evenings there looking into the flames and dreaming of being in love -- something which no Drow wastes much time over. I had to tell my elders that I was reciting my lessons in my mind, or I would be punished for what I did. I have never done it, but if it is alright, I would love with you before the hearth to give us our beginning." Barrett nodded with a smile and Cha'Khah went to the door, "Everything is likely frozen hard by now, but I will brave the cold that I hate to see what may be done." She watched as he placed a bit of kindling in and around the logs in the fireplace. He always kept some there, knowing that they'd dry out over time, and in case he ever needed the extra heat on very cold nights, he'd have it. He stopped after a moment, hearing her laughing voice. He knew what she was saying now. "What are you praising the goddess for this time?" he asked. "My great good fortune, "Cha'Khah giggled, "you surely have the finest male bottom that I have ever seen." He smirked back at her and a moment later, he admired the way that she braved the cold stillness outside as she bent down next to the door to retrieve the pack of provisions. She was lightning quick about it and the door was closed in a hurry as she came back inside to place it on the table a little carefully. She removed a wrapped pot and a large jug, also wrapped. She swirled the jug and listened. Setting it on the table, she placed the pot on the stove and ran to his arms shivering. "That sentence that you say when you praise her," he smiled, "I think I need you to teach it to me." "I would do it gladly," she said next to his ear loving the warmth of him against her breasts. She smirked after a moment, "You wish to thank her for the gift of me? I know why, Barrett. You must have seen me as I bent down." "Mm-hmm," he sighed into her ear, "That's the main reason, I guess. You are an amazing beauty, but I also wanted to thank her for not letting my knees give out on me right then. What's in the pot?" "The pot holds a meal for you from us. It has meat, but not from your cattle. The jug holds beer. Both of them are from Shaevre and her male, Arrax. The beer comes from their world. It is a little bitter, and we still have a little less than a half barrel and we drink it sparingly, for we all know that we will likely never get any more. It has all gone cold, but I hope to warm it and think to share it. The beer begins to freeze. The meal is a stew, but the meat is also from the Xer. It was prepared as fighter's food, I am told. We all like it, but we have had so much of it that we are glad to be nearing the end of it now. I hope that you like it." He felt her take one of her arms from him and she leaned a little around him for a moment. He asked as he looked, but she made no answer for a moment. "There is a lot of stone in the hearth," she said, "You will not need the lantern soon." He turned and saw the faint glow from the rocks built into the hearth and looked at her, "How did you -- " She was reaching away from him again, this time toward the table. The oil lamp winked out and when she brought her hand back, she opened it and he saw the tiny flame there. With a motion from her, it disappeared and the kindling in the old fireplace caught fire. "There are very few Drow females who can do much of any sort of magic, though we all have some small ability. I do not know why, but I have much more." "Your good luck, I think, "she smirked, as stretched up to kiss him. They stood like that for some minutes until, having gotten over her chill, Cha'Khah began to sink to her knees, kissing her way down, and nibbling on him as she went. When she squatted at his feet, reaching for his wonders to her, he looked down at her and saw her smiling face looking up as she began to kiss the hardening shaft. "Please don't say it," he said. Cha'Khah leaned in to nuzzle her face against him, licking his scrotum a little. "I need say nothing," she sighed as she leaned back to stroke him, planting little licks over the tip as she admired what he had, "She hears my thoughts, Barrett. I only hope that she does not tire of my joyous singing to her in my mind. You have much to give to me," she nodded as she lifted his stones a little, "I have never wanted to do this more." She opened her mouth and began, first looking up at him for a while. Barrett didn't know it, but she really wasn't looking to see if what she did pleased him -- she was fairly confident in her ability to do that. She'd have answered him truthfully if he'd asked her, but since he didn't, she'd never say it for feeling a little foolish. She was admiring him, that was all. She looked up, her eyes moving here and there on that fine powerful body. She was taking in details and memorizing the topography, noticing the veins and arteries, the muscles and tendons, and, ... she almost smirked. And yes, she told herself, she was admiring the fur on his body that she'd never ever liked to see on a male before in her life. But the thing between her lips began to get to her as well and she closed her eyes to just enjoy this. She'd done this so many times. The best had been for Vadren because he was worth doing this for -- but that was the key right there. She'd still done this for him. Well she was doing this for Barret at the moment, it was true, but this time, she liked it so much more, and it was something which mystified her a little. It tasted only a little different, and skin color aside, it was very similar to her cousin's. She'd have to set the thought aside and consider it later, but she was suddenly certain that -- until her lips and jaw told her to stop, and that was a long way away, she could see herself spending an afternoon just loving this thing -- especially if she was careful about it so that he could talk to her a little. She'd ask him if it was possible later. She'd just suddenly wanted to do that. She opened her eyes and watched as her hand slid up over his hard, flat belly. She rose up on her knees a little and reached even higher, using one hand to trace over the ridges of his abdomen and the other to slide up his ribcage around the front of him to cup and hold one pectoral muscle. She sighed to herself, not wanting to finish him too soon, now that she'd discovered this way to worship her male god. She kept him there, captive in her mouth as she touched him everywhere that she could. Her hand went under his arm to go around and down along the side of his back and she felt such quiet joy to hold and squeeze his cheek, making a silent promise to herself to visit these same shrines on him to worship with her mouth. He reached for her head then and caressed her face, smiling down to her and hoping that he didn't look as idiotic as he felt to do it. Cha'Khah didn't know his thoughts and she would have disagreed if she did. He looked wonderful to her. With his being this close to her for this long, it wasn't that much longer before she was swallowing as fast as she could, happily surprised at what there was for her from him. It was in this that she did notice a difference. Barrett's semen tasted different to her. She couldn't set it down to anything that she'd ever tasted before -- she just liked it. He apologized as he watched her try to find what had gotten away from her, but she chuckled at him, "Nothing wrong here, Barrett, with the way that you have been kept here by me, we are both lucky that you did not explode -- as you said. You will get many chances to feed me like this I am sure, now that I have found the best one." She stood up and he showed her how he felt as he kissed her so that she sighed against him. "What do you mean the best one?" He asked, genuinely curious. "I cannot really say it," she said, "I just know. Everything is right to me. Of course, I have done that before, and sometimes I liked it more than others. It is not only what a male has for a girl - some girls do not ever want that. To me, I just, ... I enjoyed it so much." When she pulled away, she asked him if there were any coverlets or blankets which they might use before the fire. As he turned to get them, her fingers trailed around the side of him and she was delighted to find that Barrett Ransom was ticklish. She went to see about the meal. When he returned and spread everything out before the hearth, he looked at her and she wore a curious and impish little smile that she seemed to be having trouble suppressing as he sat down to wait for her. His eyes grew huge a second later when Cha'Khah launched herself through the air at him with a bit of a quiet, yet warlike cry. He braced himself, not knowing what was happening, but nothing did. She vanished before him and there were only his frantic gasps as he turned to look around. He was alone. He looked at the door for a second, but it was still closed and he'd know it by the cold blast if it was opened. His eyes went to her things scattered about as they were. Her weapons were still there on the table. She wouldn't just leave them, would sh- She landed on him from out of the air with another cry and they rolled over in a heap with her ticking him mercilessly and nipping at whatever parts of him she found before her mouth. He struggled, and she was wiry and stronger than she looked, but he heard her happy laughter and found himself laughing at the hopeless way that he fought her and the way that she could tickle him like this. Whenever she found something remotely firm on him between her legs -- which was pretty much everywhere on Barrett to her delight, she rubbed herself against him as they fought. Cha'Khah was having the first real fun that she could remember having as an adult. Well, fun that wouldn't end in someone's death, she supposed. She was everywhere on him at once it seemed, and any thoughts of retaining his composure vanished. It ended with her victory as she lay on him with a lot of his scrotum in her mouth so that he'd know that she was claiming him in her victory and that if he had a brain, then he'd better give up now. He listened as her laughter came out through her nose. He looked around, and about all that he had in front of him were the finest pair of ebony-colored cheeks that he could imagine, so he shrugged to himself and he opened his mouth to gnaw on them. She left them there, he thought. His mother always told him when he was a boy not to leave toys lying around. The first thing that he did was show her the hazard that she'd left herself open for when she'd overlooked the serious danger and threat that his beard represented. He did his best to tickle her mercilessly right between her haunches. Cha'Khah shrieked and laughed, trying to get off him, but he held on and kept at it. When he'd decided that it was enough, it took him only two seconds to have her lying limp on him after he found his way between the two perfect and silken cheeks and began to lick. One of her legs fell away off of him. She couldn't help but allow him this. "It is not fair," she protested as she raised her lovely head to look back -- even as she moved her hips involuntarily. "I was winning," she said, "I had you, and I would never, ... have, ... I would never have let , ... you, ... Ohhh, ... Oh Barrett, don't stop, ... Ohh..." Cha'Khah lowered her head and gave up. There was no point to going on. Her vocabulary had evaporated and the only word that she was left with was 'oh'. "It still was not fair," she pouted a little later. Barrett slapped her flank gently, "You shouldn't leave your toys lying around," he said. "Toys," she said, "Other than touching them myself, they have been weapons mostly. I walk past the one that I want, showing what I have and I give it a little shake just before I turn the corner. He follows and he dies by my knife and I am done for the night. But I am glad that they are toys to you, because that makes what I play with toys for me, Barrett. But I will not leave them lying around. This one here, I will always seek to put away and hide somewhere," she laughed. Cha'Khah was a curious blend of personality traits to Barrett. They had moments when their lovemaking had gone like combat, and nothing was held back. She encouraged this from him, saying that when they were like this, then it was a time when everything was needed by them, and so, everything ought to be given hard as well, "Take me hard then Barrett, for I will take from you just as hard and more. Show me that you are my match then, Rivvil to Drow," she nodded, "We are the same in this, and if hard loving is the game at the time, then know that I am happy to have found one so close to me. This has never happened for me before." Barrett nodded, noticing the coppery taste of a bit of blood from somebody's lip on his tongue, thought he couldn't say whose right then for how they'd been kissing. Other times, she was the benevolent goddess to him, and it was all about love to her then, so much needed quietly, so filled with moments which took his breath, and those were the times when she'd found to their combined joy, that he took her where she'd often gasp and beg for him to take the wetness that no other lover had ever brought forth from her before. And then there were the times when he felt as though she'd gotten small, somehow. He had no idea about the places that she'd been and the fights that she'd fought, he only knew by the tone of her incredible body and the way that she could move that he'd really never want to see it if Cha'Khah was doing what her occupation had been. But at times when she'd felt a little small to him, she showed him a side of her that spoke of her vulnerability inside. It was something which made him want to keep her safe -- as absurd as the notion was to him. She just showed that she needed him then, for her heart. He couldn't imagine what he'd done to be shown such privilege and he knew one thing with clear certainty -- it was something which she'd likely never shown to anyone. They stopped for a while to eat, and Cha'Khah sat herself very carefully on his thighs and her knees as she fed them both from the pot which he balanced on a board across his thighs as well. They actually didn't speak much at all, but when he asked about it later, she shrugged. "Where I am from, what we have just done would never happen -- never. A female sitting down to eat and feeding a male?" She laughed, "Out of the same pot? With the same spoon? Females there do not do anything like this. I wanted to see if I had any of the way that I was raised still in me. I have enough to know how to act and live -- and that is enough. I am free, Barrett. Free of the nonsense. Tell me, if I had asked, would you have done what I have just done? Would you have fed me and shared the spoon?" "Sure," he nodded, "But I'd have spilled it all over." "My point is," she smiled, "that I am as free as you. They would think me mad, and I continue to know that they are idiots. Most important, we are happy and are not hungry." --------------------- He thought that he'd done something wrong. Cha'Khah couldn't believe it herself. The stones built into the fireplace glowed, and everything was lit in a warm glow as she lay on her back under him. She felt warm and safe and happy with him and after they'd played and fucked in any position that either one could think of, resting in whatever embrace they could manage each time, he'd finally just moved onto her and began to go very slowly as they looked into each other's eyes. They hadn't said a word between them in half an hour, and Cha'Khah had begun to cry. "It is nothing," she said, smiling up at him, "Cha'Khah is happy," she said, "Now she finds that she has what she has always yearned for. It is a little much, that is all. There is nothing wrong. I lie under my male and I can feel his heart," she sniffled, "you are really here and I have my girl's dream, the one which never left me." "I keep wanting to tell you that I love you," he said, "but, ..." "You think it is too early and it is something that means much only in the moment to most," she nodded, "I understand this, Barrett. But we try to begin something for ourselves, and we both know that it is early for it. But the quiet truth of it is that it is not too early to begin to say it. I wish to say it too. We are not here fucking hard as we did before, to say it then would be not the right thing, I think, for where we are in this. We have been loving this time only because -- and that is surely the best time to say it and mean the words if they wish to come out." He lifted himself up a little and he ran his work-hardened hands over her dark silkiness, beginning at her hip there under him and moving up along her side. By now, he knew how to do this just the right way for her, so that it wouldn't tickle, and yet he grazed her with his callouses until he reached for her breast and cupped it gently with a look of awe on his face that made Cha'Khah sigh and feel that she was the highest beauty to be able to see a look like that on a male like him. He squeezed so that she gasped and cooed. Cha'Khah raised her arms over her head on the blankets and sighed, looking at him, "Touch me anywhere, my Barrett. All of me is yours. You do not take with your hands -- you give to me with them. No Drow has ever done such a thing." She stared at him for a moment then, reaching to seize his hand and hold it in front of her face as she kissed it. "Barrett, I feel it in you, you are thankful." She kissed his hand softly again, "Thank you, but you are not the only one. You are the one, and I love you," she said quietly and calmly as she raised her legs and wrapped them around him, holding him as closely to her as she could while still allowing him to stroke for them as she rocked her hips, "And if it is too soon for that, then know that you are still the one in my heart until there is no argument which I can make to myself against it. I have never felt like this before, and I lie before a warm hearth under the one that I have chosen. It is perfect to me." A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 31 ***Cha'Khah's life has taken an upswing and, being the Drowess that she is, she never forgets to show her thankfulness to her goddess. She's just not prepared for the other things that come with it all. 0_o --------------- Book of the Mountain Clan Part 8 The morning was one of many surprises for Cha'Khah as she learned more about Barrett. He found out in their conversations that she didn't really have much more than what she wore to come to see him, and it was obviously suited more to combat. "If I have a little money, I seem to buy weapons or what I need to keep mine in good repair," she shrugged. He looked at her with a smile, and led her upstairs to the loft where she stared and laughed, "I could have been lying with you in a fine featherbed instead of rolling in front of the hearth with you? Cha'Khah is still a fool, but now she is a happy fool. And where we were last night was where I have always wanted to be." In a closed section at the back, he dragged out a trunk. "My mother never threw out a thing," he smiled, "and you might find something that'll fit you. Take a look, and if you still love me by the spring, we'll go into town and buy you something new when the passes are clear and we can get there." His world spun then and he found himself under her on the bed, and she was serious as she glared at him. "You have done it again," she said, "and I wish for you to stop it. If we are not together by the spring, it will be because I have killed you by accident in my rage over how you speak about yourself. You are mine, Barrett, and I keep what is mine. I know that you meant what you said to me last night, but I meant it too and you need to know it. I listened as you spoke of what happened to you. I thought about what I found in my arms after so long with no hope of ever finding something so much less than you are in your heart. I made my choice then. I will never leave you, never. From last night, I am Cha'Khah Dreile no longer. I am Cha'Khah Ransom and you are my man. Tell me that you understand me. I wish for no mistake over this. You are mine, yes?" He nodded, "Yes, Cha'Khah. I didn't mean to make you angry. I'm sorry." "I am not angry, Barrett, I am annoyed, but it passes now. I am sorry if I sound hard to you, but it is important to me. Think a moment. We are our own now. When you lower yourself, you lower me as well." He was a little shocked, but he saw it now, "You're right." "I know that I am," she smiled, "and if we are to quarrel and bicker, then I want a better fight from you than this the next time," she chuckled, "or I will never be able to stay angry for very long and what is the good of that? I am yours just as much, and you are the only one that I will ever take hard words from, because we love each other and I am your female. I would kill anyone else." He looked as though he was in a trance then. "Are you alright?" she asked, "What have I said?" He shook his head, "I just felt funny right then, I don't know what it was. And I also realized that you're right again," he said as he threw his arms around her and pulled her down to kiss her. "How do we do this?" he asked seriously, "How do Drow people get married? Or do you want to get married in town? I don't care, I'll do whatever you want." "Then do nothing," she smiled, "but begin to think of me as your wife, since I took you as my husband from last night. I did say that I had decided. Drow give each other rings, but I think it is more of a show than anything. I knew a girl who married a boy, and the wedding helped them both in their positions and how they were seen afterwards. It was a fine show to watch, and by the next afternoon, they were each back in the arms of their lovers again. When they wished for it, they fucked together, and they made drowlings, but he had already fathered at least two with his lover, who was married to another, and of course, he had to try not to look at his own drowlings too hard, in case he saw who the father might be, since she fucked with his brother most often as well. I need no ring from you, Barrett, if a ring buys me something like that." "I have my mother's rings," he said, "You can have anything that you want, but if there is one that fits you and you like it, then take it and wear it for me until I can get you a good one. The box with her rings is over there." Cha'Khah saw that he was serious, so she got up to look. As she looked, she found several which appealed to her. "I can have any one of them?" she asked. "Are you my wife?" he smiled, "Then they already belong to you, all of them." He began to look through the chest, wanting to find something for her to wear. He didn't think anything there was good enough to offer her, but they were here in the mountains, and as far as he knew, she needed clothes. "Which of them are suitable as a wedding ring?" she asked, "I do not know the custom here, and do not wish to embarrass you." "How would that embarrass me?" He asked. "Try to narrow it down to what will fit on the third finger of your left hand," he said, "and it can be anything from simple to fancy. My mom and dad weren't rich, but I think there ought to be several. Pick one if you like it, and you won't embarrass me. I'd be proud to be with you anywhere. It's only until I can get you one that you'd want." "Then if these have no meaning to you, I would sell them in the spring and buy something practical. I have a ring that I would want as my wedding ring. I've had it from when I was a maiden, just as I came into my own as a fighter. It is what I always wanted as a wedding ring. Would that be alright?" She asked, "I do not wish to insult you either." "I'm sure that it'll do fine, then," he smiled, "I'd just like to have my wife wear a ring, but only if you want to." "What ring will you wear for me?" she asked, taking the pendant from her neck that he'd seen in the light of the fire the night before and that she'd known that he'd wanted to ask her about. It was a silver one which bore a nude dancer with a sword on it. The motif was set above two circles in the background. She found the tiny catch that she sought and pulled the rings free. "Would this one be alright?" He'd watched her and now he understood a little better. He supposed that he'd better get used to being amazed. "This person here," he pointed to the pendant, "This is the Dark Maiden, isn't she?" Cha'Kha said nothing, she only nodded a little hopefully. "And the ring that you spoke of is here, isn't it?" When she nodded, he said, "Then these are the rings we'll use. You should have just told me. I know that you're probably going to want to teach me about this, and I'd love to learn, Cha'Khah. You should have said something. Don't always let me stumble to things. I know that I'm not supposed to say that I'm not very bright around you. Sometimes things take me awhile, that's all." "Sometimes one's slow thought brings out a deeper meaning than what a quick thought shows," she smiled as she looked at him softly -- just before she pushed him down. He was back on the bed again, laughing with her in his arms. Before long, she was on top of him, but she didn't want anything but slowness from him now. They didn't notice the passage of time very much. The previous night, Cha'Khah had found that if she was careful, they could copulate very slowly with her on his chest, and she could put her head down. It was amazing. Barrett found that he liked it when she sucked his nipples then. He didn't know when it happened, but the rings were on their fingers then, and he was amazed to find that the one on his hand fit perfectly. "How do you feel now?" she asked him. "Uh, married," he smiled, "I feel married, pretty much." "No," she said, "I meant what you said that you felt earlier." He shrugged, "I feel a little odd, but in a nice way. Why?" "Nothing, Barrett," she smiled, "just as you are often a little obvious, I am a little hidden. I seek to solve a problem for us before it begins, and I believe that I know the way. I will not tell you, so you will have to guess," she grinned, "but I can say that it is not bad thing." "I'm gonna have a headache over all this deep thought," he said, "that's what usually happens. Can I at least have a clue?" She thought about it coyly and then she nodded, "When a Rivvil is most of the way to becoming an adult, but is not quite there yet, it can be a time of trouble, no? The body of an almost adult and the mind can still be prone to making childish decisions. Mistakes can be made then which might take a lifetime to undo -- if they even can be at all. You know the time of which I speak? How is this called for Rivvin?" "I think that what you're talking about is what we call being a teenager," he nodded. "And how old would a young Rivvil be then," she asked, "in years?" "Let's say from fourteen to eighteen," he said. "How old do I look to you, husband?" she smiled. He thought that he was a dead man, but she laughed at him when he said, "Twenty-five at the outside." Cha'Khah began to look through the trunk of clothes, "We grow slower than Rivvin," she said, "The troublesome years to you, we do not reach until we are well-past forty. I am over a hundred years old," she smiled, "yet by the length of our lives, I am your twenty-five year old wife. There lies the trouble for us. We will have to see, but it is my hope that what I give will keep you young." She shrugged, "We will have to see." She found many articles of clothing which would fit her and were still in good shape. "I like so many of these things," she sighed, "but I do not know how to wear them -- what goes with which. Can I bring my friend Rachel to help me one day?" Sure," he smiled as he led her to a door off to the side, "Open this and take a look. I'm a little proud of this." Cha'Khah opened the door and gasped as she walked inside. At the rear of the house was a greenhouse which flourished all year round. She wandered through slowly and looked around in wonder, "It is so warm here, "she said," How cold does it get at night?" "At this time of year, it cools off a lot," he said, "but it's still well above freezing in here every night. In the summer, it's like being in a jungle late at night. But the two main surprises came to Cha'Khah later on in the day, after he'd spent some time checking on his herd. The first thing was his knowledge of electricity and electronics, something that he'd taught himself from books out of his fascination with the subject. It didn't serve much of a practical function, but it was his passion. By then, to a world which had forgotten its own technology, this was arcane wisdom, to know of such things. The second thing was his collection of old firearms. It wasn't extensive, but he had a few. "Why, Barrett?" she asked as she looked at them. "It's a bit of a look back at the way that things used to be for people, I guess, just like electronics. I had a business once, fixing things for people, but there isn't a way for a lot of things to be used anymore and it turned onto something where folks would just bring things in to me to ask me what they were used for. Of course, none of them wanted to pay for that, so I went out of business. These old guns, I don't keep one if I can't keep it in good shape and if there's nothing useful about it. Also, I need to be able to get a mold to cast the right size bullets so I can load ammunition for it." He picked up a slightly chipped box and handed it to her. It looked well-made and it had been polished and it was a bit heavy, but it had once seen a less proud day, she thought. She wondered what was in it, so of course, she asked. "A wedding present to the only woman who would likely appreciate it -- I hope. Don't open it yet. Let's bring it back to the front room. I want to see your face when you open it there." Cha'Khah wanted to rattle it, but thought it best that she didn't. When they got to the table, she set it down and asked if she could open it. He nodded. She clicked open the old latches, and slowly lifted the oiled walnut lid, lowering her head to peek a little as she went. The smell of ancient velvet and oil came to her nose, but she gasped when she had it open enough to know what was in it. It was two sets of small pistols, one gleaming and reflecting the light, and the other absorbing it. They carried a lot of fine filigree work on them and were inlaid here and there with gold. The grips were ebony wood. A girl like she was knew that they were weapons and the work that they carried on them told her of their worth, but as she lifted one, she wondered about their practical value. "These are Derringers," he said, "they were valued because they're the smallest practical weapon. This design is the most famous. They were favored by women and gamblers because they're easily concealed. Women called them muff guns because they could be kept hidden in a muff if one was out walking on a cold night, but they could also be carried about anywhere." "What is a muff?" she asked. "It's a tube of fur," he smiled, "You carry it in front of you and you stick one hand into each end to keep them warm." He pointed to the pistol which she held, "each of them holds two shots, but they're not the same. That one holds two small calibre cartridges. They don't make much noise, and they were used by some assassins. They work best if you hold them up against someone's head, just behind and a little under the ear. It leaves a small hole and the bullet doesn't usually leave the skull -- though I can't say as I've ever tried it. The other one carries the surprise. One barrel holds a good-sized pistol cartridge, enough to kill like a regular pistol, and the other barrel holds a small shotgun shell. Small package, big surprise." "They are all lovely," she said, "You will teach me to use them, yes? Why is one set shining and one dark?" "A matter of personal choice for where the gambler or the lady was going to be spending the evening, I'd guess. Maybe it was to match the choice of clothing, I sure don't know, but I thought you'd like them. I have ammunition for them so you can practise if you think that they'd be of value to you, otherwise, I'd suggest that you just have fun with the small-barreled ones," he shrugged with a smile. Cha'Khah's violet eyes shone as she grinned, "Show me." He took her outside and taught her how to load and select the barrel that she wanted to use. Afterwards, he showed her a small board that he'd set up, and it took her no time to become proficient, since they felt like her crossbows in her hands and were even smaller. "You'll have to make sure that you're holding on well when you use this one," he said as he handed her the other one of the set that she'd chosen for this, "and you can forget all about being quiet too." She smiled as the bullet from the first barrel left a large hole in the board. When she used the other barrel, the board disappeared and her hand stung. She smiled and took his arm as they walked back to the house, "Cha'Khah is a very happy girl. Thank you, Barrett. I have seen Shaevre fight and it makes me feel a little old-fashioned with my weapons, though they are not for the same purpose. These are not either, but now I also have weapons which spit death and mine are so beautiful." He showed her how to clean them and after cleaning her hands, she made love to him all afternoon. Barrett made the dinner that evening and she sat nearby, looking at each of the four little pistols, one after the other and admiring the beautiful workmanship in each one of them. She'd never been given anything so wonderful as a gift. ------------------ Their visit to the mountain went a little strangely at first, but Barrett found himself welcomed and Cha'Khah's fears turned out to be unfounded since she'd prepared him for it. Vadren took him aside for a few minutes and the conversation surprised Barrett a little, but the Drow mage smiled, "My cousin and I are close and we have both always wanted and hoped to find a mate for ourselves here on the surface. That she has found love with you gives me much hope for myself." After talking with Vadren for a time, Barrett looked for Cha'Khah and found her with Rachel and Selena. All that he knew was that Cha'Khah had asked a question but he hadn't heard what it was. Rachel was nodding with a grin as she answered, "Oh, he's a cutie, all right." The rest had been lost in their laughter. As he was shown around the complex, Barrett grew a little excited after getting over his initial awe of it, and he asked for some portable source of light which didn't involve an open flame. Vadren provided a shining jewel and Barrett was off with the pair of Drow and Azrael behind him as he walked quickly looking at the overhead conduits and following them until they stood in a large room which had been largely ignored by them all. Barrett went to one of the large object which sat in the middle of the floor and followed a set of tubes from there elsewhere. Finally, he turned and grinned at them as the others caught up, "Those two large tanks are full to the brim with diesel fuel," he said, "and I don't know why, but it still smells good. I've never smelled any that was this fresh-smelling. Maybe it's the air here, I don't know. Over here," he said, leading them back to the objects, "These are diesel engines. Attached to each one is a generator to make electricity. Once the engines are running, they turn the generators and the electricity powers this whole place for as long as the fuel lasts. You might want to decide if there's anything here that you want powered up. You give me a day or two, and I can give you some light. I'd suggest only using a very few things. Out of that bank of motor generator sets, using the small one there, you could have power for a long, long time, if you were careful. The small one was put here to be started first if everything failed. The power from that one would be used to start the others. I might need to re-route some cables, that's all. I'd need some help with that - it's a bit of work." "Why would we need it?" Azrael asked, "We've been here over a year, half of us, and Cha'Khah, Vadren and I have been here for years before that. We've never needed it." "I've only been here maybe an hour," Barrett said, "but I've seen a lot. How would you like to be able to cook a single meal with no fire in a few minutes? There are microwave ovens here. I'm sure most of them would still work." He turned to the females, "I'm sure that every single one of those living quarters has a hot water tank." He turned to Azrael and smiled, "How much would it be worth to you to be able to have a hot bath or a shower?" The look on only the women decided it for Azrael, "How long would the fuel last?" "I don't know," he said, "but I think this place was built with the idea of being able to be lived in by everyone who was inside when it was closed up for at least a month, at some reduced level. If I can get everything working for you, and everyone is careful and only uses what they need when they need it, I'd say it would last you years. There aren't a couple of thousand people here. You'd never have much power, because the small generator wasn't made for running the place, but it's what you'd want to do. I could use it to start one of the big units, but these things use fuel even if no electrical things are on. I'd suggest just the small one, and shut it off every night." They went back to the bar to eat, and it was decided to try, with all of them helping with the cattle if they were successful. "If this all works, you could keep a smaller herd, only what we'd want, and we'd provide you with whatever you'd need. Arrax needs help to maintain his skiff, someone who understands technical things as he does. With that, we've already made ourselves a lot of gold." A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 31 Barrett grinned, "With power, I'm sure that I can get at least one old computer to run, though I might have to build several to get one that runs for a while. If I can find the server room for this place, I'll be able to get to some records someplace. The old internet might still be up. It's an ancient legend, but I'll bet it's still there, just not used much -- it all depends on power. If I can find what I have in the back of my mind, I'll be able to tell you where to look for one of the old mints -- where they stored gold. That's all a really big 'if' though." Azrael looked at Vadren and then at Dahlgren and the others. "Welcome to Cheyenne Mountain," he laughed, "I think that we need Cha'Khah's husband here with us." ------------------- Barrett amazed them all, even Arrax, as he slowly worked to bring the old mountain to life on a very limited scale. But it did all work as he'd said that it might and after only one 'job' at a gold depository, they had enough to live far better than comfortably. Late one morning, Cha'Khah was walking to her 'other ' home to see Barrett and bring him a midday meal of a few sandwiches, since he was busy harvesting in his greenhouse so that they'd all have vegetables for the week. They lived together with the others inside the mountain, but his old home was another place for them when they wanted to be alone. Her life had turned into a happy existence with her husband. They'd had a few fights, the same as any couple might, and she laughed as she remembered the last one. She didn't mind fighting with Barrett. It always made them even closer and the sex began between them before it was even settled. The late winter had brought some unsettled weather and the spring melt would come soon. She was thinking about that and all of the mud that would come into the house when she heard it -- the snarling and the cries. She was running the next second, flying over the snow. She found a young female wild elf trying to hold off a pack of a dozen wild dogs. One look told her that this was almost over, or would be soon. The elf fought feebly, badly torn as she was, though out of the dozen, three lay dead and another four were well out of the fight. What she saw drove Cha'Khah to fury in an instant, but she knew that she was far too late. The elf girl sagged to the snow as Cha'Khah sprang to her defense, throwing faerie fireballs to light up the dogs farther away, and slashing the nearer ones to pieces in her wrath. She could admire the wolves, and she could even abide the coyotes, not caring for those ones especially, but wild dogs were things which she now had a reason to hate. Wolves kill by going for the throat most often. It was very much their trademark way. Coyotes tended to tear their prey apart, but at least it was a little honest as well. Dogs did the same thing, but to Cha'Khah's mind, from what she'd seen even before this, they tended to enjoy it far more. But the snow was already red, and the smell of blood drove the pack crazily. The slaughter took her less than two minutes, but that wasn't the issue for Cha'Khah. It was that she'd heard them a little too late to be able to do much more good than to get them off of their victim. The conclusion to this was sadly obvious to her as she came closer. She was troubled as to why the girl had been losing this fight, but she saw that she was very weak as well. Language was not an issue, they found that they could understand each other easily, "I am sorry, I only just heard your cries," Cha'Khah said as she knelt to see what she might be able to do. The elf stared a moment. "I thank you for your aid, "she gasped, as she tried to hold what she could of her insides, while trying to ignore what lay around her. "I pass soon. I would be glad, but, ... help me in a different way, sister," she gasped through her teeth as she tried to move a little. Cha'Khah stared at the tiny bundle a little under the elf in the snow. Now she had a clue as to how the dogs had managed to run her down as they'd done. The girl had been driven to make a hopeless stand. "Where is the father?" she asked as she lifted the infant to give it to the girl, "Tell me where I must take the child and I will do it." The elf smiled through her pain, "My great luck to find a Drow who I can see is different from the rest on my last day. The father was human, a young and learned mage that I loved, but our families, ... My brother killed him and I was cast out. I sought to find work in the towns but none trust us. It must be the same for you sister. I have been growing weaker trying to keep us both alive in these strange woods. I still have one good teat, help me please. The other one is ruined now." Cha'Khah nodded trying to look past the inevitable as she placed the mother's tattered arms around her child, "I cannot do much to help," she said very sadly, "other than to ease your passing if you have need. This is foul to see, an end such as this for one of us, and a mother with child as well." "An end of some sort comes to us all," the girl sniffled, "I think that mine has been coming to me for a time. I have done my best but we are starving. I barely make any milk at all. Please, ... I do not know how to ask it and I mean no insult, ... please do not sell her. If you would, ..." "Never," Cha'Khah replied, as she reached to hold the girl's hair back for her, "I will do what I can for her, I promise it. Only give me names for you both, my sister, so that I might tell her of her brave mother one day." She found herself meaning her words very much as she looked on with regret. Given what was spreading through the dirty snow around them and the torn flesh which was everywhere on the mother, Cha'Khah knew that the babe was likely only a few minutes from being orphaned. The elf girl bent her head to kiss her child's head and then gasped her way through a spasm of pain, "Xunafae I am, and Mo-Wenn she is. Tell her for me that I loved her. Where we came from does not matter. There are none there who are worth the knowing that I pass. She took a few labored breaths to speak and she looked down at her babe, "Her father was Aldred. I have been seeking a mighty mage of your kind who is said to have perished down below. But I feel that he lives on the surface. Vadren his name is and he was a friend to Aldred and me. I knew him first and took him to my bed whenever he came, but he disappeared and then Aldred was my male. I have been searching with a hope that he might want an elf girl." As she spoke, Cha'Khah's mouth fell open, remembering the way that her cousin would drift away sometimes when they were exploring the surface with Azrael to meet them later when they returned to go below again. Xunafae looked up searchingly, "Who are you, sister? I feel that you are a mother yourself." "I was," Cha'Khah said quietly, "for a few moments before the matron of my house took my girl from me to sell her. I do not live in the underground, Xunafae. My name is Cha'Khah, and my man is a human. Vadren is my cousin." "My luck has not failed me then," the girl whispered as her tears began, "It has only grown more unkind. I am close, but I surely will not live to see him again. Take Mo-Wenn with you, Cha'Khah," the dying one sobbed, "Do what you can for her and help me in my end." Her chest heaved as she fought to hang onto her life for a moment longer and Cha'Khah drew her blade to make this easy for her. Cha'Khah held her hand to the girl's torn cheek for a moment and they looked at each other, "I swear to you that she will know of you. I will raise her as my own. Only nod to me when you are ready, Xunafae." The girl gasped as her world turned darker, but she didn't nod yet, "The moon and the stars bless you friend, may they watch over you both. I wish that I could have known you more ... Tell her ... that I loved ... tell her ... -" Cha'Khah sheathed her blade with one hand and reached as the poor mother passed so that the infant wouldn't roll further into her mother's gore as her arms relaxed in death. She set the child across her knees a little as she closed dead girl's eyelids. "I will also tell her that her fine mother passed with no aid from another in the passing, as befits the wild courage of her kind -- and my own." After a thought, she reached and removed the string of wooden beads from the girl's neck and she saw the one that had been worn on her wrist lying in the snow nearby, its thin leather thong torn. She picked it up as well and looked from the baby to the mother, "I swear to you that I will do what I can, and first I must keep this little one's life inside of her. Seek your rest, sister. I know nothing of mothering, but I know one who does and I will do as I am able." She stood up and looked at the tiny face and the huge green eyes which looked back at her, "I wish that I had known more of your mother than only her name and yours. Only do not cry out in fear of me. That would be a little unkind, but I would understand." As she hunted for anything that she might be able to use, she cursed to herself, "Such a foul thing. Who would turn from their sister and daughter in her need?" She had her answer, of course. Many of her own kind weren't much better, and a whole lot of them were far worse. She found little, other than the girl's blades and some swaddling rags, but they were clean and dry, so she did her best to change the infant, wiping away the bit of her mother's blood which had seeped through. The child didn't cry or fuss, but only looked at her as though in wonder as Cha'Khah sheathed the elf's long knives and pushed them into her belt so that she could give them to her daughter one day. Cha'Khah smirked, "I wait here as I look, as though expecting you to pronounce some bit of wisdom to me. It would be a help, for I have none to give you." With a wave and a few whispered prayers, she cast the body of the unfortunate mother into flame and commended her spirit to her deity. As she watched, holding the child, she suddenly burst into tears, remembering the daughter who had been taken from her almost as soon as the cord had been cut. She'd had one look, only one look. Chak'Khah raised her head and loudly asked for help from her goddess. "If this one is for me, then I need a little aid myself. Please do not allow this one to fall through my fingers as well before I learn what I must know to care for her." She struggled a little to open her armor so that she infant could stay warm against her and then she pulled her cloak close as she looked down. Her tears fell on the little girl's cheek and she brushed them off quickly, "Your life has not been very long and you have already come to your worst day. I will do what I can to see that it is not your last." Holding the child to her, Cha'Khah made her way as quickly as she could to see her husband. She felt tiny movements against her breasts and she heard the little one's cooing and when she'd heard the first little giggle, Cha'Khah stopped and they looked at each other for a moment before it came to the Drow that the little thing enjoyed the bouncing of the ride. Cha'Khah laughed softly and wiped new tears from her face, "Then let us begin, Mo-Wenn," she said, "at least I am given a drowling dalharil who likes a little adventure. If you had a say in the choosing of me, little one, then I can say that you have chosen well for a mother to raise you. You will not pass from boredom." As she walked up the slope to their home, she caught sight of Barrett and called out to him to come quickly. By the time that he reached the house, he found his bride sitting on the couch with the infant on her bare front where she still held the child inside her armor as they giggled at each other. When she'd finished telling of what had happened, she nodded toward the tiny girl, "She is a Tu'rilthiir, half-Rivvil and half-Wild Elf. So far, she is such a happy little thing, but soon she will miss her mother." Her smile vanished then as she grew serious. "I need to ask you something, Barrett. You are my husband." He sat down next to them, "I don't even want to hear it," he smiled to her, "I already know what you'd say." She shook her head, "I must ask my husband. I wish to keep her and raise her as our dalharil -- daughter, sorry. I had a daughter born to me long ago and she was taken from me to be sold or worse. I never knew her, and it has been my pain for a long time. Today, I find this lost little one in the arms of her poor dying mother and I gave my word. I will keep her, Barrett. I ask that you help me to raise her. I know that I ask much from you, since we are not long in our own beginning and I will need your help to even keep her alive at the start. I have no milk to give her. Will you take her as your own with me? Will you be her father? I should have said it in there, but, ... Please husband, I ask this." Barrett's expression didn't change, "I guess I understand why it's such a big deal to you to ask, Cha'Khah, but you know that you didn't need to. I'll help, you know I will." He watched as the Cha'Khah made the infant laugh a little. They both looked so happy for the moment. "We have only spoken once of making little ones," she said, "I know you would wish for this with me, but I did not expect one to land in my arms. Is there room for her with us, you and I?" "Yeah," he nodded, "You're making too much out of it. Sometimes you just have to accept and go on. Today I have a new daughter, and a lot more to do. We love each other, she'll have all that she'll need." "Thank you, Barrett, "Cha'Khah smiled through her new tears, "Each day, you show me more wonders of you. Thank you." He smiled in wonder, "She's such a little doll." Cha'Khah nodded and then she smirked, "A little doll who thinks that my breasts are the best things in the world to play with. It reminds me of someone. She is half Rivvil. Are you missing any male relations? She might be related to you, the way that she enjoys herself here." "No," he said after pretending to think on it. "I was thinking that she might be related to you somehow, Cha'Khah. She's got your ears, you know." His wife glowered a little at him, "I know that I must learn to live without my famous withering curses, which can sour milk by themselves. Our girl disarms me. That is all that saves you now." Her comment caused his eyes to open and a smile crossed his face, "As it happens, I even have a way to help you begin," he laughed as he thought of it, jabbing his finger into the air, "I've got Nancy." "Nancy?" she asked, "You mean the goat?" Barrett nodded, "The one whose milk I use to make the cheese that you love so much, but soon, you'll get less cheese, I'm afraid." "What are you talking about?" Cha'Khah asked, "The drowling is no goat." "I've got a half a pail of milk," he said, "I was just finished milking Nancy when I heard you. Look, one of us is a warrior and one of us is a farmer. Just sit and keep her amused. I'll be right back. And then you wrap her up and we'll go see the others. You need to show off your uh, dalharil, I think you said, and I need Arrax' mind. I've got an idea. On the way, I'll tell you what's what and what we can do for, ..." He looked at her blankly, "Does she have a name? She must, I think." "Mo-Wenn, the mother told me," Cha'Khah said, "a pretty name for a pretty dalharil -- and since you have shown yourself to be such a fine male to me yet again, Barrett, I wish to consider her our dalharil. Fine," she said, pretending to scowl, "I must trust my farmer husband. Hurry." As they walked, Cha'Khah's mouth fell open, "Really? This is no time to make fun at me, Barrett. Mo-Wenn will need to eat soon. I do not know why she is not screaming for her mother's breast now." "I'm serious," Barrett said, "I know it'll work, I just need the way to deliver it, that's all. People have always used goat's milk. You'll have to decide what you want, but that ought to work too, unless Drow women are really different from humans -- I mean in more ways than their sweet dispositions to their husbands." "Put your arm around me," she smiled, "I must think on it, but first, I will be amazed at my wonderful man again. You say that you have no power, and then you work magic and make everything work for us all. I trust you and I wish to believe you, it is just not something that I would have thought of. I never had the chance to think like a mother before." "I'm telling you, it was done long ago every day. I read about places for foundlings -- babies who had been abandoned or left alone in the world because their mothers had died from one thing or another. Those places hired nursing women to feed the children, but there were always problems, because well, women can talk and ask for more money, can't they? Places like that ran on good will and shoestrings. So a lot of those places used goats and donkeys. Hell, I'm sure that if I cleaned Nancy's udder really well, I could just hold Mo-Wenn there and she'd get all that she needs -- well, if Nancy wasn't such a nervous girl. She's too fast to kick before she figures out that she likes to give milk. She settles down then, but at first, she's just nasty." ------------------------- The others gathered around to see Mo-Wenn, who was still a happy little thing, staring and laughing at them all, though she looked a little nervously at Arrax for a moment until he stepped away. Whatever had made her uneasy did not apply to Shaevre though. She reached out for her and stared at the pawed hand that held hers for a minute. "We can get her started on a little milk right now," Rachel said as she took a clean dishtowel out of her laundry hamper. She washed a small saucepan carefully and poured a little of the goat milk into it. She twisted one corner of the towel into a little cone and then she dipped it into the milk and touched it to Mo-Wenn's lips. The baby remembered her appetite then and plainly wanted more. "Here," Rachel said to Cha'Khah, "You're her mother now. Hold her like this and you feed her. What do you know of her? I don't know anything about elf girls, but if she was human, I'd say that she's about three and a half to four months old -- maybe a little more, since she's got such a sense of humor, laughing and giggling the way that she does. If I'm right, then she's gone hungry a lot. She's a little small for that age, but like I said, I don't know spit about elves." She moved the rags aside and looked at Mo-Wenn's body for a moment, "Yeah, I'm right. Time for you to make up what she's missed. Are you going to only feed her goat milk? I mean you can, there's nothing wrong with that, but, "she pointed, "what about those?" Cha'Khah stared, "I have no milk for her, Rachel. I yearn to be able to feed her like that. I would never need to worry then, would I? But I cannot make milk with a wave of my hand." She looked down and dipped the towel again, "I fear to lose her. She is like a chance for me to do this rightly at last. I bless her poor mother for the gift and I already love her." Rachel smiled as she put her hand on Mo-Wenn's head to caress her of a second, "You won't lose her," she grinned, "I won't let you lose her. Look, you've got a goat, so you've got something good for her to eat. I'm sure that one of us will come up with something better than a dishtowel for her. But you can make your own milk, Cha'Khah, any woman can -- and you gave birth once. Even a woman who hasn't given birth can make milk. It just takes a little while to get started. All you need is a hungry mouth working them for about twenty minutes each, maybe six times a day, just as though she was on them. She can help herself, but she'll get frustrated at first, since nothing will come. A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 31 Even so, you should let her suck sometimes. It's good for both of you and she needs to know that you're her mom. That'll bond you two. You've got everything that you need to start making milk for your uh, little drowling there." "Everything I need?" Cha'Khah asked, "How? You said that it takes a little time and she will grow frustrated." "Uh-huh," Rachel chuckled, pointing at Barrett who came walking toward them with Arrax, "but he won't, will he? Let him do the work. He'd love it, and you'll be Mo-Wenn's real mother in no time." "This is so?" she asked, looking at them all. "Pft --don't look at me," Selena grinned, "I still haven't figured out everything that I can do with my hands, never mind my tits. But if any of us knows, it's Rachel." "I do not know of it personally, "Shaevre said, "but I know that it can be done by Xer as well. If a childless pair seeks to adopt a very small whelp, the workers at the home who care for orphans tell the bitch to do the same as Rachel has said, before they take the little one home, so that there will be milk in her teats." "This is something strange," Cha'Khah said as she held the full cloth to Mo-Wenn again, "See the thong on her wrist. Sheavre, could you please go and ask Vadren to come? I have something to tell him." Sheavre nodded and walked off to find the mage. "There is something on the beads," Cha'Khah said, "but I cannot see it from here. The mother was a wild elf, but I did not recognize her tribe from her face markings. Of all of the Darthiir, they are the least liked by the other kinds, though they do not seek to kill them as they do us. They are also the most like us in their ways -- at least a little, in how they hold themselves apart and do not trust outsiders. Xunafae was the mother's name, and it is a name that Drow use as well. Mo-Wenn is also a name known to us, though we write it a little differently. We would tie two names together over it and craft the one from them, like my own name. For this little one, we would likely name her Moniriel Rah-Wenn in our way of complicating things which are simple and a girl's mother would call her Mo-Wenn." Barrett and Arrax held out a strange looking bag. "What is that?" Cha'Khah asked. "It is a water bag, from one of the emergency packages on the skiff. If one is down on a world with no water, it can be used to draw water from the ground as long as water exists there. A tube runs out so that one may drink without disturbing the arrangement. For this, I removed the long tube and kept the short, soft one. The collecting bag came off and the smaller carrying bag went on so that it is more easily managed. There is a valve inside and she will have to suck, just as she would at her mother's teats. The bag is cleaned and we can try a little milk to see if it will work for her." Cha'Khah and the other females looked at the thing a little skeptically, but as soon as the tube was against the infant's lips, she began to suck at it happily, making busy little sighs as she went. "So the first crisis has passed," smiled Cha'Khah." My thanks to the two inventors." "It'll need to be cleaned after every use," Barrett said, "but I guess a mother would know that, huh?" "A father as well," she smiled, "you can feed her this way just as I can. I am a little overwhelmed at being given a girl to raise. That does not mean that I have become stupid, Barrett." Little Mo-Wenn stopped sucking for a moment as she looked at Barrett. She pushed the nipple away a little and reached out with both of her little hands. As soon as Barrett brought his face close to her, she stared and touched his cheek. It brought a lot of giggles from her for the way that his beard felt to her, and satisfied after a moment, she remembered the makeshift nipple again and Cha'Khah got it to her mouth. As she sucked, she looked back at them, a tiny elf girl with very dark red hair and large, bright green eyes. Vadren approached, laughing a little, "I knew that Barrett was unusual from the first moment, but I must bow to the ability of a mighty mage, if he can give you a drowling and with none of the pain of the birthing -- all over the hours of a morning!" Cha'Khah told him about what had happened, and he examined the beaded strings. "The mother's name is close to our way, no?" he asked as he reached to gently turn the beads on the thong which the infant wore, "Even stranger, cousin. Her name is written here in their way, and it is written as you or I would have written it: 'Mo-Wenn'. There is a bead on the other side with the whole and proper name: Moniriel Rah-Wenn." The others stared, but Cha'Khah smiled, "As I have said." "How did you know?" Selena asked. "I have a feeling that it wasn't just a lucky guess," Rachel smiled. "Perhaps it was, I do not know." Cha'Khah smiled as she bent down to kiss the little head, "But that is what I would have named her. Well met we are, little Moniriel." Vadren looked again at the child, seeing features and thinking over what came to him from the beaded charms. "The beads are common for their kind, and are used to make their charms. All of these are the same in the way that they ask for the same things -- a little protection and a hope to be loved." "I do not know what she was doing here, but the mother was far from her tribe. They are the one tribe closest to ourselves of the Wild Ones. How did she speak?" "She spoke almost as we do between us, Vadren," Cha'Khah said, "We had no trouble between us with it." She looked at Mo-Wenn, "I think that we have missed finding a friend by only minutes. I wish that I could have come in time. We called each other 'sister' as though it was the truth." "I knew a Xunafae once, before we left with Azrael," Vadren said quietly as he looked from the infant to his cousin. He looked down and Cha'Khah knew what he was sensing. She reached for Vadren's arm, "This has been an evil day, cousin. She mentioned you to me by your name. The father was Aldred, but he was killed by her brother and they cast her out of her tribe. Xunafae said that she came seeking you. That is perhaps the reason for the hope that you feel in the enchantment on the beads. She came all of this way alone hoping that you might want her. I cannot think of where she must have been all alone to birth her daughter when her time came to her. If it were not for the pack of dogs and her weakness, this day might have brought you happiness." Vadren nodded, "Who can say? Xunafae was not what I would have wanted for myself, but that was there and then. Today, I think that I have missed helping a friend and it might have turned into more than we had." He sighed heavily, "Instead, two of my friends are dead, and here is a little one who needs much. I would say this to you anyway, Cha'Khah, but this girl will have my love as well, whatever I can give is hers for her, for you, and for the memory of her parents." He smiled a little then, "I rejoice anyway for what has been saved and has come to you." Mo-Wenn stopped nursing, and Rachel showed Cha'Khah how to burp her. With that done, Mo-Wenn became sleepy in a couple of minutes and Cha'Khah held her as she sucked at her nipple a little half-heartedly and placed her hand on her adopted mother's breast and fell asleep. "Will you keep the name?" Selena asked, "I like it." "I must," Cha'Khah said, "I have been given a gift from a mother's failing hands. Knowing her name and taking it from her to give her another would shame me. Keeping the name honors us both." She looked at Barrett and he smiled, "Why do you keep looking at me? These complicated things are no business of mine. All I know is that I have a daughter. I couldn't think of a nicer name for her to save my life. I'm over the moon with her, and I can already see that you love her. Mo-Wenn is her name, and it stays." "You have fallen in with a pair of fools, Mo-Wenn," Cha'Khah smiled quietly as she looked down, "but you have gained a wonderful male for a father, and come into a fine family." She looked at her husband, "I hope that you are ready for what comes with this one if she got even a little from her mother, besides her fine looks." "Uh, what do you mean?" Barrett asked, a little uncertainly. Mo-Wenn opened her eyes and gave a satisfied little grunt, as she filled her swaddling rags with a rather wet-sounding noise. "You see?" Cha'Khah chuckled, "She makes sounds like you already." As they looked at her, Mo-Wenn squinted a bit and her tiny hand waved a little in space, as though she was reaching for something. The shadows shifted around them, and as they looked for the cause, they saw one of the two florescent fixtures looking as though it was being pulled toward them on its chains slightly. It hung there, quivering a little for a moment, before the tubes shattered and broken glass rained down next to them all. With the harsh light out of her eyes now, Mo-Wenn moved her little hand and took hold of a bit of Cha'Khah's long white hair and held it against her new mother's breast. She closed her eyes and after a few more sucks, she fell back asleep in an instant. Vadren laughed quietly, "We had all better be ready, and Cha'Khah and I will need to teach her how to be a Drow, though that is not far from what she is anyway. You will have to teach her how to be at least a little human, my friend, and we will all need to learn patience," he chuckled. He pointed with a soft smile, "Enjoy this while it may last. They are not called Wild Ones for nothing." A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 32 ***There was a reason why Xunafae ran so far all alone. It came to me as I wrote the lead-up to this chapter that a girl like Cha'Khah ought to come with a warning sticker with just one rule. Never, ever piss her off. 0_o -------------- Book of the Mountain Clan Part 9 Vadren stood watching the little scene for a moment longer and then he wandered away a little in thought. Of them all, he was the only one who knew much of anything of the background here and it troubled him a little. Xunafae had been no ordinary girl. He remembered her features, and while she'd been no great beauty, she was a pretty thing. He brushed the pleasant memory aside to think on what he felt a little more. As wild elves go, Xunafae had been a bit of a slightly spoiled good-time girl whose exploits had brought her a bit of trouble occasionally. That in itself was nothing really out of the ordinary. So what if a girl sought a little pleasure for herself now and then? It was where she'd been placed in the hierarchy of her family that was the trouble, to his mind. One might say that it had been quite a feat to have come this far, seeking the Drow mage in the hopes of making a life for herself if he'd accepted her and agreed to take her and the daughter which must have been born to her along the way, but he knew Xunafae well enough. She'd come running here in desperation, certainly, using her sense of him to guide her. The Wild Ones were famous for it. But the distance, he thought, the distance was the thing here. She could have found someone to stand for her with a little luck. She had the looks for it. This sort of thing happened every day in a thousand places; a girl who found herself in a bit of need and deciding to look for a male to settle down with. But she hadn't walked into a manor or an inn, swiveling her pretty hips, and casting those eyes of hers around. That would have been easy enough for her to manage. She'd come hundreds of leagues, seeking Vadren and no other. He wasn't stupid. There was a reason for that, and he doubted that it had anything much to do with the way that he could make her gasp out his name in the darkness. Xunafae had been driven here in her fear for some reason, and she must have wanted his ability to protect her from someone or something, if she'd run this far. He knew that he'd likely have helped her and done what she'd needed, accepting her offer of herself. He also knew that it would have been about the worst thing that he could possibly do to himself. But again, that wasn't the issue now. Xunafae was dead. What about whatever it was that had driven her? What was it that she'd feared so much? Enough to have done something like this? Vadren walked down the long corridor to open the outer gates and stand just inside the portal overhang. He looked out and in a minute, he wasn't seeing anything nearby – he was seeing much of the lands around, nowhere and everywhere at once. Two minutes later, he'd closed those doors again and was running back to warn the others. ------------------------------ The afternoon light was fading as she wandered over the forested mountainside, staying very near to a trail. Something was very wrong. It made her smirk to herself a little bitterly. When in the past year had anything gone right for her? She thought farther back than that and decided not to think about it too much. Born the daughter of a woman who could still trace her lineage far back to the other side of the fall of mankind; all the way back past the oppressive days of Communism – beyond the bloody days of the Bolsheviks and into the even darker past of some of the lesser Russian nobility in the Middle Ages, Ksyusha was an anomaly if there ever was one. Her mother was a rare beauty and she was both wise and powerful in her craft. Not the crafts of healing and midwifery, which she'd always made her living at, oh no; Ksyusha's mother stemmed from an unbroken and easily traceable line of witches, sorcerers and others of that ilk. At the age of twenty, Ksyusha's mother had decided that it was time for her kind to step out of the shadows and dark corners to get away from the deals and conjurings made only in the darkest of basement and at the backs of old barns to take what she saw as their rightful place in the world. With the thought in her mind, she'd begun to look to see what sort of being there was for her to pair with. She sought a mate for herself – not in any immediate sense, but for the long term. She wanted to find a male out of antiquity if need be, someone who could appreciate her and what she had to offer in exchange for more power and protection for her as they rose together. She scoured all the old texts and any of the surviving scrolls which there still were in the possession of any of her relatives. She made a very long and careful list and then began to pare it down. What she was left with was a choice of two, but that turned into only one when it was time to find the invocation by which to summon the one – if he still lived somewhere. The one that she decided on was known to as many as seven of the ancient civilizations. They all had different names for the one, but it was clear to a properly-trained student of the history of the dark arts who was being referred to in every single one of the translations which she'd either purchased or worked out for herself. She was after one who was as a god to some and a demon to others, one who had never taken a bride in any of the accounts that she'd found. She hoped that he still lived and that by proving to him that he was still wanted, well, ... it is one of the oldest sorts of witches' tales. On the night which she'd chosen for this, she prepared everything and began her summoning. She was very clear in the wording of it, that if he chose to manifest himself, it was not by her will or command, it was by her desire to seek his love and begin what should have happened for him long before with one who could appreciate him. As it happened, and as in more than a few of these things, the personality in question had not been what he'd been seen as at all. Where the fearful and superstitious humans had heaped all manner of titles on someone not of their plane, they'd been mistaken - completely and utterly incorrect in their assumptions. He still lived, but not here. He'd been here for a time long ago, but not as a god or a deity. That was the reaction of the local populace. They'd seen him work some of his power and taken it to be the sign that he was a god, when really, he'd been a traveler and nothing more. Their prayers to him had gone unanswered because he'd been more interested in repairing his means to get home than pay attention to the rag-covered creatures around him who often got in his way without meaning to or knowing any better to test his patience. That had gone on until one of them had broken something rather important to him and he'd fried that one where he stood as a warning to the rest. They'd called him a god to be feared and worshiped after that. He thought they were idiots and he was gone as fast as he could effect the repairs that were needed. But on the night that Ksyusha's mother had begun to call him to her, he heard it in his mind and sent questioning feelings to the one who called. Ksyusha's mother answered truthfully, and he replied that he was on his way, wanting to meet the one who called him and hoping that the fools what he'd known had finally grown brains. It took him half a year to come because of the distance and when he arrived, the house blew down along with most of the village. The most beautiful woman for miles around waited in the face of that terrible wind, and as he came, she was surprised to find that she was no longer in that village. She was moving at incredible speed and she looked up from the broad chest which she suddenly found herself against, and he looked down at her. Their romance was very short, and they consummated it minutes after he'd brought her to his craft. The rest was a very long and still-spinning love story and in that sense, it was still very much a romance. But it hadn't worked out the way that Ksyusha'a mother had planned it. She found herself on a very different plane of existence altogether. It wasn't bad at all, once she'd gotten used to it, and they lived in happiness there, but she'd wanted for this to happen where she was from, not where they'd gone to live. But she knew the way that this worked; she'd called, he'd answered and that was that. She wasn't stupid; he was wonderful to her, so she'd settled. Ksyusha was the only product of their love. She had a lot of her father's features and abilities – even a few of his physical traits, all wrapped up in a lovely package similar to her mother in stature. But there were differences – enough to make living among ignorant and superstitious humans an impossibility. Ksyusha was something known as plane-touched, the product of a spawning between a human and one from another plane. It happened sometimes, and what was passed to the offspring depended on the parents. In Ksyusha's case, her father came from somewhere that the Merren and the Xer had never heard of, just as she knew nothing of them. Her outward appearance was similar to her father's in her coloring. She wore dusky skin which leaned toward being dark with soft thin lips the color of dull, but almost golden dusty sand. And though it was nice to touch and good to look at if one had the eyes to appreciate her unusual type of beauty, her long hair was just the perfect color of dirt which matched her skin, since it carried no highlights. She often wore it as a long braid with a few beads woven into it to offset the dullness of it. Her eyes were red – deep red, and they were always that way, holding little flecks of orange in their irises which moved subtly so that if one looked into those eyes for long enough, they'd begin to get the impression that there was a slowly burning bonfire behind her pretty face. But most would never see those highlights. They were put off by a few of her other features. The demon patterns on her skin – birthmarks which came from her father were mostly hidden under her scalp, but some could be seen just below her hairline on the sides of her head and down the sides of her neck if her hair was tied back. Even if her hair wasn't tied back, the marks were there just below her hairline on her forehead as well – and right below those two small, thin, and rather sharp horns which protruded from her hair above the corners of her forehead . Ksyusha was actually quite beautiful, but few if any ever got close enough to really appreciate it. She didn't know it, but she had a really nice smile until it widened enough to allow her sharp teeth to show. Back home, she was an uncommon beauty. Here well, ... Where her father was from, and where she'd grown up, it was the custom to add markings to the skin of young ones who had proven themselves as they came of age. Ksyusha had been on her spirit journey, and she'd found a band of twenty-eight marauders in the blazing hot wastes of her homeworld abusing a young female spark demon and there was only one ending to how it was to have gone. When they'd tired of tormenting her they would have sated another type of hunger, cooking their meal while the victim still lived. Ksyusha saw their shamaness in a moment and laid her low after a quick exchange of attacks. Then she'd waded in and after cutting the bonds which held the spark demon, they dealt with all the rest of them together. The markings hadn't been her personal choice, since that was the father's right, traditionally, but Ksyusha had long ago gotten used to the long and thin pale silver fangs which she wore from her forehead to her cheeks that ran down right over her closed eyelids as they went. They were always there, but how plainly they showed on her face depended in large part on her mood at the moment. If she was asleep, or feeling subdued, they were almost not to be seen at all, but when she was roused, well, they almost glowed in their intensity. During her childhood, she'd learned several languages from her mother as well as the demonic speech of her father's tribe. English was in there somewhere mostly from her mother, but since there were no other English-speaking persons to use as her models, Ksyusha's English carried both the accent of her father and the soft, but definite presence of her mother's Russian accent in hers. Most humans wouldn't come near her on a bet, and that was at first sight. It wouldn't have ever become an issue but for her mother's reminiscences of her home world; the way that it looked and smelled so nicely – outside of the towns and cities, of course. That was the way that Ksyusha put it down as. She'd never explain the true reason - though her father might have sympathized. He'd always been a romantic. Ksyusha had shared dreams with the spark demon - which was not supposed to be possible. Their vividness were the true impetus. It took a few years, but eventually Ksyusha decided that she wanted to go there, and with her father's help, once she'd demonstrated her prowess at the sort of magic that her father's kind had always relied on and then gone on to choose her specialty, she found herself here. It was not without a cost to her. There had been a young male who she loved enough to sleep with often enough, but though he'd said that he wanted to go with her, when the moment came to leave, he'd balked and decided to remain. Ksyusha had shown no emotion. She'd only wished him luck as she'd hugged her parents and boarded. The male didn't catch her turn of phrase, but that was alright, she'd thought. She'd settled in for the long trip, and knew that she had six months to get over the way that she felt. She wasn't completely alone; she had Nika, the spark demon whom she'd befriended. Her ex-boyfriend hadn't known it at the time, but he had less than ten minutes to live – judging by what Ksyusha saw in her father's eyes. Ksyusha was a tiefling, first and foremost. She knew that she was different, and she knew that most people looked at her with fear and mistrust. Her defense mechanism for that was to laugh. She was much more than that. Among her people she was widely known as a rather young and powerful warlock, proficient and deadly in her ability. But once she'd arrived and hidden the craft which had brought her here, she'd found that she loved the world that she was now on. But by their actions in most of her interactions with them, she wasn't all that fussy about the inhabitants. It had been only the start of her troubles. Finding herself seeming to be unable to make any friends here- or even a single person who even wanted to know her a little, she'd turned away then and gone to a dark tower, all that remained of the fortress of a once-mighty king who had lived the same arts as she now did. He caused some trouble in the area now and then, and on meeting the red-eyed beauty, he thought that his dreams had come true until, with the introductions made, she'd taken all of his power and dissolved the last of his mean little spirit. Everyone for leagues around rejoiced. But they still wouldn't come near her. Ksyusha didn't care. She summoned his confused followers and set them to work, cleaning the place out before she set all of the spirits of the condemned free and lived there quietly, gathering old tomes to study. That had ended roughly a year ago now. All day, she'd been following the trail of the one that she'd been coerced to track. She knew that she couldn't be more than a day behind her quarry, and likely, she was a lot closer than that. As she'd followed, she'd come to ridges which gave her the occasional overview of the land. She knew roughly where she was and where she was headed, though she'd never been this far west herself – until now, she'd never had the need. She cursed these heavily-wooded mountains a little for the way that they never allowed one to travel in a straight line on the ground. And if you were tracking, then on the ground was where you were, though that was a poor name for the way that she had to follow the one that she sought. Her quarry seldom if ever left any tracks which were visible, but that meant little to Ksyusha. She followed the fading presence of the one that she hunted. She needed no tracks. At the same time, the nature of the terrain gave her more time to think of her own problem and how to be rid of it, not that she'd thought of any solution thus far. She only knew that once she'd found the one that she was looking for, her real trouble would begin. Ksyusha had been within sight of her quarry several times. Each time, she'd been unobserved and she'd turned away then to give the one she hunted time to escape. There was no joy for her in a hunt like this. She felt for the girl, and to catch her would only end this part of her troubles unless she had a solution in hand – and she didn't. She was supposed to drop a marker for her employer to find near to the end of each day. Sometimes that brought him to her and it was never a pleasant meeting. As far as elves go, the one who used her for his own ends was an ogre, a cruel wild elf king who had murdered his father to claim the right to lead. He was hunting his own sister to assure that there would never be any challenges to his questionable right. He usually only threatened Ksyusha to make more progress, but sometimes it was all that she could do to defend herself. She could summon allies which would cause the bravest man to tremble. She could steal someone's life force from them to leave them an inch away from death, and she could rip a warrior's flesh and muscle away to have him serve her as one of the walking dead, but as long as the cruel king held the single shred of her soul away from her, she was very limited in what she could do. He held a piece of her life in an enchanted amulet around his neck. As long as it was in his possession, she would never be free, and at some point, she'd become his half-dead slave. More and more, she was toying with ideas of ways to end her own life. Often, the bastard couldn't be bothered to come at all, and those nights were the best for her. If she'd found something important or significant, She was supposed to drop a different kind of marker, one which would bring him to her very quickly. Sometimes, if she'd made only some difficult progress over very hard terrain and had found nothing but more trail to follow, she didn't drop a marker at all. That usually got her a lot more abuse, but sometimes it was worth it to her. Just like the one that she hunted so half-heartedly, she'd never felt so alone in her life. She had only Nika, and even then, they couldn't often spend a lot of time together since one never knew when her captor might arrive and she was determined that, no matter what Nika said, he wouldn't have two prizes to abuse. At one point, hours ago, she'd seen smoke in the distance and wondered about it, but then it was to the north of her and she was headed west at the time. Now she was growing concerned, since her quarry had found her way out of one valley and had turned north. She'd sent Nika ahead to see and when the little demon had come back to her as fast as she could fly, keening out her distressed calls, Ksyusha had picked up her pace then. But when she'd seen the tracks of a pack of dogs converging with signs of the fugitive's passing, Ksyusha began to run, cursing herself out loud for allowing this much space between them. She was very weak in terms of her natural ability, but if she'd known of this, she'd have stepped in and killed the dogs herself and let the chips fall where they may afterward since there was a child involved. A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 32 She felt her hot tears to think of an ending like this. It was nearly dark when she stood at the place where Xunafae had made her desperate stand. The corpses of wild dogs lay everywhere, but there was no sign of the fugitive princess, only something which told the warlock that she wouldn't be dropping a marker that night – not until she had some answers to her own questions beforehand. She sent Nika to see what else there might be to know of this. In the fading light, Nika ranged in widening circles, straining to see through the darkening forest from above. Ksyusha needed to know what had happened here. It was obvious that the princess had died, but how did a fugitive running for her life manage to kill the pack which had been at her heels for a good distance and then end up as the tiny bits of windblown ash which floated around her in this little clearing? Why? The dogs were dead, the threat to her removed. She looked at the snow and decided that not all of the blood had come from the animals. There were entrails here which had plainly not come from any of the canines. The way that the blood had spread told her that Xunafae had been dying. How had she killed the animals when there were no weapons left behind? The wounds on most of the dogs indicated that bladed weapons had been used. That was fine, she thought, but knives don't turn to ash, so where had they walked off to, now that they were unemployed? Ksyusha had to ask these questions, because she knew that they would be asked of her. As well, doing the investigative work allowed her to take her mind away from the obvious. The reason that she'd been hunting now was no more. The hunt was over, unless she could prove otherwise and then what? What would the tyrant prick have her do for him then? There wasn't enough light for even her eyes to see the many tiny details which she knew had to be here. Frustrated, she threw out her hands and a brilliant ball of Witchfire blazed above her so that she could see. It hung there low in the air, floating along wherever she went as she looked. Ksyusha was getting a clue here. Xunafae had not been alone when she'd died. There had been another here, by the slight marks in the snow, invisible to any but one of the Elder races, and a good tracker at that, to be able to piece together a little story such as this. For her to see them was as nothing. There had been someone else here at the time, and by what she saw, it could only have been an elf. Ksyusha began to run down the list of them all, trying to determine what sort it might have been. All that she could come up with were a few of the lower kinds who might be out here working at menial jobs in the towns, as stablehands and assistants to the cooks and waiters. Some of the High Elves passed through once in a while, but they were on their way to leave, not hang around. She walked forward looking at where the trail led off to. There had been someone else here and they'd gone in this direction, she thought as her ball of Witchfire nodded along before her until it stopped, and she almost walked into it. Just at lower edge of the brilliantly lit blaze, she saw a pair of boots, and it reminded her that there was one sort which she'd left out of her list. The one kind which weren't here, as far as anyone knew. The one sort who wouldn't have been here anyway, even if they were in the area, since this had happened during the daytime, and that sort only came out on the surface at night. Which, she noted, it was now - almost. She'd never met one of that kind. She looked up just as the Witchfire was knocked aside and flickered crazily from the snow where it had landed. In that thin sliver of time, she saw the Drow who had been watching her with his red eyes while she'd been too preoccupied to sense his presence. He was tall and large for one of the Elder races, she noted. Most elves were shorter than she was, but not this one. As she raised her hand to erect the defensive circle around her, he stepped inside of it with what looked to Ksyusha to be a really handsome smile. Before she could react, he blew a gentle puff of air in her face and she fell into darkness. When Nika returned to tell that she could find nothing, she saw only the Witchfire, sputtering faintly and going out. Finding the trail of the Drow wasn't a hard thing to do for her, once she saw a little movement far ahead as he carried Ksyusha across a clearing near the mountain, but though she raced to follow, she was too late as he entered and closed the doors behind him. Nika flew around the entire mountain for hours, seeking a way to follow. -------------------------- Cha'Khah stood on the one of the maintenance balconies, holding her new daughter and thanking her goddess before asking for her help and guidance so that she could become the mother that the little one needed so much. The day had been an incredible one for her and she now honestly couldn't decide whether to laugh or cry her joyous tears, though she was always mindful of the terrible way that this gift had come to her and the price that Xunafae had paid. She kept this foremost in her mind and asked that the Wild Elf be welcomed wherever she was to go in her whatever afterlife there was for her. She'd been busy all day and hadn't seen her cousin in hours, so she hadn't heard his warning. No one else told her, since they'd all heard that Vadren had captured the threat that he'd detected and no one knew that there was another small detail which had been overlooked. That was why Cha'Khah didn't notice the inky blur which came rocketing out of the night sky to pass her by as it shot through the opening of the blast valve into the mountain. A few minutes later, her observances complete, Cha'Khah went back inside and closed the valve before walking down to see if Barrett had found a suitable bed for Mo-Wenn. She doubted that he would find a crib or anything like that. She didn't mind so much, if they had to sleep together with the little girl between them, then so be it. When she met Barrett, he told her that Vadren had captured the hunter, and Cha'Khah handed Mo-Wenn to him as she walked quickly to where Vadren would be. She was unaware of the spot of darkness which followed her high above the lights, watching from above. --------------------------- When Ksyusha awoke, she was naked and suspended in an upright position in the air somehow with her arms and legs out. There were no restraints on her – she just couldn't move and she could see a little of her hair at the edges of her vision. A quick shake of her head told her that her braid had been undone. It also gave her an instant headache. The Drow sat at a table, a little far down in a chair with his long legs stretched out before him. He wasn't looking at her. He appeared to be lost in thought looking at what she knew was a chess board. She knew it because she'd found a large stone board and carved gamepieces in her tower when she'd taken up residence and she'd wondered about it for a while before she found any information out. She looked around and saw a huge animal, roughly like a dog, sitting on its haunches looking at her through glowing red eyes. She noted that it didn't have to look up all that far, either. The thing was massive. She'd never seen anything like this one. Besides its incredible size, the thing looked to be made of some sort of sandstone or something. They looked at each other for a long minute before Ksyusha tried to turn its mind. The reaction to her attempt brought an intense shock to her mind as though she'd been hit in the back of the head with a plank. When she'd recovered a little, she looked again. The creature only continued to look at her with the same disinterested expression, though it did blink once. Ksyusha found it a little disconcerting when the creature began to speak to the Drow, all the while never taking its eyes off her. "There is no enjoyment to me if you are only going to consider the pieces on the board all evening, "the creature said to the Drow, "I have taught you the game. Mastery takes some time, even for one such as you. Look all you like, it is still checkmate. Now concede and we will begin again. Oh, and your captive is awake." "Has she attempted anything?" the Drow asked, still preoccupied, and not even looking over. "Yes," Arrax replied, "She tried to force my mind to do her bidding so that I would kill you." "Mmm," Vadren said, as though it wasn't really noteworthy, "Well if she was a little more patient, she'd see that you are accomplishing it very slowly. A few more matches with you and I will cut my own throat." Vadren chuckled. Ksyusha was a little surprised to find a Drow speaking English, since it was something that almost never happened for all that she knew of them, the race were widely known to be snobbish – unless there was gain in it for them, of course. She was upset at finding herself like this, and if she could have, she'd have killed him, though she did like the way that he looked and his accent was intriguing and more than a little endearing and quite charmi-. She shook her head to get rid of the thought. Which made her head throb even worse. "Where am I?" Ksyusha demanded, "Where are my clothes?" The Drow sighed and spoke without looking at her, "A little quieter, if you please. I am trying to learn this infuriating game." He sat up and leaned forward, pushing his very long white hair over his ear. "Your clothing was rather dirty and the hems were splashed with mud. You fell into, - well, it might be better not to say it, and so I have washed them carefully. The cloak is dry and hangs behind you, but the other garment is made of a thick and soft velvet and it takes a lot longer to dry unless you wish for a fine thing like that to be damaged. I have also untied and washed your hair." "Why? "she asked, not thinking things through uncharacteristically, "And why aren't you even looking at me? It is rude." "Fine, I'll tell you then," he sighed, turning his head to face her, "I washed your lovely hair to get the entrails which you landed in out of it. And I did that because I thought that it was only right, since I caused you to fall where you did. It is the same story with your clothing. I was not looking at you because, while I grant you that it is a little rude to speak to someone and not face them, I thought it would be a lot more rude to speak facing you while you are there wearing nothing. I thought that you deserved some respect and your dignity, but I guess that you see things a little differently. Oh, and I washed you as well," he said, "While it may not get me the answers which I seek, at least my nose will not be offended." Ksyusha was furious, but she couldn't summon much in the way of her abilities at the moment and it perplexed her. "Did you enjoy it?" she sneered. "No," he said, looking a little put-out that she'd not at least thank him for it, "I didn't. I don't know if you've ever tried to bathe an unconscious person, but it's not easily done. It's even less appealing if they're wearing someone's innards at the time. It was a lot of work to keep you from drowning at my hands while trying not to cause you any more harm. Even harder to do because you're quite lovely, but I need to speak with you, and I had to do it this way. One look at you and I knew that you wouldn't just stand there and pass the time of day with me. Most people see me and run. The ones who do not only try to kill me. You were putting up your wall. So this was how it had to be, but you were standing in gore, so that's what you landed in. If this all bothers you, or if you feel shame at how you are," he said, "I can cover you with your cloak. I had really wanted to have your clothing dry by now and put back on you. You'd wake up, notice that everything was clean and wonder how I'd done it, but the velvet takes so long." Vadren sighed to himself. She didn't deserve the frustration that he felt rising up within himself, but it was there nonetheless. He was still trying to get over losing Cha'Khah – though he was very happy for her and Barrett – especially since they now had a little one to raise. But try as he might, he was saddened for himself. He thought it was a rather selfish way to feel, and so he kept it hidden, but that didn't make him feel any better. To find that he might have seen Xunafae once more and that the opportunity had been missed by mere minutes only added to how he felt. They might have had something once again or not, but to have her torn apart by a pack of curs while she was so close to safety was hard for him to bear. He found that he'd been looking at the floor as he'd had these thoughts and so he looked up at the rather mysterious and beautiful stranger. "Instead, here you are, a little angrier, and here I am, frustrated and annoyed that my efforts don't even merit a half-hearted word of thanks. To say the truth of it, I feel a little tempted to drag you out by the hair and throw you onto a cow flop. Perhaps you'd notice the difference if I began to act in the manner which seems to be expected of me. Doing the right thing buys me nothing." "I would have expected you to kill me," she said in her accented speech, "and what is cow - ..."? "I'd never do that," he said, turning back to the chess board, "at least not until after I'd thrown you into the cowshit. It's a lot easier dragging a living person by the hair than a dead one." "That is not what I meant," Ksyusha said, "I meant – " "I know what you meant," he said a little angrily, "I'm not stupid. You're about to tell me that you would have expected me to kill you out of hand – for nothing. Why would I do that? More to the point, why is that your expectation of me? You don't know a thing about me, so I must want to murder you on sight. Just tell me whose books you read, so I'll know the name of the idiot author who needs to be killed." He looked off straight ahead for a moment and realized that Dahlgren had a conversation something like this once with Selena. It made him wonder. He turned to her then, "I found someone stumbling around a place where something which upsets me very much happened. Not that you'd likely care, but I found you captivating in spite of the strong sense that I get from you that your specialty involves playing with some rather dark powers. If it weren't for your skin and your size, I'd almost think that you are a High Elf somehow, still burdened with the main difficulty of being a High Elf, for that is their trouble. They all walk around with a pickle up their assholes and think they're above every other form of life on the planet. Well they're not and you aren't either, you just can't see straight for all of the shit backed up inside you. It causes you to have these stupid and dangerous prejudices." "I am not any sort of elf," Ksyusha said, "You are hardly being fair, and you show your own prejudice to me when I am not even what you hate." He wound down then, "I know that you're not a High Elf by your skin. You're right and I'm sorry." "Even so, " he leaned toward her, "If I was like what you seem to think, you'd have already told me the things which I have not even asked you yet and a lot more, begging me to keep removing your pretty skin and feeding it to you. And in case you're wondering, "he glowered at her evilly, "I know the way to make you want to eat it desperately while I do that. But I haven't done that, have I? I thought that I might try to do the unexpected and simply ask you. And before you ask, and I have to hear even more absurd things from you, you're there because I am aware of your abilities. It's because I've already sensed what you would do in your mind. You'd do it before I even asked one thing. One of us suffers from prejudices, and the other one is dragged along reluctantly." "I agree," she said, "though it seems to depend upon which one of us is speaking." He sighed, "I should have just left you out there in the shit." He fell silent then and began to set up the chessboard for another game while Ksyusha considered that he was probably right, even though he was being pig-headed and absurd in what he said to her. She could sense that he was upset and trying not to show it. It came to her right after she'd considered that he was really very attractive to her and, other than the shade of his skin, he didn't look anything like the way that Drow were supposed to look, by what she'd been told, never having met one before. "What is the matter with my skin?" she asked quietly. "Not a thing," he said in a half-sigh to himself, looking at the chessboard again, and trying to resume his puzzling, "I don't really know what you are, but I am certain that I've never seen someone so captivatingly beautiful." "Thank you," the warlock said quietly, "for what you did if I was so dirty. It is bad to wake up like this. It would be worse if you were not so kind. Thank you for what you said as well. It was unexpected." He still managed to keep his gaze on the chessboard. "I'm sorry," Ksyusha said, "I was being an ass. It is a bit much to be indignant when you wake up as I just have. I mean, it can be done, you just can't do it for long. Nobody will take you seriously." "That's what I'd have thought," he said, still looking at the board, but she noticed that he was at least smiling a little now, "and I was being an ass myself. I don't know where my comparison between you and a High Elf came from. It's not like me and it certainly wasn't fair – as you said quite correctly. What was your purpose in following the one who was killed?" he asked, "You couldn't have just stumbled upon the scene – not the way that you were looking at things in such an – analytical sort of way." "Why don't you take off those clothes and come kiss me?" she smiled. She wondered where the sarcasm had come from, though deep down, she really knew exactly where it had come from. Ksyusha was rather chaotic now and then, and well, he was attractive to her. But the way that this was going told her that he was holding back some of his emotion bordering on being upset, and she really regretted saying what she's said, thinking about it like this, but there it was. He shrugged, "A pleasant thought," he smiled back, "but from what I can tell of you, there is a hint about you of the , ... specialization that you favor, shall we say. A touch from you and I lose while you gain. Worse, it would be an insult to you for me to do it, just as you insult me here with the asking. I find you beautiful. I have no desire to be laughed at by a beautiful female who thinks me stupid. I have questions. You may try to lie, or you may speak the truth, but do not insult me, not after I have tried to do the right thing by cleaning the filth that you fell into off. I have more pleasant things which I would rather be doing than standing naked in a shower, holding a lovely and unclothed stranger, and cursing under my breath over what I did and how I knew that it would buy only more of your hatred." He sighed, "I knew it even then." Ksyusha blinked, "What you say does not sound too unpleasant." "No?" he asked, "You reeked of offal. Offal which to my mind ought to still be inside of the one who died, so washing it from your body was rather unpleasant, since she was my friend once. The rest? You cannot know how it is to be a male, so leave it at that." "You will not believe me," she said in her soft accent, "but I do not hate you. I do not think that you are stupid. I am only upset, and sometimes I say my thoughts then. If you prefer, then think that it might have been my wish, though I see even now that you think that I lie when I do not." He nodded to Arrax who changed before her eyes into a tall and powerful fur-covered beast. A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 32 "The one who died was a friend of mine from far away," he began, "She came here to seek my protection, but her cries were heard too late. With just a little thought, I think that you might see that I am in no mood to be insulted or toyed with, though I can see that you try to be at least a little earnest. You are not the only one here with a little power. Now, I will find out who she ran from. It might be you, but I have a feeling that you act as an agent here for another. You will either tell me what I wish to know, or my large friend here will lengthen your neck for you." He looked down, "though it would make me sad. But I must know what happened and why. Now, we begin once again, necromancer, you were hunting Xunafae. Why?" "You have made a few errors," she said, looking away at the rest of the room, "I am not what you think. You would lose nothing if you kissed me. And I know how to work the arts that you speak of. It does not mean that I am what you said, any more than my saying that you are nothing but a poor player of that game. I sense your ability, so I know that the statement would be wrong. I also sense that you are upset, as you have said, but not only for that reason. You feel alone now because you have a want that someone might love you, when you think that no one ever will again. I try to say it softly, but that is the real reason that I see." Vadren looked up and his face showed a bit of anger, but that faded and turned into a look which told Ksyusha that she'd been right. She was not cold in her heart, and unless he gave her reason to, she would not mention it again. She liked his face much more when he was only looking annoyed with her. He showed her far more than he meant to, and though she had little reason for it, she decided to leave the wound alone. The door opened and Selena walked in with a plate of food and some ale for Vadren. "I can take over for you, Arrax," she smiled, "go and eat." The large Xer nodded and walked out. Ksyusha saw only a lovely woman for a moment, but then she saw something else as Selena changed and sat down, "I can do this for you," she smiled, "a lot neater, too. If she says one thing that's a lie, I'll show her what I'll do to her, and I won't even have to touch her to do it." She looked at the way that Ksyusha was being held immobile and naked in the air for a minute. Intrigued, she rose and walked around the tiefling for a moment, staring. "You're not doing that 'Parted Flanks of the Maiden' thing, are you?" "What?" Vadren asked, "No, that is a different thing, why?" "Nothing," Selena chuckled, "I've only heard about it from Rachel. None of us know what it is and we're all a little curious. Go on and do what you need to do." Ksyusha was stuck. She wanted to know a little more herself, but had no idea how to ask under the circumstances. She was surprised that he knew the girl's name. That she's been a friend of his took this far from what she'd been threatened into. "Look," she said, "I am in a bad place in this. I had nothing against the girl. I have been hunting her, it's true, but not of my own will. I've even stretched this out a little, here and there. I was careful not to hound her at all. I did it for her and for me. Her brother has seized the throne by killing their father. He wants Xunafae found so that he can kill her. She was the next in line to rule, not him. I was doing this because, ... he wears an amulet. There is a piece of me in it. If he destroys that, I will die. Now that I have found out that Xunafae is dead, I am not far from it myself. I will have to call him and tell him when he comes. After that, I will either be dead, or I will want to be." Vadren looked at Selena. "It's the truth," she said, "at least it's her knowledge of things." "But I've met Garrend," Vadren said, "He's a power-hungry idiot. What you say makes sense, but how can he come here so quickly? And how could he make an unwilling servant of someone like you? He is no mage." "No he's not," Ksyusha agreed, "but he employs one – other than me. That is how he found out about me. He tricked me by offering me some work to find an article for him for high gold. Really, it was a ruse to get me into a room at a certain time, not knowing that the mage would be there. When I felt it, it was too late. I lost a part of my soul and it is around Garrend's neck." "What does the mage get from this, gold?" Vadren asked. "I don't know," Ksyusha said, "I'd guess so, but he has what he wanted. With me doing what Garrend wants, hunting for his sister, the mage has my tower and all of my books." The door opened quickly and Ksyusha saw another Drow in the room as Cha'Khah walked in, her dagger already flashing in her hand. "This is the one?" she asked, "I will get the story of this and her life as well from her in only a minute." She turned to Vadren and finished her thought in their speech, "And then I will gut her, and I will do it hard for what was done." Vadren shook his head, and Cha'Khah could see that there was more to this than she'd thought. She waited, looking at Ksyusha while he began to tell her that this was not that simple. He had just covered it in the barest of terms when a black streak flew in through the open door shrieking as it flew around the room once to stop in front of Ksyusha, forcing Cha'Khah to step back in surprise. A moment later, the blur turned into a small horned demon, who placed herself in such a way as to guard Ksyusha with her intent clear in her stance. She bared her teeth and the small clawed hands that she raised glittered with barely restrained electrical energy. "Please," Ksyusha said, "she only seeks to protect me. Do not harm her." Cha'Khah took one step, but the demon raised her hand higher and the room was lit with what she held as it snapped and flickered. "Step back please Drow, until I have had a chance to calm her," the warlock said. They waited as Ksyusha spoke to her small, would-be rescuer, and in a moment, the demon changed to a small female with no wings, no horns, and only a thin tail. The long black hair turned short and the color became a fiery red as did her eyebrows. The pinched and glowering visage changed to one of worry and concern. She looked lighter now, a little lighter than Ksyusha, though her pretty face showed the same silver-looking fangs down her cheeks, though they were fading now. She turned to the warlock and in a moment, she stood next to her, holding on to her hip, looking lost and a little nervous. She spoke a few words back to Ksyusha who sighed and smiled in relief. "That is good to hear," she said as she looked at Cha'Khah, "The child lives. Thank you for what you have done." Cha'Khah was confused and the warlock smiled a little hopefully, "I had no wish to see harm come to either of them. I only hunted because I was forced to hunt and never in a threatening way. If Xunafae even knew that she was hunted at all, I am sure that is was from what she might have felt – I am sure that she never saw me once. My friend saw you as you stood outside with the babe." The Drow shook her head, but Vadren said that he'd explain it all and Cha'Khah could accept that at least as she looked at the pair, "She is beautiful, "Cha'Khah began as she stared, "Is this, ... your child?" "She is no child," the warlock said, "look closer. She is a year older than I am. Where I am from, we call these ones sparks – as near as I can find the word for it. They are often caught when they are children and sold as pets in the market to the lower ones of what I am, partly. The higher classes buy them as playmates for their children and they are discarded when their children grow larger and lose interest. Those ones end up wandering, mostly dying after a time from starvation and their broken hearts. They are not as stupid as the ones who buy them. They are no less than we are, they are only smaller and a little weaker than us, and my kind does them only harm. Nika is one that I saved when I was a maiden and she is not my pet; she is my friend. She is not one of the ones which are usually caught, being less able to be tamed, and so after she was caught and taken from her family, she remained unsold for a time, and eventually someone bought her. But the child of the family who bought her was a cruel little bastard who loved to torment her. When she saw her chance, she burned him and the house down. She lived in the wild lands after that, looking for others. Please do not harm her; she is only afraid for me. Since I was trapped into working for Garrend, she has had to stay as near as she could while not being seen by him and his mage." "Tell her that I wish to approach and that I mean no harm," Vadren said before he turned to Cha'Khah, "There is no gain to be had in anything that we thought to do in vengeance, cousin. These are only others who are used." Cha'Khah nodded and her dagger was out of sight in the space of an eyeblink as she nodded, "I see it, Vadren. Learn what you can. I am sorry for frightening ... Nika. She is lovely, now that she has stopped and stands still for the moment, as lovely as her larger friend. I hope that this goes well," she said as she looked at the pair, "so tell my cousin all that he asks, all that you know which might be of help, yes?" Ksyusha spoke to Nika in a language that the others didn't understand and the demon nodded slowly, never taking her eyes from Vadren – and the food there behind him on the table. Vadren walked over slowly and stood very close to Ksyusha for a long moment. He said nothing; he only looked into her red eyes. Then he got to one knee and looked into Nika's eyes, but for a shorter time, since it was obvious to him that what he sought would have been less in evidence in her than in her companion. In both cases, however, he found it a little difficult to break the gaze. Nika looked up at Ksysusha for a moment and spoke in one of the common languages of their world, "This – this is him." Ksyusha nodded once, "I think so, but that was a long time ago that we saw him. Perhaps he is only like the one." "I do not think so," Nika said softly as she looked, "I think it is him." "Then be patient," Ksyusha said, ending the conversation which Vadren didn't understand. He nodded to Ksyusha as he stood up, "When you are ready, make sure that you are relaxed. You will need to trust me a little, but I bathed you and washed your hair and I did nothing to you then and I will do nothing to you now. This is Selena. She was there. Ask her if you wish." Selena nodded, "No one touched you, other than him when he washed you. You were a smelly mess when he brought you in." Ksyusha nodded, and she found herself in Vadren's arms as he carried her to the table. "I will share my meal with you and Nika, and we will plan how this will go, if I have a chance to see Garrend. He must answer for this." After setting her down on her feet and helping her to sit, he lifted Ksyusha's pack and he handed it to her, "You may wish to put some of your other clothes on. If we wait for the velvet garment to dry, it may take a week." "Thank you, "the tiefling said, after a brief conversation with the spark. She set her pack down next to her, "We are comfortable for the moment. Neither of us feels anything bad about you and, ... where we are from, people do not feel shame over their bodies so, ... we are not shy. I think that while you may have the ability to do as you said to me, I know that you lack the will, not being angry with me anymore. I am sorry for what passed between us earlier." "As am I," he nodded, "Why were you wearing the velvet robe at all?" Vadren asked, "There are other clothes in the pack." Ksyusha sighed, "It was given to me to be worn by Garrend. He said that it would keep me warmer as I hunted." She rolled her eyes, "Of course the heavy velvet would have kept me warm – if it were not slit to my hip on each side and if there was more to it beyond leaving me bare at the neck and shoulders and only covering my bosom in the smallest way. He liked it on me, that was all, and he ordered me to wear it. If I find my way out from under his hand, I would be happy to burn it. It is a rich and expensive thing, but I hardly found any joy to wear what I was commanded to wear – hunting through mountains in winter with only a cloak." He nodded looking at them. Vadren was tall for any sort of elf and he stood at about five feet ten inches tall. The tiefling was only a little shorter than he was by perhaps an inch or so. Her build was not as lithe as any Drow; she was heavy by that standard, though compared to a human, she was not heavy at all. Her legs were not sticks, being just a little thick and he wouldn't have known, but the feature came from her mother. She didn't have the sort of figure that would normally be attractive to Vadren in the strictest sense – if he was asked the question in a barroom, for example, and if she was across the room and was a normal human woman. What she was however, was enchantingly lovely to him anyway, and all things considered, he thought that she was a stunning beauty and if she moved, he could see that she was very fit and he wondered about that for a moment. Nika was something of a mystery to him. Her eyes were a dull yellow with a wide horizontal pupil in each one. She was short, it was true, but it was the damndest thing to him. Nika only stood about four feet tall or maybe a little more, yet she had all of the same sort of features that any other grown female could be expected to have – they were just smaller on her, that was all. It came to him that if he asked her to stand near him as he sat in a chair and then asked Ksyusha to stand in the same pose a little distance away, they'd have looked remarkably alike. Her breasts were small, yet in the overall view of things, they were perfect in proportion to the rest of her. Everything about her was about perfect – in a rather small package. She was a lovely as her larger friend, she was just a somewhat miniature version, but no less lovely for it. "Why do you both wear those markings on your faces?" he asked, "I like them, but if there is any significance to them, I see none of it." "When a young one comes into their own where we are from," Ksyusha said, "they must prove themselves. If they fail at it, there is no shame, but there is also no recognition either. One can be proven in many ways with different talents. Proven ones are marked. I was to be marked in the way that my father chose – like this. It is the father's right, to mark the time of the child's passage into adulthood. It is the father's last official act for his child, though of course, being a parent is a role which is unending. Since I proved myself in battle, I wear the marks to show it. Nika fought well together with me, once she was free, and, having no family other than mine, since we accepted her, she was marked as well in the same way on my father's word even though it caused a stir because she is not one of our kind. To my family, she is no less than me, and from my parent's view, they gained a daughter and she loves them for it. Her name is Nika, from what she remembers of her childhood. My mother always called her 'Veronika', because it is a name from where she was born. There are some who say that her marks mean nothing – since she is not what I am, but they never say that in her presence – or mine." Ksyusha smiled. "What are you doing with the chessboard?" Selena asked. "Arrax was teaching me," Vadren replied, "but he is too much like a soldier in everything. I cannot learn when he crushes my plan every time." "I can teach you," Ksyusha said, "the key is to learn simple strategies at first. You have the right idea about learning. What were you looking for in my eyes, to see if I was lying?" Vadren shook his head, "No. Selena would have told me if you were. I was looking for death. What you can do – the part that I can see - means that the practitioner walks a fine line. I saw the nature of it around you, but I saw none in you. Please, both of you, sit and eat with me. After all of this, the least that I can do to show that I am sorry for it is to share my meal, and Nika can only keep her eyes from the meal for so long. By her glances, I can see that she has not eaten for a time." Cha'Khah looked at her cousin for a brief moment and she turned to Selena and motioned with her chin, "Come, my friend. Vadren is in no danger and he seeks to see what may be made from this, rather than what may be destroyed." Selena nodded and they walked to the door. "I am sorry for threatening you," Cha'Khah said as they walked to the door. Ksyusha smiled and thanked her. Selena raised her hand and softly slapped Vadren's cheek with a little grin as she passed, "You're being an idiot here," she whispered a little musically to him as she went, "Don't you think that you ought to ask her name?" She smiled at the newcomers and walked out with a chuckle. "I have been rude, even still," Vadren said, "I do not know your name. I am Vadren, as I am sure that you've heard." "I am Ksyusha," the warlock grinned, "It is usually a different form of another name, where my mother came from, but Ksyusha is all that she ever called me and so I am Ksyusha." She looked at Nika, "His name is Vadren," she said in their speech. Nika nodded and smiled at the Drow, "Vadren," she said softly, and followed it with another sentence. Ksyusha grinned a little, "Nika wishes to say that she is happy to know your name." When he looked at her and nodded, he was a little surprised to see the intent way that she looked back. There were only two chairs at the table, but Nika quickly got up to sit on Ksyusha's leg. Vadren asked to know what they were and where they'd come from in a gentle way. "So you call yourself a warlock?" he asked after hearing her brief explanation, "I know little of it as an art, only what I feel." "The word is a bad one," she smiled, "It stems from a few languages, 'Waerloghe' as a literal translation means oathbreaker or liar – one who has broken the truth, but I have never broken my word and I do not lie. I prefer to think of myself as a waerlock, meaning 'truth' in a dismissive form, from the Scottish, much like 'hillock' as an example." As they ate together, it became a lot clearer to him. "I have heard of the gnomes here, and I've seen a few in my time, but they are nothing like Nika, and in comparison, they are quite ugly to my eyes. She seems childlike in a way." "She is nothing like any being here," Ksyusha said, "What she seems and what she is, are two very different things," she smiled, "When I found her, I thought that I was doing the right thing to help her – and I was, of course. But I was on my spirit quest and once she was free and her captors dead, I thought to go on alone, but she would not leave me after that. I was eighteen and we became friends in an instant and then we did what I now know to be a foolish thing. We cut our arms and held the cuts against each other to mix the blood, as a symbol of our friendship and sisterhood in the battle. But we are not the same kind." She shook her head with a sad smile, "It nearly killed us both and we were sick from it for days. Both of us had visions from the edges of our deaths. But we survived it and we did form our bond from it, so in that respect it was right to do. I suppose. We became the same from it. We often know what the other one is thinking – not because of any ability in that way, though we both have some of that. We know because it is what each one would be thinking. As I hung in the air there where you put me, I knew that Nika was seeking for me. I knew it when she had gained her entry into this place, though she was still far away. From her, I have learned even before she was here that this is a mountain of some kind and that we are inside of it. Twin children born of the same parents could not be closer than Nika and I as we live in each other. I know it when she breathes. A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 32 I took her home when I returned there, thinking that I had failed in my quest. My father told me that I had succeeded in greater measure than he had hoped, for I found my spirit in a living one and not in the land around. It is true," she smiled, "though it took me a long time to learn to see what he meant. Ones like her are chosen as playmates for young nobles when they are young, but the mistake that everyone makes is that they think of them as playthings. Nika is no child, though she can sometimes see things in a childlike way. Her interpretation is always good to hear when I consider a path or a choice, because her view will always be the purest one. But she is no child. We were first lovers as I continued my quest and before I brought her home, but that was long ago. We belong together and share everything," Nika giggled a little as she looked up for a moment. Ksyusha nodded then with a little smirk, "especially males, she reminds me, but that has not happened for a time either. She does not understand what I say in the words of it, but she knows what I am saying from my thought to say it." As he considered, Nika became more interested in Vadren, peeking at him when she dared more and more, until her fascination overcame her and she stood before him with a questioning look on her face as she asked the warlock something. "He is very good to look at," Nika said, "Do you think it would upset him if I sat with him? I want to touch him at least a little." "I will see," Ksyusha said, "only be careful and do not rush. We do not know him from more than what we saw and we do not know his personality yet. But I agree with you." Vadren understood nothing, he only knew that he liked the two of them and that he wasn't being made to in any magical way that he was aware of. "She asks if it would be wrong to eat with you now," Ksyusha said with a little grin, "You fascinate her. She wishes to touch your skin and your hair and wonders if it might be allowed." Vadren smiled and nodded, and then Nika was on his lap. She'd eaten her fill, but she pretended to still want a little, and before long, he found that she sat looking at him and reaching for his hair tentatively with a small smile. "Are there none where you are from who look as I do?" he asked them both. "No," Ksyusha replied, "Sparks are most often lighter in this form and all of them are as moving night air when they are in their natural shape. My kind is darker still – most of us – but there are none of my kind anywhere whose skin looks like yours and none of us has white hair. My friend and I are spellbound when we see you move and, ... Nika likes you very much already. She is a little impetuous." Vadren smiled in a bit of shock as he felt Nika hug him, her small but perfect breasts crushed against his side, "Really?" He chuckled, "How would I ever know?" "Oh yes, I see it already," the warlock laughed, "She is only shy to begin. She likes you. She had not even met you as she flew everywhere in the mountain looking for me, yet she already liked you then. She knew that it was safe to like you." He looked up, tilting his head, "How could she know all of that?" Ksyusha looked down with a little smile for a moment, and then she looked up, "Because I like you, Vadren." Ksyusha laughed a little, "You should be careful. From what I see, Nika has the beginnings of her quiet little thoughts – the dangerous ones. You may find yourself with a smallish lover very soon if you would allow it, and if that happens ..." She looked away, "We should speak of dealing with Garrend. He will likely come to seek me if I do not drop the marker that calls him to where I am. If he comes and I am not ready ..." Vadren nodded as he put his arm around Nika to steady her, not really thinking about it, "Yes," he said, "What are your thoughts? I can help. All of us can. How can we help to free you both?" She outlined as much as she knew of it all, aided here and there by Nika, who interjected occasionally when she saw that Ksyusha might overlook something, and in a little while, Vadren knew all that he had to and he offered his ideas. "Do you think that he will allow us to remain with him?" Nika asked quietly in their speech. "I think that it is very likely now," Ksyusha said, "Why, Nika?" Vadren wasn't looking at the moment as he considered everything, so Nika looked at him before turning her head to Ksysuha and for the briefest instant, she showed parts of her third form in her eyes and slight snout, "I just, ... Ksyusha, it is him. I am certain, and I want him as much as you. After finally seeing him like this, ... if this does not work for us, ..." Ksyusha shook her head and Nika hid the features which she'd shown as she listened. "No," the tiefling said flatly though in a quiet and even way so as not to draw Vadren's attention, "I am not buying another goat, Nika. They never stay and I have no more gold anymore. This will work, it must. You are always telling me to trust in what we saw. Now I say the same to you. Try to be patient." Nika looked down, "I know. How will you do it?" Ksyusha didn't even blink. "I do not lie, Nika. I will not hide anything from him. If he is what you have always seen, then there is more need for truth than there is for deception. Try to be a little brave and have patience," she nodded in a barely perceptible way, "I will find a way, and when I do, I will tell him everything and then both of us will need to trust your dreams. If we are wrong, we will seek farther. I do not know yet, but I cannot buy another goat." Vadren looked at them, and Ksyusha smiled, "Nika is a little nervous over some things." "Our plan places her a little far from things," Vadren said, "and I do not know what she can do. Will she be in any danger?" "I do not think so," Ksyusha smiled, "The way that she sits there with you, I think that she just needs to keep you in her mind - as I have been telling her," she looked at the spark a little pointedly. Nika ignored the look and leaned against Vadren with a smile. Ksyusha grinned, "Perhaps we should also give a thought to after, if we may be so bold as to assume our success. My dear friend likes you very much, I see and, ... well, ... Nika and I share everything." Vadren found himself laughing a little, since though he thought that maybe he could understand this, he was also quite taken with the pair of them. Some people can set your teeth on edge just to meet them. Getting to know Ksyusha and Nika was like finding something which might be valuable in a mysterious way, and upon closer inspection, seems even more so, and the closer one looks, .... They got down to business then and it wasn't long before a few of the others became involved in the discussions. -------------------- After the meal, Ksyusha opened her pack and began to remove clothing for her and Nika and the pair began to dress themselves in front of Vadren as though it was nothing. More and more, little Nika became a smallish traveler before his eyes, pulling on breeches and boots, a short-sleeved singlet and then donning a close-fitting leather hauberk. She smiled at him as she fitted her breasts into the places for them in the garment and then began to tie it closed, carefully flexing her arms as she did to make certain that she had freedom of movement before she tied the belts and stood before him looking vaguely like a small rogue, though a rather well-armored one. "I begin to think that you have come to the right place," Vadren laughed a little, "if Nika has the skills to match what she now wears." "She does," he heard Ksyusha say, "When she wishes it, there are few who can detect her. Of course, when she wishes to shed those clothes because there is a different sort of fight in the wind, she shows what sparks show then. She can leave all of what she wears there in a heap in an instant. She flies like a small whirlwind, much faster than she was when she came in here, but also, she throws her sparks then, the blue ones which flicker and knock everyone down and the red ones which look like bits of burning wood, only tiny sparks from a fire which fall to the ground slowly, but when they land, it is best not to be there. It is said where I am from that sparks have many shapes. but really, the most that any can have is three, but they can shift in any one and appear differently - as she did when she flew, for example. This is one that she likes, and there is another, but if you know her, then one look in her eyes tells you that it is her. The third shape has horns like the first and I believe that this is where the saying comes from about her kind." Vadren found it remarkable and he noticed that Nika was listening closely to what was said. "She seeks to learn this speech," Ksyusha said, "and it will not take her long. She learns everything very quickly and I see that she wishes to be able to speak with you. My mother was born here on this world. She knows several languages and she taught them to me but, well, she has always liked to speak Russian to me. It is her mother tongue and she was happy to have me to speak with. Nika learned enough in a day to be able to make a little small talk – and it is not an easy language to learn, but that is Nika." Vadren looked at Ksyusha and he had to stare. She stood in heavy boots and wore a garment over her hips which was fastened with a bit of bone over a piece of mail which protected her groin. From her hips up, she was still naked and just as comfortable with it as before while she quickly re-braided her hair. When she reached the end of the braid, Nika jumped onto a chair and tied the finishing touches for her. Ksyusha pulled on a long sleeveless leather coat which left her pretty navel and some of her stomach in view and she settled her breasts into the top which went with the other things, but her breasts were now encased in what looked like bony and somewhat skeletal fingers over the leather. Her legs were bare above the boots, but the coat covered them. "Is – is that real bone?" he asked and she chuckled as she shook her head and said only "No." He watched as she pulled on leather bracers and gauntlets before she tied the coat as closed as it was supposed to go and Vadren asked if she wouldn't be cold like that. Ksyusha smiled at him a little softly. "You washed me and in here, carried me to my chair," she said, "Was I cold to your touch then?" He shook his head, "No, you felt very warm to me," he said with a smile. "I can stand the cold here," she smiled, "but it becomes a little difficult when one has no home month after month." His eyes settled on the top of a skull of some sort which was fastened over the light spalder on her right shoulder. "That is what it looks like, is it not?" She nodded, "One of the ones who were going to eat my Nika when I first found her. This one was their shamaness and she was my first kill. She and I have made our peace with each other long ago." As Ksyusha turned to remove a pair of articles from her pack, Vadren was startled to see that the empty eyesockets of the skull glowed a little faintly and he felt that there was a presence there. "How was that done?" he asked as he looked at the eyes which regarded him from her shoulder. Ksyusha shrugged, "I told her that she was young to be dead, but that she could remain with me if she would help until she wished to pass and I promised to release her then, so she chose this over the peace of being dead, for a time." Nika glared at the skull with barely-concealed hatred and when she raised her glittering hand, covered in thin lines of static discharge toward the skull, the eyes went out. Ksyusha frowned a little, "Nika has heard or felt no apology for her cruel treatment from this one, so there is nothing but hate from her for the dead one." When Ksyusha stood straight once more the small things in her hands disappeared in a swirl of black mist and an instant later, she stood with a pair of swords over her back, covered by a shield. The muscles that he'd seen on her body made more sense now. "Why did you not wear all of this when I found you?" He asked, a little amazed. Ksyusha shrugged, "Because I was forbidden to wear these things by Garrend. I think that it makes his mage Verrick nervous, but I do not know this for certain. Now, I no longer care what Garrend says. We have met you and together, Nika and I wish to end this mess this night. It has gone on more than a year now – more than long enough." ------------------------ Garrend strode into his mage's tent. He was immediately sorry for the glimpse at what the ambitious old fool was doing to an imprisoned spirit. "Get up, Verrick. The witch calls and she uses the stone for us to go quickly. Hurry and dress yourself." "The mage nodded, "If she has summoned us in this way, allow me to bring my pupils along. We may be walking into a trap." "Bring an army, for all that I care," Garrend growled, "I begin to think that you fear the huntress. Get up and summon another one to fuck when we return, though why you choose to lie with these things is beyond me – unless no living ones will lie with you of their own will." ------------------ They arrived in a clearing in the darkened forest and the thirty-one acolytes fanned out, thinking to form a protective perimeter around Verrick until they knew what the situation was. There was nothing to be seen but the glow of a small fire up ahead in the trees as though someone camped there. Setting off as quietly as they could, Garrend and Verrick followed the tracks in the snow toward the flickering light. Their guards lost sight of them and the small fire almost instantly as a thin fog rolled in among them and they began to call out nervously, but neither of the pair heard a thing. "I have seen those ones before," Nika whispered, "He sends those ones to take what he wants, most often robbing people where they can and killing them when they have their gold." "Then remove them," Ksyusha said, "Verrick will not need them anymore very soon." Nika looked up at Vadren and smiled, though to Ksyusha she gave a little smirk, "I being to think that this is a little unfair." She began to undo her belts and the hauberk, "He will see me unclothed twice and as yet I have seen little." Vadren blinked a few moments later as Nika stood for a moment in the dark forest as he'd seen her earlier. She bent to retrieve her blades from her clothing and Vadren began to stare as Nika showed him the shape of a spark demon at rest. She was a little taller like this, standing on her small cloven feet, and he was more than a little thankful for the way that Drow can see in darkness. Her hair was long and black and her teeth shone a little as she still smiled at him. "Nika," he said as he stared, "Nika, can I –" He turned to Ksyusha, "She wears fur like this!" Ksyusha grinned, "The other form is one that she assumes sometimes. This is her truest shape. Wait a moment, Vadren." She spoke to Nika then, "He likes you like this as well." Nika sighed in a bit of relief, "That is good to hear," she said, "I was afraid that he wouldn't." "He seems to be taken with your fur," Ksyusha smiled, "Can I tell him that you would permit him to touch you?" "I would like nothing more," the spark smiled, "but if he takes too long about it, we will lose the prey. They stand clustered in fear now, but in a moment, the braver ones will begin to wander." "Especially if you enjoy his touch, no?" Ksyusha chuckled. "Especially, yes." Nika giggled. "Nika would permit it if you touched her fur," Ksyusha smiled to Vadren, "She was worried that you might not have liked her like this." He stepped forward and ran his fingers over her sleek, short inky fur and when his hand reached for the goat-like horns, Nika managed to keep her pleasured purr to a very quiet one. "We must deal with Garrend," Ksyusha reminded Vadren and he nodded as he turned to walk away with her. "Will she be alright?" He asked. The warlock nodded, "After your touch, I think that she will have no trouble with them. If anything, she may be a little hasty." Nika watched them walk away for a moment before she turned and spread her wings. Her outline became less definite for a second, and then the dark smear shot into the air in the opposite direction. ---------------------- Walking into the small space there, Garrend saw a hooded figure sitting on a log by the fire. "Well? What have you found, witch?" There was no reply, so Garrend repeated the question, leaning down a little to give the seated form a rude shake. In that instant, Vadren reached and sliced through the thongs around Garrend's neck and his invisible hand came away with all of the amulets which the elf king wore and he found Ksyusha waiting for him in the darkness a little way off inside the forest. "That one," she whispered to Vadren, "the rest are charms to cure his bad breath and hammer toes." He held it out to her but she hesitated, placing her hand against his chest. "You are very brave, Vadren. You knew me for what I am from the first and you give me this, knowing what I can do once I have it," she whispered, "You were not completely correct, but you were a little right about me anyway. You could have killed me, but you did not. You heard me out and offer me a chance. You are someone who has earned my trust. I have not wanted to trust anyone other than Nika in so long, but I find that I want to trust you." She indicated the amulet with a nod, "Would you do this for me?" Behind them, Garrend was still trying to get answers from the figure on the log. He knew that for her to have dropped the marker which signalled urgency, there must have been something significant. He knew that she certainly wouldn't have done that lightly. He wanted this hunt over with. He had other plans for the witch, most of which involved keeping her in his bed. He knew that she hated him but that didn't matter, he thought, most people hated him. "What must I do?" Vadren asked. "Nothing much," she said, "Only hold it against my heart," she said, looking up at him as she opened her outer cloak and pulled the cups of her leather coat away from her breasts a little to give him the room. "Only hold it against your heart," he smiled, "such a sweet task you set me." He nodded and pressed it against her, turning back to see where Garrend was in this as he held the pendant there. He knew the swine had a short temper. It was what he was counting on. When he heard Ksyusha's sigh, he looked at her. In the darkness, most likely wouldn't have noticed a thing, but Vadren wasn't most. He gazed at her, and she seemed to glow a little and shift in the way that his eyes focused on her, as though part of her was already on the way to where she'd be in the next instant. His hand was still on her very warm breast, and it would have fallen away for the way that he was surprised, but she held it there with one hand as she slipped the other one around his neck. She leaned in and he felt her bare body, warm against his own somehow as she whispered against his cheek, "We are all in peril from each other, Vadren. You, Nika, and I, but you have shown us your trust as well. We will never break it. Think on this and know that there are two hearts who come to care for your own so easily." She looked into his eyes and looked down again with a little smile, "I feel so lost when I look there. I wish to say that you should try to think clearly before it is too late for all of us. I will tell of it later, if you ask, but, ... Nika and I cannot help ourselves. I see that you are drawn to us, but Vadren, I am being honest here. We are being drawn too. Nika hides it the best because she is also so obvious with her flirting. I have no defense like her. So be careful and think - before I lose my ability to." A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 32 She pulled back and he saw her teeth then as she opened her mouth a little and she kissed him. They had only a moment, but it was exquisite for them both, and they parted, fully clothed again to walk toward Garrend, her arm around his waist. The figure on the log ignored Garrend's questions and demands, until he placed his hand on the top of the hood and shook a little. There was no response, but he noted that the hood was not empty. He got down on one knee and offered one last chance, demanding answers to several questions, such as just what kind of game Ksyusha was playing here, but he felt himself being ignored, so he grasped just below the hood and hauled up as he stood so that he could see her face while he threatened her with his knife against her belly. We'd see then, he thought. "Idiot," he heard Ksyusha's laugh from behind him, "How did you think to get home? I will not help you back." Garrend snapped his head around and saw Ksyusha there, laughing at him. He turned back and saw Verrick's face in agony, clutching at the knife in his guts, the one that Garrend held in his hand. He remembered having the thought, but he didn't remember doing this. He'd always hated this when it happened. "Do not worry, little man," Ksyusha's voice rang sweetly as she held up the amulet and regarded Verrick with a grin, "I'll keep you alive. Right here. Come." Verrick watched in horror as her fingers danced in the air between them. He felt the draw on him, and she hadn't said a word of a single incantation. He'd needed to hit her over the head to lay her out cold so that he had the time to say the words and use the motions. Her magic were different, and she needed no words. He quailed in terror, suddenly knowing the power of the one that he'd helped to imprison for a year. Verrick shook his head, but half of his soul left him anyway and sifted into the amulet. He drew out the knife and held it in a threatening manner to Garrend as he backed away into the darkness. He struggled against it, but his will would be leaving him soon and he knew it. "Run if you like," Ksyusha said, "I can easily make it so that no matter where you seek to run, you run only to me. But satisfy your need to escape, Verrick. I can wait." She smiled to Vadren, "Think of us and watch with your mind if you would learn of Nika and me," she said as she faded from sight. ----------------------------- "This is one of the reasons why you should never rule anyone," Garrend heard a male voice say and when he looked, he saw a dark figure with long white hair and red eyes. "You cannot even rule yourself." Gerrand gasped. "Drow," was all that he said. "You wished for Xunafae's death," Vadren said quietly, "well you have caused it, though not by your hand. She perished not far from here as she tried to keep a pack of dogs from her and her child. The child lives still." Vadren saw the look on Garrend's face and nodded, "Oh yes, there is still a rightful heir, Garrend. But three things must happen before your tribe has a ruler again. The little one must grow up, the people must want her rule, and of course," he grinned with a little shrug, "you must die." Vadren stepped forward and regarded Garrend, "Xunafae was my friend and so was Aldred, the love you took from your sister and the father that you took from the child before she was born. It would drive me to do all sorts of things to you, Garrend, but I will do only two in my vengeance. The last thing that I will do is to cause the same things to happen to you as happened to your sister to cause her passing, and I leave that as what is to come. The first thing that I will do is turn you over to the best one to teach you something, so that you might learn the danger which comes from the sort of wrath that a vengeful mother is capable of." Garrend blinked as his clothing and the rest of his weapons left him. He looked at himself in amazement for a moment. There was no one there with him now but the Drow and he was fading, but Garrend's head snapped up as he heard the war cry of a voice from a fair way off who approached through the forest. It sounded a little like Xunafae to him. "You – you said that my sister is dead," Garrend stammered, "Who is that? Vadren's red eyes were all that could be seen of him then as they hung there in space before Garrend and nodded, "She has passed, but her rage lives on in another." The red eyes winked out and he was all alone in the clearing, but he heard someone coming. The dialect of his tribe was not far off from the speech of the Drow, and his blood ran a little cold to hear it. The voice in the forest was singing death songs in a clear voice as it grew slowly louder. ------------------------ Verrick took his hand away and noticed that, while it was bloody, no more blood seemed to be coming, and so he made his hopeful and incorrect assumption and began to run away into the forest. The pain was fading from him and he tried to work his best healing spells as he ran. In a moment, he saw a glare in the trees up ahead and ran in that direction to be welcomed with relief by his acolytes. "What is this light?" he asked, "And where does it come from?" "We know not," one of his pupils said, "They come from above and each light lasts for a time, but always there are more, one after another." It was true, Verrick saw as another ball of the yellow fire ignited above them with a soft sound. All of them stood in the flickering light and looked around. Gradually, it became a very long lit area in the forest, about a half mile in length and no wider than perhaps a hundred feet at any point. Above them in the sky, Nika smiled as she thought that there were enough lights now. She folded her wings a little and plummeted out of the night sky. The largest of the men held his hand over his brow as he looked into the woods. "There is something out there, "he said, "I can hear it." He picked up a fallen branch and using what he'd learned, the end of it became a torch as he walked away from the others. "There!" he called out, "There is a – " And then there was silence. They called out to him, but there was no reply; only the flame of the branch and that died with the caster. Several of his friends began to walk in the direction that he went, but Verrick told them they were fools to think of it. "Remain together," he called out to them, "Stay here." At the other end of the group, a man looked into the shadows and blinked. "Tommy? Tommy is that you?" Several of the others nearby looked at each other, seeing nothing. "Who's Tommy?" one said to another, and saw the shrug which was returned. When they looked back, their companion had run into the darkness and their calls brought no answer. Within five minutes, three more men had wandered off, and Verrick bellowed that they were being tricked and to remain together near him. That was when they heard the snarls all around them and began to run with Verrick leading them from the middle of the group and calling out repeatedly to them not to look into the forest and to stay together in a group. When they were all out of breath, the shadows began to come for them. One at a time, a dark blur would flash out of the darkness to grab a full-grown man and carry him off screaming into the night before any of the rest had even seen very much of it. The men huddled together and by their sounds, more and more of the snarling beasts growled at them from just beyond the edges of the light. They had no idea of the size of the pack, but it sounded like whatever these were, everyone in the neighborhood was being drawn to them for a hopeful meal. And then there was silence. They looked around and there was only one thing visible at all. At the far end of the line of light, one being stood alone. Verrick know who was there, and he took a step to run in the opposite direction, but all that he saw at the other end was a large dark moving mass composed of many shadows – all of them running toward them all and baying for blood. His acolytes ran toward the individual, and Verrick saw that he had no choice. As he began to run back in the same direction as his students, he saw Ksyusha there up ahead as she adjusted one strap which held her coat closed. As her hand came down, a dark shadow swirled around it and it took shape as her sword as she began to stride forward. Most of the men didn't know her, and even those who did knew that their only chance lay in getting past her. Some of them bolted to run into the woods, but the sounds which rose as they approached changed their minds and they turned to run toward the shadows which approached them. Nika flew above, headed toward the group which ran and she squinted at them a little. She wanted most of them near the frightened mage and it wasn't time yet for the ones which Ksyusha had called to her aid, these shadows which ran like dogs and howled for blood, and yet for all of that, ate nothing and took only the soul of those that they were turned loose on. She opened her hands and a bright shower of glowing sparks fell slowly down from above the floating lights. They looked beautiful in an eerie way until the first of them touched the ground and the explosions began. The three men farthest from the rest disappeared as they were obliterated, and the rest turned back to run toward Ksyusha. The warlock began to run toward them all, gaining speed all the while . Each time that any pf them blinked, she was closer, moving faster and faster. Some of the acolytes turned to Verrick, waiting for the mage that they'd devoted themselves to and followed to smite this threat down, but he only stood whimpering for a moment before he drew his dagger and lowered his staff to point it toward the running warlock. She appeared before him in the middle of them all and his blast hit her in the chest, but after the brief flash, she was still there, grinning at him. Her upswing broke the staff and tore it from his grasp at the same time. Several of the men swung at her, but their blades bit nothing and an instant later the bounding shadows overran the rest. She held Verrick by the throat as the slaughter began all around them. The sounds were terrible, but he heard her clearly as she calmly told him that he was to travel to her tower, and she didn't care how he did it, but he was to return to her with a small specific group of her tomes intact and unharmed. "You are listening, aren't you?" she asked through her teeth, and he nodded, trying to ignore the carnage around him. She thought of the best way to instruct him in what Azrael and Dahlgren had decided. "As you go," she said, "you will find the tribe who now has no king and you will not harm one of them, not the smallest child among them. You task is to tell them that Garrend is dead, for he will be soon. Tell of what happened to Xunafae and tell that there is a princess still, and that they are to come to her if it is their wish for a homeland for themselves at last – wild lands are offered to the Wild Ones. If you stray too far from these tasks of mine, the same shadows which you have seen here this night will find you. You are dead, Verrick, dead to this world, but not to me. Do as I say, and it will take some time – a few years, even. By then, you will ache for the release of peace which only I can grant you. Be a good boy, and I may grant it. Now go." --------------------------- Garrend stood in the clearing, shaking his head and wondering what was happening. One minute, he had everything in his hand and the next, he stood naked as he listened to the voice as it came to him. As she neared the clearing, Cha'Khah threw off her cloak and dropped her daggers with it in one motion. She walked the rest of the way wearing only her boots. -------------------------- A naked Drow female strode quickly into the open space around the little fire. She was fine, he thought, and she was fit, but he didn't see all that much of a threat to him there. Her eyes almost glowed in her fury and she said only two quiet words as she came for him. "For Xunafae." His dull mind barely registered what she'd said and then she was on him. Her actions forced him to revise his appraisal in the next instant as she became more of a very fast blur to his eyes. He was an elf, but he was like tar compared to the way that she moved. Garrend was a bully and a brawler. It was his way, and it had always worked for him, but her punches and her kicks drove him to his knees in an instant. He was astounded. He looked up with one eye beginning to swell closed from the four strikes that she'd left there before he could blink twice and his knee felt like glowing agony from the kicks to it – one that had buckled it and the other which came on the way down. His scalp hurt from the way that she'd held him by the hair for the instant that she drove her fist into his eye over and over so fast that it felt like one blow. He noticed the taste of his blood in his mouth. He hadn't even seen her hit him there. He looked at her in disbelief as she stood still a little way off with the beginnings of a pleased smile on her lovely face. "Get ... up," she said. "Who - who are you?" Garrend asked in painful amazement as she wound her long hair up out of the way of this. She was keenly aware of what the motions did to cause her breasts to stand out to him. Her eyes told him the story from her side of it. She couldn't have cared less what he looked at. "Who is she?" Ksyusha whispered as she stood next to Vadren with her arm around his waist again, "I mean, I know that she is Cha'Khah, but she is like another person like this." "My cousin and I grew up in a place where there was no justice," Vadren smiled, "She wishes to settle with Garrend for what was done – even though she barely knew the elf. She feels that she has a score to settle on the mother's behalf, and also for what was taken from the child. She is only playing here. She has a temper and when the mood is on her ..." "Perhaps I ought to look to my defense from her after this," the warlock said quietly as she watched, "She is so beautiful. I have never seen –" "I have spoken to Cha'Khah," Vadren said, "She may have words for you, but she understands. You might find a friend in her; she has a large heart, easily large enough to fuel her fury at what was done to a mother and child," Vadren chuckled then and she looked up at him. "Ksyusha, are there no looking glasses in this tower of yours? I stayed in the chair as we spoke. I had to. You do not hear me when I speak of it, but you and Nika hold your own and more. I can say it," he smirked, "I live with many beauties, so I know what I speak of." Ksyusha's eye was caught by a slight motion in the darkness and she stared. Vadren saw it and smiled, "The one that you saw earlier? That was Arrax, and this is his mate, Shaevre. She has a part to play here, but she stands to watch Cha'Khah fight. The two are friends and both have fought as soldiers, so they admire each other's skill." "Get up," Cha'Khah said out in the clearing, "I was last-friend to Xunafae, and I am first-friend to Mo- Wenn. There is nothing more for you to know. Get up, slug," she grinned as she stepped closer, "I am in the mood now." "I want your name," he grunted as he lunged for her. She wasn't there when his hands closed on air. She'd danced back and was on her way back in with bloodlust in her eyes, but she waited until his hands were on her throat, and the reaction that he saw unnerved him a little. There was no fear there in those red eyes. Cha'Khah reached up and her hands found the backs of his upper arms and she pinched them hard. The reaction was instant as it would be in anyone, and he released her without meaning to. She tilted her head playfully before she snorted with derision, "You want my name?" Her first three strikes caused him to begin to double over, but before he really toppled, she had his hair again and her right fist flashed out and took two of his teeth with a spray of his blood glittering as an arc in the firelight. She finished closing his left eye with her left fist and her left back-fist behind his ear as it passed by rocked him for the dark pain that he felt all through him. "I want your life," she hissed at him through her teeth and she drove her right fist, middle knuckle-first into his left temple. Garrend's head snapped around from the impact as he reeled. He was headed for his face-landing in the snow, but she was gone again and back directly in front of him like a swarm angry hornets. He saw those superb breasts and thought that he might land there with his face, but she reminded him that she controlled this when she clapped her hand on his shoulder to hold him and drilled his jaw with a cruel uppercut that she helped with her legs. His teeth slammed against each other hard enough for him to hear at least one of them crack. As the pain from it shot up to his brain through his jaw, she drove him in the stomach hard enough to almost lift him from the ground onto his toes. She skipped back for a moment to watch him totter on the edge of his balance, waiting for just an instant. As he wavered backwards a little, she leapt into the air and her kick to his face sent him on his way. He landed on his back with a groan and she walked to where she'd stood earlier. She examined her knuckles and healed the damage with a wave and a softly spoken phrase. "Get ... up," she said in the same tone of voice as the last time. Ksyusha stared, "She still has her breath. She barely pants." Vadren nodded, "My cousin and I teach each other, so I know what I watch. She calls this riding a fight's anger. She uses it to keep the fire hot." Garrend wheezed up at the stars as his tongue found a tooth to spit out. The whole left side of his vision was a mess of sparks and throbbing red flashes. He'd never faced anything like this one before. It came to him slowly, but it did finally get through. No matter what he did here, he was going to lose. "I – I yield," he gasped from the pain as he raised his head, "Please, ... I yield. I think I am blind in one eye. I cannot go on." All that it bought him was her scorn and her curses in a language that they both understood. "You are no Elven king," she spat in the snow in disgust, "Go on from what? You have done nothing yet. What did you think that we do here, enemy? You think that we dance here, uh?" She began to walk toward him, out of the field of his view on his damaged left side. Her thoughts went to Sariel, the sweet young boy-demon who she loved so fiercely as her nephew and taught whenever she could. This was too rough for him to see, as young as he was, but it illustrated something that she'd always said in her lessons. Turn anything that you can to your advantage. If you cause damage, exploit it for all that it's worth. Never stop. "You do not fight like a Drow," she said, "You do not even fight like any Wild Elf that I have seen. Those ones can fight. And you do not fight like a king. No king yields - not among all of the Elder races. You fight like a brawling drunkard." She came at him from behind, winding her fingers into his hair again to give him an incentive to stand. "Get up, or I pull out your hair," she said venomously, "There is a lot, so I can pull all night if I wish, but you will stand." She wasn't kind at all as she yanked and he began to get up. "No one fights like the Drow," she said murderously, "No one. You, ... you fight like a goblin," she said, "a stinking half-slug goblin." Her fist nailed his left eye again and he screamed in pain. "You even squeal like a goblin, one of the nasty little ones who wiggle so well on my sword." A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 33 ***Barrett and Cha'Khah are over the moon with their little adopted surprise. It came too late, but justice has come to Garrend and Ksyusha and Nika are free. Things are looking up - well, for some, anyway. And of course, there's the mystery of the incantation which everyone wants to get out of Vadren. ~chuckle~ 0_o ----------------- Book of the Mountain Clan Part 9 They sat in the bar inside the mountain, listening to some of them tell of what had happened. The atmosphere was pleasant and friendly as they learned more of the newcomers while a little music played softly from a corner of the bar. Barrett had found a small device a while before and while he didn't know what its purpose was at the time, he liked its shape and the way that it fit into his hand, so he'd carried it in the pocket of his jacket for almost a month before he had the time to devote any real thought to it. The lettering on it mystified him as much as anything else about it, but after managing to get at least a little of the computer network in the place up and running, he gradually and quite by accident learned what an MP3 player had been long before. After that, it was only a matter of finding a stable power supply and some cables which he made up, and they had a little music in the bar from a stereo that he found there. "Did you see us -- Nika and I?" Ksyusha asked Vadren quietly, "I did not want to be too bloody since I knew that you might see." "I did," he said, "Who -- what were those dark things?" "I do not wish to use the common term for them, Vadren." She looked around and saw that no one was looking at them. "The ones which you call Xer are also known as hellhounds, I have been told." Ksyusha nodded, "What you saw were the hounds of some hell someplace. I must be at a certain strength in myself to even call them, and they will do as I ask if there are instructions. They are very grateful to take the souls of the ones that I tell them they may have, harming no one else, but I would never call them as weak as I was without what you did for me." Dahlgren looked over at Ksyusha and asked if it went well. She nodded, "In many ways, this has been a terrible day, and for some others, it brought a sort of tempered joy, such as to Cha'Khah and her man Barrett. To Nika and me, it brought us our freedom and we are thankful for it and the friends we seek to make here. I can say that I did as you asked, and though Verrick will take a time to get back since I left him with little of his abilities, at some point some of the Wild Elves will come." How many do you think, Ksyusha?" Dahlgren asked, "How many are there in that tribe?" "Hard to say," the tiefling nodded, "I did not spend much time there. But I would guess that the tribe numbers perhaps two hundred and more. I think that more than half will come for certain. There are always old ones who would remain and there are some who would never come for any reason. You have time to prepare in any event." She looked at Dahlgren, "But why did you ask me to say it?" He shrugged, "I was speaking with Arrax, and he said that it would be a good thing. If Mo-Wenn grows up and wishes to rule, she may -- if her people want it. Even if she chooses not to rule, there's a lot of room here around the mountain. Cha'Khah and Vadren said they'd act as interpreters and ambassadors in a way to help get everyone over the rough spots that are bound to come." He looked away for a moment and continued, "We've done well here, but it would be better to have neighbors who can be trusted to a degree, and for that, one needs a common purpose. I'm a little short of those at the moment, speaking personally, but I can't think of a better bunch to chew on the problem, and I'm sure, from what Vadren and Cha'Khah have said, that this area would suit them well. They could live here in the way that they prefer and still be out of the gaze of the people in the town." "What is a good thing that I see is that, with a group of the Wild Ones here, and us as well, "Vadren smiled, "there is far less chance that one of them might be taken advantage of. That has always been a source of trouble for them. I've seen it before." He leaned back on the padded bench where he sat against one wall with Ksyusha next to him. "I agree with Dahlgren. They need a homeland, and we need people here for warning and a little protection and company. I think this mountain needs the greater tribe that may be built in time." He looked over to where Nika sat with Cha'Khah on one side of her and Rachel on the other. She was the center of attention in a minor way and was enjoying it as they helped her with her grasp of English. Mostly, the efforts brought them all gales of laughter between them, and the mugs of ale went a way toward lowering the barriers. Azrael wasn't there. He'd been gone for most of the day, looking into some rumors, he'd said. He'd heard of another gold depository in these same mountains. Rachel was enjoying the company, but she felt that something was wrong. It had been wrong for a long time, she thought, looking back. Vadren was more of a father figure to Sariel these last few months, and the last little while, Sariel had been with Barrett, fascinated with the things that he could do with old technology. Dahlgren and Selena often had Sariel sleep over since it was hard to keep him and Nahl'een apart, being the best of friends. Even Arrax spent time answering any question that Sariel might have. Azrael seemed to be too preoccupied with something else to have very much time for his son. Rachel sighed, wondering what she'd done wrong. He never said that there was anything wrong, but their bed had become only a place to sleep and she was often there by herself. She pushed the troubling thoughts from her mind, deciding to enjoy the evening. She knew herself, and these thoughts would return to her, so why ruin her evening? Ksyusha was asked of her homeworld and why it was that she had come with Nika. The two looked at each other and exchanged a few phrases before Nika nodded and held her hand out to Ksyusha to act as their spokesperson. Ksyusha agreed, but said that it would be thirsty work to tell of it properly and Nika agreed with her -- as long as she might have another small tankardful of ale out of it. The rest sat back expectantly and Ksyusha grinned, "It is all Nika's fault. "Where we are from is hot and dusty much of the time and there are great regions of nothing. The people live in communities leading simple lives, mostly. But they are very different from people here. My father came here a long time ago and to the people here he was mighty. It confused him very much, he told me. To himself, he was not mighty, though he is as a chieftain and has much power and strength. But he used none of it as he sought to repair his craft so that he could return to his home. The way that the people here dropped to their knees and prayed to him mystified him and after a time, he grew a little tired of it all and tried to keep them away. Still, they thought that he was a god." She smiled," I suppose that to them, he was something like that. Somewhere a legend of his doings was born and from what he learned from my mother, most of that was nothing more than fanciful tales which never happened. Anyway, my mother sought him out and he heard her. I am lucky that it went well between them, for they are very different, one to the other. I have much from them both in me." She looked around at the others, "I think that you all know of how Nika and I found each other, so I think that I must say something about sparks." She was about to begin when she saw the way that Nika had found herself between Cha'Khah and Rachel and she laughed a little, "I suppose that it is already too late to tell of the way that sparks are so friendly and likable. All that I will say is that you both should be careful. Hug her to you only a few times and you will find that when she is somewhere else, you will feel that you miss her somehow. Sparks are very intelligent things and when they love someone, they hold nothing back. Most are not as shy as Nika." It was a joke, but it brought them all laughter as Ksyusha continued, "My father's kind does not really know what they began as, but there have always been sparks. The people have been there for so long that no one knows much anymore, and it is not considered to be important to us all. I am accepted there, though I am a little different, because it is obvious to them all that I am part something else. But we all know much about sparks. I have only this shape to live as, and if I do not use my ability at illusion, then what you see is me. Very few sparks have only one shape. Most have two and some like my friend have three. Long ago, they were a creature a little like what are called goats here, but they could fly, having wings. Gradually, their diet became a little less vegetarian, but not exclusively and so their gut changed over time so that it could also process a little meat as well as vegetation as they spent less time grazing and more time hunting. They were hunted by other creatures and this is the reason for the other shapes. Without meaning to at all, Nika's kind became more predatory, since as a group, predators live better lives than prey. The way that they were once is the way that they are all born and the other shapes come only later. It confuses some of us, and it is said that they have many shapes, but they only have as many as three. They can blend some of the features of the others as they wish, that is all. The girl that you all see here is a third adaptation that they have to look as we do a little. Here, on this world, it helps Nika to look a little harmless and sweet, and we would use it when we need to deal with humans, since most are not like Barrett there and are frightened of me. It has not worked terribly well yet, since she does not speak English, and we were too busy hunting the elf for her to have much time to learn as she tries to now." Nika wasn't really listening to Ksyusha since it made her feel a little self-conscious. She knew that both of them were a little mysterious to the others and it went both ways. She sat listening to the music as she looked at Vadren whenever she thought that she could steal a glance and she really enjoyed the company of Rachel and Cha'Khah. She sipped her ale and listened more as the beat began to work and her feet began to move a little, hanging in the air as they were. "When Nika and I got sick, we could barely move," Ksyusha said as she went on, "Raising my hand took concentration. We saw each other not far away, and over hours, we managed to reach each other to hold on as we could. We saw visions then. Some were not important and we knew it, but after a time, we both knew that we were seeing the same things together. There were always the unimportant ones, but now and then, we saw others. Since Nika was very small, she has had dreams which run over and over. For her, this is natural. But she always saw one individual again and again. All that she knew was that he was not there. When we were sick, the dreams began and I saw them with her, so we both saw the one -- as we came to call him, but we both saw him with us together -- as though it was in a time which had not happened yet. We spoke of him for hours after we were better -- days later, and then we both knew that he was not where we were. After I returned home bringing Nika with me, she fit into our lives so well. I am sure that my mother still cries because she misses both of her daughters. One day, my mother was telling me of other sorts of beings which live here, and not only humans. It was a part of her lessons to me and Nika was there listening. The talk of the Elves and all of their kinds took days. Then she spoke of the sort that are rarely seen, if ever. From her description of them, Nika and I knew what the one was. We learned all that we could, trying not to be too obvious as to why we were so interested in only one type." She shrugged, "After that, we wanted only to leave, but it took a lot of time before we were able to come. When we got here, we did not know where to look, though we tried and found nothing. But we knew what we saw and always looked wherever we traveled." "The dreams," Selena began, "how clear were they?" "What were they of?" Cha'Khah asked. Ksyusha shrugged, "Some of them were too close to us, and many have come to pass. We knew that we would come here from them. My father and I had not even gone to look at a craft for me to buy, and I knew what it looked like. I even knew where it was and that it was for sale. I knew what was wrong with it and what it needed so that we could travel this far with it -- things such as this." She looked a little uncomfortable then, "I have always had very fast reflexes. I see how you all look at the way that I move," she said, reaching for her tankard. What they all saw was that some of her hand was on its way before she'd even begun the motion. "Where I am from, many move this way, but ones like me in their power, we show it the most." She looked at Arrax and smiled, "Please put your drink down and with Shaevre's permission, ..." Shaevre didn't know what was wanted, but she nodded, and then all that they knew was that Ksyusha had moved. They saw the blur as it left and then she was back, lifting her tankard with an enigmatic smile as Arrax laughed and touched his cheek in surprise. "Thank you for your kiss," he grinned in amazement. "I have lived for over a year without much of this ability," Ksyusha said, "but I still had my reflexes. When I was at the place where the poor elf perished, I saw that I needed to defend myself." She turned to smile at Vadren, "But in that instant, I saw the one -- exactly as I'd seen him in the visions." She looked down, "I did not know it then, but I am thankful now that he was so kind in his treatment of me." Cha'Khah spoke up then, "You are this sure that he is the one that you saw where you were?" Nika nudged Cha'Khah and tried to say something. They all waited and finally she shrugged, "My, ... dream first. Vadren, ... he is, ... " She ran out of vocabulary, but they all knew what she meant as she pointed with a certain nod. "How deep do the dreams go?" Selena asked, "Are they all like pleasant little daydreams, or what?" Ksyusha shook her head, "Some are pleasant, most are mundane, and some are not pleasant at all. We have seen him eat a thousand meals in many places." Nika said a few things to her and she nodded, "We have seen him with you," she nodded to Cha'Khah, "We have seen him with a female whose man owned an inn. She liked Vadren and we saw him with her in a room while her man was looking after some horses outside." They all laughed, "That is Vadren then surely!" Cha'Khah grinned. "From what you're saying," Selena began, "It sounds as though you both believe that this is all laid out somehow?" "In some ways, yes," Ksyusha nodded, "though it was not my intent to devote my life to finding him or even seeing him at all. As much as the visions have been accurate, living one's life on a world where one did not begin brings its own troubles, and I have had many -- until tonight. Now, I am not even very surprised that our paths have crossed, but at the time, I stood in shock. Even so, I have said what I needed to say to him -- as I have said it before to him many times in my thoughts since we had the visions. I spoke for Nika and for me. It is all that I can do. What he does with my words is up to him." She looked at Vadren with a smile, and was very surprised and relieved to see that he returned her look -- and her smile very evenly. She nodded, "I am certain enough, and Nika is certain beyond any doubt." They turned to look at Nika, who immediately placed her elbows on the table, her chin in her hands and sat with a hugely exaggerated expression of rapture with a wide smile and vigorous nods. When the laughter had died away, Rachel chuckled as she wiped a tear from her eye, "Whoa, Vadren. It looks like your number might be up here." Cha'Khah grinned as she nodded, "You are in a lot of trouble now, cousin." Selena looked confused, "What did you see that told you that this is it, Ksyusha? I still don't get it. You're BOTH this sure that it'll even work?" Ksyusha felt very foolish, but she knew that what was there was what she'd seen and so far, ... "Please, "she said, holding up her hand, "I have no wish to embarrass him further. Nika and I have only met him today." "Well, I'd love to hear it," Selena said, "I'm not doubting you one bit, Ksyusha. We've all seen that you two are very different and we all really like you. It's just that, ... well, I don't know how uh, love stories go where you're from, but down here, it's not that easy." "Well anyway," Rachel began, "I think it's pretty sweet to hear." She looked from Nika to Ksyusha, "And one thing that you ought to know about us here; we say whatever we want to each other. I don't think that very much ever gets held back if something needs to be said and we're all pretty proud of that. I'd guess that you'd both just fit right in." She looked at Dahlgren, "They are in, aren't they?" "As in as they want to be," he smiled, "Arrax, Barrett and I all agree, we think that they're needed -- especially if the elves decide to come." He grinned, "We didn't ask you guys because we saw that it wasn't needed, because you're right, they fit right in. You all looked so taken with them before we even knew it." He laughed," We all talked about it for a moment, and then we said that we'd ask you, and Barrett laughed and said that we were a little late for it." Rachel looked at Vadren, "He doesn't look all that embarrassed to me, anyhow. He even looks a little pleased in that mysterious Vadren-the-Mage sort of way of his." Vadren shrugged, "It is only mysterious on the outside, "he said, "Today has seen so much," He looked at the clock and then back at them all, "Well, yesterday now. Barrett and my cousin have a very quick start to their family. Before I sensed who was still hunting Xunafae, I was thinking about myself -- as I often do, being selfish. I suddenly saw that I had a want to have someone -- and there is nothing new in that, obviously. I was angry over what had happened and how many of us could and would have run to aid Xunafae if we'd only known of it. That is where my own desire comes from that there be others here. We have too many wild dogs and not enough allies for all of our strengths. I also found a pair of friends who want me and are not shy to say it. I could withdraw as I normally would, but I have a sense that in this one case, my caution would be of no use to me anyway, and I now have little desire to be as I was before. Now, I want to have what my friends have, and that is just as well, Rachel. I doubt that I could get away from these two very easily anyway. Sometimes one has to know when being cautious is another word for being stupid. I have been very fortunate that some of the humans who are not terrified of me also feel a little curious -- enough to try to draw me to their beds. But it is never for any wish that it last beyond their quick fascination with my body. I see little of that here -- " He stopped as he felt Ksyusha's hand grazing over his pants under the table, "That may not have come out the right way, I think." "I still can't see --" Selena stopped in mid-sentence as she felt Nika's hand on her arm. When she looked, the spark demon was nodding seriously, "True," was all that she could think of to say. "Well, if Vadren is this certain of how he feels," Ksyusha said, not smiling even a little, "I will tell you why we are so sure, Selena. Think that you have seen Dahlgren in your mind since you were a girl. Think that it was only him that you saw and you were sure of it for all of your life. A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 33 Think that you saw him with another that you knew would be your closest friend one day -- even though that friend was one of the kind that have always hunted and stolen children like yourself." She paused then, knowing what she wanted to say, but still having just a tiny doubt. She decided right then to lay this out so that there was no uncertainty any longer. If Vadren suddenly turned from what he'd just said, well then it was all some sort of fairy tale fuelled by her visions from being near to her own death. "Now," she said, looking right into Selena's eyes, "think that you have seen him helping you while your friend birthed each of their children. Would that be good enough? Think that you have seen him with her from between your own knees as they helped you birth your own children with him." Selena sat with her shock written plainly on her face but Ksyusha wasn't finished. "Would that be enough, Selena? What if you met that one then -- on the world where you knew that he lived? I do not know about you, my new friend, but I can say that it is enough for me. If he wants us, then Nika and I are his. It is enough for us both." There was silence then until Cha'Khah spoke up. "Looking at it like that," he smiled, "and also seeing the way that my cousin looks right now, then all that's left to say is that I wish you much happiness together, all of you." Ksyusha smiled and translated for Nika, and Cha'Khah found herself with a spark demon hugging her tightly for a moment. "I'm sorry for being a little stubborn," Selena said, "but I sure get it now. Even still, this is way fast for us here." Ksyusha held up three fingers. "My mother's courtship," she said, "and they have been together for over sixty years, since no one ages much there." "Three days?" Selena asked in surprise. Ksyusha laughed, "Three minutes." She shrugged, "Sometimes when you know what you want ..." The song coming out through the speakers changed and Nika began to dance. A few seconds later, she'd changed to the black swirling shape and her clothing lay in an empty pile and she danced as the dark smudge for a moment before her shape settled to what she looked like whenever she stopped, though at the moment, she was dancing with a wide smile. "Somebody's feeling their ale," Rachel grinned and Ksyusha nodded, "Perhaps, but I can say that Nika is happy and she has not been this happy since we left our home." --------------------- There were only a few of the overhead lights on as they walked down the long wide corridor together, the three of them holding hands. Barrett had found several storage batteries which still functioned and they were used to provide a little night-lighting after the generator was shut off every evening. To maximize what they had, the lights were spread out with over a few hundred feet between them. They never lasted until morning, but they gave enough light for a few hours before the batteries drained to nothing. If you didn't mind the vaguely post-industrial look to it all, it was a little romantic. Nika looked up and said 'Thank you, Vadren,' and he was mystified, so she spoke to Ksyusha. "She gives her thanks for what you said about us," Ksyusha smirked, "She is learning the speech here, but also, she is learning enough of you for her to know some of what you say from how it feels to her as you say it. She also wishes to thank you for trying this with us." He looked down at Nika and smiled, "I am just as happy." He let her hand go and he held onto her shoulder. "I have a surprise for you," he grinned, "Barrett and I thought of a way to make everyone here at least a little happy -- especially the females, if we know their hearts at all well, and most especially poor Shaevre and Arrax. Those two love a bath, but they are both too long to enjoy one in a normal tub. We found a spotlessly clean shallow metal tank with a ceramic coating on the inside. The only thing that was in it was the remains of the plastic cover and that came out easily. We do not know what it was to be used for, but it was quite obviously a spare for one that was used somewhere in here. We moved it and with a little pipe, a pump, and something which Barrett calls a heat exchanger, we have made a way to have a warm bath in a larger tub. We run the coolant for the generator motor through the heat exchanger and the heat goes into the water of the tank. We bought some wooden planks in town and made an edging around it, but it has not been used yet, since other than Barrett and myself, no one knows of it. I had the idea of using it tonight and spoke to Barrett about it." They turned a corner and there it was, a very large and rather industrial-looking bathtub filled with very warm water. "I thought that we should try it," Vadren smiled. He pointed to the towels nearby and the small cask of wine that he'd bought the week before. Nika looked at it and decided that she could swim in it easily, and both of them looked pleased. "This looks to me like there will be an attempt made here to seduce us," Ksyusha smiled. Vadren looked innocent. "I was thinking that you both might have a wish to seduce me," he smiled, "But since none of us plainly wishes to seduce anyone, then maybe we ought to just have a bath." When Nika heard the explanation she chattered quickly to Vadren and Ksyusha translated with a grin, "Nika says that you should not be so hasty." There were a few concrete blocks nearby and since he knew that the overhead lights likely wouldn't last much longer, Vadren took a minute to cause them to glow softly. By the time that he thought that there was enough gentle light from them, the two females were already in the tub, leaning against one side with their elbows on the wooden edging behind them. Vadren was a little amazed at how quickly they'd poured three glasses of wine. They looked somewhat expectant and then they all laughed as Vadren removed his clothing to join them as they sipped a little wine and told him that this was a fine way to share a bath -- even without the seduction. Nika struggled as she tried to tell him something. "I can be, ..." She looked at Ksyusha, but the tiefling shook her head, "I can help you forever, Nika, but it is only Vadren and I here. You should try, or you will take much longer to learn." Vadren sat, looking at the pair of them in wonder and thinking that he was perhaps not being foolish here at all. They way that they looked, ... Nika began again. "I can be, ... different body ... for you. Say wish, Vadren." "Can I suggest something?" Ksyusha asked, "You have not seen her in the shape that she was born in, and I know that she is very nervous over that one, thinking that perhaps you will not like it. But I have been telling her all evening -- when I had the chance - that she should not worry, that you likely would like her, and even if you didn't, she has more than enough to hold your interest in the other ways that she can look. Choose one shape to begin, but ask her to go to the one that she has fears over as she gains her confidence with you. Otherwise, she will tell me to have you first, and after that, she will only grow more shy, and shyness like that is not good for one like her. She makes a lot of fun and flirts so much, but she has her doubts and fears because, ..." She sighed, "We are all very different from each other, and I know that she thinks that she is the most - different, since we are close to looking the same, you and I. It is her view of things." "Well her view is wrong," he smiled, "I think that one of the things which I like the most is that we are all so different." Vadren reached out and drew Nika to him, pulling her so that she was lying on his chest. "I have learned something in my travels," he said to Nika, though he was really saying it to them both, "There are few females anywhere who do not have at least a little doubt about their bodies. No matter how wonderful they might look, the cruellest and most harsh critic will always be the voice in their own minds." He looked into Nika's yellow eyes and he smiled, "You are both such wonders to me; living and walking wonders. Nika," he said very slowly, "be any way that you wish. Show me what you wish to and when you feel good enough to show me, then show me more. It does not matter to me. I am happy." Ksyusha spoke then and Nika gasped for an instant and then she was hugging him tightly. She felt the hardness that she was lying on and she made a little room for it as it pushed against her belly. After a minute, she reached down and moving herself a little, she moved up and began to sink onto him very slowly with a look of concentration and a hopeful little glance at him now and then. Finally she settled on him and moved a little to let him know, he guessed. And then she smiled and stole the rest of his heart. From what he knew, Nika had been smiling at him since just after dark -- every time that he looked at her, she'd smiled at him. But now he knew. He could feel her smile to him like this and he also knew then that her smiles had been her hopeful little promises to him. The thing which surprised him was that he'd expected her to stop her descent at some point before she bottomed out onto him, but she hadn't. He knew that sitting here like he was, there was more of him that could be inside of her, but he was surprised anyway, though it didn't matter after another moment. She showed him something about spark demons that he didn't know. She didn't have to move much at all, and it felt so good to him. He looked into those eyes and saw their wide irises as he took her in his arms and for perhaps the first time in his life, Vadren Dreile kissed another person trying to give her all that he could put into it while being mindful of her small size. He'd kissed many lovers all through his adult life. But from her and her hopeful vulnerability, Vadren was learning something that he'd also apply to Ksyusha. He'd never considered it before, but soft kisses were like a well-warmed pan to butter. Nika moaned loudly and he felt her tongue in his mouth. When she broke the kiss and said something to Ksyusha, he heard the warlock laugh and reply, using his name several times. "She has asked me to translate for her and of course, I said that I would be happy to, but that I would not say, "Oh Vadren, oh Vadren, oh you are so good Vadren, over and over," Ksyusha said as he watched her begin to move toward them, "Besides, I will be a little busy at least." Nika groaned when she felt Ksyusha's arms around her as the tiefling began to nuzzle against the side of her neck. Vadren watched as Ksyusha's hands found Nika's small breasts and then he felt her small motions inside of herself begin to throb as well, and he'd never experienced something like this. She stopped it a few minutes later and Ksyusha spoke for the smaller female, "Nika asks if you wish to do this from behind her. The water is making this a little uncomfortable for her. It is too warm and it washes away her wetness faster than she can make it." Nika stood bent over with her arms on the wooden edging as Vadren entered her. He was pleasantly surprised again when he found that he could stroke into her fully and not reach the end of her passage. He asked Ksyusha about it. She shrugged, "I do not know how she does it either. I can already tell that I will need to be careful with you." "How long are the males where she's from?" He asked, "I don't mind, I just know that most human females, ... I just can't go very deep, but I can with Nika." "They are not long -- the ones that I have seen, "Ksyusha replied, "far shorter than I have seen on humans males. I do not know where she is putting it all now. But she is good for you?" He grinned, "Oh yes," When she'd translated for Nika, he saw her eyes open, but her eyes looked as though they saw little then and she lowered her head and began to grunt as she worked, beginning to push back. Ksysuha lowered her head next to Nika's and she kissed her for a moment, "He enjoys you so much," she whispered, "You should see the way that he holds your body with such care. He wishes for you to feel safe with him, and also he wishes to hold you still to pull you onto him. I wish that you could see his eyes now, Nika. What I see there, you can show him your body any way that you like. Right now, my friend, you own that male." Nika grunted and pushed back a little more and then she raised her head and looked back at Vadren's face for a long moment and they smiled at each other before she turned her head again and began to redouble her efforts. "He, .. . is so ... good," she said, as much in wonder to herself as to her friend. The way that Vadren slid his hands over her body made Nika feel much more confident and the next thing that he knew, he was touching that short black fur. It drove him a little wild, he thought in retrospect afterward. It felt so good under his hands. He bent forward a little so that he could hold more of that fine body against him and Nika began to make little sounds. He looked at Ksyusha who smiled very warmly. "Nika says that she is in love." His right hand had been under her ribs so that he could feel her breast against his palm, but suddenly it felt as though it had disappeared and there was only her soft fur and her flesh underneath it. When he looked up, he saw her eyes looking back at him with a smile on her face from the end of her short snout. With a start, he saw that her horns had changed and now swept back from her forehead in great sweeping curls looking a little like pulled-down handlebars and her black wings hung limply down into the water. Nika was hiding nothing from him anymore, and he made sure to tell her that the spark that he was loving was very beautiful to him. When Ksyusha translated it, Nika looked back and he was smitten once more. For such a compact being, there was so much to her. He grinned as he began to pound her harder and she moaned quietly for a time. He slid his hand down her flank and thought to bring it forward under her and his fingers ran into her breast, not where they'd been a minute before. It fit into his hand perfectly and he felt rather privileged that she'd shown this of herself to him, and he was determined that she know what it meant to him. He began to work one nipple, ... Nika cried out as she lifted her head from feeling him harden even more. He reached out to grab one of her horns with one hand and she lowered her chin to allow him to pull her by the horns if he wished and soon after, she was thrashing herself back against him as hard as she could, loving the way that he could bang her so that her cloven feet left the bottom of the tub each time as her thin black fingers curled around the edge of the narrow decking to hold on as best she could. Nika was working in this. She'd had male spark demons before, but none had ever done her like this. Vadren was long and fat inside of her, and though he'd plough her hard for a while, he seemed to know just when to slow for just a short time and she loved the way that it felt to her to have him drag that thing out of her a little slowly and then just slide it in again so deliciously. At the end of every slow push, Vadren just kept right on pushing, his scrotum jammed up so nicely against her clitoris -- staying there like a welcome friend as he kept pushing so that her feet lifted up slowly and she could wiggle them just to feel the way that they hung free. Ksyusha was such a wonderful friend to her and she was so obviously proud of the way that Nika could take all of him this way. Whenever she looked, the tiefling was in awe of her and so in love with them both. Nika was never prepared for it when he went back to banging her; she never knew when it would happen again, but though she was a little sad that the slow fucking seemed to be over for the moment, she was happy again within two of his powerful thrusts. When he came, she did as well, her body not having much of a choice, really, since he'd lifted her and held her up with one arm under her so that she hung on him and the feeling of that and how he still pulled on that horn threw Nika over. She almost squeaked, she cried out so hard, and the heart inside of her spoke its piece then as she shuddered and bucked against him just as her lights went out and she drifted. Once she really had everything together again, Nika was a little amazed to find herself leaning back against Vadren with Ksyusha next to him as they kissed her softly. At least one of them was caressing her nipples under the water. Nika thought about it -- about the way that she'd felt then, and she had a sudden need to hear him say that it was good for him, because it went beyond anything that she'd ever experienced before. She wasn't inexperienced, and she had always known what she'd wanted, she'd just never blacked out before. She wasn't sure that she liked it, either; not if it hadn't been at least a little special to him. "It was good?" she managed to ask him. "Yes, so good," he nodded, "and you are so beautiful." She looked down and then back up at him in a little shock. "You -- like me? L-Like this?" He nodded again and Nika heard Ksyusha's sweet laugh from her other side. "He looked so fine and primitive then, when he saw you, Nika." She leaned in and kissed Nika's cheek, "I think that you should feel a little proud at what you can bring out in him. It was so good to see you both like that. You know the way that spark males can look when they have lost their control? It was like that to see, but Vadren looked so happy as well. He held you so tightly - as though he would never give you up and he cried out, and you answered him, Nika. He didn't understand and I told him afterward that you cried out your love for him and promised yourself to him. It was very good to see. He answered you, but you already hung limp in his grasp then. Was it that good for you -- to make you do all of that? Nika, I have shared a few males with you and you have never done anything like that." Nika nodded fervently, still a little out of breath, "I have never been fucked like that, Ksyusha," she said in their tongue, "Never." "So good?" Ksyusha asked in English and Nika nodded, "Yes. It was ... won-derful." She felt Ksyusha's thumb and fingers working one of her nipples, "So good to be loved that well by the male that you have come so far to have and share with me?" Nika was beginning to wonder where this might be going, but she answered, "Yes, so good he was." Ksyusha brought her lips to Nika's ear and she whispered very softly as her lips grazed against the fur there, "Better than anything he was for you, "she said, "anything that you have ever had there. I know. I saw it Nika. He was so happy to have you that way, so you should know two things from this, Nika. He thinks the world of you in any shape that you show to him -- especially this one. It is my turn with him next, but Nika, it is the other thing that I like the best." Nika's eyes went to her left, even though she couldn't see Ksyusha's face, "What other thing, Ksyusha?" She heard Ksysuha's quiet chuckle for a moment, "You now have the best for you and you share him with me -- who loves you so much and always will; it is very plain to see. But I am happy now for us both and especially for me." Ksyusha began to laugh very sweetly. "I know that you have always thought that you needed them to feel as though you were back where you came from, since they are the closest thing here to the males you had there, but, ... We have this male and it is clear that he gives his heart for ours, so ... " Nika blinked and then she nodded, smiling bashfully, but she agreed, "No more goats, Ksyusha. I liked to pretend that I had a shy boyfriend." A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 33 Ksyusha nodded, understanding, but she added, "Who didn't speak obviously, smelled bad, and ate everything when you weren't leading him around talking to him." Nika grinned, "You have had boyfriends like that, Ksyusha." ------------------- Ksyusha was on her side holding one leg up for Vadren who had his head on one of her thighs as he made love to her with his mouth. Ksyusha looked so happy as she stroked his head softly. Nika sat watching for a time and then she noticed that Vadren was hard again. She moved to sit down in the water so that it was easier for her to take him in her hands to hold it as she opened her mouth and began on him. After a few minutes, she held him with only one hand. The other was between her thighs as she helped herself. Ksyusha whimpered and cried out, but then found that she'd become sensitive, so with Vadren lying on his back on the decking, she knelt over him as she held Nika from behind while she rode his face a little. Nika was back to being the small dark redhead and she was so happy as they loved her. Ksyusha held onto her and caressed her breasts while kissing her neck and whispering her love to her. It was something which Nika could never get enough of. Besides having such an incredibly fine body, Ksyusha always made Nika feel cherished. They'd been together since the desert wastes, but because of the bond that they shared, loving each other was like loving yourself. Vadren was the focus here for them and they wanted a life with him, but a touch or a caress which helped the other girl in this went without a thought. The two friends had developed one simple rule for times such as these. If during any coital act, the female experienced an orgasm which she considered significant, but the male had not yet, then if he didn't mind when they asked him, they would switch so that the one who had just come could relax in the feeling of it if she wished to. It also offered the other one less of a wait and it gave the male more time with them both and if he came not long afterward, oh well, there was always more later. Vadren didn't mind at all. The first time with Ksyusha had gone like lightning and it was very satisfying -- but it was also the kind where she knew that she definitely would get very sensitive soon after, so they'd switched with Nika sitting on Vadren and bucking crazily while the others still wondered where she was hiding the length of the shaft that she was riding so happily. By the time that he came, she was almost lying on his front to let him hold her tightly in the way that they' d both found that they loved and she groaned when he came and ground herself back so that she had one of her best orgasms -- needing to writhe and buck, but needing to be held fast much more. After a little wine, Ksyusha spent a time on her back with her legs around Vadren, admiring what she had, and when she came, Nika expressed a desire that rather surprised Vadren and Ksyusha. "At twenty-four, I am no maiden anymore," she told Ksyusha in their language, "but I have flanks which need parting this night." When he'd heard it translated, Vadren asked if she was sure. She moved over and sat on his lap carefully in the water and put her arms around his neck to kiss him very softly. "Ksyusha," she said quietly, "tell him, ... " She sighed and nodded to herself, "Please tell Vadren that I consider that I am one of his females now, no less important than you. I will give myself to him as often as I can when he wishes it, but I will sometimes need him to give to me as well." She waited as it was said to him, and she watched as his eyes opened a little. She smiled to him, "You ... accept us, Vadren? You take us? We have come long way seeking, but ... need to know." When he nodded, Nika smiled, "This is something I want, ... give us." Ksyusha gave directions, knowing her little friend better, and she asked Vadren to sit on the edge of the tub on the wood. Nika allowed herself to be lifted with Vadren's ability and his quiet incantation and she floated so that she could sit on him facing away. "This is ... very - nice," she smiled, liking the way that she didn't need to struggle to get onto him because of his spell. Once she was on that hard shaft of his, she put one arm around his neck behind her and let her feet down until they touched the bottom of the pool and she was standing on her tiptoes. The entire thing was known as The Parted Flanks of the Maiden to the Drow for the incantation which involved some rather gentle and precise levitation in order to get it right, but to the sparks on Ksyusha's homeworld, this was known as the Sweet Impalement, but it was difficult to do as they used no levitation, and also no lubrication beyond what the first part put on the male member. Nika writhed slowly in her bliss and she smiled when she caused Vadren to groan, but after a time, she knew that it was time to move on, and she asked for her friend's help as she lifted up and began to settle onto him very slowly in another way entirely. By the time that she had most of him inside of her, she was sweating a little, for the whole thing entailed so much trust and it was not something which most of the females of her kind would ever do without that trust in the male. By the time that she had all of him, she asked if he would wait for a moment, and after that, she looked at Ksyusha, "I am ready- I think." She smiled, "He is wondrous, Ksyusha. Tell him to please wait for me a little longer." When the warlock had said that he waited, Nika strained to lift her legs, one at a time, so that they hung to the outside of his. She waited as she felt his breath on her shoulder and neck for a moment. "I will watch when you do this with him very carefully, Ksysuha," she smiled, "This has never been so hard for me to do as it is with him." Ksuyusha nodded to Vadren, "She is ready, part her flanks and begin." Vadren slowly moved his legs apart, taking Nika's along, spreading her legs slowly wider until they couldn't be separated any further. Though he was holding her, she hung there impaled on him in his grasp, trusting him not to let her sag too much and loving the way that he held her. Vadren helped to begin to move Nika up and down very slowly and they both moaned to each other. As she became accustomed to it with him, Nika was able to take some of this from him by flexing her hips and thighs. It took them many minutes before he began to speed this up, and long before then, Ksyusha dove to her knees and took one of Nika's nipples in her mouth as her fingers toyed along her opening. As they began to move a little faster, Ksyusha gave up on the nipple and pressed her face against Nika's wet sex and did her best to follow along for as long as she was able. Nika was trapped in this, impaled on his long, thick shaft and at his mercy as to how the fucking of this went. She was thankful for Ksyusha, because she knew her body so well. What she was doing with her mouth only added to this, Nika's eyes closed in rapture. She'd never been taken this way by a male as wonderful as Vadren. Nika was in heaven. She was making her statement to him, and she would do this for him periodically, just not every night. Some of the sensations were acting against each other, and others worked well together. That wasn't the point. She was helpless in this and her eyes closed as her head lolled backward against Vadren's face as she groaned and shuddered. Her first orgasm in this had been the best, but she welcomed the others as they came to her because Ksyusha never stopped and Vadren didn't either. Nika was the captive female in this and she just accepted what came. Back home, it was a point of pride among female spark demons that this didn't stop until the male was done. This was the girl's statement that she was taking a male for herself and that she was confident that she could please him well and it was usually done a little publicly among a group of close friends. If the one that you had couldn't finish like this, you used the next one who was interested if you trusted him, but among the females it was your honor to finish your male with this submission. That was why it was the way that they asked when they had one they wanted for as long as possible. The males who couldn't finish were scorned afterward. She tilted her head back to look at Vadren and when he kissed her cheek, she wanted to cry for the way that she felt so happy. The way that her horn rested against his collarbone spurred him on in a very primal way. Just before his orgasm tore through him, Vadren was fucking Nika fairly hard, and it the motion of it was too much for Ksyusha to follow, so she just knelt there, dragging the fingers of one hand against Nika's outer lips and the fingers of the other hand were busily working her own as she watched Nika's face change from what looked like pain to bliss and back, over and over. "Does he hurt you?" She asked Nika. "Not now," came the reply, "but I ... love ... him for ... this so ... so much. So, .. good." His release was just around the corner and Nika felt him harden inside of her. Her face became a grimace and then Vadren cried out as he hugged her and when he froze to press into her as hard as he could as his seed left him, Nika had her own orgasm then and she screamed to him for a long moment until she couldn't anymore. The intensity of it had been unexpected and it was better than her first like this by a wide margin. His quiet words of thanks and love in her ear meant more than anything to her and they relaxed together as he softened so that she could dismount from him reluctantly. As she sank into the hot water with a groan, she found herself in Ksysuha's arms and she hung on to her tightly. "I have done that before, but never with a male like him, and never so well. If I was a fool, I would do it all over again right now." The warlock pulled back and stared at her, "Really?" Nika nodded wearily, "Really. Even now, I miss having him there. It was hard to get off him because of that." She hugged Ksyusha again, "I am so lucky to have you both, and it is your turn now, warlock. I will wash him and then I want to see you hang from that spike. You will love it." ------------------- The next morning, Nika and Ksyusha left Vadren asleep in the bed and after a quick shower, they began to walk to the bar together, since that was where they'd been told that the meals were served. They were looking for breakfast and also, wanted to tell Rachel that they wished to learn where everything was so that they could take their turn cooking breakfast - once they'd learned how to cook this food for everyone. "How does Nika feel this morning?" the warlock asked. "Happy and content," came the reply, "We have what we wanted, and now it is to be seen if it can last." "I think that it can," Ksyusha said, "and think, Nika, we are free today, and there are so many here that I like. It makes me happy that they all seem to like you very much." "They like you just as much," Nika smiled, "I think that we can have a home at last." --------------------------- It was Rachel's turn to cook this morning and her heart wasn't in it. She thought about going for a long walk after breakfast. She just wanted to make sure that everything had gone well with Mo-Wenn and her new parents. But then the pair of newcomers strolled in and looked so cheerful. "Why are you two so dammed chipper this morning?" Rachel asked, "I'm pleased that you want to get into the rotation, but - " Her face pulled into a grin, "I'm an idiot," she said, knowing the reason. "Looks like somebody had some fun last night," Selena smirked, and Ksyusha nodded and translated for Nika -- who laughed with a smiling nod at the potatoes that she scrubbed. "I know, ... secret now," she smiled. "Secret? What kind of secret?" Rachel asked as she looked over, "Come on, honey, tell it. There aren't any secrets here, not among the girls, anyway." Nika looked at Ksyusha who grinned back, "Try to say it if you wish, Nika. I will help if you stumble." Nika nodded and when she turned, she saw Rachel, Selena, Shaevre and most of all, Cha'Khah hanging on every word -- or ready to. "Nika knows Part-ed Flanks of Vadre -- Maiden now." She laughed at the mistake that she'd almost made. "And?" Selena urged. She turned to Ksyusha who only smiled enigmatically. "Do you know?" Selena looked desperate, and Cha'Khah looked like she would explode. "I have been trying for long over a year to get that out of him - over a year. Tell it now. I must know." Ksyusha shook her head, "Let Nika tell it. She needs the practice with her English." There were groans all around but they all sat down to hang on anything that Nika would say to them now. She considered how to say it, and just as she was about to begin, Nahl'een and Sariel walked in with Dahlgren and Azrael. They wondered why all of the women looked so unhappy to see them this morning, but it only lasted a minute and the children were introduced to Ksyusha and Nika. Rachel looked at Azrael for a moment. She said nothing and turned back to the cooking. A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 34 ***I'm hitting the pause button to back time up a few weeks as we look elsewhere for a little while. Don't worry, this is not far from the mountain where the others live. I also need to explain a couple of things. To me, the fact that I have to explain outside of a story is an indication of failure as a writer, but I'd rather do this than leave readers in the wilderness wondering what the heck just happened. Yuan is half-human and has three forms to choose from. In the largest - which looks something like this - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Quetzscale1.png - Yuan is a male, a little larger than the one in the picture. In the middle form, she can be either, and there's always the original human female form as well. You'd think that would lead to some interesting situations, but she's quite lonely most of the time. Just so you know - if it matters - there is some fooling around in this chapter and some of it is male-male, but to a human observer, if that were possible, you and I would likely never know it anyway. These things have one opening like birds do. That's what is referred to as a cloaca in this. It's a single opening, though in some species (the dragons in this since it's convenient to the story) there is a penis as in turtles and crocodiles. There. All done. 0_o --------------- Book of the Dragon Part 9 Yuan guessed that she'd been right about a few things, anyway. Beyl'eth's male had eyes for little other than her body, it seemed. He'd come to claim her as Narreth had said that he would, but to her, it hadn't been the same as what they'd had before. He'd seemed to like the effort that she'd made at becoming as close to being a Tarkroth as she could as far as that went, but after the first and only time, he'd made no effort since. Every time that she looked, they were together and usually mating. If they weren't, they were sleeping. Yuan slept in the dwelling far down the ledge, not wanting to hear them. The one time that she'd managed to summon the courage to ask -- and that had been after almost a week -- Beyl'eth had almost snarled that they weren't finished. Yuan stood in shock, and Beyl'eth knew what she'd done and pushed Ayt'han off to try to mend this, but the damage had been done and Yuan had no reply to make. The tear in her eye said it all. They'd both gotten up apologizing and Yuan knew that they were sincere, but she also knew that this wasn't completely due to their hearts and their minds. Their bodies were voting in a big way and she guessed that it was needed. She'd begun to walk away, but they'd followed, trying to get her to stop so that they could plead with her. Yuan had a fair idea that the trouble was mostly a biological drive -- the last Tarkroth's bodies demanding to mate. She could even allow for that and she had, but after most of a week and to be snarled at, ... She looked down, not listening as she thought about a way to make this a little more fair, and she knew that she'd made a promise to her friend that she wouldn't show her human form to him again. Yuan was almost certain that if she went to that form, it would likely even things up, but what was the point if no matter what they said they wanted, they needed to do this? She'd already seen a look on Beyl'eth's face that she never wanted to see again. She snorted to herself a little bitterly. She'd tied her own hands. She remembered what Narreth had said about asking her own question to him. They looked at her as though she'd lost her mind as she'd looked up at the ceiling of the overhang and laughed bitterly. She had a wish to ask him the question twice, once as she looked then, and once as Yuan the human girl. She was fairly confident that while his words might be the same both times, she'd see something far different in his eyes then if she asked in her human form, and she doubted that he could help it, so she changed then. It was harder to speak like this, as the leathery-winged beast, but she managed it a little. "Not what you want?" she asked, and the answer was plain in his eyes. She turned and began to move slowly away toward the other end of the ledge in her ungainly way. Beyl'eth kept following. She was in tears herself for what she'd done. "Please Yuan, I'm so sorry. It came out of me before I knew it and -- " "I know," Yuan replied, not looking at the demon as she continued on, "this cannot be done, what we wanted. I see this now. I have what is important to me, that you are happy, but it is very empty as well. You have your mate. I wish to be alone now. I need to consider." "Wh-what are you talking about?" the Rohn asked. Yuan turned then and lifted her head higher, "I believe you, Beyl'eth. I know that you are sorry. I am as well, but I am happy for you. I need to think. There is no place for me here, and all that I do now is waste my time. Neither of you wish me harm, but I can be just as alone anywhere else, and I would not have to listen to your joy." She smirked, "I was sent here to kill ones like you." She turned away again, and this time, the Rohn didn't follow. When Yuan reached the dwelling where her belongings were, she changed to walk into the door and then she sealed it so that there was no doorway. When she reached the room where they'd slept when they'd first arrived, a cold and sick dragon carrying what she was sure was no more than the dead and frozen body of her friend, she wrapped herself in her blankets and sat against the wall weeping softly. After a time, Yuan looked across the room and created a surface like a mirror and then she brought forth two small points of light, both of them shrouded in fog to soften the light that they gave off. She stood up and looked at herself. She decided that she liked the shape of the Rohn dragon-girl, but she now saw no need to restrict herself to the size that she had out of consideration for Beyl'eth, so she'd changed herself again so that her height was now what felt a lot better to her for many things -- flying while in that form for one. She stood at about five feet, nine or ten inches and she liked that better. She was still a little lanky-looking, but she'd allowed for a bit more muscle, thinking that it looked a bit better and kept her from looking like a stick thing while retaining a willowy feel to her shape at the same time. After a long period of quiet thought, she added just a little to her hips and her breasts, though not a lot. She'd liked what she saw in the reflective surface, she just thought it still looked a bit too thin, so she'd made the additions. As she turned and looked at everything, she saw the striped markings of the Rohn on the skin that she'd tried so hard to make smooth for them. It made her sigh. Despite her strong desire to belong, she couldn't see that the effort had brought her any return. Yuan frowned, deciding not to think about it or she'd likely start to cry again. She didn't need to be reminded that she was still all alone. She shook her head quickly and the markings were gone -- the dark gray replaced by another color which came to her mind. She liked this better, though she decided to keep the light eyes for now at least, and she stood for a time admiring her blue-black skin. It looked a little like a soft satin robe that she'd had a long time ago. But she thought that if she was to go on searching, she'd feel a little better if she had a bit of protection, and in a second, the soft satin sheen was replaced with the tiny glints of millions of little scales. She ran her hand over her belly and up to one breast, liking the feel. She could still feel everything this way, and she still felt soft, and anyway, she thought, this was more natural for her. The last thing that she'd done was make it easier to be a male this way. Her clitoris could still function, but with only a thought, it could now become a true penis, and though the testicles were still internal as they were in her large shape, she'd taken care of her earlier oversight. Though she hadn't tried it, she knew that like this, she could deliver sperm -- to her hand, she smirked bitterly. It was just something that she wanted to do, that was all, and it made her feel more complete. Who knew, she asked herself, maybe one day she might find a stable life for herself all alone somewhere and use what she'd done to impregnate herself, since she could do that now if she wished. She only had to get it inside her lips fairly early on before it finished stiffening. She would likely need to experiment a great deal, but she had time. The dawn was not far off when she came out of the dwelling carrying her large pack as quietly as she could. She set it down and walked down to find a place to urinate. As she did, she looked a little and noticed that her mound and lips were the same as everything else, and when she was done and walking back for her pack, she thought about the pattern of tiny scales which she couldn't change on herself in her human shape and the way that she'd felt embarrassed to let Billy see that part of her. She remembered that when she had begun this journey, she didn't know any better, really, and so she'd felt a bit proud that she was different there. What was she now? She asked herself this question a few times as she walked back to get her pack. As she walked, she noticed that Beyl'eth stood a little way off, partially hidden in a doorway, as though she didn't know what to do. Yuan didn't look in that direction. If Beyl'eth was as uncertain as she looked, it was her problem, Yuan decided. She had her own troubles. A thought came to her that in her large form, she wore a pattern on her wings and back. The scales on her genitals in her human form matched it. It gave her the answer that she sought and her wings in this middle form now wore that pattern in white across them in response to her thought. She looked down at herself and was pleased to see the pattern in miniature there -- a white stylized flying creature in brilliant white against her darkness. She decided that she was different -- as she'd always been, but from now on, she'd be different and proud of it. She looked at her pack for a moment to give Beyl'eth a bit more of a chance. With little in it besides her few clothes, some other articles and her swords, it was a bit of a chore to get her thin arms through the straps, and as she struggled quietly, she thought about a few things for a moment, and then she began her change slowly to allow for any adjustments needed to the straps. She completed her slow change and walked to the edge, the only dragon that she knew of, but a proud one all the same. Spreading her wide wings, she took off and flew south down the valley until she was higher than the ridge on her left side -- the east side. After that, she turned left and climbed away. She didn't look back. Beyl'eth walked to the edge of the sandstone, watching as Yuan flew off. She choked back a sob and wanted to fly after her, but she knew that she could never fly fast enough to even keep her in sight. She hadn't looked back. Beyl'eth was stunned as she walked along the ledge to the other room to stir the ashes and get a cooking fire going. After a half-hearted attempt, Beyl'eth hung her head and sat back on the floor feeling useless. She began to cry again. ----------------------- For the many differences between one now-dying world on the plane of existence where the many species of Red demon lived and good old planet Earth, there were also a great number of similarities -- areas where things developed almost in parallel between the two places which had nothing to do with each other. For one thing, both were once home to several types of dragons at one time, and though none of them had ever met, they would have nevertheless been astounded at their similarities, even if some of them didn't look very much like each other. For one thing, they were rather rare and hard to find. That was because they tend to eat a lot and each one requires a good-sized range of land to find food on. That was another reason why they tended not to live in large communities. Well that, and the fact that, though they all tended to live a long time and grow wise, they were also rather vain creatures and didn't much like a lot of competition. Their vanity extended beyond the way that they looked. If one of them set their mind to it, there was nothing as snobbish as a dragon. As it had happened, in one of the ice caves where a number of dragons happened to coexist without too much nonsense and violence, there were a pair of old ones who taught younger ones of the ways of wisdom and the world. It was nothing to be adept at the sort of magic that dragons are capable of. Most all dragons of any sort have some ability. But on this world, the dragons tended to be a little like the Tarkroth in their belief system, and held their shamans in high regard. The two ancient masters were both powerful shamans and this is what they taught to only the most suitable of young students. The rivalry of the two became pronounced and pitched at times and so it was that at some point, each one left to set up a mountain lair where they lived with a small number of followers. The community cave was situated roughly between the two. At one point the two met there and after one of their more unusual though very heated arguments, they decided on a contest to see which one was the better teacher. As was agreed, they each took one young pupil for the purpose and on the agreed-upon date some years into the future, they'd set their pupils loose on each other, the survivor would be the proof as to which teacher was the better one. The two students were both small orphans, not related to each other, one a girl and one was a boy. They met by accident now and then as they ran errands for their teachers and usually had to be separated because they each saw their master as the best. The teachers quarreled whenever they met, and so the pupils did the same. On the day of the start of the open-ended contest, they were told of a particular dragon relic - a claw from one of the great dragons of the distant past. They were told to find the thing and return with it to the ice cave. It was allowed to help each other at any time if desired, but it was expected that only one pupil return with the relic to be declared the winner and the assumption was that in order to do that, the other one must be dead by that point. At the time, the pair were in their middle teens and more than ready and willing to kill each other. The two young dragons glared at each other, and then they went their separate ways, each setting out on their own quest. Neither one returned for over two years. During that time, they ran into each other now and then and they spoke little, but over time, they became even more bitter enemies. The boy found the relic and the girl stole it. He ambushed her and she did the same two days later. They very nearly killed each other over it several times, but gradually, the claw was being carried back to the ice cave, always in the hands of one or the other and always it traveled in as hidden a way as possible. Something about the shamanism of animistic cultures is that it requires shamans, and both of the competitors fell into that category, the great degree of each one's skill at their early ages was a testament to the two masters who had taught them as well as the minds and wills of the young students. Both could call elements of nature to their aid, from weather to avalanches and stones and even flocks of crow-like carrion birds to attack each other. Another parallel in many shamanistic cultures, though certainly not all - on whatever world where it occurred on was the strange appearance of double-spirited individuals now and then. These practitioners were of one gender like anyone else, but what lay inside them was often at odds with the exterior. It is a strange thing to consider from the current viewpoint, but even on earth, it was not so unusual a thing for shamans to be one thing and yet reside in that body as something else. From the time of the first European arrival in the New World to perhaps the end of the nineteenth century, there were well over five hundred groups of native North American tribal cultures. Of that number, about one hundred fifty recognized male two-spirited individuals and about half as many recognized female ones. In the culture of the Wotroth or dragons, the appearance of a double-spirited one of some power raised no eyebrows whatsoever. The night finally came when one of the pair saw his chance to make the final sprint with the relic and after building up the heavy storm that he wished to use as cover, he chose the more natural shape for him and he set out in the middle of it, spreading his wings and flying very low at a slow pace. It went well until, less than a half mile from the mouth of the cave, the female attacked and grabbed the relic, speeding away as fast as she could go with him in hot pursuit. When she reached the mouth of the ice cave, she stopped and the claw fell from her grasp .The male instantly seized it as he flashed past, but he stopped as well and stared almost right away. What had once been a community of dragons was now a blood-spattered tomb. It was dark, but everywhere, they saw the hacked and burned bodies, both inside and outside the entrance. Frozen and rotting corpses lay everywhere, both genders, all ages -- all sizes. The two looked at each other and the male dropped the claw in the snow. Each one turned then and went to the lair of their mentors. They found the lairs looted, their fellow students slain like all of the others. The male dropped to his knees and wept. By the early morning, he was inside and finding nothing, he flew to where he knew the last refuge of his teacher to be. All dragons of any advanced age have one place where they feel safe and go there now and then to reflect, or in the case of grievous personal loss, they go there to mourn. He stood and stared at the corpses of his teacher and the powerful female who had been his bitter rival as they hung well-rotted from the preceding summer. The young female was already there crying her angry tears. Neither one knew why it had happened. He asked how it could have been done, and she said that if it were the summer, she'd have been willing to wager that they'd have seen the marks of many pairs of boots. She didn't know how it could be, she said, but her theory was that this had been the result of the combined effort of many lowlander mages and soldiers. They parted then to go to any other dragon groups and tribes which they knew of. Each one was found in a similar state. This had happened before, they'd been told by the elders in their teaching; the lowland people banding together to attack ones who were different from them. It had gone on for a thousand years and was another reason why there were so few of their kind, for dragons reproduce slowly. A month later, they knew that they were the last, spared by their absence as they'd run their quest for the now-forgotten relic. They only spoke a little when they met, and as the female was about to tell of something else, the male turned to her and said that he knew -- he'd seen a vision that the Tarkroth were now under the same hammer. The two kinds of creatures had always known of each other, and had little in common. For reasons which neither of these two knew, while the two kinds had never been friends, they'd never been enemies either. They were about to separate and go their own ways, when she pointed and there, far down the slope where they stood, they could see an old demon walking toward them slowly. They shrugged and began to walk down. As they got much closer and were about to try to speak to him, they heard a commotion and all three turned to see a whirling cloud racing toward them. There was no time to do much of any running, but when it overtook them, the pair of young dragons found themselves inside a whirling mass of bodies -- crazed demons, fearful and mad with terror. It came to them much later that it had been the old demon that the cloud was coming for -- they'd only been scooped up as well and in the blink of an eye, the mountains were as deserted as they'd been in the beginning, before the time of either the demons or the dragons. A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 34 The next second, they were somewhere else altogether. The male found himself feeling the teeth and claws of several demons and threw them all off as he used his latent abilities and strength. When he was free for the moment, he sprang upwards and spread his wings. Several of the crazed demons leapt after him, but after changing to his natural form, he could climb at a much faster rate. His next glance showed him the last moments of the old demon and then he saw the other one of his kind. She was faring worse than he had been, and so he barrel-rolled and dove back down to rejoin the fight. She was hurt, but he was climbing again after a second with a flock of howling demons after them. He told the female to hold herself to him and fold her wings tightly. It got them the needed altitude and after a brief conversation, he released her and she let go as well to spread her wings and the pair flew off, gaining altitude. They were higher than any demon could fly within a few more minutes. They found themselves over mountains an hour or so later, and he could see that she was tired, so he began his descent. On the way down, he saw what looked to be an old settlement of some sort. Not knowing anything at all of humans and their ancient past, he was looking at one of several settlements of a long-departed people who made their homes of adobe brick structures built under overhanging stone ledges. The place was rather small, but it would do, he thought. He led her over some heavy forest and made for the place, leading her in slowly and landing in a meadow not far away. He helped her into the shade of it and began to care for her, healing what had been done to her and being a little thankful that it had not been him in her place. They were both small examples of their kind for several reasons, though she was not far off what was normal for a female of her age. He was taller, but he didn't carry the heavy mass of muscles typical of a male. Both of them were thin in both of their shapes, though he was very small for a male. There was a large size difference between males and females. She was about right, though a touch on the small side. He was a lot smaller than he perhaps should have been for a successful male of the species, but then he was a shaman, so a lot of brute strength wasn't that much of a necessity, and also, he wasn't all that much of a successful male. Inside him, his other spirit was partially female. He was already as fully grown as he would ever get. When they wished to, they had long heads and even longer necks, and their wings spanned about eighteen feet from wingtip to wingtip. They were ungainly on their legs and usually moved bent forward so that the "elbows" of their wings could support them from the front. But that only made everything awkward for them on the ground, and so they had another shape. It might say something of a commonality of purpose or just what was best suited for survival, but that other shape was something a little like their Tarkroth neighbors a few miles up the long valley, being more upright, though with a shortened snout and a longer neck than the mountain demons. They had large eyes, completely black, and their skin was light and sand-colored. They could fly like this, but not quite as well as demons. When they were in their natural shape, nothing on their world could fly as fast or as high as they could. While she rested and ate what he brought for her, he tried to express something to her. They had begun as bitter enemies, but now there was nothing to hate each other for anymore. She agreed, and after mating a few times, she told him that she was leaving, since she was healing well. She thanked him sincerely and began to go. He was shocked, and his interpretation was that even though they were the only ones here as far as they both knew, he wasn't the male that she wanted. While he liked her, she wasn't what he'd have wanted either in the ideal sense. He found her moody and somewhat pushy, but he'd been prepared to settle. When he'd explained it this way, she nodded, but she said that while he'd been good to her, and she held no ill will toward him anymore, she had no wish to become his female, since she knew herself and wanted something that he could never be to her. She shrugged then and told him to take care of himself as she spread her wings to fly off. He felt sad, but he couldn't argue, so he settled in as best he could and lived alone. They'd seen each other many times in the interim, and she'd even come seeking him to mate with him several times, but it was always the same in the end. He wasn't sure what he really wanted, other than he knew that he didn't want to live alone. He supposed that what he really wanted in his heart was a large male, the same as she did, but he was willing to forgo his desire if it meant that he wasn't alone. He could live alone and survive, but he'd have preferred to have another of his kind near to him. She didn't seem to need that - or him, for much of anything at all. He'd told her that he'd pair with her whenever she was ready, but he soon learned that telling her that only caused her to leave again even sooner. The longest that she'd stayed with him was three nights before she was gone again. To his way of counting and measuring the angle of the shadow cast by a stake that he'd driven into the earth, that had been seven years ago, he thought as he stood at the doorway of his adobe home looking out from under the overhang of ice one bitter cold morning. He wondered how much longer he could go on like this, since he certainly wasn't happy. Seven years, he thought as he saw her fly past far overhead on her way to somewhere. The last time that they'd been together was a few months ago now. He still couldn't get a read on her at the best of times and for the past half-year or so, he'd about given up. When she wanted him, she was affectionate and loving, but that could and would switch off rather abruptly and he'd be here again, looking out of his doorway and trying to convince himself that he didn't need her for anything, and that the next time that she showed up to eat the meat that he'd hunted and pretend to like him for a little while, he'd tell her to go and stay gone. He wished that it was that easy. A minute later, she landed in the meadow and ran over, acting as though all of this mileage hadn't happened and she was so pleased to see him. Like the idiot that he always told himself that he was, he looked happy -- since somewhere inside himself, he was as she almost dragged him to where he slept. The next morning, he stood in the doorway again. He knew that she was walking up behind him. He felt her arms over his shoulders as she rested her chin there and kissed him as he turned to look back at her. She'd just gotten up and knew that she was still warm, and so she offered him a little warmth by fitting herself against his back as much as she could. They weren't related -- as far as they knew -- but they looked almost like twins. There was very little difference between them. They were both skinny and if one looked hard enough, one could just see her curves. The final blending had come the day that they'd just accepted each other as equals long ago. They didn't know the means by which they'd gotten here, and they had no idea how to get back and there was nothing to go back to anyway. They looked like a pair now, but they were far from it, he knew. The type of dragon that they were - on the world where they'd been born made them a little like chameleons in what they could change of themselves. They couldn't change the basic structure, but the overall look was quite changeable if they wished it. What had happened to their appearance had just happened, there had been no thought or plan to it at all. The bit of fur they carried between their long legs hid their differences and served to further mask their genders, though there had been no attempt to do that, it was just the way they were. Her soft folds were hidden and kept warm as were his smallish genitals. He had small pectoral muscles, and her breasts were tiny and just about the same size. She had slightly larger nipples, that was all. Their faces looked about the same, and their long straight manes were identical, as were the little horns on their heads. She moved her hand from his shoulder and he felt it as she laid it on his haunch to caress and tease him a little. He knew what it meant and he allowed it with a sigh as her fingertips teased him in a delicious way. She had thoughts of mating again and he liked that, though he wondered how long it would last for this time. They knew that they were different, and they'd just accepted it and found ways for each of them to please the other, though both of them would have preferred a different partner if they'd ever been given the choice. It didn't matter. They were different, that was all. In a minute, he knew that she'd lift her hand and begin to thrust against him a little suggestively, and if he felt a little mischievous, he'd resist until she pulled him to his bed. They were big on oral love and had spent whole days at it before, doing nothing else. Right now, he thought that she'd likely take him into her mouth to get him hard and wet before she'd let him fuck her -- well, more to the point, he'd fuck her as she wanted him to, though not filling her anywhere near as full as she'd have wanted. But it was good enough, and he loved the way that she looked at him then. With what he had, it felt alright to him, but it took a while to please her. He knew that she wanted something bigger, but what they had was enough - since it was what they had. When she was satisfied for the moment, she'd move so that he was lying in front of and beside her and she'd kiss him more forcefully then. If he was really lucky, she'd lick him and push his legs up to wet him farther back before she used her own lubrication to wet her fingers for him. When she made love to him like this, they did it for a long time, because she was happy to see the way that he just became her female then. They'd change positions once in a while, but she was always in charge and driving him crazy. It had always been a little desire in her to do it for him well enough to make him come to his release all by himself. It didn't happen often, but she loved to see it when it did. Most times, she'd take pity on him, knowing that he hung there right on the edge. All that it would take then was a touch on his thin maleness. It didn't even have to be hard, it just had to be right, and he'd cry out in a way that would make her smile and she'd see him spurt - all over them both if he was at all hard. If he wasn't, he'd just gush and she loved to watch it pump from him anyway. And sometimes, she'd manage to position herself so that she could have him in her mouth at that time to let him know that he was being such a good female for her that she wanted to reward him in this way. He sighed. It was what they had. She'd already grabbed his thin wrist when he saw the shadow flit across the ground and over them, and then it was gone. They stepped out a little to look up. ------------------- Yuan hadn't really tried for a lot of altitude, since it was cold today, and she wasn't going for speed either. She was trying to get a sense of what her mother had said to her, that she ought to just follow her heart. The trouble was that her heart was hurting her today and she just flew east a little slowly, hoping that sooner or later, she'd get a sense of what she was doing up here. Well, she knew what she was doing, she just felt a little different today. She'd found her place here the afternoon before when she cautiously approached a cascade looking for a drink. She found a pool there and hid among the rocks for a bit. She was aware that she was a stranger here, and didn't know the lay of the land, so to speak. With no threats to be seen, she drank carefully and quickly, but as she did, she felt a little warmth on her face and hands -- just a little -- in an otherwise cold cascade. It was then that she noticed the steam mixed in with the spray and looking further, she found a way to walk behind the cascade and she stepped into an opening there. With a wave of her hand she had light and stood transfixed , marveling at the colors of the rock walls of the grotto and cave that she'd found. In the depths of it, there was a pool, fed from a mineral spring, and while the spring was hot and steaming, it was not too hot for her, and the pool was warm and pleasant. The constant steam from the spring kept the inside of the cave moist and damp -- too damp for bats or much of any of the wildlife to wish to be near. It became her home. -------------------------- "What is that?" the male asked, a little rhetorically as they stood craning their necks. "That's a Wotroth, Sheth," she replied using his name as he saw her wings move out from her body a little, "a big male." "Drene, what are you doing??" he asked a little nervously and she smirked. "Sheth," she smiled, "we have been here for years and seen no one. Today there is a male Wotroth up there. You and I - outside or inside, Sheth," she said a little affectionately, placing her palm onto his thin chest, "we are both females to him. How many chances have you had for a male? He might not want us and I feel your uncertainty, my friend, but you will never know if you hide. Do you want to just let him fly away?" "He looks different from us," he said with concern in his voice, "he might eat us." "Stay here then while I find out," she smiled, and he was alone, watching as she changed to the shape which gave her the best chance to catch him. As she climbed as quickly as she could, she almost laughed. She understood his concern perfectly. There might be some truth to it, since they didn't know anything about him, and she knew that for what they were, a third dragon carried dangers, but it also carried a lot of promise. If they were at least a little lucky now, getting eaten would just be the start of it. Sheth stood watching and trying to get a sense of the newcomer. He had a lot of reasons to be concerned, their relative safety being only one of them. If Drene liked him and it was mutual, he stood a fairly good chance at being chased off by that male. If he was lucky. Worse, he thought, they knew nothing of that one's background. Once he found out that Sheth was also a male and it became plain why he was the way that he was, he might want to kill him. Not all Wotroth were knowledgeable about ones like him and thought of them as aberrations of nature. But his sensing returned something to him that caused him to leap into the air a second later, changing as soon as he had the speed and the ground clearance for it, and climbing for all that he was worth. In the span of only a few heartbeats, Sheth had gone from fearful to uncertain to suddenly finding himself almost as hopeful as Drene. This one also carried a double-spirit, he was certain if it. --------------------- Drene's first call to her had gone unnoticed, since Yuan was a little lost in her thoughts, but she heard the second and then a third call, which seemed to come from another direction below her. She held her wings out a little rigidly and rolled over, making the adjustments as she went so that for a few seconds, she hung upside down in order to see better without turning her head. Yuan couldn't believe her eyes as she blinked. There below her, straining to climb to her level were a couple of dragons, and not all that different from her, only smaller -- much smaller. These were either very young males, or, ... She rolled upright again as Drene shot past her in her climb. A second later, Sheth rocketed by as well, and she stared as they called out to her. As they spread their wings fully to come around in their tight turns, heeling over as hard as they could so that they stood on their wingtips. Yuan's mouth opened slightly in even more surprise as she watched their hopeful colors flash to her. Their skin became iridescent and the colors shimmered and flickered from their bodies to their wingtips and back. She wasn't sure what it meant, other than perhaps as a joyous display, and after a moment's thought where she asked herself how long it had been since she'd torn up the sky a little herself. She decided that it was time, and she began to roll and wheel, always mindful that she didn't want to frighten them. She had no colors to flash at them in the sunlight, so she gave them plenty of room and just played for a little while. Her own calls echoed theirs and then, without thinking about it really, the trio wheeled and raced together easily, as though they'd been doing it in practiced patterns for years. They seemed to be a little reluctant to go farther than a certain point so she stayed with them as they led her back to the same area where they'd first seen each other. The three of them flew together in level flight as they looked at each other in wonder and appreciation. Yuan laughed out loud to find herself being paced by a very interested pair of creatures like herself. What Yuan saw were a pair who seemed to be females, and their backs carried mostly a shade of gray, as though they spent most of their time over water and their undersides and bellies were a brilliant snow white, but it changed as they led her lower and the patterns reversed to become white on top and a pale gray underneath. Yuan understood it. They had the ability to change to suit what might be needed to stay a little hidden in the sky. Closer to the ground, they needed to be white on top in the wintertime. It was something which Yuan couldn't do -- at least she didn't think that she could. Their calls changed to happy cries and she answered with her own. One of them raced ahead a little and, timing it so that it happened between the slow beats of Yuan's wings, the dragon slid from left to right underneath her, wanting to see more of her body. The maneuver was copied by the other one and then they held themselves in level flight to allow Yuan the same thing. As she slid past below their bellies, she liked what she saw so very much. Unlike birds, pterosaurs use their legs and feet as control surfaces in flight, and Yuan liked the legs on both of these ones. It might not have been a big deal in the time of many dragons, but right now, looking ahead at what lay between those legs seemed like such a delicious and slightly naughty thrill to Yuan as she stared at their cloacas. She almost groaned. What she wanted to do now, ... The pair did it again, sliding past below her from one side to the other, but this time, one of them nudged Yuan's outstretched foot playfully with her snout for just an instant, so she wiggled her toes in response. It felt so good to fly with other dragons, young ones just like herself. It came to her then that unless they were intent on a bit of trickery -- and the pair that she was flying with didn't seem to be able to contain their happiness -- then they were hopeful to follow her to her home. It told her that they were either very foolish of very hopeful. Dragons are somewhat wild and magical things, but most were at least a little civilized and were cognizant of their manners. Yuan suddenly realized that she had nothing. But she did see a mountain goat standing on a peak below them watching and suddenly the smaller pair were alone as Yuan faded from sight and dropped out of the blue sky, rocketing down like a form of death from above. The pair looked around in confusion, but they saw the splash of blood on the snow and the headless body of the animal as it rose into the air with the newcomer appearing to them a second later when she faded into view clutching her offering. A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 34 They looked at each other and cried out in appreciation of the large male's hunting ability and his considerate thoughtfulness. From the viewpoint of a Wotroth, it showed them that, besides being a fine-looking beast, he wasn't an inconsiderate one -- to another dragon that is. It was however, a gesture which assorted other sorts of creatures such as mountain goats wouldn't have appreciated very much. She led them down into her little valley, and they met in the snowy meadow and their difficulties in making themselves understood began then. Yuan didn't know what they were saying, and she hoped that she was looking at them in an encouraging manner. She needed to hear more of their speech. Finally, she reared up a little and folding her wings to indicate that she intended to remain for the moment at least, she changed herself and stood before them as the dragon girl, since remaining as the large beast wasn't getting them anywhere. They stared at her briefly and a moment later, she was meeting her new friends as they ran over and chattered to her. It gave her the linguistic clues that she needed and she bowed to them both. "I am Yuan," she said as she shrugged out of her pack. "Drene," the smaller of the two said, indicating herself and she pointed to the other suddenly rather shy-looking one, "He is Sheth." Sheth looked as though he didn't know whether he liked having his gender revealed at this point or not, though he supposed that it would have to come out sooner or later. He did try not to stare at Yuan, though and his effort failed him almost utterly. Aside from her breasts and her hips, everything else about her was rather evocative of both genders, and either way, he thought that Yuan was beautiful. The female looked around, "Where are we going?" "To my home," Yuan smiled, and she pointed away up the slope. She turned and saw Sheth struggling a little to drag the ram and she smiled then, placing her hand onto his wrist. "You will work too hard this way, Sheth," she smiled in a way which still said to him that she appreciated the idea. "There is a lot of weight here that we do not need or want. Hold these two legs and pull him onto his back for me." He watched her make the incisions to pull back a little of the hide -- enough for what she had in mind, anyway, and then he watched even more carefully as she deftly gutted the animal and rubbed the inside with snow. Drene was impressed, as was Sheth. They both saw the way that, despite what she'd said, it was clear that Yuan had no trouble with the weight of the large ram. As she worked, Yuan caught glimpses of them and saw their hopeful glances to each other. She tried not to smile to herself. She knew that one was a male now, and she told herself to be very careful not to trample on his feelings for the way that he was small. To her, they were both so lovely. She got the sense of how he was, and it was only the politeness of what they were which prevented her from gushing to them that she wanted to mate with them both so very much. If she'd seen one, for the chance to bed these two, she'd have brought them an ox. After a bit of a careful look at the two of them, she remembered what her mother had taught her and she removed the heart and liver, offering the tender parts to the two in her outstretched palms. Drene looked at the heart and Sheth stared at the liver a little, until he caught Drene's glance. Then he stepped up quickly and Yuan was pleasantly surprised to see them both eat from her hands. Making the offering had been a bit of a hopeful gesture on Yuan's part and she paid close attention to their individual responses. In essence, Yuan's offering told them that it was her sincere and very polite wish that they might like each other enough to share their bodies soon and mate -- at least in the social way of dragons who have just met and like each other enough for it -- even after five minutes. Dragons were rare, and chance meetings were even more so. An opportunity for a little love and the possibility of breeding was difficult to resist in this time of their decline. One never knew if there would ever be another chance at all. Drene ate what she'd been offered gently and carefully, holding Yuan's hand and then licking it as her way of saying that she understood and wished the same thing. Sheth brought his face to the offering slowly and looked at Yuan's face in a slightly worried way for a moment, but once he held her hand, he ate hungrily and licked mostly between her fingers. But after a moment where hs looked into Yuan's eyes, he made his statement when he took one of her fingers into his mouth and sucked for a brief moment. From that, Yuan felt wonderful. Not only were these gestures common between them, she felt that, for the first time since she'd been on her own, she was among others of her kind and could act accordingly -- as a dragon among dragons, not having to fear a misstep or a misinterpreted mannerism. She only had to be careful for Sheth's feelings, she thought. He had to be feeling uncertain and as vulnerable as the shyest dragon maiden. She knew the feeling. Yuan had been there. She washed her hands with snow, scrubbing carefully, and then she stood up, amazing Sheth by hefting her pack in one hand and the ram's carcass by taking two hocks in her grip and carrying it with the other. They talked continually as they prepared the meal with Yuan arranging the fire so that the meat could be cooked best. All of them learned much, especially Yuan as she heard about the way that they'd been brought here. Not even dragons were safe, it seemed. Though they lounged together as they ate in a seemingly careless way, they had all positioned themselves so that the others could get a look at their bodies, and she noted the way that these two kept trying -- with an almost comical lack of success -- to keep their eyes from running over her body and locking onto the white pattern which she wore between her legs and displayed to them a little casually as she rested on her side with one knee up. She'd made it worse as she laid herself down by tossing her long hair over her shoulder before she began to eat, and they had a fine view of her finely scaled dark breasts and skin. She was having a little trouble herself -- and there were two of them for her to gaze at. They were both thin, and Yuan really liked that as she tried not to think about those sweet-looking nipples on Drene, and her gaze slid down to that soft little cleft that she could just make out in the soft fur that she had. She was sure that if she looked there long enough, she'd be able to clearly see what she thought was a little wetness already glistening for her there, but it would have been rude to look for that long. It was a nice thought to her as she thought of herself as either female or male and kissing that throat as she held that fine little body against hers. Yuan looked from her to Sheth, but there was no respite for her from her slowly rising lust there. For a dragon boy, he didn't have all that much out of the ordinary, and she knew that because he was already more than a little erect from looking at her, so she knew that he liked what he saw. But there was something here that Sheth was missing because well, he was trapped into feeling rather inadequate. He liked the male that he'd seen, but he'd had only Drene's comments to judge himself by and he doubted that this changeable one would be much interested in him as a male. But that was where he was a little mistaken and Yuan knew it. He wasn't huge, it was true. But then with all of her complicated plumbing, Yuan wasn't large as a female either. There wasn't the room for it. More importantly, Yuan liked what he had very much. She already knew that she just had to get him to see that she thought that he was what she needed - in both ways. And she did like what he had, as she thought that compared to the humans that she'd lain with, he had nothing to feel ashamed about from that view. She'd been thinking as a female, but then her male side cast its vote as well and she thought of how it would feel to have him in her mouth, filling her there and then using her slick tongue on him in a place that she was a little thankful that she couldn't see from where she was. In only another moment, she could see herself in her larger shape, working her hard shaft in and out of the delicious-looking openings that she'd seen on either of these two when they were flying together. Even as they were now, the thought of sliding in between those firm haunches and holding on to those slim hips almost brought her clitoris out of its hood, and she knew what it would turn into if she kept this up for much longer. She looked down in an attempt to concentrate on her meal. She looked up from her meal into Sheth's eyes a little later seeing that he wanted her attention and since he seemed to be quite shy in some ways, and she wanted to encourage him. "Forgive me, "he said politely, "but I can see that you are more than one spirit -- and more than only one inside of you. Drene and I are both of two spirits ourselves, but you are different even from us." Yuan nodded, "I am two creatures inside of me, and I can be either one. I have this shape as a third way to be and live." She smiled with a shrug, "I guess that I am a bit of everything." She mentioned the way that she'd been brought up and what had happened to her since she'd left her home. Sheth smiled, "I thought that your wondrous eyes looked a little familiar. So there are Tarkroth here?" "Yes," Yuan nodded, "the last two anywhere; maybe a little under an hour west. Now that I remember, there is one of their dead witches here as well, the mother of the female. I can show you if you'd like, but I will not go there again -- at least for a while." Drene sensed the pain that came from Yuan and tried to shift the topic a little, but Sheth said that he'd like to see at least one Tarkroth once more. "Let Yuan rest her wings, Sheth," she said, "Since we have been here, we haven't traveled very far at all, and our friend has gone far." Dragons love to converse with their kind and Yuan was pleased to get out her mother's map. The distance astounded the pair so she told of the wind that she'd used, and that began discussions on how it could be done. The discussions continued after the meal was finished and by then, it was past dark and a trip to the opening showed them all that this night was one of the coldest that the pair of dragons had seen. One could hear the creak of everything in the stillness out there, from dry leaves rustling a little to trees groaning. They were separated from that world by the fog of the warm and wet air meeting the bitter cold air outside. They went back inside. "I feel pity for everything which must be outside tonight," Drene said, "but we are warm and have full bellies because of you, Yuan. You are among friends this night." "I am so happy to have been found by such a pair," Yuan bowed to show her thanks for the compliment. "I thought that my ancient home was a little odd after I was grown," she said as she led them to the pool, "It was a temple and a village -- all built into a cliff on a low mountain by a river. I am the last, but the dragons lived on the upper floor, so it was at least a little like an eyrie. My mother told me that most dragons live far up so that nothing can reach them." "Yuan," Drene said, "where we are from, we lived with others in an ice cave high in the mountains. Sheth's teacher and my own - they each lived in eyries on a mountain. Nothing saved any of them from the lowlanders. I was hurt when we came. Sheth found his place while I wander more than he does and we are happy here. We hated each other for years because of the foolishness of our teachers -- we were just too young to know better. Here, we stopped being enemies. It is always a little pleasant in the valley -- except for tonight and we have water," she said as they all stood together in the pool to get a little used to the warmth of the water which reached to mid-thigh on Drene, and barely knee-high on Yuan and Sheth. "There is always game to hunt in these valleys," Sheth added. Yuan nodded, "And it is so beautiful here. I have never seen something like this," she said, noticing the way that their skins had begun to shimmer a little again. "What is that?" Yuan asked, "I saw this on you both outside earlier." Drene was surprised, "You have not seen something like this before?" They were surprised when Yuan shook her head. "I cannot do this -- I don't think, anyway," she said with a shrug. The pair looked at each other and laughed a little. "We wondered why you did not respond," Sheth chuckled, "Males usually light up the sky, well, from what I have seen of our kind. You are a little different from us and we like it. When we flew together, I could not remember ever seeing one so large as you." Yuan tried not to stare, "Large? I have only ever seen one other living one of my kind, and she was my mother. She was much larger than I am. As I said, I began as a human, and I know that you have not seen one of them, but my mother put her smallest living egg in me. It was the only living one which would fit, and she said that it was better for me to be smaller in this age. She said that quickness counted for more than size now -- a mistake that her kind had often made to their regret. I have seen the graveyard near to where I am from. From the single skull which was shown to me, I am truly small. The span of my wings would not cover one of my mother's wings. My shape when I am large is different from what hers was like. The way that I am now is much closer, though I am smaller." The pair were astonished, "I am right for a female," Drene said, "To us, you are large and very nice to see. You would be as the equal to the largest that we knew, when they all lived, maybe a little larger. But if we were there now and all of them were still alive, we would have trouble finding mates for us, Sheth and I." "We are shamans," Sheth explained, "It happens sometimes that some shamans among us are, ... like us," he said, looking down, not finding it in himself to go much further. "It is the way that we fit with the world around us -- or the one which was around us, once," he said, his colors fading. "Please, Sheth," Yuan said, not wanting him to feel badly -- as he seemed to appear to be beginning to, "I like to see this on you both. Do not stop. I have never seen such beauty. But what does it mean? I know that we are different, so I wish to understand. "We are hopeful to mate with you," Drene smiled warmly, "This is the way that females show their desire to the one that they want where we came from. I am a female as you can see, though I am sometimes as a male inside me in my wants. Sheth will feel a little shamed now, but I like him, so I will speak for him. I am sure that you have seen anyway, but he is a male who does not think that he is much of one, and inside him, he is a female. It is a little confusing maybe, but I want a male and sometimes I want a female. Sheth is the same; he wants a female sometimes, and mostly, he would want another male." From the other side of the pool, Sheth sat looking down a little. He'd been so taken with Yuan's beauty and up til now had thought that what he really wanted was to mate with her -- in any way that it might work, but he felt that leaving him now. Now wanted he to strangle Drene for the way that she just couldn't seem to shut up. He didn't care if she chattered in her inane way, as long as she didn't use him as something else to chatter about. Drene chuckled down low in her throat and shrugged, "Because of what we are, Sheth and I have accepted each other. We do not live together, but meet occasionally. We know that where we are from, many would not want either of us. That makes it even harder to find a mate where we came from. I have often thought that if we had not been raised to be enemies, we might still have come to be together, since we would likely not find another for us. But here, though he has often said that he wanted to pair with me, and I do like him, I am always feeling unsettled and hopeful to find one to settle down with." Sheth sat pretending not to hear Drene. He noticed that she'd left out one key word in her last statement. Better. That was the word. She was always hopeful to find a better one to settle down with. "What about the male demon that I have seen you with?" Sheth asked, trying not to sound petty. "That one is fine to fuck with, Sheth, but he is not around very often," Drene said, "I am more hopeful about our new neighbor." "The demon is fine," he nodded, "but I think that you are only now discovering the problem. He never says it, but he always seeks another pair of thighs -- much as you do. I was with him for a time, but then I realized that it wasn't what I wanted for myself, as much as he told me that I was the one for him. I came to sense that he has attachments, such as someone else somewhere, so I broke it off, though I was desperate to have him." He carefully left out the part where he'd spent almost a week in tears over it, but he knew that he'd done the right thing as much as he was damning himself to do it. "Well there is always my Sheth," Drene smiled, but she stopped there, noticing the look in his eyes which told her that there wasn't always Sheth. He'd decided right then that he was done with her just for making her assumption. He'd been hurt before by her, but now Sheth was angry, though in the way of dragons, he hid it well. She just knew him well enough to know that she'd just said something that he'd resent. She shrugged mentally. It wasn't as though they were a pair or anything. She was even more glad that they weren't now. If she'd paired with him and this beautiful creature had appeared, she knew what she'd have done anyway. Yuan reached to place her hand on Sheth's shoulder, "You seem to be a little stuck on size. Remember what I said, on this world, to be a large one is to lead a harder life. Everyone wants you dead, and a large body needs large food. I think, from what you told in your tale, that perhaps it was not a bad thing for you to have been raised as enemies, because in the end, it caused you both not to be there when the end came to your kind. If you were still there, sooner or later, the same killers would come for you. Here you have a chance." Sheth nodded, "A chance at a lonely life, but at least it is still living. You are the only Wotroth that we have seen here, and from what you say, there are likely no others. We have been lucky to have made what we have together out of our hate, though we see each other seldom." Yuan laughed softly, "And I am lucky to have been found by you, if you wish to mate with me." Sheth couldn't help it, he stared at Yuan since she'd looked at them both as she'd said it, "You -- you want us both? Even, ... me?" Yuan felt very hopeful, and yet she knew that she was standing very close to being on eggshells here. She could see that his feeling were so fragile. She nodded with a warm smile, "Of course I would. Sheth, look at me. I am stuck with two natures. One might think that it was a blessing, but I have found that it is more of a curse, for beside the ability to be more than one thing -- or maybe more correctly to be one at a time, I am only one creature with two natures, and no more opportunities to sate them than if I had only one. I want to mate with you both." She smiled a little shyly at Sheth, "I am sure that I can please Drene, and maybe, I can please sweet Sheth as well." He looked down for a moment, and Yuan found herself falling for him and the way that he looked so lost and sweet to her. If he'd been human, she knew that right now, he'd be blushing like a maid. A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 34 "What would you wish for? Surely between us, we have what you would like," he said beginning to feel a little less uncertain. "You make us sound like merchants," Drene laughed. "What I would wish for is to belong," Yuan said, "A place, somewhere that I can live as the right thing for wherever it is. I wish for others who care for me to be there. It is the flaw in me. From what you say, Wotroths are things which like others of their kind -- at least a few - to be near to them." Sheth nodded, "Yes. We can live alone, but usually near where there are others." "That is not the way that I was taught that the dragons here were like," Yuan said as she looked down in thought, "Most of them lived alone, and only sought another to mate with, mostly. I have never read about a pair who mated and stayed together to raise their young ones between them. Where I am from, there were as many as eight in the place, and yet unless there was the great need which caused us to make agreements with the humans to protect them long ago, those eight only lived there, each to his or her rooms, rarely speaking. My mother was the last there, and as far as I know, the last anywhere until she made me. But inside me, I am also something else, and that kind needs others to be near and to live with. All that it brings to me is hardship and loneliness. My mother knew this would come to me, and so she sought to have me learn, so that I might have the best chance to find someone." She looked at Sheth, "I can be a female or a male -- since I am both inside me, but as two different creatures." She looked down again, "I have learned to love with males and females in either way, but all of them were humans who did not know what I am and I did not mate with them as the large dragon. They were blindfolded and could not see me in the darkness. I have never had a lover who was what we are. I have never had a lover who made love to me, so, ... I have never had a lover, really, and I have never belonged. I tried with the Tarkroth, but, ... I am not what was wanted." She sat down in the pool and sighed in pleasure. The others joined her and Yuan sat looking at them and feeling ... surprisingly good over it. "We wish to mate with you now more than ever," Drene laughed as she reached to hug Yuan, and in a moment, Yuan had both of them around her neck. "I think that you can have what you want," Sheth smiled, "We do not know each other well yet, but then, Drene and I hated each other for years before we truly met -- I think that we have time to learn about you. You might even like us." "I like you now," Yuan whispered as she kissed first one and then the other, "I liked you from my first sight of you in the air, and even more as we talk. I cannot imagine that either of you would have much trouble finding mates where you are from. They must have all been blind fools there, but I am not blind, and I am not foolish enough to not want something like this." Yuan saw Drene's shoulder move a little and she felt the first of her caresses under the water and her body responded, causing Drene's eyes to widen. "You are as a male like this," she gasped and kissed Yuan, moving so that her cheek was against Yuan's and she whispered into her ear, "Please Yuan, forget Sheth. I can please you so much better. He does not even know what he is, much less what it is that he wants." Yuan ignored her and reached for Sheth, "Come and let me love you, Sheth." She smiled and lowered her knees under the water as he moved forward tentatively, looking so torn between wanting and being a little afraid. "I do not know what to do," he said. "Then let me guide this," Yuan smiled, as she pulled him to her, "Kneel over my legs and hug me." In only seconds as she kissed him gently, she felt him stirring against her, but he still looked uncertain. "You are larger than me," he said, meaning the hardness that he pressed himself against, "I am a little afraid that it will hurt." "First," Yuan said, "I have no wish to hurt you. I think that the best thing for now would be for you to be what you were born as, right here on me." He blinked in surprise, "Why?" Yuan kissed him for a moment and sighed into his ear, "Because I want you as much as you want me. I was once the one who was taken by a male in the same place that you want it so much, so I know that you must want it there very much or it will hurt, and you must allow it. This is your first time, and you are afraid. If you stay afraid, then it will hurt, so there is no point. But as the pretty one that I flew with, you have a larger place for me. I think that I might find a little room inside you and it will not hurt then. There will not be as much room for me as with Drene, I am sure, because you have something there which she does not, but it should be good for you, and if you like it with me and feel a little more comfortable, then change back to this right then a little slowly and we would already be together." He smiled very hopefully after a moment and Drene laughed a little at the way that he moved to try it. He didn't change right away, wanting to rub against Yuan a little first and the two of them sighed to each other as he did it with his arms around her neck and her hands holding him. Then Yuan felt the shift and she smiled to feel his body change. He reached down and took her shaft in his hand to position it and in a moment, he was sliding slowly down onto it with a groan and in another moment, they were copulating slowly. "How, did, ... " he sighed as he felt her hardness sliding against his own in the tight channel of his single opening in this shape, "you , ... kn- ohhh?" Yuan held him tightly and didn't reply instantly as she felt him tighten something and it caused her to gasp. She raised one hand to caress his long snout next to her head. "I didn't know," she sighed, "I had the thought. If it was Drene on me here now, I would be in the same place, but she is a little different." She held his face in both of her hands and grinned at him, her face almost halfway down his snout, "We are the same things, beautiful Sheth, even now. Why can't we fuck together like this as well? Like this, you get a better chance for your first time, and I have such a wonderful one to mate with. Hold still for a moment." He stopped and Yuan reached down on a hunch. She'd felt just the tip of his penis as it protruded from his cloaca, so she teased it very gently and Sheth responded with a small cry of joy -- which was nice -- just before he tightened that something inside himself -- which was better than nice, and they stayed like this for a little while. Staying still caused them to make little noise, other than their sighs to each other, but they noticed the noises that Drene was making then. Yuan looked and laughed a little. The female was lying on her side watching them through lidded eyes with one leg up as she frigged herself. She didn't stop as they looked, she only encouraged them. "Go on, "she hissed through her teeth, "You are so good to see together like this. Oh, I am so happy that Sheth finally has a male inside him. I have always felt a little guilty." He looked at Yuan and he stopped then, "I think I am ready," he said, and lifting himself, he got off Yuan to allow her to find their next step. She got out of the pool and Sheth stared at what she had as it hung and throbbed a little. Drene laughed softly. "Are you surprised at what you had inside you, Sheth? I have always said you are like me in this way. Between us as I said to you today, to this one, we are both females." Yuan laughed softly, "I am a male now, Drene, but I can be more. Just wait." She looked at Sheth, "Do you want to stay as we were, or do you wish for more?" He looked so much like a bashful maiden that Yuan felt her heart swell. "I think that I want more, Yuan. It was so good." Yuan held her shaft and rubbed it a little, "Then stay like this and let me lie down so that you can get on again. This way, you can decide what you want and not leave it to me." He nodded, though it really wasn't what he'd been thinking of, and then he groaned again as he slid down onto her again. After a few minutes, she asked him to stop. "Now," Yuan smiled up at him, "if you are still ready and hopeful for more, Sheth, then hold yourself still and slowly change back -- but be ready to move a little. I will be in another place if this works which is not there now. You will need to be ready to move ahead a little as you change, so slowly, Sheth, very slowly now." He nodded, and began to do as she'd said. At several points, he froze and gasped, but at last he held himself rigid over her, biting his lip a little and not daring to move. He tried to concentrate on relaxing, and it worked, a little at a time. "So, ... so full," he moaned after a minute, "So good." Drene moved then, almost throwing herself alongside the pair. She began to rub herself almost feverishly. "So good to watch," she moaned, "I see two beautiful males loving in front of me. I never thought that such a thing was so good to see." Sheth wondered about Drene now. They'd known each other for a long time on two worlds. Back home, he'd known her to be a canny and crafty adversary, coldly intelligent and cruel - so evenly and diametrically opposite to him that she was evenly matched to him. What the hell had happened to the mind that he knew and admired? He wondered why he'd never noticed that as Drene's excitement grew, her intelligence seemed to shrink. He decided that he needed to begin then, and with cautious little movements, he did. Before long, he was looking down at Yuan and smiling through glassy eyes in his rapture. Drene moved over and she kissed Yuan softly, "Look at him, Yuan. He is falling in love with you for this and I am already there for what you do for him." If Sheth heard her, he made no sign of it. He only began to go faster a little at a time. "Yuan!" He cried out, "Can you finish like this?" Yuan nodded, "Of course. But I wish for you to finish when you can. This is for you. I take my pleasure as well, but this is for you to enjoy me." There must have been something in the words of what she'd said, because Sheth leaned forward a little, enough to place his hands on Yuan and he began to thrust then, calling out her name and when he opened his eyes, he saw Yuan writhing a little in her own pleasure. After that, he seemed to become a little wild and he bucked furiously, losing the rhythm several times and falling out of sync with Yuan's movements. Drene looked and saw the way that Sheth's cock was standing out rigidly, waving around from his motions. It looked so stiff that she thought that it must hurt him, and she began to reach for it to give him his release, but Yuan stopped her. "Please," she sighed as she looked into Drene's eyes, "You are also a female. Think with that heart now. He aches to touch it himself, but he does not. If he is a female inside him right now, he wants me to drive him there so that he can feel that he was taken and he will feel complete then. I would want this if it were me. Let him have more joy feeling that it was done the right way." Drene nodded to her and they both watched Sheth as he neared his own cliff. A minute more where he fucked himself on Yuan frantically, and he threw his head back, crying out and in that cry, there were elements of both a deep sob and laughter at the same time, and then - as he pressed down on Yuan as hard as he could and wriggled as he reached the bottom, his seed began to spurt from him. It shot out as he continued to call out and it hit both of the others. Before the first of it had landed, Yuan grunted and cried out herself as she grabbed Sheth's hips and pulled him down as she thrust into him. They held on like this for a moment as Yuan quivered and Sheth whimpered softly, feeling none of the seed that she filled him with, but loving the way that he felt her contractions into him. As he slowed to a stop, he looked down at Yuan to see her looking up with a soft smile, not seeming to notice the way that Drene sought his semen hungrily, licking what she could from wherever she could find it. When he'd managed to lift himself from Yuan slowly, Drene was all over Yuan a few seconds later. "I know that you are probably a very fine lover for me as well," she gushed, "but for what you have done for Sheth, you may have me any time in any way that you wish, Yuan. He will not say it, but please stay and be his mate and mine." Yuan would have asked Sheth if Drene was always this stupid in her comments, but she'd been raised better. She had a thought that if this went on, Drene had better be worth the effort. She was having thoughts of looking for something to gag her with. Yuan picked herself up a little wearily for the moment. "Be careful, Drene," she laughed politely, "We are only just starting, and you do not know me well yet. I feel as though I have found something like the place that I have longed for. I need no temptation like this. I might say yes too soon." She didn't show it, but Yuan was getting a sense of Drene in this. She was very much an in-the-moment sort of person and Yuan knew then that there would be nothing lasting between her and Drene. They went back to the pool to soak and wash each other. Yuan got there first, and Drene took a little while longer to see if Sheth needed any help, though he didn't. Yuan laughed a little, "I enjoy the way that you fuss over Sheth. He is not so fragile, and needs no mothering, but he allows this as though he does and you are so sweet in your concern for him." "I can't help it," Drene said with a shrug as they sat in the pool together, with her arms around him from behind as he rested. Sheth looked happy, but he also looked as though he really didn't need Drene to fuss over him. He knew that her feelings changed quickly. Drene had a thought and asked over her shoulder, "Do you want to love me now Yuan?" The voice that they heard in reply was a little different. It was softer, smaller, and it sounded hopeful, but uncertain at the same time. "I have given myself to Sheth and it was a joy to do it for him. Now, I ask for myself. I have the same want in me that he had -- to finally have someone make love to me. I ache just as Sheth did. I want to be loved. I want to have lovers. Please, ..." They turned and stared. Yuan had lifted herself from the water and now reclined on the warm stone of the other side, a very beautiful female. Her changeable clitoris had retracted and she made no attempt to hide the fine scales on her pubic area -- the ones bearing the same pattern as she wore on her back. What she'd really wanted to do was to show them her human shape, but she'd decided against it. That was now what she'd only show to one who was worth more than a quick mating in a cave. "This is the side of me that you have not seen before," she said with a hint of her vulnerability showing through, a lovely dragon girl who spoke of her want to have someone make love to her. They fell on her and began. They were so very gentle as the kissed her, sharing her mouth between them as they caressed her body, but after a time, their kisses became more insistent and it was more of a taking of her, though it was not violent, never violent, One would seize her head and take her willing mouth as she groaned, and then the other took a turn. Yuan was passive at first, but she began to writhe on the floor beneath them and whenever she had the chance for it, she sucked their tongues as though her life depended on it. Drene moved down and kissed her way along so very gently, amazed at having the chance at this loveliness, but when she reached those soft scales, she planted only a very few soft and loving kisses before her want overcame her and she forced Yuan's knees up and spread the long legs wide. She nuzzled there for a long moment, breathing in the sweet scent and rubbing her face in it before she was back to taking, because for the first time in her adult life, Drene had a willing female for her pleasure. As she began to lick and suck those lips, amazed at the feel of the tiny scales, she went to town as Yuan bucked against her face. Sheth sensed that Yuan needed room to breathe, so he pulled back and watched for a moment as Yuan's head lolled back and forth. The little cries and whimpers which came out of her were breaking his heart in joy and he suddenly couldn't keep his hands from Yuan's breasts. She responded to his touch with gasps and by arching her back and she came in only moments crying out their names in a needful tone. When she fell still, Drene gave her little time to reflect on things as she swiveled herself around and reached to pull Yuan's leg up so that she could jam her vulva against Yuan's. Yuan lifted her head to look, but Drene was already beginning to grind herself into Yuan's soft little scales and Yuan's head went back down as she writhed weakly. Drene pressed harder and whipped her back a little, thrilling to hear Yuan's gasped response. She was on her elbows looking when she grabbed one of Yuan's long and pretty legs to hold onto so that there would be no respite or relief. She needed Yuan now and she just took what she had to. When she got close, she pulled Yuan's leg even more, grinding and sliding their slick lips together. Sheth knelt as he watched in amazement. This was so unlike the Drene that he knew and he guessed that she needed this, just as he had needed what Yuan had done for him. Drene threw her head back and yelled as she bucked. Yuan only whimpered and moaned. As the feeling began to pass, Drene sat up and grabbed Yuan. She looked into the startled eyes and she kissed her hard, and as soon as she let up for an instant, she felt Yuan's tongue, lifting hers from underneath, and when she went along with the gentle coaxing, and brought her tongue forward, Yuan sucked it right past her own lips so that she could fellate it hungrily to show that she wanted more. "Show me that you love me now," she commanded as she laid back a little and took Yuan's hair in her hands, "Lick me, Yuan. You beautiful sweet thing, I am falling. Lick me now!" Yuan didn't say anything, she only nodded and she began to lower her head, but it was too slowly for Drene's want, and she jammed Yuan's face against her and began to buck as soon as Yuan's soft lips touched her. Sheth saw the wetness of Yuan's thighs and he seized her hip, pulling her onto her knees and in a moment Yuan cried out in surprise as he mounted her. She was already moaning, lost in the pleasure of licking Drene's clitoris so gently in spite of the pressure of Drene's hands on her head. She loved how it felt to have her hair pulled a little so that she had little choice, and now to have Sheth in her, mounting her as though he owned her. Yuan came in seconds. Neither of them stopped at all. In fact, they became even more insistent and Sheth took hold of her hips and fucked her as hard as he could. She would have wanted to stop at this point, since she often became too tender right after something such as this, but it was clear that neither of them had thought of it. Yuan didn't mind that much, she was thinking of the final act of this. Afterward, they each had her one after the other. Sheth leaned back on a round stone sticking up out of the floor, and he held Yuan's head as she fellated him while Drene fucked her with two fingers. But as it went on, they became more gentle, until at last, Yuan lay flat on her back, with both of them making soft love to her alternately. Finally, they stopped and lay beside her, actually asleep. Yuan looked at the ceiling, listening to her heart, and feeling the semen that Sheth had left her with the last time as it ran out of her. She was happy, tremendously so. She was covered in Sheth's semen, and her face was glazed with Drene's juices, and she'd absolutely worn out her two lovers -- who had been a little forceful. A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 34 It had to be said, they'd been forceful, but it had been exactly what she'd wanted and near the end, they'd shown their hearts to her. They weren't exactly what she wanted, but it had been wonderful with them, and she hoped that Sheth would stay. She doubted that Drene would for all of the ridiculous mating talk that came out of her. She rested and remembered what they'd done to please her as they'd pleased themselves. When her heart and breathing had slowed, and she'd run through it all in her mind, she got up to do the last thing which was required. Oh, it might not have been required by them -- or maybe they'd just forgotten it. But Yuan hadn't. His loud call woke them both at once and the pair of Wotroth looked up to see a male -- a large and powerful, fine-looking dragon male looking down at them with his clear intent written plainly on him from his long face down over his heavy chest as he leaned forward on his wings. His posture just drew their eyes naturally, and the message was clear, right down to what hung twitching, heavy and wet underneath him. What had begun as a barely-living, tiny dragon's egg in her chest was now a magnificent male. And that male now wanted his. They looked at each other and Sheth was surprised to see exactly the same fearful trepidation that he felt in the face of Drene. In what was a reflex to them, they both assumed their natural shapes, a pair of young and nervous Wotroth chattering quietly. The male stepped forward and stretched out his long neck to caress Drene's throat in a bit of a tender gesture, but she backed away a little, pulling back her head to hiss out her nervous and empty warning. The male looked at her and tried again. This time, she roared at him shrilly and tried to back further away, but there was only Sheth behind her -- and he was already backed up against the wall. The male's head withdrew, but he was only inhaling her scent as he gathered his breath. She may have been telling him to leave her alone, but her body was betraying her in large measure. From where he stood, he could see clearly along the line of her beautiful underside to the mound of her softly glistening opening, and that wasn't just wet for him. She was dripping in her want of him. Drene was just nervous enough to surprise herself. She'd wanted something such as this forever, but though she let Sheth fuck her as much as they both wanted whenever she'd thought to visit him, he'd never done something like this -- given her such a display of masculine power, but holding back for a time. Sooner or later, they all knew what would happen here. She took a hurried breath and intended to go to him, but even still she dragged her feet. It was one thing to say that you wanted a male like this. It was even all well and good to tell yourself how much you wanted it. It was another thing altogether to realize that, no matter what you'd said or wanted or even played at doing it with your small and gentle male, the real thing stood there waiting, and he wouldn't wait for much longer. She moved slowly with her head down, looking meek and reluctant, but that changed when the male threw his head forward and roared his impatience. She almost jumped as she came to him, still looking shy, but when she looked up, she saw that he was pleased and that despite the noise, he cared. It might have been correct, but she was mistaken. He wanted to mate with her, but he already knew enough that he didn't want her for much more than that. It was still Yuan, and Yuan wasn't stupid. Drene could cry out her love that she might be feeling at the moment, but from what Yuan already felt, this was nothing more than a fuck. As a male, Yuan intended it to be perhaps the fuck of her life, but knew that to her Yuan wasn't more than the male of the moment no matter what. He knew enough. Drene was always hopeful of the bigger and better male who might be just around the next corner. It was why she sought out demons. There weren't any dragons other than Sheth and now Yuan. A need didn't have to make sense. She reached up and held Yuan's neck with her hands as this large male that Yuan now was reached to hold her. As their long necks slid against each other, she knew that there were males of this size who would have been almost as pleased to kill her and fuck her afterward, just before they ate her in the literal sense. But this one wasn't like that, he just wanted to mate with a female who he cared for. She let go of him then and sank to her knees after turning herself away from him. She felt his snout under her there and the long heat of his tongue. Drene glanced at the flickering shadows being cast on the cavern wall and she groaned as she saw her shadow in front of the much larger male and the way that his neck was craned down behind her. She could see the shadow of his incredibly long tongue sliding out of his mouth and under her, seeking her wetness and finding it. She saw and felt it as it slid into her. Drene chattered her pleasure for a few moments, thankful for the way that her body responded with new waves of fluids, since plainly, she was going to need them. She could also see the shadow of what waited to claim her and she moaned until he stopped and she saw the immense shadow of his body as he moved forward to take her. That long warm thing of his nudged her, his few tastes of her giving him the need and making him harden fully. She felt it when the point found her opening and slid right by, but she knew that it would be back in a second. And there it was, right at her little place. This time, it stayed, and she pressed back just a little to tell him that she wanted him. She bent her neck to look underneath herself and she saw it; long, thick, pink and angry-looking as it searched a little more for the gateway. When the tip was inside her, she raised her head to tell him that she loved him and that she wanted him with her soft hisses, and she found his neck twining a little with hers as it pressed her neck back to rest in the place where his neck met his wings. He was sliding in. The thought came to her that no matter what she'd done before, she was a mature female in this. They weren't the same thing exactly, but they were very nearly so, and she was the right size for a female to a magnificent male such as this, and if that was so, then it ought to fit. Shouldn't it? He slid the rest of the way inside her in one long and slightly slow thrust while Drene thought that her legs would fail her for the way that it felt inside her. She had just enough room for him -- just enough. He pressed there for a time to be sure that she could feel him there, not hurting her, just holding himself so that she was full ... just, ... Making her want to melt, feeling that he was long enough for this and so warm and thick inside her. She relaxed her neck and found that he held it with his as they looked into each other's eyes. What she saw was a lot of feeling in him, and tenderness in the way that he'd taken her, but there was something else for her to see in his eyes. She blinked a few times as she groaned, and then it became clear to her. It was his confidence. He knew now that he had her. She felt it as his arms held her. He wouldn't let her go until this was done, and more, she saw that he intended to fuck her well. She hissed as she felt his first strokes, slow and thick in and out of her. He made her feel so small and yet, she felt like the finest female in the world as he did it. Drene pressed herself back to meet his thrusts, and she called out her love and he roared his own lust out of him as he began to go faster, harder and harder still. Yuan knew that there was no more depth to be had there and it was risking pain to Drene if he give her everything as hard as she seemed to want. It was a little difficult to do -- this not jamming in all the way, but dragons love to gather ammunition for their arguments in logic and this was what Yuan was doing, even as they copulated. Drene looked at it a little differently. She was amazed. Yuan knew! Yuan knew exactly how far in to go. She'd never had a male in her where she was from, but from what she knew, few were this big and none of them gave a shit about the female's comfort and where she was in this. He knew what he was doing, this one, she thought as she screeched at the way that he did it. It wasn't to hurt her; it was to make her want everything. And she did. She screeched and shrieked and bucked. She thought that her wings would collapse from holding her up, but they didn't -- because he was holding her to himself. She wailed shrilly -- almost as a whistle as she realized that his thrusts were lifting her feet from the ground because he was helping to do that with his hands, and it came to her that she could get him a little deeper so that his wonderful prong could spread her even more in that gentle way if she could, ... just get, ... her little feet up and, ... Sheth stared. Yuan was holding Drene's weight completely. She wasn't even touching the ground at all. He saw Drene's legs stretched out almost straight sideways as Yuan fucked her -- and he could hear it as she pleaded with Yuan to do it harder, faster. And he did, though then, it was never to the end of her. Yuan was also a female, and she knew that Drene just wanted everything. This nudging so gently took a lot of concentration and it also took away from the pleasure because care was required. Drene's head was raised and her long mouth was open next to Yuan's and their tongues slid over each other and -- Her eyes were closed. But they reached their end after a few more minutes of it and her eyes remained closed, squeezed tightly shut as she roared out her love and Yuan roared back. When they froze, Sheth watched as he filled her. He had a perfect view. He could see them there, locked together in that timeless moment. Drene's eyes were closed and her mouth was open. She didn't even appear to be breathing as she trembled in his grasp and time seemed to stop somehow. The full rush of the male's release came then and he roared out in his triumph so that Sheth's ears rang. The sound died away and Sheth watched Drene's legs tremble and twitch, speared by that thing inside her, Yuan nudged the end of her very carefully and then held herself against Drene and she had the feeling that she'd tried to avoid, and yet had wanted. She didn't know how Yuan had been able to do it -- touch her there and not cause discomfort, press there and only make her ache to be his even more. She wanted to scream again, but found that she could only make a very small sound. Yuan still wasn't hurting her. Sheth heard their breathing then and he heard something else as well. He looked underneath her and he saw that, just like his own, this male's seed would run out of her later, but more than that -- he was filling her so much that it ran out of her while he was still inside of her. Seeing something like that did nothing for his feelings of inadequacy. Yuan eased her down in a few moments and Drene groaned as her hips complained a little to move her legs down. She stood on her feet and wings blinking underneath the male and she felt Yuan's arms around her and then Yuan's head came down to slide against her long neck and she felt the cheek against her breast, so she lowered her head against Yuan's. Sheth saw it and groaned a little. It was something that he longed to feel. They parted then, Drene waddling a little as she came to where Sheth sat. She couldn't help it. She felt so different now. She'd never been so full before. Yuan's shaft was gone now, but she still felt as though it was inside her, and she also felt a little regret that it no longer was. Sheth watched her as she passed by him, hearing the happy noises that she made and the way that she told Sheth that she still loved him and would always want him. Sheth didn't believe her at all. Drene was happy; that was all that this was. She always said this nonsense after fucking. It lasted less than three minutes if he was lucky -- and he hadn't been involved in this. Why she felt that she had to tell him this shit was beyond him. He hadn't notice that the male had moved. Not until he felt the warm breath against him, low down against his back. He would have jumped and scuttled off nervously, but that tongue against his cloaca ... He heard soft and low chattering behind him and he raised his head and looked back to see. He thought that he ought to feel frightened, but he ... just didn't. He answered with similar sounds and when Yuan pulled her head away, Sheth turned and approached the male who wanted him. He was slow and shy about it, but he showed that he wouldn't need to be roared at. As he came near, he reached up and wrapped his thin arms around that great neck and his wings followed. It felt so good to Sheth to be wanted, and he hoped that by meeting the male's desire, he might be taken gently. He chattered softly as he looked up into those eyes, and he thrilled to see the want for him in them. He pulled himself up and his feet left the ground to hang, but then the male raised up a little and Sheth felt that hard thing against him and was amazed that it hadn't softened. He felt the large hands on his hips as he was moved a little and he allowed it by holding on a little less tightly until the tip of that hard shaft was against his opening. His own organ protruded a little and when they touched, both creatures groaned quietly. All that Sheth knew was that he wanted this now, more than anything and his small feet wiggled in the air, trying to find something, some sort of traction which he might use to get them together better. But the hands managed it and he whimpered to feel himself being penetrated fully. His eyes were closed in quiet joy and he was happy that there had been no pain at all. He'd been prepared to struggle against any discomfort, trying to get past it, but in this natural shape, there was room for this. His eyes opened in shock when he felt himself being moved slowly and instead of his small prong being pressed in between them, the male moved him so that he could feel his tip beside the male's, and it felt so good to him that he was hardening. Sheth gasped as his own shaft hardened right inside the male's opening and they shivered together. There wasn't much possibility for thrusting like this; it was just quiet pleasure to move in little ways against the male who wanted him. He felt himself being lowered a few minutes later, and he was more than willing to allow it now. When his feet touched the ground, he let go of the thick neck above him and he turned away to offer himself. He felt that long prick at his opening and he wanted to throw himself backward onto it, but he allowed himself to be lifted slowly and penetrated deliciously as he heard a small gasp and looked straight into Drene's eyes. She'd changed by then, and lay on one haunch as she stared open-mouthed, even smiling a little. Those hands were holding his hips and the slow fucking began then. Sheth moaned loudly, abandoning any attempt at being quiet. All of his life, he'd been what he was, from the first beginnings of his awareness of himself in a sexual way, right from childhood. He'd learned early on that most males weren't as he was, and many didn't particularly like him for it. He'd thrown himself into his studies. When he'd reached the age where he could seek a mate as a young adult, he was not surprised at all to find that here were none for one like him. They were all in awe of his ability and some were jealous of it, but other than that, he was seen as a small male; weak and not particularly confident among them. He'd seen that a few gave him glances, but none went beyond their mild interest. It had been a strong want in him to find a male for himself, but he knew that it was little more than a fantasy which he'd carried quietly in his heart. He knew that he could be happy enough with Drene, but she didn't really want him and couldn't give him what he'd ached to have all of his life. He could be a male for her, and he liked that, but they both knew that inside, they were so very much alike in many ways. If they'd grown up together and not as weapons to kill each other, they both knew that, even if they'd both found what their bodies wanted, they'd still very likely be each other's friends. But now they were just neighbors who mated now and then when she had nothing better on the go. The tightening of the grip which held him brought him back to the mating, and he knew that in some ways, he was being claimed, just as Drene had been. He opened his eyes and found himself looking down at the wetness on the stone floor below him. His mouth had been open and he'd been lost in being fucked. It felt so good and it had been easy to get lost in and in that time, his mouth had fallen open and he'd been drooling. He looked up toward Drene to see if she'd noticed it, wondering if he ought to feel self-conscious over it, but he saw that she was enthralled watching everything and was frigging herself again, her hand covered in the seed which ran out of her. He guessed that she must have switched hands at some point, since her little breasts were slick and shining with semen as well. They smiled at each other for a moment; her in happiness -- him feeling a little foolish as the one who was being fucked, but other than closing his eyes, there wasn't much else to look at besides Drene. He saw a movement in his upper field of view and looking up, he saw the proud and pleased face of Yuan, and he craned his neck up instantly to feel the touch of that long neck against his own as it was pressed back to nestle in the same place against his shoulder as Drene's had been and he sighed, feeling the acceptance at long last. He was a functional male on the outside, but now he was what he'd always longed to be, a male with a female heart being loved by another male. He couldn't be bred, but he was sure being mated well. His neck was freed from the embrace as their need turned into the rise up their mountain and the real pounding began in earnest, and by that point, Sheth was more than ready to be pounded. He stretched out his neck and cried out, roaring, though it came out of him thinly. He saw the male's neck and head stretched out over his and they brought their necks into contact and called out together again and again, Sheth seeing the strain in the muscles on the thick neck above him. He rubbed his head against that neck, as much as he could. His shaft was as hard as stone, hanging out into space and waving around like a frantic thing, seeking some of its own comfort, but there was little for it to have, other than the way that it slapped against his belly from the motions of his body. He remembered what he'd seen Drene do and he stretched out his legs as widely as they would go, and he cried out during the next few strokes after that because that wondrous thing could get deeper into him like this, allowing more of the male's thickness into him and he felt his cloaca being stretched wider by the base of that magnificent prong which pounded him relentlessly. The base of his own shaft felt as though it glowed from the heat of the friction from that huge thing sliding past it with every stroke. He realized that he'd been screaming when he felt how raw his throat felt suddenly, and he didn't care. He screamed more, as loudly as he could manage and it was answered time and again by a roar from the male that he could feel right through his body. Suddenly, that magnificent male clutched him tightly, almost painfully tightly as he reared up and held Sheth out into space so that another full inch of his rock hard and hot shaft could reach for Sheth's heart. Sheth shrieked and wailed as he hung impaled on that thing, grinding down as hard as he could onto it for them both. A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 35 ***Dragons are complex and magical creatures. In Yuan's case, the emphasis is on complex but in many ways, she's a rather charmed individual. Oh, and somehow, in my own inimitable fashion, I've managed to bugger up the parts of the various books. ~sigh~ I knew that would happen. 0_o -------------------- Book of the Dragon Part 10 The next day, Yuan was outside, marveling at the cold temperature of the night before for one thing, but also the beauty that it left behind in the patterns of the frost on various surfaces. She hadn't planned anything much for the day. With it being so cold, she was just so thankful that she had a place to be now and one person who cared. For all of their patience, dragons can sometimes be studies in contradictions. Lust aside, in the bygone days when they were many, it could be a rather long affair to find a prospective mate which one liked and then there were the lengthy and oh so careful and cautious introductions, and if that went well, the courtship could last for years. Then again, it might just be settled after a few really satisfying fucks, as long as both sides were pleased. All of that, for Yuan's kind of dragon, was often only the precursor -- sort of a pre-choosing of suitable partners for when the want to breed was on the female. She'd find one of her pre-chosen males, they'd spent some time in mating to breed her, and then the male would leave. Those days were gone now, as were those dragons. The previous night had been embarked upon with hopes, surely, but still it had started out to be some casual mating and other than what was beginning between Yuan and Sheth, that was still what it was for now as far as Drene was concerned and it was obvious. Drene's noises about love faded as the dawn approached, and Yuan had finally asked for a plain explanation as to what that meant. What she'd heard had been non-committal and that was fine, but Sheth had asked a little more pointedly and at that point they heard that Drene really still had hopes for her male demon. "Do as you wish, Drene,"Sheth had said then, "but I can tell you how this will go with that one. You will ask and be told nothing of his intent -- if he does not lie to you then. You'll want something specific to hold onto and he will hand you a patch of fog. If Yuan wants me in either way, I am happy to stay with her, though I think that Yuan also wants a female and I can live with that, since I will not be alone anymore." Yuan asked for a description of this male demon and what she heard mystified her a little, but at least from it, she was sure that it wasn't Ayt'han. "If it is a demon that you truly want for yourself," she told Drene, "I know of a very fine one who has a female, but I think that after the passion, they will both want another female, since they wish to begin more than one little family. Let me know if you have an interest, but do not wait too long." With everything out in the open now, Drene said that she'd have to see and she prepared to leave. Yuan wasn't surprised and they spoke a little at the entrance to the cave. Drene left shortly afterward. Sheth walked up, "Well that's perfectly usual. She didn't even say goodbye -- not that she ever does." Yuan and Sheth stood as they watched her go and he felt her take his hand to hold. "She will never leave you again," Yuan said quietly. "She is leaving me now," he smiled, "and for the first time, I don't feel badly for it. I actually don't care. But how can she never leave me again?" He looked at Yuan who smiled, looking down "I told her that I wish for you as my male and that if you agreed then we would pair. I told her that I could accept her as my female -- though I do not think that I can trust her somehow -- and I said that. I knew that she would not agree by not disagreeing and then filling the air between us with her nonsense. So I waited for her to finish and then I shook my head and told her that she either stayed with us or she left, and that it was her choice, but that if she left, she was not to return thinking to mate with you or I would kill her. I made that plain as well." Yuan chuckled a little, "But it was Drene and I know her already. She told me that she might want to come and mate with me, and I told her that in such a case, I would mate with her and then I would kill her right afterward." Sheth nodded, understanding the way that dragons were so similar to Wotroth and that it had been said as an insult. "It would be a meal that we would not have to hunt for," he said and she nodded with a grin, seeing that he'd understood her insult at Drene and had added to it. She said, "I told her that I give one chance and that this was the time to speak. She said that she understood, but said nothing else. I knew this would happen. That was why I took the talk between us all in that direction earlier, to get her to say something. She talks much but says little. She does not think that I meant it, and so she has wasted her chance." He stood listening, but he didn't move after she stopped. Yuan stood waiting and finally nudged him. Sheth looked at her a little wide-eyed, "Come back inside," he said, and as they turned, he placed his hand on her hip and Yuan's heart flew over the small gesture, "I need to know things about you and us and how I fit in to everything," he said. Yuan shrugged and reached with her hand to cup his genitals as they walked, "It is the same all the time," she smiled, "we get this hard, I must get it wet somehow and then you push it in. You do the same for me when we see how I fit into everything." Sheth laughed, "It was not what I meant, but I like the thought. I want to know if we are to be as a pair only, or what you wish. You are all that I need, I think, but I see more to you and so I ask," He looked down for a moment and then Sheth looked right into Yuan's eyes. "I can see in visions," he said, "Sometimes I seek to see and often they only come to me. There will be dragon children here, Yuan. I see us with our children, but they will not be the first. I am happy, but I wish to know your thoughts, I guess." He looked at her as she walked slowly with her head down and wished that he was better at relationships than he was. It just hit him that it was perhaps a little soon to speak of these things, but he really wished to know. More than anything, he wanted a love with Yuan -- in any way that it worked for them both. He just didn't see them alone and he wondered about it. Yuan pulled them both to a stop. She looked into his eyes and he found her melting against him. "You saw our young, Sheth? They were ours, yours and mine?" She held his gaze and watched him carefully. "Yes," he said, "I just ... wanted to know." She held him to her tightly, "That is so good to hear, because I want to make young with you, Sheth. I am also the same as you and I want a female to breed as well, but there are no other dragons, besides Drene and she has chosen her path -- though she thinks that she can come back any time as is her way. But I am not like you, Sheth. If she returns one day and I am not here, then you may not mate with her if we are to breed between us. I will not allow it." He nodded and agreed before she went on. "I think that Wotroth are just the same as dragons here," she said, "and so we love to mate. But because of what we are, I think to make room for that in a careful way." She reached up and toyed with his hair a little and without knowing it, she stole the last of his heart from him for the way that she looked to him then as she went on, "I do not want to see you feeling left out, Sheth. Never. You are what I want, and I know that it is the same in you. I wish to be your female, and not part of a flock. I want to hold you as MY male and not part of a harem. But at the same time, think of how we two have shown ourselves to be to each other. If you have seen us making our babes, I feel such joy you cannot know, but I wish to see you mating with others and I wish to mate with others as well, but at the root of it, I wish to build this as our family. The others -- whatever they might be, and I do not wish to know that here -- they must be chosen, and it is not for today to even think on it. I just want you to know, and I wish to know if you think that you want this. Underneath everything, I wish to be yours and I need you to be mine. Do you agree?" He kissed her neck and whispered to her, "I want this with you, Yuan." "Good then," she sighed against his cheek, "but that is for the far future. First we must know each other. Come, and let us eat something other than each other for a little while." ---------------------------- "Am I enough for you?" he asked after worrying about it for a little while as they ate, "I need to know this before anything else and I wish for the truth, even if it is a little cold." Yuan nodded vigorously as she did something a little uncharacteristic of her and spoke around a half-mouthful of food because she knew that he was uncertain of himself. "Oh yes, I think that since both of us can be two things in some ways, we have more ways to be happy with each other. If other kinds come to us, we'll need to see," she smiled, "but I love mating with you in either way and I know that you do as well. We are what we are and that means that this can easily work because we can be patient. You are a fine male to me, Sheth. You think you are not, but I made my sounds, didn't I? Did you think that I did that because I wanted to fool you?" She shook her head and smiled warmly to him, "No, Sheth. You drove me to my pleasure very well each time and the little words that I spoke into your ear so quietly were for only you to hear and I meant them. When I had you in my mouth, I would have been frigging myself -- it was what I wanted to do, but Drene kept doing that every time, jamming her fingers into me the hard way that she did. If I was not loving you then, I'd have hit her for it. It felt a little nice because I was as a captive then, but if it had only been her and I, she would have only tried it once. Drene is a very cold lover and she is selfish. We need to learn of each other, but I already know that you are a good lover for me -- more than enough for me to know that I want to be your female, and I know that you would be a good father. You are different, but so am I. What does this matter if we are happy?" "So, will you take a female?" he asked, "Of some other sort?" She laughed, "Sheth, I have only just found you. But I know what you ask. When I fucked you, it was like nothing I had ever done before. No matter what comes for us, I will always want that." He laughed then and kissed her as she hugged him, the food forgotten. "You don't mind, ..." She shook her head, "You were fine for me when you mounted me last night several times. Throw the doubt away. What you have pleases me really well. I think that you have caused yourself to have doubts and since Drene would never stay with you, I think that they became fears. Drene left every time because she is Drene, not because you did not or could not please her. A large part of a female's want and the pleasure that she receives comes from her own mind, and anyway, that doesn't matter. Think a moment. How many times in her life has she had a male such as what I can be -- if I am so large, from what she said? I am the only dragon that she has ever had in her. She is gone because she seeks something which cannot exist; a lover that she wants to belong to on her terms. That is Drene's trouble, but she would never hear of it. What matters is that you can please me, and you do, Sheth, very much. When I took you, it was far better than it was with Drene. I am more concerned about traveling. Can you leave here if I have to go?" He nodded, "I'll go where you go, Yuan." She smiled and dragged him back to the bed with a happy giggle, "Then I am going back to bed with you." Their loving was playful and happy at first, but then it became quiet and Yuan could see that he was putting a lot of tenderness into it for her, so she stopped him. "I wish for you to see me a little differently now," she said, "since you are being so heartfelt to me." He found himself lying on someone else and he moved to stare. He was looking at a different creature altogether. "This ... is what the humans look like?" She nodded, "Some of them. Is it alright Sheth?" Sheth was looking at something far different from anything that he'd ever seen in a female, but he liked it. "You behave differently now," he said quietly, "Is something wrong?" She nodded very slightly, "Only that I need to know if you like me this way -- and that you have pulled out of me in surprise. Like this, I can only be one way for you, Sheth. I am much more of a pure female this way, inside and outside. This is how I would look if I have not gotten the egg that I carry inside my chest, though I would have grown up empty in my mind. I have all of the fears and doubts of any girl and I hide nothing of myself from you like this. Is it enough?" Sheth knew that like this, she was just as vulnerable as he'd been before when she'd been the large male. Sheth moved closer to her slowly and laid her down, taking her into his arms, "I never had the thought that one day, I could ever have one such as you. Wotroth females who looked this soft and gentle are prized and every male wants them. You are far more lovely than any of them. Thank you for letting me see this." He kissed her softly and her sigh passed right through him like the most gentle late-spring breeze and feeling the way that his maleness hardened for her, Yuan pulled him onto her hesitantly and when she held him after a moment of his soft kisses, she raised one leg and they rolled onto their sides as her other leg went over him. "I want no fucking now," she whispered, "I need to feel you make love for my heart. Please put it back in and love me, Sheth." -------------------------- She was outside again, two weeks later. She was happier now than she'd ever been in her life and it was rather obvious to her that Sheth felt the same. Yuan hadn't planned to stay out long, even though she could handle the cold fairly well. The only practical thing that she'd had on her mind had already been done, and that was the stretching out of a ram's hide. Living in a place such as this meant that one didn't waste things such as this, though from what she'd seen, Sheth had a fair pile already of different types of skins, and they were already comparing notes on she sorts of clothing which might be made. Yuan turned and was surprised to see Narreth not far off and riding toward her on the back of Tanra. She was more surprised to see them travel in the middle of a pack of wolves. It was a joyous meeting nonetheless and Sheth came out into the bright morning sunshine to be introduced. Narreth was saddened that things hadn't worked out for Yuan in the way that she'd hoped but she smiled when she reminded Yuan that she'd seen that her goddess hadn't forgotten her after all. But then the talk turned serious as the ghost witch told of some others who needed Yuan now. "A small family of demons was found, a mother and two little ones, starving and not far from freezing to death all alone about ten days ago. The female is not of this world, and neither is she of mine, but she is so close to a Tarkroth that it amazes me, though she wears the marks of no tribe on her, not even her face." "What must I do?" Yuan asked. "They are with one other who we found before, half-dwarf girl, and half one of these humans, she is. She has taken the three into her home -- such as it is, and would bring them to the Quarn of my son, where I think that they would be welcomed. But she does not know the way, and it is too cold to leave my friends here behind me, and they will not go into the dwarf's home. This is the dilemma," Narreth said. "I would go with you," Yuan said, "but I cannot carry a mother and two small ones, especially not today. It would freeze them in little time where I fly." "You do not need to carry anyone," the witch smiled, "the dwarf's home moves. But she needs you to guide her, and the three should have food. Water and soup, they have, but that is all." Yuan blinked, "The home moves?" "Yes," Narreth nodded, "from what I was told, it is an ancient thing of human making. Will you come?" "Narreth," Yuan smiled, "I am beginning to wonder if I work for you somehow. Yes, I will come, but I have no wish to tramp far in this snow. How far?" "Over the ridge," she said, "Give us a little time and then fly to meet us." As Narreth and her pack of wolves moved off down the slope, retracing their steps, Yuan told Sheth that she'd likely be gone a while, but would return as soon as she could, and he agreed, but she held his arm. "I am not just talking here," she said, "I will always return to you. We seek to build for ourselves and each other between us. I already do not want to leave you -- and it is only over the ridge." He nodded smiling, but then he turned serious, "I will prepare a little, "he said, "I don't know about all of this. If something goes wrong, we may need to keep the mother and the small ones warm and this is a good place for that," he said, "I'll try to prepare some sort of bed for them somehow with the skins." Yuan smiled. She knew that to Sheth, 'somehow' might easily become a fine bed to anyone else. She looked at him and noted his expression. "There is something more here, isn't there?" He nodded in a cautious way, "I will leave it up to you," he said, "I have already learned to trust you in all things. The ones in this -- the mother and the little ones, and the dwarf-girl..." He smiled, looking down in that way of his that always made her want to hold onto him. "You may not make it to the other place and if you follow the current of things in a way like you might follow where a soft breeze might lead you, then you may find ones which would be wanted here." Yuan's eyes widened, "Have you seen my female?" "I cannot say," he replied, "I am not really sure at all. It may also be that nothing will happen and you bring them where they are to go and it is done." They tried to discuss just what sort of house this must be which could move, and then Yuan stood blinking at him. "What is a dwarf?" she asked, "I forgot to ask this." Sheth only shrugged and said that he had no idea either. ----------------------- Copper muttered a few mild curses from spilling a little of the hot soup on her hand, but she was thankful that she'd managed not to spill all of it as she stepped toward the bundles sitting together on the bunk that she'd rigged up for herself. Her 'home' hadn't been designed with one. It only came with sparse seating for any passengers along for the ride. The only decent seating was for the original crew of three and that wasn't the greatest, she thought, though it was home to her for much of the time. She'd come across the little family a short while ago, and been so surprised. At first, the mother and Copper couldn't understand each other at all and everything was hand signals for a time. Copper had tried to get the demon to speak so that she might learn a few phrases and with luck, pick up enough to get by in a conversation -- at least for the important things, since she'd taken them to the place where she lived -- when she wasn't where she was now. But the demon female had amazed Copper, picking up more than enough English in little time. They became friends and that was fine, but there had been a few problems. For one thing the demon was thankful and never ceased to be. It got to be a little annoying to Copper after a while, and even though she made it clear that constant thanks were not necessary, it still went on. Then it became a little clear that there was more than spoken thankfulness involved, and the dwarf had awoken in the middle of more than one night to find Simmit -- for that was her name - against her, since there was only the one bed which they both slept in. A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 35 It wasn't that she was against the dwarf so much - it was a poorly-heated place after all - it was that she was using either Copper's hip or her leg to hump against quietly as the dwarf slept and she seemed to be getting far too friendly toward Copper's tits. After waking up for the third time in one night and finding Simmit with her hand right on her mound and working its way between her thighs, Copper blew up and they didn't speak anymore that night. The next morning, the demons were gone and to Copper's surprise -- and her sudden sadness - she realized how much of a hole she now had in her life without them. She'd only wanted it to stop; she didn't want the little family to leave. She'd run out and gone looking for them. That lasted a minute when she saw little in the way of tracks. So she'd run back and rolled out her pride and joy, but it had still taken hours in the squall that covered any tracks that Simmit might have left as she carried her toddlers. Copper finally had a brainwave and began to use the Forward-Looking Infrared Radar, and she found them a few minutes later by their heat signature huddled against a rock. Copper turned on every light and aimed her searchlight in their direction and she tumbled out the door and ran to get them back and warm inside her rumbling, moving shelter. She'd said that she was sorry and Simmit nodded and apologized all over again, but the demon was obviously shamed and wouldn't say much more. It wasn't long after that she'd seen Narreth as the squall died away They'd met before and though the ghost was helpful, saying that she'd return with someone who might be able to help, it was obvious that Simmit was very uncomfortable being even ten feet from her. "She is like some from where I am from who hunted us once," Simmit said as Copper held the little ones on her lap for a time, "I know that she wants to help, but I am glad that she is gone." The two little demons were the cutest things, she thought, all big eyes and so careful to behave and they were happy to see her again. She had the heat cranked for them back here and it was a little uncomfortable for her, but Copper didn't mind as she sat holding them and watching Simmit spoon-feed both of her young. But it was awkward between the adults and Copper sat them down and got up to give Simmit a little space, feeling sad for everything. She heard the warning from the situational awareness systems alerting her of something approaching, and it was followed by the acquisition subsystem's warning tone as the Fire Control system locked the targeting optics onto something. She stepped to the commander's position and looked at the display for a moment. When she saw the strange demon out there with her wolves again, Copper was about to walk back to drop the ramp, but there was an additional warning of a vague return from an aerial target -- and that got her attention. Noting that the seeker had already slaved one camera to it, she looked to see nothing at first, but then she saw something which made her knees weak. All of her life, she thought, and today, ... She didn't know what to make of it, and she wondered if the demon witch out there was aware of the thing in the sky. She had no way of knowing this, so she shoved the ready tray of ammunition into the feed of the old chain gun and slaved that to the camera as well to allow the Fire Control software to lock on to whatever was out there masquerading as her childhood dream. The gun indexed itself and sat waiting, loaded. Copper knew that once the Fire Control had arrived at a firing solution, it would calculate a target lead solution as well, and she'd have her one-shot-one-hit capability online and it wouldn't matter what the thing did, one press of the firing button and it was toast, though she really hoped that it wouldn't come down to her destroying what she'd wanted to see in person all of her life. She activated the recording system for later, and the turret rumbled and whined as it transited quickly to lay the gun onto the target and follow it across the sky. But the demon waved at the thing in the air with a smile, so Copper took the gun offline and cleared the unfired round out of it. Yuan was well into her approach, having seen and recognized Narreth. It was what she was standing near that mystified her. What she saw looked like two oddly-shaped piles of rock, both of them a little too regular in their outlines. She landed quickly and changed to her middle shape to walk over to Narreth through the deep snow. There was a whining sound and a doorway appeared in one of the things, but the door only came down to some distance above the ground. A roundish lump in insulated coveralls and a helmet stepped out onto the door and beckoned them over as it looked around at the sky for some reason. "I could have sworn, ..." Copper said as she looked everywhere, not really noticing Yuan for the moment, "Did you see anything flying around up there? My systems had a lock on it for a few seconds, so I know that I wasn't imagining it, but now there's -" She stared at Yuan as her mouth fell open. "You, you're a -- a --" "A friend?" Yuan chuckled a little hopefully. "You look like , ... a dragon, but," she looked at the sky again, "there was another one a minute ago, not anything like you." "That will be hard to explain," Narreth smiled, "and it will take longer than we have the time to wait. This is Yuan, and she is a dragon." "Half-dragon," Yuan smiled as she reached out to offer her hand. "I'm Copper," the dwarf grinned as she tried to recover, "I'm a gremlin. What's your other half?" "Human," Yuan said, and Copper laughed, "Me too! Come on in. I want to get the door buttoned up so that they can stay warm," she said as she pointed toward the bunk. "The mother fears you." Yuan said to Narreth. Copper spoke up then, "Simmit says that you look like a creature that used to hunt whatever she is -- wherever she came from. I'm not sure that it would be all that good to take her to where more of you are and leave her there." Narreth spoke to Simmit, who cringed just to be near her and Narreth nodded as she stood up. "What you say might be so. Decide for yourselves what is to be done." Narreth took her leave then, but she warned them both that there was a storm coming, certainly within the next day. As Yuan stepped onto the ramp and walked inside, Copper closed it after her and they looked at each other in the glow of the interior lighting. "We can go see," Copper suggested, "If Simmit doesn't like what she sees, then she can stay with me if she can get past what's bugging her." "What is a gremlin?" Yuan asked. Copper smirked, "It's a little imp thing from human legends of long ago. Gremlins were creatures who found joy in ruining the machinery of humans. I'm not like that, and I'm not really a gremlin. I just look like a large one might when I'm all dolled up like this to travel in weather as fucking cold as it is today. Aren't you cold?" the dwarf asked, looking at Yuan's dark scaled skin. She wasn't into girls, but just the thought of those boobs out in that breeze outside made her shiver, and she could plainly see that what she'd first taken to be white pubic hair was nothing other than bare and naked scales on something else which caused the dwarf to shiver as she tried to imagine herself out there like that. "Yes, but I can manage cold well, "Yuan smiled, "at least for a while. I can't wear clothes while I fly." The statement reminded Copper and she went to look at what the Fire Control system had been recording. After a minute, she turned to look slowly at Yuan, "That was you out there?" Yuan nodded with a shrug, "I can change my shape three ways." Copper looked for a long moment, "When we get where we're going, would you mind showing me that? I'd really like to see that." Yuan nodded,"Alright, but why?" Copper wasn't really sure how to reply, but after a moment, she just said, "I've had a kind of a thing for dragons ever since I was small. I've collected everything I could find about them. I've never seen a picture of something like uh, you, but I'm having a bit of a moment here, I guess. I never thought that I'd actually ever get to meet a dragon one day." She liked the way that Yuan looked and the way that the dragon seemed a little shy, but she remembered that this conversation wasn't getting the demons anywhere. "Narreth said that you know the way to a place where these demons could go? I don't mind helping, but I don't know where I'm going and Simmit here is at least a little sure that she wants to go. I don't think it's a great idea myself." She shrugged, "They were staying with me, but we had a big fight and they left in the blizzard this morning. I've tried to say I'm sorry but I guess she thinks that I don't like her anymore. Um, you do know the way, right?" Yuan noticed the way that the mother sat looking down and not answering at all. She looked so sad, Yuan thought. "I know the way," Yuan said, "I even know the names of the two demons who live there." She turned and tried to speak with the mother, and in a few moments, Copper was amazed at how well they seemed to be able to talk with each other. "How did you do that?" she asked. "I can learn many ways of speaking very quickly. I only need to hear some of what is said, and it comes to me," Yuan said, "This is not the way that I learned to speak at first. I come from far away from here. She keeps telling me that she is so sorry for what she did. But she will not say what it was." Copper nodded, "Though there are tons of them everywhere, I only have one bed in the place where I live and we were all in it every night just to try and stay a little warm. I mean, if it was the warmer time of the year, it wouldn't be any trouble to get her and the kids some beds, but right now there's snow up over my ass in a lot of the complex and the yards. I live on what's left of an old army base. I'm the only person there. Anyway, Simmit got a little too friendly for my taste and I guess I got a little mad and she left. I've been trying to tell her that I'm sorry too, but she's not listening. She's really embarrassed over it as far as I can tell and I keep telling her that I'm sorry for getting so mad. She heard what Narreth said about those other demons and she thought that she wanted to go there, but now she's not sure by the look of her. I don't care, other than I want her to feel safe with them. I've got lots of fuel, we can go see and if she's not happy, we'll come back. From talking to her before, she seems to have been thrown here somehow with a lot of others a couple of years ago. She told Narreth that most of them killed each other off, and Simmit was able to get away. She had a boyfriend, but he wasn't in the bunch. She never saw him again. When she got here, she was all alone and before long, she had a large male demon sniffing around. She learned to speak with him and then he was giving her that old 'oh you're the one for me' tale. Well all he did for her was give her those two little guys, identical twins, obviously. As soon as he heard she was knocked up, he was gone. I even know who he is, too. See their manes and eyebrows? Just like Daddy, and he's the only one like that I've ever seen. She had her babies out here the next spring. She's been on her own out here but with two kids and all, she doesn't really get time to learn anything about living here. It's all hand to mouth. Even I know there's no margin for mistakes or forgiveness for forgetting something out here. They had a small cave to live in, but a bear showed up and they just managed to get away. She said she just grabbed her kids and took off. She's not looking for their father anymore. She's figured it out all on her own and she's not even looking for him to give him a piece of her mind. But I am. I've been sorta half-assed looking for him for a while, "Copper said, "I'm getting a clue as to the direction to where he lives, since I see him around here and there. I'm just never in the right place for what I want." "What do you want?" Yuan asked, not getting it. The dwarf-girl stepped over to the gunner's position and held up a long, heavy-looking article in one hand as she patted a piece of equipment affectionately, "I want to put one of these right through his bullshit-covered demon heart. This here's a 25 millimetre chain gun," Copper smiled, "If I can see it, I can kill it. I just need the right angle and I don't want to do it while he's in the middle of doing somebody. I figure I'd be doing a lot of girls around here a favor." The dwarf-girl growled a little as she finished her thought, "Simmit's not the only one who believed his fairy-tales. I heard the same song outta him but I figured it out before he knocked me up. Too bad it came to me after I'd let him get my knees apart. It was nice, but if all he wanted was a quick fuck or two, he shoulda said that, not given me the love of his life crap. I'm all over these valleys in this tub," she said, "and he's not shy about screwing his Honey-of-the-Week outside, if it's the only place where he can get it. I was falling so hard for him, but then I saw him banging Lyudmila Potter back in the fall, right out there in the blowing leaves and wind, so I told him to go to hell the next time I saw him and I just sat back, licking my wounds. But afterward, I guess that what I shoulda done was gone to see Luddy. She didn't know that I was in the picture, or she'd have broken his jaw for him. Two months later, Lyudmila was pregnant and one thing you don't want to be is old man Potter's pregnant daughter. She was gonna hang herself, but in the middle of being worried and scared and broken-hearted over lover boy -- cause he was already gone, she miscarried. She stayed at my place until she had it together. She's a sweet girl, just way too trusting like Simmit here and way too easy to talk into bed when she's lonely, I guess. That's when I started gunning for that prick. Yuan looked a little surprised at the vehemence of Copper's tone, but she got it when Copper explained, "This area is big and it's empty, mostly. Lots of space -- not many people in it. I know Lyudmila. She's a friend of mine. I went to school with her." Copper scowled as she shook her head, "We've been friends since we were five years old. See, humans in most places don't much like any other sort of creature. They think they're better or something. Way the hell out here, they're a little less like that -- because they have no choice, or they would be. But that doesn't change some things. Lyudmila and I were different and the other kids picked on the two of us pretty hard. We just became friends and we've always been. We don't see each other much these days, but I'm gonna look in in her one day soon to see how she's making out. It's what friends do for each other out here. You gotta stop in once in a while to make sure your friends are still alive. Now I don't know what that flying Casanova thinks he's doing, but I'm gonna make him stop. I don't have all that many friends to lose." Anyway, I'm sure you don't need to hear about my foolishness. Narreth told me to wait here and that she'd be back with a friend of hers. I guess that must be you. So let's get going then," Copper said, "It looks like they're done with the soup, so if you'll take the bowl and set it over there, I'll ask you to sit over here, and you just tell me where I'm going, alright?" Yuan nodded and a minute later, she heard and felt the vibration of the diesel engine as it rose from its idle and they began to move. She was astounded. "What is this?" she asked, and she saw Copper's smile to her. "This is an old human war machine. It's a Bradley M2A3 with all the upgrades. I've had it running for a little while now. My father and I built it up from a few that we found on the old base that we moved to. That's the frame of another one back there that I'm dragging along behind us, but it's just a platform for the tank of fuel on top of it. My dad and I built this up over a few years, but he died before he ever saw it move. We only just got the engine running good when he got sick and passed. I finished it by myself." Yuan tried to see through the little ports, but it wasn't enough of a view to guide Copper by, so they stopped. "It's too cold to open the hatches. Come over here, Yuan, "she said, "you sit here and you can look at this screen. See the mark in the middle? You hold onto this here and if you move it, the view will shift. Really, you'll be moving a camera outside an-" "Camera?" Yuan asked, "I do not understand." "Here," Copper said, "See here? There's an, ... eye outside and this is what it sees. You move this, and see? The picture changes because you've moved the eye. I can send this view to my screen and if you keep the mark where you want me to go, I'll drive us that way. Try it." The next few minutes caused them both to laugh until Yuan had a feel for it, and until then, the camera on top of the turret spun crazily with the view in the little monitor following faithfully, but eventually, Yuan could hold the scene fairly still and Copper held out a strange-looking thing. "We need you to wear this so we can talk to each other, since I'll be over there." The next two hours passed with them grinding along through the winter scenery, but they managed their odd conversation as they went, and Yuan saw that Copper had a dour side to her and she wondered about that. "I try to understand your name," she said. "Copper," the dwarf said, "like the metal. My family used to live with lots of other dwarves underground and they were always brewers," she looked back a little for a second, "that means that they made ale and beer. Anyway, I think that all of my relations stayed a little drunk all their lives. I know my parents did. My mother was a human and it caused them some trouble, so we left with a few others when I was a kid. We moved to a place where the humans had a lot of things like what we're riding in, but they forgot all about them. It's been a few hundred years. One by one, the other dwarves all either left or they died off. We didn't really have enough of us to start an underground town. There were some bunkers and stuff, but that's not the same thing. I'm all that's left now. My mother was killed by a bear and my father passed away last year. I've tried to fit in with humans, but I look too little and stocky, I guess, and with my skin and all, well, all they really want me for is to work as a beer wench in a bar and besides a quick fuck, they don't care for me. I won't go back to live among the dwarves, because I'm too tall for a lot of them and I can't grow a beard -- which suits me just fine. So I'm stuck here. Yuan blinked, "But your name." "Oh," Copper laughed, "Sorry, I guess I forgot the main point. When you make beer, you brew it up in big kettles. Even traveling to come here, my folks had their beloved small kettles with them -- and they're not all that small, really. I've still got 'em. I can brew ale too, but I'm not big on keeping a glow on all the time, so I don't do it often. I make a small batch and I drink it over a week or two and I do that maybe three times a year, but that's about it. Copper's a soft metal, so you need to be really careful you don't wreck the things, but it's the best thing to brew ale and beer in." She sighed and then just pressed on, "My family was big on brewing, so their name says that in a way. My last name is Kettlebottom. Because of the way that I look with a little bit of my mother's skin color, and my hair, since I was born with a full head of hair and it's never changed color, they named me Copper -- Copper Kettlebottom. This is the part where you can make your little jokes." A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 35 There was no reply and Copper looked back to find Yuan listening. "What joke should I make? I know none. I cannot see your hair. You wear that pot on your head and that, ... cloth." She referred to the insulated set of coveralls which Copper was wearing. "Yeah well, you spend enough time inside one of these things and sooner or later, you'll about bash your brains out on something," Copper replied, "That's why I wear this helmet. I've got a nice scar on the back of my skull from trying to move from one position to another in here a little too quickly." They didn't speak much for a while, other than Yuan's directions, and she spent a little time speaking with Simmit. "Really Simmit, "she said in the demon's tongue, "what is wrong that cannot be mended?" The demon's answer began as a lot of mumbling, bit Yuan was gentle and encouraged her. "I like her," the demon said, "she was kind to me, but I ruined it. Where I am from, good males are rare and females are not shy to show how they feel and it is a blessing to find a friend who will help you with the work and who you can help as well. I am too shy. I could not show her when she was awake, and I could not stop myself at night. This is not done here I think, and I have lost a friend. Now, I wish to go where there are other demons. Maybe I will not ruin things there." When their talk petered out, Copper cleared her throat. "Uh, Yuan? I didn't ask and you never said, but are you alone out here? I mean, you have to live somewhere out here." She looked back and Yuan nodded, "I was alone, but I begin to live with another now." "A dragon?" The dwarf asked. "Yes," Yuan replied, "One of a pair who came to be here in the same way that Simmit did. They are not from this world. They call themselves Wotroth, and that is their word for dragon, I guess." Copper listened and ... well, she just couldn't help herself. "Are there any, ... well, are there any males? I'd really like to meet them, even if they're females, but I'd really like to see a male dragon just one time." "The one I am with is a male," Yuan said, "though they are much smaller than I am, when we are in that shape. And you already have seen a male. I have three shapes. In one, I am as I began, a human female. Like this, I am some of both male and female. As I was when I flew here to meet you and Narreth, I am a male." "Really?" Copper almost twisted her head off as she looked back, "That's a little strange." "Yes," Yuan smiled coolly as she turned to look at the monitor, "it is very strange to be me sometimes." "I'm sorry," Copper said, "I just blurted that out. I didn't mean anything by it." Yuan looked at Copper and saw that she looked to be feeling foolish and she supposed that it she had spent her life wanting to meet someone and then finally did, a little suddenly, she could see herself saying something stupid too. She smiled, "It's alright, Copper. Like this, I am closer to what people here think of as dragons, only smaller, but as I was then, I am like creatures which were here and died away long before there were any humans. Inside me, I am really not like those ones were at all. I am a dragon male like that as well, like my mother's kind. As far as I know, I am the last true dragon left, and I am not even true, since I am part human. Why do you ask?" "Well it's nothing, really," Copper said, trying to concentrate on driving, "I had a dream once when I was a little girl. It was so real to me. I guess that, like a lot of girls, I kind of had these romantic fairy-tale sorts of dreams, but that one was so vivid to me, I've never forgotten it. I asked my parents about the creature in my dream and they said that it was a dragon. After that, I began to try to learn everything that I could about them - uh, you," she said as she corrected herself. What Copper was not saying was that there hadn't only been the one dream and unlike most girls who had the classic fairy-tale dreams, she was not at all interested in the knight in shining armor. She'd had other dreams now and then and as she'd grown into adolescence, those dreams remained very vivid to her, but the nature of them became even less of the fairy-tale -- though some of that aspect always remained -- and more of a fantasy, really. By the time that she'd gotten to be about nineteen, the dreams had become her very favorite sexual fantasies. Copper wanted to see more of Yuan now, but she was also very puzzled, since what she'd seen was a rather beautiful female to her way of looking at things. Well, the things that she'd seen on Yuan anyway, she reminded herself. She wondered how it would feel to touch her skin for a moment, but her reverie was broken by Yuan's warning. "We are very near now," she said, "but watch for the stream in the middle of the valley. Where it is wide, it is shallow, but in other places it is deep and fast." "Do I have to cross it?" Copper asked, "I'd rather not if I don't have to. The last thing that I need is frozen tracks, and they'll freeze up quick at this temperature if I stop." She saw that Yuan had no idea what she'd meant so she just smiled, "I'd rather not have to cross it if I don't have to. Besides, this looks like it's getting narrow here, and I'll need to turn this rig around to leave since I'm hauling my trailer. Where do we have to go?" Yuan grabbed the little control and Copper watched in her monitor as the scene outside moved to the dwellings under the cliff. "Well wouldja lookit that," she said, almost in a whisper into her boom microphone, "that looks like something that a bunch of dwarves might have made -- in an afternoon when they were all drunk out of their minds," she chuckled, "You mean, somebody actually lives there?" --------------------------- Sheth had a place laid out in case Yuan returned with anyone. He didn't know if she would, he just knew that there was a possibility of it happening. He'd gotten a short piece of fairly straight wood and wrapped some bristly boar hide around it to make himself a bit of a scrub brush and with that and a little hot water out of the cascade, he'd scrubbed the floor there spotlessly clean. When it had dried, he'd laid out for furs for bedding and since he knew that there were very young ones involved, he'd done his best to make it cozy. He didn't know it for certain, but he had a feeling that little demons would need and like that. Sheth was pleased as he looked at it. If Yuan didn't come back with anyone, he wanted to make love to her there. It was a ways from the heat of the fire and even farther from the steaming cascade and it was dark here. He walked away then, thinking about whether he ought to go out and hunt to make sure that there was enough food. He just didn't want to do that without knowing if Yuan would come back with anyone. If she came back alone, there would likely be too much and he didn't want to waste anything. He pondered it as he walked, a little lost in thought. That was when he found the opening. Sheth stared at it, wondering how he hadn't seen it before. But then he saw that it was behind a thin wall of stone. Stepping through a little cautiously, he entered it and stopped when he saw the pair of eyes there as they regarded him. ----------------------------- Copper sat in the command position, peering at the monitor and moving the joystick around to sweep the camera back and forth along the ledge looking for Yuan. A few minutes later, Yuan walked back out onto the ledge and Copper saw her through the monitor as she shrugged. She'd walked from one end of the ledge to the other calling, and she'd gone inside of several of the dwellings, but there was no one there. The main fire still burned low and from everything else that she saw, the Tarkoth must be out hunting, she decided. She was about to just fly back to the others, but she had a thought then of what Copper had asked, and so she changed to become the large dragon as she stepped to the edge and spread her wings. She took off and flew around the valley twice -- once climbing to see if she could spot the pair of mountain demons and then again as she descended to land not far off in the snow where she looked at the vehicle and its trailer for a moment before she reared up and changed back to the way that she'd been before. Copper had watched the whole thing with her jaw in her lap, and she'd been careful to get this recorded. A dragon, she smirked to herself, a real-live male dragon right there. She would have added 'fire-breathing' as an adjective, but she didn't know if that part was true. It didn't matter, she thought. She didn't think that she'd ever be able to live out her long-time fantasy, but that was alright, she guessed. She'd gotten a couple of minutes recorded and if nothing else, she had something to look at one dark night in her rolling home, buttoned up tight and idling while she frigged herself. She lowered the ramp partway and the beautiful creature was back aboard. "I think that they must be out hunting," Yuan said with a shrug as Copper turned the whole rig around in a wide turn and began to motor back the way that they'd come. She noticed that Copper wasn't wearing her helmet now. She'd switched to wearing a headset herself while Yuan was looking for the Tarkroth pair. Yuan admired the wild reddish-blonde curls on the dwarf. "It's just as well," Copper said, "Simmit is looking relieved, so I can see that she was starting to think that this wasn't a good idea from the start. Look, can you, um, ... can you take care of the twins for a couple of minutes? I'd like Simmit to come sit here with me. There's something that I want to say to her." Yuan nodded and went back to tell Simmit, who looked reluctant, but she nodded. The pair of little demons were just at the point of walking well, both of them finally, and Yuan sat with them trying to think of ways that she might keep them amused, but she needn't have worried. They sat looking at her with such wide little eyes, though they didn't look to be afraid of her and in a few moments, they were on her, hugging her as though they'd known her all along. Their little spell worked like a charm on Yuan. They were so sweet; a pair of tiny boy-demons, as gray in color as their mother, but with shocks of very light blonde hair. She sat back on the bunk with her back against the inside wall, holding them carefully so that they wouldn't fall as the vehicle bumped and ground along. But her care was unwarranted for the most part. They were used to the motions of what they rode in and they were as agile as a couple of monkeys. They just looked thrilled to be able to giggle and laugh as they climbed all over Yuan or hung from the racks above her head. "What were you going to do if they accepted her?" Copper said loudly over the sounds. Yuan shrugged, "I would have told them that we would come back to be sure that they treated Simmit and her babies well. I know enough about her kind -- if she is at all like the Tarkroth. For a place to stay and be treated well by them, she'd have taken the role of the second female, and allowed herself to be bred again -- if the female could ever allow it." Copper thought that she heard something in there and noticed the look on Yuan's face as she went on. "I'd have said that if they hadn't been able to think of something else to do besides mate with each other or if they'd treated Simmit poorly, I'd take her back, telling them that she is fine to me and I would take care of her and her young. I can always use another female in my bed." She looked at Simmit and though it had been something of a half-empty threat that Yuan would have used, she did like Simmit, and she knew that it could be done -- especially once she saw the shy way that the demon looked at her. Yuan could see that Simmit liked the idea at least a little, seeing the way that her boys had fallen in love with the dragon. She also saw the way that Simmit and Copper both looked at her and she knew what they were waiting for, so she sighed. She felt a little foolish as she related a little of what her hope had been with the Tarkroth and how it had gone, and she went on to tell of the end of it and her sadness, " ... so I would have left them with a bit of an ultimatum. I think it is important that they mate and breed, since they are the last, but also, I wished for them to see what they both already knew -- that they might at some time need to really be a clan and not a couple. With Simmit and her little ones, that day would have begun now. I would make it clear that Simmit would probably like to be bred again -- with the right male, and Billy is easily that one, though Beyl'eth will need to get her mouth off his prong long enough for that to happen." "Billy?" Copper asked and Yuan nodded, "It is not his real name, but he came here very young and forgot his name." "So they'd give Simmit a good home for herself and her brood?" "It was my thought," Yuan smiled, "She is nice, and if they were good to her, she would soon be thankful enough to mate with him, maybe even both of them, from what I know of the female. But they are not there, so we waste our breath and I think that she would be happier with you, Copper. Did you fix whatever it was?" Copper nodded, "Yeah, I finally got through to her. I told her that I want them to stay with me. I'd like that, though I know that I'd have to get myself past a few things, because Simmit is just so affectionate, so I asked her to stay and I said that I'd try not to be such a grumpy dwarf to her. Besides," she grinned with a nod, "She's amazingly bright. It only took me a week to train her to drive this old tin can as well as I can. She only almost tipped the trailer once in a tight turn, and that was only because it was almost empty then." Yuan stared, "Simmit can drive this?" Simmit nodded a little proudly with a smile and Copper laughed, "Sure thing. Having her drive frees me up for other things. This here pig was meant for a crew of three. You stick around here long enough, and I'll have you trained in a heartbeat and you'll be gunning," she pointed to the chain gun. "Give me a month and you can use this thing as your personal ride from the commander's chair there. I love to gun a lot more than sweat details anyway. I think I'd like it better if I could move from one place to another in here, making sure that I don't miss anything and to keep the old boar running well. I guess that one of us has to make a choice," she nodded at Simmit. "If she stayed with you, how would that work?" Yuan shrugged, liking where this was going suddenly, so she just spoke plainly, "Well if she chooses to go with me, then I would take her and her children back and keep them myself by making her my pet." Copper's mouth fell open again, "So it's true then? Dragons do take pets?" "We can," Yuan said, smiling at the little monsters who so enjoyed hugging her where she sat, "It is obviously not done much anymore since there are only three of us that I am aware of. But it was common once among dragons. It would have been a bit of an empty threat from me, but I suppose that I could take a pet. I don't know why anyone would want to be my pet, but it is possible. Do you know the way back from here?" "Yeah," Copper said, smiling, "I just have to follow my own tracks in the snow. You don't have to sit back there anymore if you don't want to. There's a fold-down jump seat up front here." Yuan came forward and sat down, switching places with a hopeful-looking Simmit who saw that there was a brighter future for her in this somewhere. She knew what she would have liked, but she'd let them come to their own decision. Yuan sat next to Copper, liking this better. She wasn't that fond of having to speak with the headset on. Even though the machine roared and rumbled, she preferred to be near someone when she was talking with them. "Why are you smiling so much?" Yuan asked. "I don't know," Copper grinned, "I'm having fun trying to imagine what that would be like." Yuan laughed, liking the way that Copper looked. It was a really nice change from looking at a grim helmet with the eyeshades pulled down. "Now I see where you get your name," Yuan said, reaching to smooth out a little of the way that the dwarf's hair had been crushed by the helmet, "you are a lot better-looking without that pot. The name suits you well, and I still see no joke." "Thank you," Copper replied, and she wasn't being the least bit superficial in her reply. If she ever heard things like that at all, it usually came from a drunken person, so she put no stock in it most times. She was a little surprised when it came to her that Yuan hadn't really been here long enough to learn how to be very disingenuous. "But what does that involve, being a dragon's pet?" Yuan suddenly found herself a little glad that she'd shown herself when she'd made her return flight. She couldn't see anything of Copper but her rather lovely face, and she got a strong feeling from her that she had little if any interest in females. But that was alright, she supposed, and anyway, they seemed to get along and she wanted to learn more of this girl who was so different to her, driving around in some sort of rolling fortress. She smirked, "Well, there's the having to do whatever I ask part, like when I want some warm food, and there are always the menial chores which need to be done, I guess, cleaning a little, though for dragons, neither of us appear to be very messy, not like what my mother was. Besides, I am the sort who cleans without really thinking anyway." Yuan had a mischievous thought come to her and she decided to act on it, just out of fun. "And of course, the pet would have to do dirty little things with me whenever I wished for it, and fuck with me, of course. My home is very warm and I would want my pet to be naked most of the time there. I'm pretty insistent on that part of things. But even so, the pet would have to be able to sit quietly and watch or sleep while I mated with the other dragon, since that would happen a lot as well. I might even wish for the pet to allow the other one to mate with her as well. It depends on my mood. For that, the pet would get a place to sleep -- with me most nights -- and food, and longer life, since that is what dragons give to their pets as well, perhaps a few hundred years more. I make it all sound a little silly, but Dragons tend to love their pets very much and care for them deeply. it has always been our way. On this world, among my kind of dragon, we have almost always taken humans as our pets." Copper almost lost the pretense of appearing mildly interested then, "But is that even possible? For a human to have sex with a dragon? Wouldn't that hurt or kill the human?" "No," Yuan chuckled, as though the notion was a little absurd, "Most human females can take us, though perhaps not fully in depth, but dragons are not really beasts, even in the large shape that I have, and Copper, I am not a large dragon, even like that. We are not without feeling toward those that we care for. What would be the point in taking a pet only to skewer her to death? Pets are taken to love and cherish, not to harm in any way. Did you not ever have a pet?" Copper nodded, "I used to have a rabbit, but my father got all drunked up and he spent the food money, so he killed my rabbit and we ate her. I cried for weeks." "I am sorry," Yuan said, "I guess that I was looking for an example to compare to, and I have failed badly." "It's alright, Yuan," Copper said quietly, "I know what you were trying to say." There was silence then for a few moments as the armored vehicle rolled on. Finally, Yuan heard Copper as she spoke while being careful to keep her gaze on her instrument and her situational displays. A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 35 "There's a bad part to this somewhere, though, isn't there?" Yuan shrugged, "I don't think so -- oh! There might be. If the dragon dies for some reason and if the pet is already far past their normal lifespan, then the pet ages very quickly and dies soon after. I have read of that happening, but the tales that I read told that with their owner dead, pets no longer want to live. I have been playing with you a little, Copper, but the truth of it is that the relationship goes very deep for dragons and their pets. We seek to always care for them and keep them well." She rolled her eyes then, "And there is another thing." "Aha!" Copper laughed good-naturedly, enjoying what to her was a slightly naughty little conversation. "I knew there was a catch. So go on and tell me." "Well I am both male and female," Yuan smiled, "and everything works. I don't think that it would be a problem for Simmit anyway, but she might end up with a dragon-child by me." Yuan had said it that way, knowing that the demon was listening intently and it was all that the dragon could do to keep the smirk from her face as only a glance told her that Simmit would be fine with that as well. Copper stared, "But wouldn't that - I mean, she's not very big, and -- how the hell is that possible?" Yuan laughed a little, "Dragons are very accommodating -- even as babies. If a pair of us mate and the female conceives, she passes eggs and broods on them. But if the female is something else which may be bred by a dragon, the eggs is soft, only solid enough to pass. After that, the shell dissolves quickly and it is almost like a human birth then. We live in the physical world, but we are rather magical creatures -- as are demons. That is why I can have three shapes in the first place." Copper nodded and tried to concentrate on her driving. She had another thing which was killing her to ask, but she was damned if she could figure out a way to say it. They rumbled on through the snowfall which had begun and was now growing heavier while Yuan went back to sit with Simmit, who hugged her with her two little boys climbing over them both after a moment. "I think that I see that you would like this," Yuan said in Simmit's speech. Simmit didn't answer for a moment as she looked at Copper who seemed lost in her thoughts. Choosing her moment, Simmit leaned in and kissed Yuan softly, but only for a moment before she sat back and they spoke quietly. "Thank you for what you said. It made me feel good to hear that I can be wanted by someone. I am only a small one here where I have come to be. Where I am from, it was the same, but there, I knew what I was doing. Here, I am unsure of everything and I must think of looking after myself for my young and it sounds as though I could be warm and safe. I think that I see your wish," she said, "and, " she looked down for a moment in a bit of shyness, "it is mine as well, but I do not want to be kept away from Copper. I know that she likes me, but she does not know how to show it. That is alright, Yuan, but ..." Yuan smiled, "I understand." Yuan couldn't believe the way that she felt then, but she had to ask things, "The other dragon in this is a male and we love in both ways between us. He is not large, Simmit, and I think that he would be a good male for you as well. He is fine in his way -- or I would not want him as much as I do. Would you take him as well? I think that he could please you." Simmit nodded instantly, "My kind needs to be loved and I have had nothing but emptiness and motherhood for a long while. If he is kind, then I would allow it, but Copper -- " Yuan nodded, "I do not know if it can be, but I believe that Copper is hopeful as well. I must only find the way to let her come to what she wants for herself." "Be careful then," Simmit said with some concern, "Copper does not think that anyone would like her body. It is not thin like mine. It is full and Yuan, Copper is a very strong girl. Her body is fine and very hard, but she thinks that she is not anything that another would want." "But you wanted it, no?" Yuan smiled. "Oh yes," the demon nodded, "She hides herself away in those lumpy clothes and she says that she does not want girls, but I could not keep my hands from her in the bed. She just didn't want me." Yuan shook her head, "I think that she just couldn't see the way that your kind is between females who grow close. I saw this with the Tarkroth female and I think that they are the same." She smiled, "Dragons -- at least my kind -- do not care much who they fall for, as long as what comes of it is a little pure, though I have also heard that there were some who only took what they could get and cared little about anything else such as feelings. I am not like that." She sighed a little, "I only need to do this so that it works for her as well." The little ones were trying in their way to be noticed by the adults and the braver of them climbed up Yuan's arm and stared at her. When Yuan turned her head to face him, he stared with such huge eyes and his ears went down a little. It was more that she could stand, so she reached up and held him in place as she pressed her face against his neck and blew a raspberry. He shrieked and giggled, trying to get away and she let him go as he scampered down. She began to play with them, wondering how they'd turned their shyness into a game with her so easily. Simmit got up and walked forward to ask if she could make them another meal. Copper nodded, "Sure. Um, are we good, Simmit? I just want you to know how sorry I am for not understanding." Simmit smiled, "I didn't know either. I only thought that it was the same here as where I am from and I like you." She leaned down trying not to interfere with Copper's driving and she hugged her briefly. As she turned to go, Copper grabbed her arm. "I like you too," she said, "I've just gotta get used to us being different. I'm the first one to complain when somebody treats me like I'm some grumpy rockcarver dwarf and sees only that part of me. And here I did the same thing and hurt your feelings. I oughta know better than to assume things. Here," Copper reached up and pulled the zipper of her insulated coveralls open wide, "I do like the way that you hug me, Simmit and I know that you like to touch my skin when you do, so hug me again if you want." Simmit smiled and knew that Copper was trying hard, so she hugged her again, sliding her hand under the material so that she could touch Copper's shoulder. "Thank you, Copper." "It's alright," Copper smiled shyly, "I'm happy that we could fix this. I like you too much to have left it like it was. Are they howling for food, or can they wait a little?" "They can wait I guess," Simmit replied, "Why?" Copper looked up at the demon and decided that Simmit was worth a lot to her, as little as she understood everything, so she moved Simmit's hand to lay it on her breast and she winked, "I thought you might like a thrill for a minute." Simmit leaned down to kiss Copper's cheek and she stood beside the seat a little awkwardly touching Copper's neck on the other side as well. She was probably the only creature other than a spider who could have done it in that cramped place. Yuan looked over and she smiled at the two of them, guessing where the demon's hand was and how hard Copper was trying here. "I just don't want you to leave," Copper said, "I think I need you and your ankle-biters." "I will not leave you. I think that Yuan has a better place, so maybe we should go there," Simmit said, "I want to know more. From what she has said, it is warm there. You remember what warm is like?" Copper nodded, liking what Simmit's small hand was doing so gently. Warm was when Simmit was against her. Or maybe that was happy, she wasn't sure that it mattered much anymore. "I heard you speak of pets," Simmit said," Where I am from, there are large things like what we saw that she is. They are different, though. Sometimes they take ones like me and those ones are lucky and have better lives. Maybe we can be like that. I know that she likes us both, and from what was said, and what she told me, she is a male, and there is another one. I know that you like males, and I do as well, just not the one who gave me my children for the way that it was done. I would have been more careful if he had not lied to me so well. But we need to know more, Copper, so I will go and feed my little males." "Boys," Copper said, "It means small, young males here. I have trouble thinking of them as little males. I mean, I know that's what they are, but the word doesn't sound right for a couple of little baby boys to me." "Boys then," Simmit smiled. It was a little easier feeding the two of them with Yuan holding them. They settled down right away and she remarked on it. Simmit smiled, "They know that in here, they must behave. They love Copper, but when she gets annoyed with them, they know it, though she tries not to show that she is. She stumps around and bangs things and they know that they have done something wrong. She never shouts at them. They love to sit on her and play as they do with you, but not in here." She laughed as she shovelled in another spoonful, "They do not even fight in here." After the meal, it wasn't long before the small ones began to grow sleepy and Simmit asked for a little help. She had a pair of what looked like small bags hanging up and Yuan held one child while she got the other one inside one of the bags. In another minute, Yuan stared as the pair as they blinked back at her wearily from their small cocoons. "Copper had the idea and she made the bags," Simmit smiled as she leaned to kiss them both, "She told me that the people here long ago would travel sometimes and the mothers used to do this so that they could carry their little ones along easier. This way, I can drive and they are safe and not getting into things. I thought it would be trouble, but they love their bags and how they swing a little as we drive." She poured some water into some old-looking, but otherwise clean cups and asked if Yuan wanted some tea. "Tea?" Yuan stared, "I have not had tea in so long..." she nodded. When it was ready, Copper slowed to a stop and came back, "it's getting lousy out there and tough to see much of anything. We're not far from where we picked you up though. After this, I'll have to go outside and wipe the snow off of everything." She looked at Yuan for a moment and her gaze fell on her long legs. Her eyes opened as she remembered something. "The last time that I was in town, I was in one of the clothes stores. There was only one of those little rooms where they let you try on the clothes to see if they fit. I'm not one of them great beauties, so I always feel really uncomfortable there. There's nothing like a place like that to make a stumpy dwarf-girl feel even stumpier. I wanted a pair of jeans, and I tried on a couple of pairs and they all fit me really well, so I picked up the pile and went to pay. I'd rather find three pairs that fit and not have to come back for a long while. Well the clerk was really unhappy that I chose right then to come to the counter and I sort of wondered why and got almost pissed at him when I figured it out. He was getting his dick sucked really good there behind the counter and I yelled at him that I didn't care about his willie, I just wanted to pay and get going. I guess that he was doing something with somebody that he shouldn't have been. He got really nervous and asked me how many pairs I was buying. I told him three and he rang it up and I paid and got out of there." She laughed as she got up and opened a compartment, "I just scooped up the jeans and left, because I was pissed off and everything. It wasn't til I got back to where I'd hidden this rig that I looked. There had been another pair of jeans and a shirt where I'd put my jeans down and I didn't mean to, but I guess I took everything." She grinned, "Well I was a little shocked at what they were doing, you know? Anyway, none of this stuff fits me, but looking at you, it might fit you better. Here," she said holding the clothing out, "try these on. If they fit you, they're yours. It doesn't take very long for unworn clothing to get a little musty-smelling in here, so I washed them a week back. I didn't know what to do with them. I just hate to throw good stuff away. Go on, try them on." It was a little easier said than done, since Yuan had never owned a pair of jeans, but in a minute, the others grinned and Copper nodded as Yuan stood there wearing the jeans and a chambray shirt. Her tail had to disappear to do it, but she looked really good like that. "I can barely move," Yuan laughed. "Give 'em a few minutes," Copper smiled," They'll loosen up. They look like they were painted on you, like they were made for you. They must have been a custom fit job. I don't think I've ever seen jeans look that good." "Thank you," Yuan said, "But I cannot take them for nothing, Copper." "That's alright," the dwarf girl laughed, "They didn't cost me nuthin', and your being here helped to fix things between Simmit and me. Today I met a real dragon and you'll probably look all embarrassed to hear me say it, but I really like you and I hope we can be friends after all of this. I'll tell you what, though. I think you're like me about accepting things like gifts, so how about ... well, I've been thinking about what we were talking about. I think that you might be able to give Simmit and her kids a good place to live if you were true about what you said over taking her as your pet. I don't want to be without her -- I'm pretty sure, because she and her kids well, they sort of grew on me and ..." Simmit couldn't stand it. She knew Copper well enough to be able to see that saying this was killing her and if nothing was done, Copper would speak her way to down to quiet mumbles and it wouldn't get said at all. Simmit knew that she liked the idea, but only if she could be close to Copper, so she just blurted it out. "Copper thinks that she might like to be a pet too. Can it be done? Can she try it?" Copper's mouth opened and she stared, "Well, I don't uh, ..." Yuan reached over and pulled Copper up. Before she could do much about it other than marvel at how strong Yuan was, the dark dragon had her in her arms. Yuan loved the way that Copper felt to hold. She wouldn't have known, but Copper was tall for a dwarf because of her mother. She stood about five feet tall and really had quite a body, firm and hard as Simmit had said, not thin, but very nice all the same. Copper looked up, blinking in a little shock at the face of a dragon, more beautiful than any picture or artist's rendering that she'd ever seen. She was really in the arms of a dragon. Well mother of pearl, she thought in amazement... "You think that you wish to try with me to see?" Yuan laughed, "Copper, you fight and struggle more with yourself than you ever would with me. You do not need to give me anything for that." She leaned down and Copper's breath was gone the next instant. They groaned against each other and Simmit squirmed where she sat. She'd liked it when she'd dared to kiss Yuan. She wanted to do that again. She wanted to kiss Copper like that. She wanted to cheer. When Yuan broke the kiss, Copper could barely stand there. She blinked for a moment before her thoughts came out. "Holy ..." Yuan held up her hand, "Wait a moment, "she said, smiling, "I am playing only a little here. I like you both so much, but I do not know if I want a pet, not yet anyway." She looked at Copper, "Where you live, it is cold?" Copper nodded, looking rather confused. "Cold and empty too from how it was made," Simmit chimed in, "Copper tries to make a home there but ... mostly, it is cold." "What is this place?" Yuan asked. "It's a service bay in a maintenance garage," Copper said, "It's always been good enough for me. I grew up there. If I'd have known that I'd have three more in it -- and two of them were gonna be little guys, ..." Yuan looked at the demon-girl, "But you like each other and you would go where Copper goes?" Simmit nodded and Copper was surprised again, still standing in shock as she was in Yuan's arms. "Not a good place for little ones. They will get sick," Yuan said and then she nodded, "You can both come and live with Sheth and I. It is always warm. Stay until the spring at least and decide what you want to do." Simmit nodded, liking the idea -- almost. "What if I've decided what I want to do?" Copper asked, looking up at Yuan, "I should do it, right? That's what you'd tell me to do, isn't it?" She looked over at Simmit, "Should we go where it's warm? That's what I think we ought to do if you want that and I know it'll be healthier for the boys instead of always trying to stay warm." Simmit was thinking about it, but she was wondering what had gotten into Copper all of a sudden. She felt like she'd blinked and found herself in a different conversation. She nodded. Copper threw her arms around Yuan and began to kiss her. When a rather surprised Yuan pulled away a few moments later, she looked at Copper, who was busy trying to pull apart the snaps on Yuan's shirt. "But, ... I thought -- " Copper smiled a little sheepishly -- but she kept on opening the dragon's shirt, "I don't get many chances to kiss a dragon, and I still want to try." She sighed as she looked at Yuan's breasts and reached to touch one, "I suppose I'm just gonna have to get used to these things, is all." Then she laughed quietly, "And I don't think it's gonna be all that tough, now that I'm doing this." Yuan grinned and a few minutes later, Copper's coveralls were around her ankles and Simmit was on her knees helping to get them off by guiding her friend's legs out of her boots. Yuan ran her hands over Copper's skin and sucked in her breath for a moment, "Oh Copper," she sighed, "you hide treasures like this away?" Copper moaned quietly as Yuan kissed her throat for a moment before Copper pulled the shirt back over Yuan's shoulders. Simmit was right there, helping her arms out of the sleeves. The jeans were another story, however, and there were moments of quiet laughter as Yuan lay on her back on the bunk while the hopeful pair stood pulling them off her long legs. She looked at the little parcels hanging up asleep, facing the front of the interior, "How long do we have?" Simmit grinned, "They will sleep for a good while now -- if we are quiet." Simmit pulled Copper to guide her down onto the bunk. "I -- I don't know what to do," Copper stammered. Yuan smiled, "Please Copper, just do not tell us that you wish for us to stop. That would be cruel." "Why?" Copper asked, a little mystified. "Fool," Yuan grinned, "Where are your eyes? Simmit aches to love with you. I love your body as well. Have you been drinking or something?" Copper would have protested, but they pushed her down gently and somehow the three of them fit on the narrow bunk. While Yuan kissed Copper and ran her hands over her body. Simmit gave Copper only one reason to doubt and it was out of her playfulness as Copper caught a quick glimpse of Simmit as she spread Copper's knees apart and showed her teeth in a delighted and hungry grin. Before Copper could even react to it, Simmit was doing what she'd wanted to do for Copper since the first night that they'd slept together out of trying to stay a little warm in the cold quarters where Copper lived alone. She felt Simmit's hands caressing her thighs and her flanks as the demon made love to her. After Copper gave in to it and came in minutes, Simmit moved aside and Yuan slid her hardness in slowly. A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 35 Copper began to groan then, but Simmit was right there, clamping her hand over the dwarf's mouth, "Quiet, Copper," she begged, "be quiet or this will end when my little -- boys wake up," she said, using Copper's word and smiling. It felt so good to have Yuan inside her, but Copper managed to hold her sounds in check. She looked up into that beautiful face and she saw both sides of a very complex individual, but she also saw that she was wanted, and she hugged Yuan tightly. Yuan heard Copper's breaths as she worked, one breath went in and was held for a time, and then released. Another inhalation followed quickly in a little gasp and with all of the little gasps strung together it was music to Yuan. She knew the pattern. She was female herself. "You're both so beautiful," Copper said as she looked up. Yuan smiled, "Thank you, but I thought that was what I am supposed to say here," she kissed Copper and lifted her face again, "since it is true. Simmit and I are not blind." When Copper's climax grew close, she had trouble staying quiet and Simmit crawled forward frantically. She slid her thin arm between Copper and Yuan to touch the dwarf's cheek and when Copper turned and opened her eyes, Simmit clamped her mouth over Copper's and kissed her to keep her quiet and to finally admit how she felt to the dwarf-girl. Copper's eyes opened for a second and then they closed again as her groan grew quiet when she came, but Simmit felt that groan deep inside of herself. Yuan stopped and withdrew as Copper lay smiling softly on her back. Simmit moved lower on her very tentatively, but there was no mistaking what Copper saw in her eyes. "I know even less about this here, "Copper whispered, "Yuan, I've never had anyone do me like that before." "You have never had anyone 'do you' as Simmit will either," Yuan smiled, "Allow her this, and you will be rewarded with a discovery about Simmit. You may not know what it is that you carry in your own heart, but she knows what is in hers. She likes males but has been badly treated. That does not matter right here. Sheth and I can help that so easily. But Simmit has been in love with you for as long as she has known you. If you have a heart, feel with it now. You will never know love like this if you do not." Copper's head shot up, "You - is this true?" Simmit became shy instantly, but Copper reached for her hand before Simmit could draw back. "I'm a big jerk," Copper said softly as she reached to pull Simmit higher onto her, "but I'm trying not to be. I don't have a clue how, but I want you too, Simmit." She wrapped the demon in her arms and kissed her. "I'm so sorry for everything," she said after a moment, reaching to move Simmit's long mane from her face, "I'll never do that again. Just be with me, Simmit. I need you too." The demon smiled down at Copper with wet eyes before she put her head down and hung onto the dwarf tightly. "I do not want to leave you," Simmit sighed, "I need you so much, Copper." Copper grinned then, "Alright, you beautiful little furball, come on and show me what you wanted to do last night. I've driven your sweet little butt all over Hell's half-acre, but I'm happy now. Show me what you've got while I'm this happy and you have the chance for it." Simmit looked up in a bit of surprise, but then she saw Copper's face and had to work at not laughing. She moved herself backward a little and knelt between Copper's legs, looking at the length of the dwarf and sliding her palm over Copper's front before she moved Copper's legs apart widely and the dwarf wondered why. There was a size difference between her and Yuan, and another one between her and Simmit, but the demon-girl knew what she was doing to make Copper's mound show as prominently as she could. When Simmit eased herself down onto Copper, everything became clear in an instant and Copper sighed and marveled at how good it felt to fuck like this. Yuan loved to see them grunt together softly through an orgasm or two each and she decided something that they needed to talk about later, but she could see the way ahead for this pair easily. Simmit began to make soft crooning noises to Copper and Yuan was shocked after a time that it was words and not only sounds. Copper knew nothing, she just loved what they were doing, so she made her own sounds and the tone matched Simmit's. When they stopped, Simmit felt Yuan's hand on her bottom and she looked at Copper questioningly. "I can have Yuan now?" she asked. It took Copper a moment to get it, but then she smiled with a nod, "Baby girl, you deserve to have Yuan now." She looked at Yuan, "I know this'll sound stupid, but just don't hurt her, alright?" Yuan smiled, "I know where this comes from in you, Copper. I would never hurt her." Copper nodded back, "I know that, Yuan. I just felt like I had to say it, is all." Simmit looked back and got down off the bunk. She turned and reached up to put her arms around Yuan's neck and she kissed her softly for a long moment before she pulled back and looked into Yuan's light eyes, "Thank you for helping, Yuan." Yuan smiled, feeling like her heart would fail her as she nodded, "I'm happy for you now. You are both different, but you make something between you that I can almost see. Do you want me now?" Simmit nodded and sank to her knees. She had to be a little straighter to reach comfortably, but she didn't mind as she pressed her face against Yuan gently and began to lick as Yuan placed her hand on Simmit's head very carefully. Simmit was careful to be quiet, but even so, her quiet moans could just be heard over the soft sounds of her mouth and tongue as she teased Yuan's shaft into hardness again. The thrumming of the diesel engine as it idled covered almost everything. When Yuan had hardened, Simmit left it with a soft and very warm kiss to stand and turn, leaning on the bunk with one hand and holding her thin tail out of the way so that Yuan had access to her as she lowered her face to the blankets and thrust her hips back. Copper moved closer as Yuan mounted Simmit. She looked down at Simmit's sweet face and the way that her eyes were closed because Yuan was so gentle with her. Copper stroked Simmit's cheek and gave up her pretense at gruffness. "I love you, Simmit." "I know," the small demon sighed, "I knew before you did. I love you too, Copper." Simmit began her little sounds again as Yuan made love to her. Copper watched spellbound as they copulated slowly -- just as slowly as she'd been taken by Yuan, but from this vantage point with Yuan behind Simmit, Copper watched the way that the dragon stroked the demon's body so softly, reaching to touch her ribs and run her hands back and down Simmit's thin thighs a little before beginning again. Simmit moaned very quietly and crooned those soft sounds of hers. Yuan slowed right down suddenly. "I know what you say," she began to speak very softly in Simmit's language, "I know what you ask us both for. Is this what you want?" "Yes, "the demon-girl sighed, "Oh yes, anything as long as I can keep Copper near to me. Now that she knows, I -- I need her." "Copper," Yuan hissed, "Copper, listen. You must hear this. Simmit wishes to become my pet, but she wants you in this as well." Copper sat stroking Simmit's shoulder, "I don't know, Yuan. What does this mean?" Yuan looked at Simmit's back, "Simmit, can I tell her?" Copper saw that Simmit looked uncertain for a moment until she saw the way that Cooper looked at her and she nodded then with a smile as she began to pet Copper's thigh. Yuan slowed even more and didn't go as deeply, "She wants to be my pet as long as you become my pet as well. You may be a pair for each other always. I will give you both my love and my male if he wants you, and Sheth is no fool. I think that he would be a wondrous lover to you both." She shuddered for a moment as Simmit clenched onto her shaft, "She likes this," Yuan smiled. "But you don't have to do it this way," she continued, "I want you to come and at least see our home and meet Sheth before you decide anything," Yuan said quietly as she thrust very slowly into Simmit. "You don't have to become pets. There's room there and it's warm. Simmit sighed and looked at Copper. "I want to be Yuan's pet. I want to live somewhere warm with her and you, Copper." Copper was in the middle of this. She understood the quick way that Simmit was and at the same time, she could see the reasons for Yuan's caution. "This is permanent once it's done, isn't it, Yuan?" Yuan nodded, "Very permanent. That is why I mention that it is not necessary. I will not do this unless you are both sure, no matter what Simmit says." Copper looked up from Simmit's face to Yuan, "But you would like it if we did it, wouldn't you?" Yuan sighed, "Yes," she whispered, "You would live with us and we will always provide for you as we are able. Know this, however -- you would be my pets, not my females. You can be whatever you wish to each other as long as it makes you happy. Happiness is the most important thing. You can raise the little ones there and I already care for them -- since I cannot help it anyway." Yuan gave in for a moment and thrust a little harder, but then she settled back down, "You can have me as a male or as another female if I do not show what I wish, and sooner or later, I think that you will bear dragon children by us, so you must think of this as well." "We can have you, but not be your females?" Copper asked, "I like this, but I'm not sure that I get it all." "You will likely belong to each other," Yuan smiled, "I think that you already do, a little bit. I know that if this happens, then I must make room for it so that it can grow. I will look for a female for me one day, and if I find none -- as I am afraid that I will, then you both will be females to Sheth and I. If I find one, then nothing changes." She leaned down carefully and kissed Simmit's back for a moment, "And anyway, you already have a little of my heart. This is not just for my using you." Simmit reached up and touched the dwarf's cheek, "Copper, ... Copper, Yuan wants us too. I feel it." She looked back at Yuan, "You need us, yes?" Yuan lowered her eyes, but it was only for a moment. "Yes," she said in her whisper, "I need you. I have been alone for too long -- all of my life in some ways. Now I have a male, but I am a dragon and a human and we need others. We love our families and, ... I have never had this. I had a pair of humans who loved me and taught me, but they were not my parents. I had my mother who adopted me and made me what I am here, but my real family, ... " She blinked hard for a moment, "I never what to be alone again. I want my male, and I will seek a female because of how I am, but I want you both as pets and we all will be crowded, but none will be lonely." She fell silent and returned to fucking Simmit slowly. It was difficult for the demon to do, but she discussed things quickly with the dwarf. They stopped for a moment when Simmit gasped and writhed before she shuddered and smiled back at Yuan after the quiet contractions were done, "So sweet you are to fuck with. I have lost myself to you both. Say what you desire, Copper. If you want Yuan this way, then I want her too. I want you anyway, Copper. I need you. I think we can be happy like this." Left to herself, Copper's doubts would have arisen, and she'd have made arguments to herself against it all, but she knew how she felt about Simmit then and she knew that she wanted the demon and her children in her life, and maybe more. Besides all of that, one look at Simmit and another at Yuan and she knew that she'd never find others for herself like these two. She nodded, "Will it hurt?" Yuan groaned with a smile as she came and said nothing for a moment, "I hope not. I have never done this before. But I will not do it here." They looked at her and she explained, "I am happy that I found ones like you, but this is not something that one just does lightly -- especially not while they are in the middle of things. This can last for hundreds of years." She pulled out of Simmit slowly and she bent down to kiss Copper for a moment, "Simmit almost glows in her happiness over you, Copper, and she wants this too. You have finally been loved by a dragon -- and I think that it is something that you might only have dreamed of, but while you both needed something soft for your hearts here, I think that you would want it a little more -- exciting sometimes?" She grinned at the nods that she saw. "Good," she smiled, "then please, let's go to my home after this. I want you to meet Sheth and we can all talk. Even if this does not happen, I have never ached for friends so badly as I do now." "What's the difference if we're just your friends instead?" Copper asked, "I mean," she smiled, "really close friends?" "Not much," Yuan admitted, "but friends can come and go. Pets are bound to the hearts of their dragons and dragons might not care about any others, but we always care for our pets and keep them happy. We can have a lot of fun and share heartaches too, just as friends do." "Then, why bother with that?" Copper said, "We like you. We'd make room for you in my bed too, Yuan." She looked at Simmit, who nodded, but she spoke up then. "I think what Yuan tries to say, is that as pets, she will let us be together all we wish, but -- " Copper nodded with a small grin, "That having to do whatever she says part." "Sometimes," Yuan said quietly, "only sometimes. If the place needs cleaning, then Sheth and I will want your help, but it will not be your task to do it all. If you need help with this, ... Bradley thing, then ask us and we will help too. Copper was looking for something to be put off over and she wasn't finding it. "I'm pretty sure that I'd want a lot of the naughty part, and I'd want to be able to have a lot of nights alone with Simmit if we keep on like I'm hoping," she said in a softly challenging way to make it clear. Simmit sighed and got onto the bunk to touch Copper's cheek with a soft smile as she hugged her. "That was what I said that I wished to allow the room for," Yuan smiled, "It is important to me that if you are a pair, then that must stay. But you know that there will be other times that --" "And children," Copper interrupted, "You said that we might get to have children. Simmit makes such beautiful babies and ..." Yuan smiled, "I would love to help raise your young ones too, Copper." "Who would father them -- our kids, I mean? Your male or can you -- " Yuan nodded, "Sheth and me too, I hope." Copper shook her head, "I think you'd better stick to making ankle-biters with Simmit," she said, "Mine would just be really round and loud." Simmit pulled Copper's face and shook her head, "If you do not want to be bred, then say no, Copper. I need you and I will stay with you. But you are wrong in how you see yourself. I always like to look at you and I know that Yuan would not talk like this if she did not like what you have. I would love your little ones." Copper looked at Yuan and the dragon nodded, "I know what is in your heart, Copper. I see your doubts, but I also see the hope that has been there all of your life. You have always wanted to be loved by a dragon. Well I am a dragon who wants you. I think that I can see that you want a lot of size and power when you are loved and I can do that easily. I think that I already know my male well, and if he likes you as I think he will and you like him, you can have two dragons bedding you if that is your want -- male dragons, Copper. In one day, I found my male. Now I found you both. I love your body too, Copper. If Sheth and I can breed you, we will love the young who come from it. But first, you need to meet him and see if you want him too. You cannot only have me, since I am pairing with him. I wished for a home and a male. I have them now. I know what else I wish for, but that is up to you." "I don't want to have children right away," Copper said, "I only think that I'd like to have kids one day." Yuan saw the careful cautiousness in Copper's face and she smiled back, "And I don't think that you should. I am not talking about us going at either of you until you are with child. I am female too. We still need to be careful about when we mate in our month. We would want nothing less for you. But that is to speak of later, I think, and you have not seen Sheth yet." Simmit turned a little in Copper's arms, "I am too small to be taken by dragons," she said, "I think that I would like it for the thought and how I think that it would feel, but, ... "she shrugged, "I cannot." Yuan smiled, "Sheth is like me. Like this, he is a little taller, but as a Wotroth, he is much smaller. Maybe you can have your dragon, Simmit." ---------------------------- Yuan was on her back and they were on either side of her, kissing her alternately as Copper learned by touch the way that Simmit's hands worked a little magic on Yuan's hidden folds. "I love your skin," she whispered, "it feels so --" Her eyes opened wide and she shook for a moment. Simmit looked up and then she saw Copper relax but she was in the same hold then herself. It passed and Yuan smiled up at them. "Was that too bad?" Copper shook her head, and Simmit followed suit, "No," Simmit whispered, "what was it?" Yuan smiled warmly, "A small piece of a dragon's life which was given to you. I gave it to you both for nothing. You seemed uncertain but hopeful and I think it is sweet. I felt the same way so I wanted to give it even without you becoming my pets. You will live long -- unless I am killed." Simmit blinked at Copper, who blinked back. "How do you feel?" the dwarf asked the demon. Simmit smiled, "Safe and happy, stronger somehow too" she said after a moment of thought, "And you?" "I feel the same," Copper nodded, "I'd probably feel a lot more like you do, but I've gotta pee right now." She looked at Yuan and enjoyed the way that she caressed her bottom for her, "Unless your guy is really ugly and rude, I think you've got yourself a pair of pets -- whether you want them or not." In the front of the compartment, one of the twins had been awake for a couple of minutes. There was nothing for him to see but the empty driver's seat and he'd grown bored before long. He looked over and saw his brother next to him and with a little careful swinging, he bumped into his twin and caused him to wake up and cry. "I guess the party's over," Copper groaned, "I gotta get dressed and go topside to clean the snow off the vision systems." Simmit got up and went to get her children while Copper got dressed and opened the door to step out into the storm with Yuan, who offered to help if she was shown what to do. "This is something that you'll need to know about," Copper said, "I've got a feeling that you'll need us for more than screwing, Yuan. I can't say why I feel that way or how I know it, I just do." She showed Yuan what to be careful with and how to do it, and then she turned, saying that she'd clean the ice that had formed over the headlights. And then she disappeared, taken with a low growl by something out there in the snow. Yuan's head snapped around, "Copper?" Yuan peered into the wind and saw nothing, but she heard Copper's yells and the sounds of her struggling with something and it sounded large, by the growling and the quiet roaring going on out there. She jumped down and walked quickly in the direction of the sounds, trying to prepare to do what she could to save Copper. A moment later, she saw Copper locked in some sort of combat with a troll, of all things. Yuan knew they existed, but from what she'd learned, there were none here. Then again, she thought as she prepared to wade in, Tarkroth and Wotroth didn't belong here either, and dragons well, ... A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 36 ***I was filling in the blanks for the story tags and I began to laugh at all of the wildlife I was putting in. I'm sure I'm missing somebody in this, I just don't know who it might be. ~smirk~ I'll see if I can add a roadrunner later on. Anyway, Yuan seeks to build her empire, shall we say. It's something which the old-style dragons are a little famous for. We all make some sort of declaration to ourselves at some point in our lives that, as much as we might love our parents, there are things that we'd do differently. Yuan's mother was fine being alone in her old age. Yuan wants others around her and she's willing to give quite a lot for that. 0_o ---------------------- Book of the Dragon Part 11 The troll looked toward Yuan after a moment as Copper got off and seeing Yuan standing there with her mouth open and trying to recover, she took the troll's hand, "Come on," she said, "there's somebody that I want you to meet. This is –" "Yuan," the troll said quietly in her deep voice. Copper stared as Luddy came nearer to Yuan and began to bow, but she ended it by standing on all fours in the way of trolls and bowing her head. "I am Lyudmila Potter. I seek to live in your service." Luddy and Copper had been friends forever and so she knew what she thought that she was looking at. Female trolls never bow to anyone but their... And even that didn't happen very often. "Luddy," she whispered, "Luddy, have you been- " It had the tone of a serious question and the troll nodded, "I've been tamed, Copper. His name is Sheth. I've been watching as a pair of dragons mated and lived in my cave together for the past couple of weeks and I learned their names. I wanted to meet them so much, but, ... " She sighed, "Well I'm a troll, you know? A lot of folks faint or run when I try to meet them. You know how it is, Copper." The Dwarf nodded, "Yeah, I know. But what happened?" "Today, Yuan left. I didn't know why at first, but Sheth explained it to me later. She was going to meet you and a lost demon-girl. Give me a minute here." The troll moved forward slowly and bowed deeper, holding the bow, "It is an honor to meet you, Yuan. I met your male today, and he has taken me as his pet. He said that it was not wrong to mate with him this way. I came to meet you and, I hope it is alright..." She stopped there, feeling foolish to continue in front of her friend. "It's fine," Yuan smiled warmly, "I know what you think that you need to say and it's not necessary. These are not the old days and none of us are old. The honor here is mine. May I call you Luddy?" The troll nodded with a shy smile, "You may. I came to see you and, well, even in a blizzard, a troll like me can hear Copper's machine a long way off in the snow. It's not loud if it's idling like this, but I know the sound. I came because I wanted to meet you and ... " She hung her head, so Yuan stepped forward. "Look at me, Luddy." Luddy looked up slowly and Yuan reached for her face to touch her cheek, "Are you a full troll? I do not think so since you look a little small for your kind." Luddy shook her head, "I'm very small for what I am. My father was Copper's half-uncle, – a dwarf, so she and I are related in a way, but we didn't know until we were in our teens. But I'm enough of a troll to know, ..." "To want," Yuan smiled, and there was no smugness in her face or her tone. "Dragons have the same want toward trolls. I never thought that I would see one and here you come to ask for service. It is my honor to accept." Luddy nodded and bowed again, "Thank you. My mother told me the same thing, that trolls and dragons have always been together. I'm enough of a troll to know that I need to serve a dragon. You are the other male. I have seen you. Can you love me too?" Copper knew quite a bit about trolls, or the sort that Luddy's mother was, but this was new. If she knew old man Potter at all well, then there was bound to be blood and murder here in the worst way and if Sieglinde Potter was the least bit upset by any of this, well it would be far worse then. She was about to speak up to warn Yuan when the dragon smiled. "You must have family here somewhere, no? I will need to go to speak with someone before we begin, I am sure." Luddy shook her head, "No. I've just come from seeing my mom. I was pregnant a while ago and I was careful to keep it quiet when I lost the baby as well. I was sure that she never heard, but she knew somehow. She knows everything. She knew that there were dragons here before I even opened my mouth. Once I told her about you, she laughed at the ceiling and said that she was happy that I'd finally found someone for me – if I was accepted. Then she told me what I had to say. Have I said it, then?" Yuan smiled warmly and touched one of Luddy's braids, "You have said all that needs saying in the old ways. I can love you easily, Luddy. I am happy to have a beauty such as you." Seeing the expression on Yuan's face as she looked at her and said that she could love her, Luddy actually sighed out loud. Lyudmila Potter was a young female in her twenties and her dwarf heritage helped her in many ways. She wasn't as large as a house, for one thing, and she wasn't covered with the hard horn scales that most of her kind wore. She had a few, but mostly they were where they might be needed, on her shoulders, elbows and knees – and not too many, either. Another thing which helped Luddy was her cleanliness and the total lack of the stink which many trolls were infamous for having. Luddy had always been aware of her lack of the sort of looks which even a homely human girl could count on, so she'd always done what she could to improve her chances to meet people, since it was what she longed to do. The sad part to her was that none of it had helped very much. She had a bit of a short neck, but not overly so, and certainly not as short as most trolls. She was thin for a troll as well and quite shapely. Her breasts weren't large – well again, for a troll. They were perfect on her and were covered to a great extent by her long mane – or they would be, but Luddy liked braids. Her long deep brown mane was braided to keep it from getting matted and catching on things that she passed by, and at the sides and the front, she wore thin little ones which bore little gems that she'd braided in. She was naked but for some charms which she wore on her horns and as thongs around her huge biceps and thighs. Her thatch of pubic hair covered her modesty well, looking like a hanging patch of vines and moss, but that was the way that troll-girls are in many cases. Her skin was the gray color of old bark without the roughness because she was quite smooth to the touch – that smoothness being another trait that had come from her father though her skin tone came from her mother. Her face, though it was striking for its array of sharp teeth when she showed them, was lovely in a way, framed as it was by the long down-turned horns on her head. Like this, hopeful to be taken into the service of a living dragon, and just as hopeful for the love of both dragons, she was a gentle giant. But when she was angered, whole sections of the landscape could fly for the way that she could rip out trees or lift boulders and throw them with amazing accuracy. Yuan stepped forward to close the distance, "Sheth is not the kind who would use anyone," she said, "If he loved with you, then it was meant, because that is my Sheth. I know him. I can also say that you are accepted, Luddy. I have never seen a more lovely troll-girl – not even in all of the pictures in all of the books that I have seen. Was it done before or after?" "I just knew, Yuan," Luddy said, "as soon as I saw you both, I knew that I wanted this. I just didn't know how to say hello. The old times are gone and I could see that Sheth is a different sort of dragon somehow. But we bumped into each other in the cavern and we stared at each other, me growing wet and him growing hard as we stared. I asked while I still had the chance to even speak. He's very handsome. I didn't know much of how it was supposed to go, but he smiled at me and asked me right then. I was so happy that I started to cry, but he kissed my tears away and hugged me. I said yes and he took me then and there. Afterwards, he asked me to find you to ask as well, but he said that he loves me and I know that dragons do not lie. I have been running even since, looking for you." Copper was more than a little shocked and wondered if her friend had lost her marbles. It hadn't been all that long since her last misadventure. Yuan knew what Copper was thinking. "It is different between trolls and us and it is settled in an instant. Both of our kinds need each other and to find a willing troll and one so beautiful..." She turned to the troll again. "He loved you well?" Yuan asked and Luddy nodded with a shy smile. "Because of something which happened to me, I have been keeping to myself – even more than my usual way. But to see one like him and to know what you both are, I wanted him so much for how he made me feel better. It is good to find dragons if you are what I am. For the first time, I know my place in the world, since he was kind enough to take me as his pet right away." Yuan chuckled as she nodded, "Then you know how it feels to be helpless when he smiles. You should know that if it was done after you offered yourself, then you are accepted by me as well. I would accept you anyway, because it was Sheth, but I can say that you are so lovely and I hear much in your voice as you speak. I accept you, Luddy." She put her arms at the sides of the troll's neck and, carefully maneuvering herself past the troll's tusks, she kissed her for a moment. The troll-girl's groan seemed to come from everywhere in the snow-covered forest around them. "So, you're a pet now?" Copper asked afterward, "How does it feel?" "Pretty good," Luddy replied quietly, "Sorry about all of that, but if I belong to her and the other one, then I had to say it. Momma told me I had to. Nobody in my family has had a dragon to serve for longer than anybody can remember, but Momma knows how it has to go. I serve and I get taken care of and somebody loves me." "Really?" Copper had a clue here, but the way that her friend said it and the tone of her voice, ... Luddy looked down, "Copper, I know I'm not pretty to most folks, ok? We used to always bitch and hate all of the other girls, the human ones who could get a boyfriend with a look. Well, that was a long time ago and, ... well, you grew up and got a lot prettier. Me, I just got bigger. If I don't keep moving, I just sit like the rest of my family and get mean. I'd also grow a lot of moss from doing that, so I like to stay active. It hurts like hell to pull moss off once it's settled on and starts to grow." She looked off into the woods for a moment, "I never meet anyone. The only time I did, I believed every word he fed me and look what happened. If these dragons want me, well, I'm in, Copper. The dragon that I fucked with wasn't huge or anything, but he was awesome to me, and I've seen this one when she's not a beautiful dragon-girl like she's showing now. To have somebody like that, well I'd give a lot, you know? And unless they've changed a lot from long ago, when a dragon fucks you, it's like a charm, and they never ever fuck you over, either. They like me and how I look. Dragons and trolls never lie to each other. Our kinds go back a long way. Do you know what that feels like to me, Copper? That somebody likes the way that I look?" "I understand, Luddy, I think I even know just what you mean," she dwarf grinned, "Come on. If we hang around out here much longer, we'll just have to clean everything off all over again. Shake that snow off yourself, and I'll get out your seat pad." The ramp whined down until it was right on the trailer hitch for the fuel tank that Copper was towing to make as much room for Luddy as possible. Simmit saw Yuan come in, followed by Copper and then she stared with her mouth open as the troll climbed aboard slowly, watching to make sure that she didn't damage anything. The vehicle had been designed to transport humans into and out of battle and support them there. Humans could enter and exit easily and the taller ones had to duck a bit to do that. Well Simmit could almost fly in and out and it wasn't an issue for Copper at all. Yuan had to watch her horns, but that was about it. Luddy, well, ... it took a bit of doing. She eased herself down on the seat pad that Copper kept on board for her and she looked around. The introductions were made to Simmit, and after about a couple of minutes, Simmit was smiling and chatting with Luddy, and the troll thought that she was wonderful and so animated, but the ice-breakers were the boys. They'd been on the floor plating when the ramp whined down. When Luddy struggled in, they'd stood with their jaws on the floor and kept looking uncertainly toward their mother and the others, but in moments, they were all over Luddy as though the troll was a living playground. It was a bit of a moment for Luddy, seeing who it was that they looked a little bit like, but the moment passed and she got over it. She liked these two for who they were, not who'd fathered them. "I don't really understand it, "Yuan smiled, "I thought they were brave when they decided about me, but it took them a little while. With Luddy, ..." Copper grinned as she climbed onto the driver's seat, "People freak out when they see Luddy, a lot of them, but that's from something stupid in their heads. Little kids don't have that. Little kids have always loved Luddy." Luddy sat and heard of what had happened, looking at her friend with a bit of wonder. "So you're together?" she asked, "This is a little different for you, isn't it, Copper?" "Yeah," the dwarf sighed, "but it's not as though I had any choice, Luddy. Simmit got within three feet of me and though I fought like hell – " She turned her head to see Simmit smirking at her. "Yeah, it's different," she said, "and I don't give a rat's ass what anybody thinks. I'm happy with Simmit so far. We just need to figure it out some more." ------------------------- They'd arrived at the cavern entrance long after dark. Copper knew the place since she'd been there many times. With everyone out and ready to head for the entrance, Copper hit a hidden button and the ramp whined up until it was closed. She pulled a padlock from the pocket of her coveralls and locked it. "Shouldn't you have turned it off?" Yuan asked, "You've left it running." "Copper's got mostly a full tank back there," Luddy said as she turned, looking a little silly with the small demons on her shoulders, "It's a diesel. You shut one of them off in weather this cold, and you'll be waiting til spring to get it started again. Diesels don't like the cold." "Neither do diesel drivers," Copper scowled as she tried to walk in Luddy's deep and large footprints, "Besides, it hardly uses anything to idle all week." Sheth was quite obviously happy as they all tramped inside, and he had a full meal cooked and ready, right down to little pieces already cut up for the little demons – who took to him instantly. When the boys had tired from running around with Sheth, they crawled into the soft bed that he'd prepared and were asleep in minutes and the serious discussions began. Luddy was amazed and very pleased to learn that Simmit and Copper would stay – until the spring, Yuan said, but they disagreed then. "Nope," Copper said, "You gave us your part of it in the my tank out there this afternoon. Simmit and me, we've been talking between us and we want to be pets too. You said to wait until we'd met Sheth. Well we've met him and we all like each other. She's happy and I'm happy too. This'll work, Yuan. I only want one thing and I hope it's not a big deal, but I still want to hunt the bastard who makes a hobby out of lying and breaking hearts. I'm not too far off the trail to where he lives and I just want one good chance to put one of my high-speed flying dildos up his ass for once." "High-speed, ... " Yuan looked mystified. Copper laughed, "That chain gun out there? I can send my love his way three times a second – at about three times faster than sound. The little beauties I can give him don't even slow down much for the first 2 miles and when they get where they're going," she grinned, "high explosive incendiary to add just a little heartburn." She nodded with pride, "Hell of a way to reach out and touch somebody." The story of it was related and then Yuan looked around. With the single exception of herself, this demon had affected all of their lives to some degree, and none of them in a happy way. "I think that it was a slightly mistaken idea," she said, "but I was sent to kill demons. I gave not found one yet who needs killing, I may as well kill one of them and call it done." She looked at Copper, "You may have your hunt." ------------------------- Lost in the pile of furs where they were to sleep, Copper felt a little trepidation and wished that she had a manual for this. She could build up a 27 ton armored fighting vehicle and keep it running in top form and why? Because she had a manual. Loads of them actually. She wanted to do this well for Simmit and worried about it a little, ... Well, a little was all that she'd been allowed to worry, really. As soon as they were in the bed, the demon disappeared, flowing under and through all of the furs like rats in a used clothing bin. Copper felt those small hands everywhere on her body in light touches and gliding caresses. It was wonderful, but Copper felt a little useless. Simmit materialized before her out of the furs with a pelt over one eye and a concerned look, "What is wrong, Copper?" "I don't know where to start or what I ought to do first or anything. I want to make you happy." Simmit stood up, "I am happy. Let's go to the pool. The water is so warm and you need to stop thinking." Simmit was right, the dwarf decided, this wasn't something to stress over. She just wished that she knew what she was doing. In the warm water, Copper learned a few things at least. Simmit loved to sit with her, right on her thigh if possible, trading little caresses and kisses. The demon could talk about anything like that and still do that, touching Copper's breasts as she leaned against her. Copper felt Simmit take her hand and guide it to her one of her own little breasts and it didn't take long to see that finesse wasn't all that necessary, but warm intent was. Simmit told her not to worry, and then she looked a little hopeful. "Here is soap," she smiled, handing the dwarf an ancient and cracked bar that she's gotten from somewhere. "Please wash me?" Copper sat like a statue with the bar in her hand and stared as Simmit rose slowly out of the water to stand facing away from her, looking back with the softest look and smile. Copper stared at Simmit's thin flanks and watched that tail flick once or twice and she just began. It brought them closer and the simple act served as the platform for several of Copper's epiphanies in little time. Being the detail-oriented and methodical sort of half-dwarf girl that she was, Copper began to catalog these in her mind. 1) Simmit needed to be held. Right, she thought; that one shouldn't have been a brain-buster to figure out, but the dwarf filed it for later. 2) Simmit would reward you with the sweetest little giggles and squeals if you soaped up her toes and ran your fingers between them a couple at a time. She suddenly knew those sounds. Her kids made the same ones if you got them going when you played with them. 3) Wet or dry, Simmit smelled so good, anywhere on her from about one quarter inch away or less. Preferably less. A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 36 4) It didn't matter what you did when you were between those thighs from the front. Simmit loved it all and showed you that she did. 5) If Simmit got really crazy, it was always better than amazing. 6) And if you really wanted to see the pure erotic power that whatever kind of demon Simmit was really possessed and kept locked away inside herself, what you had to do was about the last thing that Copper would have thought of. She'd found the key by happy accident. She'd had the demon standing and leaning against the edge of the pool, and her soapy hands had caused Simmit to laugh and wriggle around in her grasp. Simmit's incredibly long inky mane flew from her motions and since it was mostly wet at this point, Copper was getting wet slaps across her face and breasts from it. Copper realized that she was having a blast, but it was more than a little distracting. She took one long look at that little ass and decided to try to seize one thigh to get her nutty girlfriend to hold still, at least a little. When her soapy fingers slid between those cheeks, it hadn't been meant, but her fingers grazed Simmit's anus and everything changed. Simmit stopped thrashing instantly and was silent. She looked back and her eyes were lidded as a slow smile crossed her lovely face. "Please, Copper," she sighed, "do not stop, but do not go inside. Wash me there." Copper sat there staring and she complied, mesmerized by the way that Simmit began to move, pressing back and rubbing herself softly against the dwarf's fingers. As dim as Copper could be about some things, she was far from being an idiot. She'd never dream of doing anything to ruin this. After a little time, she lifted handful after handful of warm water to let it run and rinse the soap away, but after that, she was back to being clueless. She was about to withdraw her hand, but Simmit's hand shot back to hold it there. "Do not stop, Copper." The hair on Copper's neck stood up from the sound of it and she did her best to turn her motions into the sort of caresses that the girl seemed to want. Simmit's hips moved in an ancient and very slow dance right before Copper's eyes. She couldn't have torn her gaze away to save her life. Simmit danced slowly and Copper watched that little butt move back and forth, twisting now and then and her stance changed so that she pressed her hips back even more. Copper saw that Simmit wasn't leaning anymore as one hand went to her own breast and the other slid between those incredible thighs to tease her lips. She felt Simmit's knuckles grazing against her fingertips. That face turned back and there was nothing to be read there there but pure need as those lips parted slowly to ask for Copper's kisses. Copper stammered that she couldn't reach from where she was without stopping, but Simmit smiled languidly and shook her head, as Copper felt her press her hips back even more and Simmit turned away again and leaned down to place her hands on the stone. Copper heard things. She heard the quiet hissing of the steam and the cascade, the crackling of the huge fire some distance away; many things. She heard the soft slapping of Sheth's hips against Luddy and she heard Luddy's very soft and deep moans. Somewhere in everything, Copper actually heard a smile as lips were drawn back over teeth not far off behind her. She looked back and saw Yuan standing on the other side of the pool with a grin. She slid into the pool and stepped over silently, causing barely a ripple. "If you want this demon-girl to be yours forever," she whispered into Copper's ear, "then you should know that Simmit shows something of herself to you that she has never shown anyone else so clearly. You cannot see it because of the dwarf in you. I am a dragon and I can often see things which are hidden. This has been hidden to everyone and it is Simmit's most personal secret and greatest want. What are you waiting for? Kiss her there and she is yours for your lives, but be warned – Simmit seeks to ensnare you to her. Nothing bad at all, but her love for you and her hope to be yours pushes her in this." Copper felt the soft kiss against her ear as the dragon sighed, "There is a large difference in the way that this kind of demon loves when they give their hearts to their chosen ones and the way that dwarves do not give much to anyone. You are all greedy in this way Copper and give little. I feel that Simmit will give everything and so must you - if you want this with her. Dwarves do not feel magic because they do not give themselves to it. Be the human that you also are and give everything for once in your life and she will give herself to you. Humans know of magic because of this. Dwarves know nothing and are as thick as posts when they love. This was your mother's sadness. Give Simmit the softest kisses where she craves them and she will give you the last and final chance at her heart. She believes that she failed with the male and failed again with you before. They give only three chances for their hearts, for it is all the courage that they have in them to offer to another person. There is darkness there, but Simmit will wait for you in it. It will be your choice then, Copper. Keep your heart safe and you lose so much. Give it away and you gain everything. You will know when you are at that moment. Chose a little carefully, for it is your last chance. She will never show it again if you fail this time." Copper found herself alone again, looking at Simmit's bottom and feeling the hopeful and encouraging caress of the demon's tail over her breasts. She laid her palms on those cheeks as she leaned in and when her lips parted and her tongue brushed up against that spot, Simmit gasped and looked back in surprise and hope. Copper thought that she liked the sultry look better and so she began to lick and Simmit's eyelids slid down in rapture as she hissed softly. It marked a turning point in their relationship in a very real way. Copper now knew what Simmit wanted more than anything else and to do this for her changed everything. A bath, some soap and these kisses, and Simmit lost the last of her shyness with Copper. Copper didn't mind it, and grew to like doing this for her girl often, just because – and also because of what it did to Simmit. Simmit changed then, every time. She became wicked and unbelievably wanton. Copper licked harder and listened to the demon moan and hiss. After many minutes of it, where she'd felt those haunches tense and quiver against her cheeks, Simmit pushed back to stand. Copper sat back in a little awe at the transformation. When Simmit turned around, she was like a different girl. Her dance never stopped and the slow movements of her hips rooted Copper to where she sat. She'd never seen anything so erotic. Somehow, Simmit's head moved to a steady beat and the range of expressions which flitted over her features so smoothly came at a quicker pace than the rest and it took Copper a moment to see that as she touched herself in different places or moved, it was done to a rhythm. Each touch was a little languid, but the motions and the touches combined were much faster and the demon's head and face moved at the sum total of everything. Copper had never seen such lust. She couldn't have imagined so much want expressed by one person. As the demon's hair flew in a wide wet arc from the toss of her head, water shot away like silver pearls into the darkness. That face, Copper thought, that beautiful face was still lovely but the lust that was written on it took Copper's breath and the way those teeth shone and flashed to her from that wicked grin made Copper groan. She leaned back, but there was only the stoniness of the side of the pool for her there as Simmit swayed and danced slowly closer and Copper's eyes widened further when she realized that this dance was for her and it was more than that, it was Simmit's hopeful challenge as well. As she came nearer, Simmit's hands ran over her body, and one hand cupped her own breast to squeeze a little. Copper moaned louder than Simmit when she saw it. She knew that the boys were still nursing now and then, but that Simmit was trying to get them fully weaned and she was mostly there. Right there on that gray skin, she saw the pale whiteness of a little milk run over Simmit's fingers. Just drops, really, but what it did to Copper's overall picture of things, ... As she tried to lean back, Simmit took up the space, stepping around Copper's legs and hips to come still closer until the dwarf was looking up that hard little belly. Simmit's face was wearing a smile now and not a toothy grin. She brought her hands down and ran her fingers over Copper's lips lightly, leaving wetness behind. "For you," Simmit said as she smiled down. Copper could taste the demon's milk and though it tasted really good to her, the way that it felt as it caused her lips and mouth to tingle made it almost impossible for Copper to continue to sit like this. She wanted to frig herself so hard, ... Copper pressed her face against those amazing lips in front of her and she began to lick and suck as though both of their lives depended on this. Her hands rose out of the water to take those thighs and hold them while still allowing the dance to go on. She doubted that anything could stop this now, and if it did, then Copper Kettlebottom knew that she'd want to kill whatever had caused it to stop. She tilted her head more and fed hungrily from the sweet and slowly forming dew that Simmit had for her. Simmit took one of her hands and guided it so that Copper's fingers could reach between her flanks again and she pulled Copper's head tightly to her with the other. Simmit shuddered and shook, trying not to fall down, but Copper knew it when she was losing and shot up suddenly to pick Simmit up moaning and still writhing slowly to carry her out of the pool. She laid the demon-girl down and dove between her legs for the rest of the feast as Simmit bucked and shrieked out her love to her. When she was satisfied that she'd done this right for the demon, Copper moved back and spread those amazing thighs wide. Simmit watched with her hope written plainly on her lovely face as Copper laid down on her very carefully and began to rub her mound against Simmit's. There was a little bit of a difference in their respective topographies like this and it made getting to Simmit's mouth for her kisses a bit of a challenge, but it could be done and not long after, they found that if Copper lifted herself a little, Simmit could have those wonderful tits of Copper's to kiss as well. And if Copper moved just right, her breasts would swing a little and the feel of them brushing against her own pushed Simmit like a dry leaf in the wind of a prairie grass fire. It wasn't long before they cried each other's names out in their passion and Copper came to her final epiphany. Making love with her new girlfriend was every bit as satisfying and more than anything that she'd ever done with another person. Simmit's hand could please her - especially if she helped with her mouth, and there were always Yuan and Sheth if either of them really needed to have something hard inside them which was attached to a male. That was Copper's hope, anyway. But making love with Simmit was something that she could see herself wanting to do for a long, long time. It didn't stop when Simmit regained her breath. Copper had just pulled herself up to look down at the one lovely person who now held her heart when Simmit's eyes opened and Copper's reward came to her in that smile. Simmit flashed up in a blur then and Copper was on her back with a wildy happy demon slinking forward over her with her teeth gleaming. Copper braced herself, but Simmit kept approaching so slowly, right over her face and Copper found herself in a forest of wet hair which hung all around her as she watched those wicked teeth come slowly nearer to her face. "Do not tell me that you do not know what you are doing ever again, "the strange voice growled and hissed to her. "I give myself to you because of this here and how I love you. You are the best lover that I have ever had with your first try and no one has ever done what you have done for me." The face moved on a little out of Copper's field of view. Copper looked straight up and she found herself looking at a small pair of fur-covered breasts as they came to her. Simmit was lowering herself, offering Copper what she had. "No one watches," the demon said, "No one sees how a poor demon aches to feed her dwarf-girl. See what I offer you for our lives together. Suckle only once from me, and we are bound." Copper suddenly knew what Yuan had been talking about. This was the moment. It was her last chance – to crush Simmit and go back to being miserable and lonely. She remembered how sad Simmit had been. It seemed so far from where she was now and the thought of pushing her away actually hurt to think about. The other choice was to allow this and be Simmit's mate. In the one and a half seconds that she considered, the dwarven tanker saw her life and knew that it needed something – like a crooning demon-girl who loved nothing more than to be in contact with her – like raising two absolutely gorgeous little boys with her lover, the one who offered this chance. Like never having to sleep alone ever again. Copper's mouth opened and she slowly licked the nipple before her once just before she latched on as she reached to hold and caress those breasts. She looked up and Simmit's face flew out of her view with a hiss as the first of the milk came to Copper's tongue. Copper had no choice anymore; her quiet groan was the thing that slammed the demon's heart against her small ribcage and held it there. Copper felt Simmit's fingers in her hair as they caressed her head and held her to her breast. Simmit's smiling face came back into view then, "Demon milk, Copper," she growled low and softly in that voice that Copper had never heard from her before this, "I give demon milk to my beautiful girl. Do this for me often and I will always give it." She crooned those strange words of hers again as she looked down and she kissed Copper's forehead, "And I need to give it to you. I always will. Drink, my love," she whispered, "my young have no need of it now, but I give it to you. You do not need the strength that comes with it, but you need to feel the cold less, and you need to move more quickly. I can give this to you so easily," she sighed. "There is not much in my little teats, so change now and suckle on the other one. Gifts I give you with it," she growled as she looked into Copper's eyes, "Gifts for the one who takes my heart. You can see better in the dark; you can smell things on the wind, and in a little time, you can even change yourself a little bit, but not much. Perhaps the best that comes with it is my love and the lust which lies below it. Drink and know my heart. You will hunger for this, but I will always give it." She lowered her head to kiss the dwarf's head and she sighed, "I love you so, Copper. I will always love you." Copper reached up and caressed Simmit's cheek softly and she toyed with her insanely long hair as she felt the gentle heat and the tingle as it seemed to spread right through her. She felt different almost instantly, and she realized that the soft rush that she heard was not the pounding of her heart. That was another sound which came to her. The soft rush was the sound of her own blood moving through her arteries. Copper could suddenly hear it when her own eyeballs moved. Then she felt the wind of Simmit's wings as they beat and fluttered above them both and Simmit lifted Copper up a little and with a happy cry, she folded them again and rolled both of them back into the pool with a splash. Copper popped up and looked around, wondering where Simmit had gotten to, but then she felt the demon push between her knees and she felt pressure. Copper tried to backpedal out of the water but Simmit held on. This began to turn into a scene from a horror story as the dwarf pulled herself onto the edge. Simmit laughed through her nose then and Copper tried to push her off until she felt the many points of careful pressure as Simmit reminded Copper of her teeth and where they were in this. Copper felt this in new ways with demon milk driving her heart to seek things which she'd told herself that she never wanted. Copper stopped resisting then and no matter what she did after that, she was always Simmit's willing prisoner. The demon kept her jaws over her mound and wouldn't let go as her long tongue thickened and took her again and again just a little farther down the dark path to her madness each time. When her hips were out of the water, she heard the slick sounds of that tongue and she smelled the soap on them both. She looked at Simmit's face, watched as her eyes closed in her bliss to have Copper. In the slowness of one instant, she watched the demon open her eyes to look at the dwarven idol that she wanted to worship this way forever as she stood with her legs in the water and leaned forward to keep Copper where she wanted her. Simmit's gray eyes had gone coal black. One tiny glistening droplet of water fell from Simmit's eyelash and Copper watched it fall as she thrilled to hear and feel that slick tongue work its magic on her. By the time the sparkling little jewel of water dashed itself against Copper's belly, that tongue had entered her and left three times. Copper heard the tiny splash of one droplet of water in all of this. Simmit moved her hand to her own wetness and worked her fingers into herself deeply. Feeling that her fingers were slick enough, the tongue left Copper and snaked lower. At any other time in her life, Copper would have thrown the brakes on right there, but right then, she watched her own hips hitch up and buck a little in response to a want that she'd never known that she had. The next thing that she knew, that tongue was back to teasing the little button at the top of her cleft again, though it was not so little now. She couldn't see, but she knew that it had never been so needful and swollen. Simmit exhaled and a blast of wet steam tickled Copper's belly as Simmit pushed her tongue upward hard to guide Copper to where she wanted her. That blast of wet heat on her came again and again as Simmit lifted Copper's lower half and folded her a little while the demon moved to bring one knee out of the pool and onto the stone to stay in contact with what she needed more than her breath. Copper groaned and her hips bucked for a second as her body sought the quivering rush that it knew was right there to be had, but then she felt those sticky and wet fingers enter another place as the demon's tongue flicked her tingling clitoris faster and faster. Copper groaned at the slow intrusion, but she was grateful for it, suddenly needing the strokes that began in her lower down. Her head lolled back and when she opened her eyes, she could see the most amazing details in the cavern ceiling. But she had no time for any of that. Simmit's love took Copper to the edge of an abyss somewhere as her thumb entered the aching need of Copper's vulva to the hilt – right up to the base as her fingers worked in and out farther down. Copper's head snapped up for only an instant and in that time, she watched another rush of wet fog from Simmit's nose and lips from the effort of holding and pushing, driving her like a demonic machine with no hope of making this stop. Copper was helpless. She'd never wanted to be helpless in anything, but she needed this now. Copper felt her own tears, but had no idea where they'd come from or why as the darkness came roaring to her and she heard the tendons in her own jaw crick as her mouth opened as far as it could go to let the scream of her madness out. A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 36 She was standing somewhere for just an instant. She looked down at herself and touched the short fur on her belly that had never been there before. She knew it wasn't possible, because she could hear her own wracking sobs from somewhere far off. Copper heard herself scream again as though she was listening to another girl's passion. The scream ended in a maniacal laugh. Copper didn't care and was even a little pleased when she realized that the girl that she was listening to was right at the edge of being happily, needfully, blissfully, ... barking mad. She looked up again and saw Simmit calling to her and beckoning. With no thought whatsoever, Copper willingly jumped off into the darkness of that embrace. ------------------------ When Copper opened her eyes, she was almost sitting, leaning against the demon, who leaned against a rock and sang softly while braiding the dwarf's wet hair; little braids at the front and the sides and three thick and long braids at the back, one above the other in a column, the three hanging down together. Copper had the hair for it, there was no doubt. Simmit noticed Copper stirring and stopped singing as the dwarf lifted her head. "Are you alright?" she asked. "Yeah," Copper said quietly, "I've never felt anything like that." "I have never done anything like that either. It is the full mating of my kind, since we have chosen each other, though we did it in the way of demon women," Simmit said, "But I needed to do it then. I had less choice than you. You should not fight so hard when I grow a little wild. We might hurt each other then without wanting it. You love with a demon-girl. Do you think that this means that you can sleep when you have roused me? It was hard to do because of this, and I even bit you a little by accident." Copper felt Simmit's kiss against her ear as she whispered, "Yuan knows. I did not know until later, but she wanted this to be for us." She nodded once, "Soon, you will always love just like that with me. Yuan helped me pull you back more and she healed the cut. She lifted both of your eyelids and your green eyes shone to us on black eyeballs. It passes now, but it is the mark. My mark on you, Copper." Copper thought about it for a moment. She decided that she liked it. "What mark did I leave on you?" The demon giggled softly, "The mark that you left on me is my burning need of you. We are bound Copper. I need you and you need me. I have never been so happy. I asked and Yuan gave me this comb afterward. I am braiding your wild hair as a demon–girl would when she marries. Not the soft kind of girl, the kind like you, Copper: strong and defiant. You are the girl that I wanted for me. I did not want to hurt you but you grew afraid of me and I had to hang on to finish it between us." She leaned her head around the side of Copper's and kissed her cheek, "Why would you fear me?" "I don't know," Copper replied with a smirk, "You looked a little insane." Simmit snorted quietly, "I looked insane, you say. You should have seen yourself, my love. You were bawling and crying, screaming and laughing all at once. Now you know the beginning of demon love. You have it in you now and we will share this. I saw you accept it before you fell. You jumped. I saw it in my mind, you accepted it and you jumped to join me. Was it good?" "Hell, yeah," Copper sighed, "you're the best. I don't even have words for any of that. What were you singing?" "It is a little song that mothers teach their girls when they are young. It is to keep them entertained and to teach singing and remembering songs. A little nonsense, really, about finding true love. I thought to braid your beautiful hair, but there is so much of it and it takes time. I am happy and the old song came to my mind. I had forgotten it long ago, but today I remembered and felt like singing. We dream of finding one for ourselves and making them ours. That is why I remembered it, I think. I belong to no one but Copper in my heart – and I have made Copper mine." "I'm yours, am I?" Copper asked in a playfully challenging way. "Yes," Simmit sighed contentedly, "What did you think that I was saying to you so softly whenever we were together? I was laying my enchantment on your heart, Copper. You couldn't leave me if you tried. You are mine." Copper thought about THAT for a minute. "I think it's working," she decided finally. "I can't imagine that I'd ever be this happy without you. I can't really imagine being without you no matter what." Simmit put her arms around Copper's neck as she brought her face next to the dwarf's, "You see?" she chuckled, "It works. But I will need to keep saying the words." "Fine," Copper sighed in a weary way, "You do that if you have to. I'll try to put up with it if it gets us laid like that." She reached back to feel what Simmit had been doing, "Hey, this is different. I wonder what it looks like." Simmit laughed, "Then turn around Copper. I wear the same braids now. You have been sitting there still against me for a long time and your chin was on your chest." Copper sat up and turned around. She stared at the way that Simmit's hair was braided and she loved it. "I look like that?" she smiled. Simmit nodded, "It was Yuan's idea. She saw me braiding my hair this way after giving me the comb and she said that I should make us a pair, since that is what we are now. I liked the thought and here we are." "I like it, and – "the dwarf grinned, "now I won't have to ask you to cut a little off your hair at the back. I love your hair, but it obstructs my view of your pretty little ass and the curve of your lower back." --------------------------- "How is it, " Copper groaned as she reached back to lay her hand on Simmit's as the demon-girl stroked her haunch, "that when you did all that gnawing on me, you were underwater for most of it at the beginning? Don't you need to breathe, Simmit?" Simmit stopped and lifted her head, looking over the most wondrous golden-colored ass that she'd ever seen. "I need to breathe, Copper. I can hold my breath very well, that is all." She smiled as she lowered her head again and licked in a long stroke that she knew could cause her lover to shiver every time. --------------------------- Their bed was in a shallow depression in the stone floor. Copper was on her front looking over the edge in their bed of furs watching as Yuan and Sheth made love to Luddy together. It was something to see, but she wondered why they weren't doing this in their large shapes. That was something that Copper wanted to see especially if Yuan mounted Luddy from behind, because they were both large creatures and they would probably look as though they belonged together in that way. Copper smirked then. When it grew urgent between them, it would probably be better than watching draft horses fuck. When Sheth took her, Luddy looked so happy there on her back holding him as they loved. The look on Luddy's face was worth a lot to Copper. She'd been there for her friend from the instant that Luddy had appeared at her door in tears. She'd known that Luddy was pregnant with one look – and Luddy wasn't even showing yet. Copper never wanted to see Luddy's face looking like that ever again. She knew that if she bore children from this pair, there wouldn't be any tears after the births. Simmit was on Copper's back, lying at a bit of an angle with her hand under one of Copper's breasts, happy at the way that the day had gone, and in heaven over finally having Copper as her girlfriend and lover. She moved her hand and watched over Copper's shoulder as her hand caressed the dwarf's bottom. "They will be kind to us, Copper," she said, "I am very happy." "I know," the dwarf tanker smiled, "I liked the way that we were forbidden to play with them for a few nights because Yuan said that we needed to be together first. It's pretty easy to see that she's got a heart and when she says something, she means it. I won't ever have to be alone again and I've got you; the little fur-ball who makes me crazy in the nicest way. I never thought that I'd ever want that." She heard Simmit giggle quietly, "You want that, Copper?" "No," she said, "I didn't mean right this second – " "I heard you," Simmit said with a grin that Copper couldn't see, "You ask me to make you crazy again." Copper could even see her small demon-girl nodding as she pictured her in her mind. She felt Simmit shifting on her and she marveled a little at the way that she could do that without ever putting an elbow in the wrong place or anything like that. "I didn't mean – " "I know, Copper," Simmit sighed into her ear just before she left a light kiss there, "Simmit knows. Just relax. I know what you want now, even if you don't." Simmit moved again, and Copper felt her pushing her legs to try to part them. "Come on Copper." Copper wanted to curse quietly, but it was something that she was trying to get herself away from. Sheth was like an instant uncle to Simmit's children, but the demon had made her wish clear when she'd pulled Copper aside and told her that she wanted Copper to fit into the role of the father to them. "I can do that," she smiled, "but how come you want me to have that job?" Simmit had kissed her then and when she'd leaned back to smile, she'd just shrugged, "To them, you already are, Copper. They see you that way." Copper was remembering that and how it had felt. She was still in love with the sound of Simmit's voice when the demon said her name. That was why she'd forgotten what was going on at the moment and she moved her legs for Simmit. The next things that she felt were Simmit's soft kisses in a place where she'd never known that she was powerless to resist them. "Aw, Simmit," she groaned, "Baby, that's not ... you know I can't - Come on ... " Copper Kettlebottom lowered her head onto her arm with a groan. Simmit was grinning, "Copper is not so tough now." "No," the voice came back with a sigh. Copper drew a breath and groaned again. "No, I'm not." Simmit nodded with a wicked smile full of flashing teeth which her lover couldn't see. The tip of her tongue tickled Copper in the just the right way and she thrilled to see the way that Copper raised her hips in response. She wanted to laugh, but she didn't. She just leaned in, carefully placing her small hands and, choosing her moment, her long demon tongue flashed out and Copper was helpless again. ---------------------- Copper was asleep when Simmit returned from checking on her boys. Simmit saw that Luddy was still awake and beckoned with a wave, so the troll wandered over silently. "You cannot sleep?" she asked as she looked up. Luddy shook her head, "It's been kind of a special day for me. I'm feeling a little dazed, but I'm too happy to fall asleep right away." "Then come sit," Simmit motioned, "I have had the same sort of day." The large beast sat down with surprising grace, trying not to wake Copper and they looked at each other for a moment before Simmit got up and went to sit on the troll's thigh and lean against her. She knew from speaking to Copper earlier that trolls like Luddy lead such lonely lives that they welcome gestures such as this. "Was it good with the dragons?" the demon asked quietly. "Mm-hmm," Luddy replied, "I only had them in me three times but not in their dragon shapes, twice with Yuan, and once more with Sheth. It was only quiet stuff to get closer. When dragons and trolls are together, the symbolism is important. It's not a big deal if there's only one dragon, but there's two here, so my mother told me what to do so's not to insult anybody. The first time was with Yuan because she wanted to welcome me and I loved it because she was so gentle and she's so beautiful. The next time was with Sheth because I need to show him that his pet loves him, and the third was with Yuan again to even things up and because she's the lord here." Simmit looked up as Luddy put her arm around her carefully. There was so much peace inside the troll and Simmit enjoyed that. "The lord?" Luddy nodded, "Yes. You're different so I guess you don't know, but Yuan is building something here; her family. They all did this long ago, my mother said. She even knew what sort of dragon Yuan is – even though she doesn't look like it and she knew that without even seeing Yuan. Her kind is very old and noble – even among dragons. Yuan doesn't make much noise about it because she's pretty much all there is of that kind now. They make families around themselves, and the ones in it don't have to be dragons, though that's how it was in the long ago times. The families were always ruled by one and that one is the dragonlord. Anyway," the troll smiled, "I was welcomed and I did the last part to finish it before we started. You two looked like you were busy with each other so I guess you didn't see it, but she changed into her big shape for me and she let me hold onto that big thing of hers to suck it." She sighed with a smile, "It was mostly for symbolism again, but I really liked it and she thanked me then. I almost cried." Simmit had been playing a little with one of Luddy's braids, brushing the end of it against her belly softly, but she tilted her head as she looked up, "You must have done it well for her then, if she thanked you." "No," the troll said, "That's not why. It's the symbolism, Simmit. She thanked me for offering myself. She wasn't fooling before. Dragons need trolls as much as we need dragons. We can live without each other, but I wasn't hanging around in here watching the two of them because I wanted to get laid. Well I did, but it was because once I knew that there were dragons here, I hung back because I knew that I'd need them. I just wanted to see if they were cruel. I wouldn't have much choice anyway, but I wanted to know. After Yuan let go into my mouth, she just changed back to the way that she seems to like most and we all just fooled around until she was hard for me again, so I pulled her onto me and she made love to me. I did cry then." She smiled at the demon, "I get emotional sometimes. I almost cried when she offered to let me suck on her because she was showing that I was wanted here. She didn't thank me afterward, Simmit; she thanked me before, because it was about me belonging here, that's all. We could have stopped, but I wasn't going to stop until she gave me what she had. Neither of them can fuck me the right way as true dragons right now," Luddy explained, "or there's a solid chance that I'll get pregnant because of where I am in my month. Dragons know this by feel; I didn't have to say it. Trolls are pretty deep and true dragons give a lot of juice. I've never done it with a dragon before, but my mom said that what's supposed to happen is that it opens the channel wide and they reach where our eggs are in the womb as easily as a male troll would. The time of month is really important too. There's only a few hours every month that it can happen and tonight was that time. Yuan and Sheth knew it." Simmit looked puzzled, "But, ... Copper told me that the demon who made me pregnant also did that to you. How could that be? From what you say, it does not sound easy to make a troll-girl – " Luddy smiled and hugged Simmit gently. She couldn't help it and the thought of something that they'd both done tickled her in a little way. "Simmit," she smiled, "Simmit, that's a silly thing to ask. You're a demon. When you're really into it, do you stop like a human and lie there gasping because you've used everything? You don't stop until you've REALLY used everything, right? I watched you guys for a little while. I don't know what you've done to my old friend, but the two of you were thrashing around on each other for a good while. The bastard who used us is a demon too. He lasts a long time, doesn't he? I liked it so much that I gave him all the chance that he needed, over and over. I told him that I was likely really fertile, but he told me that he wanted me to be his forever. I just didn't know that he was lying. He didn't care about anything but getting his stick wet in me. I should have known better, but I believed him because I wanted to." Simmit nodded and reached up to hug Luddy, "I know. He chose me because he knew that I needed someone to care and to protect me. I was new here and, ... I should have known never to trust a demon like him. He is so fine, what would he have wanted one like me for anyway? I am too small for one like him to be happy with." "Stop it," the troll said earnestly, "That's not true and you know it. Look at me, I'm bigger than he is. He just found females who would listen to his words because they wanted to listen so much. That's all that he's got - well, besides that body of his. We're still lucky, Simmit. Look where we are now and you've got Copper. She's always been a sour thing in some ways, but that's her nature. I've never seen her like this, though. You've tamed her pretty good from what I can see." "Tamed me?" the dwarf asked as she raised her head and pushed herself up, "Holy cow, Luddy. Simmit didn't tame me so much as she's made me her fucking happy love doll." She began to crawl toward them slowly until she was between Luddy's legs and she knelt there to reach for Simmit and after an embrace, she looked at the demon a little suspiciously. "How come – if you've almost weaned the kids off your milk, that I could touch your boobs and you didn't leak then? These were almost rock hard with milk when you let me suck – pretty much like they are right now," she grinned. Simmit smiled as she touched Copper's face, "I was almost finished, but I used what I had left to tie you to me. I begin again but not for them. This is for you. I would give it to you anyway, but it is needed in a way. You are half-dwarf, Copper, and dwarves are very resistant to magic and I am a demon. It could never work if you are like the dwarves that Yuan told me of. But you are also part-human. THAT is what I can enchant for us this way. It will not let down for anyone but you and there will never be much, but I will ache to give it as you will ache to have it. You want it now, don't you?" Copper nodded, and she leaned forward to lick Simmit's nipples hungrily, knowing that the act would cause Simmit to let down for her, "Oh cheeses, yes," she growled as she opened her mouth. Simmit looked down in curiosity, "Cheeses?" "Cheeses Murphy, "Copper grinned, "Haven't you ever heard me say that? I say it all the time. I just don't know what it means." Luddy chuckled, "When we were in school, we were always meeting up to walk to school together. Once we got to our teens, we both just grew our chests really quick at about the same time. There was an old troll whose house we used to pass by on our way back and forth and he never bothered us, but he'd sit in front of his door and wish us a good morning or afternoon. But once we were past him, he used to get up and go inside and he always said that to himself then. I think we were his thrill for the day when we were in high school. Copper picked up on it and she's been saying that ever since." Copper leaned in and began to suckle gently, moaning very quietly as Simmit sighed. Luddy watched as Copper's eyes opened to look up at her and the troll stared as Copper's eyes turned black around her irises. "You two are so damned intense," she said in a little wonder, "Are you turning my best friend into a demon?" "No," Simmit sighed, "only a little to bind us to each other. She needs this now. It will keep her from getting hurt when we make love." The troll-girl chuckled, "I sure hope so. The way that you guys were throwing each other around, I thought for sure that somebody was gonna get hurt. I've never seen anything like it. And the thing of it is, that it's Copper. I'm the one between us with what she used to call 'those damn tendencies', probably because of how nobody wanted to get close to me." A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 36 It didn't take much time and Simmit didn't have any more to give and she looked at Copper a little uncertainly. Copper shook her head, "I just needed that. I'd really rather just go to back to sleep." "Will you sleep with us, Luddy?" Simmit asked as she looked up, "There are plenty of furs and I would like it." "Come on, you big thing," Copper growled, "Don't you get shy now. We've slept together since our sleepovers when we were kids. I just wouldn't let you do anything before as we got older. I don't care anymore Luddy. You can do whatever you want, as long as it's ok with Simmit and I get to have a little sleep." "I don't want to do anything but sleep now," the troll said honestly, "Besides, seeing you guys screw looks a little dangerous to me." "Will they let the pets sleep together?" Simmit asked as she looked up. "Sure," the troll nodded, "They'd probably like to have their pets sleeping together. I'm the one who's nervous about it. I'm not sure I want to be in the same bed with you the next time you go nuts on each other. But you aren't pets yet. Not until you've made your acceptance of their offering the way I did." "Good then," Copper yawned, "I'll get to work on them first thing in the morning and I'll bug them all day if I have to. I'll suck anything they wave in my face for the chance at all this especially if you'll sleep with us, Luddy, since it's not so warm way over here in Pet Land where the kept ones will live. I don't care which one I have to suck, either. Both of them, I don't care. Twice, three times each, I won't give a damn. I'll make their eyes cross if I have to. Why I'll, ..." She looked at them and the way that she'd made them chuckle. It was what she'd wanted. She smiled, "Please lie down and sleep with us, Luddy." The troll looked at them with wet eyes, but she nodded, "Ok," she said. "Don't you get all emotional either," the dwarf-girl warned a little sternly, though she didn't mean it, "After all of this, I don't want to wake up half-drowned and hanging onto those melons of yours for dear life." "Why not?" Simmit asked, reaching to move a few braids out of the way as she laid her hand on one of the troll's breasts, "it sounds nice and- ". "It was a figure of speech," Copper grinned, "Now I'm wondering why I've never wanted that before." The three curled up together as though they'd done it forever and Copper and Simmit smiled up at the troll who held them closely before they closed their eyes. "Luddy really isn't into girls," Copper whispered a few minutes later in the darkness. "I know that," Simmit whispered back very softly, "But I like her and I am warm." The mystery of the morning came when each of them awoke to find that the pair of little boys had found enough space to worm their way in between and gone back to sleep. --------------------- The weather had turned warmer a few weeks later and the snow was soft and wet, as though it was thinking about melting, but hadn't really made up its mind yet. A snow hare had discovered the first stalks of some snowbells which were trying to push up through the thinner snow at the base of an evergreen tree and a lynx was watching the hare and thinking about finding a male, since the promise of spring had begun to get her juices flowing, and she knew that she'd need the extra nourishment. There was a quiet roaring sound far off and the ears of both creatures turned in that direction, thinking ahead. As the sound grew louder, they both turned to look that way. When Copper's Bradley crested the low ridge to rise up and bang down again, the lynx passed the hare in her haste to get out of town. The hare hung a ninety and flashed out of sight under a tree. "I like it better when you have the trailer of fuel," Yuan shouted to Copper, "It makes you drive slower." The half-dwarf laughed, "Sometimes ya gotta just let go and live a little. Besides, you aren't fooling me for a minute. I see you grinning your ass off too." She looked at Simmit in the driver's seat, "You just keep it nailed to the floor, honey. Time's a wastin' and I wanna bait the trap." Simmit slowed a minute later and Copper walked up, "What's goin' on?" "There is an animal in front of us," the demon replied, "This one does not run out of the way." Copper looked at the monitor and nodded, "A moose. We probably startled him. They're not that bright to start with and actually thinking takes the last of the common sense they were born with. He looks like he's thinking to charge." As though the animal had heard her, the bull lowered his head and pawed the ground, but only twice. Then he was on his way and the crash was felt as a mild shock to the occupants inside. "Great," Luddy said from where she sat at the back braced with her feet against the frame and holding Simmit's boys to keep them from bouncing around, "That last ridge almost gave me hemorrhoids and now there's a moose who's trying to give me a headache. Drop the ramp, Simmit. I'll go settle him down." "Well hurry before he breaks one of my headlights," Copper said, "I've only got a couple of spares left. If he'd back up a little, I'd shoot his ass, but he's too close." The ramp whined down and Luddy pulled herself out and bounded around the Bradley to face the angry moose. "Come here, lover boy," she grinned. Since she was moving and not sitting there, the bull turned in her direction and snorted angrily. Luddy began to walk, "I don't have time for you to do the whole show again. Let's just cut to the chase and do this." She got to within twenty feet from him when he charged. Luddy took a quick step and planted her wide feet. As he came to her, she grabbed his antlers and stepped back with a heave just as he'd have missed. She let go then and his head fell to the ground, his neck broken and his body twitching. "You want me to drag him out of the way?" Yuan came around from the back, "No, we have mouths to feed and he's a big one." Twenty-seven minutes later, the fighting vehicle rolled on with the body of the moose strapped to the armor skirts over the tracks. He was cooling now, dressed out and gutted, his carcass packed with snow. Luddy would have complimented Yuan for the speed and efficiency of the whole operation, but Yuan wasn't there. As the Bradley rumbled over the next little rise, she watched as the aerials wiggled out of sight before she took off climbing. She wanted to see this place that Copper had spoken of from the sky. She reached about a hundred feet above the snow below her when she shifted and though she lost a little during the change, she more than made it up in seconds as each stroke of her wide wings took her higher and faster. She bore more than a passing resemblance to a species of Pteranodon. The class included some of the largest flying creatures ever to have developed on Earth. The type which her mother had modeled her after may well have been the largest and though it was no dinosaur – it was a reptile all the same back then. But this was now. As far as she knew, all of the large dragons were gone. Yuan was no reptile, and as she was now, she was the single largest living thing flying. -------------------------------- Rachel Wannamaker was on her way to meet Cha'Khah over at Barnett's home. She had a few things on her mind, and the main one was the trouble today – as it had been for a little while. Like the darkest of anyone's troubles, it was the uncertainty which made it all the worse. Rachel was debating as she walked along on the damp and melting snow, packed down so well by the traffic of their feet as they all tramped to and fro between the entrance to the mountain and Barrett's farm, or what would be his farm soon, since cattle ranching was going to be only one of his efforts come the spring. Rachel walked a little slowly, wondering how to go about broaching a very sensitive subject with her closest friend. Among other things, it was Cha'Khah's nature which also required some thought. If she just blurted out what her thoughts were, who knew how the Drowess might react? With shock and concern, certainly, but after that had passed? It was about anybody's guess. She kept walking. ------------------- Barrett looked up, hearing the dull clank and grind as the old vehicle pulled up at the gate nearest the house. Cha'Khah didn't know what to think as she heard a whine and then a rather short person in oversized coveralls jumped down onto the ground to wave at her husband. "What is that?" Cha'Khah asked and Barrett laughed, "That's somebody that I don't get to see near enough. That's Copper Kettlebottom. I think I can even guess why she's come, too, judging by the time of year. Come on, this is someone you'll regret not meeting." They met a little closer to the idling Bradley than halfway, since Copper was hauling a load, walking with a small keg on her shoulder and a large tankard in her free hand. The introductions were made in a minute and Copper appeared to be so pleased to meet Cha'Khah; so much so that she remarked on it. Copper laughed, "I know what you are, Cha'Khah," she said, "That's not the thing to me. I'm a little astounded that you've landed him, but I'm happy for the news." She nodded with a gleam in her eye, "I think you make a grand couple, I'm just surprised as hell, that's all." Before the Drow could ask what was meant, the dwarf laughed again, "There are all sorts of people around. Why not Drow? Now that I think about it a little, it seems really right to me – that it took no less than one of you to rope somebody like Barrett, since he minds his own business so much that almost none of us ever get to see him." She held out the tankard, "Here. Try some of this. If you ask your guy there, he'd tell you some bull-honky that I'm a master brewer – and it would be true, I guess, though I never used to brew very much. But whenever I did, I'd always bring Barrett a little like I'm doing now. This is my spring bock. Go on, have a taste, because once Barrett gets his mitts on it, it'll be gone." Cha'Khah's eyes lit up at the first sip, "This – this is wonderful, Copper. And you only make a little?" "Well, that's all I used to do, but I'm thinking of going into a bit of regular production, private-like. I won't brew anything for the inns and taverns. It's too much trouble. I was thinking about it and I think I'd rather stay a little small and just brew custom on demand. I could give you a full keg every few weeks, but I don't think you can hold that much all the time and keep that figure – even with bottomless Barrett helping." But Cha'Khah wasn't thinking about just the two of them and she asked for a price for a full keg and they'd see how long it lasted. She moved Mo-Wenn to her other arm and took another sip. Copper asked about the child and was astounded and happy to hear about the turn of fate which had made them a family. After a time, they drifted over the Copper's vehicle and she introduced Simmit, laying their relationship out plainly as a bit of a test. Cha'Kha didn't blink. She was happy to meet Simmit and she laughed, saying that she had to meet Rachel. ------------------------ A ways off in the forest, Rachel slowed to a stop as she heard voices. The development of small demons is a little odd when compared to that of human infants. Human children develop fairly evenly as they grow. But using that measure as a yardstick against demon children is often startling. They develop much more slowly in some things, but in others, they pass humans by very quickly. One of Simmit's twins was stringing some sentences together while the other was still in the place where they'd both been the previous week, boiling down an entire question to just the verb spoken as a question. 'Where are you/we going?' could simply be asked as 'Going?' in this fashion. So one still did this while the other was well on the way to becoming a chatterbox. Rachel came very slowly around a bend in the path and stood stock still, staring at a female troll – with two demon children perched on her shoulders and they were in a bit of an earnest conversation then. "Go," one of them whined a little, and the troll nodded, "I know you have to go," she said, "You can go here." "Too deep, Lud-dy," the other said, looking down. "Deep," his brother agreed, not really knowing what the word meant, but since his brother had said it ... "Fine," the troll grumbled a little, "Gimme a second then." She cleared away a little of the snow with her large foot. "How about now?" "Not know," the first one said. The troll rolled her eyes and picked one up from her shoulder to set him down and he didn't sink that much. She stepped away a little and created a second depression with her foot to set the other one down in. "There," she said, "Now go." "Lud-dy, .. too far away,. Want to be there." He pointed to where his brother stood, looking a little uncertain. "Oh no," Luddy said, waving her finger, "You go here, and you," she pointed at the other one, "You go there. I'm not dumb enough to put the two of you anywhere near each other now. One of your little contests was enough." Luddy saw that they didn't understand everything she said, but Simmit had told her to speak to them as she would to a young adult. "If you speak to them in baby talk, you look stupid, and they will take longer to speak well." Luddy pointed at the snow, "Just go pee." "Not want to go here," the better orator between them said. "How?" the other asked. "Look," the troll growled a little, "you had all the room you needed when we were walking in the ruts of the Bradley tracks, but you didn't HAVE to go then, you guys said. Now you tell me you NEED to go, so stop fussing and go. And don't ask me how either. I've seen you pee just fine all on your own." She could see that this was about to become a test of wills, so she put on a really stern face and glared at them, "And if you want to play the fools with me and get yourselves all wet like you don't know how, that's fine. I'll wash you with a handful of snow and I'll be the one laughing then." The demons did their business then, but they couldn't hold their pretenses and began to giggle toward the end, knowing that they'd almost suckered Luddy in again. They were about to stand looking helpless with their arms up wanting to be picked up out of the snow when they noticed Rachel and ran to Luddy with no trouble, deep snow and all for the way that they helped their progress with their wings. Luddy got them settled on her shoulders and turned to look at Rachel. "Excuse me, "the demon began, "Are – are those yours?" "As if," the troll replied in her deep voice, "No, they're a friend's. I'm just the idiot babysitter, now that I see how they've been playing me. My name's Luddy." "Rachel," the other said stepping forward to offer her hand. The troll looked surprised and genuinely pleased that someone wanted to shake her hand. She reached out and shook Rachel's hand with a smile. "They're adorable, "Rachel smiled. "They're little buggers," Luddy chuckled, "They always pull this 'Can you help, Lud-dy?' stuff on me because it works." "Bug-gers," the quieter one said thoughtfully as he tested the word. Rachel grinned, "I know the feeling. I've got one of my own. He's getting near ten now, but when he was this size, it was awful. I'd want to pull my hair out and then he'd flash me his little smile and I couldn't stay annoyed." The twin who didn't speak as well as the other sat holding his hand out, reaching for Rachel, so she stepped closer and he took some of her hair in his hand and held it up, looking at his brother. It began a conversation between the females that Rachel wasn't ready for as she listened to Luddy. Afterwards, they parted and she stood waving a little at the boys, who rode on Luddy's shoulders, looking back at her a little hauntingly. "Bug-gers," one twin said and Luddy told him to forget the word, so the other one now began to say it, but they fell quiet pretty quickly when the troll threatened to make them walk. When they were out of her sight, Rachel resumed her solitary walk. Going over the talk in her mind. She told herself that the father's name had been Harrick. It might have given Rachel the excuse to shelve her gnawing doubt, but then she remembered what the troll had said – that the same person had impregnated the admittedly too-trusting troll-girl and his name had magically changed to Bron then. She stopped, no longer wanting to see Cha'Khah quite so much anymore. She felt very foolish and she wanted to be alone, but she knew herself. Other than the features in their little faces and their hair, she had little – other than her intuition. And what her intuition told her, ... She felt her tears beginning. Rachel wanted to fly away then, not knowing where to go at all and not really caring where she went, but of course she couldn't do that. But she did find a clearing and she took off anyway, just to give herself something to do while she thought. As she climbed, she thought about the other thing that she'd been told. There were now dragons here someplace. Rachel wondered what that meant to her and she doubted that it mattered one little bit She'd been a little fascinated with the legendary creatures as a girl, but then, she'd also wanted to be a marine biologist when she'd been a girl too - for little more than for it the way it felt to say the words. When she'd gotten a little older, she found out that in her case it meant being a girl on a mountain who loved the ocean. Other than liking fish, there wasn't much mileage there. The dragons went into the childhood scrap bin along with the marine biologists and the unicorns. At six thousand feet above the average ground level below, Yuan watched as Copper and Simmit climbed into the back of the Bradley and a minute or so later, they began to roll away, headed back to where Luddy was with the boys as she walked. Yuan watched the pair of individuals that she'd seen Copper speaking with as they walked away from the farm, the dark female carrying what looked to be an infant and the male human walking with the small keg of lager on his shoulder that Copper had given to Barrett as she did every year since they'd met, pretty much if she knew that he was at the family home. It wasn't a sure bet, though, so usually, she hauled a little keg with her and if he wasn't home and didn't look to be living there, it wasn't a big deal to drink it herself. Neither of them ever said it, but they'd liked each other forever. It had just never occurred to either one that the admiration might be mutual. That didn't stop them from enjoying a tankard together when they met. To Copper, Barrett was what she thought that all human men ought to be like. She was actually very happy for him. Yuan was mindful that most people spend very little time looking up, but a lot of them did look up sometimes, so she flew hidden, a pale spot in a pale sky. As the pair below her walked, she was getting a clue and it wasn't long before they were headed straight toward a likely-looking mountain. From everything that Copper had been able to piece together in her travels, that was where the one that they searched for lived with some others. She wasn't as intent on killing him as Copper was, but she could understand the reasoning and this might help her get some information about her own quest. The quest that was looking more absurd to her with each demon that she met. Other that what had happened to Beyl'eth when she'd arrived and the way that Sheth and Simmit had been transported along with a clutch of insane demons, there wasn't all that much to be feared, she thought. A shape flew past underneath her, going right to left and the motion caught her eye, so she looked. After an instant, she looked again and actually turned her head – something which she avoided in this shape because it caused huge drag in the direction that she looked and required her to make large adjustments that would only cost her speed which had to be regained by spending a bit of energy. A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 36 In this case, Yuan went with the drag and actually turned, wheeling quickly. On a clear day, dragons can see far into the next week with the sort of vision that a large flying beast requires and pulling detail out of the background was something which her kind had few peers in, American Bald Eagles, condors and albatrosses notwithstanding. Yuan saw a demon flying from literally a mile above. Simply put, that was all that it was, but she couldn't tear her eyes away from what she saw and that long white-blonde mane ... Too easy, she thought as she calculated her best course, banked toward it effortlessly and folded her wings a little to come streaking down with death in her eyes. A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 37 ***We last left our dragon rocketing down from the heavens toward an unsuspecting Rachel, who flew a little aimlessly, preoccupied as she was by the ache in her heart. OK, I just had to start off like that. Thanks for putting up with it. 0_o ---------------- The trouble was that there was no murder in Yuan's heart. At the beginning of her dive, Yuan had been thinking that one pass, and it would all be over, but then she had a thought that there wouldn't be much of the satisfaction that Copper seemed to want so much if she wasn't at least a pivotal part of this. As she came to within about a quarter mile, Yuan could pull enough detail from her view to see that this was quite obviously a female, so that changed her plan entirely. She slowed a little, remaining hidden and shot by, turning across the demon's path from right to left a good distance in front of her to come around for another pass. The whole thing burned up a lot of the excess speed that Yuan had been carrying and it brought her dead behind the demon at her six o'clock, tucked in, slightly above and out of sight. Rachel was flying aimlessly. She was spending more time blinking than thinking, but it felt better than walking this way. She was a little startled when she crossed the turbulence of the dragon's wake, but she hadn't seen anything, so she was a little puzzled. Before this, there hadn't even been a hint of a breeze. And then it was past and the air was smooth and undisturbed again. Yuan hung back far behind Rachel's tail, trying to think this through. There was supposed to be one male demon somewhere around here with a mane of this color. That there was a female changed a lot of matters from her point of view, because it complicated things. Could they know of each other? Were they related somehow? The thought brought another one up in Yuan's mind. On the wild assumption that the two might know each other, ... She dropped a little and closed the distance, sliding underneath Rachel and looking up from about thirty feet below. What she saw was purely simple to say. The demon was purely, ... lovely. Yuan dropped a little so that she had the clearance to use her wings before she lost too much velocity and even so, she dropped back and moved out to the side about a hundred feet. She climbed enough to be at roughly the same altitude and paced the creature for a time. At this speed and this far away, the turbulence caused by the slow strokes of her wings would be behind the demon by the time that they'd rippled away that far and unless she made a sudden noise or flapped very hard, there was little sound to reach those pretty ears over the rush of the air past them. She flew on, not moving her head, only looking a little sideways. Eventually, she decided that she'd allow herself to be seen. She was fairly confident of the result, but since she couldn't think of any other option, ... Rachel saw something peripherally and looked over. There, on her right side a little way off, she saw something; she just wasn't sure what it was -- a shadow or something. Looking over while still keeping an eye on where she was going, she saw a moving blur which was growing more solid. Features began to coalesce and in a few seconds, she saw that there was definitely something there and it was flying by the same means that she was using -- though it was one hell of a lot larger. She could make out a head with a rather long and pointed 'beak' or whatever that was at the end of one long, long neck. It startled her when she surmised that, whatever it was, she could see that it was regarding her, judging by the way that the one eye that she could see was moving a little. She slowed then and the creature slid ahead, still flying at the same speed. Rachel saw the long wings then and had to speed up a little to stay ahead of the turbulence that was sure to be near to the tips of those long wings and behind them. When something that large flapped it wings, ... That brought her neck and neck again, so to speak. Rachel wondered briefly about her safety, but then she had the thought that since the creature had arrived unseen, then it could just as easily have used that ability to attack her, if that was what it wanted. Maybe it was curious and only wished to get a look at her to see if she was edible, but it didn't make sense to her either. It could do that while invisible just as easily. It wasn't until the creature pulled ahead slowly that Rachel realized, and that was after moving out farther to stay clear of the upset air which had to lie just beyond the tips of those great wings. She saw the legs and feet and the small adjustments that their movements made to the overall stability of the thing's flight. This far back, she plainly heard the whoosh of each downstroke and she saw a glimpse of the pattern on the topsides of the wings when she had her first clue. The animal picked up the pace then, beating its wings hard as it descended a little to gain speed. When it soared upwards and crossed in front of her in its climb, well ahead, Rachel's jaw dropped to see the pattern on its back and wings as it looked rather regal in its turn. Rachel knew that this was a dragon then. It didn't look like one in the textbook sense, but she knew it anyway as it left her behind in fairly short order, but then tuned to come back. She didn't know what to expect really, and the possibility of a midair collision was a little disconcerting, but she held her course and just flew on as it came, well above her at about her eleven o'clock or fairly straight-on but a little to her left. A few hundred yards out, she watched as it plunged, passing her as it dropped and rising again on the other side to barrel-roll right over her, looking down as she laughed a little and it passed over her upside down from left to right. She had a clue then that she was perfectly safe -- the dragon was playing. Rachel looked back to see what the dragon was going to do next, but she felt a little sad to see that it just kept on, flying back the way that they'd come. She realized a couple of things then. She'd actually seen a dragon. She'd flown with a, ... a real dragon. Rachel shook her head. Amazing. She even felt just a little bit better. She reversed her course and flew the other way, telling herself that she had to be getting back anyway. She kept looking, but didn't see the creature again until she saw that she was getting within a few miles of Cheyenne Mountain. She saw it then, and wondered what it was doing, flying fairly low over some of the open sections of water out in the middle of a thawing lake. She was curious so, maintaining her altitude, she passed overhead, trying to figure it out. Yuan noticed the shadow and doubled back before making another turn to come back, but climbing and gaining speed. It was a bit of work, but she could manage it with less effort than the demon. Rachel was holding and looking down, but she saw only black water before she saw something else. The long snout of the dragon came into view and then she saw its head looking up at her from twenty feet below. She thought there was something wrong with her ears when she heard it the first time, but she was sure that the thing had made some sound directed at her. "Fish." "Did you say, 'fish'?" she called out. "Fish." That's when Rachel saw them, the silvery flashes of fish not far below the surface of the cold water below. She hadn't been looking past the surface. She hadn't tasted fish in so long it wasn't worth thinking about, not since the Drow came to her mountain looking for Azrael. "Want some? I love fish," the dragon said. "I love fish too," Rachel called down, "But how?" "Shore," the dragon said in a deep voice, "Left side. Dock. Wait there." Rachel looked over and she saw the snow-covered concrete pier. It was a thing left over from the days when humans towed pleasure craft behind their cars, back when the surface of these inland lakes were dotted with boats of all descriptions. She didn't know this -- she only saw the pier and knew what it was. There was a large lake near the town where she'd been once and men went out with their nets to fish and sell their catch in the market. In any event, her curiosity was peaked now, so she turned and headed there. When she'd landed on the pier close to the shore, she saw the remains of many piers and old buildings, most fallen-in long ago with large trees growing around and through them. The nearest inhabited town was closer to Cheyenne Mountain, perched on the edge of the lake not far off. There were no inhabitants to these ruins. She looked out and watched as the dragon sailed lower over the surface. In seconds, it was on its way back with a large fish in its mouth. The fish landed not far from Rachel - who almost lost it as it fought and wriggled, trying desperately to reach the water near the concrete pilings of the pier. A lot of the pier looked to be in bad shape and she didn't want to want to step there, so she was quick to grab the fish and toss it far back farther away from the water. Finding a good-sized piece of wood, she nailed the fish a few times and it was still. By the time she'd done it, another fish landed nearby and she laughed as she looked up to wave. She chased that one down and beaned it too. When they had four, the dragon came in for its approach, and landed with a fifth large trout still in its mouth. Rachel was in awe of the creature, and wondered if she was just supposed to eat the fish like this, but as she looked, the dragon tossed the fish into the air and Rachel followed it with her gaze, wondering if the dragon would just open its mouth and swallow when the fish came back down. But that didn't happen. The creature straightened up and grew smaller. As Rachel stared at the dragon -- who looked far more like a dragon now, she saw the fish come down to slip right through the dragon's outstretched arms and land flopping at its feet. The dragon shrugged, "That is what happens if I try to show off." Rachel found herself laughing to see the fish almost manage to get away, and that the dragon was little better at running after an escaping trout than she'd been. She clapped her hands in applause anyway. "Thank you," the creature said with a grin, "My name is Yuan." "I'm Rachel," she answered laughing, "What now? Do we just sit down and eat? These things are cold as anything." "No," Yuan smiled, "I want to find a little deadwood and we can cook them." "Like this?" Rachel asked holding her hand out to the fish at her feet. "No again," Yuan chuckled, "I can eat them whole as I was there, but, ... well, here, ..." She got down on one knee and deftly gutted and filleted the trout in not much longer than three minutes for all of them, covering the innards and heads with snow and tramping it down to keep the smell from attracting too many noses. Rachel felt her jaw drop. Yuan was doing this with one long claw. "You're too quick for me," Rachel said over her shoulder as she trotted away to grab some wood. Yuan watched her go and smiled. She came back with an armful in only a minute and they laughed at each other, "I was hungry for fish before," Yuan said, "but with them here like this, I almost can't wait." Rachel nodded and in seconds, it seemed, she had the wood arranged and cast on it to light it up as Yuan found sticks to cook them on and they stood watching as the flames did their work. "Um, I've got to ask something a little stupid here," the demon said, "I've been trying not to be rude and look too hard, but, ... I think I'm a little confused." Yuan nodded, "You see my chest and lower down, but I am not really made as what I look like?" "Yeah," Rachel nodded, "I mean, I see girl parts, but the frame, ... your shoulders, ... a-and your face, well..." She laughed feeling very foolish, "I can't decide if I'd call you beautiful or handsome. I'm sorry, I'm really not trying to make you feel badly here." She looked down, "Just like I'm not trying to sound like an idiot, thought I think I'm failing at that as well." "It's alright," Yuan smiled, "I confuse many people. Thank you for your compliments anyway. What would you prefer to see in me?" Rachel looked up at Yuan's face, "I'm not sure that I understand the question." Yuan reached to turn the fish fillets a little and Rachel was still confused, but she did find that she could admire the dragon -- whatever it was. "Yuan is a girl's name where I am from," she said, "and I am rather obviously a dragon. I am also part-human." "I am too," Rachel smiled, "but since we moved here, I'm just usually like this these days. I do like the way that you look, I -- " "Thank you again," Yuan smiled, "but, ... " She sighed, looking down at the fish for a moment, "If you are half-human and half-demon, I would guess -- and I hope that I am not about to sound more foolish than I feel -- that you were born this way, which is fine and normal for what you are. I was born a completely human girl. It's a long tale, but I became this way when a full and very old dragon placed one of her eggs in me, next to my heart when I was little. Until then, I was mostly empty inside. With the egg, I became a person, really. I could speak and be a normal little girl after that. But the egg was a male egg -- with a male dragon inside of it. This, ... affects things. So now, I am all grown up and I can be three things; the human, the dragon which you saw, and this -- what I am now. One is as female as she ever was and cannot be changed, the other is purely a male dragon and that cannot be changed either. Like this well, I can be both, though I look a perhaps a little more female this way. This shape can be changed for a time yet, I think." She crouched down to carefully lift a fish fillet and offer it to Rachel, who accepted it with a smiling nod. "Thank you -- and thank you for catching the fish as well." "My pleasure," Yuan smiled, "I am happy to meet someone like you. I expected that you would flutter away in terror when I decided to show myself. I am rather more than pleased that you didn't. It says a lot about you to me. You think before you act. I like that." Rachel was cautiously trying to nibble at the fish without getting her lips too burned, since it was hot. "How can you change yourself? I didn't quite get that part." Yuan laughed a little uncomfortably, "It is done using my will. It might say something about me, but until recently, I was always very lonely. I met a demon female and we became friends. She is from a world where there are demons and she is a full mountain demon -- or so they are called there. Quite by accident, we met a male, another from her world. They are the last of their kind and we both liked him, so I tried to make this shape to be as close to them as I could." She smirked," But it didn't work out the way that I'd hoped it would, so when I left them, I changed this shape to be what I wanted -- with scales instead of smooth skin. With the right person, ... " She chuckled at herself, shaking her head, "No, depending on what is wanted, what I have can become more, ... male in this shape. I didn't think of it then, but my choice was probably based on the temperature outside at the time. Like this, there's nothing to hang out in the wind, is there?" Rachel laughed and nodded, "That was probably a wise choice, Yuan." Her smile was contagious and Yuan found herself returning it. "Anyway," Rachel grinned, "I like the way you look. I was just confused, because I kept seeing things in you -- mannerisms and the way that you move. I think they're really what confused me. Everything that I saw was a dead split, right down the middle. It doesn't really matter to me. I like you. I think I liked you from the first look I got." Yuan laughed, "Which look? What was I then? You see how even I am confused?" Rachel shook her head grinning, "BOTH first looks, then. I keep hearing an accent in your voice. You're not from around here, are you?" "No," Yuan said, shaking her head a little, "I am from China -- or what was China long ago." Rachel was a little amazed, "How did you get here then?" "I flew," Yuan said, "I can fly high, and if you wish to go from west to east, and you can reach it, there is almost always a tailwind to be had at these latitudes. I flew from the South China Sea to the Pacific Ocean and I stopped on some islands in the middle where I met Beyl'eth the demon. I carried her in my pack and flew here. Fortunately for her, her kind can take the cold as high as I fly. I am sure that almost anyone else would have died. Where are you from?" Rachel held up one finger to get Yuan to wait as she finished her mouthful, "Sorry. "I'm from a ways northwest. I was born in some mountains and lived there for most of my life." She looked at Yuan a little searchingly, "Do dragons have some sort of ability to make people want to tell them everything?" She chuckled a little nervously, looking at Yuan as the dragon ate, "I mean, we don't even know each other because we met like, twenty minutes ago and I like talking to you, but suddenly, I felt like telling you my darkest secrets." Yuan laughed then and shook her head, "Dragons can see things in others to a varying degree. Sometimes, what we see is startling to say the least, but we cannot see everything and it depends on the other person. I can't see all that far into you, and I do NOT wish to try. I guess that some dragons long ago could word things in ways which might get others to tell the dragon far more than they wished." She grinned at the demon and wiggled her eyebrows up and down mischievously, "Some could manage a rather hypnotic gaze to do it." She shrugged with a grin, "But I only asked you where you were from, Rachel." "I know," Rachel nodded, "I guess I'm just feeling a little upset today. I ought to thank you, Yuan. You've been taking my mind off something for me." Yuan held up her hand, "That part, I am happy about. The other -- what bothers you, ... I have things which bother me too; things which make no sense to me at all and that I find no answer for. So I know how you feel." They kept talking as they ate, and even after the fish was eaten, Rachel added more wood to the fire and they kept talking. Eventually, it began to grow dark. "I guess I'd better be thinking about getting home," Rachel said, "and I find that I don't want to go home tonight, for once. My son will be fine for dinner, since it's not my night to cook and he can stay over at his girlfriend's house any time." Yuan looked over, "His girlfriend? Rachel, you don't look old enough -- " "Yeah, well I guess I'm almost old enough for that. I had him when I was nineteen. I make it sound a little weird to say it like that. He's not even ten yet, and she's not even eight. They're just really tight friends and they do everything together. She sleeps over at our place often and he's over there just as much. They're just kids and they're the only ones there, so they just became really good buddies. You can't even call one of them without them both showing up." She looked over, "But yes, I guess I am that old." She looked off into the flames for a moment and then she sighed, "I think that I can see some huge changes coming for Sariel and me." Yuan looked and saw the wetness in Rachel's eyes. "I was about to ask a question," she said, "but I think that it would upset you, so I will not. How will you get home? Do you know the way well? I know that you can likely see well in darkness, ..." "Where will you go, Yuan?" Rachel asked after wiping her eyes. "To my home," Yuan shrugged, "it will be a busy place now. There is a moose that is likely roasting, and all of my, ... family, I guess you could say will be waiting to eat. The little ones will grow tired after that and playing with my male or maybe Copper, and -" A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 37 "You have a family?" Rachel asked, and then she sighed with a smile, "A family of dragons. I like the sound of that." "You are being a little hasty," Yuan smiled, "it is not so much of a family of dragons as it is the hopeful beginning of one. For now, it might be better to call it a dragon's family. Only two of us are dragons." "How many are there and what are they?" Rachel asked. Yuan shrugged, deciding to speak of it, "There is one half-human, half dwarf. That is Copper. She lives there with Simmit, who is a demon -- a full demon. They are pair who love each other very much. Also, there is Sheth, my male, a dragon from another place, just as Simmit is." "Do you love him?" Yuan turned to Rachel and nodded, "Yes, very much. We have not been together long, but we know our hearts." She counted on her fingers for a moment, "and there is Luddy. She is a troll." "I think I met her today," the demon said, "I think it must have been her; there can't be too many Luddys around. She was with a pair of little demons and they called her by that name." "Ah," Yuan smiled, "the little ones, Amon and Neeth. They are Simmit's young." "I met them too," Rachel smiled as bravely as she could, "They're very sweet. I was a little interested in the name of their father." Yuan knew where this was headed. "I do not know who the father was. They are over a year old. We began only a month or so ago, only Sheth and I. We will want to have our young one day. The others well, ..." She looked over at Rachel, "I don't know what you know of dragons, Rachel. As far as I know, there are only three and I am one of them. Sheth and a female named Drene are the others. Drene does not live with us. Sheth and I are a pair. I am the head of the family, and the others are pets who we love and care for. The little ones are not pets, they are just parts of the family, my family." Rachel stared, "Pets?" Yuan shrugged, "Yes, though they are not kept as one might keep a dog or a cat. Luddy is a troll and trolls and dragons are attracted to each other. Simmit and Copper are a pair who need each other and we give them a warm home. I did not ask them to be my pets -- they asked me and they are insistent on it. Luddy is Sheth's pet." "I liked Luddy," Rachel smiled a little at the fire, "I've seen trolls now and then, but I've never seen one like Luddy. She's really nice and she's really quite pretty in a very different way." Rachel smiled, thinking back, "I think it's because she's a troll, but she's NOT at troll at the same time. She doesn't act like one at all. I've never had a chance to talk with a troll before. All I've ever gotten from them is stupid garbage about crushing my bones and nonsense like that, so I never stuck around. But she's different." "Luddy likes to meet people," Yuan said, "She is usually a little sad because she seldom can. Everyone runs from her. She's much happier now with us, and we are happy to have her." Rachel nodded, "She told me a lot about how, ... Simmit got pregnant and the name of the male. She also told me how she got pregnant and the name of that male. That's one of the things that are on my mind. I don't know either of the names that I was given." She looked over, "Those little boys have a rather striking feature about them," she smiled sadly as she lifted a little of her hair to wave at Yuan, "They have hair like mine." "It's stupid," she said a little sadly, "I've been around. I've seen busloads of demons and half-demons. Out of them all, there are only three that I know of who have hair this color. I'm one of them, but I don't count, obviously. My son is another, but he's just a boy. That leaves one." "That you are aware of," Yuan said a little cautiously, "The fact that you have the same hair as the last one means little. There must obviously be more than him and you. You met him, so that proves that -- " "Not necessarily," Rachel smiled bitterly, "I guess you might have the way to get people to tell their secrets to you after all, Yuan. This one is mine. We made a mistake over ten years ago, that male and I. It turned out well, since our mistake is a bright and handsome young boy who learns everything that he can about anything. He's well-mannered and he makes me so proud every day. But that doesn't change what was done. Sariel's father is my twin brother. I can accept the blame for what happened up to a point. We were young and I pestered my brother because he was the male that I wanted more than anything. But I didn't force him to stick it in and wiggle it around a bunch of times. He stopped wanting to do that and I left, but I was already pregnant with Sariel. We didn't see each other for years, but when we did, my brother had changed his mind and wanted to be a father and my male -- well, that's what he said and I agreed, thinking that it was fate or something just as stupid. Now you know why I don't want to go home." She sighed, "He probably won't be there anyway, but if he is, I don't think that our relations will be all that friendly tonight. I've got questions to ask, and the way that I just know that he'll bellow and yell at me for asking them will just boil my blood." "I am not sure that I understand," the dragon said. Rachel's reply was barely a whisper. "Yuan, I'm his sister. His twin sister. Don't you think that I'd know it better than anyone on the planet when he lies? I don't even want to mention it, but I have to. I'm not afraid of him. I'm a little scared to death that he'll lie -- and I'll know as soon as it's out of his mouth." She sat for a time, looking into the flames of the fire, saying nothing, only sniffling occasionally and wiping her tears. Yuan put one wing around her and sat looking into the flames as well. She said nothing. There wasn't anything that she could think of to say. She felt everything, and wished that there was something that she could do. After a while, Rachel stood up, "I'd better go, all the same, though I think I'd rather go to your home to talk to Simmit. You said that she's not from here. Can she speak English? I never learned any demonic speech, My father left my mom just after we were born. I think that I'd really like to meet her sometime -- not just for this." Yuan nodded, "She speaks English well now, but never mind that, Rachel. How will you go home? I will go with you. I want to." Rachel smiled a little and it was plain to see that she was holding back a crumbling dam, "I guess I'll fly." "May I come?" Yuan asked. She was feeling terrible about this now and planned to talk Copper out of this hunt of hers, now that she knew there was a female and a child. She was growing feelings for Rachel as well, because she could feel the other's pain quite clearly. It enabled her to know beyond much of any doubt that what Rachel didn't want to know, but had to ask, was very likely a correct surmisal. They buried the last of the fire under a heap of snow and walked to the dock. "I don't think that you ought to fly and it is too far a walk in the dark of the night." "Well how am I going to -- " Rachel looked at the dragon as it leaned forward, "Climb up on my back. I will not go quickly or high, Rachel. Only hold on tightly when I spring up to take off." As bad as she felt, Rachel had to smile a little. A ride on a dragon. How many people could say that they'd done that? "Alright," she said softly, "I can fly anyway, so it's not the bitter end if I fall off, is it?" Yuan found that she could admire Rachel for her way of looking at things and she did her best to take off gently. Even so, Rachel found the take-off to be a little violent for the first few seconds. She heard Yuan suggest that she try to move to sit if she could, but Rachel said no. Yuan's interpretation was that Rachel was fearful somehow. But the demon liked lying on the dragon's back much better. It wasn't hard to hang on with her arms around the neck of a dragon when she thought of it like that. She found it pleasant and very soothing in a way. The trip was rather short anyway and before long, they were descending. Yuan found shooting her approach very easy in the darkness -- because Copper's Bradley sat facing the entrance of the North Portal with all of its lights trained on the entranceway. Yuan landed and lowered herself to allow Rachel to get off before she changed and asked Copper what she was doing here. "I've found him," Copper grinned from the open driver's hatch, "This is where the bastard lives." Before Yuan could think of an answer, Rachel walked over, "You -- you're Copper?" "Yup," the tanker grinned from underneath her helmet, "that's me, Copper Kettlebottom. What's on yer mind, toots?" In spite of everything, Rachel grinned, liking Copper instantly. "What are you doing here?" "Well I'm just about to knock on the door with this here doorknocker," the dwarf smiled as she pointed to the gun above her head, "We've been here for a time, and yelling sure ain't workin'." "Nobody can hear you," Rachel said, "There's a long tunnel behind these doors. Some distance farther in there is another set of doors like these ones. After that, there are huge and heavy doors. You've only got one thing that'll open those last doors." Copper looked over, "I got TOW missiles for the launch tubes up there on the turret, but they're back in the barn. I don't usually carry them. They'll kill a main battle tank though, no sweat." Rachel shook her head, "The last doors are blast doors. They're more than three feet thick." "That means they're even thicker than your head," Luddy chuckled as she came from around the back of the vehicle. "Hi Rachel." "Hey, Luddy," Rachel smiled. "What the hell is that supposed to mean, Luddy?" Copper asked, a little angrily. "It means that you've got the volume too loud inside that pot on your head and your eyeshades are dirty. This is Rachel. She lives here." Copper looked at Rachel as though she was seeing her for the first time. "Where'dja get hair like that?" "It came with the package," Rachel smiled, "Why do you want to get inside?" "There's a demon in there who --" "Which demon?" Rachel asked, "You're not thinking. There are seven demons living here. I'm one of them. Three of them -- including me - are adult females. There are two adult males. The other two are children. One is my son. There are two Drow living here and two Xer. They look like supercharged werewolves. Oh yeah, and there's a tiefling warlock here too, and one human male --and sometimes one baby elf. We're all friends, so before you do something that might easily get you killed, I'd like to know what you want, Copper." "There's a demon male here who likes to roam around and romance any female he can get to hold still. It's affecting the birth rate in this mountain range, ok? I'm a mite pissed with him, since he's knocked up a couple of people who are important to me, never mind made quite a few girls around here feel foolish for listening to his shit, like Luddy here, like Simmit --" "Like Copper." Rachel looked beside her and saw a smallish demon female holding her little boys as she stood beside Yuan, "I am Simmit." Rachel smiled and found Simmit to be charming in a slightly mysterious way. Aside from that, she thought that Simmit looked a little trusting, but she didn't see any of the sort of scheming look that the thought that she'd see -- as she'd imagined her to look. Luddy didn't look like that either and Copper looked to be about as hard as nails, but she also looked as though she was pumped up on her anger. Rachel thought about it for a second, "What is the name of this demon?" She heard three different names at the same time, but it was in there, coming from Copper. Rachel felt as though she'd been shot through the chest. She held up her hand and turned, "What was that name, Copper?" "Azrael," she glared, "but it's the same guy. Ask them to describe him to you." Rachel ignored that and pressed on, "He gave that name to you?" "Hell no," the dwarf growled, "He ain't got the balls for that. He told me his name was Earle. Who the fuck would buy that?" "That would be ah, ... you, Copper." Luddy said in a helpful tone, "You only learned his real name today when we saw him and the other one of those Drow people spoke to him as they went inside." Copper pulled off her helmet, "What did you mean that I had one thing that would open the big doors?" Rachel looked around at them all, "I'm Rachel Wannamaker. I'm Azrael's wife. I'm your ticket inside. You want to talk to him, well let's go. This big-assed soup can stays out here. It might get stuck. Luddy, watch your head near the lights. Simmit, please bring your little sweethearts along, if you wouldn't mind." She turned to Yuan, "You're welcome to come along, Yuan." Yuan grinned. She'd never seen anything like this woman, "Thank you, Rachel. I think I'd like that -- not for the reason that the others would, I would just like to see the inside of this." Rachel had the outer doors open in no time. As they walked, she turned and looked at Copper, "Why did you bring that tank with you? Were you thinking of killing Azrael?" The dwarf nodded grimly but spoke a little quietly, "It ain't right what he does, Rachel. I haven't told Yuan because I don't know if it's important to her, but there's another dragon out there and he was banging her this afternoon." "Thanks," Rachel said, rolling her eyes, "I needed to hear that." Copper's mouth fell open. "Cheeses, I'm sorry, Rachel. I shouldn't have said that. I forgot who I was talkin' to." She reached into her coveralls and pulled out a thin sheaf of paper. "I've got pictures of him if it's important." Rachel stopped and took the pictures to step under one of the lights for a minute. "How did you get these?" "I took them through the targeting optics in my Bradley and ran 'em out through the printer. See the reticules? The little lines? Those are range marks." Rachel looked up, "You were -- aiming at him? Could you have killed him?" Copper nodded, "I didn't shoot each time because he was with somebody." "I don't think you're seeing this the right way," Rachel said, "I'm his wife. Azrael has a son." "I'm not arguing with you," Copper said, "but he's got two more sons right here and these are the only ones that I know about." Rachel was about to answer, but she stared at one picture, "This -- this is a guy. He was getting blown by another guy." Yuan nodded, looking over her shoulder, "That is Sheth before we met. Sheth broke it off." Rachel stared, "He's really good-looking. Too bad he didn't really break it off. I think I'd rather hear that he'd bitten it off." She turned to Copper, "I've got something to say to him when I get in there. After that, he's all yours, but use your head, ok? I doubt that he'll just sit there quietly after I'm done talking and yes, he's an asshole for what he's done. That doesn't mean that you can kill him for it." She put her hand on Copper's shoulder. "I know that you hate him for all this, but if there's anybody who has a right to have the thought of killing him -- well look at me, Copper. How do you think I feel to hear all of this? What do you think it feels like to see these? You think you've got a right to feel used? I'm his wife." Copper looked down for a moment and then she looked up, "I'm very sorry, Rachel." "It's ok," Rachel smiled down, "I'm gonna say what I have to. Then I'm probably going to hit him, and then I'll leave. After that, if you see him outside and you think you can find it in you, you can blow his ass off, just don't ever tell me. I don't want to know." She started walking again still looking at one photo, "Damn, your guy looks good, Yuan. Are you sure he hasn't got a brother or anything?" She was trying to say something to cover how foolish she felt. Yuan didn't reply, other than to offer a sympathetic smile. ---------------------- The locking bars of the blast doors shifted and slid to their stops with metallic-sounding clacking noises. The doors began to slowly open and the group of females stepped inside. Everyone in Yuan's group looked around in a bit of wonder. The place seemed to go on for miles. It was always a little dark, even during the daytime when it was lit to a degree by the lights powered by the generator. But at night, few lights were on with wide gaps of darkness between then. It had a hushing effect on them -- all of them but one half-dwarf. "Hmmph," Copper snorted quietly as she looked around, "I didn't think this place existed." "What do you mean?" Rachel asked. "Well where I grew up," Copper said, "I was always finding stuff left behind by the humans who lived there long ago. I'd find these thin paper books sometimes, made of really cheap paper with pictures and stuff -- stories about super-people and their adventures. They were fun to read, but they'd fall apart pretty quick for how old the paper was. I thought it was all a bunch of hokey stuff, written for kids -- which I was then." She looked around again, "I guess they weren't all wild fantasy." She laughed a little. "Ok, this just HAS to be the Batcave." "There are no bats in here," Rachel said, "We keep all of the doors closed as much as possible. They don't get much of a chance to get in. I'd guess there were none to begin with when it was built. There was no cave here. This was a solid rock mountain before it was hollowed out." They walked on in silence for a minute before Copper spoke to Rachel again. "Where would everyone go at this time of day if they had some ale to try?" "They'd be at the bar," Rachel said, "That's pretty much where we all go for at least a little time every evening, most of us to shoot the breeze and such. But we're always pretty low on ale. Why?" Copper spoke about meeting Barrett and Cha'Khah and giving them the small keg, "I did that because I figured that Barrett is the nearest person who lives close by. I always brew up a small keg of bock for him early on and I was hoping that he'd be home so I could ask if he knew of any demons around here. I met his wife and their little girl and they said they'd take my keg for everybody to taste and they'd probably want me to brew a big keg for them now and then." "Did you mean that, or were you just fishing for information," Rachel asked. "I was fishing, but hell yeah, I meant it. It's a way for me to earn a little gold. I was only after one demon, Rachel. Unless you're all like Azrael, I don't have any issue with anybody." "Fish-ing," Amon said. They heard the buzz of some conversation some distance off and then they heard a bit of laughter. "I guess I was right," Rachel smirked. "Watch your head, Luddy." As she led them into the bar, dinner was still in progress and they were met with a lot of dropping jaws and stares. "I've brought some guests," Rachel smiled as she saw Azrael's eyes widen in a bit of horror. That look said everything to her. Everyone's face expressed surprise and maybe a bit of wonder but Azrael's. Sariel and Nahl'een blinked at them, especially the twins, who hung in their mother's arms with their eyes wide. Everyone wore at least a slight look of interest in their expressions and most showed far more interest than that. Only one face showed something far different. Rachel began the introductions quickly, pointing individuals out on both sides. "... and a few of you already know Copper Kettlebottom," she smiled, "You're drinking her ale tonight, I see. This is Lyudmila Potter, and this is Simmit." She looked at Azrael, "Simmit's pretty special to me because I've just discovered a new branch of our family, honey. These are Amon and Neeth. They're your brothers, Sariel, half-brothers. Aren't they sweet?" A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 37 "What the hell are you talking about?" Azrael demanded hotly. "I'm talking about how you're on a one-male campaign to repopulate the mountains here all by your lonesome. You keep disappearing for a few days, making noises about looking for leads, but as far as I can tell, that's not what you've been doing, is it, Azrael?" She indicated Simmit, "Simmit was thrown here from somewhere else and on her own, Simmit was a little too trusting, wasn't she? You just couldn't help yourself, could you? What did he say to you, Simmit? That you were the one for him?" Simmit nodded, "Yes. I believed you, Harrick." "This is bullshit," Azrael snorted, "I've never seen her in my life." How about me?" Luddy asked, stepping closer, "I think I must be at least a little unforgettable, Bron -- or whatever you're calling yourself these days. You won't have to worry about any little blonde trolls leaping around, though." "Luddy miscarried," Rachel said, "Big relief, huh?" "May I?" Selena asked Simmit as she reached for one of the little ones who had been staring at her. Simmit nodded and held him a little higher. Seeing his brother with Selena, the other twin began to wave his arms at Shaevre, who reached back with a smiling nod, taking him to hold him as she and Arrax admired them. The twins would have been happy to see so many big people, and they were a little bold and adventurous anyway, as little ones go, but there was something wrong here to them. They'd recognized the female demon who had hair like theirs. They liked Rachel. That was all they knew as they looked at her hair now and then. It made them look at the large male at the other end of the room who also had hair like that. They couldn't help it as they were held by Selena and Shaevre. They didn't know where to devote their limited attention for a few seconds, but slowly, they settled on Azrael. They didn't like what they saw in his face when he looked at them more than once. Far from the adoration that they seemed to be getting from all of the others -- especially all of the females in the room, including the young demon girl who they wanted to see more of whenever they looked at Nahl'een, they saw something far different in the gaze of the male with hair just like their own. It began to upset the two of them. Amon and Neeth were identical twins, but that didn't mean that they were the same. Neeth was farther along in speaking -- much farther, and he had more intuitive ability in an outward sense toward the world around him, but Amon wasn't slow. He was just a little different, that was all. Amon's intuitive ability leaned far more to things and even worlds which were not normally visible without even thinking on his part. As he grew upset and fearful, he sent ripples out that he wasn't aware of. Neeth picked up on it and they began to cry and want to be in Simmit's arms. ---------------------- On the world where Simmit had originated, demons of her kind had developed a social structure out of a need for mutual defense, since they weren't at the top of the food chain. They were predators themselves -- just not the top ones. They lived in colonies and out of their need for protection, they'd developed a genetic solution. Once, every hundred or so male births, a protector was spawned. These were large males who were born with many abilities and talents and knew their place in the colonies from birth. Colonies typically had more than one and they never fought between themselves for they shared a common purpose -- to defend the colony against anything. In times of stress -- where the colony might have come to the attention of ones who would attack them in any sort of numbers, more protectors were spawned naturally in response though it took the span of twenty years on Earth to reach a size where they could assume their roles. Protecting the colony was what they were made to give their lives for if it was needed, though it usually wasn't. Whatever they faced usually perished before they did. Simmit came from a large colony with many protectors, but there was one who was troubled and had been since the day that he'd seen one female pulled into a roiling cloud of bodies to disappear with the rest of them. He'd have been upset over it even if he had no tie to Simmit, other than that she was one of the ones closest to where he lived, and being what he was, all that he knew was that one of the ones in his charge had disappeared without a trace. But he had a tie and so he'd begun to hunt. He'd been hunting ever since. There had been little to go on, but that didn't matter. He'd found the place where she'd been dragged off their world, and it had only stopped him for a month. With the innate ability of what he was made for, he'd found that Simmit was far from him in distance, but not in space. She was only on another plane. He'd found a way to go there. He'd had to. It had taken well over a year and he'd had to step onto two other planes to do it, but for longer than the last half year, he'd been hunting on Earth. His journey had landed him closer to where Yuan had begun. He knew nothing of anything here and found himself in jungles on what was once known as Borneo. He made his way, living on what he could and waiting, but that was alright. He knew that he was on the right world; he waited only for the next feeling to come to him. What came to him in the middle of a swamp was the fearful wail of a frightened little heart. That heart knew nothing of what it called, but that was alright too, he thought. He had the last of what he needed to know. He stopped moving instantly, standing still as a stone as he sensed what came to him. In seconds, he knew who this little one was and that the female must be close by. The next trembling that he felt gave him the direction and the one after that told him the rough distance. He began to run, but not in the sense that a person born on this plane would run -- over ground and rocks or wading across streams. He began to run as one who had learned that on other planes, he was a little exempted from distance. His thick and muscular legs drove him forward, but not as one who could accelerate to his maximum speed and go no faster. That was constant thrust and it had its limits. As he ran, his heart drove him and his outline became less definite. He wasn't constrained here by constant thrust -- the maximum power from his legs moving him at a maximum speed. There was no limit to him in this sense -- there was only constant acceleration, the constant of moving faster every second than the last. His heart pounded, knowing that he was needed by someone whom he'd never met as well as the one that he'd been hunting for almost two years. His hot breath shot out of his open mouth and his footfalls were steady. The difference was that the distance between them kept increasing. He disappeared, moving through everything that he encountered - a force from another place. ------------------ Since she was no longer the focus of the conversation, no one noticed the way that Simmit hid her face behind her hair, or the silent tears which ran down her cheeks. She was happy now, so in love with Copper and where they lived with Yuan and Sheth, but it was like a dagger to her heart to see the way that Azrael glared at their children. It was frightening her young. The next instant, Simmit felt something and smiled to herself, suddenly knowing that she hadn't been forgotten. She didn't know how it could be, but she felt the approach of a protector and she knew who it was. Her lips began to move almost silently and across the room, Ksyusha and Nika turned from Vadren, feeling something. "Are you enjoying my ale, Earle, or maybe it's oily Azrael?" Copper grinned, "I didn't mind you screwing me over, since I caught on in time -- once I'd seen you with my friend Luddy here. I took care of her afterward since she was a wreck, and then I found Simmit and her babies freezing in the cold. Not exactly the sort of thing that you promised the loves of your life, was it? You want to blame somebody for this, then right here, asshole," she pointed to herself. "Look no further." Azrael looked as though he was about to fly into his fury, but Vadren put his hand over Azrael's arm, "Is all of this true?" "Of course not," the demon scowled, "I don't know any of these females. This is such bullshit." He looked up at Copper, "And you are so --" He stopped himself, knowing what was about to come out, "I'm not going to sit here an-" Rachel put her hand on Azrael's shoulder and pressed down, "Oh, don't worry about her, baby. I'm not done yet." She tossed the sheaf of photos on the table, spreading them around before the others, "I think you can all see the uh, theme here. Go on Azrael. Talk your way out of this. I've just got to hear your explanation for this. Ah!" she grinned as she pointed to the top picture, "I know what you were doing in each of these -- with each of these people. Why, you were pumping them for information, weren't you? Yeah, that's got to be it. Why else would somebody leave his wife alone and wondering why the one for her wasn't home so many nights?" Before Azrael could reach to grab them, Vadren took one of them, and the others began leafing through quickly and passing them on in the other direction. "The one on the bottom is the dragon female that he's doing now," Copper said, "That one was taken earlier today, about eight miles from here." She looked at Vadren, "You were at the blacksmith's place out beyond the edge of town." Vadren nodded, "My horse's hooves needed trimming." He looked at Azrael, "You said that you were going to run down a rumor." Yuan stepped over, "That is Drene." She chuckled a little, "I have no place in this here, but I can say that you may have met your match with Drene. She does the same thing, promising love, giving none and flying away afterward." "Who the hell are you?" Yuan ignored him and walked away with a bit of a mysterious smile to herself. She remembered what her mother had said that she had to do. This was a bit of drama, she thought, nothing more -- though she felt terrible for Rachel. In answer to his rudeness, she put just a little into her hips as she walked, just the barest, slimmest bit of motion which not even most females could say was ... Rachel smiled a little to herself as she saw Azrael's eyes lock on and follow. Though she was upset and hurt and becoming angry enough for this now, she knew what Yuan was doing. For a friend who needed showing, she could see herself doing the same thing. Without saying a word, Yuan was giving Azrael a chance to damn himself and Azrael was taking the bait which had not even been proffered. Vadren looked over, "Azrael, ..." "You've done the same," Azrael said to the Drow as he pulled his gaze away from Yuan reluctantly. "No, I haven't," Vadren replied, "I have never misled anyone in this regard. I never made promises to get legs to part for me. I have always made it quite clear each time, and that was before. I would never throw away what I have now." Vadren looked at Simmit but she was looking down. "How old are they?" he asked. "A bit over a year," Copper replied. "A year and some," Vadren repeated, "We had just come back here then. You made these long before you left. You wasted no time while you were telling us that you wished to seek the place where you were born." There was no humor in Vadren's face as he looked at Azrael, "Why?" Azrael made no reply and in that moment, he lost a friend for it. Cha'Khah was in shock. She looked at the pictures and back at Azrael, "You told us that you went to seek clues to more riches -- when we sometimes now have people coming to us to ask for our work. I wondered why you seldom returned with anything." She shook her head, "I trusted you. I followed you. When I met your son and Rachel, I was so happy that I ached, wishing for so long to have the kind of love that Rachel had." "Well, I thought that I had it too," Rachel smirked, "But that wasn't what I had at all, was it Azrael?" Azrael looked from one to the other, "Cha'Khah, I --" She shook her head, "Look at these little ones. I might consider this some sort of mistake, but I see here," she held up the pictures, "the true worth of anything that you would say to me." Her eyes turned instantly red, "Do not speak to me. Never speak to me." "Do you feel it?" Nika whispered to Ksyusha, who barely nodded. "I would warn them -- especially him, but I feel where this comes from, and why. That one has borne much pain alone. Something comes now, but what?" Nika nodded, "This is none of our business," she said as she turned back to watch. Cha'Khah looked at Rachel, "I am so sorry, Rachel. Why didn't you tell me?" Rachel looked over and they all saw her tears, "I didn't know for sure until today. I only knew that what I had was gone. In the last six months, he's never even touched me unless I asked for a hug, and then it was as fast as I could blink. You've been friends for a long time. I didn't want to upset you with my troubles. Just tell me that we're ok. That's all that I need to hear." Cha'Khah smiled, "We were never not 'ok', Rachel. My friendship is not in question." Azrael looked up, "Come on, Rach, you don't belie- " He was pressed up against Vadren for an instant as Rachel's fist cracked across his cheekbone hard enough to split his skin. He turned then and looked up, reaching to touch his cheek. His fingers came away bloody. "Lying bastard," Rachel sniffled, but only a little, "I think I've finally figured out just why we only had Mom. She didn't run to hide from our father so that he couldn't find us. That story I got from the man who raised us with Mom was all wrong. I know the truth now. He knocked her up and was gone. End of story." She leaned down, "He was worthless -- just like you. She ran because she didn't want to see him again. She couldn't trust the lies that she knew she'd hear." She kept her voice coldly quiet as she nodded once, "This is the end of another story. You can have all the fun you want now. Just don't ever try to come back to me. This goes beyond my broken trust in my male. I have to wonder what you saved me for at all. Did you just want somebody in case your girlfriends were out of town or something? Oh, what's the use?" She said as she turned and walked toward her son, "Come on, Sariel, we've got to talk." Sariel stood up and met Rachel as she came even with where he stood. He saw his mother's tears then, her wall beginning to crumble before his eyes. He took her hand and looked back over his shoulder only once as they walked out. "I think I want to be away from here for a little while," she said. "Where?" Sariel asked, "Can I come with you, Mom? Please?" "Of course you can," she said, "but I don't know where I'm going yet." She wiped her tears away for a moment, "I just don't think that I want to be here. Not with your father here. You might not understand, but I don't even want to see him right now. This is between him and I, honey. It's got nothing to do with you. He's your father so --" Sariel looked up and reached to hug his mother, "I don't care, Mom. I'd rather be with you. I never see him anyway. He doesn't talk to me much anymore, not like before we came here." The others looked at Azrael for a moment, before their attention was drawn to the quiet sounds of Simmit's words, since they were now the loudest sounds in the room. Far off, they heard the beat of heavy footfalls, someone -- or something -- running. "It comes now," Nika said quietly to Ksyusha, who only nodded. Simmit's voice grew loud for only one very short phrase as she raised her hands toward Azrael, fingers held back by her small thumbs, her gray eyes looking very striking in her concentration as she cursed him and marked him for her protector with her mind. The others could plainly feel this now. Vadren stared, along with Selena. Sariel looked back as well. Azrael looked at Simmit then, seeing the way that her tears ran from her chin almost like rain off the edge of a roof. He saw no sadness in her face. There was nothing there but her hatred and loathing. Far off, across the open space outside in the darkness of the mountain, something came through the hundreds of feet of solid granite, moving through it and disturbing nothing. The footfalls were like quiet thunder, rapid, heavy, ... Relentless. Simmit shouted the last word and flung her fingers out just as she jumped to push Sariel, Rachel and Yuan out of the way. "I like her already," Nika smiled at Ksyusha and Vadren as she slid away on the bench, "Move, Vadren." Ksyusha grabbed Vadren's arm and dove, pulling him with her in the other direction, closer to where Nika was. The air moved around them and Simmit turned to smile and say something as the protector reached the threshold. "Rohkanh! Tekt lood qiht!" Simmit yelled, pointing straight at Azrael. It was answered by another phrase and then there was another being in the bar with them all. "Ayahckt, Simmit," the massive demon grunted in his deep voice as he passed. His presence was there, but he wasn't just yet. That was the way that he moved in this way. He was slow now to what his speed had been, but his feet still moved to his pounding pace and there was nothing slow in the way that he entered. The others only barely saw a large and powerful demon, larger than Arrax by a small measure. His light gray eyes flicked once to Simmit and his lips pulled into a smile, but he looked forward again and the smile turned cold as he ran. Azrael tried to get to his feet, but he stopped still and began to fall over, taken by something which the runner sent to him. The demon growled as he reached out, still running. He grunted again as he took Azrael's weight and inertia by only one hand - around the blonde demon's throat. "Besht tah," he growled and was gone. The protector didn't stop. He didn't even slow down a little. He just kept on at the same pace and then he was gone, right through the opposite wall just as he'd come through everything else, leaving no sign of his passage -- no hole in the wall of the bar that he'd run through, nothing disturbed, other than the grainy photographs of Azrael breaking his vows to Rachel as the papers flew in the disturbed air of the demon's wake. "What in blazes was that?" Copper said, almost in a whisper. She looked at Yuan; they all did, but Yuan shook her head, staring at Simmit. "That was -- " Simmit nodded, smiling broadly through her tears now. "My brother has FOUND MEEEEEEE!" she howled out in joy to the ceiling, her small fist flashing upward in triumph and she called after him, almost cheering, "Tekt-shih Rohkanh! Tekt shih dran!" "That was your brother?" Copper asked as she looked up and Simmit nodded with a smile. Copper looked farther out and joined the others in staring at the corner of the bar where Vadren gaped at the empty seat next to him. Azrael was gone. "Where did he take Azrael?" Rachel asked, but Simmit only shook her head, "I cannot know this, Rachel." Yuan looked at Simmit and tried to feel what she could, but little came to her. Several of the others looked at each other. "I'd have thought," Selena began, "that for a casting like that, I'd have felt more of a build-up beforehand. I only felt something right at the end." Ksyusha nodded, "We felt it before this, but we didn't know what was intended." "But the words --"Cha'Khah began. "The words were not the drawing of this," Yuan said, "This was no casting. Over the last while, I have come to know Simmit's speech quite well. I did not hear the beginning, only near to the end." A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 37 "What -- what did she say then?" Rachel asked looking up. Yuan shrugged, "Until now, Simmit was sad at how she was used, but she does not dislike someone easily. It is just her way, and she knows that here, it has gotten her into trouble before. She sees a bear and thinks that it is curious and might be friendly when really; it is wondering how much trouble it would be to grab one of her children and run for the easy meal or whether it will have to kill them all to eat." Simmit's face was almost glowing in her euphoria, but she heard Yuan and nodded with a shrug and beamed once more at the spot where she'd last seen her sibling. "From what I heard, Simmit had some small hope that Azrael might see his children and feel something for them. She does not want him in any way, and she still bore him little ill will -- until he showed her his heart with a look, from what I heard her say to herself. Right then, Copper was not the only one who hates Azrael." "How did he get here?" Copper asked, "How did he find you? Did you call him?" Simmit wiped her face with her hands, "I only said his name when I knew that he was here. I did not call him. If I could have called to him, I would have, long ago." She went to Shaevre and picked up her quiet and sniffling son, "It was Amon who called in his fear. He knows nothing of this. He only called out from inside himself and Neeth joined him. Rokhanh came then." "What did he do to Azrael?" Rachel asked, a little pointedly. "Far," Simmit said, and seeing Yuan, she began to explain since thinking for the translation was a little difficult for her right then. "Simmit says that her kind was often hunted by another breed of demon where she is from. I believe that I know a little of it. They are more powerful and rather ferocious in their hatred of Simmit's kind. What has been done is the only defense that her people have against the others. They call to ones they call protectors, but I do not know anything more." She listened to Simmit a little more, "She says that these are ones whose purpose is to protect the others and her brother is one like this. He has taken away what made Amon fear so much." "She doesn't know where?" Rachel asked. Simmit shook her head, "Far." She looked at Rachel, "Was this wrong?" "No," Rachel said, careful to keep her gaze on Simmit's eyes, seeing this plainly since she also shared a demonic heritage, "I understand you, Simmit. I'm upset, but I'm not angry with you. Will your brother kill Azrael?" "I do not know," she said, "I do not think so, since Amon was not hurt. Protectors become terrible then. He may only take him far away as he has done. I see your face now and I hope that Rohkanh sis not hear what I said when I asked him to kill Azrael." "Will he come back?" Rachel asked. Simmit nodded, "He must, if he came so far for me. He must know if I am alright." She thought for a moment, "I do not know how he was able to come here. I wonder if he can go back." She looked at Copper and knew what she was thinking, so she took Neeth from Selena and held the twins out to Copper. The boys almost leaped the last of the way and settled onto the dwarf's shoulders and arms, feeling better right away. Simmit slid her arms around Copper's waist. "I will not leave, Copper. Do not look so frightened. I will not leave you. Neeth and Amon love you as well as me. We are a family." Vadren had been looking at Yuan thoughtfully for a time, and now he stood up and stepped closer. "Pardon me, Yuan, is it?" Yuan nodded with an open smile, "Yes?" "You are a dragon, aren't you?" Yuan nodded, "I am." Vadren smiled and turned toward Cha'Khah, "Cousin, a dragon." Cha'Khah nodded with a little wonder, "I never thought -- " She regained a little of her wits, "You could have killed Azrael easily, yes?" Yuan nodded, "I suppose, but I had no quarrel with him directly." From her words, Cha'Khah looked at the others, "These are with you? I mean to say, they belong --" "In a way," Yuan nodded, "Luddy is our troll. Copper and Simmit are -- " "Pets," Copper grinned proudly, "We're her pets. Luddy belongs to Sheth, the other dragon." The statement began a barrage of questions and Rachel held up her hand finally, "The explaining of everything will take until the dawn. I am very happy to meet you all, but Sheth is probably --" "Walking in," Sheth said smiling, "I grew tired of waiting and wondering, so I sought and I found Copper's toy rumbling outside a tunnel with open doors." He walked to Yuan and she sighed as she felt his arms around her. "Fine," she smiled warmly after the embrace, "Let Rachel help with the meeting of everyone and please let me sit. That is all that I ask. This is Sheth. In the way of our two kinds, Sheth is my husband." Selena and Ksyusha asked if Sheth had eaten and learning the answer, they brought him a meal as everyone met and talked. Azrael's disappearance was forgotten for the moment. As far as she could determine, Rachel knew that Azrael was not dead. She wanted no part of him anymore, but she didn't think that she wanted him dead. "I want to thank you," Rachel said, "I'm beginning to think that you had a hand in this -- or at least some of it." Yuan shook her head, "I am a dragon, but I am not that wise and scheming. I met someone today that I want as a friend, and she had troubles and still does. Through her, I have met many more, and each one that I meet is a wonder. You do not need to thank me for anything other than perhaps my concern, but that is only a small thing and you have already said it. If anything, you have already thanked me for what was really important -- the fish." Rachel laughed and nodded, "Then I'm even happier." "Fish?" Cha'Khah asked, "What fish?" "It's the sly way that Yuan used to meet me. She caught fish for me and we cooked and ate them over a little fire that I made. It was really good and not just for the fish. We had fun and got to know each other a little and I forgot about my troubles for a little while. I'd do that again anytime." "What about tomorrow then?" Yuan smiled, "You and I could take your handsome son," she laughed, "and his lovely girlfriend -- if it is permitted." "If what is permitted?" Selena asked. "Just a little lunch of fresh fish, cooked right on the beach. It doesn't get much fresher than that," Rachel grinned. Nahl'een looked interested, so Dahlgren and Selena nodded. Simmit made her quiet way to where Yuan sat talking with Rachel and Cha'Kah. "Rohkanh will return to seek for me. I will need to speak with him then." Yuan knew that there was something important behind the demon's concerned look, so she nodded, "Say to him what is needed, Simmit. I trust in your judgement. Will he be able to understand it all?" "Oh yes," Simmit nodded, pleased to hear that Yuan had given her consent, "He will understand. There are ones a little like you where we are from and it is almost the same. But Rohkanh will have a problem I think. I think that he came because he had to. I think that he cannot go back. If that is true, he will need a place and there is a reason that he will want to be near to me." Yuan chuckled, "I see no trouble, Simmit. If he is a little calmer -- and slower - most of the time, he can live near you with us -- why do I see this uncertainty in your face? You know how I am. Would he be this - protecting of others and not only his sister?" Simmit nodded, but the concern remained, "Yes, of course. Protectors are special males. They need to defend the ones they know belong where they belong -- in the same group. If you ask him, and if he likes the others, he will defend them against anything. But-" She sighed, "They are worth very much to the groups where we live. They do what is needed from their hearts, as Rohkanh did for my son. But if he cannot go back, and I will not go back because of Copper, then he must stay. I should explain this. Protectors have worth to us, and by what they have done, they are ranked in a way, and we do not trade with gold. The ranking and the respect are shown and spoken of as the number of females that each one can hold. It is like a payment from the group and the claimed females are shown honor by everyone. Rohkanh is mighty and could have ten females at least where we lived, but he never claimed them. If he were able to go back, he would be worth twenty now and more for how he searched and came for us. But I know Rohkanh. He would laugh to hear this and shake his head. He claimed only one for himself, and never claimed any more which were offered to him. When he was honored for killing demons who had dragged several females off, the one that Rohkanh claimed was me." Simmit said as she looked into Yuan's eyes searchingly. "Where we are from, it is not permitted for him to mate with his sister, but we have played and loved in our own way since we were of age -- and that is permitted, since all of us must show our protectors their worth to us. I am too small for him anyway, but he will ask and I will please him with my hands and mouth because we are close. I am sure that to continue this will be all that he will ask of you if you say nothing else to him. If he were any other, he would seek to bargain with you for his service." Rachel stared a little, but Yuan laughed softly, "Bargain? Simmit, you play music to my ears. Let him return and when he does, then you speak for him if he cannot learn this speech as quickly as you and we will bargain, him and I. You speak for him, so that he knows that I would bargain in good faith. I love to bargain! But what would he want? What has worth to him? Some gold, I have already. Furs and skins I have mountains of. I can offer a place in my home and if he is willing to protect the family that I try to grow around me, I can offer all of these things." Simmit nodded, but she still looked a little uncomfortable. "Yuan, Rohkanh loves me and I love him. We are close, but could not be mates where we are from. We are the youngest in our family and we have always taken care of each other since we were small. When he claimed me, we lived together and it was the same. Back there, I was a little famous as the sister of Rohkanh. It was an honor to be one that he claimed -- especially because we are kin. Everyone knew that we did not mate and only pleased each other in other ways. It is common and is considered a chaste way and proper between a protector and his sister -- if they are close and he has claimed her for what he has done to protect all. But he is a good male -- and that is rare where we were born. It is also why protectors are valued so much. Everyone knew him and wished to be claimed by him. I know that there must be many who are weeping in their loss of him, but I know that he had to seek for me, just as he would for anyone that he protects, but I am his as he is mine. He had to seek for me. I used the wrong word when I told Copper how I came here. Rohkanh is not my boyfriend. But Rohkanh will not wish for gold or skins. He will be thankful if he is allowed a small space to live near to me, but that is not what he will bargain for if he comes to you and you wish to bargain. He will come to bargain for females - at least one. It is time for him to need to spawn soon." Yuan stared for a moment and then she laughed, reaching for Simmit to pull her close. She kissed Simmit's cheek and whispered, "Let him come then and we will talk. But this is for later. I am happy to meet so many others now. Be sure to bring him to me, Simmit. Sheth and I wish to meet and welcome your brother." ---------------------------- Azrael groaned and stood up slowly from where he'd landed against a slanted wall of stone. He looked and saw the huge beast preparing something by moving large boulders. Seeing that he stirred, the demon stopped and stepped closer. The place was pitch black; totally dark and deep underground. It mattered little to either of them as they regarded each other. "What was that for?" Azrael asked, "Where are we?" The beast regarded Azrael for a moment and decided that speech would be an issue, but he guessed correctly about the content of the questions that he'd heard. He held up his hand and three little orbs of light glowed dimly above each of the first three fingertips of his hand. Azrael stared of a moment. But he began to see images, one in each orb. He saw Simmit above the large middle finger, and over the fingers on either side, he could see the tow-haired children. He stared as the orbs remained after the demon lowered his hand. What he didn't see was the way that the fingers curled underneath the orbs, or the way that the fist flashed out to crash into his face and send him back into the recesses where he'd lain. Azrael pushed himself up and began his motions. Fireballs blasted against the deep chest of the beast and raw lightning flared in the blackness, but it only flickered out in all directions to seek the stone around them. All that Azrael had accomplished was to illuminate the stern face before him. But at least he knew what this was about now. He lowered his hands, "Look, I'm sorry, I-" He crashed into the rock walls again and again. When he stayed down, the beast stepped forward and picked him up by the mane on his back, walking Azrael forward a long way farther into the recesses of the place. As he held the blonde demon up, he smiled and pointed toward one wall, holding up his hand and lighting what lay there, stacked neatly. Azrael blinked and saw the ancient crates, piled from the floor to the ceiling in many places, and he read the words and the warnings on the many boxes of old and likely very unstable dynamite. The demon didn't know the words, but he knew what it was as he grinned and waved a finger in Azrael's face in a warning to be careful. He stepped back then and finished walling Azrael in. With a few motions, the cold rock began to flow together without melting until there were only a few small openings left. He didn't say it, since he didn't know the speech, but they were in an already collapsed gold mine. The top shaft had been closed off, but he'd opened it easily to bring Azrael down here unconscious. With a word and a motion, the tons of rock were released far above them. Azreal heard the crashing thunder five miles away and knew that he was being imprisoned here. Pleased with himself, the beast stepped away and walked through the wall of the mine, headed back up -- sliding through the solid bedrock on his way back to the surface two and a half miles above him and eleven hundred miles from his little sister. Outside standing in the dirt, Rohkanh grinned and began to run to her. A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 38 ***You ever have one of those days? The kind where afterward you feel as though you were standing on one of the streetcorners of life and for one reason or another - which wasn't clear to you at the time, you just went the other way - the way that looked different - just to see. You might only realize afterward that the decision changed your life, though it didn't look that way then and you didn't think you were doing anything all that profound. That's what I'm talking about here. 0_o ------------------ Book of the Dragon Part 13 Rachel looked over and Copper stood in front of her appearing very apologetic. "Look, uh, ..." "Rachel," the demon reminded her helpfully. "I haven't forgotten," Copper said, "I guess I just want to say that I'm sorry. I never thought about the one I hated so much having a family and well, ... I know this whole thing has had to be so embarrassing to you. I ... " She sighed, "I don't even know what to say or how. I'm really sorry." Rachel nodded, "I don't think that I can fault you for much. Your pictures nailed it, so I think I ought to be thanking you. With them out on the table, there was nothing that he could say, and though I think that you were being pretty reckless," she smiled, "there's a lot that I can admire in you. I know where it came from." Rachel laughed a little bitterly, "I'd have thought that if I ever had a moment anything like all of that, I'd have called it a nightmare, but I can't help but smile at you, Copper. I can't say for sure, but I think you've got a pretty big heart to try something like that, though it was a little misguided." "How do you mean?" Copper asked. "You were out there, trying to get somebody to open up," Rachel said, "But I've got a pretty strong feeling that if you found the door open, then you'd have just marched right in and done all of that anyway. That's what I mean. If you'd have tried to get anyone to listen to you -- and they didn't because I wasn't here to drive it, it would have gone bad pretty quickly. Most of the people in here can fry you and not even blink. Azrael was one. I'm another. They don't know about her yet, but Selena there is feared on one world as a destroyer. There are two combat mages in here, since my son is getting pretty good at what he's learned from the Drow. I just want you to know that you were outgunned here, so it was a bit of a bad idea, but that doesn't change how I see you. I like your balls." "Aw," the dwarf grinned, "You're only saying that 'cause I don't have any." "You're absolutely right," Rachel smiled back half-heartedly, "But you're a tough thing anyway in my book. They might be invisible, but you've got balls all the same. Now I've just got to deal with the wreckage. I can stand and look so betrayed or whatever the hell I'm supposed to be doing. But some of this is my own fault. Since we've been here, I've been more of the homemaker type. I couldn't really find a role for myself and everybody here just knows what to do. They didn't much need me for anything, so I just fell into the same thing that I've been since Sariel was born." "There's nothing wrong with that, Rachel." Copper said." "No there isn't and yes there is," the demon said, "What if it's not what I wanted for myself? What if -- with everyone's needs seen to, I wanted a little of the thrill instead of hanging around here trying to decide what I was going to prepare for everyone? They all pitch in, and the girls are great, since all they need on their nights to cook is the word from me on what their choices are, but I really wanted to go along, and not be stuck here. I should have insisted that I go along once in a while. I should have spent a bit of time with Azrael and not been ... " She shook her head knowing where the thoughts would lead and not wanting to lose her control here, "I have a lot of friends here because of Azrael -- especially Cha'Khah, but what I really should have done was tell Azrael thanks for the help that he gave me and just kept my mouth shut. But then, he'd have buggered off and we'd still be stuck on that mountain." "Hey," she said quietly, "Look over there." Copper turned and saw that Nika and Simmit were standing together speaking. Ksyusha sat watching with a warm smile on her face. "You see something there," Cha'Khah said, "What is it, Ksyusha?" The warlock nodded, "They are not known to each other and come from different places, but I think that I can see that their kinds hold the same place on each world. One has claws and one has hooves. One wears her breasts much lower down as Nika is now, but they are both very similar in many ways." They watched as the pair smiled and laughed and Nika grinned at the way that the twins took to her. She was standing with one on her back and the other squirming a little in her arms, but Simmit reached out with no thought and Amon was climbing up her arm and onto her back so that he could grin and make faces at his brother. Ksyusha gasped quietly as the pair of females found themselves facing each other and looking a little surprised and pleased, they embraced for a moment. When they pulled apart, Nika said something to Simmit and took her hand, leading her to where the rest sat watching. "I have made a friend," Nika grinned a little proudly. Simmit nodded, "And I have found one my size who is foolish enough to want to carry my sons around with me. But I hope the friendship remains after Nika has grown tired of them." "I do not think it is possible to grow tired of them," the spark laughed as she took the one from her shoulder and set him carefully on her hip where he hugged her. Simmit introduced Copper a little better than was done before, making their relationship plain. Ksyusha had already guessed, but she smiled, "This is done where we are from as well," she said, "That is how I came to be stuck with Nika, so I understand." Copper and Simmit drifted away a little later and Copper still looked uncertain. "What's going to happen now, Simmit?" she asked, "When your brother comes back, I mean? I don't know how to -- " Simmit smiled and kissed Copper quickly, "Nothing has changed. All that is different is that I have my brother back, and he will understand us. This is nothing new to him, what we have. If you become jealous, Rohkanh will withdraw, so you must think before you speak, but if you are careful, you will certainly find a large friend and maybe a lover to share with me sometimes. I want him to stay if he can, and ... that means that I must help him, since this is a very different place to ones like he and I are. Things are done differently here and the meanings of spoken things are not always the same. To get him to stay, he will need a reason. I seek to give him one at least and maybe a few if I can." "How do you mean?" the dwarf asked. Simmit smiled, "It is not the same as it was before. I have you now. I can please him, but I want for him to have someone, since he will need more than just the affections of his sister -- who now has someone else. He will feel badly and back away. He means much to me, Copper, but I cannot please two lovers at once." Simmit grinned for a moment before she pointed a little," Do not make a large show of it, but see Luddy there with ... Dahlgren, I think he is called. She speaks with him and she admires the two young ones, Rachel's son and Selena's girl, but I know what is in her mind. You should know as well. She is your friend." Copper nodded with a little smile beginning on her face. Simmit watched with a smile, "This is good to see. All of the lost hopes which a lonely one like her has carried in her heart," Simmit said softly, "and she finds herself here with these people. None of them are afraid of her, and all of them are happy to meet her." They watched as Arrax and Shaevre drifted over to where Luddy stood and Simmit smiled, "Luddy is happy, but she is like anyone else, isn't she? She looks at that pair and tries to see what it might be like when they are alone together, and you know the next thought even before it comes to her. But we were speaking of my brother. If I can convince Rohkanh that there is a place for him with us, the next step will be to help him to bargain for that place with Yuan. He will understand your place between you and I, but his eyes are as my own and he will see you as such a fine one." Simmit smiled as she looked down, remembering, "You are finer than the most lovely female in any group of my kind that I have ever seen. If this was that place, there would be males showering you with gifts, and fighting for the chance to speak to you." "Cheeses," Copper laughed, "When do we leave? But are all the males like what I saw?" Simmit shook her head, "No. Most are only a little larger than Rachel's son as he is there, and all but a few of them spend their days drinking the fermented juice of a plant to get drunk and stay that way. They lie and steal and try to cheat each other and everyone else. The few good ones are very hard to find. Many females do not even try; it is much easier to find another female. My brother is a protector and they are different." She laughed a little, "There, you would eventually find that the crowd of males would thin out and disappear as soon as a protector saw you. The rest would slink away, and you would find that they at least try to win a female's heart in the same ways that it is done here, I am sure. But here, Rohkanh will be lost for a time, so I must help him as much as I can. Copper looked over Simmit's shoulder, "I'll help if I can, Simmit, thought I don't exactly have a clue how yet. And I guess I'll have to figure that out and soon. He's back, walking this time." "I know, "Simmit sighed as she let go of Copper and took her hand to lead her through the door. At a sound from her, the twins were on the floor in an instant and they scampered to where she stood with Copper. "We are a family too," she smiled, "I wish for him to see this and have the thoughts that I know will come." "What thoughts?" Copper asked as they stepped through the door where Rohkanh stood silent out in the distance of the large place, looking a little uncertain. "That it could be his family as well, if my girlfriend can manage not to show her fear of him," Simmit smirked. "But, ... Yuan," Copper began. "Has Yuan accepted us as her pets?" Simmit asked, "We stay there and we are there for them as they want us, but she always turns it away whenever we ask. I think that she sees us as her friends and does not wish that we are pets to her. I love her for her kindness and her friendship, but I do not think that we are her pets. You and I must ask better and with Rohkanh here, it is the time to know. She cannot bargain with what she does not possess. I consider that we are her good friends and I like it whenever we are together," Simmit smiled, as she handed the twins over, "but that is not what was spoken of. Think about it, Copper." Simmit turned then and watched as Rohkanh walked slowly closer, looking around as he came. His face turned toward the sound of his sister's voice as she called to him and he just had time to prepare as she came to throw herself against him. She gave him one tight hug and then she began to pull herself up to the level of his face as she hugged him with everything that she had -- hands, arms, legs and all. She kissed him as his arms came up to hold her tightly, and then she pulled back and they looked at each other for a moment before her face was against his cheek and ear, as they spoke quietly in their language. "Oh sister," Rohkanh groaned, "It is worth every step to touch you again, every moment when I searched." "I thought that I would never see you again," Simmit sniffled, "I never doubted that you would try, but I did not think that anyone saw me taken away." "I saw, and I searched ever afterward," he said. She pulled herself tighter, "Rohkanh, my dreams have never ended so well. But, ... can you stay? Are there enough to take your place? There cannot be," she pulled back to shake her head, "Not if Rohkanh is gone." He chuckled softly and kissed her again, "There are others who have taken my place. But I am here now and I cannot go back easily. It was just fortune and good luck that I noticed it twice when two planes came near to each other. They seldom touch, but they were close enough for me each time. I do not know when they might ever do this again. I could spend my life waiting and watching and not see it again." Simmit hugged Rohkanh again, "It does not matter. You are here now. I ached and cried so often when I was alone, wanting only to be home with you, but the nightmare went on and on. Now, I have met and made friends, and I have someone for me. The one there with my sons, I love with her, and there are others here who like me. I live better here than I did at home. This is my home now. All that was missing was you -- and now you are here with me. I am still your Simmit. Nothing has changed but this one thing. Come and meet Copper. See your young nephews, Rohkanh." She eased herself down and took his hand to lead him, "There are many here who wish to meet my fine brother. I will help you here. I will help you find someone for you and for our family. I am so happy to see you again." Rohkanh found himself looking down at the upturned faces of Copper and his nephews. She felt a little foolish, standing there in a bit of awe, so she gave herself a mental kick and told herself what Yuan had told her weeks before, not to hold back like a surly dwarf and give nothing. Yuan would have told her to put herself out there if she wanted to see a better return in her dealings with people. "I'm Copper," she said a little too forcefully, but she caught herself and spoke a little more softly, "I'm with Simmit and ... well, if you're her brother, then I'm pleased to meet you." They looked at each other for a moment, and he held out his hands to the children. They laughed and almost ran up his muscled arms to sit on his shoulders and hang from his mane. Copper wondered if he was snubbing her or something, as though a non-demon wasn't worth even his polite consideration. But she knew that she was wrong when he bent a little and picked her up and she found herself in his arms the next second. He hugged her and she knew that it was heartfelt -- if a little tight. All the same, she felt that he was genuine when he kissed her cheek and she felt his warm breath against her ear. "Shokt tsih, nemel chanh Copper," he said so softly in his deep voice, "Berren sheynu, Rohknanh. Jshohna mekkelth, zhu-ahn Simmit." His voice was so deep and Copper found the quiet way that he spoke to be a little hypnotic and strongly attractive to her. She groaned a little and she fought off the effect that it was having on her by using her cold intelligence to guide her as she hung in the powerful arms of a male like she'd never seen in her life. It came out as "Uhh ..." Simmit laughed a little, "My brother says that you are very beautiful. He says he is Rohkanh, and he is pleased and honored to meet the mate of Simmit." Copper nodded as she leaned back to look into his face and into the light gray eyes which regarded her so warmly. She felt herself smile and thought that she'd better come up with some sort of reply in the face of such friendliness, and she said, "Uhh ..." Copper Kettlebottom wanted to shake off whatever cat seemed to have gotten her tongue, so she gave it one last try and finally, something did come out. " ... Oh sweet mother of pearl," she grinned, "he's gorgeous!" She dove forward and kissed his cheek, listening to his soft laughter as Simmit translated. "I need for him to see a reason to stay and not feel as though the does not belong. He and I know each other well and we have always listened to each other and he will listen to me. Even so, I think that I may need your help to make him stay -- if you would give it." Copper nodded, listening as she smiled at Rohkanh, "Whatever you need, Simmit, anything, just say it. Do you think that he can learn English as fast as you did, or, ... will you teach me your language? I'd really like to be able to talk to him. Just tell me that we can keep him," she laughed, "I'll do anything." What Simmit heard was music to her -- almost carte blanche. She smiled to herself. Copper had said 'anything'. She supposed that one day, she'd have to teach Copper something so simple and basic that she wondered why Copper hadn't figured it out for herself already. You never say 'anything' to a demon, not even one who loves you with all of her heart. "He is not a dull brute," she smiled, "My brother grew up a little differently from most protectors. He was intelligent long before he was large," she chuckled as she remembered. "He can learn -- and so can you. I will help you both. As far as what is needed, it is only a reason." Copper looked at Simmit. They stood outside of the bar and no one had noticed their absence yet, but that would change in only moments likely, so Simmit spoke quietly and fairly quickly. "There are many things that I know that Rohkanh will like about you because they are the same things that I like. Listen now, if you would help us all." Copper nodded to Simmit while Rohkanh looked at her hair and the bit of her skin that he could see near the collar of her coveralls. Copper heard Summit's tone and she took it to mean that this was important to Simmit. "Go on." The look in Simmit's face was a little urgent and very hopeful. There was no mistaking it, so Copper listened intently as Simmit spoke, "There are other demon females here, but most are only half and I do not think their kinds are very much like us. Only the one who calls herself a spark is a little close, but she is too small and she is smitten with the male she shares. Of them all, you know how to love as we do." Simmit said it in her hushed tones, "Do as I taught you now. Show my brother a reason why he should stay." Copper's eyes widened, "Huh?" Simmit hissed at her, "I will speak to him, but he must see with his eyes and feel with his heart that there is a family right here for him with us. This is what all protectors want, but few ever find for themselves. It is why he chose me out of all of the females that he could have claimed. I have always been his family before I was taken. He must know that he would have a place in our family here. It would make him wish to stay. I need him to stay, and you need to trust me, because you need him to stay too. You joked about keeping him. You are close to your wish if it was true. I need you to show him that both of us welcome him in the way of our people, and he will see that you are the same as me. If you think that you like him, then we can have him for only ourselves for a time, and when he takes another, then she will have to be welcomed. This is how we make this family. We can have the little ones that we want with him if you want them. Kiss him if you would know my brother. Kiss him in the way that he knows, right here. Kiss him as you kiss me, hurry!" Copper looked at Rohkanh and in the next second, she thrilled to hear his deep groan as her tongue slid between his lips, seeking his tongue hungrily. "Bayett shorrgh, Copper, tzihkh eh, Rokhanh," she smiled as she laid her hand on his hip to make certain that he was listening as she continued in their mother tongue, "I did not take just anyone as mine, brother. Look into her eyes -- if you can. You will see what I have taught the one that I share my life with." Rohkanh broke the kiss to look and try to get a breath. He stared at what he saw. In only the few seconds that they'd kissed each other, Copper had responded in the proper way, and as he looked, he saw such beauty -- and the very definite beginnings of lust as he watched her eyes begin to turn black. A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 38 He gasped, smiling as he looked in a little disbelief. The way that her lips parted and this mysterious female showed her teeth to him in a very feral and happy grin told him that she knew of the ways that his kind loved. "Zha broundeh tiesch?" He whispered. "He asks me if this one has been to the abyss," Simmit said quietly. Rohkanh watched as Copper nodded very slowly, her eyes never leaving his face as her tongue slipped out of her mouth to wet her lips. "Tell him," she said in a whispering sigh as she leaned in close and dragged her lips across his lips as she spoke, "Tell him that this one lives in the abyss with his sister." He pulled her to him for more before Simmit could even say it all. "This is our little family," Simmit went on, reaching for the twins to take them, since they looked quite bored now, "my little males who see Copper as a father. They would welcome another as well to teach them as they grow. This is my lover, and Rohkanh, there are wonders beneath this lumpy thing that she wears. Our ways are welcomed here, brother. I have already made it clear that you and I are close. She is no demon -- but she loves as one, as hard or as softly - just as we love. I seek to tempt you. Know this and make no mistake. I want my brother as he has returned to me and I offer the one who holds my heart so that she can hold yours as well. Let us be a family here and you can seek for any others that you might want. You will seek with my help, but know that you can have this female as yours with ease just as I have always been yours." Copper pulled away to look at Rohkanh, "Simmit," she whispered, "oh Murphy, I want him." "Patience, Copper," Simmit said in English as she grinned up, "I am waiting for one question from Rohkanh. Well, brother? Is there nothing that you would ask? Do you want to grow old in a long time, and leave nothing of yourself behind? Copper and I will live long. It makes no difference to me, since I am like you, but the one you hold now will outlive most of her kind. Is there nothing that you would ask?" "Besh tsih imith at-thanh, Copper," he sighed a little as he touched the dwarf's face so gently. His heart thudded in his chest to hear her quiet moan as she looked at him. He tore his eyes away from Copper with effort, "Besh tzu ghan? Erreht moonih kith, Simmit" "Ah, there it is," Simmit chuckled happily. "Copper? Rohkanh says that you are fine -- just as I knew that he would for we are the same. He says that he understands and that if you wish it, he will let you decide if and when you want him. He feels happiness at meeting you and having a family again." "I'm not getting all of this, "Copper said as she smiled from under Rohkanh's jaw, "And I really want to be getting -- I mean, I want to understand it." Simmit laughed at the dwarf's joke, "Rohkanh agrees with me. He wishes to fit himself into what we have and I have promised to help him find someone for him." "Oh, I must be getting stupid to even have the thought of saying this, " Copper chuckled, "but why can't he find somebody by himself? It ought to take him a good long while." "Two reasons," Simmit smiled, "I care about his heart and how he will need to learn how things are here, and also, the one will have to be a good choice for us all. If it is done right, then even though she will most likely not be like us and want only Rohkanh, his females will become a little like sisters in how the home is run. We would help her once she had bred with him and has their little ones and she would help us. This is how families grow where we come from and all share in the work -- him, you and I and the one that he chooses." The dwarf thought about it for a moment, and then she nodded, "Alright. I'll give this a shot. Uh, can you tell him to put me down before I soak the insides of my coveralls any more than they already are?" When she was back on her feet, Copper looked up and saw that he was smiling as he looked at them. "So he's good with you and me? I mean, the way --" "Oh yes," Simmit nodded, "He wishes to join with us, not to change what we have." "He looks so ... happy," Copper said as she gave in to what she felt and hugged him again. Rohkanh saw what he suddenly wanted very much and blessed his sister for the chance to have a life which meant something. He knew that they were lovers, and so he needed one more piece to make this complete, but his amazing little sister was handing him one of the most important parts and he intended to keep them all well-loved if this all came to pass. To him, this wasn't about gratification, though that would be one of the ways that it would be expressed. Rohkanh could give protection and he intended to show his gratitude to his sister and her lover in many ways. "He is happy," Simmit replied, "Most protectors want a family, but almost none ever get the chance at their wish because of what they are and how they might have to give their lives. I have always thought that it was very unfair -- since I am the sister of a protector. They are never given a choice for their lives. They can only ever be one thing. Females everywhere make noise and call to them, wanting to be claimed for the honor, but no female chooses a protector for their lives with him. Protectors can live as long as the rest of us, but they never do and they all die the same way. Eventually they get a little older and slower. Sooner or later, they lose the fight. Oh, there is always a younger protector to take the fallen one's place, but no one remembers what he gave to keep them safe. That is why my choice was easy for me to make. I think that we should go back inside now." ---------------------- "You have been quiet for a time," Ksyusha said, "What holds your interest so, Nika?" The spark turned her head and smiled, "My new friend Simmit. She is amazing. I have the perfect view from where I sit here. She came here with her girl Copper, and the brother came then. She loves her girlfriend, and she loves her brother. Not only has she introduced them, she did far more. In five minutes, she has made them a family -- or well onto the road there. I am sure that it is different to how it is done here, but if you remember, this is just as it is done where I am from among the families." The warlock nodded, "I remember. My people make their families as it is done here -- usually beginning with one male and one female, but I know the ways of sparks -- since I have lived with one," she smirked, "I think that is why I was so eager to do things your way with Vadren." They led Rohkanh into the bar, pointing out low obstacles like light fixtures which he could now walk into and not pass through as he did earlier. Conversations faded away instantly. No one stared at him, but they did look, since he was a rather imposing sort of figure. Rohkanh stood well over seven feet tall, and Arrax saw the opportunity for a little wonder as he got to his feet and stepped over to meet the demon. Arrax himself was imposing to most people; seven feet tall and with a deep chest and long muscled limbs. Rohkanh was only a little taller, but he made Arrax smile to see that beside Rohkanh, he looked a little undernourished. "I see other warriors here," Rohkanh said through his sister as she interpreted for him, "I am to live close by and this makes me pleased to see." He was led to a table where Yuan sat with Rachel and Cha'khah and he smiled, "Everywhere here is beauty, I have seen nothing like this before." They looked up at him, a smiling giant among them. His handsome face was open and friendly -- a little hopeful to meet these people. Finding a place to stand where there were no beams or lights, he stood straight and gained another few inches and his black hair hung down against his hard chest. A black swirl detached itself from somewhere farther away and it came to him with a laugh as Nika appeared before him with a smile and her outstretched hand. When he reached for it, Simmit explained that while they were all different, they'd adopted the human custom of grasping the hand of one who wished to meet another one in a friendly manner. Rohkanh smiled down and took Nika's hand, delighted to see a small one like Simmit, and he admired her for a moment as she stood on the tips of her hooves to stretch up and run the palm of her hand over his chest and down to his stomach. Nika giggled a little as she said something with his name in it and Rohkanh he turned to his sister for a translation. "She says, 'very nice', Rohkanh, that is all." Simmit chuckled. Rachel didn't much feel like a part of it all and looked away to find Selena looking at her with concern, "You're not ok, are you?" Rachel shook her head and Selena took her hand, "You're hiding it well, but the girls, well, we all know. We all love you Rach. Look, if you need to get away, Sariel can stay with Dahl and I, you know that, right? He's always welcome at our place. You are too if you just want to hide yourself away, but I was thinking that maybe you ought to head over to Barrett's for a little while. Leave Sariel with us and go hang with Cha'Khah and Barrett." Rachel shook her head, "It's a nice thought, but they've got Mo-Wenn. I love her to death, but she reminds me that I always wanted another baby with Azrael. Time's going by and he was just never that enthusiastic about it, always asking me where I was in my month so that we were safe, and that was when he was even half-interested." She fought back a sob for a second, "What's wrong with me? Why wasn't I enough for him? I suddenly feel as alone and ugly as I felt when I was getting close to going into labor." Selena was against Rachel instantly with her arm around her shoulders, "Honey, there's not a thing wrong with you. Azrael's dick just didn't want to be at home most nights, I guess. I'm into girls too, and I can tell you you're so lovely. I know you don't want to hear that from me, but you know what I mean, right? Rachel you're a wonderful person. You're a great friend to all of us, and you've got a body that'll stop a clock anytime if it doesn't fall right off the wall. I know this doesn't help how you feel, but you've gotta know that it's not you." Selena laughed, "If we weren't all paired up, every male in this place would be after your sweet ass. Hell, I know that Shaevre and I would be." The comment made Rachel laugh a little and she smiled, "That actually helps. Thanks." Though he met them all, after a while, Rohkanh found that he kept looking at a few of them repeatedly and he made his way to them. "My brother thinks that you are a relative of Azrael, "Simmit said. "He wishes to say that he is sorry, but his first view and by what he felt in his heart from Amon caused him to do what he did. He says that he holds no bad will toward you." Rachel nodded as she looked back, struggling a little inside of herself. She was torn in a few directions since Azrael had been more than her husband. "I don't want him anywhere near me ever again, but I want to know what happened, if he'd tell me." When it had been translated and Simmit had his answer, she looked at Rachel, "He is alive, but imprisoned. Rohkanh heard me when I asked that he kill Azrael, but these things are always the decision of the protector. He beat Azrael though he was gentle about it since no one was hurt, he says. He thinks that he will bring Azrael food in ten days or so and he thinks that he will release him then. Azrael will need water, but Rohkanh says that he can lick some from the stone there." Rachel nodded, "I understand. Please thank him for me for not killing him. I'd want to ask if I could go along then, but I'd understand it if- " "Excuse me," Simmit said, and she spoke to and then listened to the large demon for a few seconds, "Rohkanh wishes to know why -- if you do not wish to see him again." Rachel drew a tired breath, "As somebody who loved him and had to see this mess and make her life more public than I'd ever have wanted, I don't want to see him. But I'm his sister. I just want to see that he's sort of alright so I can walk away then with the book closed between us -- if that makes any sense." They talked between them for a moment and then Simmit reached to hug Rachel gently. "We understand," she said, "We are sorry, Rachel. I wish for you to know that what happened here helped me. I wanted him to see his sons once. I was upset for what I saw, but without you, I would never have had the chance. If I had not met Copper and Yuan, I might have even done something stupid all over again if he came back." She stepped around the edge of the table and hugged Rachel, "My troubles are ending, but I think that you feel as though you now have them," she said into Rachel's ear. "No," Rachel sighed, wondering at how good it felt to hold the small demon and for the way that she seemed to feel a little better, "I think that I had these troubles before. Now they're just in the open and at least it's clear." Simmit didn't let go as she said, "You do not know it, and it comes from a bad thing, but you have made a friend in me. You helped me to face this and see clearly. I did not want to come along when you asked, but I felt that you like me and my little ones. I will not forget, Rachel. If I ever can, I will help you." She kissed Rachel's cheek and stepped away to smile for a moment. Rachel looked down and wiped her eyes for a minute. When she looked up, she saw that the huge demon had gotten to one knee and was reaching to put his arm around her. She allowed it and was surprised at how good it felt. She smiled a little then and thanked Rohkanh. "I think I see why you're called a protector. For as long as that lasted, I've never felt so safe." "I don't understand much of what he's saying," Copper smiled, "but I'm learning that I can get a lot of it by feel in how he says his words. Rachel, if you need a friend -- I mean besides all of these people here who love you, well I'd love to be a friend of yours." The demon spoke again to Simmit and she nodded, "He thinks that you will not want it, but Rohkanh offers his friendship as I offer mine." "Thank you," Rachel said quietly, "I think I'd like that. These are all my friends and they all love me," she said, "I know they do, but looking around, I can see that none of them really know what to do with me right now. They've all said what they wanted to say to me, and I know that they're all here for me, but I can tell that they're all a little uncomfortable over all of this. Azrael was a part of this, and they all feel a little like I do." She looked over to where Sariel sat with Nahl'een and her parents, "He tries to hide it, but I know that Sariel is upset. He's maybe not as upset over Azrael, but I'm hurt and he's my son." She looked around, "You know, I love this place and the people in it, but right now, I don't want to be here very much. I know that one by one, they'll all keep coming to me and asking if I'm alright, or if there's anything they can do for me and it will only make me feel worse. I probably ought to go look for another place tonight. There are lots of empty quarters here, but I don't even feel like doing that." She looked down at the table top and her eyes drifted over the swirls and patterns. The ancient Arborite material was a leftover from the 1950s and the pattern was popular then. It was an attempt to imitate the swirling patterns on the inside of a conch or an oyster shell -- what is known as Mother of Pearl, the same thing that Copper used in many of her exclamations. For a time, it was also used in bathrooms, and so it was also called Mother of Toilet Seat. Rachel knew none of this, but she let her gaze wander over it as she thought -- or tried to. When she looked up, only Rohkanh was there. Simmit and Copper were speaking with Yuan. She looked at him, and thought that she ought to feel like hating him. It didn't make sense, but the thought was there anyway. He put his arm around her again. "Rachel," he said carefully and she nodded. She knew that he wished to be able to speak to her to try to comfort her, and she knew that he didn't have any words to use that she would understand. She found that she couldn't hate him. She smiled as bravely as she could, but she was falling apart and she knew it. There was nothing in his face but concern and sadness for her and for what he'd done. He spoke to her then. Quiet words that she didn't understand and she knew that he was trying to offer her comfort and a safe place for her pain. Rachel gave in to the gentle tug and he took her into his arms. After only one breath, Rachel buried her face in his mane and began to cry. Cha'Khah appeared before them a few minutes later and Rachel looked at her over Rohkanh's shoulder for a moment, "It's ok," she sniffled, "I'm alright." The Drowess shook her head and reached to touch Rachel's cheek, "No you are not, my friend. You need to be away from here for a little while. The dragon has said that you and Sariel can stay with these ones tonight. Vadren knows roughly where they live and the dwarf-girl Copper has said that she will wait for him in the morning to guide him. He will come with Ksyusha and Nika to bring Sariel home for his lessons and Barrett has lessons for him as well as needing his help with the farm. We will bring him back to you the day after if you are still there and do not wish to be here. Maybe we will all come to visit. But you should not be here tonight, Rachel. Take your drowling and try to heal together. He waits for you now. Selena and Dahlgren have said that he could stay the night with them and Nahl'een as he often does, and Barrett told him that he can always stay with his Aunt Cha'Khah but he said that he will not be parted from his mother this night because she needs him." Cha'Khah nodded," I almost cried for the brave way that he sounded, but I held it back, because I could see that he wanted to cry himself." She smirked, "And we have all had our heartstrings stretched for us when he kissed Nahl'een and promised to return to her. The way that they were, it was as though he was departing on a long journey. We all had to smile, but it was good to see." Rachel didn't like the thought of walking out in tears. She found that she couldn't stop crying and there was a part of her somewhere deep inside that didn't want to. Cha'Khah knew it and smiled, "Hide against him. Turn your face against his neck and hide. He will carry you, I think." She reached to touch Rohkanh's shoulder and, pointing to Rachel, who had gone back to weeping against him, she lifted her outstretched palm. Rohkanh nodded and stood up, lifting Rachel with no effort. "I feel like an idiot," she said to his thick neck. "Well you don't look like one," Selena said from close enough that Rachel could hear her speaking through her smile and she felt Selena's hand on her shoulder, "You ought to just take the comfort that he's trying so hard to give you, Rachel. He's not happy for what happened either, and the way that he looks at you, it's like he's feeling guilty for everything that happened, including what Azrael did. Besides," she laughed a little in an effort to try to cheer her friend up a little, "I doubt there's a single girl here who wouldn't like to be carried off by somebody like him." Rachel reached to hug Rohkanh as well and she pulled herself a little higher as he began to walk. He was careful as he got them through the doorway and he found Sariel waiting, his concern for her written all over him, "Are you alright, Mom?" "I'm getting better," she smiled a little through her tears, "There's something about Rohkanh that takes away bad feelings. What's going on now?" "Yuan and the other dragon have gone already," her son said, "They said they'd get a big bed ready for us and we're gonna stay the night there. We're coming back though, right?" A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 38 "Right," Rachel said as she tried to stop her tears and failed, "I just ,... I - I don't want to be here tonight. I want to be with my son, somewhere - " she sobbed a little, "somewhere where I can forget about him; where I'm not reminded no matter where I look." They met Copper and Simmit at the entrance to the long tunnel and Rachel asked him to stop and put her down. "I want to thank you for this, and please thank Rohkanh. I think I'm ruining a special night for you, and I don't want to do anything like that. I can see what you need to do, so --" Copper stood frowning and shaking her head, "You're not ruining anything and I'm a grumbly dwarf, so take it the way that I mean it. In case you haven't had time to notice, he's not a tree, though he's as big as one. He wants to carry you. It's his way to ask for your forgiveness." Rachel stared at Copper and saw Simmit nodding with a smile. Simmit thought to say something, but she held it back as she looked at her brother standing with Rachel in his arms. --------------------- Back in the bar, Cha'Khah was smiling a little, "I think it is just my girl's heart here, but the way that he carried Rachel said much to me, as though he would carry her that way through anything which might come." "I think I saw that," Selana nodded, "He looked like what Simmit says he is. He looked like a protector." Nika chuckled a little and spoke to Ksyusha, not having just the right word in her expanding English. "Nika says that Rohkanh also looked just a tiny bit triumphant to her, but she says that she had to look long enough for it that she had to doubt what she might have seen in his face. I think what she saw was that he was just happy to be doing something besides just looking at Rachel and watching her cry." "Well," Dahlgren said with a little smile, "I did hear Simmit say that he fought with Azrael, though I have trouble seeing Azrael lose." He looked into his tankard for a moment, "There's an old human expression. To the victor go the spoils. Hey, do we still have any of this wonderful stuff left?" --------------------- Rachel looked at Rohkanh's face and he smiled at her. He didn't know what was said; it was just plain that he was pleased that Rachel seemed to be better for the moment, but he had no way to tell her. He looked down at Sariel as they walked together and thought for a moment. Sariel ducked a little as he heard a thin whining sound and felt a tiny bit of wind wafting by behind him. It was too early for bugs, he thought and he turned his head just in time to move. A little red spark whined past his head and he looked up to see the large demon's smile as he walked looking straight ahead as though he knew nothing of it. Sariel grinned a little and then there was a bright blue spark flying away from his upturned palm, lifting off to chase the red one. The two bright spots few around them all, chasing each other. Sariel was determined to drive his spark into the red one and he watched carefully, looking for his chance. It took a bit of effort, since he was walking at the same time. When he glanced for a moment, Rohkanh was speaking to his mother, saying something quiet that he guessed was to try to make her feel better. What surprised the boy was that the demon didn't appear to need to control the red spark at all. It seemed to have a will of its own - unlike his, which needed to be driven with his thoughts. He ducked again as he heard the whine approaching and the red dot flew past with the blue spot in hot pursuit. Rohkanh shifted Rachel slightly as they all walked, so that he could put his hand on Sariel's shoulder as he looked down and said something. "Rohkanh says that he knows that he has taken your father from you," Simmit translated, "It is not usually done where we come from, but he says that if you wish, he would take you as his son gladly. He could teach you. He knows that you have a hunger to learn, and ... he says that he has a hunger to have a son like you and the little imps that he will raise with Copper and me." She grinned and pointed toward the twins who rode on Copper's shoulders and waved at Sariel -- when they weren't making faces at him. Sariel looked up and didn't know how to answer as Rohkanh spoke to Simmit. He didn't think that he wanted anything like that. He wasn't a little kid anymore and ... In the second that he hadn't been driving it, the blue dot slowed and was destroyed by the red one in a tiny flash as they both went out. "How did you do that?" Sariel asked, "You weren't even looking." Simmit translated and grinned, "He says that looking is not needed and you should think about what he says and he asks the young mage to give us more light in this tunnel." Sariel nodded, glad to have something to take his mind off what had been said. He chose the incantation that he wanted and a moment later, the walls shone brighter. "Besht tah," Rohkanh smiled, "Irghut jsah tert, Sariel, M-more now. Fast-er." Sariel looked at Simmit, "What did he say at the beginning?" Simmit grinned, "He says that you are mighty for a young one. He asks for more light." Sariel looked at the walls and the tunnel entrance far away. He'd already given it his best. "How?" he looked up and saw Rohkanh smile and offer his hand. "Take his hand and give more light, he says, and he will do the rest." Sariel reached for the demon's hand and Rohkanh nodded as he tried for more words, "We, ... same," he smiled before he indicated the end of the tunnel still far from them with a nod, "Want now. Want be there." Sariel understood and looked down the length of the tunnel. The walls flickered and then it was as bright as high noon all around them. A moment later, they stepped out into the glare of the Bradley's headlights as it sat idling where Copper had left it. Sariel was astounded. They'd only continued walking, but now they were at the entrance. They walked outside, two females holding hands followed by a large demon holding the hand of a smaller one while carrying a sniffling Rachel. Sariel let go of the large hand and stared, "How did you -- you didn't say anything. I watched you." "You," Rohkanh said, "Was you." He looked at Simmit and spoke. "He says that you have been taught well, but you have other magic to use, and that needs no words. My brother only helped to push it. He asks who taught you the rest, not the saying of words, but the rest of what you have." "My father," Sariel said, "but he never taught me anything like that." Rohkanh reached down and touched Sariel's shoulder for a moment with a warm smile. "He says that you have more power than your father. You only need to be shown. He says to only ask him when you are ready, though you already carry much ability." "What now?" Rachel asked, wiping her face again. "Simmit's gonna drive," Copper said, "and Sariel's coming with us in this steel pig here. Rohkanh is way too big to fit comfortably with Luddy already back there too, and I think he wants to fly, so I'm gonna leave all the lights on for him to follow. Come on, Sariel. You'll want to see this." Rohkanh set Rachel down very carefully and she thanked him, a little surprised that she now missed being held by him a little bit. Simmit stood with them to tell her brother the way and the distance. After he nodded, she spoke to him quickly and then she turned to Rachel. "My brother will bring you to Yuan's home in a little while. He asks that he be allowed to speak to you. He knows very little of this speech, but you are also partly the same as we are but from another place, we think, so we hope that you might understand a little. Will you hear his words?" Rachel nodded, suddenly surprised that she'd been leaning against Rohkanh since just after he'd set her down. She knew that she'd done it because she'd wanted to do it, but she hadn't noticed when it had happened. She just knew that it felt good. "I am happy then," Simmit smiled. She began to turn away, but then she seemed to change her mind and she stepped forward, quickly reaching for Rohkanh's hand through the space between Rachel's arm and her side. She placed his hand very carefully against Rachel's other side so that her brother's arm was around Rachel and she stepped back with a warm smile on her face. "Forgive me," she said, "I wished to see this so much." She turned then and was gone around the back of the rumbling machine. The ramp whined up as Sariel stood inside looking everywhere, "Whoa, ... what is this thing?" "My toy," Copper grinned as Simmit moved past them on her way to the front. "Picture, Copper," she said, pointing toward the front of the vehicle, "Picture. Hurry." Copper thought that her lover had lost her mind -- until she grabbed the little joystick and the optics on top of the turret swung forward as Sariel continued to look around in awe. Copper was looking at an arm, so she pulled the magnification back and the image became Rohkanh standing behind Rachel with his arm around her. Her thumb pressed down and locked the optics onto the view as she activated the recording system. Simmit jumped into the driver's seat and the engine roared as she turned it around neatly and began to motor into the woods. Copper sat him in the commander's position and began to point out the situational displays and the targeting systems as the optics on the turret stayed locked on the pair standing still behind them. She sighed with a smile, and turned the recorder off. "Can I see?" Simmit called back. "Hell no," Copper grinned, "You'll do the same as me and stare with a goofy grin and then we'll be into the trees. You can look later." ------------------- Rachel had been shocked and embarrassed at what Simmit had done. She felt foolish and stood with her eyes closed as she heard the quiet squeaks and rumblings of the machine and listened as the roar of the engine receded. The wind wasn't terribly cold to her, but still, she felt his warmth as something which her body cherished, though -- other than the obvious, she had no explanation why. She felt awkward now and tried to fight off the feeling of immense comfort which came to her from Rohkanh. He made no sound, other than his deep and quiet breathing. Rachel wanted to lift her head from where it rested against Rohkanh's chest, but found that she really didn't want to. If she looked up, she could just see his face above her, upside down, "Aren't we going with them?" "Wait," Rohkanh said, "give time, then .. fly. You ..." he struggled as he looked for the word, and she smiled when he looked pleased as it came to him, "better?" She nodded as she turned around carefully and hoped that his arm would remain against her. She was slightly thrilled to feel that it did and was now against her back far down, but above her bottom, "Yes. Thank you." She looked at him and smiled a little, knowing that he wouldn't understand her, "You'd better be careful," she said slowly, "Sooner or later, I just know that I'll be on the rebound, and you're ...," She exhaled and tried to catch her gasp, "... you're so fucking beautiful to me." She wiped her face again, still crying a little, though she was feeling a good deal better. "Can I , ...?" she stood on her toes and reached up as she brought her face closer and seeing no objection from him, she did what she knew that she shouldn't even have the thought of and she kissed him very softly. He returned her kiss in just the same way and Rachel looked down feeling a swirl of emotions. His chest felt so good against her breasts. It felt a little strange to her, the way that the bottom edge of his ribcage lay across her nipples. She almost had to bite down on her lower lip from the sensation each time that he inhaled. In her demonic form, Rachel was like both the Red demons and the Merren demons in that she was bare-skinned, other than her mane, eyebrows and pubic hair. But Rohkanh wasn't like that. He was like Simmit; covered in short, straight,. smooth and thick fur, less than an inch long anywhere that she could see on him aside from his mane which was as long and just as appealing to her as his sister's was. She rested her hands on his shoulder and chest, marveling at how good it felt to let her fingers spread out to feel that fur. It was driving her breasts and nipples crazy and she had to will herself to pull her lower belly away from the heat of his loins. She kept doing just that, and the second that her mind was elsewhere, she was back against him so slowly and softly that she didn't notice it until it came to her mind again. She sniffled a little, "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have kissed you like that. You're Simmit's and I think that I saw that there's something between you and Copper as well, or there will be soon." Rachel began to cry again. She couldn't help it. She buried her face against him, wanting to hide in her shame for the way that she felt. He held her head against him, but he pressed upward against her chin very gently with a finger until she looked at him and he touched her cheek, brushing a tear away with his thumb. His expression showed his concern and his desire to know more, since he felt that there was new trouble now. Rachel saw it and she sobbed, "I'm just like Azrael. I've just realized it. I've been alone for almost all of my adult life. I ... I never had anyone for so long after Sariel was born until Azrael came. All of the others have someone, and I've had no one for months. Now I know that I'm just as much of a slut as my brother." She sniffled and wiped her eyes with a determined look, "Well I'm not going to hurt those two girls of yours or anyone else, Rohkanh. I'm going to raise my son and that's it. Who knows? I might find somebody eventually and ..." She stopped in mid-sentence. Rachel was fooling herself. She knew it as she buried her face again and wept as Rohkanh groaned in his frustration to understand without his sister there to help. "Rachel," he whispered in that deep way of his, "I ... know how ... feels. Cry, but... lis-ten?" When he felt her nod, he did his best. "We, ... us, ... same, Rachel. I -- need Simmit, yes?" He waited for her to nod before he struggled up the next slope. "I want Copper. I --. " He ran out of words then and sought others. "We fly soon. You cry, Rachel. I need Simmit's talk. Not say words I want." He lifted her chin very gently again with his finger, but it took a long moment before she looked up this time, and her tears still ran as she sobbed quietly. "Time," he said, "you see then. Time, you get better." She wanted to argue, needing him to understand that time wouldn't help her. She didn't want any male anymore, she only wanted Sariel to hold onto, since she knew that as grown-up as he often tried to show himself to be, he was a boy and he was hurting too, no matter what he said to anyone -- especially the mother who could see right through him. She knew that for anything else, he was too big a child now to sleep with, but she also knew that they needed to hold onto each other and cry. She wasn't looking forward to it because she felt so lost herself, but she was his mother and she could be the one that he could cry against until he had it out of him. But Rachel didn't want a male now. She didn't want anyone, she told herself as she looked into his sad face and swallowed hard, knowing the truth at the same time that she lied to herself. "Not the same you," he said, "Not like Azrael. Rachel is fine, ... female, good mother." He sighed as he spoke more to himself almost silently, but she heard it, "Rachel is ..." He petered out then, not finding the word that he needed and also realizing that she listened. "Rohkanh see this. I -- take Simmit. I take Copper, need them. Need family. Time Rachel, time and ... care? Give time for every-thing and, ... trust Simmit. Talk to Simmit, yes?" Hellfire, how she wanted him, she thought. She watched as he raised his head and looked off into the night. She could see that he was thinking about something as he set his jaw and nodded to himself. She wondered what that was about for a moment, but then he looked down and smiled at her. "A little time," he said, "and Rohkanh." While she puzzled over it, he kissed her again, as softly as before, but Rachel thought that she'd heard something in there which was more than his gentle concern and though she knew that what she felt was wrong in her view of everything ... She put her hands against his chest and she heaved, pushing him backwards, groaning with the effort and her need. He must be only a little heavier than Copper's tank, she thought, almost smirking. Rohkanh's eyes opened wide as his back crunched against the wall of the portal. He had time for only one breath and she was on him, hating and accusing herself for being just like her worthless brother in this regard. It was how she saw it, but she didn't know that likely none of the others would have seen it that way. Rachel buried her fingers in his mane and ran her other hand over his chest as though she wanted to absorb some of his vast strength as she kissed him in her need. She wasn't thinking, other than knowing the guilt that she'd feel for this later. She wasn't thinking at all. If she'd had the ability to pull back outside of herself and watch this little scene as it unfolded -- and even before then, she'd see something quite different as an observer. She's see a lonely and forsaken demon with a broken heart, but a demon nonetheless, a female who'd been trying to sit on her aching need for half a year at the least. She reached around the small of Rohkanh's powerful back to pull them together while still pushing forward to keep him pinned if she could. His lips tasted and felt so good to her when her long tongue snaked into his mouth as she took him. Her nostrils flared a little as she inhaled his wonderful scent. She wasn't seeing this as an unaffected observer. She'd have seen other things then, if she'd known or had the brain cells to devote to anything but her want. Rohkanh had gone over two years without the touch of a female and he was a demon as well -- a large, powerful demon, who was already struggling over how it was different here. Back home, this would be so easy. As his own feelings rose up in him, he considered Azrael to be an idiot to want to leave this female alone in an empty bed wanting for him. Rohkanh was already struggling because to his mind, he'd beaten Azrael. He just hadn't killed him, not having a reason to, but back where he came from, if you beat an adversary and that foe had anything that you desired, well then it was yours -- his female included. Back where he'd grown up, a protector who had won just took the one that he wanted, though Rohkanh had never done that. Most females taken like this went willingly because they received the same honor as the ones claimed as tributes, and being with a protector sure beat whatever they'd been spending their time with. Even the ones who put up a fight came around most times unless the loser was a blood relative or the protector was cruel and most were not. That had never been what Rohkanh had wanted to do anyway. He had Simmit and she was enough, but things were different here and he knew what Simmit also wanted for him. Back home, this would be so easy, but there was no Rachel there. Rohkanh gave up then and responded to Rachel. His own long tongue got in the game and they moaned together as his arms held her to him and he slid his hands over the smooth and silky nakedness of her haunches and cheeks. He wasn't used to it, but he now loved the way that it felt when he reached to brush his fingertips along the line between her haunches and how the base of Rachel's tail flicked over the tops of his fingers while the end of it almost whipped his legs, one after the other. A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 38 When he reached to hold one of her breasts, Rachel gasped so hard it almost left her as a whistle and he watched as she pulled away to look down at his large hand kneading her tit so gently. Rohkanh saw the soft and needful look in her face and she smiled a little then, her teeth showing as her tongue slid out of her mouth to lick the top of his hand. She couldn't tell him, but she was reeling in his grasp, so taken with his touch when she'd only been used to having them grabbed a little roughly. There were times that she wanted that, but even here as they both struggled with their desires it told her something of him. They stopped suddenly and looked into each other's eyes. They were two very different kinds of demon, but there was a lot of commonality. Only the degree of sophistication was different. Rohkanh came from a more primitive place and he was beginning to feel that to someone like Rachel, he must appear as something of a savage, so he was mindful of that. But he was overlooking something. Savage was just what Rachel had always wanted when she was hot for a male. The degree depended on where she was in it. No male had ever figured that out about her, not that many had ever had the chance. She looked up with the black eyes of her kind into the dark eyeballs which were growing coal back and shiny in their lust. She loved the thoughtful way that he'd looked at her with those light gray irises of his, but they were disappearing now. Rachel would be the first to say that she didn't know all that much about Rohkanh and the ways of his kind of demon. But she knew what would happen when the last of the gray was gone from those eyes. "We shouldn't be doing this," she said, mostly because she thought that she had to say it. He looked into her lovely face and saw how she struggled. He was struggling as well, but with something else. Her beauty and the want that he felt from her forced him at last and he managed to gasp out a word to her as he looked at her long blonde hair for a second, "Breshtugh." It was all that he had and he buried his face against her neck, opening his mouth to hold her soft throat in his long teeth. Rachel almost screamed and her hands reached around him, pulling him to her tightly and trying to claw into him with her long nails, "What -- what does that mean?" She heard his reply and almost screamed again when he bit her gently and growled into her ear. "Mine." She pulled back then and looked up, her mouth open as she panted for a second before she pulled him just as he was throwing her and her back slammed into the rock as they turned around. She felt the hardness against her belly and a little of the wetness which was oozing from the tip of that hot thing against her thigh. She reached down to grab it in a last attempt to stop something which was now going to happen anyway as surely as the dawn. Her hand shot by in her haste and she felt his scrotum. Her long fingers curled around it in something of a reflex, but ... She couldn't hold it all. Rachel's eyes flew open as she realized that she was trying to cup something that would require two hands to hold onto properly. Jesus Fucking H., she thought; she felt as though she was holding a small grocer's bag with a couple of large pears in it. Barrett's male goat didn't have a pair like this and he looked as though he was almost dragging a male udder around behind him. Rachel groaned, thinking of how much juice this male could probably make. All she'd seen on him was the mat of hair hanging there between his thighs and it had strongly suggested a bulge. Rachel groaned again as she gave in to caressing it. She decided that he ought to advertise a lot better. "Mine," Rohkanh growled past his lips as he took her throat in his teeth again. "Yours," Rachel snarled to the heavens and began to try to claw her way up the rock face of the mountain backwards while trying to get higher on him at the same time. "And mine," she almost sang as she got to where she wanted to be and moved her hand to get the two of them lined up. As he felt that he was in the right place, he pressed himself into her in a long slow thrust and Rachel let go of him with one hand to wave it so that the outer doors of the portal closed soundlessly. She almost howled as he slid that thing into her slowly. She was wet for him. She'd felt this coming for the past few minutes, but she was still a little concerned, wanting him in there but not wanting him to drag his way inside. Rohkanh was as far gone as she was, but he wasn't inexperienced or selfish. He pressed it forward, but this wasn't meant to be Rachel being speared. This was Rohkanh taking a female who was worth more than he could ever say to her -- even if he could speak this odd language and could manage poetry. "Mine," she groaned as it kept sliding in thickly, spreading her wide and she hoped that she could handle a beast like this. But demons are deep inside themselves and she managed, a little to her happy surprise. "Sweet hellfire," she hissed to him with a grin, "Rohkanh, you're so fucking beautiful. Please baby, oh please fuck me." She looked into his eyes and he smiled and said words in that wonderfully deep voice of his that went right through her to hear them. Rachel kissed him when he finished and she thrilled to feel the weight of his testicles as they pressed against her thighs. He was all the way in and she was nailed to the wall. As he began to try to drive her through it, Rachel sighed and cried and moaned as her passion began to take her. She lifted her legs and wrapped them around the most incredible male in her known universe. As she grunted and growled right along with him, Rachel did laugh just once. Her contracting muscles as she laughed didn't bother Rohkanh a bit where Azrael would have flinched in discomfort and most likely been ejected. This wonderful beast hardly noticed it. She wondered what the fuck she'd wasted all of that time crying over Azrael for. As Rachel and Rohkanh screamed at each other, biting and clawing at each other's bodies, Simmit smiled as she drove through the night. Unless Rachel was an idiot -- and she certainly didn't think that she was -- Simmit was fairly certain that they'd be fucking by now. It was her sincere hope, anyway. They'd talked about it quietly as they'd walked along the tunnel. Rohkanh had asked her if it wouldn't be wrong if it happened and she'd shaken her head with a little giggle, "Do you want her, brother?" "Yes," he'd said, "Other than you, I have never wanted a female more in my life -- and from the first sight of her. I love you, Simmit, and I can love your girl there well for you both, but I want this one more than my next breath." "Then take her if it happens," Simmit had smiled as she'd looked back over her shoulder, "She is the perfect choice for our family." Rachel's back was being scraped and bruised but she didn't care. She moved to climb up a little higher on Rohkanh, knowing what she desperately needed to feel now and confident that this magnificent male could take it in his stride where not even Azrael could have managed it. She climbed a little higher with that thing still inside of her to look into his eyes from a little above. There was still enough of that wonderfully warm meat in her for her to keep him there. Whoever had built this boy had done it right. He watched her lick her lips for a second as she considered her hope and then she reached out as he held her by the ribs. His strong hands felt incredible against her and she sighed as she slipped her long fingers into his mane. Her sigh became a needful moan as she pulled his head to her as she offered her breasts to him. He stepped back a little from the wall, taken with what she offered him. She screamed and writhed as she felt his teeth and his tongue against her stone-hard nipple and she pressed herself against him more as her wings rose behind her to flutter and beat slowly. When he released her breast, she let herself down onto that hot shaft inside far enough so that they were face to face. Rachel was deep into this now, as far beyond caring as he was. All that she wanted now was to give him everything, needing everything from him at the same time. They kissed each other savagely and she even surprised him when she stopped, holding his head in her hands to lick his face for a moment before she whipped her spine and drove herself onto him as hard as she could. She did it again, loving the groans that he heard from him as her wings flapped once each time. Again and again and again she pushed, harder each time than the last as she found strength for this mating that she didn't know that she had. This one act suddenly became as important to them as their lives, though neither of them would have been able to explain it afterward and only Rohkanh knew what it was, and only from hearing of it. She hung onto that handsome face as they looked at each other, him holding himself still for her while she fucked against him as hard as she could. She bashed their pubic bones together when she jammed herself onto him, more in lust than she'd ever been in her life. She needed that hot thing deep inside of her, but she also needed to see him. Every time that she slammed them together, she grunted hard to him, needing him to know. Each time that she pulled away, she did it a little slowly and she whimpered or moaned a little because it felt so good to her to make him see that they were good for each other in this. She dragged herself backward and threw her hips forward again and again, reveling in the joy, keening in her need of more as he began to match the way that she pounded against him. She heard the wet slaps as they connected and it sounded so right. She didn't know if there would be blood on them both for the way that their skin smarted at this abuse. She didn't care and he was far beyond caring himself. She grinned to see that he knew that was in a female who could take this sort of bashing and want more. It hurt a little and Rachel mewled out her request for more because to them, it was so good, ... But she didn't close her eyes. Not once. They only looked at each other's eyes during all of this. Their mouths were open and they saw a little of each other's blood from their bruised lips, but they kept looking - never moving their eyes beyond the other one's face. As she fucked hard and steadily, their gazes narrowed down to only the other one's eyes. Where Rohkanh was from, this was something a little legendary, this mating while both partners eyes were locked. It was a natural demon thing which almost never happened for most of his kind, and never happened at all for protectors. They were far too large to manage this with the females of their own species. Where she was from, this was something that she knew nothing of, since her mother had been human and knew nothing of it herself. But Rachel had gotten the genes for this, far more than Azrael had. It was why she was quite literally a demon when the mood was on her and it was why no male had ever taken her to this place, this darkness which came for them both. They saw less and less of everything else, as they saw more and more of each other. Rachel saw the kind of male that she was mating with far more clearly than she'd have ever learned in any other way if she'd had five years to do it. Rohkanh saw her and everything about her with absolute clarity. There were no deceptions possible in this dark place -- there was nothing which Rachel could have hidden from him even if she'd wanted to. Her heart quailed only a little as her fears over the things that she saw as defects in her body and her being a mother and not a maiden any longer and why someone like him would have ever wanted her in the first place were swept aside violently and she saw only him -- and what Rohkanh REALLY thought of her. At any other time, she might have gasped, or sighed to receive this knowledge. She might have felt the need to sit down in pleasant shock as she considered it all. But in this place, there was nothing but the beat of their bodies slamming against each other. She just knew it -- that was all. She also knew that he knew that she could be headstrong and willful sometimes, but not very often if she was given what her heart needed. She'd never have called it what it was, but she knew at the same instant what he knew - that Rachel needed to be loved and in return, she'd give everything in her power to give. At any other time, she'd have been mortified to know that he now knew the way that she loved to be loved -- as if he didn't already have the knowledge from the way that she was doing this. She saw it as he learned the other ways that she craved it -- and had only gotten enough in her whole life to know that she needed more than she'd ever been allowed to have. This was the Knowing and it came to some pairs but very rarely. Just on the other side of it lay the abyss, and there was no turning back now. Rachel wrapped her legs around Rohkanh as he sank to his knees in the snow. She allowed him the length of her arms as she leaned back and drove her hips against him in this position. The distance between their eyes meant nothing. They still stared and saw only the other one's eyes looking back as their wet loins slapped together. He took her hips in his hands to help her and they began their descent together as they went on and on seeing nothing but those eyes. Rachel keened and wailed often, but usually it was just their grunting as they grew frantic together. Her orgasm had been curiously absent for longer than she'd have ever thought possible, but Rachel didn't care about anything now as long as it came. The trouble was that when it did, she didn't even see it coming to her at all. Her head fell back when it hit her so hard and she hung from his neck by her outstretched arms as she held onto his mane as well in her clenched fists. There wasn't even a sound from her but some wet-sounding and very quiet clicks in her throat as she was transfixed. Two seconds after her, Rohkanh felt his rush and jammed into Rachel as he came. He repeated it with each contraction again and again, until he had nothing more to give her. Rachel hung there for a moment longer and then her fingers released the mane that she'd wound them into as she fell the last of the way into the snow. Rohkanh found himself kneeling over her and he lifted her instantly to hold her to him as though she was a rag doll. He tried to wipe the snow from her back, but her wings hung in the way limply. The soft groan that he heard caused his large hear to bang in his chest painfully for a moment as she shuddered and bucked a little on her way back to him. Rachel needed to breathe and she found the hair that she loved in her way, so she pushed herself away a little and Rohkanh laid her down to sit back himself and stare at her. He'd have given everything that he had to be able to speak to her now. Rachel leaned back on her elbows, a little surprised that she didn't mind the cold of it, but the gusts of the wind seemed to tease her now very sensitive genitals and an errant puff caused her hips to buck a little. She was amazed and wondered if he'd turned her into a cat in heat now. The motion was involuntary, but is had been seen. She saw him looking at her cleft and she felt the first of his semen begin to trickle from her lips. She caught his eye as she ran her fingers over it and he watched as she licked them once. A pleasant thought came to her mind and she bucked her hips just a little at him. Nothing crude, it was more of a hopeful thing as she smiled. Rachel smiled a lot more as Rohkanh came to her on his hands and knees to do as she was asking without a word spoken between them. She leaned back a little more and spread her legs for him as he lifted her hips to his lowered face to worship and lick her softly. Rachel leaned on one elbow and caressed his head while she mewled her feelings to him for a few minutes. The orgasms that he brought her with his mouth were very gentle and she loved him for it. But no matter where one might find a small piece of paradise, reality and the world at large always wait not far off. What had passed between them came to an end and they stood up to hold each other in the cold wind. Rachel stared at what she'd done to him and she knew all that she needed to know about her own appearance from the way that her face was tender in a few places and her tongue could find traces of her own blood to taste. There was no point asking herself what she'd done. The answer was in the slightly swollen lip of his and it was also running down her leg. When Rachel was mating, she'd never minded the way that Azrael's semen left her. It always felt a little naughty -- as long as she didn't have to walk or deal with others. But Rohkanh gave her a lot, she guessed, since he must have gotten some when he'd loved her with his mouth and yet, here was more and in the coldness of the wind, it felt more like an indictment. Her wet and snow-bedraggled hair told quite a tale as well. Rohkanh said something and when she noticed that he wasn't beside her anymore, she found him in front of her, cleaning her legs and vulva with his tongue. Rachel hung onto his horns and got through it. When he got to his feet, she stepped into his arms again and his wings surrounded her. She never wanted to be anyplace else, she told herself, but, ... "We fly now," she heard him say and she wanted to shake her head and refuse, but Sariel was with Simmit and Copper. Rachel thought about it, deciding that what they'd done might have been wrong, but it was also something that she wouldn't run from. She tried to tell him this and found him nodding through her points and arguments before she realized that his comprehension had improved markedly. He seemed to be waiting for something from her, and he looked so good to her that she kissed him softly. The way that he held her made her want to cry for the thought that - She looked up at him and he smiled. "What is it that you're waiting for, Rohkanh? You look as if you're waiting for me to say something," she said. "Brohke jursht shellah xhen, Rachel?" he said very softly in that deep voice that she couldn't get enough of. She nodded, "Yes, Rohkanh," she smiled a little, "You 'loved me' very well. I've never been with someone who could do those things to me and make me feel like that, but that doesn't change how it was wrong. "Jauqit shah," he said as he shook his head and she stared at him, seeing that they understood each other a lot better. She pointed to his mouth and then to her ear, "How?" He heaved a bit of a satisfied smile and placed his finger against the center of his chest for an instant before he touched her in the same place. "Iye mirkrit," he said, still smiling. "We touched?" Rachel asked in confusion, and then she suddenly understood, reaching up to put her arms around his neck. "But, ... Simmit, a-and Copper, what about them? This will hurt them, especially Simmit. I did exactly what I --" "What we need-ed to do," he said as she noticed the little hurts and smarting sensations of her injured lips and neck receding. The next several sentences from him caused her jaw to drop. "Yours?" she asked, incredulous at his words, "What do you mean, I'm yours?" He answered in his language, but Rachel could now comprehend almost all of the words as he said, "Where I was spawned, when a protector fights another male and wins, he can take everything, including the females, even the one's mate. It is different here, from what I saw, but it changes only one thing to me. I wish for you to be my female, and if it is what you wish, then Rohkanh will be Rachel's male." A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 38 "What about Simmit and Copper?" Rachel asked, "Isn't what we've just done going to hurt them? Rohkanh, it was so good with you. I want to do it again right now, but this isn't right here, where you are now." "It is and I have told you - that Simmit knows -- or if I know my sister, it is what she wants," he said, "Simmit and I want a family, but while she is mine, she is with Copper and they love each other. This is my new family with Simmit and Copper." While Rachel reeled a little over it, Rohkanh tried to find the best way to put this before he continued -- still in his mother tongue which Rachel could now understand, when he spoke, anyway. "Simmit is Copper's mate, just as it is done here, I think. I am their male, but not the same way. I want you in my family as my female. I am probably saying this badly," he said, "I wish Simmit was here to say it." "You shouldn't rely on Simmit, before this even becomes a habit," Rachel said, "Now before I make another bad decision in the long list of the ones that I've made, you tell me if I have this the right way." He nodded then, so serious and yet rather hopeful that it be understood. Rachel sighed. She wanted to hug him all night just for that look. "So, You're going to own me? Is that it?" He nodded, but then realized that it wasn't correct and shook his head, "No. In some of the places where we are from, this is how it was, but it was different in our group, and there were others like ours." He held up a finger as he considered. Rachel thought he was looking too serious now, so she kissed it and sighed as he smiled. "You belong to me now -- as I wish it," he said, "and Rohkanh belongs to Rachel if you want me. If I was here alone, it would be my joy to be accepted by you, but I have Simmit as we have always had each other. Simmit and Copper are for each other. It is my need to be Rachel's male now. It is what I need and I try to say that I hope that you feel a need to be Rohkanh's female -- here," he said, touching Rachel's chest over her heart. "We should own each other," he nodded with a little smile. "I will mate with Copper when it is wanted by them, and though we only did it once because my sister insisted, I think that she wants to be mated by me since we are here. All other times, I belong to Rachel. I could take many females, but I never did. If you want me as your male, there will be no other --" He stopped as he chose the word "adults of either kind in our family. I offer you and Sariel all that I am, since I have nothing here but me. If he wishes for a father who will not forget him -- if you wish for a male who will never leave you alone and lonely in the night -- " He stopped then and let out a long breath before he looked up and she could see that his eyes were wet. "Please, Rachel, I have never mated as we did and felt what came, but I have heard of it and it is said that it marks a special pair. I have been to the abyss many times, but never like that, and never with one who can hold my heart in hours. Only try with me. You will never doubt your choice and I will never shame you." He lowered his head then and waited. The wind was wet and bore the promise of the approaching spring. It was cold, but only because of the dampness. At the moment, there was fog rising from the ground as it gave up the heat that it had gained during the day, and ground fog was developing to hang thick and low. Rachel looked at Rohkanh. She had never been where he'd taken her. She'd never made love like that before in her life. She considered her options. To go on alone with Sariel as she raised him, even back at Cheyenne Mountain, would be proper, she supposed, but it would also make a statement that Azrael had left such a hole in her, ... To hope of finding someone seemed possible, though she knew that it was remote, but did she want this? She leaned a little and kissed his head. "Look at me, Rohkanh," she said quietly. He raised his head and Rachel had to fight off her desire to throw everything away just to be with him, but she couldn't. "I want Rohkanh," she said with a soft smile, "but I need to understand all of this clearly, so I have to speak to Simmit and Copper before anything. If they can make it clear to me, and it still feels good after I think about it, then I think that I want to try it. From what you said, we belong to each other, and it's a family. I want to say no, but I already know people who have families that are pretty different and I haven't seen one of them fail yet. Vadren and his females are so much fun to watch and I can feel how tight they are. It's their family. Selena belongs to Dahlgren and Nahl'een is her little sister, but they're a family. Sometimes, she needs the Xer and she goes to them for a night or two and Shaevre comes to stay all the time. I don't understand that one at all, but I can't say that it doesn't work for them. It's even a little like what you're telling me. Selena and Dahlgren are so in love, and Nahl'een is the happiest little girl." "Fine," Rachel said, "I'll try it, but everything has to be out in the open, so I need to talk with the others and I hope there's a place to wash there." She kissed him then and she meant it before she climbed up onto him and he hefted her a little to hold her with both arms as he spread his wings. A moment later, she was still in his strong arms as he flew them higher, seeking the glow of the lights on Copper's machine through the thick fog on the ground below that was only about ten feet thick yet it turned the world into a magical place and Rachel felt a little of that now. Rohkanh climbed higher and higher until he just saw them far off in the distance, and then he began to descend as the wind rushed past them both. Rachel struggled over what he'd said. She had a clue, but she knew that if anything, she didn't want her heart jumping at silly notions. She hid her face against him from the wind, but she called out to him so that he'd listen. "There won't be anybody else, right?" she yelled into the wind, "Just you and me and you need to take care of the girls?" "Yes," she heard him reply, "No others." He tried to look down into her face for a moment, but it wasn't possible, "Why? Is there another male that you want?" "I don't know," Rachel grinned, "I don't think so, but it doesn't seem quite fair to me." She shrugged, "We can talk later, just fly my leaky butt to where we need to go and promise me that you won't ever sneak around behind my back." "Never," he said and she nodded, having a sense of him now from what had been revealed to her as she'd seen into him. As she understood it, a falsehood was a thing that protectors knew nothing of within themselves, unless it was told to them, and they were very good at detecting it in others. She settled herself carefully against him and felt his arms take up the slack, "Damn," she said to herself with a little grin, "I could sure get to like this." After a while she felt his head against hers and she knew that he was saying something very quietly. She couldn't understand the words in the wind and she knew that he must be talking to himself somehow. All that she was sure of was that she was feeling better, so she let it go at that. ------------------- Rachel smiled to herself a little as she looked around and wiped her face for the thousandth time. She hadn't really been crying for herself this time. It was just what came out as she'd comforted her son. A large bed, she smirked. This wasn't what she'd have called a bed. This was like a great pile of furs in a warehouse. She looked down at Sariel as he slept facing away from her. It had taken a long time before he'd crumbled and broken down. He'd held so tightly onto that notion which boys carry that grown males don't ever cry. But he'd fallen apart all the same. His moment had come just as he was telling her that he was the man of the family now and that he'd do his best to take care of her. He fell apart then and she'd hugged him as they both cried. She wanted to kill Azrael herself now. Rachel vowed to herself that she'd insist on going along when Rohkanh set Azrael free. She was pretty certain that he desperately needed to feel her foot hit his balls for making her son feel this shame and this much hurt. No one had looked down on Sariel, but they all felt sorry for him and she knew that it hurt, though they all loved him as though he was their own. It was just the way that things were. She looked down again, watching as he slept in the darkness. This was the only thing that she had left, and he was the same as when they'd been alone on their mountain. Sariel was the only good thing that he'd ever given her, not that they knew it at the time. She looked around at the chamber for a moment. It was one of the four that were off the large chamber. It was cooler here, but just like the inside of Cheyenne Mountain, it was never really cold at all. It was probably even a little warmer from the heat of the cascade far off. She knew that Yuan was with Sheth and Luddy in the bed where they usually slept in the next room. She could hear them, though they were trying to be quiet. Her eye caught a small motion near the doorway and she looked to see Simmit there, looking as though she wanted to ask to come in, so Rachel nodded and the small female came to sit with her in the bed. She looked down at Sariel for a long moment before she whispered to Rachel, "Something that I love to do is to watch my boys as they sleep. Boys are so sweet then and you want to reach for them to hold them. I do not think that this goes away as they grow, does it?" Rachel shook her head with a little grin, "No, it never does. I guess it comes with being a boy's mother." "I am so happy that I met you and him," Simmit said, "I can get a look ahead to see what my little beasts will look like at least a little." She looked at Rachel for a moment, "Are you better now?" "Yes," Rachel sighed, "Thank you for, ... well, for letting your brother help me and for making it so that we had a place to go tonight. I was afraid that I'd ruin the evening for you and Copper." Simmit shook her head as she reached to touch Rachel's shoulder, "Nothing was ruined. This night is for Copper to know that Rohkanh can love her and that she is safe to give herself to him. We all need this, because we take him into our family. We are his females, so this needs to be. And I have a gift to give to him this night as well." She looked at Sariel again for a moment, "Can you come with me? I wish to say things to you, but I am a little afraid that your fine boy will wake up. He tried very hard, but we all heard him a little when he cried. He was quiet about it, but it was heard anyway and we all feel so sad for him." Rachel nodded and they left the bed very carefully. Out in the hall, Simmit looked up a little to Rachel, "I hope that I can say this so that you can understand it. Simmit," she pointed to herself, "and Copper will be his Rohkanh's females, but Copper also belongs to me. We hold each other's hearts tightly." Rachel nodded, "I saw that. You two make a lovely pair, and it really shows." Simmit nodded her thanks, "What I wish to say is that my brother spoke to me about you. He said that it is too early and he doesn't not know the words to say to you. He told me that he tried, but that he failed very badly until after you had been to the abyss with him." Rachel hadn't said anything about their tryst until now. She'd been waiting for a moment with Simmit alone and now that it was here, she just came out and said it, wanting to see how this would be taken. She found Simmit in her arms, hugging her tightly, "This day has more happiness in it for me that any that I can remember," Simmit sighed. "Huh?" Rachel felt that she'd missed something here -- or that Simmit must have misunderstood her somehow. Simmit shook her head and smiled as she hugged Rachel again, "This will be hard to tell. Rohkanh can have several females and love them all in his heart. He loves me so much, but I am his sister, so that is easy. He already loves Copper, but because of how we are between us, this will not be enough for his large heart -- no matter how he smiles and likes to watch when his girls roll around in their passion with each other as he has done while you were comforting your fine son." She grinned a little then, "And he does love to see us like that. It makes him laugh a little. He likes to lie with us and we can make him happy easily, but ... we are his females." She looked away for a moment, thinking, "I need another word for one that he needs." She looked back up at Rachel, "You said a word when we met outside the mountain. What you were to Azrael." "Wife?" Rachel suggested, and she saw that she was right when Simmit smiled and nodded. "Yes. He can be happy with his females, but there is another that he needs for his heart as well. He has it as his strong hope right now, because he thinks that you would never want this with him for what he has done, but he wants you, Rachel, and we do as well." She'd lost Rachel right there, so Simmit pulled herself a little tighter and higher up, "You do not like females, but we like you and if I can get you to see what I try to say here, then you will need to see that Rohkanh's females -- all of them -- will need to be at least a little close, because we will all live together. He tried to say a little when he spoke to Sariel today in the long hall. Maybe he tried again after you mated. Rohkanh wants a family and he is already a little late to begin. He wants to raise my little ones with me and Copper, and he thinks that Sariel needs someone who will not make him feel forgotten. My brother would never do that. He said what he did because it is what he offers and wants at the same time. He knows that it will be hard for Sariel to come to the thought, but Rohkanh is patient." Rachel shook her head, "I'm having a lot of trouble with all of this and I feel what he wants from me and - and I want it too, but I've just had my world ripped out from under me. Now you're telling me that he wants me as his wife? Simmit, I don't know about where you guys are from, but it doesn't work that way here. It takes a little time at least to come to ideas like that with anybody. I thought that I had the world in my hand once with Azrael. Now I know that I had nothing. I can't just -- " She groaned as Simmit kissed her for a moment, and then the smaller demon was there a little lower again, looking up. "You were getting loud. Come." "You could have just shut me up with your hand," Rachel glowered a little, but Simmit shook her head, "I do not think so," she smiled, but then she giggled to herself, "I am sorry. I forgot that my mouth was in the same place. I hope that you like Rohkanh's seed." "It's alright, I guess," Rachel said, "I mean that it was ok to kiss - " She shook her head and groaned, "I can't even say what I mean anymore. Was that what I tasted. .. But --" Simmit held up her hand, "I have nothing else to shut you up with. Please only listen first." Rachel nodded and stood silent to listen. She was a little surprised. She thought that she'd have wanted to spit, but there she was, she told herself, running her tongue around the inside of her mouth looking for something of him to taste. She watched as Simmit shook her head, "I have spent so much of today trying to convince females of what should be plain. I think it would be, if they didn't know of each other, but that would really be wrong." She shrugged with a smile, "So, I must go on for everyone. "I agree with you," she nodded as she began to whisper, "mating for one's lives is the same where I am from as what you say. But here, we have little time. Yuan will seek to bargain with my brother soon, maybe even tomorrow. You should try to decide, because she wants you as well." Rachel had thought that her jaw couldn't open any farther. But she was wrong. "Copper and I love Yuan. She is a wonderful friend to us, but she is a dragon," Simmit said, "and they love to control things. We sought to be her pets, but she has never allowed it to be, so we think that she does not want us as pets. Now we have Rohkanh and she will want him. I will not let her have my brother, and I do not want for her to have the one that he wants for his own heart -- and you are my friend as well, I want to believe. But I have no time -- nothing like I know would be the best thing for you and him. If you can close your eyes for a moment and try to see him as your male and if this pleases you, then come with me." Rachel didn't need to close her eyes, but this was a bit much, all the same. "Where are we going?" "I need a wash under the cascade and you will want to feel that too. Rohkanh was loving with Copper again when I left to come to you. We must pass by there, but not close by. You may look if you wish, neither of them will mind, or you may look away. It is over here." Rachel thought that she wouldn't look, but she did look and then she wanted to look a lot more. She couldn't help it, especially when she saw that Copper sure looked a lot better out of her coveralls as she rode Rohkanh. Simmit stopped when she saw that she'd lost Rachel and she came back. "Copper's been hiding that body," Rachel said, shaking her head, "That's just wrong." Simmit nodded, "As I often tell her. Maybe she will believe it now. You can do me a favor and tell her this yourself. She needs to hear it." "Man, she's got a set," Rachel grinned a little in admiration and Simmit chuckled, "She has more than that. You should see her bottom. I have spent hours gnawing on that, and she loves it so much." Rachel turned at Simmit's touch on her arm. "From what I saw tonight, there is a lot of unused space where you live. It may come that we will leave here soon. Is there a way that we can live where you do?" Rachel was still stuck on thinking about Rohkanh being her male. She kept fighting it -- and losing steadily. "I guess so. I'd have to ask the others, but I don't think there would be any big problem -- especially if Copper makes us all a little of that fine stuff that I tasted. She'd really very good at brewing, isn't she?" Simmit grinned slowly, liking the way that Rachel was saying this. "Are you beginning to feel the way that I tempt you here? Maybe you should walk a little closer and get a good look at what Rohkanh has for his females." "I felt what he has," Rachel snickered, "He's incredible, I just didn't get that much of a chance to look. Do you think they'd mind?" she asked as she saw that they were changing positions. She laughed very softly, "Do you think they'd even notice?" They stepped closer together, Simmit still holding on to Rachel's arm lightly. Rachel led them around to watch from behind where they wouldn't be seen. She groaned, softly, "Look at those balls. I love the way that they're bouncing against Copper's legs. Get me away from here, Simmit, before I do something stupid and dive right in there with them." She looked down as Simmit led them back in the direction of the cascade Simmit was giggling a little as she leaned against Rachel a little. "What's so funny?" "I think that you are like me," the small demon grinned, "So it may not be trouble to go to where you lived?" "Crap," Rachel said, shaking her head, "We'd have to move all of the lights in the bar, wouldn't we?" "Is this bad?" Simmit asked, "He would help if it was needed. I ask since he will want to have all of his females together -- especially his, ... " Rachel laughed as she pulled Simmit close and hugged her, "You're one hell of a little temptress, Simmit. I can see that having you as a friend will get me into all sorts of trouble." A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 39 ***A long time ago, I saw a documentary about a tribe of people on an island in the Pacific. They'd lived simple lives until World War II, when an army came to occupy the place. The tribe suffered and prayed to their deity, and as if in answer to their prayers, huge birds glided down out of the sky and disgorged men who fought the other men and defeated them. Even more, those friendly and kind men provided food from metal containers and medicine to heal the sick and injured among them. Then the mysterious saviors left. For the next 30 years, those islanders worshiped large idols of the huge birds who had brought the other men and they prayed for their return. That's what inspired me a little in this chapter. It has nothing whatsoever to do with history or any actual events in the past. So we turn westward once more to the ruins of Lozenjellis. It's a rather dark place now. But there are bright spots - if you look really hard. 0_o --------------- Book of the Merren Part 16 He lifted off slowly in just the way that it irked him to do it. He'd never throw the throttles to the stops and blast away as if he was back at a forward operating base or in a hot landing zone, but these 'regal' liftoffs and climb-outs were just wasting fuel cells to his mind. It bothered him to no end working at this job. But his meal ticket insisted on 'majestic' handling whenever he was aboard. Tirran sarcastically translated the term in his mind for the hundredth time, adding the Merren's tired and creaky voice to it as a soundtrack. "'Majestic handling' means take off and fly so smoothly near the ground and at slow speed so that I can look out of the window and not fear to spill a drop of the expensive and hard to obtain liqueur that I like to sip while my latest trophy pretends to enjoy sucking my withered old stick -- and The Balance save you if I actually get hard and you do anything after she climbs on, because if you do anything to upset that blessed event, I will see to it that you fly refuse trips for the rest of your worthless life." The military Xer pilot kept stealing glances at the camera feed from the passenger compartment. If he saw this fucking miracle beginning to happen, he'd make sure that he'd magically encounter enough turbulence to cause the Merren ex-dancer and part-time whore to end up across the cabin with a broken arm and cracked ribs. Just like the last one. He was sarcastic and irreverent in his dealings with his assignment -- knowing just how much insubordination to toss into it at all times. They hated each other. He'd spent his teenage years in the flight academy, pulling top scores every inch of the way, two more years in combat flight training and three tours in the duty. He'd flown it all, from transport to interception to heart-stopping 'ground-pounding' as the close air support role was termed. But the wars were dying down for a time as they always did now and then. Faced with too many pilots, there had been cuts made and though he couldn't prove it, Tirran knew who it had been that had ended his combat ride. He'd been summoned to an office in a part of his unit's headquarters where he'd never been before for a meeting. It wasn't usually where the kiss-off came, but ... He'd been told that he would be remaining on-strength but that he was being assigned to 'indefinite special duty', some of it covert and the request had been for him alone by name. If he accepted this assignment, he would be as classified as the missions so that meant that he was not to associate with anyone on the base. He couldn't understand that, but he went along with it because he had to. Any other answer but 'yes' would see him out on the street like so many other ex-pilots and Tirran needed to fly. The 'Top-Secret' assignment had turned out to be flying an old hack Merren bureau chief around as his personal pilot for the most part. He'd been recommended when the Merren government minister had asked for the best. That meant little to Tirran's CO. He was another jock in a too-full crayon box and while Tirran really was his best fast-mover pilot, he'd also become a bit of a problem. Tirran liked males, and his CO found a latent desire for the young officer within himself. It had gone on for half a cycle and had to end sometime. The CO had a career to protect and a wife who knew nothing of her husband's predilections. He was looking for a way to break this off which offered better odds that his young lover might survive, though he knew that Tirran would never have understood. "It's the best I can do for you," the CO had said, "This way, you'll still get your rate and some hefty hazard pay because if something goes wrong - unless you manage to set it down near our units anywhere, there's nobody gonna come and get your ass out of the sling. There's even a bonus for every landing - if it's anything like you'd call hazardous, and that's up to your judgement alone since you're the crew. Look, just fly this ticket wherever the hell he wants to go, because unless there's a war soon, when this ride ends, you're looking for another job so bank your pay while you're making good gold." When the senior officer tried to explain why he was ending their relationship, Tirran's face had turned to stone as he stood waiting for his commander to finish speaking before he said a very cold thank you and saluted by the book, saying that he'd take the ride. Tirran had walked away then with something and someone else to hate. The ride turned out to be a bit of a surprise in itself. It was a Xer frigate, almost new but retired and pulled out of the line of a rather covert squadron for this. It had been refitted and modified for single pilot operation, though the co-pilot's seat was still there. As it sat, it was all-business, a rather large but very capable hot-rod, stripped down to save mass and this variant had been made to engage multiple threats with ease - if one could survive the gut-wrenching and vision-darkening moves that a pilot like Tirran could put it through. That was why he'd been amazed to see one like this in the first place. This variant was classified out the ass. He'd heard of them - but he'd never seen one until then. All of the insignia and unit markings were gone and it sat alone in a guarded hangar in new paint, as dull and black as a piece of bituminous coal -- looking as though it absorbed the light around it. Tirran had stared and wondered just who the fuck this old weasel was that he could command something like this to happen. As he'd stepped aboard, the first thing that he's done was look at the weapons compartments. He'd felt his jaw fall open then. A Xer frigate for him to fly, armed and carrying a light combat load. No bombs of course, but there were missiles on the racks in the compartments, mostly what he'd have called defensive capability. The retracted gun pods weren't empty either. "Do you like it?" the Merren asked as he walked up behind his new pilot, "I looked over your records and I found that this type seems to fit you the best out of them all, and it will do nicely for my needs after the cabin is refitted a little more comfortably for me. You have overcome up to nine of the fastest interceptors at once in one a little like this, flying it just as your opponents flew their own and you were all that was left in the quadrant when you were done." Tirran nodded, "I read the specs well. This model can handle the same stresses or better, and with the right engines -- " "Which I made certain that it would have," the old bureaucrat chuckled, "Its only disadvantage is its size, though for short trips if I need it, there is a small and quick little cutter aboard for the purpose." "And very little else," the Xer said, "I've only heard rumors about this variant. I've never seen one. They're held on-call, show up out of nowhere and wipe the space around them. Then they're gone. Who are we going to kill? This is pretty fast and heavy on the guns for diplomatic duty." "I have things to do for Mer," the minister shrugged, "Places to fly where I might need you and this craft. I am told that you are light on the controls. I need a pilot who can set this down and takeoff again with little fuss and no lights in darkness if possible a lot of the time. I wish to have the best ship and the best pilot. When you get to my age, it becomes a little important that you stay alive." They had a short meeting then and the duties and responsibilities were laid out a little proudly by the bureaucrat, but at the end, he'd been asked if he understood it all. Tirran had nodded and said his piece then. "I think that I can see that the way that this bird sits here, there's a reason why it's blacked-out. There are no marking, not even a registration number anywhere. I looked around a little and I didn't find one serial number on anything inside. To me, that means that whatever you want this thing for is very likely as illegal as hell on your world. You obtained this ride expressly for the purpose of breaking Merren laws, and you need deniability if something hits the tank. That's also why this thing isn't a Merren bird, and why the pilot that you just had to have is a Xer. You need me, don't you? Well I can tell you that I'm pissed off that I was chosen and quietly fucked over so that I'd take the ride, not having any other choice. So I'll fly your ass wherever you need to go, but I don't have to like it -- or you. So cut the shit and stop trying to win me over, since that's not going to happen - ever." Since then, their relationship was little more than businesslike and rather quiet. It was the level of clearance which still amazed Tirran every time. There were times when they flew into restricted space and nobody questioned them or their intent. The few times that they were queried, all that Tirran had so say was their call sign, identifying themselves only as "Redblade One-one" and though there might be a moment or two of confusion as the controllers frantically looked up that little-heard call sign, they were always cleared a moment later and all other questions ceased as if by magic. Landing spaces in busy ports miraculously opened to receive them where only moments before, they'd been told that there was no space for them and Tirran didn't even want to think too hard about some of the people that they'd carried -- without clearance or paperwork. They'd even flown into and out of a war-zone to deliver one person. Tirran still wondered about that. When he'd asked about the rules of engagement, all that his ticket had said was, "Your job is to get us in and out while keeping me alive. Engage anyone that you think needs killing," he'd said as he'd turned to head for his seat to strap in. He placed his ancient Merren hand on Tirran's shoulder and said, "From the instant that you receive clearance for your approach, you are authorized as weapons-free. Destroy anyone who might interfere. Anyone." Tirran had nodded then and activated the automatic acquisition systems. As he'd flown in and out again a half an hour later, even so much as an angry gopher who raised his head was dead and Tirran flew back to the base on Xer with most of his weapon load-out expended. One of the minister's pet projects had turned out to be Earth, not that the Xer could give a damn, he thought. It was just another place which was in the early stages of being prepped for total Merren fuck-over to him. They spent a fair amount of time on Earth, the old bastard liking to live at what had once been the Merren outpost on that world. Tirran flew him back and forth to one of two places to the west -- either in Lozenjellis or to a large deserted base north of there. For the first few trips, the Xer had been bored out of his mind, because once the old office maven was off and gone to wherever he had to be, Tirran usually had a few days to kill all by himself. Like a lot of aircrew who'd spent much time in combat zones in their past, time often weighed heavily on him, and like a lot of those people in that situation, he'd picked up the absurd habit of smoking, since a plant much like tobacco grew on Xer. He usually made sure that he had plenty for these runs. He didn't smoke while he was flying, but once the boredom set in ... But his life changed when they'd made a quick and unexpected run into Lozenjellis one night and as soon as the self-important old buzzard had figured that he'd be a while, he'd told Tirran they'd be here for at least five days. Tirran wasn't pleased since he was almost out of something to smoke. He hadn't exactly been told that they'd be out here for long, so he'd brought little along with him. But he knew enough about the customs here to know that he ought to be able to purchase some of the local equivalent. Nobody had told him that he wasn't to walk around in the ruined city, so he packed a personal sidearm and decided to go for a walk. It was the middle of the night, but ... It was also one of the relatively few nights out of the year when it rained in Lozenjellis. Cursing his amazing lack of luck, Tirran had set off, walking through the almost deserted streets of the warehouse district in a part of the place that had once been called Riverside. He saw almost no one, and anybody that he did run into took one look at him and ran. Tirran wasn't large by Xer standards. He stood a little over six feet, three inches tall, and though he was fit and looked it, he wasn't exactly rippling with muscles. But to the eyes of most humans, he didn't need to be. He could see that this little adventure was going to be a bust as he stood not far from a street corner in the rain, wishing that he knew somebody here who could tell him just where in the hell he could buy something to smoke. He was about to retrace his steps when he noticed her, a rather thin human female standing on the opposite corner as she regarded him very nervously from under the hood of her cloak. He was mildly curious as to why she was still there after a minute or so, so he waved a little. She approached him slowly -- as though she was prepared to run if he made the slightest move. Tirran wanted to chuckle at the thought. She obviously knew nothing of Xer and how fast they could run if they wanted to. In a minute, she stood in front of him, looking up "Habla Espanol?" she asked quietly. In this neck of the woods, many of the werewolves had been Hispanic before they'd been turned. She didn't think that he was one, but she'd learned to be cautious. It was why she was still alive. Tirran could speak several languages, and English wasn't his best, since he'd never thought that he'd ever be here, but he could manage it fairly well. Whatever she was talking about disappointed him slightly. He doubted that he'd get any directions to something smokeable out of this. He shook his head with a shrug, "I don't know what you're saying." The young woman was amazed, "You speak English? What are you, ..." she looked down to his midsection for a moment to determine his gender for certain, "hombre? You don' look like anybody from aroun' here. I never see somebody like you before." She looked at his face as though she was trying to see how this outlandish costume might be put together as she reached out very carefully to touch his fur, "You look like a perro -- a dog." She stood maybe five foot six or seven inches tall, not that he was acquainted with human measurement. He only knew that she came up to below his chin or thereabouts. He thought about what he felt as well as what he saw. He'd never heard this dialect before, but he knew that it was an affected accent. He chuckled quietly for a moment, "I think I know what a dog is," he said, "but I am not trying to look like anything but what I am, and if you want to talk to me, then please drop your pretense at being what you are not." "You don' know me, Hombre," she said, trying to sound at least a little dangerous, "You don' know anythin' about me." "No," he said, "and if you keep speaking that way, you can go back to your corner there and I'll leave. This is a waste of time." She seemed to shrink a little before him as she looked at him and obviously thought about something for a moment, "Ok," she said with no accent whatsoever, "Look Mister, or, ... whoever you are, I'm just a girl who's really in need of a bit of coin right now." Tirran knew that she had a knife under that cloak and he also knew it as she abandoned the attempt at robbery. She was plainly desperate, but she was still somewhere that she hadn't left behind yet. She looked at him and squeezed her eyes shut for a second until the pain of her hunger passed. He could see that she was struggling with something as she took a breath. "If you've got any coin on you, how about I suck you for a little of it. I need some food bad." Tirran had never been one who could be accused of being very charitable toward others in any regard, and if he had to be, then his first thought might have been toward helping another Xer, if anything. But he could see that she was shaking with hunger and weakness. "How much?" he asked and he could see her thinking about it. "Fuck, I'll take anything," she said, "There's no use trying to be proud anymore. I'm starving. I'll take whatever you'll give me for it." He looked at her and he could see that she'd seen better days, as young as she looked to him, not that he was a great judge of human females. She was a little pretty -- what he could see of her under that hood, he thought, and she didn't look to be diseased. She just looked to be nearing the end of her rope. "I'll tell you what," he said, "To be sincere or ,..." he sought for a better word," - honest with you, I like males. But I can see that you're in need. I don't want to take advantage of you at all." He reached into the pouch that he wore on his gunbelt and pulled out a single gold coin and her eyes almost fell out of her face. "You need something in you soon," he said, "Give me your hand. I won't hurt you." She held out her hand and he placed the coin in it, closing her fingers and then holding onto her fist just tight enough to make his point. "It's been a while for me, and I don't even know if you can do it for me anyway, but you can have the coin for nothing. If you want to try, I think I would like that, and I might even be able to give you a meal if you want to swallow. At least you'll have something in your stomach. Keep the coin no matter what you decide. And this is not any form of clothing. I'm not human and I'm naked, but as I said, I won't hurt you. If you need to know, what you'd get is about the same as what you'd get out of a human male -- just a bit more of it, I've heard. Anyway, it's your choice as soon as I let go of your hand. Do you understand?" She looked up at him in a little fear and he shook his head, "I'm not going to hurt you," he repeated softly. He really wanted to see what she'd do, more than anything. He expected her to run off with his coin. He found that he didn't mind. He let go of her hand and she opened it to look at the coin for a moment. "I -- I can just ... go if I want?" He nodded, "Buy some food with that in the morning and take care of yourself. I do not know what brought you to these circumstances, but I wish that they improve for you." She looked at what he had between his legs for a second, "But -- I don't want to go, I -" She swallowed hard for a moment, "I mean, thank you, Mister. Thanks for this, but you said, ..." She exhaled, "You said that you'd feed me. For this much money, I'd like to try to please you if I could." Before he could refuse as he now thought to do, she sank to her knees on the wet and dirty sidewalk and brought her face to him. He felt her breath against his genitals and he was a little surprised that he was beginning to wish that she might do this for him after all. It came as a surprise to him when he felt her kiss him very softly. A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 39 He watched as she reached to caress him a little and she lifted herself a little bit higher as she kissed it softly, slipping her tongue into the end of his sheath for a moment before she leaned back to look up at him. "It's a little different, but I think I want to do this." She held up her fist, "Please hold my hand like before and I'd like to know your name. My name is Rosa." He actually smiled, and it felt as though he hadn't done that in months. He probably hadn't for all that he knew. "I'm not sure that you'd be able to pronounce my name, but the short form for it is Tirran." He wondered what she'd do with that -- what comment she might make, but she just held up her closed hand to him as she looked up and placed it against his thigh. Tirran closed his hand over hers and she opened her mouth to hold the end of him between her lips as she repeated what she'd done earlier, though now she was bent on teasing it from the sheath. As more and more of the dark pink warmth of him emerged, Rosa found herself with the beginnings of a hopeful problem. She was beginning to find someone like him in a dim racial memory and even without that, she found herself liking him, so doing this for him was becoming very pleasing to her on a few levels. Now that she had the rather pointed tip in her mouth, she felt better somehow and she liked the warm way that it tasted to her. She didn't know the name for what he was, other than the one that she'd heard in some whispered teachings when she was a girl, but she had a rather strong feeling that the females of his kind didn't have much to fear with one of these males in their lives. She knew that there was more to him in some way. As she stroked him with her right hand and her little finger found the hardening knot near the base, she found that he felt so solid to her touch in a rather strange way, as though the men that she'd done this for had been less solid somehow. She felt that through the fingers and palm of her other hand as well against his muscular thigh. Compared to him, any other men felt a little like ghosts to her hand. She placed her hand against his belly and to her, he felt like warm iron with a soft covering of wet fur. She saw the surprise in his eyes as he watched her run her hand over him. She didn't notice that her exhalations had become very quiet sighs as they exited her nose. He sighed, "Would you please pull back your hood, Rosa? I know that your mane will get wet, but I'd like to see more of you, if I could. I didn't see it at first, but now I see that you are really lovely -- and I have never seen someone like you." She nodded a little as she stopped, and then he stared at her as she bowed low to him on her knees for only long enough for him to have known that it hadn't been something that he'd thought that he'd seen. "I don't have a mane like you do, but I know what you mean. Ok, would you please move your feet apart a little for me, Tirran? I want to try to do this better for you if I can." He didn't know what she was talking about, but he nodded and complied. Rosa tried to make a bit of a slow show of taking him back into her mouth again. It had been her intent to appear to want him there, but she found that she suddenly didn't need to put any acting into it at all. The only unpleasantness about this was the way that her stomach now seemed to have heard the news that there might be something for it to digest and it was making her want to hurry this. She fought off the pain as she pulled her hand out gently from under his to place the coin in her pants pocket as far as she could. She didn't need to remind herself as she'd had to before. She'd done it to keep her knife hand out of the play in case she'd been too tempted out of her hunger and because she knew that she'd only have failed and -- It would have been sacrilege to even reach for the blade, now that she knew for certain. That faint racial memory was back far more strongly now. She guessed that it was the reason that she'd stepped out of her hiding place to begin with. She'd been watching him as he'd stood there for far longer than any of the ones who bore some resemblance to him would have had the attention span for and she knew the reason for that. They were all pale imitations of the ones who had created the first of them so long ago. They all looked a little ragged in comparison. This one stood in the rain and even soaking wet, he looked so good to her. That was what had pulled her out of hiding -- to see and be a little close to one who had not been seen by her people for so long. She was a little sad that it was here in the middle of this shit and not where she was from. Her heart would have sung even louder in her breast to find him standing where freedom was all around them. If this was there on a fine summer day, Rosa would have done this a little differently. She'd have removed her clothing and walked to him to bow before one of the Wolf People, a fine male like him and humbly asked him to allow her this same privilege. But they were here and she considered it her own good fortune to know him for who he was. She didn't hope that her luck would improve out of their meeting. She knew that it would. The gold in her pocket had been a gift to her. The seed inside of him was another gift which would mean much more to her and she wanted to cry as she ached to thank him for the chance to draw it out of him. Like many of the plains people, her tribe had spoken one of the Athabaskan languages and they'd settled in the mountains and were safe for a long time before the coming of the unstoppable tide of the white man. Early on, they'd been found by these large gods and been blessed for a long time, because after that, they'd lived in isolation and no one came near to them to trouble them. But the Wolf People had gone after a while and no one knew the reason. All that they knew was that they longed for their return. Without that, they'd fallen in with the other tribes and the memory of their benefactors had faded. All that was left were the legends told by word of mouth and the way that some of the other tribes referred to them as the children of the wolves. She took him in her hand and stroked him as she caressed his scrotum, thinking to herself while she kissed his balls and licked a little experimentally to see if she would mind the fur. Not finding that it put her off at all, she opened her mouth and licked, sucking very gently to hold one testicle against her lips. Because of the fur, it was difficult, but it was what she wanted to do, so she put a lot of saliva into it. Her mouth was watering like crazy anyway from her hunger now. She listened to his very quiet groans for some feedback and decided that she was doing it right -- at least a little. Rosa tried not to think too much about him wanting males. She wanted to please him for giving her that much money. With a gold, if she was careful, she could eat for a few weeks. But the thought of him liking men better seemed to be an obstacle to her -- as though it was a barrier to her. She slid her fingers past his scrotum and wished that there was a way to find out which way he was. She knew that some males preferred to get and some males preferred to be on top. There was nothing much about him to her that spoke of wanting to be fucked very much, but then he wasn't human, so what did she know? All she could do was try, she told herself, so she shifted herself to place her knees on either side of his large right foot. "What are you doing?" he asked. "You said that you like males, and I'm not one," she shrugged, "but I do suddenly wish that I could be that for you, Tirran. Do you like to get or would you rather give -- if I was what you wanted and, ... am I good for you so far?" He smiled. He actually smiled, she thought. "Both," he said, "I probably like to give more, but I don't think that's important here. You're doing just fine for me. Please don't stop now, Rosa." The way that she smiled lit his heart somehow and it surprised him. He knew that he was jaded and bored with everything. He'd have been the first to admit it. But he sensed something here, knowing somehow that Rosa didn't do this for a living. She was just down on her luck and desperate to survive. What he felt in a strange sort of way told him that while she was very good at fellating a male of her species, she likely hadn't done it for too many. Very likely, she'd only done it for her lovers. She nodded before she licked him wetly with a groan and then she seemed to come to some sort of a decision and looked back up at him. "Tirran, could you please do me a favor and touch my head a little? Please don't jam into my mouth, but ... I like you and if it's alright, I'd like to pretend a little that you're mine. I know I'm not, ..." She looked away then and began again, telling herself to shut the fuck up before she ruined her own enjoyment and his. He wouldn't want to hear this sort of drivel. In her limited experience, this sort of male had very little use for somebody like her. The thought was a passing one, but it almost ruined everything for her and she wondered why. When she felt his large hand on her head, she felt much better again and she whimpered as she sucked, suddenly needing him for more than to put something into her gnawing gut. Her aching stomach screamed at her to hurry this, but it wasn't what she wanted to do. She reached underneath him and her fingers found the bottoms of his cheeks, warm and fur-covered. She was careful not to tickle him, so she made her teasing in a more solid way, though she didn't press her fingers between those cheeks. Instead, she brought her left hand around the other side of him to caress his hard buns. She almost smiled. There was nothing finer to her than to toy with a nice male ass a little, though few of them allowed it in her experience. Tirran did, and she found another thing to like about him. She knew this had to end soon, but she wished that there was a way it wouldn't have to. The way that the weight of his tail felt as it rested on her hand made her want to do this for hours someday. She suddenly noticed that he was saying her name in a slightly tortured sort of way and she moaned a little loudly to answer him. Moans could be wonderful ways to tell another person something, but right now, she was up against the limitations of them. One single syllable -- no matter how long or loud you made it, just couldn't vocalize what she felt and wanted to say to him right then. She didn't know if he knew anything of what had happened do long ago in those windswept mountains when maidens gave themselves willingly to the males of his kind and bore the marks of the mating with pride for the rest of their lives -- those who were worthy and hadn't died or become crazed fur-covered things who ran off to die in the destruction they caused. Men were taken too by both genders of the Wolf People and those who lived went on to become the best warriors. Rosa got up a little higher on her knees and she rested the side of her head against his hard stomach, his navel against her temple as she whimpered and moaned to him quietly. She didn't bob her head much right then; she was concentrating on suckling him, and loving the way that he caressed her head and ran his finger over the rim of her ear so softly. Tirran looked down and was a little shocked to see something that he'd never have expected to see from her -- if she was a street whore long past feeling anything for the males that she serviced for money. Rosa was squirming, trying to get a little pleasure for herself without having the hands free to use on her body. It told him a little about her and he suddenly wanted to see her naked. The thought suddenly moved him a little farther along in this. "Rosa," he whispered quietly, "Oh, Rosa, ..." he sighed, "nobody has ever, ... Ohhh..." Somewhere in this act, he'd gone through a few phases. He'd been a little suggestive at first, knowing that she needed food. His offer hadn't been made to imply any sort of smugness, dominance or superiority at all. He knew that while it wouldn't exactly be a meal to her, his semen contained protein, like any other semen did. He was just offering her something for her poor stomach. If he could have just commanded his body, he'd have given it to her in his hands without all of this. But that was then, before he saw and felt the way that this simple act was changing them both. He doubted that he'd want to become a breeder any time soon, but he now wanted to get to know Rosa a lot better. She went back to taking him into her mouth and throat deeply. She couldn't really take him into her throat as far as she wanted to in this position, but she crossed her eyes a little to look at that knot in his shaft. She'd seen dogs fucking everywhere her whole life and she knew how they stood together afterward for a while, still connected. She thought about that and decided that he was a lot like that somehow, if he had the same bulge. If dogs did that, then she knew enough about nature to know that it wasn't just something with no purpose and she could guess what that purpose was and it led her to her next thought. She didn't know if nature -- where he was from - was any different in how it worked here, but Rosa doubted it. Everything has a purpose, or it wasn't around for long. As she went on, Rosa thought that, other than it feeling good to push as far into a female as possible, there had to be a reason to make males of his kind or his species want to do that -- and if she was right, then she thought that there must be nerves there to make him want to be in that deeply. Rosa wanted to laugh then, knowing that she just might have found a key. She lifted her head. Tirran looked down and he saw her eyes, as she looked up at him. He watched her take his hardness in her hand rather carefully as she licked her thumb and began to rub under the tip while her fingers and hand began to stroke him just a little, but that wasn't the main thing here. He groaned as he watched her open her mouth to take as much of his knot as possible into her mouth around his shaft, licking as she squeezed him rhythmically with her other hand. Her head was a little tilted, but her eyes never left his face as she did it, hoping that her squeezing wasn't too hard or soft. She based the timing on her memories of the way that she contracted when she came. "Oh!" he groaned, "Ohhh Rosa! Ahhh, you should get ready, I --" Rosa took her hand away from his balls and licking her thumb and fingers once to wet them, she took the end of his wonderful shaft into her mouth and sucked while still massaging him with her thumb as much as she could as she continued to try to imitate the contractions that he might feel from someone more like him. She felt the first contraction from him as it began and took her thumb away, her eyes begging him now with more than one hunger. Tirran hissed loudly and Rosa knew that she'd won her meal. As his hot seed shot into her mouth, Rosa sucked and swallowed for all she was worth, feeling the warmth as it slid down her throat and Rosa wasn't quiet as she expressed her thanks, either. She mewled and whimpered loudly as she took what had gone from his thought of a kindness to her to becoming something of a gift from him to her that she'd wanted so badly to receive. Her eyes closed in joy to feel something in her stomach, but she kept trying to open them again, wanting to remember him for this forever. As the gush slowed and faded, she hung on to get it all and when he stopped, she let him go very reluctantly, very sorry that it was over. "Thank you, Tirran," she said, "I sure hope that whoever has your heart knows his luck. I've never enjoyed doing that as much as I did just now. I wish there was some way to ..." "Please, Rosa," he whispered, "Suck a little more for me? I have more for you. You only need to be a little patient with me." She kissed the end of it, suddenly noticing that he hadn't softened at all, "More?" Tirran nodded, "If you keep helping me, I can give you more for a while, every few minutes. Not as much as the first time, but I have more to give if you want it." Rosa was a little puzzled, the legends said nothing of this, but she nodded with a smile, "Sure I want it. I wanted to say that I'd love to do this for you again." She opened her mouth and went back to it. They were there for the next twelve minutes, Rosa actually sucking him happily and greedily taking all that he had for her. He gave her five more, though as he'd said, there wasn't as much for her in them, but Rosa didn't care. She didn't mind a bit for a few reasons. She could keep sucking because she really liked it. He wasn't as he'd been before. He knew that she'd take everything and he liked that about her. Knowing that she wanted it made this easy as he began to speak to her quietly and she listened as she looked up and they waited for the next gush. Another reason for her was that she loved to listen to him as he told her that there was no one in his life. As she got to know him a little better, she realized that he was really quite lonely and she thought of her own loneliness then and wanted to get to know so much more about him. When she thought that she could, she carefully framed a question to ask him before she said it and went back to what had to her turned into making love to him with her mouth now. For the first time in weeks, Rosa wasn't hungry at all and though she was well-soaked from the rain, it felt pretty good to be feeling pretty good. When he realized it, Tirran was astounded. When the Xer finally had no more to give to her, he reached down and Rosa was surprised at the strength that she felt in him as he picked her up and moved his arms to hold her. "You shiver," he said, "Please hold tightly to me. I will try to warm you." "Aren't you going to shake the water off yourself, Tirran?" she asked with a little smile, "I know you're not a dog, but still, you're all wet." He laughed a little, knowing that to her there were some rather strong similarities to animals here which had a few things in common with him, but really little else. "Would you like to see that?" "Actually," she grinned, "I think I would." "Then I have to warn you that I won't look much like this then," he said, "We have two shapes, but I'll still be the same person like that. Just please don't run away then." "Why?" she asked, sensing something in the feel of his words. "Because I suddenly do not want to be very far away from the first person that I've met in a long time. And you cannot touch me then without my knowing before, or you may be cut." She nodded and waited, wanting to see this very much now. She knew of this from what she'd been told, and to see it would mean that she'd been right about him, for none of the others could do this. They could only be one way or human. To see one like him in his other shape was a great honor to Rosa but even though she'd had a warning that it was coming, she doubted whether anything could have prepared her for it, once she'd seen him that way. He was huge as he stood on four feet with his eyes glowing a little hotly. His fur looked more like large wet flakes of flint and she could see that they were rather sharp-looking before he shook himself off, the water flying off him in sheets, doing this just as a canine would before he quickly turned back to pull her to him. She looked up and her next thought was that he was so ruggedly good-looking to her like this. She reached for him. Placing her hand on his shoulder and touching his face, she stared in wonder. Those were the same wickedly long teeth that she'd seen in that face all along, but now they weren't anywhere near as cruel-looking. A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 39 "Please Tirran," she almost stammered, "I know I'm not what you'd want, and I know that I'd probably taste like that beautiful thing of yours right now, but, ..." She looked down at his wide chest then for a moment, not having it in herself to finish. This had just been him being kind to her and likely very little else. She knew it, and so she placed her hands on his chest and began to push herself away from something that she'd never wanted so much in her life. "Stop, Rosa," he said and she could hear the faintest whine in his low voice, "You were about to ask me if I'd kiss you. I want to kiss you. Why are you trying to push me away?" "I didn't think that you'd want to kiss me," she said looking up with a little hope, "You mean you'd want to?" He didn't even answer. He just kissed her. Rosa loved the way that he could kiss and after a few moments of her feeling as though her knees wouldn't hold her up for much longer, she just gave in and slipped her tongue into his mouth to find his. It wasn't a very long hunt before his mouth opened and Rosa moaned and whimpered as she felt those teeth almost all the way to her ears. They went on, two lonely and very different people lost in one very long and wet kiss for a very long time. "Please don't tell me that you have to go and get on your spaceship or whatever brought you here," she said afterward, "I don't have much magic in my life, and tonight is something that I don't want to end yet." He shook his head with a little shrug that looked as though he was pleased in a surprised way, "As far as I know, I've got five days here to kill this time. Lately, I'm here for at least three days almost every time. I'm a pilot and I usually stay in my craft. I just came out here tonight to see if I could find somebody who might sell me a little of that stuff that some people around here smoke. I'm dying for a cigar or better yet, for a cigarette." Rosa's mouth fell open and she laughed, "You smoke?" she shook her head in amazement, "You mean you smoke? Really?" "Yes," he said, failing to see what was all that funny , now that he'd been reminded that it was the reason why he'd come tramping around in the rain in this large toilet bowl in the first place, "What's so funny?" "Nothing, "she said, "You looked like a werewolf to me when I first saw you, but I could see that you weren't one after a few seconds and I knew it for sure when you waved to me. There are a few around here. I'm just having a little trouble trying to imagine you smoking. Let go of me for a minute." Rosa reached for a pocket in her cloak and pulled out a small waterproof pouch. Reaching inside, she removed two cigarettes and took a match from another pouch inside that. She looked around for a dry surface and found some fairly dry cement close to a nearby doorway. There was a flare of light and then she was back, offering him a lit cigarette while keeping one for herself. Tirran stared, but he took the smoke and when he exhaled, he smiled, "This is very different from what I've tasted here and it's a world away from the stuff they make where I'm from - which is more than a world away." She was still chuckling as she looked at him holding the thing so carefully. He made a cigarette look like a tiny little white stick. "I think I've got some good news for you," she smiled, "I made these. I learned how from my grandmother back where I come from. I'm almost out of leaves though, and I didn't have the coin to go and buy more. I think mine are a little better than what you'd usually find. People in my family have made them for generations. They're alright, but they're not the sort of thing that you'd want to smoke one after the other. They're not made for that." He wrinkled his eyebrows and Rosa wanted to kiss him for it, "What are they made for then?" "Moments," she smiled, "They're made for moments, like when you've eaten a really fine meal -- if you're wealthy enough to afford that. These are made for afterwards, when you have a little brandy. They're made for when you've done something a little bit special, like after you've climbed that big mountain that you've thought about walking up for a while, or when you've just made love to somebody special. That's why you need more than three minutes to smoke one. They're really cigarillos, not cigarettes. You smoke them like cigarettes, they'll kill you even faster than cigarettes will. I make these by hand, the old way, out of cut-up leaf, not shredded tobacco." She looked away across the dirty street, "I make them for other people's moments; the kind I never have myself." She smiled a little softly," though I am having one right now. I came here with my parents and my brothers, but I'm all that's left. The gangs, demons, werewolves and the vampires, they all took the rest. It's only a matter to time before they get me too, I guess." After a long and quiet talk, Rosa climbed onto his back after he'd changed to his other shape again and told her that his back and sides would be safe for her like this and she'd ridden him with her feet not that far above the ground, directing him to a park where they could wash not far from where she lived. It was dark, though there was a sliver of a moon whenever the clouds allowed it. Rosa was self-conscious about her body most of the time, but tonight, she threw that away as she allowed him to see her with more than just a little hope in her heart. Tirran gazed at her with a soft smile. She made a bit of a fuss until he shut her up with a kiss, telling him that she was a little short in the charms department. "I've was born a little cursed, I guess," she said, "I've got no tits and the spirits must have been drinking or something that day, I dunno. That's the only reason that I can see for why they gave me a man's bum. Either that, or they were working out of a spare parts bin that afternoon." It was true -- at least it could be looked at that way, he thought. Her breasts were the slightest swells and she had very small nipples and her backside did sort of evoke thoughts that she might be able to pass as a male from the back -- but if she moved at all, it was gone and she looked softly feminine in the thin moonlight. He sat down in the water with a splash and she'd laughed at him. "I know," she'd said grinning. "The way that I'm made, you'd think I ought to be out on the prowl for another girl. I tried that once and it wasn't terrible -- it just wasn't what I really wanted, and the first time that our periods overlapped a little, we almost killed each other." He shook his head, "I really like your body -- and it's not for the reason that you probably have in your mind. I don't see what you think you look like very much. I see a very beautiful female. I'm just a little surprised that I can feel the way that I do. I've seen human males and I don't see a thing that interests me. I like males of my kind, Rosa. That's what I've always been drawn to. I just remembered reading something once about this world and now it makes sense." He put his arm around her and he kissed her again for a moment before his attention was drawn to stare at a being standing on the shore looking back. He stood then, pushing Rosa behind him protectively. His hand reached to slowly touch the sidearm strapped to his thigh. He knew that he had plenty of time to get to it if he had to, but he'd never seen one of these things before -- he'd only heard of them and how they were to be killed if they were encountered. But the abomination only stared, and Tirran growled deep in his throat once in warning. To his amazement, the werewolf dropped to his knees and bowed. After a moment, it rose and backed away, bowing once more before it was gone. Rosa stepped around him and looked up, watching as the hackles on his neck and shoulders fell slowly. Her mouth was open in wonder. "Y- you were protecting me," she stammered. He nodded, "Yes. Why? Was I not supposed to?" Rosa didn't answer. She was looking around them. "Tirran," she whispered as she pointed. He looked around and saw the others, five more werewolves who had likely seen them as they'd come here with Rosa on riding on his back. As he looked, they fell to their knees as well, not daring to look up. He made a sound from his throat and they all looked up then. Rosa supposed that what she heard were words, and he didn't say many, but she saw the way that they all nodded and backed away. He barked once low and quietly and Rosa watched as two of them stopped and looked back attentively. The next sounds from him had the tone of a question and a female nodded and answered in a soft bark, nodding her head. Tirran made more sounds then, indicating Rosa and all of them nodded and bowed again before they left, each one making some quiet sound as they turned away. "What was that all about?" She asked as she watched them go. "I thought that they must have seen us and followed," he said, "At some point, I'll have to leave and I doubt that they'd just walk away and forget, the way that they were looking at us, so we'll probably be followed sort of discretely. I thought to turn that to your advantage to keep you alive, since they seem to see me as supreme in some foolish way." He shrugged as though he was a little mystified, "They called me 'lord'." He looked down at the human girl who seemed to think rather highly of him in her way and he smiled with a shrug, "I really hope that it was not the wrong thing to do, but I told them all that you are my bitch -- which is not the way that it is meant here," he added hurriedly. "I said that you were my female and that they were to tell others that you are not to be harmed in any way, because if that happens, I told them that I would wipe this foul place from the ground and all of them with it. I hope that I sounded imperious enough for them to believe it." Rosa was silent for a moment, but then she looked up, "You could really do that, couldn't you?" "I suppose that I could," he nodded, "but not with a wave of my paw," he said with a chuckle, "I've got enough things in my craft to level a lot of this place. It was just a threat. They seem to respect threats, I'd guess. If anything happens to you, I think that I'd probably do it, too." Rosa nodded absently as she looked at him, "What about the other part?" she asked, "The part where I'm your female?" Her question and her searching gaze took him by surprise. "Why? Is that what you want?" She nodded with no hesitation, "Yes. I'd love to be your female. We'll just have to see, won't we?" She laughed a little then as she pulled him to the shore by the hand and he went along, though he was still puzzled, "I am so confused now," he chuckled, "I was afraid that the things that I said might have made you angry with me." She stopped then and turned back to him with a look that told him that she was astounded that he'd have even asked, "I guess that I've got some things to tell you, Tirran, and I'll try my best when we get to where I live, but I'm not angry. I know the reason why you said it and I'm thankful that you did if it keeps me safe, but ... why would you think that I'd be upset? I've been saying little prayers to spirits that I haven't said them to in a long, long time. I know a little bit about you and maybe I know more than you do about the people that I come from. I guess that we must have faded from the memory of your kind, and you've faded from ours mostly, but not from mine. Tirran." She smiled at him softly and he had to smile back as he pulled her to him and held her for a moment, so taken with the look that he saw there. "You just give me a chance to try like I know that I want to," she said very quietly, "I know the way that the word is meant to you. I'd love to be your bitch that way. After so long and with almost none left to hear of it, I'd love to be the one that you choose as your female here." Tirran didn't know what to say in answer to her and it made her giggle a little, "I'm guessing that your silence means that I'll get my chance?" He threw up his hands and laughed for a moment, but then he became serious and he bowed to her. "We are different," he said, "but I know that you try to show me honor here. So it is my honor to accept. I have no mate for me. There is no one who waits for my return where I am from. I don't even know if it can be done, -" "I did something that surprised you, didn't I?" She asked a little proudly and he nodded. "Good," she said, "then I'm your girl or -- whatever you need while you're here." She'd said it with such certainty that he knew that to disagree was pointless. He was a little amazed at the way that she was winning him. He felt as though he was a little powerless in this, but he could see her determination and so he'd allow her the chance that she wanted. As he waited for her to get dressed, he thought about a few things. She was a woman, but he liked her quite a lot anyhow. He liked talking to her much more than he'd ever liked talking with any of the few boyfriends that he'd had. He wondered how far they could go, and though he thought that it might not be all that far, he hoped that however far it turned out to be, that Rosa enjoyed it, because if he was given the chance to please her, he found that he suddenly wanted to. She told him not to change again for her since they were close to where she lived in a small and rather strange little bunker. It was a bomb shelter, left over from the paranoia at the height of the Cold War, but because of that, it was a safe pace for her to live, since it had been made forty years before that as a bank vault. The mechanism had been altered so that she could lock it from the inside. They walked there together, her hand in his as they spoke quietly. Once she had the lock open, she led him inside, closing and bolting all of the others that led here. She lit a candle and set it on a ledge. "You said you have at least three days --" "Maybe five," Tirran said, "But I'll have to check in after three to know better." "Good," she said as she began to get undressed again. "I'd have sucked you for nothing once I knew that you weren't a werewolf or a vampire. I'd have been happy with only two coppers. But you gave me a gold and I can't remember feeling the way that I felt while I did it. If you think that you can get over what I'm not, then if it matters to you that we keep that relationship, you can stay here with me until you have to go, and I'll suck you as often as you want. I'd even let you fuck me a lot for that one gold that you gave me." She looked up and saw him behind her in her mirror. "But I'm really hoping that it's not the relationship that we have, Tirran. I want to make love with you tonight, and I think that maybe I might be a little closer to what you'd want. I'm just hoping that you can pretend that I am what you want -- at least a little bit." She kept looking at him as she'd spoken and now she saw that he was looking at her ass, so she said, "I know what you want there, and you can fuck me there too." She watched his eyes come up to look at hers in the mirror as she nodded, "I'm a little different, I guess," she said as she shrugged, "When my momma was teaching me about being a woman, she said that I had to protect my ... virginity as much as possible. Well that's what was done where she grew up, I guess. She said that girls who had boyfriends used to let them fuck them in the ass as a way to stay virgins. She said they all hated it, but they put up with it if the guy was good to them." He watched her shrug again, "Well I tried that. I tried it both ways and I like it in my ass too. So as long as you don't tear me up, I'd really like for you to try me there. It's probably not quite the same, but it's the same hole and ..." She looked at him and he was chuckling softly. "I'm trying to be a little heartfelt here," she said, "so I don't really want to see you laughing at me. Does that mean that I don't even have an ass like you'd want to fuck?" He reached for her and pulled her to him, "That's not it. I am very attracted by your body. I was about to say that I've never wanted a female, and as far as that goes, then I guess that I'm a virgin. But I've already decided that if you would like to let me try, then I'd do my poor best for you, but you don't have to worry about me wanting you. I still mean what I said before. I will not hurt you, but I am trying to guess your age. I have no measure for the ages of humans." "I hope it doesn't make any difference to you," she said, "but I'm eighteen. I'll be nineteen in less than a week. I've been on my own here for almost a year. I used to live in Riverside where I met you. One day I came home and the place looked like the back of a butcher's shop. I found most of the pieces of my brother and I was afraid to look in places like closets in case I found my mother. I just couldn't bear the thought. So I took our stuff for making cigarillos and I ran. I didn't stop running until I got here and saw this old bank. I remembered reading about them in a book, so I looked down here and found this. As far as I can tell, it was bought by a man who was afraid of a war a long time ago. He used the bank as his home and kept this in case the war ever started. I found him in the corner over there, all dried up over all of that time. He was mostly dust and I just swept him up and tossed him over what's left of the fence. I'm really careful, but I've been here ever since. How -- how old are you?" He did a little mental calculation, trying to fit the difference in the length of a year on Xer to the three hundred and sixty-five and one quarter solar days in the year here. "I think it works out to twenty three of your years, or just under. Is this a problem for you?" "No," she laughed, "I like older men -- not that I've had many." She opened a drawer and pulled out a pair of hand clippers, "See that mirror there on the floor against the wall? I'd like it if you could pick that up and hold it behind me a little. I'm going to need two mirrors for what I want to do." "What are you going to do?" he asked and he loved the smile that she returned to him. "I'm going to get a little closer to the ... what are you? You never told me." He sighed, hoping that it might not ruin this, "We call ourselves Xer. As far as I know, I'm the only one here now, but there have been others. That's how the ones that you call werewolves began here, likely from the mating bite of a male as he mated with a human female. It is passed on now from one human to another by any sort of bite which breaks the skin and touches blood. But I will not bite you, Rosa." "I almost don't think that it matters. Tirran," she said, "You were right about me from the start. I'm not a Latina girl, though I know that I look like one with my hair long, and I can speak Spanish well enough to pass myself off as a Chicana. But I'm really one of the very few pureblood people of my tribe left. I come from a tribe who lived in the mountains. We came here for a better life than we had scratching around in the dirt back home, but I'd love to go back there any day to get away out of this shit bucket. I only had to keep an eye out for bears then. Here, if they're not after your money, they want your blood or if you're really lucky, they only want to rape you and they MIGHT not kill you afterward. But back there, we have legends about things like you. There have been females in my family who were bitten and lived but not all of them turned and died afterward. I don't know if it's possible to have any sort of immunity to the bite, but it if is, then I think I've got some. I've been bitten before and I didn't turn." She lifted her arm and he saw the scar of an old bite. "What happened?" he asked. A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 39 She shrugged, "He came at me from out of nowhere in an alley, and before I knew it, he'd bitten me." She reached into her cloak where it hung drying and pulled out a very short sawed off shotgun and laid it on the shelf near the candle. "I managed to get this out and I blew most if his head off for him, and I was long gone before he healed that, I can tell you. I washed the wound really well and then I waited. I got a little sick, but nothing came of it, so ..." She looked down for a moment and took a long breath, "I've never met anybody like you before, and I've seen lots of werewolves. I keep finding things about you that I love -- things that drive me a little nuts wanting you." She looked into his eyes, "I know the difference. I've watched it when two werewolves try to live some sort of life together. I know that you're not a werewolf. You're a lot more, ... powerful, and I feel so much better when I'm touching you. So if you want to do more than just fuck me, Tirran, then I'd love to at least try to be more than just a fuck to you. You can give me your mating bites, and if they don't kill me, then I'd be proud to be yours." She looked down again before he could say anything and then she turned around, "But I think that's only a little more than the nice daydream that I'm having at the moment, so can you pick up that mirror and hold it for me?" He puzzled over it as he did as she asked and was very careful to follow her requests whenever she asked for him to move it. He watched a little spellbound as her long dark hair fell from her. When she had it a little close to what she wanted, she took a pair of barber's shears to continue. When she was done, she swept the hair from her shoulders and looked carefully to see if she'd missed anything, snipping here and there with a judicious eye in one mirror or the other. She didn't say anything to him the whole time. When she was satisfied, she grabbed an old broom and swept up her hair in a minute. His soft gaze at her whenever she'd looked at him in the mirror told her everything that she needed to know. She turned around, "There. Closer now?" He looked at her and smiled, nodding. It didn't make that much of a difference in some ways, but in others, her new boyish haircut lent her the look that she'd been after. She smiled a little shyly and her hopefulness almost broke his heart. "You -- you wished to look like --" He saw her intent now. He couldn't believe it. She nodded, "I know that it probably doesn't make that much difference to you, but I wanted to get as close as I could and still keep a little bit of a girl look. But really, the one that I want now is a boy who would want another boy. Well I can't be that for him. But I thought that I'd try to look as much like a boy for that boy as I can and, well, I'm really hoping that I might be close enough for him." Tirran took her in his arms and kissed her softly, "You didn't need to do this, Rosa. I want to try this with you anyway." "I KNOW that. Tirran," she laughed quietly in his arms for a moment, "I don't know how I know it, but if there's such a thing as a human who can stand to be bitten by what I think that you are and live, it just has to be me." Tirran tried to understand it, but he couldn't, "I -- I do not see what you are trying to say to me." "Those women, Tirran. The ones that I said were bitten and lived. Maybe I didn't make it clear to you when I said it, but, ... well let's just say that they weren't exactly bitten while they were trying to escape." She watched his eyes open and she chuckled, "Oh, so NOW I've got your attention, huh? The legends are told, but not all of them to all of the people. To hear them all, you have to be a girl among my people and hear your mother and your aunt tell the legends as they teach the young ones the beginnings of beadwork. I've heard of the ones who lived, coming back to the people with large and bloody bitemarks and there were more in my bloodline than any other. So if there's such a thing as a human female for what you are, it's me. If I'm right, then you are one of the ones that we called the Wolf People. The time when they were near to my tribe marked the height of prosperity and happiness." She looked down at his chest and laid her head against him with a sigh. "And if I am right, and those weren't the fanciful stories of generations of women, then I'm a descendant of the ones called 'the children of the wolves'. There never were many of us and after the Wolf People left, it all faded and they joined other groups and faded among them, but some still know. You might think that you're a slightly lost spaceman, but down here with me, well I'm one of the last who were made for you. All that you need to do is want me." She took his hand then and led him to her bed. They began just like any of the millions of ordinary people who feel enough love or lust or whatever attraction is enough to trigger the desire in them both. Tirran found that though it was very different, he enjoyed it because it was Rosa and he liked to do anything with her. It led to some comic moments that surprised them after they'd laughed. They were on their sides, talking as Rosa playfully managed to get him to use his hand on a female as she stroked him. Tirran was an attentive student. He was interested, wanting to know the female body better than he did -- again mostly because it was for Rosa, but it helped when he thought that this was about pleasing bodies and having fun and that took it farther for him. He found that he couldn't stop kissing her and he loved the feel of her body against his. "I could fuck you, you know," she'd suggested to him as they were copulating slowly with him on top of her. The remark came at him a little out of left field and he stopped to look at her curiously. Rosa bucked against him, "Hey, I didn't say anything amazing enough for you to stop. Keep going, please, but just go real slow -- just enough to stay hard for a minute. I don't want you losing interest." He chuckled and began again, "What did you mean?" "Well," she said a little dreamily in a soft little voice that forced him to listen, "I was on my way home one time, far too long after dark. I wanted to go through the park because I can at least get a sense if I've been spotted. Moving through buildings brings the time that I have to react down and then all I can do is hide. That's a losing game most times. Anyway, I was going through the park and I heard somebody being hunted. I thought it was me at first, but I was wrong, thank God. I froze anyway until I could figure it out. It was a werewolf chasing a human. It was a short chase, and I might have helped with my shotgun to give the person a chance to get away, but they were too far away from me where they struggled and I knew that by the time that I got up and got over there it would have been too late anyway. At first I was cursing that I had such a good view of something that I sure didn't want to watch. I saw that the one being chased was a young guy, and the werewolf was a male as well. It turned out that they knew each other before the one guy had been turned. The one who had been chased was out of breath and out of his mind in fear and crying. But the werewolf wasn't after him to eat or just to tear him apart. I had to think about it afterward, but I did figure it out. The werewolf had always liked the other guy, but he never had the courage or the chance to let him know. I guess that he thought that it didn't matter anymore." "What happened?" Tirran asked, his interest rising. "Well," Rosa began a little coyly, noticing that her story was having an effect on him, "It went from a hunt to something else and I had to watch. The guy tried to fight and get away, but he pretty much had himself scratched up a little and his clothes torn off. By then, I was getting a clue that this was going to be more of a rape but I was wrong again," she sighed as she put a little more into the motions of her hips to match him. She wondered how she was going to get anywhere near the end and be able to speak. She sighed and smiled at Tirran, "So what I ended up seeing was a werewolf pinning a man to the ground and it looked to me like he was about to chew the guy's stuff right off, but that wasn't what he was doing. It took the guy a little while to calm down, but the werewolf was doing his best to please him with his mouth. Well when the guy finally got the idea, it was actually something to see." They fucked quietly for a few minutes before Tirran slowed and asked her to continue. She kissed him and grinned, "You like my little story?" He nodded and Rosa continued, "Well, when the human finally got the idea, he loved it. I guess that there was also a lot of uncertainty to it -- not knowing if he'd live afterward. But the werewolf seemed to know what he was doing, well at least to me, anyhow. When the human shot his load, the other one didn't miss a drop, but then he lowered his head further and in a second, the guy on the ground was into it with his legs up and everything." Rosa sighed then, smiling up at him as he picked up the pace and they fucked as she looked up at him and moaned at the way that he looked down at her, his eyes staring at her intently. She couldn't keep her hands off of him and she touched and caressed him everywhere that she could reach as she spoke very softly under her breath. "What are you saying?" he hissed at her as he went. It felt to her that if she smiled only a little more, she was bound to get face cramps or something. "They prob -- ably doWOHN't mean any-thing to y-you," she groaned to him, "I'm j-just saying some stuff... T-to my an-cestors about wanting t-to be one of the WooOlf People's women, that's ... ah, ...ah...AH..AH. AAAHHHHhh!" Her cry turned into a laughing wail and she thrashed under him, still shouting afterward. She was just settling a little when his orgasm came to him and it caused her to cry out as though his thrusts stirred the ashes of a fading fire to add more fuel to it. When he'd given her the first part of it and they settled back to fucking, she tried to thank him, but she found him staring at her. "What, Tirran? And if you feel anything at all for me, then please don't stop now, I want it all." "You cried out," he said. Rosa chuckled, "Well," she said with a sigh as she tried to work her internals a little to get more out of him, "I loved it and around here, that's what we do sometimes if we really like it." "That is not what I meant," he groaned and she whimpered as she bucked against him, while he gave her a second ejaculation. They paused then, waiting as they moved together through it. "You said that you love me." The look of wonder in his face almost made her cry then. "People say all sorts of things when they fuck," she said, "but you have to think about who I am -- if this is right. Tirran, I love you because I was made to love you - because it's in me to love you. I come from people who adored your kind and have missed what I have here for so long. But while that's a little easy for me to say as if I was glossing over it, there's something else. Never mind all of the old ways, Tirran. I found you and you gave me money out of kindness and only a little hope for me. You fed me. The more that I touch you, the more I want to touch you. I was nobody and nothing when I woke up this morning. Now I'm with somebody that makes me happy just to touch. I know that you'll have to go away sometime, but until then, I have a male like I've never had - you're something out of legend to me, but you're more than that. Handsome," she nodded, "I'm yours -- any way that you want me. I can't help but love you with everything I've got." He almost stopped then, but he didn't, knowing that he wanted to give her everything and also out of a little fear that he'd see her disappointed face if he did -- that and her saucy complaints as she tried to hide it. He gave up, beginning to fuck her hard again as he felt more on the way for her. The way that she writhed and moaned to him made him suddenly feel like one of the ones that she'd spoken of. When it had passed and he wondered if he had another one for her, more than a little surprised that a female could cause this much passion in him, he looked at her face as she grinned up at him with her short and boyish hair completely tousled. "You love me too, don't you?" she asked, "I can see it in your eyes." He nodded a little seriously, and then he smirked, "Maybe it is nothing more than an infatuation. Rosa really, did I have any choice?" "Ah, ... no." she giggled a little, but then she looked a little more and she grinned then, "Jesus, you really do! And don't worry. Around here infatuation is usually as good as it gets, with the life expectancy down in these streets." "I still want to hear about the story," he said with a couple of hopeful thrusts into her. "Oh yeah," she smiled, "So, if you think about it, watching the way that the wolf-guy used his tongue was a real turn-on for me, but I really didn't think that I'd like to stick around and watch two guys do it. Well I didn't have much choice. If I stuck around, I might be noticed and not only by that one. They were starting to make a lot of noise and the longer that it went on, the more chance that it might have been heard and the last thing I needed was that it might attract someone else. So I was a little stuck, wanting them to really get into it so that I could sneak off, but not thinking that I wanted to see much of it either -- and yet dying to see it all. The thing is, that before too long, I could see that it was kind of nice to watch, because it wasn't anything brutal. When they were really into it, I saw my chance and I snuck away. I was all the way to the top of my street here when I heard the scream and I knew that the guy had been bitten. But I know that he must have asked, Tirran." "How do you know that?" Tirran asked. "They're still around," she smiled, "and I guess that they're still going strong, since I see them around even when they turn back into human guys. They were there tonight." Her words finished him and he gave her another set of contractions. "What do you think?" she grinned as she kissed the side of his face while he lay on her very carefully, "You've just lost your other virginity to a human girl, and I'd like to know how it was." He lifted his head and looked down at her, knowing the next thing that she'd say. "Was I good enough?" "Half," he laughed at her, laughing harder as she saw what he meant, and the way that she laughed back. "Ok," she chuckled, "I get it, but for THAT part of the audition, how did I do?" A thought crossed his mind and he looked at her seriously, "Hold still for a moment and close your eyes. Remember, you cannot move until I say." Rosa closed her eyes and felt the heat against her forehead and face for a minute or less. When she opened her eyes, she saw him looking down at her with a pleased little smile, "You can move now." "What did you do?" He sighed, "Something that I never thought that I would ever do," he smiled as he leaned down and kissed her softly, "I hope that it proves useful to you and not a hindrance -- since it will last for a time." He pulled the last of the way out of her and listened to her quiet complaint as he walked across the room to bring her the mirror. "I have marked my female." He handed her the mirror and she stared at the delicate lines and patterns on her face. She lowered the mirror, "These are beautiful," she gasped before she looked again, "I've never seen anything like these. How did you do this -- and they won't last forever you said, right?" Tirran laughed a little, "No, they might last perhaps twenty days or so. It is a little rare, but it comes from my family. There was a time long ago when there were kings and queens among us, and the males of my family have the ability to mark the ones that we choose as our mates. It is something long forgotten by most and on the rare occasions when it happens, it makes news on my world. Here, it is my gift to you and I hope that it helps you when I am not here. I do intend to return." "You do?" Rosa asked hopefully. "You know that you did say that I'm your female. I heard you say it, fair and square." She couldn't help herself, "Am I really? Did you mean that?" "Yes," he smiled, "You are not the only one who feels better when we touch. I never meant what has happened, but I have been taken from not caring about anyone but myself -- and being miserable as a way of life to feeling something that I have never felt." He tried to heave a rather theatrical sigh, but it failed on him in large measure, since some expressions didn't transfer too well, but Rosa got it and the jumped up to throw her arms around him and pull him back onto the bed. He was a little amazed, so she kissed him very softly and chuckled as she rubbed her face against his, "I've always loved a good love story." "I think that you have one to live in now," Tirran smiled. Then his smiled faded and he looked curious, "What did you mean when you said that you could fuck me?" "Oh yeah," she laughed, "Lift that other pillow." He looked at her and seeing nothing but her coy little grin, he picked up the pillow and stared. He was looking at an arsenal -- of dildos. He looked at her and she grinned, "Well I'm a lonely girl, ok? I find these now and then when I'm in an old house that I know there's nobody living in. This is just the tip of the iceberg -- whatever that is -- 'cause I guess that I must have found hundreds. I only keep the ones that I think might interest me. I've used every one, too," she said a little proudly, "Most of them front AND back." He picked up something that gave him chills to think about, trying not to imagine her using it there. "Uh-huh," she chuckled, "That one was a struggle." As his jaw came down, she giggled, "I did say that I was lonely and I also told you that I like it there." She continued to amaze him all night long. Even coitus in the missionary position went from something that he would never consider doing to something wonderful for the way that they could look at each other when they were slow about it, and to Rosa, everything that they did together told her that she'd been right. They just had to prove it. That came just as dawn was breaking. A little before that, Rosa had gotten out of the bed and said some words to her ancestors before she's knelt lower and offered herself to him again. She told him that she would ask him for his mating bite this time -- if it felt right to her. Tirran reminded her that most bitten humans either died or they became at best, what to his kind were abominations, creatures which were killed on sight by any others of his kind here. She asked him to hold her and lean his head over her shoulder. When he did that, they both felt his hardness begin to slip inside of her and neither of them tried to make the insertion go any quicker than it seemed to want to be made just by the closeness of their bodies. They both knew that where they were would bring it about halfway into her before either of them did anything to get them closer together. She kissed him softly, "You don't get it, and I understand, Tirran. We were promised that one day, one of us would be taken and made into one of the Wolf People. It's never happened. But I've always believed, Tirran -- ever since the legends were first told to me, I've always believed it. And look where I am now. I've found you. It's just one of the reasons why it's so easy for me to love you. I know that to you, I must be just a poor girl who's infatuated with a legend and the personification of it, but I have to believe." A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 39 He disagreed, "You are no such thing to me, Rosa. I've hated my life for a long time and I had no way to change it and no reason to want to. I have that now. You gave me the reason, Rosa. In the middle of a ruined city on a world where I would have never wanted to be, you gave me everything -- all of the reasons that I need, and at the center of it is a wonderful female who I have marked because I want her. I think that you're wrong about a few notions about me being a god or something like that and I've tried to show you gently that I'm no such thing. But I believe in you, Rosa." She smiled from behind her closed eyes, "I love you, Tirran. I understand how you think that I'm mistaken, and I don't think that you're a god -- not the way that my people did so long ago. It's all in the level of technology. I see that now, but I still know that I'm right. I know the difference between those werewolves out there and you. The people were never promised that one of us could be a werewolf. That happened anyway. They were promised that one of them would be taken by the Wolf People and accepted as one of them -- to be one of them. I'm about all that's left now -- who's under like eighty years old. If I'm not the one then there never will be, and it's enough for me to want to be what you are and if I can have just one more wish, then I want to spend the rest of my life with the one that I met today. So if that sounds good to you, then come on and fuck me." Tirran mounted her and as he took her and their passion rose once more, she begged him for his bite. She put everything into it that she had, as tired as she was, and when she felt his thrusting becoming more urgent, she called out to her ancestors and any of his that might have been listening as she gave herself to the one person who had been able to touch her heart so easily. She screamed out her pain and her joy to see his head next to hers with her shoulder in his teeth and her blood running. As soon as she had the brain cells to devote to the task, Rosa began to chant, saying the prayers that she'd been taught since she was a girl. They'd been in with all of the other ones that she'd learned then, part and parcel of the liturgy of her people, but this part was what had been passed down from one generation to the next, from mother to daughter alone and never committed to buckskin or paper. It was not expected that a girl meet and mate with one of the Wolf People as her tribe had called them. That hadn't happened in more than half a millennium, but the chants were still there, and Rosa drew on them now. Though she was in pain, she had several quick orgasms. They weren't as hard as the ones that she'd had with him before, but they were very satisfying to her all the same -- given that he'd opened her shoulder. She asked him to stop and then she'd moved to put her head and her arms onto the mattress as she offered him another place now. "Rosa" he said, "Are you sure?" "Yes," she groaned, "I've promised you this in my joking way all night. I want it now. If you still have anything left for me in there, then do this for me and give me the last now. I'm sure that I'm the one, and I'm just as sure that I'm the one for Tirran." She smirked at him over her shoulder, "You get me lit the right way Handsome, and you can even give me that knot of yours if you think you can be nice to me about it." Rosa was thankful that his hardness was well-lubricated and even more, she was thankful for the shape of it. As he entered her very carefully, hoping only to please her with the last gushes from the coupling that they'd just had, Tirran found that they fit together a lot more easily than he'd have thought. The first few long strokes made him happy and more sure of her than ever. He only knew that he wanted to be done before the onset of the change -- if it came to her. He didn't think that he could bear it if her heart failed her while he was still inside of her. But it didn't happen that way. He found himself feeling as though he was back at the beginning and no matter what he'd wanted, this wasn't going to be an abbreviated coupling under any circumstances. He was gentle and Rosa whimpered and cooed to him, telling him that this was better than anything that she'd ever experienced like this. Under other conditions, he's have been overjoyed, since she felt better to him that anyone that he'd ever done this with. The ramp to the top was a long gentle incline and they did get to the top of it in good time. His hips were slapping hard against her incredible bottom when he felt his seed coming. He told Rosa, but she made no reply other than a high keening sound, so when he was at the point that he knew within a few strokes, he slid his pawed hand around her and down her belly, reaching for her sopping wet folds to find her nub. When he felt the first rush, he bit Rosa's other shoulder and growled as his fingers worked to help her -- and they did. She almost jumped and her pleasure took her over as she cried out while he was filling her and then he was working his way to the next load as fast as his testicles could make it for delivery. But when he looked over... He saw her eyes, and knew that she was in the beginnings of it from his first bite. Her breath heaved in and out of her and she started to growl and snarl at him, while still keening her joy. He watched as her snout grew right alongside his and when she opened her mouth to howl and bay, he watched as her long teeth emerged. She was growing very difficult to hold onto - even though he knew that she wasn't trying to do anything other than take his seed. Tirran had to devote more and more of his concentration on keeping her still so that he could give her everything, because when his next contractions came and he held himself still, she paused only long enough to realize what he was doing for her before the threw herself against him for more. He finally found a way to hold her, both of them bucking and panting but by then, Rosa was already well into growing her fur. He remembered thinking that it was a nice pelt that she wore and he liked the color -- a rich gray with hints of red in it when he suddenly knew that her shape had changed and his had changed to meet it. When the last of his contractions had come and gone, he stopped and they stood for a time holding still and quivering together. Rosa changed then and he was back to holding his woman. He slid out of her very slowly and he picked her up and took her to the bed before he found the sink with the half-barrel of water above it with a hose running down to the tap. He washed a little and then he searched for something to let her drink out of. Rosa watched him from the bed, more in love with him than ever. "Just use the bowl," she whispered weakly, "I don't know what I'm gonna turn into next." He sat on the bed and wiped her face with a wet washcloth before he tried to clean up the places where he'd bitten her and she winced at his touch. "Are you happy?" he asked, "I think that I saw that you went through three changes. I only have two myself." "I did it," she said, "didn't I? Now I have to see if I'm only an, ... abomination or it I'm true." He stopped and looked at her, "Forgive me, "He said, "I want to know only if you will live first. You have made me share your dream, Rosa, but I can only feel comfort now if I know that you will live. Anything else, I can take in my stride, but I want you to live more than anything." He leaned down and kissed her for a moment, "To you, this is a large thing and I understand why, but to me, it is large that you are still mine and breathing. You are true, you know. At least I think so." He put his hand in the middle of her chest, "Change now." A moment later, she was as he was, still looking up at him calmly, "I like it, but what is your hand there for?" He patted her breastbone softly, "Only to feel the beat of your sweet heart, Rosa. It did not change at all. No skipped beats, nothing. I think that you have what you wanted, though you may lose this wonderful human shape soon if the memory of it fades from you." "Welcome to the Xer, sister," he said with a smile in the Xerian tongue as he watched her eyes and his heart pounded in his chest to see that she understood him. She didn't see that the hand that he placed on her chest was there to feel it if she was unstable. Since she showed no sign other than her calm and weary happiness to have managed something wonderful, he let go of the weapon that he had his other hand on, just as hidden from her view because of that hand on her chest. It would have killed him to see it, but if she'd become an unstable thing, he'd have killed her out of mercy. Most of the ones who were turned perished after doing great damage to everything around them in their agony. He'd read of some who had exploded. To his great relief and to her happiness, Rosa had managed the impossible, to go from a human girl to a fine Xer female and survive it. "Can I see what I look like?" she asked and he nodded as he stood up to bring her the mirror. She sat up a little unsteadily and looked down at herself. "I think that I like me," she chuckled. "Hey, ..." He looked at her and grinned. "You must have had your hair long for most of your life," he smiled, "Your body has a self-image and that image has long hair. It's just as well," he chuckled, "That's a nice mane that you have and I think a short one would look a little odd. Your hair is still short in the human shape -- for as long as you can remember it, so change to it often, maybe, though I don't know if that will help anything." "But I cut it for you," she said a little sadly. "And I love it, but I also love you like this. Look down." Rosa gasped, "But, ... " "You have always had more on your chest than you gave yourself credit for. Your lovely fur makes you fill out more now. If it matters to you, I have learned that I like what you have. Here, look at yourself now." Rosa almost felt faint as she stared, "I'm ... "She looked at Tirran, "I'm - beautiful." "You were beautiful before," he chuckled, "I'll have to learn to live with it." She smirked at him and tried to jump from where she sat to pounce on him, but her new center of gravity and the difference in her legs were almost her downfall in a literal sense. Tirran caught her and helped her back onto the bed. "Save your exuberance until you have re-learned the art of walking." But she watched as his face clouded over then. "What's wrong?" He was kicking himself, but he smiled, "Nothing for now, Rosa. But you are a Xer now. On Xer, you have no identity, so you cannot go there with me. I've forgotten, since it really didn't mean much to me, but you and I now have a problem." He began to tell her about the Merren demon that he worked for and some of the things that he'd seen when they'd come here before. Rosa's mouth fell open. "That's where you fly to?" she asked, "Tirran, that whole place, ... man, there's nothing there but bad ju-ju. I've seen people walk in there, but I've never seen one walk out again. You work for them?" He shook his head, "No. I'm a member of the Xer military. I'm on loan to that old creature, and I fly his craft for him. It's not even his. It's a Xer craft, but he's got some connections someplace -- strong ones if he can pull the strings that I've seen him pull. They usually pick worlds apart for something, some resource in the ground -- something that they want. This world was chosen a long time ago, but something went wrong and they've left it alone -- officially. But the one that I fly around has other ideas somehow. I just don't know what they are -- yet, anyway." He looked at her, suddenly finding himself looking at a reason to care for an entire world, "Where did you say that you were from?" "I'm from Colorado, why?" She asked. "I might have to hide you there for a while," he said, "Not yet, but maybe in a few weeks, once I figure out how. You'll be safer there while I try to find a way to get you off-world. But I'm also thinking that it's about time for that creature that I fly around to have a mishap. I can't see that they'd replace him any time soon. I don't know any details, but I know that what he does is against a whole lot of Merren laws." He watched as she sat up slowly, pulling herself up by using the weight of his body. "Move over a little, Tirran," she groaned, "I've just thought of something." She struggled and got her new feet on the floor and she pushed on his shoulder as she stood up a little unsteadily and then worked her way very carefully to where he cloak hung on its peg. "What are you doing, Rosa?" He couldn't figure out what her intent was here. "I think that we have at least a little time to think about things," she said, "In the meantime, I've gotten what I'd always wanted." "You mean that you are a Xer now?" She shook her head, "Yeah, and that's wonderful, but I'm not going to lose sight of how it came to me, through you -- something that I've always wanted. I think that we're having a moment for one of these smokes if there ever was one." He was still uncertain as he watched carefully while she worked her way back to the bed to sit next to him. "You mean that you have the love of a Xer now? Is that it?" "No," she laughed a little, "well, yes and no. For the first time in my life, I've got somebody who loves me and there's no way that I can mistake what I see. I'm in love, Tirran." She laughed a little, "I'm in love and it's the best thing ever." A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 40 ***We're back to the other side of the planet for a little bit. Dakhete is trying to raise a dead capital out of the dust and she'd really prefer that it be populated by more than the shades of the dead. There's a scene in this that's something of a meeting. You'll know it when you get there, but ... if you're familiar with the works of the late Frank Frazetta, then I'd like you to try to imagine these people as being a little like what you'd be looking at in his fanciful jungle queen type works. 0_o -------------- Yasmin awoke alone, but she heard sounds from outside. She got up and walked to go outside as she began to tie her hair. Before she could get to the front doorway, Khyan was with her as though he stepped up behind her. "Wait," he said quietly. "You should never be seen at less than near to your best. I think that you are to be important in this place, so you should always look presentable. Give me a moment to tie your hair." "Where did you come from, Khyan? How long have you been here? Were you watching me sleep or something?" He looked down a little shyly, "I was just at the gates and, well, I wanted to be here, so I came. I am a djinn. We can travel quickly. You know this. I have only been here a moment, only long enough to smile once, I guess. I was not watching you – well, for longer than that." Yasmin nodded and the boy began on her hair. "What is happening outside?" she asked. "The Kandake speaks now with the people. She asks for their help and offers that those who wish to return to their sleep may do so. Those who would remain will be honored for their help. So far, many will stay, from what I have seen. The foundries will smoke once more to make the things that are needed to clear some land to grow crops again. The Kandake says that she does not know if we can sell things and trade yet, since first we all need things of our own to begin. She wishes to attract some of the living to come here so that the place lives once more and is not only full of dead ones such what we see." ------------------------------ It seemed to Yasmin that she never stopped moving the whole day. She learned stances from Piankh and Dakhete – when she had a little time. She practised with her dagger, and whenever she wasn't doing that, she was running alongside Piankh in the heat. Whenever she felt as though she couldn't go on, Piankh would hold her up as she leaned against him panting and thinking that she would surely die if this continued. The pace wasn't brutal, but in that place, it didn't matter much. Being in the sun was brutal. Running in it was worse. As he held her, Piankh would allow her to drink, but it was always a measured amount. "You need what you need, "he said, "not what you want. That may come after. This is to allow you to go on." "You don't need anything," she gasped. "No," he smiled, "not anymore, but I know what you need and how much to give." The warm contents of the waterskin as he poured it over her carefully felt wonderful, and he seemed to know exactly when it would bring her another bit of renewal, though mysteriously, the waterskin never ran out. When she couldn't go on – truly couldn't and collapse was not far off, he picked her up and carefully carried her in his arms as she leaned her head against his chest. "You feel as though you have shown poorly," he smiled," and that is not so. This day, you have outrun many men in distance. We will do this every day. We go now to the river. I have a little food for you, and then we return to practise more." And so it went, every day. The only real change was that their stone slab now had a woven papyrus mattress which Khyan had made for them himself. All day long while Yasmin trained, Khyan strove to help Dakhete and sometimes just found a place to pitch in with the work of the shades in the cleaning and rebuilding. Each night, Khyan walked out through the gates and left with his guard. But the first few days were terrible for Yasmin. The second day was harder than the first. The third was agony to even get out of bed. Every muscle that Yasmin had screamed its pain to her. "It hurts!" she cried out as she lay on the bed with Khyan kneeling over her to rub her limbs. Yasmin groaned, "I know I sound like a little girl, and I do not want to miss a day to learn. I just cannot move without wanting to scream." She stopped suddenly as she felt Khyan's soft and careful kiss on her cheek. "Try not to be so loud in your complaining then," Khyan whispered as he leaned down to kiss Yasmin again, "Piankh's time is valuable and he is needed in many places. If you cry too loud, he will send me away and do this himself. You will be able to move, but you will not like how hard he would do this. Your muscles are stone hard with tenseness, and he has hands which I am sure can break stones." "Not so," Painkh said as he walked in and waved Khyan from the slab, "She is not a soldier. She is to be trained, but not cruelly." He leaned down and smiled to Yasmin as he rested his large and calloused hand in the middle of her back. It felt as though it weighed a ton to her, "I have a little time, enough to teach Khyan my tricks. Watch now, Khyan." He told the boy to stand opposite him and he began to work the muscles of Yasmin's shoulders. He made sure that Khyan could do as he was shown before he moved on. Everywhere that they worked on her, Yasmin felt herself wanting to sob from the pain – at first. After only minutes, the pain subsided into a sort of achy warmth. It wasn't exactly joyous, but it would get her off the slab and ready for more. Her thighs were the worst, and she felt a little self-conscious at first. "Calm yourself," Piankh smiled, "I am not here to romance you. I need you on your feet, and this is the way to get you there. You have nothing of interest to me anymore, other than the teaching of you." Yasmin submitted to the suffering, as well as the slight embarrassment. She asked herself why she felt this way. She ought to have felt little, having grown up naked in the alleyways, always under the gaze of men and boys and having to be quick to stay out of their grasp now and then. By now she knew that Piankh was really just a dead shade and as such felt none of the feelings that a man might have, other that the way that he seemed to have an earnest desire for her to learn. It was then that she noticed that Khyan was suffering a little as well, ashamed at his body's betrayal. She noticed that he had his own difficulties and struggled to hide and ignore them as he worked. Their eyes met and he looked down, mortified at his arousal, but she let her hand slip from the bed and she touched his leg lightly only once. He looked over in shame. "Thank you for coming back to see me, Khyan. I know there are other things that you should be doing for your queen. It's not only Piankh's time which is valuable. I feel better that you're here and wish to help me." They helped her to sit up, but told her to remain sitting. Piankh walked to his seemingly bottomless bag and retrieved a small bunch of bananas. "Eat three now," he said, "This is your morning meal, and it will help with the cramping in your limbs. You need muscle on your frame. To build it, we must tear down what is before we can make what will be. That is where the pain comes from." "Three?" she repeated, "I do not think that I could eat one." "Three," he said, looking at Khyan as the boy tried to flex his cramped fingers. "I think that I want to cry now," Khyan said. "I am sorry, Khyan," Yasmin said, "You work so hard every day, and my childish cries now shame me." "Thank you for your words, Yasmin," Khyan said with a little smile, "I only wish that I could take some of your burdens for you." "Khyan is using his hands more than he ever did in his life like this," Piankh said, "I can see that he always knew hard work, but never something like this as he works here in this dusty city of ghosts. He knew hunting and tracking. I know that he travels far for his queen always, seldom resting. This is different, each task shows little progress and always there is more to do. He does much to help even me. We dead feel things in the living," he said, "and I feel the weariness in his young limbs. It will pass, Khyan, you do well." Khyan smiled in a pained way and nodded. Piankh handed Yasmin's sword to her and they went outside. It was an old thing that he'd found to be not too badly corroded, since it had come from the corpse of a hopeful grave robber not long ago. He drilled her hard, shouting instructions as she scrambled to obey. As she did, Yasmin found her thoughts going back to what had happened less than twelve hours before. The night before had almost been a disaster. After they parted at the gates while there was still plenty of light, Yasmin felt suddenly afraid that Khyan would not return the next day. She walked out to follow, trying desperately to think of what she might say. Before she knew it she was a little lost and went on in the direction that she'd seen Khyan go. She thought to call out, but she felt so foolish. If she were in the bustling alleyways of a city she'd have been picking out little features in her surroundings as signposts to guide her. She realized that she could do the same thing here but it was far too late to begin now. She walked a little farther and saw Khyan disappear into the heavy forest up ahead. Yasmin stopped and her shoulders drooped as she sighed, giving up. She turned to go back but saw no feature which might lead her. She walked anyway trying in the failing light to see signs of her passage. She looked at where Khyan had gone and turned there once more. Just as she entered the forest, she found herself looking at a blur of motion and sounds. There were two large cats threatening her, snarling down low in their throats. One was still in a low slink, and the other looked as though he'd already made up his mind. He was lifting up, his large paws spread, and in the low light there, she saw his claws on the ends of his pads, already extended. She wondered what was holding him back, and after a split-second, she saw Khyan between them, looking ready to deal with whatever followed after him. His weight was on his right hip, and he stood holding his spear pointing in Yasmin's general direction. His left hand was all that held the rearing cat in check, though not by strength of more than his will. Khyan's face was grim, his long hair still flying from the speed at which he'd turned back. Yasmin had a thought that she might possibly be dead in another second, but even so, she thought that Khyan must be the finest boy that she'd ever seen. The grimness evaporated in another instant, and with a shocked word from Khyan, the cats seemed to subside and back down, though it was plain that they'd have wanted to go farther rather than pull back. "Yasmin!," Khyan said, shocked, as he stepped forward, "I knew that I was followed, I did not know it was you. What –" "I'm sorry," Yasmin said, "I wanted to speak to you more, and I followed. I am so lost here, I – I thought that you would not come back anymore. I don't know why, but I was afraid that I ..." Khyan took three steps and planted the butt of his spear into the ground with his first. He looked a little upset with himself and he was, but it was leaving by the time that he began his third step, which brought him against Yasmin and the dark girl from the streets of Marrakesh found herself in Khyan's arms before she could blink. "I will return in the morning," Khyan whispered, "I do not want to go every night, but my guards need to know that I am safe. Also, I need to speak with my mistress and, ..." He looked down, "I see that there is something between you and Dakhete." "It is not what you think," Yasmin said, a little at a loss for how to explain, "We care for each other, and I thought that we might be lovers one day when we met, but ... I don't think that I am what she wants. She seems to fight this, and so do I, a little. I have always liked girls, Khyan. She likes anyone who catches her eyes, I think. But what I seem to have in my heart now is something else that's never been there before." She looked down herself and their foreheads touched. It felt so good to Yasmin to be in the arms of Khyan and the way that his chest felt against hers made her wonder if her heart could stand the almost painful way that it pounded. She reached up and pulled Khyan to her tightly as they looked at each other. "I want to joke that I have always liked girls too, but, I have not ever really been with one," Khyan smiled shyly, "I really have not been with anyone." "No?" Yasmin asked, "You must pass through other places as you travel for your queen." "Often," he said quietly. "Are there no girls there who look and call out to you to stop and talk with them?" Yasmin smiled, "I can't think that one such as you could get through a village or town without hearing at least one such call." He shook his head, "Seldom. I usually travel to quiet places of learning on errands for my queen, dusty old temples and the like, and few say much to the wild boy who walks with huge cats." He looked a little uncomfortable for a moment, "The way that I look, and how lightly I am made, I hear far more comments from men." "Well you are made finely enough for me to wish to look at all day," Yasmin smiled, "though I understand about the men. I have heard things like that from low men such as that too. Do you like me, Khyan?" Yasmin asked in a whisper. Khyan nodded, "Yes, but this is all so strange to-" The rest was lost as Yasmin kissed Khyan. The boy from the forest didn't even resist. He only sighed and began to kiss back. The forest grew darker in the failing light, and the cats prowled around the pair as they kept a watchful eye outward. Other than the quiet sounds of the jungle and the occasional low growl from one of the cats, the only sounds were from the pair who held each other tightly and groaned occasionally. Their long kiss broke at last, and they smiled at each other, one stealing little kisses and then the other doing the same. "I will walk you back, "Khyan smiled, feeling as though he could fly at the moment, "If I can, I will always try to tell you if I must go. If I cannot for any reason, then I will come back as soon as I can."Yasmin nodded and they set off together, holding hands where the width of the trail permitted it. Dakhete met them at the gates. "I was worried," she said, "until I felt that you were with Khyan." She kissed Yasmin, and turned to go, but stopped when she saw the pair looking at each other. "Well?" Dakhete grinned, "Are you not even going to kiss Khyan goodnight?" Their jaws dropped, and Dakhete laughed, "Go on and kiss him. I know the way that you both feel. What I see here is something special, a first love, and that is not to be missed or trampled upon. Hurry now, so that Khyan does not get to where he must go too late." The two laughed a little at being found out even before they'd really begun, but they shared a quiet moment and kissed each other good night while Dakhete looked out beyond them at the cats which prowled farther out. With a long look and smiles between them, Khyan started for the forest again and Yasmin walked away with Dakhete. "This is alright, what Khyan and I – " "Of course," Dakhete smiled as she put her arm around Yasmin while they walked away. "I already love you, but I also know that it is not the same thing as what you might have with Khyan soon, and that is important, I believe. I even want him myself, but not as you do. This may turn into something which happens only once in a lifetime and I will not interfere in it, for we have a different bond, you and I. I must be your teacher, and we can love together if we wish it – when you have reached that day, if you still even have the interest. I had this sort of love only once," she said, looking off into the darkening streets. "It changes one – whether it is between a girl and a boy, or two girls, or two boys. What lies between their legs does not matter. It is what is in their hearts which changes a person, for the better, I believe." "You still think of the one that you loved, don't you?" Yasmin asked quietly. Dakhete nodded, "Yes. It has been centuries and I have been many places, but I still carry that one in my heart. It still hurts me, though I had forgotten it for so long. Being here reminds me, that it all." "If this queen of Khyan's is the one," Yasmin began. "I doubt that she is," Dakhete said, "and what we had is long past. I even hope that she is not the girl that I loved. I would probably wish to kill her for it." ---------------------------------- Khyan walked deeper into the forest until he came to a clearing near to a crumbled stone guidepost. A small cooking fire burned there, and Nasira looked up as Khyan entered the clearing. "Come, my son," she smiled, "I have made our evening meal so that we may talk." Khyan leaned down to kiss Nasira before he sat down next to her with a troubled expression. "I seek answers," he said. "I know this, "Nasira smiled as she held out the food, "and I have them for you, but first, you forget that it is I who sent you so that I might have my own answers." Khyan looked humble as he took the offered platter and looked down, "Forgive me, Mother." "Already done," Nasira said, as though there had been no transgression. "I have three children and they all drive me to distraction, but the others do not even come close to you, Khyan. Wait a little and let me ask what I wish to know." She learned from Khyan who this Kandake was and what she wanted. At the end of it she smiled still. "You will continue to lend your aid in all things," she said, "Dakhete is not stupid, and she will know that I allow this as a small gesture, she may even see that it is a peace offering. I wish to help her in her rise to reclaim what has been lost." "Why do you wish to help her?" Khyan asked, "Why would you care? Or are you the one who she loved long ago?" "In the first place, "Nasira said, "your questions are not in the correct order, so I will answer them as I choose. I begin with the one which has troubled you the longest. You are not the unwanted babe who was returned to me by any tribeswoman. You are, and always have been MY son, birthed from my loins, the youngest and most troublesome, and the one which I wanted the most. I love you all, but you were a want in me to have a child, where they were caused to grow in my womb. Your father was not a djinn. You were fathered by a white-skinned human traveler from a distant land who came here seeking a long-lost culture. Instead, I showed him mine. We loved for a time, but he wanted the gold which lies under the jebel, and though I told him that it was not permitted, he sought to steal from me. For that, I left him in the care of your sisters. Perhaps that is why I treat you as my favorite, though it was never my intent. Before you ask, you were told this to keep you humble, so that you would not act as the queen's son. And before you cry out in your outrage at my ruse, ask yourself if there has ever been anything lacking in your life. I have always given you the very best of my love, have I not?" Khyan had been shocked, and then angered, but even as the words died off in the deep forest, he knew that Nasira had acted correctly. That he'd gotten this far in his young life without being spoiled and wearing haughtiness as a badge was the proof, he had to admit. "I always felt that you loved me very much," he said, still in a little shock. "I have loved you since before I felt your kicks in my womb," Nasira said, "You have never lacked for love from your mother. But knowing me and what we are, I wished for you to be free of the stupidity which comes to the children of ruling parents, for it often only makes them worthless. When I had time for you, being a busy queen, you were always thankful and I knew it. You have always made me proud." A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 40 She picked up a stick then and stirred the coals of the fire a little absently for a moment. "Next, what you wonder is truth. Dakhete and I were lovers long ago. I left because I had to, feeling the call of my own mother, and not wanting to be the wife of a fool. She helped me and I have never forgotten it. But I did not plan to be parted from the greatest love that I have ever known forever. That was beyond my control and when I had freed myself, Dakhete was long gone where I could not find her. Now she has returned. What we had is long dead – especially from her side of it if I still know her a little. But that does not change the fact that I should welcome a sister queen to this land. As far as what went before, I have no answer, and so I will act as though to offer aid where I can. It is the least that I can do." She looked at Khyan and smiled as she pulled her son to her and hugged him, "Now, is there anything that I have missed?" "Dakhete has a girl with her," Khyan said. "As you have told me," Nasira said, "a lovely one. Does she still struggle so hard to learn through the pain of her body's aches at its abuse?" "Yes," Khyan nodded, "I sought to make her friendship and I have succeeded." "Good," Nasira smiled, "for you needed a friend. Everyone should have one friend in their lives who can share the good and the bad which may come." "It is becoming very close, what is between us," Khyan said, looking down, "I know nothing of the things that I feel in me." "Which of us does?" Nasira laughed, "But I know that this is your way to ask advice. Then I tell you to learn one of the wonders of being alive," she grinned, "If it turns into a love as I see that it well could, what of it?" "Yasmin is a beautiful girl, and I know nothing, I – " "I would tell you the same thing if she was a boy and it grew close between you, though I prefer that you have this love with a girl far more," her mother said, "This is not a large city here. Fall in love with her for the good that it will likely do you both. I see times which lie before you when you and she will need the strength of each other, the kind which comes when one that you love is in peril. For that kind of love, there must be a root to it in your hearts, and loving her will plant the root of that mighty strength. For the one which you love – the one who is everything in your heart, there is no impossibility. There is only desperate need in an instant of time. There can be no hesitation. One must act to save the other, and the time after that one instant determines how one lives life ever afterward. You look as though you are surprised at my blessing," she said, "Dakhete is a female, but she was that sort of friend to me. I have never forgotten, I cannot ever forget, and I will never forget her, though I am sure that if we meet, I will have to suffer the arrows of her hatred. There is nothing to be done about that. But when I needed her, she was there. If she ever needs me," Nasira said a little grimly, "she may hate me until the end of time itself, but I will be there for her." ------------------------ As she worked in her lesson, Yasmin knew nothing of the talk between Khyan and his mother the night before. To her, Khyan's queen was in some far-off palace for all that she knew. She only knew that unless she pulled some tactical solution out of her confused mind as she scrambled in the dust to stay clear of Piankh's blade, she was nearing the point where she'd have her ass handed to her by Piankh – again. As she dodged and spun, wishing that she could just run for her life, she saw Khyan's face for a second and Yasmin knew then that she wasn't alone in this. She could feel Khyan's quiet urging to push her weariness from her, to jump a little higher and move a little faster. It came to her then that if it could be done, Khyan ached to stand beside her and fight for her. She almost stopped to stand still at the notion. Piankh could likely kill them both without a thought in a real fight. She supposed afterward that it had been in that instant that she'd had the sudden feeling of surety come to her, and she suddenly knew that she had it within her to come out ahead in this – at least this one time. She had no time to consider what might happen later. She only knew about now. As Piankh came at her again, Yasmin stopped thinking of him as a warrior. She saw him as an enraged shopkeeper who had seen her steal a bit of fruit. Piankh was just larger and craftier, that was all, and Yasmin had never met a shopkeeper who had been quicker than her when she'd needed to be. Yasmin looked past him as he came. She looked right into Khyan's worried eyes. Khyan was very shocked to see Yasmin's quick wink and her little grin just before Piankh arrived with his blade already in motion. She threw herself forward and ducked into a roll under the sweep of his sword which got her past him, and before he could turn, she was behind him, faced with the problem of how to get such a large man down to her level. She didn't even think. She jammed her knee forward behind one of his and since it was the last thing that he expected from her, his knee folded just enough to let her reverse the old sword to pound the pommel into his ribs hard once, but once was all that was required. As he collapsed further, she felt his large hand reach behind himself trying to get a grip of her leg or buttock, something to pull her off with, but he was out of time. They both knew that if this was real combat, she'd already be jamming her old sword in though his kidney or up under his ribs as he went down. Her blade was turned by her wrist and the edge of it was against his throat. "Squeeze very gently as though you love me," she hissed through her teeth as she pressed the edge against his neck a little more. Piankh's eyes were wide for only a moment and then he began to chuckle. Yasmin felt his fingers release his grip before he slapped her haunch softly only once. "Well done!" he exclaimed, "I did not see that as it came to me." She let him up and he almost crushed her in his massive arms as he hugged her for a moment. He looked as happy now as he had when she and Dakhete had arrived. She stood in shock, barely hearing the words as she was given the rest of the day off as a reward. ----------------------- "Great," she grumbled as she walked away with Khyan, "So all that I must do tomorrow is to perform another wonder such as I did today." "Shut up, Yasmin," Khyan laughed as he put her arm around Yasmin's shoulders, "I wish to hear no complaints as I remember what I saw. You brought Piankh down, Yasmin. Just how many times in his time as a warrior do you think that it has happened?" Khyan kissed Yasmin right on the mouth in his joy. "How hard could it be?" Yasmin asked as she laughed along with a shrug, "For a kiss from you like that, I would fight Piankh all the afternoon." "Well it was meant," Khyan said, "and he does love you." Yasmin stopped and turned, "What?" "Oh." Khyan said as though surprised, "I can kiss your lips and you barely slow down, but if I say that Piankh loves you, THAT stops you still. It is true, he told me that he comes to love you as a daughter that he did not have, me as well as the son that he wished for, for how hard we both work to learn and prepare. He has seen us as we swing swords for you to practice. He said that he has taught many, but none who tried so hard. He is proud of you." "And you?" Yasmin asked. "That is the silliest thing that you have ever asked me," Khyan laughed, "Well, after you asked me if I liked you – as I stood holding you to me last night. Such deep things you ask. Come, here is the river. You wear your sweat, his from his hug, and at least a bagful of sand from the street." ------------------------ Dakhete sat on her throne that afternoon deep in thought. She was trying to make sure that she hadn't forgotten anything. There was always so much to be done and details could slip from one's mind as easily as droplets of water from one's cupped hands. It wasn't even a throne that she sat on in truth, but it was good enough and hadn't been damaged as so much around here had been. It might have been little more than a slightly ornate seat for a large man such as Piankh, but it would do as a throne for her, she thought – as much as she needed such a thing. But it was nice enough. She could sit and look regal, or if she felt the need, she could lift her feet and turn sideways to curl up a little on the sparse and thin cushions. Right now, she sat wearing a skirt around her loins wound in the old way of Egypt. She was bare-footed and wore a collar of golden plates which hung down radially from her lovely throat with a pair of thin chains running down to the ornately-vined cups which covered her nipples and not much more. On her head was the golden hood of her office as Kandake, topped with the headdress bearing the cobra of Wadjet. She was a little lost in thought, struggling to remain on task and yet remembering how Yasmin had bested her old friend Piankh earlier. It spoke volumes about him, she thought. Of any warrior whom she'd ever known in her life and travels, only Piankh could feel such joy at being defeated by a slight girl such as Yasmin. But that was Piankh, she thought. Her wonderings ceased and others began as she noticed the motion there beside her. To her amazement, a dark panther stepped out from beside her throne where he'd been for a long while. He was very large for the breed, she noticed, and if the light hit his fur the right way, she could plainly see the spots which would be evident if he were the normal coloring instead of this variant. He hadn't turned yet; he was still walking forward slowly, languidly. With a start, Dakhete noticed the jeweled and studded collar as he turned his head slightly and rubbed the side of his nose against her knee. Dakhete had no fear of the cat, but she was astounded. She was even more surprised when she heard his deep purr. He walked past her and then he turned to look at her. He sat down and licked his paw for a moment before he used it to rub his face for a minute. It made Dakhete smile. But then he licked her knee a couple of times and she had trouble maintaining her composure. It was all that she could to keep herself from reaching out to pet him. She knew what this was, of course. Of all the large cats, the leopard was the one which Nasira loved the most. While this one looked a little different in more than his coloring, Dakhete had little doubt as to his origins. "What?" she asked, and the cat looked a little wounded, but he walked to the balcony and sat down facing the grounds below. Dakhete got to her feet and stepped over to stand beside him. Out there in the multitudes of workers who were at work rebuilding, men and women, she saw someone turn away from her and begin to walk. Dakhete's heart seemed to come off its mountings inside her. That hair, that light skin, here of all places ... Millennia had passed and there was a cloak, but ... She'd know that ass anywhere, she thought. There was no time to call out and it wouldn't have been the right thing to do anyway. Dakhete stepped away from the scene below and she walked to the throne. When she looked down, the cat was right there, looking up at her. "You will lead me?" she asked as she removed her headdress and began to work on getting the elaborate necklace and breast coverings off. The cat only looked up and purred quietly for a leopard. In the chamber where she stood, it sounded like a large saw. She pulled off her bracelets and shimmied out of her skirt. If this was what she thought that it might be, Dakhete did not wish to wear the trappings of a Kandake. She had no desire to hear anything about the 'returning warrior'. She put on a necklace of lion's claws and slipped on a few silver bracelets before tying her hair back into a topknot so that her hair spilled down behind her. "Good enough?" she asked the cat but he only stopped his purring to look at her quizzically. She nodded at him grimly as she stepped to the wall and took up a long spear. "Lead me then," she said, "It must be why you are here." The cat walked away and Dakhete followed. As the two of them walked through the streets, she walked beside the cat so that everyone would know that he was not to be attacked. Outside the gates, the cat walked ahead and the sight caught Yasmin's attention as she sat near the river trading kisses with Khyan. "Look," she pointed as they both stared. "Come on," Khyan said, "I wish to see this, but we will need to be careful that we are not seen." The young pair followed at a discreet distance, falling to the long grasses if Dakhete looked as though she might even be thinking about turning to look back. "What do you think will happen?" Yasmin asked, a little out for breath after one long and very careful sprint. "I do not know," Khyan replied, "but I know that they were lovers long ago, just as Dakhete told of it. My mother said that Dakhete would likely feel hateful toward her." "Your mother?" Khyan nodded, "I learned this last night myself. She has been a good mother to me and we love each other as any mother and son would, I guess. I must admit that after thinking about it most of the night. I have never wanted for her love of me. If there is one thing which can be said of her, it is that she keeps her secrets and can never be expected to do what one thinks. For that panther to be here leading Dakhete, it must mean that my mother seeks a meeting between them." "Should we even be there, then?" Yasmin asked. "Of course not," Khyan grinned, "Come on." They watched as Dakhete reached the edge of the heavy growth and slipped inside. It was more than a minute before the pair began their own approach. Dakhete walked silently through the heavy undergrowth, following the cat who seemed to know the best way anyway. At one point, he stopped, seeming to be trying to decide which way and Dakhete took the time to reach out and stroke his ear a little. He looked up and made no sound, though he closed his eyes in pleasure as Dakhete allowed her eyes to adjust to the gloom in this place. Under the forest canopy and the subsequent layers, very little light reached here to the forest floor. As they walked farther into the darkness, the usual sounds of the forest tapered off behind them. At last, the cat stopped and sat down, looking straight ahead fixedly. Dakhete stood still for a long moment. She wanted all of what her senses could bring her here. Yasmin and Khyan saw the clearing in the darkness and sidestepped away to another point on the periphery of it to observe from as they hunkered down behind a fallen old tree trunk. Dakhete heard the quiet rumblings in front of her. She saw the huge roots of the great trees above which ran over and along the ground wherever they popped up from the soil underfoot. Everything above the ground here was moss covered. Dakhete was certain that if she stayed motionless for only a minute, she could expect to feel the beginnings of her own covering layer beginning. "Good of you to come, Dakhete," a sultry voice said from out of the darkness. Dakhete's eyes snapped toward the source instantly and she saw the thick arching roots reaching as far as ten feet in the air and the cats lounging there on them looking a little bored. One of them gnawed on the carcass of a recent kill, though Dakhete couldn't quite make out what it had been while it lived. There were others a little farther back, some in natural colors and the rest wearing the dark fur which came with the natural melanism that sometimes happened. Altogether, she could see seven of the cats in front of her – not counting the two-legged one in front of them all, of course. That one carried no fur, other than her dark triangle and her long wild mane as she stood with her weight on one leg, the other crossed a little casually in front of it with her arms stretched up to hold onto the roots above and a little behind her. Neither of them knew it, but they both had the same thought at that instant. "Why, oh why was she here naked?" It made all of this just that much harder, each seeing the one who had meant everything to the other at one time. They stood looking at each other for a long time, not saying a word, not needing to, really. They supposed that what they'd had was gone, but for each of them, it was a little good to see that the other was surviving the ravages of time very well. Yasmin felt Khyan's lips near her ear as he just mouthed the words, fearing to be heard and causing this spell or whatever it was to be broken. "They are so beautiful," he said, "I would give a lot only to see them standing together, one light and one dark. I have no words for this." Yasmin nodded and turned her head to whisper back, "I feel like such a small kitten to see them here. They are two who are in their prime. They are old, but it does not show." She moved her arm in front of her slowly and Khyan reached to take her hand. They looked at their own arms for a moment. "We are like them!" Khyan hissed softly. Yasmin nodded and wondered afterward at the thrill of pride that she'd felt for a moment. "Why have you come here with nothing more than that spear?" Nasira asked, "So unlike the young warrior that I knew." "I did not wish for you to make a remark about a warrior needing the trappings of her profession," Dakhete replied, "and how it only shows her weakness in relying on them. I did not think that there was a need of it anyway. Also I knew that if it was you, then you would be here this way, the way that you were when I first saw you." Nasira looked a little surprised, "You remember this?" Dakhete rolled her eyes, "Do you think that I could forget such a thing? The young princess hiding from the wrath of her powerful mother, leaving with nothing as you did?" "To stumble half-drowned straight out of the rushes of the Nile and into the arms of a warrior girl," Nasira smiled, "It made a good tale among young ones for a time, you must admit." "I suppose that it did," Dakhete said, "very romantic, though it didn't end well – at least not to my satisfaction." Nasira looked sad and uncomfortable for a moment. "I owe you much," she said, knowing even as she said the words that Dakhete would shake her head. "You owe me nothing," Dakhete said a little more coldly than she'd meant to. She already knew that this was not going to go as she'd rehearsed this meeting ten thousand times in her mind over the years, the centuries when she'd gotten glimpses of her memories and her pain. She never thought that this would actually happen one day. Dakhete looked over and said "Please Nasira, forget that I said that. I did not mean-" "Yes you did," Nasira nodded, "and taking what must be your view of it, I deserve to hear it from you." Dakhete was surprised at the feelings which she felt rising up in her breast. She thought that she'd been long over this by now. She looked down, biting her lip a little and wanting to hold on to her cold composure – just as she felt it slipping away from her. "Just tell me why," Dakhete said, "It makes no difference anymore, but I would know what I did to you that would drive you to use me like that, to ask me to take your place so that you could have some time, knowing that you would never return to me. What did I do to make that just?" Nasira turned away and looked down, her eyelids clenched tightly for a second after, "Why? You said it yourself. It makes no difference anymore. In any event, there was cause, but I know you, Dakhete. There is nothing that I could ever tell you that would change what is in your heart." A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 40 "If you will now lie to me," Dakhete said, "at least have the courage to tell it to my face." She reached out to take Nasira by the wrist. The leopards changed in their temperament instantly, jumping to their feet to circle and snarl. "Call them off," Dakhete said, her eyes gleaming, "I have faced worse than this when you loved me as I fought for you. What is it to me how many I kill here when there is no love for me and I do not know what I did to lose that love?" "Release me or you will learn of your true peril," Nasira hissed as they glared at each other, "They are not here to protect me. Is this what we have become? I am here to meet my neighbor, the Kandake of Kas and to offer her my help if she would have it. I did not come here to open our old wounds." She pulled her hand free and walked off a little, her shoulders bunched in anger. When she spun to face Dakhete again she raised her hand in an open fashion as she walked back. Her hand was open, but her index finger pointed. The two huge cats next to her roared as they appeared out of nothingness, getting to their feet. Dakhete thought that their great forearms were almost longer than she was tall. She'd never seen cats this large. "These ones are here to protect me," Nasira smiled coldly, "If I close my hand and point once more, ..." Dakhete was furious as she planted her spear butt-first into the ground. "Then do it!" she cried as she stood bent a little toward Nasira with her fists balled at her sides, "Do it Nasira, and complete my confusion at last. Slay me and it will not matter anymore that I do not know and never have why the one I loved more than my LIFE left and never returned to me. You only used me to stand in your stead while you ran away again from something which bothered you. I was left to make my way alone when we swore that we would live our lives together. Well I have done that," she shouted, her voice cracking and her eyes shining with her angry tears, beyond caring that her voice only upset all of the felines more, "I have killed an empire's ruling family in minutes by my hand alone because they caused you to run while I had to remain and pay the price. I stood covered in their blood but it did not bring you back to me. I ruled here because there was no Nasira who wanted to be queen. It was not my want to rule, but the people needed that, and so I did it. When I led my armies against the enemies of Kas, it was what you should have been doing. No word ever came back to tell of what had happened and their bones bleached out in the sun unburied. After a time, the mere finding of one of those battlefields would turn a Roman legion and it did not matter what their centurions and legates commanded, they left Kas alone. I fought your fights. I waged wars in your stead, Nasira. I would have been there anyway, but not as their queen. That was your task, not mine. Wherever I went in the whole land, I always looked for news of you, but I never learned anything. And now I learn that you are a hidden queen right inside the land that I defended for you. What a neat trick. You were gone for two years when I ascended the throne. After ten more years without you, I left. I do not blame you for how I became, but the hole that you put in my heart made it easy to slay whomever I was ordered to slay. I have raised whole armies of silent killers for the ones who commanded me. I remembered little. I only knew one thing in my darkness; that I had been forsaken by one who told me that she loved me once. My light was gone and my joy with it. That and the pain was all that I knew, that I had given my heart and it had been found to be wanting and I assumed that I did not merit the telling of why. Whatever it was that beat in my chest, I left behind me when I left Medewi. But the pain, Nasira, wherever I went, ... whatever I did, ... the pain followed me like the ghost of something that I did, but I never knew what it was." She snorted angrily, "You threaten to have me slain by these cats?" She looked at Nasira and shook her head as she blinked through her tears, "I have stood alone in battle with my enemies all around me, killing all who dared come to me. I have pulled an arrow out of my own thigh and jammed it into the eye of the nearest foe. Just how little do you think of me, to believe that I fear the release of my death?" There was a strained silence in the forest then. Nasira's shoulders slumped, "I should have known that you fear nothing," Nasira said quietly, "You have never feared anything." She sobbed once, and her voice sounded thick in her throat, "Now it is I who must ask you to forget what I said. There is no threat that you would not take as an insult from me and it is not what I meant." Keep your aid," Dakhete growled, "I have had thousands of years of nothing without you. I certainly need nothing from you now." She yanked her spear from the ground and turned to go. "Wait," Nasira said, just loud enough to be heard over the sounds of the cats, "You deserve to know. You will not believe me, and we will both weep our bitter tears afterwards, but at least then you will know and I will not have to carry it anymore. Then you can hate me as much as you wish, Dakhete, until we are both gone." Dakhete stood boring holes in the earth with her glare for a moment. But she made up her mind and her knuckles showed paper-white as she clutched the shaft of her spear, "Keep your secret, I care not anymore." She took the first step in the series that she'd told herself would set her free, but Nasira's soft voice came to her as the only power on Earth which could stop her in mid-stride. "I never stopped loving you," she said. She watched Dakhete frozen for a moment and wondered if the shoulders there shook from emotion or from bitter laughter. "Why?" Dakhete whispered, "Why say this to me now?" She didn't turn around. Nasira stepped forward and Dakhete heard her soft sobs. "You know why I ran from my mother," she said, "You met my mother once when she came to Medewi to look for me. She was mad, raving barking mad, determined that I wanted her throne when really it was the last thing that I wanted, seeing what its possession had done to her. Her advisors and soothsayers told her such tales and she believed them, not trusting in her own senses. When I left to get away from the prince of Kas, I heard my mother's anguished call that I come and help her to get free of the lies of her advisors. I went, for as much as I feared her, I still loved her and hoped that she had seen the truth for what it was. Nasira wiped her eyes as she looked down, "She captured her fool of a daughter in a second. About the only thing that she did not do to me was kill me. Twenty-two years, I was imprisoned. My twisted mother called forth an ancient demon who defiled me every night as she watched. I wept by the hour, Dakhete. You knew me as one who never gave in. If there ever was a time when I needed someone to fight for me, it was then," she sobbed, "but no one knew where I was." She stood looking down with her tears running as she spoke. "Eventually, I found that I was with child." She looked up then with a faint smile as she looked at the forest around them. "Twin girls," she said. "They were always wild and it took a lot of time and love to make them learn not to hurt when there was no cause. Having them saved me," she said, "They played in the dirt of our cells. They grew up in our prison and when it became clear to them that their father would do to them what he had done to me, they licked the bars of our cell wantonly, pleading with him to begin it with them. It was a ruse which they suggested to me. "When he opened the cell, they had him, and while my insane mother stared at how they tore their own father to pieces alive, I had her by the throat. Without a weapon, I was reduced to doing the same as they did. When it was over, I hugged my bloody girls to me, though I had to tell them that we now would not eat our parents and that it was not a good thing to do." She turned to look at Dakhete there beside her. "I freed myself at last," she said, "and then I slew every one of the advisors who KNEW what was done to me in the bowels of that jebel every night for YEARS on end! I slew everyone who knew of it and did nothing to help me." She chuckled to herself, "I could have used your help even then. But you had gone long before and no one knew where." She sniffled and wiped her eyes as she faced Dakhete. "I grew my own strength and I changed everything. I opened the pathways long closed out of my mother's unreasoning fears, paths which lead to other parts of what I rule. I re-established my dominion and along the way, I came to rule over ones such as these." She smiled a little, "You are the first to have seen these large ones and shown no fear. It is to be expected from one such as you, I guess. Now, I am a queen who rules alone. I have subjects in two clans, human and djinn, but they love me as do my cats. I have three children," she said, "the ones that I spoke of, and the young one which you have met. He feels a strong bond with you and your young pupil, so please do not chase him from your land. He has done nothing to you. None of this makes me very desirable to suitors, I suppose," she smiled, "but I have lived my life holding my torn heart in my hands. It grows a little easier every day. And now you have your answer," she said quietly as she walked past her old lover to go. "And now?" Dakhete asked, "What about now? What do you feel now? You said that you never stopped loving me." Nasira smiled a little, "Still the one who can do anything so long as she has some hard shred to consider. It is one of the things that I missed the most." She looked right into Dakhete's eyes and the words came out as casually as Nasira could say them, "I never stopped loving you, Dakhete, never. That we have nothing left is because everything was stolen from us. Your not knowing caused you to think the worst, but my heart never changed. In your place, I would wish for my death too. I know that I wished for my own often enough." Dakhete reached for Nasira but stopped when she saw that same warning look. "So now I know and can feel like a fool all over again." She looked down and brushed a tear from her eye. "I thought that I had been forsaken. If only I had known. I am sorry that you suffered so, Nasira, and I will never again think that I had it badly, now that I know it all. Please forgive me for my hard words. You deserve better than I have given you and I am sorry." She wiped her eyes and groaned, "As I am sorry that I was ever born." She looked down for a moment, "This strange fate has made us neighbors. Now that I finally know the truth of it all, I would at least wish for whatever small friendship that you think that you can show to my lands and the people. The world may have turned us into what we have become, but to have a neighbor such as you would seem to me to be a small way to spit in fate's eye." Nasira looked back and nodded after a moment, "Then let it be so and we shall see if it can become an alliance. I think that our young ones need that. I would hate to think that they might decide to run off one day because we quarrel. That would be perhaps the unkindest twist of irony to me, that my son has run away just as I once did." "Our young ones, ..." Dakhete said in curiosity. "Yes," Nasira replied, "your young pupil and my son. Another bit of irony, my old friend. They hide together and listen over there," she pointed. "Come here," she called out beckoning and the pair stood up and approached slowly. "You say that you wish for my friendship, Dakhete? The truth is that you have never lost it. I know that if you had known what had happened to me that you would have torn the jebel down with your hands if you had nothing else. I only lost everything when you gave up, not knowing where to look for me, I just did not know of it then. I do not fault you for anything. You waited and searched for a dozen years. You teach your student there," Nasira said, "Do me a kindness and teach my son as well for me." She put her arm around Khyan's waist, "You will come to the throne one day. I wish for you to learn from our neighbors. You will still be as my emissary and you may act on my behalf if you have the need." She reached out and the two stared at each other as Nasira touched Dakhete's arm lightly. "What I wish from you, Dakhete is that we make the time to talk between us. I do not care how it is to be done. I can come here, or you can come to Jebel Barkel as it is your wish. My door will be open for my sister queen and we will see what can be made out of it. Perhaps nothing, since it has been so long, but if we do not try at least to talk between us, then it is a certainty that nothing ever will. Khyan has told me that you would seek living people in your land. I have some and better, they are merchants who know other merchants and makers of things. I just want others in our lands again." "I am not troubled by it," Dakhete said, "but I wish to know how it is that I rule a land with a kingdom inside of it. I only learned of it lately when I met your handsome Khyan. How did such a thing happen?" "It is an old tale," Nasira said, "You rule from Medewi, the main city of Kas. Before Medewi was the capital, Kas was ruled at Napata, a city founded by an Egyptian pharaoh as the southern limit of Egyptian rule. When Egypt grew weak, Kas rose to rule for a time. But Napata was placed where local people had always come to trade, because Jebel Barkal is there and can be seen from far away. Before there was a Kas, there was Kerma, the same people at an earlier age. Kerma became an empire itself which made the Egyptians unhappy for many of the goods which were important to Egypt were controlled and traded at Kerma which lay outside their influence. Egypt crushed Kerma, though it took a long time, and as Kerma faded, Kas rose and Napata rose with it. When Egypt had weakened enough, the people once crushed under Egypt's heel came to rule them. When Napata was known to be too close to Egypt as the black pharaohs' influence began to fade, the capital was moved to Medewi, since everything was here that was needed as well as iron to make steel for the swords of the Kas armies. Your people traded to the east and left Egypt to rot in their empty self-importance. But Jebel Barkal the mountain was there long before any of this. It is one of the places where the djinn have always gone, and is an important gateway of my kingdom. No one knew of us and we watched as one empire rose while another one fell, over and over. It is not so much that my kingdom stands inside your own, Dakhete, it is that yours grew around my mother's gate long ago. But I make myself sound so old and wise to say it this way," Nasira smiled, "when you know that I am a year younger than you. This is only what I have learned myself, seeking to know the answer to the same question as you have asked. I do not rule a kingdom of land, not much anyway. I rule the gateways, and the paths, the roads, and the tunnels of an old race. Teach my Khyan what you will and what he wishes to learn, and I will teach you and your Yasmin how to use my roads. Rebuild your city with your dead ones at first and I will send living subjects to grow the influence of Kas once more. The Egyptians are gone, along with the Assyrians and Askumites who came to conquer Kas after you left. Be a friend to me once more and you can reclaim or rebuild Musawwarat es-Sufra, and Naqa as well as Shendi with my aid. It would make me happy to help you." Nasira looked at the two teenagers and smiled, "Who knows, Dakhete? Perhaps this friendship that I see growing between the kittens can rule what we leave behind for them." "It grows dark soon," Dakhete said, "and none of us have eaten, I am certain. Come to Medewi, Nasira. There is food enough for all, even your companions. We have not seen each other in so long and I have no wish to take up my duties again today. Yasmin has earned herself a rest from her training. Please come, it is not yet what I need it to be, but ..., Oh, please come. If I have not lost your friendship, then I wish to spend time with you. There is so much to speak of." "This pleases me," Nasira said, "but I have no clothes, other than my cape. I do not think that it would do to come to Meroe as the naked queen of Jebel Barkal. Your subjects would think that it has fallen on hard times," she smiled. "I do not even have my cloak," Dakhete grinned, "What of it? We are ruling queens, Nasira. If I cannot walk down my streets dressed as I wish, then,..." "I know," Nasira smiled, "We only need an entrance, no? I can manage to provide the spectacle if you can manage the food." A few minutes later, Dakhete looked around, "What are all of these other cats here for, if they are not to protect you, Nasira?" "They are the guards for Khyan," she smiled, "I know that he travels as one in fur rags most often, but he is still one of my children. They can behave in a proper place, these cats. Most of his are like leopards, though there are two who are long toothed cats. The one who wears the collar is my gift to you, Dakhete. Actually, he gives himself to you and he is not even a leopard. He has liked you since you came, wanting only to be near you, but never knowing the way to begin until I sent him today. Before that, he spent his time near the edge of the city, hoping for a look at you. He is happiest when you go to the river to bathe and he can be close by, hiding in the grass." "In the grass by the river?" Dakhete was a little astounded, "And I never knew." "Have you seen any crocodiles there of late? Do you think that it was your dead soldiers?" Nasira smiled, "These ones can kill a crocodile larger than themselves with little more than a look. They are not like the cats here, and there is nothing stealthier than one of these cats. You are lucky if he did not lick your haunch and you did not know of it. He sits over there where you left him. I can see that he is feeling a little sad, thinking that you do not want him. These are not ordinary cats. You will never have to scold him for spraying in the corner. It is for you to decide if you have the room for him in your heart, Dakhete. You may keep him, as he hopes, or you may leave him and I will send him home." Dakhete looked at the dark animal. He still sat where he'd been all of this time. He looked around now and then but mostly he sat watching Dakhete. "Does he have a name that he knows?" she asked, "How am I to call him?" "His name is something which you and I could never say. He knows himself as either 'Saddiq' the Arabic for 'true or truthful' and simply 'Anmar' – 'leopard'. Either one will do for him or both if you prefer." "What use is it to call him by what he is if there are several? What would happen if I say the name now? All of them would turn?" Nasira shook her head, "No. Firstly, the largest ones are not leopards. Secondly, if you meant the one who wishes to be a friend to you and you say the word, only he would turn. They know what is meant. Have you not noticed that he seems to understand what you say to him? They are wise. And do not worry about what is said in his presence. Unless it concerns him, he is more interested in the birds. Make him happy and call him Saddiq Anmar. It is what he would wish to hear from you." "True Leopard?" Dakhete smled, "It is a little odd for a cat, no?" "Look into his eyes," Nasira smiled, "and you will know." Dakhete tried not to be obvious, but she did find herself admiring him, as she'd done from the first moment that she'd been aware of his presence in her throne room. He was larger, and more heavily built. He must have been over six feet from his nose to his haunches when he was standing on all fours, and then there was that tail. Quiet strength and grace lay all over him. "I have never seen such a fine leopard," Dakhete said, "and you know I do not lie. I will return," she said. She smiled to herself and walked to where the coal dark one sat looking at her with interest as she approached. His eyes grew large when she knelt before him. A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 40 "So you have been spying on me, handsome boy? I wish that I had known. I need a wondrous male in my life these days, you know." She reached out and stroked his cheek for a moment and watched as his eyes closed and that sawing sound began again. It stopped suddenly when Dakhete leaned forward and kissed the top of his nose. As she leaned back, his eyes opened and he stared at her for a moment before her world tumbled into a blur and she found herself almost flat on her back as he held her down gently with one paw on her shoulder so that he could lick her face. Dakhete sputtered and laughed, forcing him to let her up by pressing against his chest so that he understood. They looked into each other's eyes and Dakhete suddenly knew that his intellect was far closer to hers than it was to a normal leopard. She felt nudges at the edge of her consciousness and knew that he tried to communicate. "You surely are wondrous if you try to talk to my mind," she told him as they stared at each other until he carefully placed one paw on either of her shoulders and slowly brought his head forward to rub against hers. She hugged him for a moment in spite of his weight, "Come, Saddiq Anmar. Let us go. If you wish for me as your friend, then wish no more. I did not know that you sought to know me. Who could resist a fine one such as you?" They walked back together, "I seem to have acquired a boyfriend somehow," she laughed as she walked, resting her hand on the cat's neck. Yasmin came to meet him and she fussed over him. "What about Yasmin's donkey?" Dakhete asked, suddenly worried for the ass if there was now a large cat in her life. "He knows about the beast already, he has seen her," Nasira said, "though it may take a time for her to adjust ... to being the most closely-guarded donkey alive." "No," Yasmin said. "Oh yes," Khyan grinned, "It will be fun to watch. She will try to move away, and he will try to stay close, thinking that she needs his protection. She will think that he stalks her and move again. Finally, she will bolt, and he will catch her, but he will not harm her. Sooner or later, she will accept it and ignore him." "If she does not kick his teeth out of his head," Yasmin laughed, "You do not know my Najmah." Nasira nodded, "There is much to know of these ones and I can tell of it later. Know only that to him, you are to be guarded, for in his way, he sees you as one that he wishes to be near." She smiled a little, "Khyan tells me that you have a large bed. That is good, because you will need it. He would sleep very near to you always. It is their way. If you wake in the night, you will see that he does not sleep, really. He will watch and guard ceaselessly. If you need more room to sleep, then only say it to him gently. You will be alone and he will prowl the house and the grounds. The largest adjustment that you will need to make is to train him that you may not wish to do everything in his company. You may need to use the commode and he will be locked outside as you do your business. He will be silent almost always but it is right then, when you wish no one to know what you do that he will make noise because he is so upset that you have left him outside. The neighbors will think you are torturing some animal when all that you wanted was a quiet piss alone. Bathing is another trying task," she smiled. "Bathing?" Dakhete laughed a little, "What danger is there for me in that? He is a cat, yes?" "He is a cat, and his kind like the water, unlike the other cats. And this one," she smiled, "he loves to swim, and a bath would make him happy, though it cannot be hot." Dakhete threw back her head and laughed. After this long day and the emotions which had come to her, to hear something such as this, it was too much. "Nasira," she chuckled, "I thought that you were giving me a cat, not a husband." Her old friend smiled and shrugged, "I wish for you to know that I am warning you fairly. This boy," she said as she ruffled his ear, "he will find his own way into your heart. Before you know it, he will be a companion such as you have never known, and you will know nothing of it until the day that you cannot take him with you for some reason. He will be upset, but not as much as you. I am not giving you a pet, since that is something which he could never be. I am giving you a friend who already holds you in his heart. You will see," she nodded. It was a strange procession which passed through the dark forest and then began to make its way across the grasslands toward the city gates. Its passage was more like a rumor than anything really noticeable. Two huge cats slunk along in the center of a vanguard of leopards who paced them from the perimeter of a twenty yard circle. The cats themselves were remarkable due to their size, but it was the ones who rode on them that might cause the most attention. On one, Khyan sat in front leaning forward a little to keep his hands on the shoulders of the animal while Yasmin sat behind him with her hands on Khyan's hips. "This is not like riding on Najmah at all," she said, "the movements are different." "If this one runs," Khyan said, "she will smooth out much more than a horse or an ass to ride upon. But the challenge comes when she turns. A horse's turns are a little predictable, once one is a good rider. A cat changes direction much faster." On the other animal, Dakhete held onto Nasira loosely as they rode. "I do not understand something," she said, "I have seen all sorts of large hunting cats all of my life, wherever I have gone. I have never seen ones such as these. Some I know, like the leopards, but the ones with the long teeth, I have never seen before. These two largest ones, they look like tigers with different marks, but no tiger ever reaches this size. And of all of them," she smiled down at her dark companion who trotted beside her, "I have never seen one like Saddiq Anmar. I feel that they are all very bright in their minds. Where do they come from? How is it that all of these different kinds of cats can even stand to be near each other. It seems ... unnatural." "From what was before, and what still is, this is unnatural," Nasira said quietly, "but these cats are not the same as the ones that are still here, the ones that we have always seen. A long time ago now, something changed very quickly in the world. It happened so fast that many did not ever know what it was that had killed them, even as they were dying. I almost missed it completely, since I was in my bed. The world moved with no warning. It was over in an instant, the same way that it had begun, but when I looked out from Jebel Barkal much later, I saw broken buildings below; smashed tombs and even some temples had been destroyed. My head hurt, for I found myself on the floor, and the bed was on top of me. After that, it was still. Things seemed just as they had been. But they weren't. There were dead and hurt humans everywhere, and that was only there. I can only imagine what must have happened in one of their larger places. I had been exploring some of the paths which my mother had closed long before. I knew that the one that I had been near to the day before led to a beautiful, but empty cavern. It had always been so. But when I went again to open the way, I found these cats – many, many large cats of all sorts. From them, I learned that some of where they lived and been destroyed and they were trapped in the cavern. I was hailed as a great hero for only opening a way for them to get out so that they could hunt and eat. A little later, I found the blockage to where they had come from and I opened that for them and they were reunited with their loved ones. They made me their honored friend for it all, and any of them would do whatever I wanted after that. They do not like it here as much as they like where they are from. I have been there, and there is so much game that you could almost hold out your hand and your dinner jumps onto it. I told them that if they cherished their freedom, they must stay away from humans, and I told them what had been done to cats and other creatures all through history" "But, ... they are cats," Dakhete said, "how did you learn what they wanted? You cannot speak with them, can you?" "Have you not felt how your new friend there tries to speak with you?" Nasira smiled, "He has much that he wishes to say." "I felt something, like a little push in my mind, but, ..." "Wait until you can be alone with him for a little while without the fear of being disturbed," Nasira said, "Touch him then, anywhere. Scratch his chin or only lay your hand on his shoulder and allow this push. You may even try to push back. Sooner or later, your two minds will speak to each other and you will need no words. This is how they hunt, always talking silently to each other. What is important is that they all told me that they had always been near the cavern, just not in it. But from this side, there was no opening and never had been, only the opening from my path to an empty cavern. I think that this is another thing that was changed that night. There are creatures now that were never here before, but they say that they were. I have no answer. By the way, it means little to us, since even I have not learned enough to understand it all, but your handsome one there, he comes from one of their royal families. You might see it if you watch how they are to each other. Even these large ones that we ride now, they will defer to him. Among their kind, he is the highest one here. It is a little funny. He came to me asking to see this world, so I brought him and it was just before you came to Medewi with Yasmin and her donkey." She chuckled, "I did not even know that I had a new neighbor yet when he came running to me through a tunnel that may be used to come to Medewi quickly, desperate to talk about the female that he'd seen in the dead city. I had no idea who he was talking about, but then Khyan's voice was in my mind to tell me of it. I told him to show himself to you and seek to learn what he could. Then I sat down with Saddiq Anmar and really listened. He told me that he had seen a great and beautiful queen, and he had seen her raise the dead. This meant something important to him, very important." She turned her head and smiled, "I do not know how to really say it. He is a prince, and has had his choice of many females before. He is used to being served, yet he seeks to serve you alone now. For his own reasons, you are very special to him, so you should ask about it as soon as you can understand each other clearly. I asked what I could, but he was so excited and smitten with you. He told me that he had to be near to you. He said that he wished to give himself to you. I was a little cautious and asked what he meant by it, and he said that if he could see you and you were to like him, that he would want to be yours, that it would be the purpose of his life to guard you and keep you safe. He said that if it happened, then he would explain it all to you as clearly as he could. I think that they have this goddess and that she was lost to them somehow. Seeing you and how you raised some helpers, I think that he believes that you are she in a different body. He says that he sees her in you. Anyway, you should ask." Dakhete tried to see what had happened from the cat's view and she groaned to herself. When Nasira asked, she said, "I think that I know why he sees the goddess – whoever she is. I did not raise a few helpers, Nasira. I was furious and upset at the desolation that I saw around me in what was left of Medewi. I wished to see something which would make me feel just a little better." "What did you do?" Nasira asked. Dakhete sighed, "I raised the army of Kas," Nasira almost turned herself around in her seat on the back of the cat, "The army? Do you mean the city troops?" "No, I mean the army," she sighed, "the full might of Kas, whomever could hear my servant's voice and come," she said, "I would guess more than twenty thousand troops only, over a hundred elephants, perhaps three thousand archer girls, I raised them all. I did not know that anyone watched." "Well, two did," Nasira said, "and perhaps three. Khyan and his single guard from the mountain, and Saddiq Anmar as well. He saw what you did." She looked at Dakhete, "He could be right. I never knew that you could do such a thing. You have grown your own strength, Dakhete. Perhaps you are his goddess." Dakhete shook her head, "I am the same person that I have been for more than three thousand years, Nasira. What he thinks cannot be." "I know that," Nasira said, "I tried to tell him. He said that the goddess had been gone for longer than that." "Well if that is so," Dakhete grinned, "then he must surely be confused. It is bad enough being this old. If his goddess is older, she must surely be a wrinkled old thing with her tits on her knees when she stands. I am bad enough." "No, you are not," Nasira said, and the tone of vehemence and finality surprised Dakhete to hear it. She sat forward a little and leaned to get close to Nasira's shoulder, "What have I said, Nasira? You sounded a little upset there. I meant nothing by it." Nasira sighed and hung her head a little, "I know, Dakhete. It is just, ... a little hard for me. I think that it was easier not being this close to you. I should have had you ride with Khyan. You always used to talk yourself down a little and it always bothered me. I have always thought that my girl was the most beautiful one alive. I still do, after all of this time, though everything has changed and we are not together anymore. But I still hate it when you belittle yourself. It bothered me then, and I am surprised, but I find that it bothers me still. Please forget that I said anything." "Please forget that I even said the words," Dakhete replied quietly, "I should have remembered this." She smiled as she looked at the grasslands around them in the twilight, "The way that you thought of me then, I felt as though there was not anything that I could not do if I only held your words to me in my mind and remembered how you looked at me when you said them. There was no fight that I could not win, no hardship that could even slow me then." "I know," Nasira smirked over her shoulder, "That was why I said them to you – and they were the truth from my heart." She sighed to herself, "And I always felt your heart pounding against me. It gave me my own strength to know love such as yours." They rode in silence for a while after that until Nasira felt Dakhete's arms around her in a brief, but heartfelt hug before she sat back again. "Forgive me, Nasira. I only wanted to feel that once more." Nasira said nothing, she only nodded, but Dakhete heard her quiet sniffle a little after. "They have their old troubles," Yasmin said quietly to Khyan, "I wonder what will happen." "If I know my mother," Khyan whispered, "she will try to forge this friendship anew, and yet, she will stay behind her fence. I have told her a thousand times, perhaps, but she does not hear my words, or she discounts them as coming from her own son. I do not know how she was before when they knew each other, but even I can see that she has changed. My mother feels as though she was damaged by what happened to her. She uses any excuse to gainsay what I tell her when I say that she should not hide herself away so much. She says that there is no one for her anymore and there never will be again. She says that no one would want to know the old queen who hides inside Jebel Barkal. That one, she says has little beauty to anyone's eyes. That one has living proof that she is old, having a son my age. Then she asks who I think it would be who might want her, once they learn of my sisters, as though they are ugly themselves. Can you believe that?" Khyan asked, "My mother is so beautiful, and while it is true that my sisters are wild and perhaps a little dangerous to ones who do not know them better, they are lovely as well, though in a darker way, perhaps. Still, I think that their beauty could stop anyone with a heart. I love them too. I have spent a long time teaching them of everything. They wish to come and live in this world, and not only hide in their chambers." "I would like to meet your sisters," Yasmin said, "and if I can help in any way, then only say it, Khyan. Your mother is very wrong if she thinks that no one would want her. Look at Dakhete. Oh, I want to cry to think that they lost something that was their own. I have never heard a sadder tale than the one that we heard today. Look," she said, "Your mother said that Dakhete never lost her friendship. There must be something that we can do." "Why do you sound so, ... angry, so indignant all of a sudden?" Khyan asked over his shoulder. "Because," Yasmin said, doing her best to hide a little sob, "Because, ... well, I'm afraid." "Afraid?" Khyan thought his eyes would get stuck from trying so hard to see over his shoulder, "What?" "I am afraid," Yasmin whispered, looking down. It was almost impossible to hear from where Khyan sat, but he caught it. None of it made any sense to him. "If they had this great love between them so long ago, well, ... Khyan, they are so unhappy now, and have been forever. What is the point then? It all turns to nothing." "Come here," Khyan hissed, "You are too far away like this, and I think that I am breaking my own neck. Come closer." Yasmin shifted herself forward. "Closer, Yasmin," Khyan hissed, "Do you want them to hear us?" Yasmin moved as far as she could. That brought her right up against Khyan, who wasted no time in reaching to grab Yasmin's hands and placing one of them around his waist and the other one up as far as he could from under his right arm to lay it over his heart. "There," Khyan said, "This is the point, right here. This is why. Pull yourself tighter to me, as tightly as you can. Now just hug me. This is everything. Can you feel it?" Yasmin had her cheek against Khyan's shoulder, "Yes," she whispered with a sob. "Yes," she nodded a little. "Good," Khyan smiled as he turned his head and pressed it back against Yasmin's forehead a little. "Don't you ever say such a thing to me again, Yasmin, I mean it. What happened to them just happened. It does not mean that it happens to everyone. If you are trying to tell me that you do not want to be close to me, then say it. But don't stop my heart like that again over something that has not happened. All that I know is how I feel," he said, "and that is what I go by now. I was very uncertain before, but I am not now. Now I am certain. I do not wish to hear anything less from you – unless that is truly how you feel." "No," Yasmin said, squeezing her eyes shut and causing a tear to run from her cheek to Khyan's back, "No, Khyan. I am certain. I was only afraid, but I am not now, not when I hold onto you like this." She took a deep breath and let it out. It eased some of her tension, but that didn't change what had been on the tip of her tongue demanding to be said. "Khyan?" she whispered, "Khyan, I ... " She sighed and that finally helped her over the top. "I love you, Khyan. I really do." It earned her a quiet curse from Khyan and she lifted her head with her heart in her throat. "What have I said? I thought that you wished to hear that." Khyan chuckled quietly as he lifted Yasmin's hand and bent his head at the same time to kiss it softly for a moment. He placed it back over his heart, and held his own hand over it. "You can make me go mad," he chuckled, "and I ache to thank you for it. What is happening to me? You barely accept a kiss from me and want to hear about how Piankh loves us as though we were his own children. I spend over an hour kneeling next to you with ants crawling over my legs while we watch those two fight and argue. Now you tell me something which makes me want to hold you to me forever, and I am facing the wrong way. How do you do it, Yasmin? A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 40 I love you so much and you make me crazy." "You, ... you love me too?" Yasmin asked in a tiny voice. "Yes," Khyan nodded, "only please do not ask me to kill anyone's family yet. I am not ready. My mother told me that Dakhete was the greatest fighter alive when they were young, and it did not matter what weapon was used. I do not think that she has weakened at all over the years, so we have a long way to go before we can slay anyone who stands in the way of what we have." "Shut up, Khyan," Yasmin smiled with her face pressed against Khyan's shoulder. She took a breath and let it out and wanted to sing because the breath had changed nothing of what she felt. Her eyes were closed and she was happy. "Shut up, you are babbling. I will hug the correct side of you the very first chance that I have of it." Dakhete nudged Nasira's thigh once gently. When Nasira turned her head, Dakhete said nothing, she only pointed. Nasira looked at the young pair and smiled, "Thank you for coming today," she whispered. "I could not help it," Dakhete said, "I must have been sitting and waiting for your invitation, for I did little but think. As soon as I saw Saddiq Anmar with me, I knew that the invitation had come. I came as soon as I could get my clothes off," she chuckled. "I did not understand your reason for coming naked until you explained, "Nasira said, "It made sense then. You are still a walking wonder." Dakhete nodded, "Even a goddess to some," she grinned, "You cheat time very well yourself. It was so good to see you the way that I knew that you would come. Thank you for that, Nasira. It was a joy to look at you once again." She looked at some faint markings on Nasira's back. They were very hard to see in the failing light, but they were there, and intricate series of very pale scars in patterns. "Nasira?" "Yes?" "You told me that I am still your friend. Hearing that made my heart sing to know that at least I had not lost that." "That is the truth of it, Dakhete," Nasira said a little carefully, "Why?" "Well," Dakhete began "I have no wish to test it, but I have something to ask you. The trouble is that I fear to upset or insult you. I think that we have both had quite enough of it today. Perhaps I ought to just hold my tongue and cherish my blessings." "No" Nasira said, "Ask me anything and I will answer. We were always honest between us before. Ask." Dakhete shifted a little and made sure to have Nasira's cloak handy. "They are hardly able to be seen," she said," but there is a very intricate series of scars on your lovely back. I did not know what to think at first for I have never seen anything like them in my life and I know that they were not there before we parted. As I have been riding here, I thought that they were left behind by a whip knowing what you said to me, but then I have had the time to look closer and I see that they are patterns. They run from your shoulders to your thighs, and the more that I look at them, the more care that I see at how they were done. One has to look very hard for a long time to even see them at all." She watched as Nasira hung her head for a moment, but then her head came back up as she watched the trail ahead. "What of them then?" "Nothing," Dakhete said, feeling beyond foolish, "Once again, I have said something that I should not have gone near to. I see how you sit now with your shoulders tight, and I am sorry, for I see by this that they were not wanted by you." "They were cut into my flesh every night over two years by the foul demon who tortured me before he raped me every one of those nights. I cannot read them, but they say that I am owned. They would have said the name of my owner, but that was the last part of it, and he was about to begin it on the night that my daughters killed him. They have been fading for all of the time since. I meant what I said, Dakhete. You are still my friend, and I have spoken the truth. Now, tell me why you wished to ask about them." "I regret my question now, but since I have put my foot in my mouth so well, I will answer as my friend has – truthfully," Dakhete said quietly. "I sit here behind you with your cloak in my hand because I may have hurt your feelings by asking. I cannot read what was written into you. I know nothing of this, and they are fading away anyway. I think that they cannot be seen in full light, and need something softer to be seen well. I want to cry, Nasira, both for what you must have suffered and for my stupidity in asking this. The shame here is mine. Please forgive me. Here is your cloak if you wish to cover them." Nasira's hand flew back to take her cloak and Dakhete gave it to her. "What did you wish to say?" Nasira asked, "I am not angry with you and I feel no worse about them tonight than I ever have. I only forgot about them or I would have worn this cloak in the clearing." Dakhete struggled for a moment, "How can I even say this, knowing how these came to be here?" She looked down and shook her head. "I am still the biggest fool who walks the earth. I would have thought that by now there might be another champion arisen but no. Nasira, remember that I speak the truth and began this without knowing but I think that they look good. I only wish once more that I had known and could have come to your aid. The suffering, it must have been –" "It was," Nasira said without looking back, "it was agony. Every day new cuts and every day salt rubbed into the older ones so that they did not fester. At least he was a master at this if it can be called art. You say that you like them?" "Yes," Dakhete nodded, "I do. I would rather that they not be here because of the price to you, but without knowing that. I thought that they were marvels. Nothing was done that was not a part, I can see that. They have faded to mysteries now, but if it had been what you wanted, I would pay my highest regard. But they were not. I am sorry, Nasira. Please forgive my stupidity." Nasira hissed though her teeth in frustration. "Do – you- like – them?" she asked, "The knowledge of the pain aside, the knowing why I was being marked aside, from only the marks and how they look on me, do they please you to look at?" "Yes," Dakhete said. "Good," Nasira said as she threw the cloak behind her into Dakhete's surprised hands "because I wear them for you. There are the gates ahead. Put my cloak around my shoulders, Dakhete, and if we get a little time I may explain the mystery to you." The cats slowed to a slow and regal walk. The gates were open, since there was really nothing which might threaten the city or its inhabitants, but that didn't mean that it was unguarded. A pair of sentries appeared in the gateway as they rode up. Yasmin gave it a quick thought and before anyone could speak, she said, "The Kandake wishes to welcome her friend and sister queen, Nasira bint el-Jebel, queen of Jebel Barkal, along with her son and emissary, Prince Khyan bint el-Jebel." The guards almost dropped their shields as they bowed while the party rode through the gates with their escorts. "Why did you do that?" Dakhete asked Yasmin. She shrugged, "It may not be much yet," she said, "but this is far better than a brothel in Marrakesh. I thought that if we have the company of two such important friends, then those friends should be honored." "What have you to say to that?" Nasira asked, grinning. "Nothing," Dakhete smiled, "Yasmin is right." ----------------------- Najmah was not pleased. She stood in the corner of the yard and brayed as she shook in her fear. It took a long time before Yasmin could get her settled down, and no one had ever seen a donkey move quicker to get inside the house. Piankh showed up and was immediately given the task of getting dinner prepared somehow. As always, he slapped his chest and smiled to begin. When he returned to report that dinner was underway, he told them all that the palace was at least ready enough to be lived in, and that was where dinner would be served if it pleased the Kandake. Dakhete nodded a little nervously, "Fine, Piankh, but what about beds? There are four of us here and – " "Not counting the servant's quarters, there are six bedchambers in total," he said, "and four are ready for use this night. All have new mattresses and all have blankets. I leave the arrangements to the Kandake but I wish to say that I have repaired and filled the royal bath, though some of the paint on the walls may still be wet." For the second time in a half-hour, Dakhete's jaw fell open, though this time she was pleased. "Lead me, Piankh," she said, "Lead me, you amazing man." They stood staring at the placid surface of the large sunken bath in the large bathchamber a few minutes later. "It took two days to replace and extend the filler pipe from the river," Piankh said, "and I had people in this for all the morning cleaning out all of the mud which came at first, but it is ready to be used now." "What you said as we rode here," Dakhete said after the meal. They sat together sipping beer since it was all that Piankh could find for them on such short notice. "What was meant, other than almost causing me to fall off?" Nasira laughed a little, "I am a little sorry that I could net really see your face then. Dakhete. I had this torture and pain every night and I knew that I was losing my mind." She looked away for a moment at her son and Yasmin as they played with Saddiq Anmar, or more correctly, he played with them, for they tried to tease him with something to chase, but to all eyes but their own, they were the ones doing most of the chasing. Najmah stood in the courtyard with some hay, looking thoroughly disgusted at all of the cats there. At least they were leaving her alone. "After a time, I wanted to kill myself, but it was not possible, no matter what I tried to think of, and anyway, I had my two daughters to think about. So I decided to pretend," Nasira said, as she took another sip. "I went through it the first time, but then the Demon was back years later to begin all over again, this time with the cuts as well. I would pretend that you and I were still together, and I knew that I loved you so. Thinking of you made it all a bit easier for me. But what to do about the cuts? I could not even see what had been done, but after a while, my twins assured me that it was pretty – if one could ignore the blood and everything. So if it was pretty, then I began to pretend that I was not being tortured at all. I pretended that I had found a merchant who did this sort of work, but that it was for decoration. That made it easy for me to pretend further that I was having this done for you, that it was to be a gift from me. After that, I barely made any sounds at all, until the demon used the salt. Then I closed my eyes and imagined that I was killing him. But we were coming to the end of it. He said to me one night that it said that I was owned, but that the last part would say that it was he who owned me. My daughters had thought of a plan to lure their father into the cell, by crying out their lust for him and wanting the same things that I had to live through. They had been asking me for permission for this, but I had trouble, thinking that they would be murdering their father. But when I was told that I would now be marked as his, it was enough to push me the rest of the way and I assented so that we might all think to prepare. After it was over and I began the long night and next day that would soil me forever as a cruel murderer, I thought about the cuts again and wondered what to do. There was not much that I really could do, other than have more scars made, So I decided that if I ever saw you again, I would tell you that I was marked and that it had been for you." She chuckled, "But after everything today, I just forgot all about it and there I was showing you the scars on my back and not meaning to. As bad as it all had been, I think that if it had been done less cruelly and had you asked me for it, I would have done it for you. So if you like it, then I have the best ending to a very bad tale." A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 41 ***Dakhete is a lot of things, depending on how one chooses to look at her. She lacks a piece of knowledge however. In this chapter, she meets a couple of rather singular individuals, thought at least they know what they are. More importantly - and it doesn't get more than a hint here, both of them can see what Dakhete cannot, though right here, she's not quite ready to listen. 0_o ---------------- Book of the Djinn Part 4 They talked for a time, and somewhere in it, Dakhete realized suddenly that there could be no reprising what they'd had so long ago. They had changed, especially Nasira, who now seemed convinced that her own genitalia had been ruined during her ordeal, as though anyone could see the way that she'd been ruined, somehow. She kept saying that no one could ever want her, of course, and she'd said it just that way often enough to begin to annoy Dakhete, though she understood and felt a lot of sympathy for her old friend. "Nasira," Dakhete said earnestly, "We sit together naked as we often were between us and it has been an age, but nothing has changed in my eyes. I can see all of your wonders and you can see my poor gifts. I see nothing which takes anything from your beauty in the slightest. All there is to be seen by anyone are the scars on your back and you know that they fade after all this time. There is nothing different about your sweet flower from how I remember it. If we were at the same place between us, you would still the one that I would wish for, if I may say it – and I try to hide no intent in my honest words. You must believe me, if you would hear the words of no one else. You are beautiful. If you hide yourself away in your shame for what was done to you, do you never feel the want of any pleasure or love anymore? Has this been taken from you as well?" "Everything was taken from me," Nasira replied, "The loss of my dignity was the least of it all. I have little feeling or hope of love anymore and when the want of pleasure overtakes me, I seek it in the only way that gives me release. I go back to my prison and walk into my cell. There are my own jailors. They chain me and I allow them to take me in the most savage way that they can, for this is all that pleases me anymore. They hurt me, it is true, but it is in the way that I crave to be hurt. It lasts for days until they cannot anymore. We all sleep then, them near me, touching me out of their need and I lie in my chains, my body tingling and aching for when they awake." Dakhete was disturbed and upset only to hear it, but what bothered her the most perhaps, was the gleam of excitement in Nasira's eyes as she told of it. "I outlast them, you see. When it is over, they crawl to me and beg for my forgiveness and I give it to them, letting them spend into me one after another as gently as they can. In the sweetness of that, I find my release, Dakhete, and nothing else." Dakhete leaned back, careful to keep her mask of detachment on her face since there was nothing that she could say in the face of what she'd heard. She decided that she would always remain a friend to Nasira, but that there likely would never be anything more between them. Eventually, Nasira took her large cats and Dakhete walked her to the gates and watched her ride off into the night. She walked up the slope to the palace slowly, wishing that she'd never agreed to help Nasira to leave Meroe in the first place. She shook her head in sadness. Since the shine had not left Nasira's eyes, she supposed that the jailors would be busy over the next few days. She walked past the bathchamber and saw the young pair standing neck deep and looking at each other a little too happily with no words exchanged between them. "Get out of the bath," Dakhete said, "get ready for bed. Separate bedrooms, Yasmin still has a few days to wait. Then I won't care. Go. Now!" "What does it matter? Yasmin asked, "You are not my mother." "No," Dakhete said quietly, "But I am your very sincere friend and I am your teacher. I need you sharp for the next few days at least. If you do not wish for me to teach you, Yasmin, then only say it. I admit that I am in a terrible mood, but I really mean this. I told you why as well. If you do not want the teaching, I can understand that, but if you do, then you both will have to live as though you were already dead until I tell you. I can promise that it will be soon and then you can play with your new love all that you like, as long as you are careful, but if you wish to know how to mix the fighting with your magic, then get out of there, kiss your boy softly once and go to bed alone." They nodded and began to climb out. "Can I ask something?" Khyan said. "Of course,"Dakhete replied. "What happened with my mother?" Dakhete looked over, "Nothing. We talked and she went home. We came through here for her to say goodbye to you, but you weren't listening. I would say that what happened is that a lot of hurt was done to her. After three thousand years, I have changed as well. We just changed in different directions." Dakhete walked to her bedroom and lit an oil lamp there with a wave of her hand. She walked back and brought a jug of beer to her room. She sat on the bed and after two cups, Dakhete began to cry a little for herself and a lot for an old friend. It took a while for it to pass. Dakhete was upset because she felt that Nasira had been damaged; not as she saw herself, but in her heart and her mind. What she'd learned today ought to allow her to begin to put her own ghosts away, at least she hoped so, but she felt terrible for poor Nasira. To have gone through what she had, ... She looked up from where she sat on the bed and saw that Saddiq was sitting on the floor, facing away from her. She reached out and touched his ear, "Saddiq, I am sorry. I have forgotten you and did not mean to." He turned his head around and Dakhete saw that he looked sad somehow. She was about to feel even worse over it, but she suddenly felt as though he understood. "You were with me the whole time, weren't you?" she asked as she pulled his large head onto her thigh to rub it, "I have been foolish and rude. I am sorry. You walked both ways with me and never left me. Forgive me, I am upset." "I know it," she heard in her mind and her eyes flew open wide, "I had no wish to watch your tears fall. Sorrow and sadness, I feel from you. A long sadness is a shadow on your heart which is not deserved. Our friend was a lover to you long ago. This road is blocked to you as you feel it. You may be right." She looked down into the yellow eyes, as bright as her own, but much larger and with the vertical irises opened wide in the dim light. He lifted his head and brought it near to her face. The whiskers tickled a little, but he sniffed and licked her cheek once. When he turned his head and rubbed his face against hers, he moved her head a little. "I smell the drink," she heard, "It is good?" Dakhete nodded slowly, wondering if there was something in the beer to have caused this. She remembered Nasira's words, but ... "I can try?" She reached for the jug and filled her cup with the last of the beer and held it for him. He sniffed it and his large paw reached and wrapped itself around both the cup and her hand. She looked down and saw that he had a thumb. It was the same as any leopard's, a modified pad, but the thumb was articulate enough to grasp some things, she guessed. He lifted both the cup and her hand with it and his drinking was a mixture of her way and the way that she would have expected. "My thanks," she heard, as he lowered it, "You do not seem to notice, but you are much like me. I see the cat with me here." He offered her the cup and though she wanted to decline, she didn't and he watched her drink from it. When she lowered the cup, he raised his head and finished the beer quickly. "I feel so much from you," he thought to her, "different feelings and the way that you meet what comes to you. So like us. I do not like this sadness." He looked up at her, "You are weary from a day of strong feelings. You should lie back and rest. I will stay and you will be safe to dream if you wish, or, ..." He stopped then, as though waiting to decide the nature of what he felt. His eyes turned to look deeply into hers for a moment, "If you wish for pleasure, call to the male who serves you. If you cannot do it, I can make him as he was for you and you will know pleasure from him once more." Dakhete shook her head, "No," she whispered, "That is not really your wish, is it, Saddiq?" "It is not," she heard in her mind, "but it is what I can do for you." She leaned forward and put her arms around the powerful neck and squeezed affectionately as she rubbed her own face against the top of his head, "A strange sort of friendship that you offer to me," she whispered. "Perhaps," came the reply, "but – " "I know, "she smiled against him, "it is what you can do, and it may be just what is needed." She let him go then and got up, turning to get onto the bed. He remained where he was and only watched her go. She stretched out and when he didn't follow, she raised her head and smiled, patting the bed next to her, "Come then, Saddiq, and let us talk – or, let us try while I struggle with getting my thoughts to go to you in the same way that yours come to me." In one motion, he was on the bed, walking up it and around her head to walk down the other side of her. She smiled, "What are you doing? Do you wish to show me how handsome you are? I already know," she said, as she reached up and trailed her fingers against him while he passed around her head. When he walked toward the foot of the bed, already turning to go around again, she saw what he had and grinned. "My friend is not only a beauty." She lifted her hand and he stopped and looked back with his eyes a little wide. "He has toys which he somehow knows would be of interest to me because he seeks to tell me that we are alike." She pet him there very gently for a moment, "So come and lie down, handsome boy, and tell me what you wish for me to know. I was sad, but only a little more than I have carried for so long. At least I know what happened now. It passes from me once again." Saddiq walked over her feet and came up her right side before he eased himself down beside her. Dakhete trailed the backs of her fingers over his lower chest and abdomen. "Who are you, Saddiq?" she asked, "I lie in my bed with one so beautiful and deadly, and I know so little." "You mention two traits which show much of us both," the words came to her mind, "for I am known by them and they have often been said of you." He shifted a little so that she could lie with her head on the bed looking up as he looked down at her. Dakhete thought that, as a word, 'regal' did not even begin to approach what might describe him to her. Her eyes widened , "You smile, Saddiq! You can smile to me." He nodded a little, "Your thought came to me, and I thank you. But you asked of who I am. Very well, I will do my best to sound important. I am the ninth prince of my elders, the third son of the third birthing and the only one of my elder's line who is marked as I am by my darkness. As such, I have gifts which are of little use to one who would rule. But then I never will, so it matters little. I am strong, but not the strongest of my brothers. I hide it with my wit and my way of bending things. Those are our words, as closely as I can say them. I believe that you call it magic. My siblings fear me, for I can end their lives with a thought. I never would - not without a reason anyway, but fear is seldom a reasonable thing. Among my kind, I am known as the Black Prince, and I am loved by the lower ones and feared by the higher. The coloring happens, but never to royal ones. It is my place to break rules. I could live an easy life, making cubs and doing little but growing fat. It is not my way. Since no one expects much from me, I do what I will. When I learned of the open pathway, I came here, feeling the chance to see the one that I that I have wanted to meet for so long. I choose to live with my goddess for my life, and accept what she and her road bring to me." He lowered his head, and before Dakhete knew what was happening, he touched his lips to hers very softly. Dakhete lay there with her mouth open for a moment. "Your god,...dess, ..." He nodded and smiled, "You." He looked away as he listened to the night sounds for a moment and then he looked down at her again, "You believe that I am mistaken, but I know that I am right. I told Nasira that the goddess whom I sought was very old to ease her mind and to stop her questions of me. I meant you, though you are young to us as am I. You call yourself Dakhete now. But you were Dakhete once and to us who watched and could not reach you, you were –" The sound which he made was not anything which she could pronounce using the motions of his mouth and throat, but the sound of it in the rumbling tone that carried it caused her to open her eyes in astonishment. If a cat had to say Dakhete, then this was what it was. She recognized her name. "In our legends, it is told that a goddess will come, one who carries deadly beauty, and that she will need one of us to help and serve her as her friend and companion. The one must be of high birth, the prophesy tells, a ninth prince – the third of the third, and he must be the black prince of truth, for he must possess abilities like unto hers. I have waited for a way to come to you for all of our lives." "The Black Prince of Truth?" Dakhete asked, and he smiled, "It is closer to my proper name. Nasira misunderstood. But I like Saddiq, and I will answer to it. You may believe what you will, Goddess, but I will not fail you, and I will throw my life away before I forsake you. I give myself to you," he said in her mind as he lowered his head so that his chin rested over her heart, "And I am yours always." Dakhete reached for his head and she stroked him softly. What she'd heard was a little unsettling, but it intrigued her as well. "Saddiq, a legend or a prophesy carries something in it for the people to whom it applies, almost always. How does this legend benefit your kind?" He lifted his head a little and they looked at each other from very close up for a moment. "The purpose of the legend is to give the people hope, like most legends. The foretelling helps them to look forward to the day when their kings are free from their destroyer. That one has now left them. The prophesy is seen to be fulfilled, and they celebrate the departure of the world ender. The low-born still wait and hope for the destruction." "Which world ender?" Dakhete asked, "What destroyer did they fear?" He sighed. It was not something which came to her mind. It was the sound which he actually made. "Me. The high-born think that the appearance of a Black Prince would be the end of the world to them. It shows their selfishness. All that would end is their reign, and that is why the low-born have looked to me with hope. My mother was put to death because it was thought that she mated with another. My father could not cast me out for the poor would revolt, so I was shunned by my family. I care not. I have many friends among the poor. I have said that my place is to break rules. I will never rule there, but I may go back one day to break something, like the necks of my family. Now you know, Goddess," he smiled, "Things are a little different here, I think. My abilities are a little lessened, but not much. I have found you and you seem to like me. If there were no others near who sleep this night, my happy purring would shake the house. He rubbed his face against her jaw gently and Dakhete realized that she was beginning to like it from him. "I still do not see why you say that we are the same. I grow fond of you, Saddiq, I have to admit it, but –" "I hear your thoughts again," he said in her mind, "You must learn to think what you wish to tell me or say it. You do both at once and it is hard for me to follow." Dakhete chuckled, "Of course, Saddiq. I am a female. It is what we do. You are lucky that I do not say two things at once and think a third as well." "Nevertheless," he said, "It is not my place to tell you, but I can see things which you cannot yet – some things which you have forgotten. You are not sure who you are. I can help a little at a time, and one day, you will know everything once more. I seek your friendship for me, and for another. I will walk beside you, protect you if you need it from me, and help you in anything. I wait for a time before I must return to my people to make things right for them. I am the destroyer whose birth was foretold, but I also look out for another, and so the time is not right to finish it. Once that is done, I can return to you." He shifted a little and laid his paw onto her chest. Dakhete was surprised at how he kept the weight off her. "So you seek to be my companion?" she asked. "Always," he said with certainty, "though I heard what was said. I will not make noise when you use the commode." "Well I am glad of that," she smiled up at him as she reached to toy with his ear a little. "You like me, and it makes me happy to know it," he smiled, "I have never been richer than I am now." "I can explain it to myself," she said, "at least a little. Looking at you, regal one, it is easy to see that you must have been much wanted by the females where you are from." "I have had my moments," he admitted, "If you tell me that you accept me as yours, I will tell you a very quiet thing – a secret which no one knows but me. It is another of my ... abilities, it might be said." Dakhete reached for his face with a soft and quiet laugh. She liked what she saw as she looked up and she caressed his cheeks with her thumbs and stroked the backs of his ears with her fingers. "This is the friend that I have needed," she smiled, "one who knows how to delight me with something which tantalizes me at the same time. In this, you are quite correct in how you say that we are alike. A secret, you say to me. I hold a walking secret in my hands, Saddiq, – a prince among secrets, who now dangles a quiet thing for no one to know before me as though I was the kitten, desperate to play. You say that you are to be a friend and companion to me always and would protect me. It is a little strange to hear, Saddiq. I am one who fears nothing. It is my nature." "It is mine as well," she heard in her head, "but I will always seek to be sure that you are safe. It is my nature as what I am, it is the prophesy fulfilled, it is what a male of my kind does." Dakhete smiled in a slightly teasing way, "For his female? Is this the secret?" "It might be so," he said as he looked away again and listened to the night, "or it may not be so at all. You will have to find out. And you will never know if you tell me no and send me away." Dakhete gasped, realizing the full truth of Nasira's words. The thought of not having him near her was a shock now. She pulled his head down to her and hugged his neck. "I don't think that I would wish to be parted from you – even now," she smiled in his ear, "You make me feel fortunate to have you wish for my friendship." She smiled up at him, "I accept you, Saddiq, Ninth Prince, the third of the third. I have walked alone all of my life. Stay by my side and let's walk together and laugh a little as we go." He drew his head back, "Goddess, this is no jest. I wish to give myself to y-" He stopped and groaned as she kissed him. When she broke the kiss, she whispered, "That was no jest either, Saddiq. Now you know, and we both share a secret. The Kandake drinks beer with the Ninth Prince and she finds that she likes to kiss him as well," she whispered very softly as she looked into his eyes. A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 41 "Now, if I have earned your trust with my kiss, tell me the quiet thing." He lowered his head and his whiskers against her cheek almost caused her to flinch for the way that they tickled her, but she held still until his lips were against her ear. She sighed quietly and reached to hold his head there. "I wish to tell you two quiet things, but one can only walk one step at a time. One of the dangers of the Ninth Prince, where I am from, is the magic which I can wield, "he whispered as softly and quietly as he could, enjoying the way that it caused her to shiver. "You have magic as well, but I am feared there for the rumor of the way that I can change my shape for a time, to look like a trusted friend while I listen to plots which are not for me to hear. It has saved my life many times. This does not matter anymore. I am here now with my Goddess. This ability may be used by her. For her, I can change my shape to be any male that she wishes to hold and have for her pleasure." He kissed her ear and listened to her moan only once and so softly. He lifted his head and looked at her eyes, her irises wide in arousal. Saddiq licked her throat carefully with his rough tongue and he moved a little, lowering his head to rub his nose against a nipple. Dakhete inhaled and her ribcage rose in response as she seized his head to hold him there. He opened his mouth and began to suckle softly as she sighed. "If you will allow it," he said into her mind, "I will be another secret of yours. You may take others. You may even take a mate for yourself. But underneath it all, if my efforts are pleasing to you, I will always be yours and you will be mine, but not in the way of what one might call a usual sort of love, goddess. I offer myself as a quiet companion who loves you simply and quietly. I seek the same from you. Mates may come and go, or die, or any number of things – such as has happened to the one that you swore your love to before you found yourself alone for so long. Your pupil will learn abd find her own travels. I offer a much quieter love with you. I will seek always be near to you, though I may not be seen. You will never know another lonely night while I live. If you are cold or hungry or any number of things, I will help if I can. I seek one to travel with, no matter where or when. This is my purpose. If we go together and I have need of something as I have said, would you help me?" "If we journey and this is our way," Dakhete nodded, "it is what a companion does. I would do for you in the same way. It is far better than journeying alone." "Good," the cat smiled, "because I can see a time when I will be needed, just as I know that one day, I will need from you." Dakhete looked at him. She knew what she was feeling and took it into account. Even so, she was left with her first impression. It had remained unchanged over all of the time that he'd been in her sight that day. She's seen countless large cats, perhaps thousands of leopards in her travels over all of the time. They'd always thrilled her to see and watch them a little. Wherever she'd gone, there were sometimes hunts for the cats where she'd been invited and she'd always refused. This one, the one who wished to be her Ninth Prince was beyond them all. He was far past magnificent. By the standards of the ones which she'd seen, he was by far the largest and the heaviest. He could talk with her and he sought to be hers. She doubted that his kind made such offers. Why would they? Her hand slid over his sleek onyx coat, feeling the muscles underneath. As he suckled and the warm blasts of his breath against her skin excited her, she wondered about herself and she considered. Dakhete knew herself and knew that she could likely have almost any male if she wanted him. She just rarely did for very long. She had a thought that perhaps she was beginning to understand why, if Saddiq saw something else in her. She thought back to what the last of her earlier masters had told her about seeking one for herself to keep her power. She wondered if this was what had been meant, and she knew then that it was. Saddiq was a magical being. At least the half of her that she was certain about was as well. "You melt my heart with your sweet suckling," she sighed, "as softly as a new babe would do it. Could my fine admirer give me young ones?" she asked, and he heard his thoughts clearly. "You are the goddess, if it is your will, then it will be so. But, I seek to learn what male you would want me to be for you, and I cannot find him in your thoughts. What man or djinn; what demon? I can take any of these shapes for your pleasure. My rod will be as theirs for you. Yet I find none of these things in you as a want. She smirked as she ran her fingers through the fur on his cheeks and down along his neck. "Tell me what you do see then." He heard her voice clearly in his mind, so clearly that there was no mistaking it. Where his nose was, he knew it whenever she'd made the slightest true sound. Now she was silent, but her voice was there, and he knew that she'd mastered the way to speak to him this way as well. "I cannot," she heard in her mind, "I see only myself." "Well then," she smiled as she sent her thought, "I suppose that you are what I want." He stopped sucking and raised his head. What he saw caused his heart to pound in his ears and he felt as though he could fly. She nodded, "Saddiq, my beauty, my wondrous one, I want you and this quiet love that you speak of." "But, - " He was actually whispering, "I can only please you as one of those sorts of males. Like this, I cannot mate you as the other males. I cannot have the part like them. I can only have what I ... have now. It is not the same." She loved the feeling of her fingertips in his fur as she toyed with his ears and then his cheeks near his nose. "Is it a little long and hopefully thick? Can it please me and can I cause it to fill me? What more do I need beyond that, if it comes to me with the hope that I feel in you for my love? You are no animal, Saddiq; you are a magical thing – as am I, at least partly so. I have known males who wanted my love before. None have held my interest. But you are different. I know that females of all sorts look at large cats in admiration. Some may even hold secret little desires to know how it would feel to love with a male like that. But it cannot be done, really. You are not one of those. In you, I see only reminders, but I know that you are nothing like those cats. You are wise and we can talk together and say not a word. You do not only look noble, Saddiq; you are noble and regal, being of high birth among your kind. This night, I have kissed a prince who seeks to walk with me for our lives. I am a djinn, partly. I am both the wind and the dust which it carries, and I am a female whose heart has waited for one to touch it. I already know that you possess the ability to touch my heart. I have always liked the touch of another female over that of a male, but in you I see something that I can love as well. You offer forever to me in a way that no one ever has. You have already declared yourself. I am saying that I accept your companionship and now I seek to see if what I feel can be made into this love that you told of, one that lies underneath. To do that, I wish to mate you as you are, Saddiq. I am Kandake, but I am not the same as the people whom I have ruled. I make the laws here. What is wrong if I seek for a little pleasure with my companion as a secret between him and I? It may turn into something which changes your life and mine for the better. I can tell you from my heart that I hope that it is so. I think that we both need something such as that." He was still in shock at her words; wishful, longing, slightly disbelieving, and so very hopeful shock. Still, he thought, she had to know. She had to be told. "It is not the same," he whispered, "It is all of those things but there is more. You may not wish to –" She held up her hand, her fingers touching his lips and he stopped. She put her arms around his neck and pulled herself up as she held him. He had to strain to hear her whispers, "Listen to me, Saddiq. I have seen the leopards here when they do it. Is it like that for you?" "Yes," he hissed quietly, "It can be, ... forceful. I have no wish to hurt you." She smiled against his lips for a moment, "Please, black prince of truth, please only tell me that you can go longer than the leopards which I have watched." "I can go long, Goddess," he said as he accepted her kiss. He pulled back and licked her lips and said, "I can go long, and I can go often, as much as you have the time for." "Then this is the way that it will be," she whispered as she blew out the lamp with a wave, "You and I will share this sweet secret between us if we can do it to our satisfaction. For tonight, allow me to tame you, for we can never be loud in my home. There will be times – if it will work – when what I want from you will be just what you know well how to give to me." She kissed him softly, "We can go into the bushes for that. No one will know and no one will see that you take me and that I love with such a beautiful creature. This is the secret that I want with you. You wish to be my companion. I wish for my companion to be this close to me." She sat up and had to reach a long way for him, but she began to caress him gently and she smiled after a moment at what she held, "I knew that I saw more than what a leopard has. My prince has furry stones, so nice to touch and to hold. Toys such as these can make a girl like me want to dance for the way that they feel to me. I will have to hide you away, Saddiq, it will not do to have the Kandake seen in the company of her magnificent leopard friend who walks with a long line of hopeful leopard females trailing behind." "They know that I am not the same as they are," he whispered through his teeth from the feeling of what she did, "They run, mostly." "But not all of them, no?" She grinned. "No," he said, "Not all. The day that I came here to look for you, I saw a young female who followed and called to me a little because she was in her heat. I saw her begin to come out of the grass toward me, but her calls brought males of the sort which lives here and which she resembles and she ran from them. I thought that it was a strange thing until I thought that she might have wanted me instead of them and then I was sad for her. The next time that I saw her, she was fighting off several males. I knew how it would end. Sooner or later, one of them would manage to bite her neck and she would hold still, as all cats do from when they are kittens for their mothers to carry them. As soon as one of them bit her neck, she would have no choice but to submit. I helped her then and I attacked. I killed two and the rest ran. Then I knew that I had a different problem. She followed me everywhere and if I stopped, she tried to play with me and would lie in front of me. When I tried to leave, she looked at me with want and sadness." "You see?" Dakhete chuckled softly, "Some of us are smarter than the rest and we know what we might have. What happened with your little friend?" "It delayed my meeting you for a few days," he said, "I mated with her. I am sure that she will not have young, since we are not the same. But her heat is over now and still she tries to stay near me. I saw the reason for all of her problems. She is likely the last of the ones that we call the Forgotten Ones from when the passage between our place and this one was open once before and it closed suddenly. Some were left here. They are something like my kind. She wanted none of the males here because she is not like them. That is why she was so hopeful for me. We can only talk a little, but she does as I tell her and she waits where I say to wait. She is in the courtyard now. I must be sure to go to her before the dawn to tell her that she must go. She may mistake the ass for a meal." "Then I will go with you," Dakhete smiled as she stroked him," I wish to see this girl who shares my good taste. You say that she can be made to understand you?" "Yes," he nodded, "Why?" "If you can make her understand a few things, and if you enjoyed her, then I may be able to offer her a better life, though I do not believe in making a pet out of a wild thing. If we have trouble, you would still have a female who plainly loves you, and I know that this is a rare thing for a leopard girl. Any female cat loves only when they have the need. If this one loves you when she has no need to, then your life would be richer for it. You are a prince. Surely where you come from, you could have a harem." "I could," he said, "but I have no wish to. Concubines expect to be fed." "Then take her as a companion," Dakhete said, "Was she good for you? You must have been good for her. So? I do not know your legend. Does it say anything about the Ninth Prince being alone?" He looked confused, "No, ..." "Then let us try between us and then we will go to her. I wish to see your leopard girl." "She is not a leopard," Saddiq said, a little uncomfortably, "I said that we are not the same. She is a, ... a dayrunner." Dakhete was confused, "What is a day – " The courtyard was full of sounds suddenly – all of them the noises of cats, large ones. There was an altercation in the wind, quite plainly, and Dakhete heard one growl that sounded very different from the rest. She turned to Saddiq, but she found that she was alone. He had already gone. She jumped from the bed and ran for the courtyard, going mostly by her memory of the floorplan. She stopped only once to back up and grab a torch from a holder on one wall. When she got to the courtyard, everything had quieted down to a lot of threatening snarls. There were seven leopards there, not counting Saddiq, In one corner, pressed back as far as possible, Dakhete saw a desperate creature, who still did her best to appear threatening, but it was clear at a glance that there was no hope for her with what was arrayed against her. Saddiq made one sound, and it was not even loud, but the others instantly stood down and began to back away. Yasmin and Khyan came to stand in the doorway as Saddiq positioned himself between the outnumbered cat in the corner and the rest. There were more noises from him and the leopards began to slink away. "What happened?" Khyan asked, "They are my guards, but they were to have returned to the forest with my mother." Saddiq looked at Khyan and he turned to look at Dakhete for a moment. "Saddiq says that they are your guards no longer. He has sent them back and you will have new guards in a few days or so. He says that if he sees these ones again, there will be blood. They came here to hunt the female that he has taken as his friend, and in doing so, they disobeyed your command to them, seeking a little nighttime sport which was not a fair thing. This one's eyes are not made to see well at night." "But," Khyan began, "They are my guards." He looked at Dakhete in wonder, "You can speak to him? I never could, though I tried." Saddiq made a low rumble as he looked at Khyan with a nod. "He says they were your guards, but they do as their prince commands or they die," Dakhete said, "Go back to your rooms. The other one is still upset and more of us will not calm her." She raised the torch only a moment and handed it to Yasmin to take back inside. Saddiq stood near the frightened one and rubbed his head against hers for several minutes as he made low sounds while Dakhete went inside. When she came back out, she held a small bowl of water and a pitcher of beer. She walked forward slowly and set the bowl down as the other cat watched her carefully for a moment before she began to drink a little. "Now I see what was meant when you said that your friend is a dayrunner," she said softly, "She is a cheetah, a lovely one that is known here as a King Cheetah because of the patterns in her fur. I thought that from what you said, that she was small, but she is not far from you in height by your shoulders." He agreed, but he added, "That is so, but she is made to run down what she hunts, not to fight for her life and win against one of my kind – and she was hunted by seven. She can run like the wind, but she cannot stand and fight one of us. She is too lightly made. It is too dark here, she could not run fast enough to get away. The others know this. I am angry and sorry that you see it." "You said that you can talk with her a little. Does she have a name that she knows herself by?" "You could not say it," Saddiq replied as he tried to calm himself, "and it is a sound a little like what would be heard as she passes by in the grass. As close as I can make it for you, her name is Sh-sh. I think that she might know if you said 'Sha-sha' in your mind to her." "I have a small wish to scold you," Dakhete thought, "for the way that you seemed a little ashamed. But you show your feelings now and I am glad that you have such a friend. If Sha-sha loves you, you are fortunate, Saddiq." "I know it," she heard him as he rubbed his face against Sha-sha's jaw, "but our kinds are indifferent to each other at best. At worst, we steal their kills and hunt them. I was not ashamed, goddess. I was astounded. This is the other one that I mentioned before. I have found someone very remarkable in her, but she needs a little help and a place to stay. I was struggling over just how to make myself and my wishes plain to you, and you have amazed me and made me happy by accepting me. My next goal was to ask that you help this one as well, for she needs it. She is not as she appears, and she needs shelter and a little time for her confidence. I had no idea how to even begin to ask it of you, and you tell me that I should take her as a companion! I do not know how I can thank you for only thinking it. If it causes no trouble for you, I wish to keep her close." "Keep her as close as you like, Saddiq," Dakhete smiled as she stepped forward a little to pour a bit of beer into the bowl. "Here, lovely Sha-sha. You may not know this, but I am sure that you will like a little." The cheetah turned her head and looked directly into Dakhete's eyes. "Sha-sha?" came to Dakhete as a quiet question in an uncertain voice in her mind. The cat padded forward a little nervously to peer carefully at Dakhete in surprise, "You call to me?" She looked down at the bowl which Dakhete held for her and sniffed it for a moment. She took a careful taste and looked up again. "For me?" Dakhete set the bowl down as she knelt on one knee. "For Sha-sha," she smiled as she set the pitcher down. She heard questions and replies between the pair as the cheetah drank, liking the taste. "Saddiq say I stay." Dakhete heard, "Saddiq say you like Sha-sha." She stepped over the bowl and sniffed as she came, leaning forward to stretch her head closer. Dakhete held still, even when the cheetah's whiskers tickled her thigh as the cat sniffed to learn that Dakhete was a female herself. The surprise came when Sha-sha did not back away, but only lifted her head, her nose grazing Dakhete's breast on the way past before she was sniffing Dakhete's face and looking at her with some wonder for a moment from an inch away. She began to chitter quietly in the way that cheetahs do and in it, Dakhete heard more thoughts to her. "I was hunted by ones like you and, ... not same as you. I not sure now. If I stay, I not hunted here? Not be trapped?" Behind her, Saddiq explained the he would stay and protect her, and that Dakhete was a very high female here, the highest one, the queen, he told her. Dakhete almost fell over backwards when Sha-sha's paws came up to rest on her shoulders and the cat began to rub her face against her head as she began to purr loudly. A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 41 "Sha-sha thanks you," Saddiq said with some humor, "but she does not know the way to say it. I can only purr in one direction when I let air out, but I can roar. Her kind cannot roar, but she can purr." Dakhete smiled as she carefully reached up to hug Sha-sha a little, and the cat's purring grew louder. "Tell her that we wish to go inside. It grows late." Dakhete was thankful that night for many things that she'd discovered. For one thing, her bed was large and strong enough to hold the three of them, since Sha-sha didn't seem to want to be very far from either of them now. Dakhete learned that with a little thought, she could make herself understood to the cheetah with little effort. Like Saddiq, Sha-sha was not a real cat. She was a magical being, the same as he was, and it was only one of the revelations which came to her that night. It was only a small pitcher of beer, but it was enjoyed by the three of them, though Dakhete had to help Sha-sha more to drink it by holding the cup, since the cheetah's paws were unlike a leopard's, which enabled them to climb trees while carrying a heavy kill in their mouths. Cheetahs cannot climb trees, though they can jump into them. Sha-sha learned that she had to be careful with her paws, since her claws were only semi-retractable, but she was happier than she'd ever been in her life to have Saddiq tell her that she was to stay with them. The statement caused her to wonder again about the other cat in this, since she could sense something about Dakhete that was not plain, but she didn't mind it when Dakhete told her that when Sha-sha came into her heat, that Saddiq was hers alone for as much as she needed from him. "Sha-sha must ask," The cheetah said, "Must know, you want Sha-sha stay? With you? You need guard?" Dakhete had no way to explain at the moment, and she didn't want to, deciding that she could try to make herself understood a little later on. She saw that for one thing, this was no real cheetah any more than Saddiq was a real leopard. She also knew in an instant that Sha-sha's difficulty in making herself understood was not because of limited intelligence, that was not her problem. She also knew in a way that she was not the same sort of magical being that Saddiq was. She was something else, and above all, Sha-sha was very likable. Dakhete placed her hand onto the cheetah's shoulders so that Sha-sha could feel her truth. She knew this much from their meeting that she knew that Sha-sha shared the same ability to know things from one's touch, "I ask you to stay with me, Sha-sha. I do not need much guarding, but if you must have a reason, then I need a guard who I can trust and have close to me." Sha-sha nodded, "Then I guard. And when I need Saddiq?" "Then you have Saddiq, if it is his wish," Dakhete replied simply, "If you have another need of anything, ask me." Saddiq explained that he and Dakhete wished to see if their companion idea worked well. Sha-sha thought about it as it had been explained to her and they asked if she wanted to join them, wherever they went – since that had been the idea. Sha-sha liked Dakhete instantly and didn't want to be far from Saddiq so she agreed, "All of my people gone when I wa- was small. " She shrugged, "Not learn much about talking, but I know – Sha-sha know how was called this. We walk, we say. Means more than walk – means walk together, run together, eat and hunt and sleep, ..." She was stuck for a word to explain the concept, "Do all things together, we," she pointed to all three of them, and smiled when they nodded their understanding. She looked at them a little cautiously. "Sha-sha not alone anymore? We same, yes? Help always, yes?" Dakhete found herself thinking about all of the places that she'd been – alone in every situation with no one that she could trust for the most part and wanting only someone to talk to or to touch. This might not work, but she wanted this now. She nodded, "Always help. Sha-sha has Saddiq and Dakhete." Sha-sha nodded, clearly pleased, "I am for Saddiq. I am for Dakhete. Sha-sha is not alone now." And so it became a triumvirate then, the others repeated Sha-sha's words saying they were for the others, meaning that it was the bond of the alliance that they wanted. It caused Sha-sha to ask about mating the rest of the time and Dakhete had no answer, saying that she didn't know what might be possible, but at that point, Dakhete sought to find out. She went right to where they'd been when they'd been interrupted, holding his hardening shaft as she stroked him softly. "Lie on your back, Saddiq, so that I may do the work of pleasing us." "Have you not felt the –" "I have, "she nodded. "I know what cats have to make their girls scream and howl when they are fucked. I am a little nervous, but Saddiq, I am not a cat." "You are," he hissed, "You only do not see it." "I am a big enough girl in that place to accept you. I will be careful and it is why I want you on your back the first time so that we may see how we fit." He rolled back and she moved onto her knees to straddle him. She moved her hips forward and back as she lowered herself so that her wetness touched him lightly, kissing against it and slipping gently by. As she went a little lower she froze with a soft his as she found the spines. This was the danger, she thought, these spines. She moved a little as she experimented. They'd felt a bit stiff, but still flexible when she'd held his hard shaft in her hand. It was long and tapered, and that was fine with her, but the ring of spines ... She put more of her weight on them and as she moved, she was sure that she felt them flex. They were made to go into a female, she told herself, and Sha-sha had obviously survived it. She smiled to herself when she thought that the cheetah had obviously liked it enough to want more of it – a lot more, she smirked. She looked over to where Sha-sha lay, looking back at her with a pleased expression of interest. "More, Dakhete," she said to Dakhete's thoughts, "go more. Want to see this," she chittered. Dakhete leaned forward to rub his chest and abdomen, learning and teaching herself as she ground a little against the protuberances far back on his very warm maleness. It was a little frightening, she had to admit, and yet it excited her, something like the thrill of diving into a river gorge from very high up. Something like that could kill you, but it was such a thrill as well. She leaned far down and kissed him for a moment before she leaned back with a smile, "Am I fine enough to be one of the females of the Ninth Prince?" He nodded with that endearing smile of his and chuckled, "There are only two. What more could I want?" "Then let us see what may be done for us both," she said as she reached back. She really didn't need to do much to align them. His genitals were situated far enough back that his erection was near to the right angle anyway, she'd been rubbing herself against him in a more vertical way to begin with. Now, she only had to hold herself up a fair way to help him a little and she felt the pointed tip as it parted her lips. It felt almost hot and she froze once more, not being able to resist reaching for it to tease herself by dragging the tip around on herself, paying a lot of attention to her clitoris. "Ohhh," she sighed softly, "such toys my sweet friend Saddiq brings for me." With the point firmly nestled in her opening, Dakhete began to lower herself a little in bobbing motions. It went on as she carefully took him inside, a little at a time, up and down, in and out, until it became more difficult to do. He was a bit fat as she got him more than halfway inside and she felt the first of the spines against her inner lips. She tried to hold it there for a moment as she worked with what she had of him in her. It dragged in and out so wonderfully slowly, even though she was sopping wet for him. She noticed suddenly that she'd had her eyes closed for a time and she opened them to look down at him. He was so wondrous to her, so fine and sleek and muscular. She asked him if this pleased him and he answered that if she had fear that he could finish like this if she could, and so that went for a time, never going any farther than when his spines kissed against her lips. Dakhete's breath began to hiss between her teeth as her chest heaved a little with the effort as she was stuck in this place, between holding herself so that she was above the threat of the spines and how much she was enjoying this at the same time. She felt a motion on the bed and almost slipped down lower at the bottom of her stroke, but she caught herself. Sha-sha was on her flank, her long legs splayed wide as she rubbed herself with her paw. "He pleases you," she smiled as the thought echoed into Dakhete's mind, "Sha-sha knows. Can feel it." "I want to go all the way down," Dakhete hissed, "Does it hurt?" Sha-sha grunted a little as she rubbed harder at the thought, "It hurts," she huffed, "So good, it hurts. But you said quiet." She shook her head sadly, "Cannot be done quiet, Dakhete." But then Sha-sha brightened, "I know! Save it for last, Dakhete. Push down a little then to help, you will see. Wait for Saddiq if you can, then maybe push down a little." She nodded once, "Careful, you must be careful." Dakhete nodded as she rode very carefully. It went on for a while as Sha-sha explained her theory that the spines helped Saddiq in his pleasure and that he would finish sooner if he was all the way inside. He nodded his agreement, but said that he enjoyed it this way as well. When his release grew close, he growled quietly and thrust harder. Dakhete was quick in retreating upwards a little, but she couldn't help herself and some of the spines found their way inside of her. Dakhete's ribcage filled and Sha-sha was right there, reaching around Dakhete to hold her. Dakhete's eyes were wide and then she felt the fur of Sha-sha's upper forelimb against her open lips. Her eyelids clamped shut and she saw only bright flashes as her orgasm ripped into her at the same instant. She wanted to jam herself down as hard as she could, but Sha-sha knew this and her surprising strength prevented it and only held her there frozen. "Bite Sha-sha if you need, "she offered and Dakhete did, her scream becoming a stifled thing before it really began. Sha-sha wrapped herself around Dakhete and chittered her encouragement until the very long moment was past and she felt the warm flood of Saddiq's semen as it came to her. She was surprised, she thought that cats didn't give that much, but she was clearly wrong about this one as she felt it on her outer lips soon after. Her vagina felt as though it was in flames until she noticed that besides the bit of searing pain, it felt so good to her. She held on to Sha-sha and pressed her head against the cat's face in gratitude when she didn't need to hold anything in her mouth to keep still. "How, ... how, ... do I get off?" she asked a little fearfully. "Only one way," Sha-sha said into her mind, "Bite again?" Dakhete nodded and opened her mouth. She didn't bite this time, but she did want to scream again as she lifted herself off and sank to the bed. "Am I , ... bleeding?" "Bleeding?" Sha-sha chittered in what Dakhete understood as a little mirthful laughter now as she reached to pat Dakhete's mound very softly as she spoke. "No. Dakhete is like real cat here now. Dakhete know what all girl cats know." she chuckled as she maneuvered herself on the bed, "Good, yes?" Dakhete wanted to shake her head and say that it had been awful, but she didn't, because it hadn't been. She laughed a little painfully and she grinned a sloppy grin and nodded, "Oh, yes! So good. ... Did I hurt you, Sha-sha?" "A little, but no Sha-sha to bite, you scream," she nodded with a smile. "I wanted to be as a man for you," Saddiq said apologetically, "it would not hurt like that." Dakhete got to her knees and leaned over his face, "It was wondrous, Saddiq. Thank you for this. I was just not ready," She smirked to herself, "I thought that I could resist at the end, but I cannot trust myself, I guess. We will have to find another way the next- ohhh." Dakhete looked back and found that Sha-sha was trying to make it better with just the lightest licks of her tongue. Dakhete wanted to protest, but she just gave in and laid her head onto Saddiq's chest as her haunches rose involuntarily and she closed her eyes. Half an hour later, Dakhete lay back and held Sha-sha from behind for Saddiq as he fucked her in the same careful way, both of the females warning him not to thrust so deeply at the end this time. Sha-sha was heavy, but she was also long, and Dakhete was surprised at how easy it was to lie with the lanky magical cheetah on her like this. "Don't worry, Sha-sha," she whispered, "If he tries it, I'm ready to kick him hard to get him off for you. I'm in just the right place." Sha-sha nodded as she looked up at Saddiq, "I am so lucky, "she said as she turned her head and tried to focus on Dakhete's face so close up in the dark. Dakhete looked lower and stared for a moment, "You have ... I've only just seen that you don't have a lot of nipples. I see only two and," she ran her hand over the small swells softly as Sha-sha hissed, "They're beautiful. I don't know how I could have missed seeing – " "Dark," Sha-sha hissed, "dark and my fur, Dakhete. You kiss Sha-sha?" Dakhete smiled and did her best. ---------------------- Dakhete led them to the bathchamber. By contemporary human standards, it appeared like a Turkish-style bath, though without the steam and the heat. In the center it looked more like an indoor swimming pool, but it was shallow for most of it, the depth varying from about eighteen inches to three feet. The deepest part was perhaps five feet. Dakhete brought the cats here to bathe in a little privacy since there were no attendants or guards yet. They waded into the deepest part and Dakhete was startled to see the cats disappear below the surface for a moment. When they reappeared, she was looking at two human faces, both of them stunningly beautiful. Saddiq stood on the bottom to stand and Dakhete looked at him in amazement. His head was clean-shaven and his skin was the same black tone that he'd worn as a cat. He was broad-shouldered and she doubted that she'd ever seen a more handsome man. Over all of the centuries, she'd seen thousands and known perhaps hundreds, but never one like Saddiq. "I said to you that I could come to you as a man," the thought came to her mind, "I cannot speak as a man, and I hope that I do not disappoint my goddess." Dakhete's jaw fell a little, but she shook her head, smiling a little. She was a little surprised at herself, since she didn't know what to say. He lifted his arm out of the water and indicated their companion, "Sha-sha has only showed herself this way to me a few days ago. We will need to coax her to stand if you wish to see her, for she does not accept from me that she is a fine beauty like this." Dakhete looked and saw the shyness there and she moved closer to the girl, "Sha-sha, you have no need to be shy with me. You – you wear beads? In your hair?" It was true. Sha-sha's hair was hidden in the water for the most part, but what Dakhete could see on her head were beads, a little large and mostly a bright yellow in color. "A gift from me," Saddiq smiled, "her hair is long and wild and she does not like it, though she can do nothing about it and complained to me that she catches it often however she moves. If she cuts it, it only returns the next time that she uses this body. She likes it better in beads, but as in anything else, she is shy about it and seeks to hide herself. She is not like me," he said, "Ones like me are like cats. I have an ability to change my shape. Sha-sha is the last, we think, of others who once dwelt in our realm. They left long ago to come here. You see me now in a shape which is not mine. But you see her as she really is. The cheetah is a form that they used as I use this form now. They were a people who could be as cats, but it is not what they were. Sha-sha was born here and her mother died very young. She has lived alone, using her dayrunner form so that she might stay alive. She needs help to be what she really is, and that is why I have asked you, knowing that you might help her. Her people were much like your kind, but the djinn here were ruled by Nasira's mother then and she commanded that any of the Forgotten Ones found be killed on sight, and no one ever knew why, but she was known to be mad, just as Nasira now becomes a little mad. This is a talk for us to have at another time, but you should know that Khyan is safer with you than he is in the mountain. There are things which are wrong in the jebel. The djinn who remain will rise up one day soon to free themselves of this curse upon them, and that is what it is. The djinn were cursed by the Forgotten Ones before they were slain. It is the only reason that Sha-sha lives, for they fear what will happen if they were to slay the last. Sha-sha knows little of this, since she was very young then, and I did not know what she was when we met. She plays no part in this, other than being the last, and she feels only fear of the djinn near the jebel. She does not fear you, and the slightest touch of her will tell you that. She feels only hope that her luck might change with you." "Then we will speak fully of this soon, Saddiq, for I care about another prince who lives in my land, a very young one. For now,"Dakhete smiled as she moved to reach for Sha-sha's hair, smiling. "If ever there was a crime to anything that you do, Sha-sha, It would be to hide beauty such as I see now. Give me your hand." Sha-sha looked down, but she offered her hand to Dakhete and allowed herself to be led to a shallower part of the bath to stand with Dakhete, who could only stare and touch the girl in wonder. As before, Sha-sha was long and lithe. Her hair hung down to her hip bones, and at once, Dakhete understood why the girl had trouble. She supposed that if one lived as a magical cat all of their lives, they wouldn't be prone to collecting possessions as humans do and so it was clear that from Sha-sha's side of things, she'd want a way to manage her hair that was simple, if it couldn't be cut and stay cut. On someone such as her, large breasts would have looked ludicrous. What she had were small but they were exquisite to Dakhete's mind. She reached to touch them and the girl shivered at her touch, her nipples hardening instantly beyond the way that they'd been. Dakhete stepped around a little to the side and she ran her hand lightly over what had to be the finest flanks that she'd ever seen on a female. It caused her to sink to her knees for a moment as she admired them. "Oh Sha-sha," she sighed as she rested her cheek against one haunch to plant a kiss where the two came together, "I have no words." She moved around in the other direction and ran her fingertips down the long hard belly until they touched the hard mound beneath the short curls there. Sha-sha gasped as Dakhete leaned in to place another kiss before she reluctantly rose up to speak. She put her arms around Sha-sha's waist and looked into her golden eyes, shaking her head slowly, "Never ever seek to hide your loveliness from me, Sha-sha, unless you wish to make me sad. You are both such gifts to me, now that I have seen your beauty in both of these ways." Sha-sha lifted her arms to place them over Dakhete's shoulders, "You make Sha-sha happy, so happy. I believe Saddiq. I trust Saddiq. He say Sha-sha is fine, but,.. " She thought for a moment, "I am girl. If Dakhete say Sha-sha is fine, then Sha-sha knows it is so. I am for Saddiq. I am for you. Sha-sha is not alone now," she repeated. A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 41 Dakhete gaped in surprise, "You can speak! Sha-Sha, I heard you speak." "Not speak much," Sha-sha said quietly, "Not speak, ... good." She looked down. "You can learn," Dakhete smiled, "and the best way is to try often." She couldn't help herself and she leaned in to kiss Sha-sha softly. "No," she sighed, "Sha-sha is not alone now." "Does the goddess have room in her life for this second secret, then?" Saddiq smiled a little mischievously, stepping closer to stand with them. Dakhete nodded as she moved one of her arms to reach for his waist. "I do not think that anyone will be too long in solving the mystery, but I wish for you both to be near to me always, like this or like the wondrous cats. I rule here, though perhaps not when we three are alone. In any event, I need advisors who can speak into my mind, and perhaps it is time that the Kandake shows herself to be as a queen who has a pair to protect her." "Dakhete," Sha-sha said in her thoughts, "I not speak well." "Try to get better," Dakhete grinned back, "but even so, you have a mind, lovely Sha-sha. If you have something to say, I would always hear it." She heard the sweetest laugh come to her ears from the girl, "Saddiq is hard from our pressing so close to him." Dakhete smiled, "We are his companions, Sha-sha, and there is still a little time that we may sleep." She sank to her knees and Sha-sha joined her. The prince in human form had a well-sized shaft, just as it was before, but with no spines, as he'd said. Between them, they laughed in each other's minds as they made love to their friend, and when he came, Dakhete smiled as she watched Sha-sha take all that she could before she took what was left and licked the rest from Sha-sha's face. "I never do this," Sha-sha chuckled her thoughts as they kissed, "I like to please Saddiq. I like if you help. Mouth not so tired." "I liked it too," Dakhete sighed in the girl's mind, "But it grows very late now." "Come, Saddiq," Sha-sha grinned as she stood up and took what she could hold of his genitals in her hand, "Dakhete say we sleep now." A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 42 ***This is a tad long here, I think, but I wanted to move along. I hope that some of the revealed background fits, but in this, Dakhete finally remembers and Yasmin learns a thing or five herself. 0_o ----------------- Book of the Djinn Part 5 No one said anything to her that morning, but by her count, Yasmin was certain that it was her birthday. She thought it a bit odd that Khyan said nothing of it to her. He must have known, she thought. The way that he'd kissed her that morning had taken her breath away and when his kisses had begun at her throat she'd wanted to drag him back to her bed and just ... She looked down at her breakfast of bananas and wanted to curse. Bananas again. And again. Dahkete appeared at the edge of the small city, leading another group of human settlers to the place that she and they hoped would become their new home. Dakhete nodded and spoke to anyone who came to her about something. They walked through the streets until they came to where Yasmin and Khyan trained with Piankh to watch for a little while, admiring the way that the pair seems to be a little competitive between them and how that seemed to drive the two of them to learn and train harder. She'd had to admit that even though they were both more than human, she'd never seen anyone learn and master what was taught so quickly. They walked through the small but busy marketplace and ran into another newly-arrived group of settlers. After welcoming them and offering to help them to find suitable land, they chatted, recognizing Khyan from Napata. It began even more conversation for a time, but that faded suddenly as Dakhete sensed something different as they were making to leave to go back to the palace. She stopped and looked to her right suddenly. Far out there at the edge of the city, she could see a few specks moving in the shimmering heat. Yasmin and Khyan looked as well, standing on their toes to see over the heads of the crowd. All that Yasmin could see were two blobs, but she could tell that they were getting closer. She heard Dakhete's quiet gasp and asked. "It is only someone that I thought that I would never see again," she said, "When they arrive, both of you watch me and do as I do." By now the crowd had turned as well and spoke in hushed voices and whispers. The two blobs changed into one larger one for a little while and then became two once more, before finally coalescing into two jackals who loped slowly side by side, but a strange thing happened then. A bull and a cow walked from a clearing and stood for a moment looking at the jackals. As the pair of jackals neared the cattle, one might have expected some sort of reaction, either defensive or threatening, but neither happened. They only joined with the Jackals and began to amble almost beside them. As they approached further, they were joined by lions who rose out of the grasses -- three males and five females, and Yasmin wondered if they were the same ones that she'd seen a few weeks before. She was a little surprised that neither the jackals nor the cattle seemed to be nervous about the lions at all; they only made a little room for them on the path and they all walked together, though they stayed with their own kinds. She was even more surprised when a pair of large cobras slid onto the pathway in front of the approaching lions and looked toward them. When the group neared the snakes, the serpents began to shift and grow. Yasmin gasped as the snakes seemed to transform themselves into a pair of snake-headed women who only waited. As the group came abreast of the women, they shifted as well, the jackals became a humanlike pair, though their heads remained canid-like, one a dusty tan color and the other one rather larger and pure black. The cattle became humanoid in appearance except for their heads as well. The lions and lionesses transformed themselves into a group of people with the heads of cats. All of them looked around and saw the multitudes of shades who kept their heads down and many obviously trembled in fear. "I wonder what has happened to my eyes," Dakhete said quietly as she stared, "to see something such as this." She turned to Yasmin, "This will either go very badly or well." As the strange group walked closer, they moved among themselves. It was the lionesses who came to the fore. The lions allowed this and hesitated enough for the jackals and the cattle to catch up. The cow stepped forward to walk with the lionesses and they all allowed the snake- women to join with them as they stepped forward and stopped. They stood looking serenely at Dakhete, Yasmin and Khyan. "Who are they?" Yasmin whispered. "Gods," Dakhete hissed, "The Eye among them, of all things, and here, right in Meroe." "The eye?" Yasmin repeated, "What eye?" "Never mind." The Kandake whispered sharply, "Kneel before them, do as I do." Other than the odd group, nothing much seemed to have changed. There was a hot breeze puffing a little fitfully and off in the grasses and trees, the birds seemed to think that nothing out of the ordinary was happening at all. "I cannot think," the woman with the bovine head smiled, "that I can recall a time when this many -- thirteen of us all stood in one place together. But this is a different time in an old place. Do you know us, famed Dakhete?" Dakhete raised her head and nodded, "I do, Hathor, Lady of the House of Jubilation. I feel such honor." "We do not know if you should feel as honored as perhaps you ought to know your luck," the goddess said, still smiling, "To have this many together speaks of our regard -- and it speaks of the times as well. We all know Dakhete from long ago, but who are these ones with you?" she asked in a whimsical tone and then she continued speaking, as though to answer her own question. "This one, this Khyan, he does you much honor -- more than he knows, perhaps, coming to you from where he does. To have been away as long as you have, Dakhete, and to still draw subjects to you, and more than that, to have this one know you and wish to serve -- as he does in his heart, that is high honor." She looked down at the young man, "Rise, child. There is no need to grovel. None of us feels any wrath toward you. And this Yasmin here, "she said, "a young thief and once so desperate to stay alive. So unlike her to have almost given up and accepted the cruel fate which you saved her from, Dakhete. This one who begins to train so hard for you. Do you know why? She is happy to know your love, Kandake. As is Khyan, the prince." Yasmin looked down, ashamed at having her feelings announced this way. "Just as you are so quietly hopeful for hers -- even with your self-doubts that she could return your love," Hathor continued, "Raise your eyes, Yasmin. There is no shame in this love. To do what is being done in this place requires either much gold or a want to love the queen." Yasmin looked up and then her eyes snapped onto Dakhete, who was looking down herself for a moment. The goddess chuckled, "For the moment, I will not even say much of it, but neither of you know of what burns in the heart of Khyan for you both. Friendship and love at the start of a kingdom's rebirth. That is not why we have come. It is only pleasing to us to see it. For the young ones here, I will tell of my companions around me. Anubis is here," she said, sweeping her hand toward the dark jackal lord, "He is curious, ..." "And he would know," Anubis said, "why you raised these ones in their multitudes, when the dead are my domain." At once, Dakhete knew her transgression. She bowed her head, "It is unforgivable," she said quietly, "I thought only that I would need help to begin here again. I should have sought for you and asked." "You should have," Anubis replied with a nod, "And I likely would have refused. But you only raised them and I watched, and seeing what you would do, I am pleased. This would be worth your soul otherwise, but not today, Dakhete. Do as you will, only if you can remember me the next time, be sure to ask." Dakhete nodded, feeling relief. "Menthu the war god is here as my friend," Hathor said, "and he wears the horns of the bull out of his anger, though not with you or what you do here. This will be explained in a little time. First, there are things to be said and revealed, understandings to be agreed upon, duties to be spoken about and this is not the place for that." As she spoke, Najmah sidled up to Yasmin and stood a little against her. It caused Hathor to smile. "Your beast behaves more like a dog than an ass, I see. She knows that you are about to leave and wishes to be with you, just as your cat companions now stand next to you. We will allow it." Yasmin was startled, "I am leaving?" "You three will come with us, the beast too," she said, "so that the words which we have for you may be heard only by those for whom they are intended. We go to another place of Kas," she said as she raised her arms and in a moment, they stood near a temple far from Meroe. Yasmin wasn't sure what to do about Najmah, but one of the lioness women nodded to her, "Bring the beast inside," she said, "we hold this as an illusion to suit us all. She will not have been the first ass in this place since this fell into disuse. If she wishes to learn as well, let her come inside." The interior was pleasantly cool and servants bustled about. The three were ushered to couches and they sat as the goddesses stood before them. Najmah drifted around the room a little, but she settled down at last and only stood near Yasmin, happy to be out of the sun. "We," Horath said, indicating herself, at least one of the serpent-headed ones, and the group of lionesses, "We are The Eye of Ra. Whether together or even one of us alone, we are The Eye." "We are a part of Ra's power, though as such, we are also able to act independently of Ra," one of the lionesses said. "We smite and destroy the foes of Ra," another said. "We protect Ra, the faith, the land and its people," said a third. "Our purpose is legion, "one of the serpents said, "and may represent many aspects. If our famous sister goddesses Hathor and Sekhmet stand together, the people may see the combination of Hathor's gentle and nurturing nature beside Sekhmet's blood thirst, though to ourselves it may have only been one of us speaking with the other over something not related to those aspects at all. The people have always looked for signs from us." "While there were still people who cared to know," a male lion god remarked quietly from the other side of the room. Dakhete nodded as she looked at one of them in particular. She knew all of this, of course. The fog which had pervaded her earliest memories lifted at that instant and she knew everything once more. The object of her gaze looked back and held out her arms, "This is also a time for meeting one's family in joy," she smiled, "Come to me, hidden daughter, for there are no unwelcome eyes to see us now." Dakhete fell into Sekhmet's embrace and the two wept for a time. "I have always watched and guided you in your thoughts when I could," Sekhmet said sobbing, "It does nothing for my heart as much as this, to hold you once again, now that you have returned to me." Yasmin and Khyan stared at them, and then looked at each other in amazement. "I will try to help," another of the lionesses began, "They need time," she smiled. "It has been long for them." She sat down on the couch between the young ones and looked from one to the other as she spoke. "Something which must be understood is that to humans, the gods never change and in fact we change little. What changes is human perception of us over much time. At first humans were more simple, yet they had questions. How to explain everything about us in words and terms which might be understood? No matter what was attempted by us, it was always not correct in how they understood it. After a time, we gave up," she shrugged. "As an example," she said, "Imagine that you try to show how the gods are to someone who you cannot even make yourself understood to. Their way of thinking and their speech would not permit it. You cannot say 'I see you' and be understood when the other says it as 'See I you.' They needed simple order and they were not happy unless they had us fixed in their simple minds, each one to a purpose. The Green Lady I was called because a human saw me weaving a new mat for myself and told of it to others. We said nothing against it because it was hopeless. Even so, some of it was more or less correct. What muddied everything were the priests, "she said, "We should never have allowed that. They lived like leeches on the backs of the hard working, taking a measure of food and wealth in exchange for their fantastic and stupid interpretations of everything. The locusts came and they said that the gods were displeased. The Nile flooded early and they said that we were happy with them. It was such foolishness, and I even slew a few of the priests myself for their insolence and fanciful tales of who they might imagine that I would take to my bed. I am called Bast and in what was Lower Egypt, I was the Lady of Flame and many saw me alone as the Eye of Ra. As it happened, there were others, as there always had been. There was even another like me," she indicated Sekhmet with her hand. "Pure chance and happy luck to us both, for we became fast friends when we met and we always have been. She has lived in Upper Egypt while I dwelt near the river mouth. In truth, we are much the same, though she is more violent when roused. When the two Egypts fell under one banner, the humans began to confuse us and many thought that we were the same goddess. We do not care any longer, and those people are gone," She looked at Khyan and smirked, "Well, almost gone. I can say sitting here, that from what I see and feel, humans have grown much wiser over the time. You are not really one of them, none of you three are. To you, I could explain everything as it is and you would understand. A little sad that it has taken so long, but I am happy to meet ones such as you. But that is the past, and in the past, some of us saw ahead, far past the ending of the time that we were worshipped. Sekhmet and I were among them. We knew that long after the pharaohs were no more, something would happen that would place this world -- all of it -- in peril long after the start. All things have an end, even us," she said, "But we know that this can be undone before it truly happens. Long after the pharaohs were dust in their tombs and mighty Egypt had fallen, a large object passed close by the world. It did little outwardly to it, but it caused changes. In thinking of numbers, most of the humans are now gone and return slowly. But there are things now here on this world -- and they come more every day -- which may cause an end to humans altogether, or more likely, only absorb them as one kind of man has always done to another over time. Even we cannot see that end clearly and so long ago, we chose to act as though humans would die out if we did nothing. We wish to do something," she said, "As what we are, we could live here ignoring the new kinds of creatures, but we choose to help man. There are others here who have come. They seek to help man as well, they tell themselves, but we know that it is only for their own purposes, no matter what they say to one another. It has happened before." Sekhmet and Dakhete came to them then. "We needed weapons," Sekhmet said, "but time was against us -- not as one would think. We had too much and needed to wait, but fortune comes at a time of its own choosing, even for us. You three each believe that you have no purpose and wonder if there is one for you. We have a need. Be our weapons for this world, and you have your purpose." She stopped then and thought, "Perhaps I say too much too soon, and there is this boy who wishes to be a part of anything that you both do. Let me tell of how my daughter came to me, and he will see that he has a stake in this too, and that you and he are not far removed from each other. In man's simple mind, a female must be the wife or consort to a male. I was the consort of Ptah, but like all of us, I was not bound to him. In my travels, I chanced upon one seldom seen anywhere, a male of a kind known as a Djinn." She looked a little embarrassed for a moment, but she recovered in an instant. "I have been known to make certain -- choices a little hastily. But in that one, I saw a male who stirred my heart, to say nothing of my loins, and I took him as mine for a time until we parted. It took a little time to see that I was with child, and I knew that one of the weapons needed was in my own womb, far too early. I birthed you and loved you Dakhete, knowing that we would need to be parted one day for such a long time. The pain that I carried in my heart, ... In my time, I also learned that there was a race of other gods here, ones who wished to shape mankind to their ends as well. We met and they offered to teach my child their ways in exchange for her service to them. I agreed, though it tore my heart, since it would allow time to pass and you would learn from them. They clouded your memories and became your masters, Dakhete. You have outlived them, killing the last of them yourself as was planned. This world, this hobby or pastime that they indulged themselves in was a game which plays out longer than they could live. I knew this but it hurt me so to watch it. I will never allow us to be apart for long anymore. It has cost us too much, but it had to be. A god can act as he sees fit, but you are not all god and must act as you need to. For that, you needed their teaching." She stood with Dakhete, holding her daughter close, her face carrying a proud smile. Dakhete looked a little dazed, but she was obviously happy to have her memories of her mother returning to her at last. She had been loved, she knew now, and she understood why what had happened needed to be that way. "This one here," Bast said as she put her arm around Yasmin and hugged her a little, "She has her own lineage." She looked to one of the males, and he nodded as he stepped closer. "I wish to say something," he began, "and I do not know how to begin so that you will understand, so I hope to show you in this way instead, "he said as he reached out slowly to lay one large pawed hand on Yasmin's shoulder. In the instant that they touched, her eyes, which had been fairly wide at all of this anyway, flew open as did her mouth. He leaned down a little and he took her shocked face into his hands. "Sometimes, things happen," he said, "and we may not wish for the way that they do, but they happen regardless. They may even be for the best, though that is not to be seen for a time. I wandered for a long time, with no one to need me or care. Even one such as I am feels this need at some time. One night, I found myself at one of the wells in the city where you come from. I had nothing on my mind, I only looked around myself in the darkness, wishing for a way to have a drink. A young woman came to the well and I was not careful. I thought only to change myself so that I would not frighten her as I am now. I gave no thought to it, but the way that I looked had its effect on her, though it was not what I wanted at first. Seeing me in the darkness there, she was a little nervous at first, but I assured her that I would not hurt her and she felt more at ease. We spoke for a time, and she told me that she lived with her brother. I saw what the brother wanted for her and I told her that she was much too kind and lovely for that kind of life." The lion-headed god looked down a little as he remembered it. "She had never had a male before and she begged to have me as her first. I argued, but she wore me down and I took her to an oasis in the desert." A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 42 He smiled as he saw Yasmin's mother in his mind. "We loved for days, eating only when we needed the rest. I pleaded with her to come away with me, that I would give her the life that one such as she was deserved -- and not only because we were mating there. Because, ... because I loved her, a human girl who stole the heart of an old war god who had no purpose any longer." His eyes were a little wet as he looked into the face of his young daughter. Yasmin wept openly and sobbed. "You, ... you are --" "I am Apedemak. I am your father," he nodded, "I have never been happy with the role as it was handed to me, but that was her wish, once she knew what I was. Each time that we loved, my seed came to her, but not my godseed. With one such as I am, and these other males here like me, it takes time for that, and there are other changes that come as well. I was not careful and these changes came to me and your sweet mother wanted it that way. I warned her that if we continued, she would be with child, and a child who would be partly godlike. She cried out that she wanted this. We were in our passion then and it happened. I filled her and godseed takes hold as a certainty as long as there is an egg alive even near to the womb. I did what many would say was unthinkable, Daughter. I begged. Me, a god, begging the female that he loved to hear him and listen to take his advice." His great head drooped a little as he looked down again, "She told me that she would go to her brother's house and sell herself, wanting to pay the brother back for all of the times that he had fed her. I told her that it had all been the man's plan and that she would do nothing but make him wealthy. She told me that it was her duty to him as his sister. I swore to kill this foul brother, but she would have none of it. Believe me, her pleading word to me is all that has kept his soul anywhere near to his fat and bloated body." He reached up and wiped a tear from his eye. "I returned her, as she asked, and I saw it in my mind as he beat the woman who loved me. But she was happy with you," he said. "I have not always been able to be near at hand when you needed me, and I have always been a little worried that you would hate me for what happened, but I tried often to protect you, so that you might grow up with both of your hands and not lose them from being caught as you stole food to stay alive. You may not have any reason to feel anything for me, Daughter, but like it or not, I am the one who sired you and you will have a long life from it. I wish to make this life better, if it is your wish and you would allow it." Yasmin raise her wet eyes, "I only knew that she loved the one," she said, sniffling, "She never told me much more than that he was mighty and he was magnificent and beautiful to see and to hold. A father," she said, a little to herself, "I do not think that I even know what I am to do with a father, even one as mighty as you are." She looked up into his face and she smiled a little, "But if you wish to know your daughter, then it is my wish to know you as well." She stood up then, raising her arms slowly to put them around his thick neck. She held him tightly for a long moment before she drew back. "I do not know what I am doing, or what I am to do," she said, "but I seek to learn from Dakhete." "Then learn well," he smiled, "After your mother and I parted, I had such a hole in my heart. The hurt lasted long in me before it came to me long afterwards that somewhere in the alleyways of Marrakesh, a little girl was running and playing who was mine. That took some time for me to find a place for inside of me," he smiled, "It was even longer before it came to me that I had fathered a very special one, for she was my daughter and any male who feels something such as this is astounded by it at first. But later, Yasmin, only later, I knew that my basinah, my kitten, was the other weapon which would be needed." "So I am to be a weapon again?" Dakhete asked, "And you all believe that my friends are to be weapons as well?" "You are not to become a weapon, Dakhete, "the bull-headed male said as he stepped closer, "We have a hope that you will resume being the one that you have already been." His nostrils flared a little as he spoke, "We know you," he said, "We have seen. You fight as no other which we have seen on this world, a benefit from your long service to the others, no doubt. This young one and the other here both ache to be as you. We know not what the male can do, but with two of you at least, ..." "It may not be enough," a younger lion god said, "This must be finished completely when it happens. These weapons that we speak of are daughters of the gods. We will want them to succeed, yes, but also to live past it. " He pointed at Khyan, "What of this one? He is not all human and frail, and there is much in his breast for the others. I would see him added to the quiverful of arrows that we loose from our bow -- if it is his desire to play a part for his kind." "We have been a little rude," Hathor said as she held up her hand, "none of these ones know all of us. Let us say who asks them before we ask if they would accept." She indicated the male standing with his arm around the waist of a female, "This is Ari-hes-nefer, Slayer of Enemies, the true husband of Menhit there beside him. She is called She Who Massacres. Two more of us females and mothers," she smiled to another pair of females, "Tefnut, the one with rounded ears and next to her, Mut, She Who Gives Birth, But Was Herself Not Born of Any. Our lovely jackal-girl there is Inpewt, Mother of Light, Lady of the Holy Land, Lady of Heaven, The Dark Mother, Lady of Magic, ..." The one which Hathor referred to looked a little bored and rolled her hand in a circular motion as though to indicate that it was enough, but Hathor only grinned as she went on. "... Lady of the Circle, Lady of the Light and The Dark, Lady of Truth, ..." "Yes, yes," Inpewt said, looking embarrassed, "Names which I am known by, not one of which I chose for myself. Let me finish it for you, friend Hathor. I am She Who Protects. There, now may we move on?" "She who is Crowned with Stars," Hathor laughed, "It is my favorite for you and you have forgotten it." Inpewt looked up at the ceiling and groaned. "Dakhete's beautiful mother and my dear friend, is Sekhmet, the One Before Whom Evil Trembles, the Avenger of Wrongs, the Mistress of Dread, Lady of Slaughter and She Who Mauls. Our cobra friends there are Wadjet and Weret Hekau, great enchantresses and wielders of magical power. Lastly, and only because of his young age to the rest of us, - " "My son," Bast said with a proud smile. "And Bast's fine son," Hathor laughed, "Maahes, Devourer of the Guilty and Protector of the Innocent. The Lord of Slaughter, Wielder of the Knife, and The Scarlet Lord." At the rear of the temple, the male looked genuinely embarrassed as he turned and pushed his long mane from out of his eyes where it hung, looking a little unkempt and yet roguish at the same time as he nodded with a mouthful of the food. He'd been busy with the food brought by the servants, preferring eating to this droning out of past honors. He stepped forward a little and smiled a bit shyly, obviously uncomfortable with his titles, "Could we just keep it at The Scarlet Lord? The rest is too long, and I have almost forgotten what it was that I did for those names which I do not care for," he said. "About what I said, I would add this male to the quiver. He is alone here with no godly parent, and his heart burns already. Give him what will be needed." He turned to the cobra-women, "Give them all what will be needed." "Will it succeed in keeping you still for long enough for us to tell of what is needed?" Menhit asked. He nodded, "At least for a time." "Oh, I have a vague doubt of it," Apedemak smirked. When Maahes turned, looking a little indignant, Apedemak chuckled, and the young lord laughed as well. "I am too well-known among my family," he said quietly. "Your family?" Khyan asked. Maahes nodded, "When I was little, I was a terror," he said, "wanting to be all places at once; needing to learn everything in an afternoon. Things such as this can make a mother gray in a week, and I am a god. Imagine how that was. When I was small, I could turn any female's heart with only the smile of a young god-cub. The mischief that I wreaked," he said shaking his head, "A wonder that they all did not smite me down, instead of only smiting my backside when I needed it. The only solution was for all to teach me and suffer my unending questions as I tore here and there, never walking, only running. I learned the most important things, not only what I wished to know. I learned that I have a large family. Most are not related to my blood, but that matters not. Know the love of the gods, and ruling the world seems very unimportant." "We foresaw the coming of one," Weret Hekau hissed, "in this age. Because of what happened long ago, the earth has moved very little, but it has moved much in another way. Where once what was here was only what one saw, it is now different. There are other creatures and animals here, or animals such as this world has long not seen. These are of little consequence, "she said, "but there are now at least two kinds of demons here. They are enemies between them. The difference is, that one kind is here bent upon the destruction of the other -- and they have their own weapon with which to do this. Their opponents have no desire to be here at all, being brought by the one for his uses. He seeks one and brings twenty and more, each time. Those, he lets free, and they run afraid through the world, killing humans where they meet them, mostly, but not always. They have no desire to do this, they are only upset and for them, being upset is to kill anything which lives around them, for it is their way. We do not even have much issue with those ones, for they will disperse and fade if their coming is stopped soon. If it is not stopped and they band together, then it will be the end of man here. Man has been hard on his home, but these ones come from a desert world where little lives long. So," she said, "We seek to stop the one who brings them. He knows what he does and cares not. He is not living, he seeks only blood and someone warm in which to sate his lust. The trouble is that the ones that he takes die from his abuse and then he draws others here, seeking for another victim. He drinks of their blood, but he can also drink of human blood." "Forgive one as worthless as I am," Khyan said, "and I have no desire to insult, but why can you not simply remove that one and end the problem? You are gods." "We can," Anubis said, "and if you fail, then we will. But we have a matter with the other sort of demons, the ones who seek also to kill the ones that this creature brings. Those ones, we need to speak with, for they share an unlikely connection and what they play at could end a world." He looked up, "No matter how it happens, that one, that bringer who drinks blood, he belongs in my realm. I have a home for him there. Now, about what these ones need." The snake-women had been conferring with each other quietly as this was all being said. Weret Hekau said, "I know what is needed, and it is the same thing as you gave, Sekhmet. Give it now, my sister." The goddess looked surprised for a moment, but then she nodded and took her daughter's hand, "Walk with me a moment, Daughter," and so saying, the pair of them disappeared. "Where -- " Yasmin stared at the place where the pair had been only a second before. "They go to the Temple of Amun at Siwa," Tefnut said, "Menhit and I go there now too. Our purpose is a little different from theirs. We seek to remove someone who does not belong there." A second later, there were two less lionesses in the temple. -------------------- Sekhmet and Dakhete stood in a doorway, framed in the red glow of the late afternoon sunlight on the stones. "What are we doing here?" she asked her mother. "This place, as poor as it is, still carries power, though the one who calls herself the oracle knows nothing of it. This is a place where you three must go when you seek the undead one. This is the place where you may leap from as you go far to the west, for that is where he stays mostly." She saw a stone block and stepped up onto it and turned to face her daughter, "This is also a private place for you to receive what you will need from me." She lifted her breast in offering, "You only need a little and there is not much to be had from each one. Try to remember that the others need this more than you." Dakhete nodded and stepped forward to place her hands on her mother's breast as she began to suck. Her eyes flew open wide in an instant, and before long, Sekhmet was urging her to take a little from the other nipple. In another part of the temple, two lioness goddesses, surveyed the carnage around them. "This should never have been allowed, " Menhit said as she spat out blood from her teeth, "Better to have no oracle at all than one such as that," she remarked as she looked down at the torn body before her. "True," Tefnut said, "too true, but at least there is an oracle, "she smiled as she pulled a tapestry away from the wall to reveal a young woman who trembled in her fear of them. "Arise, true oracle and begin your tasks," Tefnut said, "You need not fear us, for you have done nothing and have led no one astray. If you are sought for a purpose and do not have an answer, then say that and be honest. Ask us and we may answer if we can." "And ask for help if one such as this seeks to push you or your young family from these tasks. You are the true oracle, as was your mother before you and her mother and so on. This dead bitch here was only an opportunistic sham. We permit no such ones in our service," Menhit said, "but we cherish those who are true. Come, stand and begin. We will clean this mess and the people will come to you once more." --------------------- "If you do not wish to be a part of this," Maahes said to Khyan quietly, "it would be better to say it now, or very soon. You have no part of the gods in you," he said, "this is a fight for man, but it does not have to be your fight, Khyan. You are the most likely one to be harmed in this." "It is my wish to go, Lord Maahes" he said, bowing, "I have lived alone to no purpose but to serve my mother and to await the coming of someone who was never expected to return -- as she said it to me. I am to serve that one, and this one as well," he said, indicating Yasmin, "They are my friends in so little time, such as I never thought to have for me. Where they go, I go -- if it is permitted. I would feel shame if I did not." He nodded, "I hope that your stout heart carries you through to the other side of this." He looked away for a moment. "I had given up on mankind a little," he admitted, "to see three such friends and two of them part Djinn -- and all of them needing a purpose and now seeing one for themselves, it gives me hope once more. Besides that -- " "Besides that," Bast said, "He is a very strong and very deadly young lord among us, who suffers boredom badly -- and he has had so much of it that now he will tell you that he should go along." Inpewt grinned as she picked it up with a wink, "For the protection of the three, of course." Maahes stared as it went from one to the other. Mut picked it up then, saying, "He will say nothing of how he longs for a little adventure himself, though that is what we have all heard from him now for so long." "To say nothing of the company," Ari-hes-nefer smiled, "Imagine it, to be on the road with such companions in these and in the cats close to Dakhete's heart." Maahes was beginning to grow a little angry, "I was only saying," he began in an exasperated tone," --" "What we have all been saying, though not to him," Apedemak laughed, "and that is why we are sending him, though not with ideas such as he carries in his head. I only wonder if he would want this after he sees them all once they have it." "Have, ... what?" Maahes asked, thoroughly confused. Yasmin and Khyan were just as confused, but they were a little glad that it wasn't they who were the subject of this. They just really liked the idea. Dakhete appeared before them suddenly and she reached for their hands. "Come with me," she said, "My mother waits with what you need." "What do I need?" Khyan asked, "I need nothing." "Nor I," Yasmin said, looking at her teacher's red eyes. "Just come," Dakhete said as she took their hands, "Please." They found themselves before Sekhmet as she leaned against the doorway of the temple. Before either of them could object or even react, Dakhete held their heads from behind as she pressed their faces against Sekhmet's nipples, "Suckle," she said, "and you will have all that you need to live through this. Sha-sha and Saddiq have no need of this and I do not wish to lose either of you." Both of them resisted, but as each one tasted what seeped from the breast before her, they couldn't help themselves after that, and they sucked hungrily, their eyes wide and seeing little. "I did not know that I even had any left to give," Sekhmet sighed. Dakhete released their heads and Sekhmet caressed them, "Gently now, do not be so hungry. Savor what will likely never come again. This is for you to give strength of spirit. If you love my daughter as I feel it from you, then you are as my children also in this." She kissed their heads one after the other softly. Her milk lasted only a minute or so and they let her nipples go reluctantly. "Thank you," Khyan said softly, and Yasmin echoed him a second later. "How do you feel?" Dakhete asked, grinning as she saw their eyes begin to turn red. "I feel," Khyan began, "I feel as though my body hums." "Just wait a little," Dakhete said, "It gives strength of spirit, yes, but it gives more, and some of that lasts forever. You will gain strength and speed, you will not grow tired, you will -- " "It hurts," Yasmin groaned as she doubled over, "All of me. It hurts so, ..." "I forgot," Dakhete said worriedly, "It changes things. It finds what you need to be what is best for you and it makes it so." Khyan blinked and shrugged, "My shoulders are sore and my calves ache a little, but that is all." Dakhete groaned as she remembered now what it had been like for her, "Yasmin, Yasmin sit down. You are just as I was once." She helped Yasmon to sit and she looked up at her mother. "It did not kill you," Sekhmet shrugged, "It only gave you strength and ... oh! It made you a little taller also." "What?" Yasmin asked, "Taller, Ah! My legs!" She began to try to bite down on the pain. "I will not cry," she said aloud, "I have moaned like a child these last weeks and I am already shamed for that. I will ... not..." She threw her head back and screamed. Dakhete and Khyan were on the floor beside her in a second, holding her. "It does something else," Sekhmet said, smiling a little through her concern for Yasmin. "It causes a hunger." "What sort of hunger?" Khyan asked. "It makes killing a joy, and being alive a lot more real and, ... important," the goddess smiled, "A part of that is the want to seek pleasure." "Oh, I need more of that," Khyan groaned a little sarcastically, "Do you know where I sleep, Goddess?" "Yes," Sekhmet smiled, "I do. You sleep in the same house of two who seek your love as you wish for theirs. So? You may find yourself sleeping a little, ... less now." She sank to a squat in front of Yasmin, "Look at me, young one. Come, look at me now." Yasmin opened her eyes and looked up, feeling thoroughly miserable for the moment as Sekhmet reached to touch her face. A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 42 "This brings many things," the goddess said, "I did not have milk such as this to give to Dakhete when she was a babe. This came to me after, just before my daughter was to leave me. I ached to have something to give to her to keep her alive. Weret Hekau came to me and this is a way to give a little of my spirit, but other things come as well, such as my blood lust. Have a care that you are not provoked too easily or you will have trouble stopping yourself if you must kill. But as I was saying," she smiled as she held Yasmin's face with one hand, stroking her cheek softly with her thumb, "Dakhete was no taller than you then, so I think that it is what you feel. You will likely grow a little, and more," she grinned a little, "And this, I can already see for myself." She reached to touch Yasmin's nipple and the girl hissed from the sensitivity of it. "Look down, sweet one, I believe that you will be at least a little pleased." Yasmin stared at the goddess and then she looked down. When she looked up again, she almost squeaked in her joy. "I have ... tits!" The others all laughed. "Well the pain must be passing," Khyan grinned, "or this is much more important than feeling as though one is dying." He thought a moment, "I guess if you grow breasts in a few minutes instead of months it must be something." "It is,"Yasmin smiled as she wiped her tears from her face, "Do they, ... are they nice?" She reached to cup them in spite of herself. "They are hardly a handful, but I love them." "They suit you well, "Dakhete smiled, "Not huge -- if they are done for now -- but just right for you." Khyan agreed and Yasmin suddenly found that she could bear the pain of her legs and joints a lot more easily. ------------------- They returned to the temple where the others waited. "I feel as though I am walking on wooden blocks," Yasmin said, "I feel a little unsteady." "You will get used to it," Sekhmet said, "and you have very nice breasts now." "I am so happy," Yasmin said, "You cannot imagine what it is like to see all of the girls around you with breasts and you have none." "I cannot imagine," Sekhmet said, "but I can remember how it was to hear someone's plaintive bleating every day for hers to grow." She nodded toward Dakhete, who looked back a little sheepishly. "Really? It was so?" Yasmin had trouble fathoming it. Sekhmet leaned down, "Less than you." "No!" Yasmin said, "It is not possible." "Well," Dakhete grinned, "At least you had puffy nipples. I lacked even that." Khyan leaned over to whisper, "I liked your puffy nipples. I stared at them in the dark every night. Twice, you fell asleep as we talked in the dark courtyard from training with Piankh so hard. I had the courage to kiss them a little while you slept. I know I should not have, but I could not help myself." "I know," Yasmin smiled a little shyly, "I was not asleep." Khyan was shocked, "I am so sorry, I thought -- " "It was all that I could do to hold still and pretend to be asleep, Khyan. I did not dare to move. I wanted you to touch them so much, but, I did not think that you would want to." If the others noticed the difference on Yasmin, other than her new height, which placed her very close to even with her companions, they didn't give voice to their observations, though Maahes' glance said a lot as they all sat to eat and talk. Dakhete learned that Maahes would be coming with them and she was pleased at the news. "You need to change your training," Apedemak said, "There will be three friends going. We know that Khyan knows something of the sword, but he is better with the bow from his hunting to feed himself in his travels. See to it, Dakhete, so that he is prepared, and train him in longer running as well. Train him more than he has gotten to this point." Khyan groaned as Yasmin told him that she looked forward to having someone else leaning against Piankh as they tried to catch their breath. "I know that I wanted this," Khyan said, "and so I am ready to begin." "I am a little disgusted at how ready you sound," Yasmin said with a smile, "and so I look forward to seeing you kneeling next to me to throw up our breakfasts of bananas together while Piankh laughs at us both." "Wait, before you plan this so thoroughly," Dakhete smiled ruefully, "I will run with you often now. I will tell Painkh to get more bananas." "I am coming to hate them," Khyan said. "I don't know," Yasmin smiled, "They do have a nice shape." "So you have what you needed from Sekhmet, "Weret Hekau said, "Wedjet has added to it as she could. There will be certain differences in yourselves that you may notice. You will be much closer to what lies within," she smiled as her hand moved languidly in the air for a moment, "Can you feel that?" Khyan stared at the others as they looked at each other. Both of them now looked as the lioness goddesses. They looked back and forth in amazement. "But ... we are not gods," Dakhete said. "No, but you both have enough of the gods in you for this," she turned to Khyan with a smile, "Do not feel slighted, Khyan. You wear your own gifts." Khyan looked down at himself and saw nothing at first. But looking carefully revealed a lot more physical tone which had become apparent. He reached for his face and his fingers bumped into his nose. He felt the tip of a tooth and curled his lip to feel it better. He felt whiskers near his nose. "What, ... what am I? What have I become?" he asked. "Even more wondrous," Inpewt smiled. Anubis nodded beside her. Khyan felt his face for the whiskers once more and he found them, along with his short fur. He gasped and looked down. He was covered in dark grey fur. "See Anubis," Inpewt smiled, "You look as he does." When he looked up, he saw her friends smiling at him, "You are ... beautiful," Yasmin sighed. "And stronger, and as far as quickness goes,"Wedjet grinned, "think of the fastest hound, and you will have that speed. Use this as you need it, and you may keep your bananas where they belong -- in your stomach. This is what was meant that you need to train this part of you now. What you see in your friends is only what has always been there, though only Dakhete knew of this before she was caused to forget everything. All of you can go farther toward your beast nature, so far that you can become as the beast, though no beast ever had such ability to reason and even speak. You will find that you can summon this as you have need. It will always be with you, and it makes Khyan's life grow longer now, free from the shortness given to a Djinn child whose father was a human." Anubis and Ari-hes-nefer stood and went to retrieve a large sack from the corner as Mut and Tefnut cleared some space on the table. The sack was deposited on the table with a loud assortment of clanking sounds. "Choose what suits you," Ari-hes-nefer said, "as gifts from Menhit and myself. If you decide to change anything, this will always be here for you. Only return what is no longer wanted and take what is. Once you have found what you prefer, please keep it always." He threw back the corners of the sack and all manner of weapons gleamed there in the light of the torches. "Yasmin may chose anything that she wishes, but not a sword. Apedemak has brought a gift for his lovely daughter, "Menhit smiled. Yasmin looked to the side and saw Apedemak come to her. He held out a rather plain-looking scabbard. "It is a little heavy to begin, "he said, "but you will find that it grows lighter in your hand as it comes to know you until it will feel like a part of your arm. It cannot be drawn in absolute silence, I'm afraid, for it has a wish to make its presence known. If you have need of silence, then draw it slowly with one finger on the blade and it will be silent." He smiled, "It sings always as it is used." She gripped the haft and drew it out. A metallic ringing came from the blade. Even when she held it still, the blade rang on, though it was almost silent then. When she gripped the long blade carefully, it stopped, but it began once more as soon as she took her fingers away. "May I, Father?" she asked, and he nodded as he stepped back a little. Yasmin rolled the sword in an overhand motion as Piankh had taught her to do to get the feel of the balance and to unlimber her wrist and she grinned a little as the blade sang to her as it moved, no matter which stroke she used. "Squeeze the haft with your last finger a little more," Apedemak suggested. When she did, the ringing song ceased as it became the quiet rush of the flame which ran from the hilt to the broad tip. The flame was extinguished when she eased up with that one finger. "May it protect my daughter always," he smiled, and she was in his arms a second later. "I seek to become more of a father to my girl and I know that I come to this very late," he said with some quiet emotion, "This sword, I forged myself, putting all that I could into it. My friends helped as they could. I have not made it ornate, for you will have to carry enough on the road without having a jewelled sword to add to it all. Use it wisely and well, and may it mark a beginning for us on your nineteenth birthday." Yasmin looked at him with a wet smile, "You knew? You remembered?" "Always," he smiled, "though this one is the happiest of them all for me. I was always sad on this day of the year." And so, after a little more talk, the three friends prepared to leave, well-fed and armed. "Maahes will take you back," Sekhmet said, "that is, if he can ever get his hands to stop bringing food to his face." "Half a moment," Maahes said as he wolfed down the last of his food. "A word to all three friends, though hopefully not to Khyan," Bast said quietly to them. "I sometimes dote on my son," she admitted, "but I have never coddled him. He was raised by me to treat females well, but underneath everything, he is as much the consummate warrior as Apedemak and the other males could make him, for he is schooled in all of their deadly arts. I truly cannot say who his father was, for I was seized with want one night, and I coupled with Apedemak, Amun and Menhit lent me her male, Ari-hes-nefer after she had heard my want to make a child. I was serviced by them all for three days. Sekhmet alone was at my side when I birthed him and both she and I have been his mothers in the raising of him. If things go badly, he will not stop killing until it is over. He truly is the Lord of Slaughter, for he is my son. But that is only if the spirit is roused in him," she smiled, "in all other matters, he is gentle. He wants to travel with you, and I am not blind to his heart or yours. I can say that he has watched you with Sekhmet and I in Meroe and he admires you all and will travel with you regardless, but you may find that, well, males and females have a way of doing what they do," she said with a smirk, "That is how I came to have him, after all. If that happens, I can say that I would love to have a grandchild, but more importantly," she said as she looked each of them in the eye one at a time, "Do not try to keep him when another of you wants him. It is only natural that you may find that you enjoy each other, but to do this would divide you and that is not what Maahes would ever want. He understands your friendship." She leaned a little closer, "Also, he sees how you are to each other. Another thing about you all which he admires, for he has never been a male who is not secure within himself. Neither Sekhmet nor I would have allowed it. Also, the changes which your father spoke of, Yasmin, they will be present in Maahes too. When his part changes after a time of loving with any of you, then know that his godseed comes soon after that. You may couple all that you like until this happens. You may only couple perhaps three times with him that way, and then it comes to you on the fourth, surely. Remember to keep the count if you love with him one after the other. We are all females and you should know these things. After the fourth time, if he has need, then please him in other ways if you wish for no cubs. "Wait," Yasmin said, holding up her hand, "I admit that I know little of all of this -- as yet. But how many times do we speak of here that we must all keep the count? I have never heard of something like this. You speak of being careful after so many times, and then counting as he changes? How -- " Bast's kind smile made it so hard not to love her. For one famed to be so deadly, it was clear that when she liked someone, they knew their good fortune at once. Now, she held up one finger. "My son is not a human male." She smiled a little enigmatically as she let that sink in for a moment before another of her fingers rose before them. "My son is a god. If you do not count and there is an egg free in you, then I will gain a grandchild. Until then, if it is your wish -- any or all of you -- then enjoy him, but remember also that he shares some of the lion nature and may seek a mate for long. Be warned, and come to see us when you are ready to leave." "You say that Maahes could be my ... half-brother?" Yasmin asked. "One chance in three, you have of that, pretty Yasmin. What of it? Think how many Pharaohs took their sisters as wives. Will this stop you if you find a want for him in you?" She laughed a little, "Your eyes have ceased to glow red now, but if you can stop that want -- after what you have received from Sekhmet this evening, then I will bow to you, for you surely must be stronger than a goddess inside. If it were me in your place and I was not his mother, I would be the first to take him inside of me and be glad of it. Do not think of it at all," she said, "One in three. Better to join your Kandake in her pleasure with him." "Our ... pleasure?" Yasmin was a little shocked, now that this was sinking in. "I - I have one for me, Goddess," she said, looking at Khyan, and hating that she'd had to say it here like this, "I waited for when I am old enough, and that has happened." Bast rolled her lovely eyes skyward. "You as well? Why not play a board game such as senet with him instead? Do you hear this, Dakhete? You may have a fine male all to yourself. I know that you will know what to do with him." Dakhete only nodded with a tiny smile. They thanked Bast for everything and nodded their understanding as they walked to the doorway with Najmah to wait for Maahes. "I do not think that I want any of this coupling with Maahes," Yasmin hissed to her teacher, "He is wondrous, but I think of myself as Khyan's already. It is what I wish for him and I." "Then be his," Dakhete hissed back, "We all make our choices. I belong with two lovers, but I will speak to them if I am given a chance at a god as well. And there is something here for you to think about, Yasmin. You have suckled at the breast of a goddess and my mother has warned you of what may come. All that I will say is that more than blood lust comes with that milk." "Today is my birthday," Yasmin whispered. "We know," Dakhete hissed back, "we plan our own celebration when we get back. I have asked for wine and beer to be gotten somehow from somewhere. Piankh has seen to it if I know him." "I do not know about the wine," Yasmin said with a smile, "what I mean to say is that I know that I will enjoy it, but I would enjoy it more if there were naked servers. I mean, living ones." "Did we get the serving girls?" Dakhete asked Khyan. "No, Mistress, "he said sadly, "there were none to be found. Perhaps when we have more people in Meroe." Dakhete sighed, "That is a shame. Yasmin will have to be happy with us then." Yasmin giggled a little, "As I hoped, the serving girl and boy that I wished about for so long." After a moment, she looked at Dakhete, "What did Bast mean about the part of her son which she mentioned? I think that I know which part, but, ..." "I know," Dakhete replied. "Well, can you tell me as well?" Khyan asked. "Think on how cats mate," Dakhete said, "I am sure that you have seen the way that lions do it." Yasmin didn't know what was meant, so she listened intently, looking back to be certain that Maahes wasn't finished his food yet. He was, it turned out, but he was speaking with his mother and Sekhmet at the moment. "I have seen this, "Khyan replied, "They mate often and long when it is the time for that." "And what have you noticed about the way that it ends between them each time?" Dakhete smiled a little, "Even little house cats, how does that end?" "Well," Khyan said as he thought, "I only watched with a little interest. They make a lot of noise, the female, mostly." "And what does she do, right at the end?" Dakhete asked to direct Khyan's memory of it. "She, ... well, she yowls." Khyan shrugged. Dakhete shook her head, "Right -- at -- the -- end?" Khyan's jaw dropped a little, "She .... She screams. They all do." "What Bast meant was that his ... thing, as we all seem to call it, changes to become more like the cat. Have you ever seen that part of a cat?" "No," Khyan admitted. She turned to Yasmin, "Have you?" "As though I had the time to watch for that when cats fucked in the streets," she said, but then she grew quiet, "No, I never have. Why?" "Because, "Dakhete grinned a little evilly, "that part of a male cat has a ring of many little points on it." "Ooooh," Yasmin shivered, not liking the thought of it. "Well, it cannot be too bad for the girl cats," Khyan theorized, "since they hold still for it and arch their backs to receive it from the boy. And they do it -- quite a lot." "But they scream at the end," Yasmin objected, "you said so. It probably hurts them." "Or they probably love it," Khyan smirked, "remember, they do it all the day. Many, many times, over and over. It cannot be too bad. I doubt that it hurts them at all." "It probably hurts them AND they love it," Dakhete nodded with a grin as Maahes approached. "I am sorry to have made you wait," Maahes smiled as he stopped, "We may leave now." He looked at them, from one to the next. He wasn't sure, but it seemed to him that the ones which he was not looking at were looking at his waist. "Have I spilled food or something?" he asked as he looked at himself. "Not at all," Dakhete replied with a smile, "We were only admiring your long legs." "Oh," he said, wondering as he raised his arms and they were gone. -------------------- In the temple behind them, Sekhmet came to stand with her arm around her friend Bast. "I heard what you said," she smirked, "one in three." "I did not lie," Bast replied, "I said that I truly do not know." "No, you do not know from your head, but your heart knows, as does mine. How many hours have we spent, Bast, only watching and thinking as he grew, looking for traits and signs? We both know and we have always agreed, once we saw it all. Apedemak is the father of Maahes." "It matters not," Bast said smiling, "There are two fine females for our son. Surely he will take one before the end of this task. I would be happy to have either of them for his heart." "You have always limited yourself in how you perceive things, "Sekhmet grinned, "I have always told you that if you wish for something, then take it and be done." "I listened," Bast said, "You and I are so close that we might have been sisters. I listened to what you told me. That is how I came to be a mother, as I wanted it and when I wanted it." "That is not what I meant," Sekhmet chuckled, "but you have it rightly, and we are closer than sisters. My life changed the day that I saw you. We have always been as twins, sharing everything from sorrows to joys. What I meant was that I think that if Maahes decides it, he will have them all, even the boy if he wishes it. We just do not know for how long." A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 42 ------------------------- "Home again, Najmah," Yasmin said as they found themselves in Meroe once more. "I would ask," Maahes said, "if it would be alright to visit now and then, ... to see ..." "To see how the training goes?" Yasmin smiled. "Yes," he began, - " "Or to see the gazelles leaping?" Dakhete asked. "You keep gazelles?" he asked, "I love to watch them as they run! How many have you?" "Only two, "she grinned, "but they are lovely to see. Good night, Lord Maahes, and we thank you for bringing us home safely. She stretched up on her toes to kiss his cheek. He looked a little shocked, but he recovered and smiled. That was when Yasmin kissed his cheek and he blushed. "If you like gazelles, "Yasmin whispered as her new breasts grazed the side of his chest while Khyan stood staring at the god, "You should come to see the one truly fine oryx here." They walked away from him smiling. "I think they make sport," Maahes said, "or is there an oryx here as well? I saw no gazelles and no oryx when I was here before." Dakhete looked down, wondering what to say. "You meant that they are the gazelles," he said smiling a little. Yes," she nodded as she turned to go, "and I am the oryx. You may come here whenever it is your wish to." He watched her go and wondered about it all until he saw her look back once to smile and place her hands on her head pointing her index fingers as though they were horns while she moved her hips a little in imitation of the back end of an oryx. He smiled then, and Dakhete almost turned to come right back to him, liking his smile so much. But she didn't. She only winked at him with her fingers still pointing up and gave her backside a little shake as she went into her home. Maahes smiled to himself as he raised his arms and disappeared. ------------------------- "Thank you for allowing us to come along," Yasmin smiled from where she stood in Khyan's arms, "I am here wondering if I might have my birthday wish." Dakhete looked down, "Birthday wish?" "Yes," Yasmin said, "Other than her gift to me of Najmah, my mother could almost never give me anything for my birthday. So what we did is that after she was finished her working the night before, she would come upstairs to me, and when I was old enough, I would try to make her some small meal of things which I'd stolen that day from the food stalls in the souq. Sometimes it was little more than a handful of dates, but I always tried my best. We would get into her bed together and eat, and she would ask me what my wish was for my birthday the next day. Really, it was always my birthday anyway by that time, but that was the way that we did it. I would have thought carefully all the day about what my wish should be for. What I really wanted was for my mother and I to be away from there and free, but I was not allowed to wish for that then. No, my wish had to be for something that I would really like and I would tell her after we ate. She would hold me in the dark and all that we had between us in the world was Najmah and a few clothes for her, but on my birthday night, the two of us held each other and I would tell her of my wish, and we would wish for that together as hard as we could and fall asleep afterwards." She lifted her head, "I feel a little like that now, that's all." "What would you wish for now?" Dakhete asked gently. "It is nothing," Yasmin whispered, "and even so, it is likely just as impossible as my wishes were then." "Ask, Yasmin," Dakhete whispered as she stepped over and hugged her, "maybe it is something that I can manage for you." "Well," Yasmin sighed as she raised her head, "Can we go back to Marrakesh soon? I long to see my uncle one more time." "I am only sad that I cannot agree while your sweet mother was still alive for you, Yasmin," Dakhete smiled as she kissed her, "That would be a birthday wish for me as well." ------------------------- The man walked down the street cursing the heat of the day a little. He knew that he should have timed it better. If he had, he'd be off the street and out of this sweltering heat. It had been his intent, but the meeting had gone long and with something as important as these negotiations underway, he couldn't have just made his excuses and been gone earlier. He was there to bargain on his own behalf after all. It had taken years, but he was now in a position to open another of his businesses. He had many, but only a few of the real moneymakers. The cash brought in by those ones provided him with the liquid capital for everything else and every time that he opened one of those, he had to carefully look into which gang controlled what so that he could arrange for the protection of his interests. The Khalid had to be paid as well as the chief of whatever sector of guardsmen controlled the area of the new location. He walked past a shop which was doing so poorly that it had to remain open during these hottest hours of the day, the shopkeeper refusing to return his polite nod as he passed. He knew why, of course. There were always some who looked down on the way that he did business. Well let him keep the cucumber which was up his ass, the fat man smiled to himself. He was the one who had to sweat and pray that someone was crazy enough to need a few vegetables badly enough to come outdoors now. As he neared the next bend in the crazy pattern of streets and alleyways in this part of the souq, he could hear screams and shouts from around the corner. That was certainly odd, he thought, but there couldn't be much amiss, this was likely the most patrolled sector of the whole city. He rounded the corner a little carefully and saw the goods and wares of several shops strewn across the street. He could see some people looking out from under the awnings of many shops or hiding behind a few of the many overturned carts. Other than a lot of crushed produce and new clothing lying around in the gutters, he saw only bodies, several of them. He stood and blinked for several seconds before it came to him that the bodies were all guardsmen. Standing alone in the middle of it all was a huge black leopard. The cat turned it head to regard him and then sat down. The man backed up a step, but heard a snarl behind him. He spun around to see a hooded figure, obviously a female, standing quite near to him in the company of second cat. She held a sword in her hand and it was wet with blood. He could see a little of her breasts under the open and slightly blood-spattered cloak, but it was her face which almost caused him to lose his bladder. From her neck up, he saw the face of a cat. "Walk," she said. Before he could do anything, an older man appeared in the bright orange robes of the mage order in the city. "What is the meaning of this?" he demanded. The fat man stared as the mage was hurled against a wall and held there, more than a dozen feet off the dirty pavement. He hung there and struggled, his mouth working silently to form the words of the enchantment to free himself. The hooded figure had not moved. "You," she said, turning her head to look at him, "I give you a choice. You may say your trifling words to me if you think that you have the ability to do anything to me at all, or you may do the sensible thing here and return to whatever hole you came from to bring more of your kind." She smiled a little, "Tell them all to come. I am in the mood." The mage drifted away from the wall to be set down in the street twenty feet from them. The businessman looked at the cat, who was cleaning her face with a paw, as he considered his chances of just running past them both. As soon as his mind had finished the thought, she stopped preening herself and growled in his direction. The mage considered his position for a moment as he straightened his robe in a bit of pain from his rough treatment. "Who are you?" he asked. "All that I hear from you are questions," the figure said, "What is the meaning of this and who are you. How did you ever manage to learn anything at all of your craft?" As the mage tried to see under the hood a little better, he saw the dark breasts and above them, he saw a necklace in the ancient Egyptian style, and it was plainly heavy with gold. His observation was cut short as he saw the drawn back lips and the teeth. The figure's eye glowed for a second as she spoke quietly. "Choose." The mage lifted his hand to point and he began to chant. It lasted for perhaps two seconds, and then his face contorted in the hot wind which blew at him out of nowhere. He screamed as his robe and flesh burned, the flames blown out as soon as they left him, but he still burned, glowing now in places as the heat increased. He fell to his knees for a moment, still screaming, and then he collapsed into a heap as the wind continued. His robe and most of his body was gone in seconds. His bones turned to ash and blew away, though no spark carried on toward the flammable buildings or the goods of the merchants. She turned to the man in front of her, her face as beautifully cat-like as it was impassive and calm. "Walk," she said. He walked. "What is this about?" he asked in a quavering voice, at least an octave above his normal tone. She made no answer, but the leopard looked to the rooftops and saw the archers as they ran carefully to get into a position for a clear shot. He looked at them fixedly for an instant, and they disappeared in bright red splashes of liquid. He looked to the other side and a moment later, it was the same thing repeated. Blood ran down the building fronts in thin rivulets to drip from the edges of the awnings. They walked on a little and the cat went on ahead of them. He saw a second hooded figure a little down the block who stood and waited in front of his place of business with three of his women. The three shrank back a bit, but the second figure told them that there was nothing for them to fear. The businessman knew that voice. When she turned to face him, drawing back her hood, he stared in disbelief. "Hello, Uncle," she smiled coldly. She looked around the street for a moment and then at the sky before she turned to him, "A fine day to begin your new job." She smiled at him sweetly, "You work for me now." "Is everyone out?" the cat-like one asked. "Yes," Yasmin nodded, "there is no one inside anymore, though I had to indulge in the killing of the two hired guards. The back door is blocked and no one can get back inside." The three young whores stared in fear at the other figure, but she sensed it and her face became human and very lovely, "There is nothing to be afraid of," she said, "I admire your courage to wish to begin a new life, but are you the only ones who will come?" Yasmin nodded a little sadly, "I could not convince any of the others. These three are very new here and were sold into it, my uncle bought them only last week. I told them that we offer a chance to be free." Dakhete smiled, "We offer the certainty to be free. Let us get moving," She said, "I wish to stay and clean out this whole street, but there is no time to find all of the ones who are here against their will. Khyan is busy with the guardsmen and I wish to be gone before the rest of the mages come. Dealing with them would be sport to me, but your new friends here have no wish to see the manner in which I would do it." She tuned to the three again, "Whatever Yasmin has told you is true. I can provide homes for you and a new life. You may even wish to continue in this trade, but you will not need to live in fear, though it is my wish that once you see for yourselves, you will find other ways to make a living." Khyan trotted toward them from down the block and the three women and the cats disappeared in a curling gust of wind, taking the whimpering businessman with them. Dakhete stepped back and looked around. "Do it, Yasmin. I will prevent damage to the other houses." The old brothel burst into flames an instant later. Three minutes after that, it was out, a charred ruin which would smoulder for days, but not reignite. Yasmin walked closer to Dakhete, turning into the same cat-like creature that Dakhete now returned to. "Thank you," she smiled, "I have never had a finer birthday." A breeze whistled down the street and the pair were gone. --------------------- "Oh, this is so nice," Yasmin smiled as she sat by the fire later that evening, "I think now that I have always had some princess in me. I could grow to like this," she laughed. They listened to the musicians as they played and they watched the dancers. Yasmin held up her empty cup once more, and insisted that both of her friends pour for her. It made the game a lot more challenging, after all. Yasmin had longed for them both and though there had been little in the way of anything beyond perhaps a quick caress on one's backside in passing between them all, it had become a quiet tension. It seemed to be what they all wanted, and it had been a lot like a game before now. What had changed was that they'd all gotten their gift from Sekhmet earlier and one of the results was the warm throbbing which they all felt in their loins. And as Yasmin kept pointing out, it was her birthday. The drink just made it a lot easier to joke and tease each other, that was all. They were all a little drunk, but they'd sat facing each other a little earlier and made their declarations as each of them held the hands of the others. Saddiq and Sha-sha were called and told of what had happened. Dakhete asked if they wished to be a part of this and they nodded. Even with the beer and the wine, it had still been difficult to do, but one after another, they'd all formalized their agreement for whatever the gods needed from them. For the most part, Sha-sha sat with Saddiq and they enjoyed the slightly drunken show before them. As Dakhete and Khyan reached out to pour Yasmin's drink each time, Yasmin pulled the cup away a little so that they had to lean a bit farther. That was when she reached out with her free hand to caress a thigh or a breast gently every time. "I am so lucky," she said, "to have the love of such a pair of friends," she said. "We are all lucky," Dakhete smiled, but Yasmin pulled her cup away a little farther and Khyan almost fell on top of Yasmin. The motion caused him to have to lean so far that he held himself up only by placing his hand on Yasmin's shoulder. The girl had once been a thief and had learned long ago that one must make use of what opportunities might present themselves, and so she leaned her head forward a little and opened her mouth to try to nibble on Khyan's stomach. She was mostly successful, and Yasmin chuckled as she heard her friend's soft groan. Dakhete enjoyed what she was watching. She felt a lot better now about them all. True, she admitted to herself, she was somewhat in love with a nineeen year-old and an almost twenty year-old at the same time, while she was stuck at a more or less permanent twenty-five, it seemed. She knew that she needed Saddiq and Sha-sha now for what it would become, but she also felt so much for this pair - her gazelles as they often referred to themselves. She no longer cared. She just loved them and the way that all of them, the cats included, just seemed to form the nucleus of something. She'd never known something like this before in her life. The hand between her thighs was a pleasant surprise and she had to think for a second to know that this had to be Yasmin's and she must have switched hands holding her cup. But then she also felt Khyan's hand on her flank as it slid to slip between her haunches and she sighed for a moment before she leaned in to lick Yasmin's ear. "I love you," she admitted to the girl, "I love you and Khyan both." "We share this," Yasmin whispered back, "but would you do me a great kindness, Dakhete? Would you please dance for me? I love to see your body move." Dakhete nodded and leaned back to free herself. She stepped back and began to move slowly. As she felt her hips grinding down, she wondered at why she'd felt such quiet doubts. As she turned slowly, raising her arms above her head to make her breasts a little more prominent, she smiled through her half-lidded eyes at her friends. Khyan had been pulled down to sit on the bench as Yasmin's hands busied themselves on his young body. "Khyan," she breathed into his ear, "Khyan, I wish to tell you something." Khyan looked at her, and guessed that it was important, so he nodded. "When I came here, I was less than nothing, only the daughter of a whore. I know more now and I will want to know my father much better, but it changes nothing for me. Weeks ago, I fell for a boy that I saw and it is such wonder to me that he loves me as he does. You knew nothing of me, yet you gave your heart to me. I want you to know that I know that something flows through us now that seems to raise lust a little, but ... well, I love you so, Khyan." The prince smiled and hugged her as they watched the Kandake dance. "My heart was gone from me at the instant that I saw you clearly, Yasmin. I know what you mean to say about what we both drank. But all that it does to me is to help with my courage a little. I have wanted only you for so long. I know that we both love Dakhete, but it is not the same for me, Yasmin. What you were or are is the same -- I do not care, as long as I may hear words from you like you have said now, I am happy. I love you, Yasmin." She sighed as she kissed his face, "Good then," she smiled, "I wanted nothing to get in the way between us. Now I can watch with a full heart." "I have always wished to know how to dance," Khyan sighed, "I had no chance to learn any of this. I don't even know if there is a way for a male to dance anything like this. By the time that I was old enough to have an interest and a wish for it, I was all alone here. See how our mistress moves, Yasmin. Oh, it makes me want her so much." "I think it is our night, my love," Yasmin groaned as she pulled him down a little to kiss Khyan's cheek and pressed her head alongside his as they watched Dakhete dance for them. "I am sad for you," Yasmin said a moment later. "A girl should know how to dance like this, boys too, only in a different way. There were many nights that I was alone in my little room, but I could please myself a lot if I only danced and touched myself." She paused to sip from her cup for a moment. "Of course, it always ended with me on my little bed to finish, but ..." "You can dance like that?" Khyan asked. "Yes," she heard Yasmin breathe her reply into his ear while her fingers toyed with Khyan's already straining erection so softly. "I had nothing," she said, "not even clothes to wear, but I did have many chances to learn to dance. I taught myself mostly from what I saw around me." "What did you see around you? How do you mean?" Khyan asked as he reached out to caress Dakhete's mound with his fingers for a moment, since it was there in front of him. He drew his fingertips back when Dakhete turned and he licked them a little before offering them to Yasmin who sucked them for a moment. Dakhete danced slowly away. "Well," Yasmin smiled a moment later, "I was raised in a brothel, you know." Khyan looked at Yasmin, "I do not know what that means. I grew up here. What is that?" Yasmin smiled and stretched up to whisper into Khyan's ear. Khyan gasped, "This is so? But you always wear such a look of one who has never been touched. I even hear it in the way that you joke with us, as though to keep it hidden." Yasmin frowned for a moment as she cupped Khyan's balls gently, "I imagine that I wear the look of one who has never been touched and longs so much to be. The truth of it is, that I never have been touched very much at all. I have come close many times, but this," she smiled as she kissed Khyan's shoulder, "this is as much as I have ever done, really. I only know what feels good to me. Beyond that, I know nothing but my want of you and our mistress." A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 42 Khyan leaned back and kissed Yasmin once, "I feel the same want. But I do know how I feel about you both. I want nothing more than to begin with my friends this night. Everything feels so good to me now. The softest touch makes me shiver. Look at Dakhete. Everything about her shows her want of us. See how she moves. Oh, Yasmin, I love your hips, but I want to push my lips against that bottom tonight." Yasmin held her cup to Khyan's lips for him to sip from for a moment. "I as well," she said, "I know little of what to do once I reach that place, but I am determined to please her. I have an idea," she grinned, "Would you like me to dance for you as well?" Khyan's mouth opened at the thought, "To see you both dancing for me, I would love that." "Then let me up, handsome one, and I will try my best to put on as fine a show as I begin dancing with Dakhete," she smiled. Khyan moved so that Yasmin could stand and approach Dakhete. Khyan took her seat instantly. Dakhete still danced and she'd watched them gazing at her in a little pride. She bucked her hips at them slowly as she reached down to tease her lips a little. She felt so warm and happy tonight and she trailed her moist fingertips up as she reached for her breasts with both hands. She saw Yasmin stand and walk toward her with the sweetest little grin. "Dance on, beautiful oryx," Yasmin smiled as she reached to pat Dakhete's haunches for a moment, "You must dance on just a little longer. I will make it worth your while, I hope." Yasmin threw her arm around Dakhete's waist and kissed her, "May I please dance with you?" she asked, politely, "You are such a wonder to see as you dance, and our boy there wishes to see us dance together." Dakhete hadn't stopped. She'd only slowed a little and she nodded with a soft smile. As they began to move together, Dakhete was impressed with the smooth motions which Yasmin took her body through. The moves were beyond sensual. Everything that was done was well into erotic. It wasn't that she was immune to it herself, Dakhete noticed quickly, Yasmin was taking herself to her pleasure, more than anything. She slid her hands up her body and surprised herself with the feelings which came to her from her breasts. "Oh," she moaned softly, "the joy that I might have found with these earlier." She'd been with her back against Dakhete for a time, humping her hips back into her, but now she turned to face her and she was careful to allow their bodies to touch and slide against each other. Dakhete found herself dragged along in it, marveling at how good it felt. When Yasmin's thigh found its way between hers, Yasmin reached to be sure that Dakhete was there for her to rub her thigh between Dakhete's legs. As expected, she felt Dakhete's thighs move apart and she was quick to rub her thigh against Dakhete's mound -- which had been the point, after all. "Where in the world did you learn something like this, Yasmin? I have never seen anything like it." Yasmin put her arm around Dakhete's neck and she slid her other arm around Dakhete's waist and she held her cheek against her friend's ear. "When I was little, I had trouble staying on Najmah, so I practised in the courtyard where no one would watch me and laugh when I fell off. We must have gone hundreds of leagues turning only left. I think that Najmah was asleep for most of it." She sighed as she pressed herself against Dakhete's thigh and rubbed a little, "When I got a little older, of course, and there were no errands for my faithful Najmah and me to run. We went to the courtyard again. By then, no one cared about the ass and the girl in the yard. Najmah ate her hay, and I practised dancing as I imitated what I'd seen from watching the dancers every night, and so I thought of ways to make it feel better to me when I did it again alone in my room, but touching myself then. This was what you saw." "It was wonderful," Dakhete sighed as she held Yasmin, "I almost could not stop shaking from the sight of it. I swear that I almost came to my bliss as I watched. That was so beautiful to see." "Almost?" Yasmin lifted her head to look at Dakhete, "I will have to try harder for you then. I came to my bliss very softly twice in just that time. If we are to dance together like this, then I insist on pleasing you in the same way." She reached down and her fingers found Dakhete's wet lips. "Here, Dakhete," she sighed, "Let me help you. Move against my hand. Turn a little so that Khyan can see us." Dakhete groaned and complied, her hips thrusting slowly as Yasmin worked her. "Is it good? Do I do it rightly?" Yasmin asked. "Yes, oh, yes, "Dakhete moaned. Yasmin eased herself a little lower and she began to kiss Dakhete's breasts, mostly for Khyan's benefit, but the feeling got to them both just a little and she made a little more than a passing attempt at sucking her nipples, from left to right and back. She'd been holding her hands against each of Dakhete's thighs to steady herself and now she used one of them to tease herself. She had an idea then and directed Dakhete to turn so that she faced away from Khyan and then she kissed Dakhete's cleft and surprised both of them as her tongue slipped past her teeth to run along Dakhete's lips as she leaned forward. Yasmin liked this so much that she wanted a little more out of it for herself then and with Khyan watching as he masturbated. Yasmin began to rub herself in tiny circles which widened before she lifted her hand and slapped her lips very gently a few times before going back to the circles. They continued for a few moments until they heard Khyan's quiet grunting. "Stop for a while," Dakhete whispered, "I wish to help Khyan a little too." They parted and Dakhete stepped to where Khyan lay almost sprawled in his seat, looking more wanton than they'd have believed possible. Dakhete lifted him higher and though he was surprised at her strength, Khyan planted his feet on the edge of the seat as Dakhete leaned down and opened her mouth to take his straining hardness into her mouth. She groaned and began to work him. This was something that she'd wanted to do for weeks. Khyan moaned louder and raised his hips more. Yasmin took his head and held it as she leaned down to kiss him and she squeezed one nipple just so for a moment and then gave it a gentle twist. Khyan's cries were stifled as they escaped through his nose. He bucked hard but Dakhete held him as he cried out in a muffled wail and filled her mouth. "Is it good?" Yasmin asked, "I have dreamed of something like that for him". Dakhete stood up a little when he'd stopped and leaned over to share his semen with Yasmin in a kiss. "Thank you," Khyan gasped, "Thank you both..." "Shh, my darling," Yasmin smiled as she looked at Dakhete, "I am needed elsewhere, I think." Khyan sighed and told them that he loved them both so much. Dakhete looked up and would have made an answer, but her eyes flew open as they both heard a resounding slap. "Look at this," Yasmin chuckled as she caressed the bottom before her, "an oryx has happened by, and such a fine one too." She slapped Dakhete hard once more and her fingers slid down to play with the lips there. Dakhete groaned and arched her back down so that her mound was closer to that touch. "See how she offers herself," Yasmin said reverently, "she offers her lovely haunches to me, Khyan. What am I to do with one like this? I am so inexperienced; I really have little idea of what must be done here." She rubbed her fingertips in tiny circles and Dakhete stepped so that her feet were apart a little more. "I don't know, Yasmin," Khyan smiled, "And we are only gazelles, after all, and not oryxes. But I am always helpful," he said airily, "and so I will ask." He slid himself lower so that he faced Dakhete. "She is so beautiful, Yasmin," Khyan smiled, "and her udders, oh, they are lovely. They almost call out to my hands." He was having so much trouble with keeping himself from laughing in joy at how much fun this was. Dakhete was happy to play along. She felt so good under their hands that she only stood there, bent over with her arms on the chair, looking into Khyan's beautiful face, and in truth, she loved this silly game of theirs now. "Our oryx seems to be having trouble speaking," he said, "If it were me back there, I think that I would try to slap her sweet place there very gently, no more than little taps, just as you did to yourself a minute ago. I think this is what you should try first. I don't know, of course, but you looked like it did you some good." He did laugh then as Dakhete's eyes grew wider for a moment and then they heard her soft moans. "Ai," Dakhete hissed at almost every wet little tap. It didn't sting at all, it just felt so nice. "Ai, ...ai ... ai..." it went on, and Dakhete began to groan between the sounds that she made at every tap. "I think that she likes it," Khyan grinned as he kneaded Dakhete's breasts, taking great care to work her nipples gently, "she looks happier already. Slap her some more, just a little." Khyan was growing aroused again as he heard the soft quiet slapping. He took Dakhete's face in his hands and smiled, "Is that good for you, oryx? Is there something else that we might do to please you?" Dakhete's breath hissed through her teeth, in and out, "f-finger," she said. "She wishes for your finger," Khyan smiled as he kissed Dakhete softly and his hands found the breasts before him again. "Two fingers, ... crossed," Dakhete moaned, "Twist them, please, oh, please, twist them." Dakhete began to grunt as she felt Yasmin do as she'd been asked. Yasmin smiled as she kissed and licked Dakhete's haunches slowly, "Do you know, Khyan? I come to love our oryx here so much. I can easily tell you that I would do anything to please this one. Why, I would even lick her here, all of her -- everywhere, you know. But I will wait, for I think that she wants this twisting more right now," she said as she felt Dakhete thrust back against her hand. She stood up a little and leaned her arm across Dakhete's hips to grin at Khyan. They smiled at each other and seeing Khyan looking past her, Dakhete turned her head back. "I am in love with my beautiful gazelles," she gasped. "Well that is good," Yasmin smiled, "because we gazelles are wiser than most would give us the credit for. We know our good fortune in having the love of our oryx." She got to her knees and slowly moved her hand away. Placing her hands on Dakhete's hips, she pressed her face against Dakhete's mound and began her kisses. When her tongue began to dance against Dakhete's clitoris, Dakhete cried out and held her bottom out as far as she could to receive more of the sensation. Khyan took Dakhete's face in his hands and began to kiss her as wildly as he could, while Dakhete yelled and bucked. They stayed frozen like that for minutes as Dakhete got her wind back. Khyan smiled softly and whispered, "Your gazelles have found a way to please you. We love you so, Dakhete." "I know," she gasped, "I love you too." "Can you not stand?" Khyan asked, looking a little concerned. "Not for another minute or so," she smiled with her eyes closed, "I have a sweet gazelle licking my backside and I want to feel it a little longer." "I am watching your cat friends as they fuck, Dakhete. I think that we've given them an idea," Khyan smiled. "They likely already had that thought," Dakhete moaned. Yasmin stopped to look over for a moment, "She is not howling or crying out. Maybe it doesn't happen all of the time." "I will howl and cry if you stop now," Dakhete complained a little. As though they'd been listening, Saddiq began to go deeper into Sha-sha and she began her loud moaning. Yasmin went back to what she'd been doing for Dakhete, and wondered why the sounds had made her feel as though she was even wetter now. "Khyan," she called quietly, "please come here and finish our oryx for me. I wish to trade places." Dakhete allowed him to leave and his place was instantly taken by Yasmin. While he caressed her, Dakhete lifted Yasmin and when she was where she wanted to be, holding herself up, Dakhete said, "I have ached to do this for you, pretty gazelle, from the first hour, as we crossed the river." Yasmin's hips twitched upwards from the feeling of Dakhete's first kiss. She only regretted not being able to do much to hold Dakhete's head. She knew it right away when Khyan slid into Dakhete from behind and the two young people smiled at each other over Dakhete. They eventually all stood up, and as silly as it seemed to them at first, they found that they could share kisses between the three of them if they were careful as they came together. The trouble was that they'd been drinking, and it almost always resulted in gales of laughter between them most of the times that they tried to do it. The few times that they succeeded were worth it to them all. "I have never heard of such a thing," Dakhete chuckled as they stood with their heads together. "I have heard of three people loving for a time for the feel of it, but all kinds of creatures, and I include gods and Djinn and humans in my words, all of them always pair. Look at us," she laughed, "kissing three at once. We seem to come to this naturally somehow. There must be something wrong with us all, the way that we take to this." "I know what it is," Yasmin said, doing her best to appear sage and wise. The others looked at her and waited, but Yasmin had to turn her head to let out a belch. "There," Khyan grinned, "we have Yasmin's answer. Like all wise ones, she speaks and no one knows what is meant." They laughed until Yasmin tried again, "We are smarter, that is all." "I cannot wait to hear this wisdom," Dakhete smiled, "Tell it, Yasmin. Enlighten us, if you would." "It is simple," the girl said, "Suppose that one of us wants to play a little and one of us is absent, or does not wish it. I cannot imagine why that might be, but, ..." "The time of the moon," Khyan said, meaning that one might have her period. "Fine," Yasmin scowled, "just so. Imagine that then if you must. Well, there is always one more of us, is there not?" "We have not been together long enough to know each other's times, "Dakhete said, "What happens if both of us have this as the same time, oh wise woman? Have you thought of this?" "I have," Yasmin grinned a little sloppily, "Khyan will need to take care of himself then. I have decided that you may have your misery." She held up her finger, "I will ride Najmah." Khyan shook his head as he laughed, "And you are immune to that, Yasmin? What will you do if it is you who bleeds then? I thought that females wanted nothing then." "Well I do and I have thought of everything," Yasmin grinned, "Two blankets, and my rags. I will ride Najmah -- only much slower." As though she knew that she was being spoken about, Najmah walked past them into the house. "I have grown to love her just from her ways," Dakhete smiled, "At first, I was afraid that she would leave a mess every morning inside, but she never does. She is a clean beast, and she seems to care about us all." "She does," Yasmin smiled, "in her way, of course. She can be stubborn, but I have always found that she has her reason to be. Remove the reason for her, and she is happy again. She loves me as I love her. That is why she wants to sleep where we sleep, in the same room if she can. People say that asses are stupid, but it is not so. Najmah has learned that she has three friends who care for her, that is all and see how she no longer fears and loathes your lovers, Dakhete. She is happy to come to me looking as though no one loves her so that I will find her a carrot. After that, she seeks one of you two for the same thing. She gets more carrots that way." "Come on," Dakhete said, "the oryx wants her gazelles in her bed now. Bring some drink. When will it be your birthday, Khyan?" "I do not know," he said, "I have lost the count of the days and I always just take the midsummer's night as another year past, since it was a little before that, when I knew. I know that I am nineteen, and soon I will be twenty. Why do you ask?" Dakhete smiled as they got into bed, "I think that we have such fun this night that perhaps I will declare tomorrow to be your birthday, Khyan. Help me with our girl here. It is her night. We need to keep both ends of her wet for later. Just remember, the wine goes in at the top." They laughed until Yasmin looked at Dakhete, "What did you mean about later? What will happen later?" "You will see," Dakhete grinned, as she began to caress Yasmin's mound. "Which of us would you like first?" Yasmin didn't even have to think about it a little, "Neither one," she laughed, "Khyan and I have talked of this night for so long. We have both been true to our word, all this time, though we ached to do more than just kiss. We have even pleased ourselves together often with no touching but in the way that we lay beside each other, whispering about this night. We want to make love to you." Dakhete was surprised, "Alright," she smiled, "but it sounds as though there is a reason that you have. Or am I wrong?" Yasmin smiled, as she sat up and hugged Dakhete, "We love you," she said, "We have so many reasons. You are Kandake and rule here, turning what was dust for ages into someplace where people come to live, us as well. You have made my life into a happy dream. I know that we have all wanted each other for so long. Khyan nodded, "We are your gazelles, as we have often joked, but Yasmin and I have always longed to love with you .We want the one that we call the oryx just as she wants us. The Kandake should have consorts, and we wish to be them for you, along with your cats. Yasmin and I have agreed that we wish to be a pair. We know that we are young, but we want to try. We can always love each other. Tonight, we want to love you." Dakhete didn't know what to say, so after a long moment where she found herself fighting back the onset of happy tears, Dakhete just began it and pulled them both to her before she began to coach Khyan. "First, give to each other while I watch. I was loved the first time by you both outside. I want to see you start this between you." Yasmin was forced onto her back gently and Khyan crawled onto her while Dakhete helped to get Yasmin's legs higher. "Try to find the best place to rub yourself against her. I will help you and everything will sort itself out after that." "Oooh," Yasmin sighed, already liking what was being done, "I like the way that it sounds. I wish for Khyan to fuck me." Dakhete almost spilled the wine from her laughter. "Yes," she nodded smugly, "now begin." Yasmin began to relax from the sensation and she loved the way that Khyan was so tender about it. Her maidenhead gave up the ghost with only the barest twinge of discomfort and she found herself sighing and cooing into her boyfriend's ear as Dakhete smiled down at them. After a minute or two, everything fell into place in Yasmin's mind. She was being fucked. Finally, wondrously, and by the boy that she'd never have dreamed of having if she'd gotten a glimpse of him in the alleyways of Marrakesh, Yasmin was finally fucking for no other reason than they loved each other. There was no expectation, no uncertainty, and none of the cheapness that had awaited her if she'd begun whoring. Yasmin, the daughter of perhaps the poorest whore in all of Marrakesh was free from that place and living a dream in the arms of the boy who loved her as the woman who loved them both watched, plainly over the moon with it all. The next time, it was Dakhete's turn. She was much more urgent about it and by then, it was what Yasmin wanted, the way that it felt to her to have Dakhete lying on her to press her mound against her own. A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 43 ***Knowing a little better now what was needed, Dakhete begins to shape her land. But there is trouble brewing in Napata, the ancient capital and it comes as rumors from out of the depths of the jebel there of things which run the passageways in the darkness. 0_o --------------- Book of the Djinn Part 6 When they'd found themselves alone, Yasmin and Khyan smiled at each other for a moment before he looked to see her holding onto his hardening shaft. "If there is a little left for me tonight, I think that I would want it now," she said quietly. He reached for her and she found herself in his arms again, but it felt a little different to her this time. There was much more familiarity which seemed to go right along with the hopefulness for them and her love of him. It felt so good to feel him slide into her slowly and with all of him inside, they lay still and looked at each other again. "I have had daydreams of this for as long as I have known you," he said and then he smiled, "Of course, if I had one of them cross my mind when I was in a private place..." "You were lucky," Yasmin whispered with a grin as she moved her hips a little, "I had the same thoughts often, but very few truly private moments. But that is past, Khyan. I have you now and I love you so. I only wish that it was the beginning of the evening, I am a little tired." "Then I must love my tired girl in a way that suits the circumstance," Khyan said. Yasmin smirked, "Khyan, I hear what you say, but I do not think that you can do that. I think that it will feel so good to us both. .. oh, never mind," she grinned a little, "fuck me however you like." But he understood what she'd meant and so he did it slowly, and with as much in it as he could manage. He was inexperienced, but he did have a heart in him, and to Yasmin, it was the perfect dreamy loving that she'd had in her mind. -------------------- She awoke looking at his back, which was a little convenient, she thought, because she had to pee and didn't wish to disturb him. She eased herself out of the bed and then she noticed the slight shift in the weight at her chest and looked down. That had to be one of the most wonderful things about what had clearly been the most wonderful birthday that she'd ever had. They weren't much to likely anyone's eyes, but Yasmin actually had real breasts now, and Khyan loved them, he'd said and he hadn't left them alone for very long after Dakhete had gone. She smiled as she cupped them for a moment, still in wonder. When she came back to bed, Yasmin looked at the boy who she was so in love with that it hurt her sometimes just to think about. Her eye was drawn farther down on him and she smiled, hoping that she never grew tired of looking at his bottom. But she stared after a moment. His legs were together, but all of his, well, his balls and his manhood were there and she wondered how he did that. Shouldn't that be facing the other way? Then she thought that it offered her a chance for a little fun, though not in a teasing way. As she looked at it, he was hardening a little, but by his breathing, he was asleep. She slowly reached out and very lightly touched it and it made her smile, the way that it responded instantly. It was just too bad that she couldn't do more with it like this – at least she didn't think that she could. But he moved then and rolled over onto his back and she moved quickly to get out of the way. Yasmin smiled. There was her reward, she thought as she looked at that thing of his standing rock hard and proud. He was still asleep, and so she crept forward like the thief that she'd been and opened her mouth. When he awoke a minute or two later, Khyan was amazed to find that his girl had managed to get his foreskin back and was suckling contentedly, her smiling eyes regarding him happily. He ached with the need to relieve his bladder, and this was the sweetest torture that he could think to ever enjoy, but he wouldn't ever dream of asking her to stop. A little later, Yasmin sat looking at a banana. An actual banana. To her, it symbolized the task. To eat it signified her acceptance of another day of punishment. Khyan walked into the room then and the thought of the unpleasantness fled from her mind as she pushed two bananas toward him. "What is this?" He asked. "Piankh says that you have more to tear down, so you need more bananas, "she chuckled, "I usually lose mine somewhere on the road running, but I am getting better at keeping it down longer." She was a little annoyed at the way that he just seemed to shrug and reach for one, so she pushed the second half of hers at him. He looked up curiously, "Why?" "I don't want any more of mine and you probably need it, since the thought of eating one doesn't bother you. Eat this for me before Piankh comes back, and I'll give you a kiss..." Yasmin thought that she should be even more annoyed now, but she laughed about it. He hadn't even blinked, he'd just taken her banana, peeled the rest in a flash and it was gone. She smiled at him evilly, feeling certain that she'd see that banana again a little later. They stopped by Dakhete's chambers on their way out. Khyan wanted to ask about maybe bringing his sisters to visit in a little while. It was a little difficult to ask the question. Saddiq lay on his side with his head up and looking at them. He had one foreleg over Dakhete as she smiled and agreed that they should speak of it a little later in the day as she lay with her head on Sha-sha's ribs. Sha-sha didn't move, but she watched them as they stood in the doorway to the bedchamber. The pair walked away to join Piankh. In the bedchamber, Dakhete smiled as Sha-sha rolled onto her back toward Dakhete. "I thought they'd never leave," Dakhete chuckled. As they changed to appear human, she pressed her hips back for Saddiq and raised her leg to help him inside of her. As he began slowly, Dakhete looked for Sha-sha's nipple. ---------------- After miles of running, they had to stop for Yasmin again, and by that point, Khyan didn't mind the break as Yasmin stood trying to keep her stomach down and grudgingly admitting to herself that she was getting better at this while managing to keep her bananas down as well. To her surprise and pleasant amazement, she was able to keep pace with Khyan now rather easily and the two of them could run for miles. As always, Piankh was full of disgustingly cheerful encouragement for her, though she knew that he meant well. "We will run back to Meroe, but more slowly now before we begin with the swords once more. You will need to do little today, Yasmin. I wish to teach Prince Khyan to block better. Tomorrow, you begin with the bow. Sheershepsut wishes to begin and needs to know if the one who vanquished Piankh can come with her prince so that both can be measured for a bow." "But I already have a bow," the young prince said as he watched Piankh smile slowly. "Sheershepsut trains only one way," he smiled, "and the most important thing to her is to grow good archers out of the dirt as a gardener grows plants. Simple is the best, and no matter how good you may be with your bow, she will make you better with one of hers, but it is a road which must be walked all the same." "I do not understand." Khyan said. "See how Yasmin can run now," Piankh said, "faster and farther and faster still. But I did not only take a girl and cause her to run that way in an afternoon. Sheershepsut's way is the same. You tear down the old to build the new. Forget your bow. She will give you a warbow with a light draw, and you will not be able to hit a thing for a few days as you relearn everything. But then it will change and then you will give back her bow and take a new one with a heavier draw, and so on and so on, until at last you have a bow that you are strong enough to draw all the day long and kill foes with every shot. That one will be her gift to you. You have seen her, yes?" The pair nodded. "Sheershepsut has a strong back and shoulders – as one might expect in one such as her, though she is still as lovely as she always was. But I will tell you a thing now," he said, "Neither of you could lift and hold her bow up for long, and neither of you can draw it even a little. She will tell you that the ability comes from the building of the body, certainly. But if you press her, she will also tell you that it comes from WANTING this. I have seen her fight and shoot and fight and lead her women and the few men who she accepts into her ranks for whole days at a time, her bow never leaving her hand. I can draw her warbow," Piankh smiled, "But I cannot hit a single thing with it for the draw of Sheershepsut's mighty bow is heavier than my own." He stopped then and they followed his gaze to the next hillside. Dakhete ran there with her spear and the large cats as they loped along with her. "Where is she going?" Yasmin asked. "They hunt, from what I can see," Piankh said quietly, "Her two friends there need to eat and I think that she helps. Come if you are ready, Yasmin." He turned and they began the easy trot that he'd promised back to the city. ----------------------- At Saddiq's insistence. They'd been slow to start with it and though it might have looked a little odd, it was wonderful to Dakhete. She was on her knees and Saddiq had mounted her, but he was mindful to be slow and gentle. He eased in and out, only thrusting a little when he felt that she'd want a little of that. Dahkete's face was hidden against her forearms as she moaned and sobbed quietly, and yet if Saddiq stopped, he'd find her bucking back against him to make him begin again. It had just happened and with his first thrust, the Kandake had sounded as though she was in real pain, so Sha-sha held her palm up to Saddiq with a motion to go softer still. She got to her knees herself and brought her face to Dakhete's head, "Too much Dakhete?" "No," Dakhete sniffled as she lifted her tear-streaked face, "It feels so good." She sniffled and was about to wipe her face, but Sha-sha did it for her carefully. "It doesn't hurt now," Dahkete said, "It feels so warm and nice. I have had my bliss here softly over and over, but I feel something in me – something rising and I know that soon I will want more." Sha-sha leaned in and kissed Dakhete softly for a moment before she withdrew a little. "Dakhete is brave," she nodded, "You shame Sha-sha a little. When I do this again, want be like Dahkete, do this as girl." The Kandake looked at her, not comprehending, so the other girl smiled, "Sha-sha do this many times with Saddiq, but not as Dakhete does now. Sha-sha want be like you, Dahkete, but now, I tell what must be, yes?" Dahkete nodded a little as she pushed back harder and began to grunt a little, "Go on, Sha-sha," She lifted herself a little and hung her head as she panted. Sha-sha moved a little closer and slid her hand under Dahkete to tease one of her nipples a little as she brought her head against her friend's ear, "Lean on Sha-sha," she whispered, "Dakhete is so beautiful to see always. Like this, more – much more. Listen now. When you go harder, not hold back," she touched Dakhete's throat gently, "Not be quiet then, Dakhete. My friend not see – she is like cat. BE cat now, Dakhete." Sha-sha kept up her toying caresses under Dakhete's nipple and she kissed the rim of the ear there close to her lips, "Not know why Dakhete not know this, so I teach now. Girl cats make noise when they do this, yes? Not all noise is because of his thing in you. Remember this, Dakhete. We make noise from a little hurt, and noise from how good is to feel this." She kissed Dakhete's cheek, "We also sing, Dakhete, because we do this and we are happy to do it – " She shook her head, "Not know word. You scream and sing because you – happy to have Saddiq and no other girl does then, not even Sha-sha." Dahkete groaned as she began to fuck harder. "Proud," she gasped heavily. "Yes!" Sha-sha nodded, "When it come to you, scream and sing, Dakhete. Loud and long. Sha-sha make noise to help then, you see – will be better then." She sat back on her haunches slowly, keeping her hand working that nipple just so, "Girl cats PROUD we do this. Give everything then. You BE girl cat then. You know what you are now, Dakhete. Be what you are." When her moment came at last, Dakhete took Sha-sha's advice. She bucked and howled and screamed out how she felt, a little surprised to see Sha-sha crying out with her, sharing her joy. It felt so deliciously primal to her – especially because Sha-sha had helped to make it so. The sounds of the forest died away suddenly as everything stopped to listen for a moment. In the middle of that long moment, Dakhete opened her eyes to look at Sha-sha there on her knees in front of her, her mouth open just as her own was, both of them smiling as they cried out. Saddiq pounded into Dakhete and the wails rose until she felt Saddiq press into her and quiver as he roared out his own feelings. Dakhete screamed again as he pulled out of her and she looked for a place to collapse. All that she saw was Sha-sha wanting to be what she collapsed on and the three of them rolled in a happy embrace. ---------------- Dakhete lay back in the grass watching Sha-sha mate with Saddiq again. Their mouths were open and they panted hard as they worked at it here in the shade of a large tree. Sha-sha raised her head and opened her mouth, showing her teeth as she yowled and bucked backwards a little. Saddiq had offered once again to change his shape to be a human or a Djinn male for her earlier, but Dakhete had refused unless it was what he wanted for himself. Dakhete looked down for a moment, still feeling the heat from her own vagina. It had been done with a lot of her frenzied screams, but it had been worth it, she thought happily. She felt the three of them growing close so quickly. When Saddiq had mounted her from behind, it had been so beautiful and natural to her. It had hurt like hell and she'd never felt anything so incredibly wonderful at the same time. It had surprised them all, Dakhete's scream then, because what came from her was definitely not the scream of a woman, though it ended in human-sounding sobs of happiness as she'd hung her head to rest against Sha-sha's neck, astounded at the love that she heard in the dark girl's soft whispers . She'd never been fucked like that in her life, though she was a little bothered by what Saddiq had said yet again, that he could see that she was a cat, no matter how she'd told him that he was wrong. Sha-sha hadn't argued, she'd only nodded when he'd said it and it made Dakhete wonder all the more. But in the middle of that long moment, Dakhete had felt the change come to her and she knew that they had all been right; the gods and the cats. Over her long life, she'd had a lot of males of all sorts and she'd felt pleasure and satisfaction, but she'd never felt this right afterwards. But right now, she thought as she looked at Sha-sha's rising passion, she wanted to do what had been done for her, so she knelt in front of the other female and offered her encouragement in the same way. Sha-sha showed her teeth as she screamed and Saddiq growled over her back as he came. Dakhete smiled at them joined in their moment of triumph, yelling ans screaming right along with Sha-sha. It only seemed to be the right thing to do and it felt very good to her at the same time. As she lay on her back holding Sha-sha, she turned her head and looked at their kills, glad now that she'd brought her knife. Three impalas would be a bit to carry, but not after you removed what you wouldn't be eating. ------------------------ As the next days passed, Dakhete found herself to be very happy and surprised to find how close she and Sha-sha were becoming. The girl amazed her often, showing how similar she was to a Djinn. When she was in her natural form, she wore a very short skirt and stood near to Dakhete but never in the way. She fit right in with Yasmin and Khyan, even showing them some surprising techniques with the weapons which she could just pull from the air, just as Dakhete herself could. In return, she learned to speak a little better from them. Khyan knew what she was not long after it had been explained to him and Yasmin, but it didn't bother him. The young pair saw her as a friend almost from the first minute. Saddiq was gone fairly often over the next few days, needing to see the state of where he came from, and trying to learn what he could of Nasira's state of mind. He often dropped little warnings about Khyan's mother in a slightly worried tone. Khyan nodded then, concerned himself, as he admitted that the queen had become increasingly less like herself lately. He was worried for his sisters after Saddiq told them all that demons ran through the passageways under the jebel. It was his theory that this lay at the heart of the madness somehow. When they found themselves alone, Dakhete and Sha-sha often liked to hunt together, with Sha-sha shunning the cheetah form more and more at Dakhete's urging. Dakhete was determined to help, and she did her best to insist that if Sha-sha was a girl, then that was how she ought to finally learn how to live. Sha-sha grew more comfortable with it, and as her confidence rose, she managed to find a bit of pride in herself as well. Dakhete thought it was a good thing to see as it developed. They became almost inseparable, sharing everything from food to their thoughts. Between themselves, they often said that they were Saddiq's females because it felt good to them to say it, and as such, they were a family now. During those nights when they found themselves alone, they shared their late evening meals together, and spoke of what needed to be done for the kingdom. They also came to admit that Saddiq's females loved each other, and if he was not there, then they shared their bodies with each other as readily as they did anything else without a thought. Sha-sha said that it was a very unusual thing for cheetah females to do, just as it was for her people. Dakhete answered that it was just as odd an arrangement for Djinn, but they laughed over it and grew even closer. The weeks passed and the old dustbowl began to look like a place of habitation once again. Dakhete was proud. It had taken a while, but there were now living humans in the place as well. True to her word, Nasira had been telling anyone who would listen that there was a new place to begin with plenty of good land around it to farm. It was a long trip from Napata, over three hundred miles, and that was in a straight line. If one followed the Nile, it was twice as far, but more seemed to be coming to settle every day, and some of them were craftsmen and merchants. The forests were being cleared carefully with a lot of thought given to planning and management. The wood went for buildings at the present time and some went to feed the furnaces to make the steel out of the iron which was being mined here once more. Soon, Nasira would begin to talk to the caravan masters to suggest that they send a few Dakhete's way so that trade could be established. But not everything between Dakhete and Nasira was smooth. Nasira had made veiled threats to her son that she now did not look upon Yasmin as a suitable match for a Djinn prince, having learned of the girl's humble beginnings from him. She advised him that he had better find one more suited as a mate for himself, or that she would, and the girl would be a memory to him only. As well, when he'd tried to visit his twin sisters, she'd refused to allow it, saying that they now suffered from the same sickness of the mind that had claimed her mother. Khyan doubted it. For as long as he'd known them, his sisters had loved him, and as he'd grown old enough to understand and see things for himself through the eyes of a young man, all that he saw was that they were kept as prisoners themselves in a suite of little better than ornate cells. It hurt his young heart, but he began to see who it was who was afflicted. It fit with Saddiq's theory and he knew that his sisters were half-demon themselves, so it made no sense that they were afflicted with anything of the sort. A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 43 Nasira desired to cast her human subjects out, seeing them as weak by nature of what they were, merely human. With a little oppression, they were leaving her in droves, straight to the open arms of Dakhete, who welcomed them, though with some alarm after hearing their tales. ------------------------ Dakhete stood on a hilltop with Saddiq and Sha-sha, her constant companions these days, it seemed. The influx of people had made a few changes clear in her way of doing things. She now wore clothes more often, and always when she was in public, though what she and Yasmin wore when they trained was still likely considered scanty. Dakhete didn't care. The ability to move freely was the most important thing, and when any had come to her to mention it, she told them that she didn't sit in a council chamber and send others off if there was anything which required her attention. There had been a few times when the wagons containing all of the earthly possessions of a family of hopeful settlers had been threatened by bandits on the way. Dakhete and Yasmin, along with Khyan, Piankh and a few others had appeared walking out of a swirling cloud of dust to help most often, and it was worse for the bandits if she only sent her troops, since the dead fighters killed all of the bandits every single time. At least when Dakhete appeared, she gave them a chance to explain. She'd learned that sending troops alone tended to put the settlers off as well so she avoided it if she could. Her mind drifted back to the last time that it had happened. She'd had no idea at the time that so much would come from that day. They were just walking toward the palace, still wearing the dirt of the afternoon's training and looking forward to a bath and the evening meal when Dakhete paused. She just knew somehow, every time. The only way that she could explain it to herself was that it related to her strong desire to resurrect the kingdom and to do that, it had to be repopulated, all of which made those journeying there with a hope in their hearts for a new beginning very important to Dakhete. The cats had grown used to this already, but Yasmin and Khyan needed to be told. "I am needed," she said, and the others stood near her. As the breeze turned into a wind around them, Yasmin groaned, "I really wanted to get –" They faded into the swirl of the wind and in a moment, they stood in an open place not many miles from Meroe, above the fifth cataract of the Nile and the ruins of the ancient Kush town of Dangeil. " –some of this dust off me." Yasmin looked around after finishing her statement. A pair of wagons stood beside the road and next to them, stood the terrified owners, a group of people with children who watched and hoped that they might get away with their lives as a gang of thieves rifled through their belongings. Yasmin's teeth ground together and she drew her sword as she began to take a step, but Dakhete held her back and when the girl looked over, Dakhete pointed off toward a hillside. None of the players in the little scene below had noticed yet, being pre-occupied with their issues on both sides of this, but Dakhete stared at a large serpent with a human torso. Even to her, this was something out of a legend. The thing was female, from one of the oldest of Djinn families. She was dark in coloring and wearing leather armor, holding a bow in her left hand. By the leather strap over her shoulder, Dakhete surmised that there must also be a quiver of arrows on her back. After a moment, Shank saw that the creature was as much a spectator here as they were at the moment. She turned to the cats, "Go around toward the people. Stay hidden in the grass there." Sha-sha and Saddiq were gone the next instant and Khyan nocked an arrow to his bow. "It looks as though no one has been harmed yet," Dakhete said, "Both of you go and try to talk. Yasmin in front, Khyan back and to the side for a shot if needed." They nodded and began to walk as Dakhete sifted away toward the creature on the hillside in a swirl of fine sand that faded from sight as though the breeze had stopped. She stood about seven feet from the thing as it stared down below, shifting a little from side to side. Dakhete wondered about a lot of things here, one of them being why, if one felt they needed to wear a thick leather cuirass, they needed cut-outs over the breasts. It made no sense to her. The body of the impala on the ground next to her did make sense. The creature needed to eat like everyone else, she supposed. She watched in a little fascination as the female weaved, sniffing. Dakhete knew what would happen in a moment. The snake woman froze for an instant and then turned suddenly to draw back. Dakhete faded into view and hoped that they might be able to speak somehow. That possibility faded as soon as she saw the expression. The thing hissed in alarm and the eyes glowed in a malicious sort of way as she reached for an arrow, drawing back a little more. Dakhete faded slightly and stepped forward slowly to pick up the carcass of the impala and hold it out, partly to show that this was no effort to her and hopefully to show that she meant no harm. The snakewoman stopped then and moved the arrow to her bow hand to reach out and take the carcass. She slid backwards a little and nodded once. "You are the Djinn queen of the old human place," she said, "You have our prince with you. It pleases me. Take care of him for us and keep him safe. We will remove his mother soon. What remains is the issue of the princesses. Help the prince to bring his sisters away from the queen. If he does this and succeeds – and that is if they do not need killing as the way to free them from Nasira, the people will follow the prince after the queen is gone. You need this," she nodded, "for if the Djinn do not follow him, some will wish to follow you, since you have Djinn blood and you already rule here. Others will not, and it will be a dangerous time then for all. You must know better than most how perilous it would be to have Djinn warring inside your lands. Only one of us could undo all that you have done. It is no threat from me, but you must know this. All that stays our hand are the cats that she has allied herself with, for we do not know what they would do once it begins. We would know where their loyalty lies. You travel with the last of the ones which we were commanded to kill by Nasira's twisted mother. We should have risen then and not allowed what happened. Use her when you act. All of us are fearful of harming the last of them. Nasira herself may be the only threat to that one, though what the princesses will do can never be predicted. But without that one's aid, you will have trouble even passing the gates – even with the prince at your side. He is young, and what needs doing is likely more than he can manage alone. You must help or he will fail and his line will end with his death, for the princesses do not hold enough Djinn blood for us to follow." Dakhete was startled, but she thanked the snake woman, knowing now what she was beyond any doubt. Many Djinn can take any form, and unless they are touched by another Djinn, their true nature is often hard to determine. "I hear what you say," Dakhete said quietly, "just as I hear what is not said. To place your mind at ease, I wish to say that aside from the peace in my land, I have no desire to claim the jebel kingdom for myself. What would you wish for out of this?" she asked respectfully. The serpent smiled, "It is said that you are wise and I see it now. For me, I would wish for peace and no more madness from a ruler," she hissed, "I would wish to trust you, but I know what passed between you and our diseased queen. It remains to be seen if you would act in our favor. I have told you what you need to hear," she nodded, "What you do with it will be watched. I must go," she said, "Our people are oppressed and kept inside the jebel ourselves, mostly. I am here today to hunt. Nasira has forgotten how it is when one is not a queen and has young who must eat." She slid out of sight quickly after one backward glance and Dakhete disappeared to join the others. The men had stopped going through everything and now stood grinning at Yasmin. Apparently the appearance of a girl wearing little other than enough leather to cover her chest and groin as it held a few weapons had the effect of blinding them to the sword in her hand and the archer a few yards away. Dakhete sighed and appeared behind Yasmin, striding forward with her own sword in her hand. The grins tuned wider, but they looked a little less certain now. One of them asked what they wanted and Dakhete decided that he was the largest and toughest looking, so he would do. She changed direction toward him and he held up his knife. Dakhete heard the Najdi Arabic that he used to speak in and wondered briefly; she'd have expected to hear the Nubian language here. "What are you doing?" she asked, "these people are not wealthy." "They are wealthy enough for us," the man laughed, "What game do you pla-" His companions stared for a moment at the man's face as he gasped in shock from where the upper part of him lay in the dirt, but he had no way to do even that. Dakhete had cut him through from his shoulder to his hip in a single stroke, flesh, bones, cartilage and all. "I am showing you why you should leave travelers alone," she said. There had been four of them. The others turned and ran, but the nearest fell groaning with an arrow in his back. Yasmin ran after the pair as Dakhete went to speak to the travellers. Yasmin was gaining on the one closest to her as she tore through the grasses which grew under the trees here, but the man was swept out of her view as Saddiq took him. Yasmin kept running, looking at the back of the last one, but he disappeared from sight as he was tripped by a mottled flash from out of his rear quarter. When she got to where the dust was clearing, Sha-sha had already doubled back and she watched Yasmin's approach from where she lay on her front with the dying man's throat in her jaws and her paw on his chest to hold him down. His struggles ended as he suffocated. Yasmin knelt down and went through his clothing, but found nothing of interest. Walking back, she found Sha-sha beside her looking up. "I'm not angry," she said, guessing that was the reason for the look, "It's just that I've just run all afternoon, come here to run some more and ... " She thought about it and smiled, reaching out to rub the Cheetah's head, "I'm only complaining. Don't mind me, Sha-sha. You did rightly." They recovered a few bits of inexpensive jewelry from the body of the one killed by Saddiq. It didn't look like it was worth the effort to Dakhete, but she knew that it might mean something to the victims. Not every woman can be a queen, she told herself, but that doesn't mean anything when she seeks to look her best, the wives of settlers included. After everything had been returned to the two families near the carts, they told them that they were not more than a day and a half at the outside away from Meroe. "You could spend this night in Dangeil," Dakhete said, "I do not suggest remaining here. We will help you get your things together and guide you there. There is little there but sand and a few ruins, I am afraid, but you will be safe there. It is the next place on my long list to be rebuilt." They'd guided the shaken-up people to Dangeil , arriving there in darkness and being asked to share their humble evening meal. To Dakhete, it was fine and she enjoyed it because it was a heartfelt thing to have been offered it, and the travelers only learned who it had been who had appeared to help them when they arrived at Meroe the next day. What bothered Dakhete more than anything were the words of the Djinn that she'd seen. She asked Saddiq and he said that he knew of the instability of the Djinn. From his travels, he'd learned that Nasira now used his kind to threaten her own people, foolishly mistaking their submission for fear in her increasingly deranged state. "But those ones that she uses are only following their own orders from their own king reluctantly, most of them," Saddiq thought to them. "I wanted to say that the time for my appearance draws near at hand, though it now looks as though the fate of one kingdom now hangs on the actions of another," He looked at Khyan, and sent his thoughts to them all. "You must free your sisters somehow." ---------------- A few days later, Dakhete walked in a procession through Napata toward Jebel Barkal. As it went, it grew in number as many Djinn gathered, appearing as pale figures inside moving tongues of flame, their most natural form. It was unexpected, but many came to walk near to Sha-sha, and when asked, some only said that they wished to see one of the Forgotten Ones for him or herself, and others saying regretfully that their monarch was insane, and that they wished to be on hand in case they might be needed to protect her if they could. Sha-sha herself said little, though she smiled and nodded, and it caused many to wonder why anyone would want to harm one like her. They stopped briefly at a small tomb near to the ruined temple of Amun. It was hidden, but a pair of the Djinn came forward to lead Sha-sha to it. She knelt there in quiet thought for a few moments before she rose and thanked them. She'd never known that her people had rulers of their own at one time. The tomb had been prepared by the Djinn to mark the resting place of the king and his queen after their murder at the hands of Nasira's mother herself. To Dakhete's surprise, the serpent woman that she'd met came forward bearing a shield, covered in cheetah skin and a spear. She held other articles and presented them to Sha-sha with a bow, "You are the last, and so you have the right to the symbols of your people." After she handed the spear to Sha-sha, she placed an amulet around her neck which glowed brightly as soon as it touched the dark skin over her heart. With that in place, she slid down to fit others around the girl's ankles and finally her wrists. "These were caused to be taken by our dead queen in a ruse. Your people have always been a little like children, too trusting of us, their kin. There was always peace between us until the first murders – when your king and queen were tricked and led to their doom. It began our shame and our curse. We cannot return the dead to you, but we hope for kindness in your thoughts. Queen Nasira does not speak for all of the Djinn. These were given to my mother to destroy, but she hid them instead, telling me when I was old enough that this day would come." Sha-sha spread her arms wide and though the amulet and the thongs on her limbs remained, the spear and the shield disappeared and she stood empty-handed before the Djinn. The serpent was a little shocked, "You know of these things? You know what they are?" Sha-sha nodded, "My mother says to me. I hear them. I hear them all, "she pointed at her breast. "All know, my people say. All know what to do. I hear them in me. Djinn have thanks from Sha-sha." The two bowed to each other before the snake woman turned to Saddiq, "It is as you said when you came to us at night, your royal kin are in the jebel to visit Nasira." Saddiq nodded silently and Sha-sha spoke for him. "Saddiq is Ninth Prince, prince of truth. Saddiq say this day will free many." They walked toward the mountain and as they came nearer to it, a gate appeared out of the ancient living rock and what must have been a thousand Djinn appeared, commanded by Queen Nasira herself. She was furious as she looked at what to her was a rebellion of a few of her subjects. "I should have known that your words to me were treachery, Dakhete. I did as I said, and you reward me with an insignificant uprising." "I do nothing of the sort, Nasira," Dakhete said, "I am only here with the hope of learning the truth. I have heard of late that you are not the benevolent ruler that I had been led to believe by your words. I hear the words of the people who come to me seeking freedom and peace and not the fear that drove them out. From your own son, I have been told that his attempts to see his sisters were refused, and that the girl that he loves – my loved friend and pupil – was threatened indirectly. I hear of the unrest and oppression of the Djinn themselves – as it was told to me by Djinn. I am not here with my army today, Nasira. I only want to know what is going on." The Djinn queen seethed, "What goes on in my realm is no business or concern of my barefooted and impoverished beggar queen neighbor," Nasira shouted, "Get you gone or there will be war between us!" Dakhete shook her head, "You forget that your tiny realm stands surrounded by mine. Your prince desires to see his sisters," Dakhete said quietly, and her voice carried clearly across the distance between the pair of queens, "It is rumored that they are kept as prisoners by their own mother – just as she was once kept herself. Is this a strange custom among the rulers of your once-noble house? Little wonder that you all lose your minds. I am here to learn the truth. That you imprison your own flesh and blood and use a race of cats who oppress their own to oppress a people like me and others is reason enough for me to come." With subtle motions of her hands, a pair of swords appeared out of the air. They flashed and glittered as she flicked them effortlessly in overhand motions twice. She stood now in well-used studded leather armor as she tilted her head and smiled coldly, "If they were not Djinn who would die needlessly for their mad queen, I could kill everything standing between you and I now and not even lose my breath as I take your head. I came with open hands and I left my army at home. But now I warm to your hateful words to me and if you wish to talk of war now, ..." The space from the foot of the jebel all the way to the ruins of Napata grew dark before Nasira's eyes as thousands of Dakhete's troops appeared in blocks, each one comprising the ranks of the fighters. The renowned and deadly female archers of Kas chanted their haunting calls as they trotted to take up their positions, their dark skin shining with sweat once again in the bright sunlight. Chariots wheeled into place, and behind her, Dakhete's mighty war elephants stamped as they plodded out of the air to walk to the fore. There were a thousand or so Djinn with Nasira, all living and powerful, but they all felt despair to see that they faced over thirty fighters each who would not falter or grow weary if their mad queen held to her foolishness, for not one of the ones that they faced could die,... Because long ago, they already had. There was a subtle shift in Dakhete's voice as it dropped a little, the edge in it being quite clear in what was implied, "Do not speak empty threats of war to me, Nasira. You forget once again who you speak with. You could study the book on war and never begin to understand the parts which I have written there myself. The wetness of the pages would stain your fine robe." Nasira almost screeched in rage. She turned and Saddiq's family stood near her, listening as she asked for their aid. She commanded her subjects to destroy Dakhete and those who stood with her, and after that was done, she commanded, she wanted Medewi to be razed to the dust once more so that it could never rise again. They looked from her to Dakhete's troops and back, wondering if she'd gone blind suddenly. But nothing happened. No one moved after Sha-sha and Saddiq stepped forward, the lithe girl and the large coal-black leopard. For a moment, there was stillness near the lower slopes of the jebel. Sha-sha threw her arms out from her sides and the shield and spear appeared in her hands. A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 43 "Djinn queen want war?" she asked in a mocking tone and then she nodded with a quiet chuckle, "Dakhete can give it. First," she smiled as she raised her spear to point it toward Nasira, "You fight me." The feline royals hunkered down to cower for a second, but Saddiq roared then and they stood to answer him because they had to. That didn't happen either. Before any of them could act, they began to fall, one after another, starting with the king, Saddiq's father. Before he was dead, his neck broken as thought bitten through by some huge and unseen jaws, the last sibling was well into her own death struggles. A moment later, the rest of the cats began to filter out and away from the jebel to stand with Saddiq. Nasira looked to be ready to explode when she finally saw Sha-sha clearly. She tried to turn and flee inside the mountain, but the girl cried out and held her shield aloft. The action bound Nasira instantly and she hung immobile as Sha-sha turned the stricken queen to face her with her mind. "YOU!" she screamed as she shook her shield, "You NOT RUN! You stand and you fight ME! I remember you now!" Sha-sha shouted. She thrust the butt of the spear into the dust as she howled, "I see what you did!" Shockwaves rippled out from the spot where the butt of the spear struck the ground and the disturbed sand looked like a thin golden fog around her, a few inches high. Nasira began to shake and whimper, mumbling of all of the unfairness and difficulty of being a queen and of having to be faced with unpleasant choices all of her life as she'd ruled. But Sha-sha wasn't listening. Nasira found herself standing suddenly at the base of the mountain on open sandy dirt with nothing to hide behind. Dakhete's army was gone, all but the archers who stood in lines off to the sides and chanted quietly, rhythmically, eerily as they danced in place to give Sha-sha their support. "I see you that night," Sha-sha snarled with a nod, "I see you laugh. You smile when father dead." She lowered her head and glowered from under her eyebrows. "Djinn queen was foolish. Not look to see. My father not the last. Mother lived for a time. She not the last. There is one more, and I am here for you. Come and try to kill the last." What came from her wasn't loud, but everyone including Nasira heard it clearly. "You fight me now and you die." Whatever Sha-sha had in her mind wasn't shared by Nasira when she found that she could move. She moved her hands and threw everything that she could think of to keep the furious girl off-balance while she summoned up the same incantation which she'd used to kill many of the Forgotten Ones herself, adding everything that she could to its intensity. Sheershepsut called out a warning to Sha-sha and then she gave three words of command to her women. The chanting stopped instantly as more than three thousand bows were drawn back and a thick rain of arrows began to arc through the air to distract Nasira in the same manner as she tried to distract Sha-sha. None of the arrows reached their mark, but the queen of the jebel had to deal with them as she worked and it slowed her a little. But she'd forgotten the true purpose of the shield bearing the tattered old cheetah hide, never having seen the artifact herself and everything was either deflected back at her or just absorbed. As the wind of the Djinn queen's wrath began to blow around her, she rose into the air, shouting her indignant conjuration as she went higher and higher. Sha-sha began to run toward the column of sand, as though she knew what would be sent to blind her in her wrath. Nasira saw her come and worked faster, but as she lifted her hand to bring what she did to fruition and reality, Sha-sha threw the spear, almost falling into the dirt with the force of the throw. As it left her slender hand, the tip of the spear glowed white-hot and from its point, a pencil-thin line shot out which transfixed the insane Djinn and she hung there frozen as her doom came to her as a blazing streak. There was a peal and crash of thunder as it struck her and lightning came out of the cloudless sky to snap and snarl over the body hanging in the air. With nothing to stop them now, the rain of arrows found Nasira as well. Nasira screamed for a brief instant, and then she was gone as pieces of her rained over the landscape. The wind died instantly and the sand fell to earth as the dust cloud drifted off. Sha-sha turned to walk back, her spear in her hand somehow, but her face now wasn't wearing the mask of her fury any longer. She looked up as she stepped into Dakhete's arms and wept softly. Khyan stepped forward, placing his hand on the girl's shoulder, "I'm sorry, Sha-sha, I didn't know." She looked up at him with a sniffle and she smiled a little, "I not know either. I remember. I was small. Hide with my mother. See everything. Not angry, Khyan." She straightened and wiped her face," We go now. We find your sisters." She took a breath to let out her tension, "Sha-sha must see Khyan's sisters. All must be free." When she turned, she saw the fierce leader of the archers waiting for her. "I say thanks to bow –women," the girl said, and Sheershepsut grinned. "I will tell them. When this is past, I would ask to hunt with you. I hunted often before and I have none to go with me now. I see how you hunt and I do not always want to shout at young learners in the dirt." Sha-sha agreed and they parted, the legendary archer trotting back to her ranks as they faded out of sight. It took a while for him to lead Dakhete, Sha-sha and Yasmin to the cells. It seemed as though there was another Djinn or two around almost every corner, wanting to know what had happened. Khyan had to offer the condensed version a hundred times or more it seemed before they came at last to stand near the bars of a foul-smelling dungeon as four jailors stood to bar their way. They grunted in shock and surprise as they hung from where Dakhete held them with her mind. "The queen – " one of them began. "Queen Nasira is dead," Dakhete said through her teeth, "King Khyan bint el-Jebel rules now." She leaned closer, "You are not a Djinn." She looked from one to the next. They were all lower demons from out of a pit somewhere, having barely enough intelligence to know if it was the time to shit or to eat. "What is your task here?" she asked. "We answer to the queen," the largest said. By the time that she'd finished slamming him from the wall to the bars of the cells and back several times before she held him against the ceiling, the others were a little more ready to answer her. She looked up at the large one and saw that he was dying. She helped the work of gravity by slamming him to the floor. Dakhete hadn't moved during this time. The body slid into a pile out of the way against the wall. "What is your task here?" she asked again, "There are three of you left, and I might expect at least one answer today." "We give pleasure to the queen," one of them said nervously, "and we feed these ones." "Well, your task is over," she smiled as she left them hanging. All that they could see in the darkness was a large lump which whimpered and keened in a pair of fearful voices. But at the sound of their brother's young voice, the lump became two lumps which came slowly closer as he spoke to tell them that he was there to take them away. Dakhete joined Khyan at the enchanted bars. It took many minutes for him to calm the two inside and explain what had happened. The pair wept and thanked them endlessly, even though they were not free yet. "These three here and the one that I killed," Dakhete said, "They said that they were to feed you. From what I see, they ate more than they passed through the bars." At once, four thin arms were reaching for the jailors through the bars and the shrieking began as they tried to grasp across the distance. It was all that Dakhete needed to see. The fat demons stood in shock, looking around and spinning fearfully after finding themselves inside the cells with the prisoners. They lasted less than two minutes. Dakhete looked at the dirty and filth encrusted bars for a moment and decided that they functioned to contain any who were at least partly demon, and Khyan's sisters fit that well enough from what Nasira had said of their heritage. When she dispelled them, the bars ceased to exist and the dirt and debris of thousands of years fell to the floor a moment later. Khyan led the pair slowly to the queen's chambers and minutes later, the sisters had their first bath in their long adult lives. The process had to be repeated twice before Dakhete was satisfied, and for a time, she and Yasmin were both helping to get them clean enough to leave. With the dirt and the filth removed from their bodies, Dakhete began to heal what she could, though she knew that fresh air and light would work the final wonders. Both of them were beautiful, though they were far from their best at the moment, covered in sores as they were. They looked a little closer to Djinn than demons, but their demonic heritage was there all the same. They were twins, and were very nearly identical, but there was one rather startling difference and it lay in the nature of their wings. One had perfect demonic wings, leathery and lovely. The other's wings were just as large and wondrous, but they were feathered. Dakhete held out a pair of cloaks as the nervous females stood wet and shaking while Sha-sha and Yasmin helped Khyan to towel them gently, "You will come with us away from this place – at least for a time. To do that, you must walk out of this mountain and into the daylight. The Djinn people know what was done to you and they would soon have removed Nasira themselves over this and other things. But even so," she said, "you are princesses, and it will not do to have the princesses of a people walk out of here looking like lepers. We will help you put these cloaks on. You must hide your faces under the hoods, and when we say, you must close your eyes. The sun shines brightly outside, and you will need to get used to its warmth, but the light in eyes that have known only darkness, well, ... you must keep your eyes closed when we say. Khyan has said that I am another queen. It is so, but your brother will be with you. We go to my lands, where we can help you better, away from here for a time until you are well." Khyan had to do a lot of explaining, but at length, they agreed. Perhaps the strongest voice which persuaded them came from Sha-sha when she struggled to make herself understood, explaining who she was and what she'd done. "Dakhete say you are high ones. You should be free, outside," she pointed, "Poor ones go free there. See things. Do things – what you want to do there - anything. Not live inside now. You come, I help you. Khyan want you outside. All want you outside. You come." Ghibli and Siroc, their names were – two words from different languages for the same hot southeasterly wind which roars out of the Sahara at often hurricane speeds. They crept forward uncertainly as they were led out and they clamped their eyes shut tightly when Dakhete told them to. Even so, they saw only bright red through their eyelids and had to keep their faces down. When they felt the heat of the sun on their bodies for the first time in their lives, it was amazing to them for they felt and heard no fire nearby. But what astounded them far more than that were the roaring cheers of the Djinn people to see them. The two were afraid at first, until Khyan explained that the people were overjoyed to see the princesses at long last and the princesses themselves were overcome and clung to Khyan as they stood weeping. A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 44 ***Meet Randi Farber. She's a young woman who's having a hard life and still manages to smile now and then in spite of the things which have happened to her. 0_o --------------- Book of the Forsaken Part 1 In the ruins of Palmyra, another servant awoke in darkness. Taken from an almost dead world by the same malefic race which had taught -- and used Dakhete, this servant had been bound by ties placed on her soul and brought here, kept in slumber as insurance -- a weapon to be used if necessary to hopefully destroy their half-Djinn servant, who was a weapon that they had chosen for their purposes. She'd never been needed and had been largely forgotten. By the time that the last of the masters had thought that he needed her, it was already too late as Dakhete ended his existence. With the passing of the last one who kept her in her sleep, she'd slowly found herself rising and working her way toward consciousness and it had taken a long time. Even for one such as her. Most of the building where she'd been kept had fallen in. It took a little effort in her weakness, but she broke the seals which held her and just walked out, a little surprised to be able to do it. She guessed that the seals had been damaged or, ... perhaps they'd faded somehow. It didn't matter much, she thought, she was free. But she'd never been a willing servant. Her servitude had been forced upon her and now, standing as weakly as she felt, there were things to do. The first thing was to find some kind of sustenance, and the next thing after that was to try to even begin to remember. When she had those things in order, then it would be time for her vengeance against those who had imprisoned her. Her family had been among the last, but that gave no one any right to pluck her out of her life and force her to do the things that she'd done in the name of another race of beings. She didn't know it, but by taking her out of the life that she'd known of scratching to find enough to get her through another day, they'd saved her. She would likely have chosen her death instead, but that choice had never been hers to make from the instant that she'd been taken. As she walked, half-stumbling, but regaining more of the use of her limbs with each movement, the first thing which came to her was her name and who she'd been. Rudhi Natheah, she remembered with a little satisfaction as she looked around. Her kind had once ruled their small world and she sought to find the others -- the warm memories helping her to seek, but as she walked further, she felt nothing returned to her. When she'd been brought here, she'd been able to feel them, even as far from her was they were. Now... Nothing. Pushing the thought from her, she spotted a few small creatures, rodents of a sort, she guessed, but she was hungry now and so they'd do. She sat down a little heavily in her weakness, leaning against a broken piece of masonry and the activity of the creatures stopped instantly. After a moment where they stood frozen in confusion, they began to approach her slowly. As each one came into the range of her reach, she picked them up and consumed them. It was only the cruelest turn of capricious fate that had seen her people -- a world of them -- decimate their own numbers in the wars of their world. Because of that, she'd been forced into her servitude, when really, her kind would have easily ruled over the beings which had taken her away had her family been only a little more numerous. After all, her captors had been only blood-drinkers. Rudhi's kind could do that and sometimes did, but to them, it was only sustenance and it had been rarely done. With nothing in her to sustain her for much longer, she didn't stop at only that, she consumed the creatures completely. After millennia with nothing in her gut, there was pain, but now it was only a way marker on the road to her recovery. With a little food in her, she sat back for a time, remembering. She didn't know what had happened to cause her to be set free, but she wanted revenge now. When she thought of herself again, she looked at herself from outside of her body and decided that she'd weathered this rather well, considering. She'd never spent any time in the company of humans, barely knowing that they were here and she certainly knew nothing of their lives and how things were measured when one looked at them. She didn't know it, but to them, she'd appear as a very beautiful female of at most, twenty-one of their years old. Her hair was long and coal black with the barest hint of waviness to it. The eyes which looked out from under her thin eyebrows were pale blue and her skin was a slightly warm alabaster tone in color. The only items of clothing that she wore were the small rings as piercings, one through each nipple and one through her navel to mark her among her kind as belonging to the house of the last rulers. She decided that nudity wouldn't do for the moment, and so she thought back to the ruin that she'd walked out of not far off and tried to summon her few possessions to her. Nothing came and it confused her for a moment until she remembered that they all lay in her mind where she'd put them so long before to protect them from the passage of time. With a thought, she wore the thin jeweled black leather collar of her family once more, and there were the thin leather thongs hanging from her nipple rings to indicate that she would one day be the ascendant queen. The thought pained her slightly, now that she knew that she was all that there was, and she wasn't on the world where she'd now have ruled over no one and nothing. She looked down, feeling the high solid boots which added to her height now and her eye caught the gleaming blades which adorned them. It caused her to remember that she was first and foremost a warrior of the highest house. She stood up and the thought of her cloak filled her mind for an instant until she felt it billowing around her, dark as night and silently crinkly against her perfect skin. She felt the thin covering over her sex and if she'd known that to many women on this world hundreds of years ago, what she wore as a piece of clothing was nothing more than a piece of underwear which they'd called a thong at the time, she might have laughed a little and nodded. But she wasn't in the mood for that now. The small bodice of soft leather hugged and cradled her breasts once more, but it hid nothing -- as was proper where she was from and her eye was drawn to her familial markings, noticing that they'd faded. Easily repaired, she thought and a moment later, they looked like the honors which they'd been once and a look from outside of herself again pleased her. Rudhi knew nothing of the one on the far side of this world -- a stranger here herself called Ksyusha, but they shared some abilities, and by pure coincidence, they also wore markings on their faces which resembled fangs that ended far down their cheeks, though the style of the markings were very different. Rudhi knew nothing of this and likely wouldn't have cared a whit if she did. She looked at the back of her right hand. The jewel was still there, gleaming softly from where it sat embedded into her flesh. With a thought and a movement, her left hand wore her war gauntlet, and she held her long, thin and cruel sword in her right hand. For the first time in a length of time that she was not even cognizant of, Rudhi smiled. It caused her to look around after a moment as she came to the realization of what must have lain behind her awakening. The ones who'd kept her here were gone -- dead and gone -- and she was left here. She wanted to rage when she'd made the only possible deduction, but found that she couldn't. What she really had to do was find her way in this place somehow until she'd either found a way to exist here which allowed her to forget or she had to find a way to die. One or the other, and either one would require both time and strength for one choice, weakness for the other. It had taken however long she'd lain here to weaken her. Her own death was out of the question like this, now that she'd eaten even a little. So she walked for a time in the moonless darkness, stopping when she heard the sounds of a little music. It was strange to her, but she knew what it was and looking around, she saw the wagons of a small group of migrants, pulled around their fires as they ate and drank and sang. Rudhi wasn't evil -- well not what she would have considered the meaning of the word to mean as it applied to her, but she had begun to remember that she'd had lovers on her world -- two of them, promised to her when they'd all been infants. They'd discovered each other in the wars and had begun between them a little early. Those two males had meant everything to her, but that was long ago and far away now. She needed something to push the memory back -- something or someone to make her forget that pain for a time. She saw the humans and decided that they were enough like her for what she wanted now. Rudhi's lovely mouth pulled into a smile again as she looked. She didn't know it right away, but the smile revealed the fangs in her mouth a little. When she caught it, she decided that she ought to hide it for the moment, not knowing anything at all about these creatures. She now felt several hungers at the same time. Her gauntlet faded and her blade disappeared as she walked down the slope in the direction of the caravan, a beautiful and barely dressed young woman who approached a little hopefully. ------------------ In the morning, she lay sated -- for the most part, anyway. The humans either stood nearby, those who still could, saying nothing in their nakedness and only waiting to see if they'd be required once again, man or woman - or they lay dead. She moaned loudly as her orgasm overtook her and a few moments later she decided that it was enough at last so she pushed the last male that she'd decided to use off her and rose to stand. They watched her, thinking little and feeling nothing. She stepped to one young woman and kissed her slowly, with care and a lot of feeling. "Can you understand my thoughts to you?" she asked with her mind so that no particular language was needed. "Y-yes," she heard in careful reply. "Good," Rudhi sighed, "For the good of all, you will lead and no one here will interfere. I have made it so. My gift to you all for sharing yourselves with a traveler such as me for a night. With you leading, the right decisions will be made when they are needed. I have given you this for what you have done for me." She looked around, "These dead ones will need to be seen to. They were either very old or very stupid -- a hindrance to you in any case, and that is why I chose them to feed upon, blood and flesh, since I needed it. With these gifts from you all, I will not need this again for a long time." "I ask one thing," the young woman said in her thoughts, "Are we to become wampyri now?" Rudhi looked into her worried eyes, and she saw the fear of things which came in the night and had troubled the sleep of these simple people for generations. She shook her head, "I see what it is that you fear. I am not like this. There is the dawn and we stand in the full light of it already. I am not dead, my beauty. I was only hungry, and taking my fill this way sates me the fastest." She walked away then along the pathway, not really thinking about anything and it was her mistake as she was swept up in a cloud of dust and blood and bodies, crazed demonic bodies. For a time, she had to fight to stay clear so that she could see what this was. ----------------------- Colorado He was hunting, but not with any desperation to it or anything. They still had some meat left, but she'd told him that he ought to go and hunt for them, since she was feeling miserable and throwing up more than if she'd consumed something poisonous. He wasn't crazy about the idea, but he could take a hint, so he went. At the moment, he was working his way along about the mid-slope of a large draw, wondering why he hadn't seen much in the way of wildlife for a little while. He knew that he wasn't the quietest creature in the woods, but he was quiet enough when he was hunting. There was no breeze, so it couldn't be that his scent was warning any of the creatures that he'd normally be looking for. But then he heard it; something crashing through the trees a little, as though they weren't concerned about disturbing the wildlife or drawing attention to themselves. He stopped to listen and after a moment, he could hear that it was a someone, and that she was crying at least a little. He listened carefully and after a few moments, he saw the motion down the slope from him and a ways ahead. He stood in some confusion and amazement then. It was a young woman crashing through on her way to the stream which meandered along the bottom of the draw. He didn't want to intrude, but ... As he eased a little closer, wanting to know a little more and a little hopeful that the reason that she was upset wasn't too bad, he saw it as she came to the edge of the stream and his eyes almost left his head as he watched her. She threw off her coat and then her heavy boots went next as she sobbed, and it came to him then that she was more than upset. The young woman was angry as well. When she had her pants off and the bottom half of her was bare, she began to hiss from the discomfort and the cold as she washed herself furiously. He'd never seen anything like it. So upset, he thought and he wondered about the cause as he noticed that she was even speaking to no one in particular as she muttered angrily. He realised that he was intruding and he turned then to be on his way quietly when he heard her cry out and before he'd even turned back to look, he knew that she'd fallen into the stream. He made certain that the safety on his rifle was on and he ran down the slope as fast as he could. As he got to the edge, she was already working her way out, but the freezing cold was sapping her strength severely. She looked up and he could see that she was in a hell of a bind; in pain from the cold and already upset and whatever reason that she might have had to want to wash herself here had now become a situation which was life-threatening. For all of that, she wasn't happy to see a strange man here with her. She couldn't even speak, she was so cold, but if she could have managed the words, he had no doubt that she'd tell him to stay the fuck away from her. He reached and grabbed an arm to get her onto the bank. She just began to cry again. He could see that she'd been doing quite a bit of that and that her lip was swollen. "Stand here," he said as he leaned his rifle against a boulder. He turned back and he had her pants and her boots. "Lean on me," he said as he knelt before her, "You'll get your pants wet, but you need to have something on." She didn't move - other than her now-violent shuddering. "Lean on me, so I can get your pants on you," he said and it was no request. After a moment, he felt her weight and he helped to get her legs into her pants. Her boots were next and she almost fell, but he stopped her more than once. "Can you stand while I get you your coat?" he asked looking up. The woman nodded, but it was a little hard to tell, she was shaking so much. He was gone and then back in a flash, helping her into her coat. When he stepped back, she looked so forlorn, small and wet and freezing to death as she shivered. He held up his hand, "I can warm you," he said, "but you'll have to have a little trust because I'm going to hug you then. I promise that I won't harm you or anything. Miss, I don't know where you live, but unless it's even closer than a two minute walk from here, you're dead. This is serious here, do you understand?" She nodded, or it looked as though she tried to, and she tried to speak as well, but that would have taken more than the life that she had left to say, so he shook his head. "Don't try to speak. I won't hurt you in any way. Just come here and hold onto me for a minute." She couldn't even do that, so he stepped forward slowly and he took her into his arms. They stood like that for a couple of minutes and then he said, "I need you to close your eyes and if you can do that, I can promise you that you'll feel a lot warmer really quickly and I still won't harm you in any way, but it's going to need your trust, ok?" He couldn't tell if she was agreeing or not so he just shrugged, "I hope that you can bear this. I really do want to help you." She noticed that his coat disappeared, along with the rest of his clothing. The young woman was horrified at what she was looking at as the man that she'd thought had found her turned into something which almost made her bladder let go. The only thing which prevented it was the look on his face. The whole time, whenever she'd looked at him, she'd seen a young and rather handsome man. Considering what she'd been through just over an hour before, any man was about the last person that she wanted to see. But she did see the concern on his face. That look didn't change, though the face sure did. She'd managed to reach her frozen hands up to hold onto him, but now it wasn't what she wanted. She couldn't feel much with her fingers and hands, but she did notice that the leather of the coat was gone, replaced by fur - warm fur. When he moved a little, she felt the muscles underneath the fur. She looked up, and the rather longish soft brown hair was now really long and black. The nose was longer because his face was longer and there was a bit of a snout. The mouth that she saw before her was filled with rather long and cruel-looking teeth. She wanted to push herself away, and as she began the motion, she looked a little higher and she saw his ears, long and a little pointed near the tips. His skin had gone from a normal skin tone for a Caucasian to a dark and mottled sort of striped gray, and ... She almost moaned in terror. He had horns as well. But the eyes had changed then, and now the ones that she looked into were an incredibly light gray -- nearing white. All of that, she saw, but he still wore the same look of concern for her somehow. "I'm sorry," he whispered, "I know that you've got to be terrified. That's why I wanted to you close your eyes, but I guess it was too much to ask. I won't hurt you. Just try to hold still." Her terror was almost complete and she felt her knees want to buckle as she saw and felt his wings move, but an instant later, they were around her and she could feel the beginnings of a great deal of warmth from him as she sheltered inside of them. She looked up from his large shoulder into his face and he smiled a little weakly. It took her a few tries, but he knew what she was trying to ask. "I'm a demon, obviously," he said, "Anyway, if you can manage to believe me a little, I meant what I said. Are you beginning to feel a little warmer now?" She nodded very slowly, surprised at herself. She didn't know how this was possible, but she was losing her fear of him to a degree. "How far away do you live?" he asked, "If you can have just a little more faith here, I promise to take you there and I won't come back. I just don't want to see you die of cold -- especially knowing that I can prevent it." To her surprise, she told him in her stuttering, shivering way, wondering why it was that she felt so much better and how something that ripped people up could speak so well and smell so good. When she'd told him, he nodded, and, slinging his rifle over his shoulder, he picked her up and carried her to her home still as covered by his wings as he could manage it for her. It was only over the top of the rise and about a half a mile after that. When he set her down on her feet, he told her to make certain that she light the stove hot and live next to it for a few days, and to have a really hot bath if she could. He told her to take care of herself and he turned to walk back the way that he'd come. A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 44 She asked him if he had a name and he'd smiled as if it seemed a little funny to him that she'd think that he might not have one. He told her and then he'd walked off as she stood looking at his tail. She stood in her doorway watching him walk and wondering about him. She had to admit that she'd never really seen a demon who looked like that, and from what she could see, she was even more surprised that she liked the way that he looked, though she stared after a few seconds as she watched him change back to looking like the man who she'd seen at first, clothes and all. ----------------------- When he got back to where he lived, the one there smelled another female on him in an instant and she almost tore his eyes out in her rage before he'd even gotten the chance to tell of it. It was already after dark, and he didn't know it, but she caused it to rain in her anger. In the cold temperatures, that rain froze in seconds wherever it landed. He drew back and touched the scratches on his face, looking at the blood on his fingers. "I didn't do anything but try to help somebody, that's all. She fell into the stream and she was freezing. She'd have never made it to her home." "Was she thankful?" the female sneered, "Did she let you fuck with her after that? Tell me where, and I'll make sure that she does not bother you when you hunt anymore." She grabbed him by the fur on his chest then and pulled hard, "I am your female. Me." She began to tell him what he would do and when as far as she was concerned, but she found herself on the floor holding a hank of his fur and watching him as he walked away toward one of the other dwellings in the empty community. She raised her hand and he turned, feeling what was meant before it happened. "Do that," he said quietly, "and you lose me. All that I've heard for weeks is how important it is that we are not the last of our kind. I doubt that you've considered the possibility, but I'm beginning to think that we don't belong here." "But I love you," she said. "And I love you," he replied, "but we're killing that off nicely too. I helped someone who needed it, and you act like I was doing something that I shouldn't have been doing. Now you're talking nonsense as though I'm your slave or something. I've lived all of my life without you or that thing between your legs. If you think that I'm hopelessly tied to either one, ..." He turned and began to walk again, "I'll see you in a day or so and we'll talk then. I figure that you have a whole lot of feelings and things coming up in you right now on top of feeling sick. Now isn't the time." "Why?" she asked, "I am sick from your child. I am not losing control of myself." He laughed, "My child? Not yours at all? You were forced somehow and played no part?" He shook his head, "Look at your hand. You stand there ready to throw your rage at me with your will. I know you enough to see that you are having such trouble with the last of your control. I understand it, as least I try to. You see nothing but yourself and what you think you want." She tilted her head, "What is it that you want?" He shrugged, "I want the one back who loved me so," he said, "the one who laid her heart out to me. I want to struggle to make her life better as she tries to keep her stomach down. I want to try to comfort that one." She opened her mouth, but he was quicker, "I don't want to hear accusations which are absurd. I don't want to be treated as though I am a servant who has done something wrong, and right now, I want to be alone. You're not the only one who is upset." As he made up a bed of sorts to sleep on, he already knew that she'd be gone in the morning. It wasn't what he wanted, but her knew that as long as she was like this, there was no reasoning with her. It had happened before. ----------------------- As she sank into her hot bath, the young woman at the farm knew nothing of any of this. She'd locked the place down tight, but she was still afraid -- though not of the one who'd helped her. She relaxed into the heat of the steaming water, glad that she'd survived her ordeal, and feeling better for what had happened afterward when she'd gone to wash, knowing that even so, she had to be careful now not to get sick. In a minute, she felt herself smirk. She didn't think that she'd expected something sinister out of him in a biblical sort of way, though she had been rather prepared to hear something difficult to pronounce with a ton of consonants. Even so, she thought, Billy was a strange name for a demon. The next day, she felt better and the one after that, she was back at her friend's place, working to put together a short-term dream of hers. It was short-term now that it was nearing completion, but it was very important to her all the same. ------------------------ It had taken a while and a little experimentation, but Rudhi learned that there were differences in the way that these demons who beset her flew and how she did. What she did was not really flying, it had much more to do with her will, and she could do it without thought or effort and certainly without any flapping. And there was another thing here, she realized. They could only fly so high. She'd figured that out only after days of flying over the ocean. But after seeing land below her again and landing to learn what she could there, she found that there were demons here as well, and that for some reason that she didn't understand, if they saw her, they attacked her. ------------------------ Randi Farber shivered a little as she watched the rising fuel level through the filler in one of the fuel tanks on her big-assed pig. When it neared full, she turned off the flow with the valve and jumped down to hurriedly hang the hose up on the bracket which she'd fabricated that morning. It was a bit of grunting, but Randi got the hitch in place and kicked the frozen locking latch free so that it the fuel rig would remain hitched. She looked around for a minute and wondered where Copper had gotten to. She hadn't seen her for a while now and out here, you tend to worry about your friends if you don't see them for a time. It had been almost a month. She shrugged after a moment and clambered up to shimmy into the hole over the driver's seat, heaving a little to pull the hatch shut over her as she did before she dogged it down tightly. She knew that she should have been wearing her coat for this, but she was just so fed up and tired of winter. She was also not thrilled about getting her new coat smeared with grease -- and besides, with Copper gone, she'd had to do a lot of the final set-ups and checks by herself. Everything had been tested over and over. What didn't work was removed and replaced if there were spares, and if there were none, what didn't work had been repaired. Now it was time to see if all of that sweat was going to pay off. She shivered a little, even though she was sitting on a fleece laid over the driver's seat. There was compartment heat available and she'd turned it on, but the metal interior would still be cold for a little while as the ancient machine warmed up for the first time in more than four centuries. Randi was a redhead and she had the classic temper which came with that -- once her fuse had been lit and had burned a little while. She stood about 5 feet 6 tall and she was a little slim. Her ancestry had been pure human and for a time, she'd been one of the girls that Copper and Luddy had hated back when they were all in school. But that was then, and even so, Randi had never been one of the ones who had poked fun at anyone who was a little different. It wasn't until almost the end of their time at school, but the three girls had become good friends by then. Randi and Copper had a relationship based on things which they each excelled at. Copper could brew up a batch of something which could make you forget your troubles right quick and Randi had long ago learned the way to make incredibly fine-tasting meat products - sausages and smoked roasts, mostly, which just went with Copper's talent. But producing what she did, and the heavy nature of that had always been a pain in the butt to her. She didn't have a place to sell out of and hauling everything to sell in the market at the town was a problem in both directions. Meat products were heavy, and a wagon-load rolling slowly through these mountains tended to attract a lot of hungry noses. More than once, she'd had to cut the traces on her horses and jump up on one to leave her work to the bears and try to get away. The return trip was sometimes fraught with another peril -- men who wanted your money and almost always wanted your ass too. That was when she'd seen what Copper had built up with her late father and Randi had gotten her brainwave. She'd wanted a Bradley too, but she didn't think that she'd need all of the toys, bells and whistles that her friend had. She'd have been fine with just a rolling, lockable frame and maybe a gun, though not the sort of thing that Copper had mounted. But after a lot of talk and a half a keg of Copper's brew, well, the two of them had looked around the place where Copper lived. Building up another Bradley would have removed a lot of usable spare parts for Copper so that was out. And whatever they did, it had to be diesel-powered. Copper had found huge tanks of the stuff buried in the ground on that base. There had been a lot of turbine fuel as well for the newer heavy tanks, but that had turned to jelly long ago. So it had to be a diesel and Randi wanted something that a bear just couldn't get into and something where she could sit and laugh at the thieves as well. A long look around had brought them to a small number of older tanks in the reserve portion of the base. It seemed that the farther back they walked in the rows of now-ancient armor in the storage buildings, the older the tanks got, but there were still a few in good condition. The two friends decided on a couple of projects for the future; one old main battle tank for Copper to fool with and a lighter one as a solution to Randi's problem. There were a handful of very old Sheridans on the base, including a couple of well-painted gate guardians and out of that handful, they'd put together a working one. What she'd wanted was something that could get her and her produce to town and back in safety. What she'd gotten, well, ... It weighed 'only' 34 thousand pounds and could travel over flat and level ground at as fast as 40 miles per hour -- if you didn't mind the way that your teeth crashed together over some of the bumps. But that didn't matter to Randi. She could ride with it buttoned up tight, safe within its metal shell, and though it had been meant to have a crew of four, it was drivable by one, and with a little practice, she could turn it into a thing to be feared -- by more than only her. It had been made to do a lot of things but as with all jack-of-all-trades, it had turned out to be a master of none in actual service. Too light and small to mount a main gun which could deliver a kinetic energy penetrator to another armored target in a fight, it mounted a large 152 millimeter low velocity gun -- something which Copper referred to as a B.A.G. or 'Big --Assed Gun'. All that it could fire was High Explosive, Anti-Tank ammunition and canister shot, but for a longer reach, it could launch a Shillelagh missile through the same thick barrel. None of this really mattered to Randi, she just thought that it looked too mean to want to tangle with it, though she did learn as much as she could about it all from Copper's manuals, just in case. Randi had learned about wrenching from Copper over the winter and now she sat getting warm in her M551A1 Sheridan light tank. She remembered how Copper was quick to tell her, "It's not a tank -- not in the old books anyway, it's a 'reconnaissance vehicle' -- whatever that is," she'd laughed, "Looks like a tank to me too." By the book, it wasn't quite as quick as Copper's Bradley, but Randi didn't care about that either and today was the day to try it. She'd have waited for Copper a little longer, but she had meat to sell, so today was the day after getting herself fairly covered in grease as she'd lubed it up. Thank God that Copper had taught her how to drive the thing using an old tracked utility vehicle as a teaching tool. She was a little lurchy with it at first, but she got the hang of it soon enough as she rumbled along happily. She sat there grinning from ear to ear as she went and slapped the top of the instrument console in front of her affectionately as she toned her voice to sound something like her mother's had sounded to her once long ago, "Ooh, Momma just LOVES her little piggy," she laughed as she adapted a few new words to an old nursery game. "This little piggy goes to market, So that Momma won't have to stay home. This little piggy hauls roast beef, And the bears and the robbers get none." She rolled along until she came to a place where there was a wall of granite facing her across the valley. With a little squeezing and careful maneuvering, she was in the gunner's station and the turret transited smoothly to lay the barrel of the main gun on the face of the cliff four hundred meters away. She loaded a HEAT round, hoping that it was still good after all of the time that it had been in storage and, making a small sighting adjustment as Copper had taught her to allow for the range in her rangefinder, she stuffed her ears with some small bits of rags and ... The tank moved a little, the back end of the gun moved a lot and, rags or not, Randi almost jumped straight up out of the chair, remembering just in time to look through the viewfinder as the shell slammed into the granite wall. It made a bit of a mess over there, but ... Randi laughed. Fuck the bears, she thought and fuck the thieves as well. "Because THIS little piggy," she laughed to herself quietly, "Well, this little piggy goes BOOM, BOOM, BOOM, all the way home!" She ran the breech through its fairly slow cycle and after a bit of careful grunting, she stuffed one of the missiles into the breech very carefully and stood there puffing for a minute. She hoped that it would work the one time that she wanted to try it. The damn thing weighed sixty pounds. This time, it was only a matter of sitting and guiding the missile with a controller, and the mess that the thing made gave her a nice feeling, though the doubted that she'd ever use it for anything. She missed Copper now. It would have been a lot more laughter if they'd done this together. She straightened the turret and began to motor along. She wanted to get home and start loading up for her trip to town the next day. Not having the big doors that Copper had was going to make loading this with her produce a challenge, but that was life, she supposed. She hit the brakes a while later when she saw a figure step out of the bushes, recognizing the man who had beaten and raped her as well as robbing her twice before. The sheriff hadn't done a thing when she'd complained. More than anything, he was the reason that she carried a shooter on her hip these days. She supposed that he'd been the real reason why she was scared to death to ride through this valley and the underlying motivation to want to have this vehicle in the first place. He held up his hand and it made her laugh a little when he commanded the thing to stop, by the way that his mouth was moving, though she was sure that he couldn't see her as she watched him through the bullet-proof glass of the small driver's periscopes. She kept going slowly and he scrambled ahead out of the way, but she saw him draw his pistol as he backed up yelling that whoever was in there had better stop or he'd shoot. So Randi stopped, and she could hear his shots from outside faintly. She'd stopped and he'd still fired. Randi revved the engine and lurched forward as the thief began to run and Randi allowed it, wanting him out of her way. She had no intention of wasting one of her shells on his ass. Though it was a nice thought, she smiled. "Fuck you Mister, and you have a nice day now," she smiled. She had a scar on her lower lip from his ring when he'd hit her six months ago and she still had nightmares, but at least she was still breathing and she hoped that now he'd never bother her again. "Yea, though I drive through the valley of the shadow of death," she smiled to herself grimly, "I shall fear no evil -- because I've got a seventeen ton dick." There was a shortcoming to all of this, she realized after a few more miles. This was comfort, she thought, this riding around in her new rolling home away from home. Now she understood what Copper had been blathering about to her all of those times. Oh, she'd gotten it before all of the work, but now as she swayed and bounced along slowly, she finally knew real protection and personal safety. All that it needed was one of those 'Home Sweet Home' knick-knacks on the wall, she smirked. But she didn't have one. It wouldn't really have mattered if she did; there wasn't enough blank wall space in here to hang one up -- and there was another thing that she didn't have, she realized a little sadly. With the way that this rolling hunk of steel bobbled and bounced, she realized that she didn't have a piss pot -- and she really needed to go. Then she remembered the hatch in the floorpan in this compartment. She rolled to a stop and climbed up into the turret, traversing it in a 360 degree circle to see if there was anyone out there. Seeing no one, she slid back down and went forward to open the emergency escape hatch. She took a quick look-see with her head hung down before she squatted over the opening and went. Well this was nice, she decided, but as time went on, she became aware of a change in the ambient sounds outside. She could hear the rumbling and quiet clattering of the 300 horsepower Detroit 6-cylinder supercharged diesel engine, and she could hear the hiss of her urine, but as the seconds went by, she could hear a rising sound, like wailing or, ... screaming. She finished hurriedly and slammed the hatch shut, dogging it tightly before she jumped up and scrambled back to the turret. As she swung it around, she saw something that caused her jaw to fall open. There was a dark smudge out there, downslope from her. It wasn't large, but it was moving uphill through the air close to the ground on a path which would take it past the front of her vehicle, and it seemed to be completely oblivious to the cloud which was chasing it or, ... well that's what it looked like to her. She stepped up the magnification and the smudge turned into a woman in a black cape, flying slowly up the slope somehow and not seeing the , ... Randi groaned. Demons. A whole great big flock of the things that the woman was about to be overtaken by. Randi had heard tell of these strange flocks and how they moved over the land, but that there now seemed to be more of them than ever before and the flocks seemed to be getting larger as well. She didn't know anything about the woman, who seemed to be able to fly somehow, but if they caught up to her and she just sat in her shelter as it happened ... she didn't even want to think about that. She looked around the panels in front of her and found the switches for the smoke grenade launchers and fired one of the six of them attached to the outside of her turret -- a holdover from a time when vehicles like hers could hide themselves in clouds of thick smoke though Copper had told her that thermal imagers had negated any benefit. She turned and scrambled up to open the commander's hatch on top. "HEY!" she yelled as she pointed, "Behind you!" She saw the woman look back at what pursued her, but her head snapped around to look at Randi, who knelt on the turret and beckoned to her frantically -- all the while asking herself if she was nuts. It would have been a little funny in a strange way to Randi -- as the woman turned to see what followed her, she'd said a few words to herself and though Randi didn't understand what was said, she just knew that somehow 'What the fuck?' was in there somewhere. A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 44 "Come on!" she called out, "Over here!" The fugitive put on a burst of speed and amazed Randi as she flew toward her. Randi pointed down as she yelled, "Down in here, all the way down -- hurry!" Randi didn't stop to think about anything too much, other than this woman was amazingly beautiful -- and another thought which came to her was a little disconcerting as she knelt there with thick smoke beginning to billow up around her. The woman had seemed to just flow down through the hatch like smoke herself. But there was no time to think about much of anything now as Randi scooted her legs into the hatchway and clambered down, stopping only long enough to close the hatch and dog it as the outline of her tank became invisible in the qualms of thick, stinging phosphorus smoke. She was coughing a little by the time that she stepped past the woman, "That was close," she said as they heard and felt a few impacts against the outer hull, "I hope they give up and move on," she said over her shoulder, "I've got way too much shit up there for them to break off." She turned on the thermal imaging as she slewed the turret sideways and saw that the cloud of creatures had moved away a little back down the slope to where there was no smoke. She heard words then, "That is the third time in four days," the woman's voice came to her, "the second time, they took me out over the water -- hundreds of them - and it was all that I could do to defend myself. It took long over a day. As I slew the last four, I was over land again. I have fought many enemies at once before, but I do not know the ways of this place very well yet and I am not strong yet either." Randi thought that from the way that it had sounded, this woman had been chased out over one of the larger lakes in the area. She thought about it a little as she turned and stepped around the woman, looking for something in the ammunition rack. "What is it that you search for?" he heard from the woman. Randi pointed to the small monitor, "Take a look. They're moving away a little, but I think they'll turn around and come back. I just want to find a beehive round. They're supposed to be good for this kind of thing. I'm sure that we put a few in here." Finding one of the four that she had aboard, she hefted it and stepped to the gun, hitting the 'OPEN' button. As she breech whined open and down to receive the round, she stuffed it gently inside and hit the 'CLOSE' button and the breech began to close. "Excuse me," she said quietly as she gently pushed her companion aside a little, and she centered the reticule over the now-returning bunch of demons as her guest looked over her shoulder. As she made minor adjustments, she hoped that this would work and in spite of herself she looked a little carefully for a moment. As hard as she stared, she couldn't see even one demon there who looked even close to Billy. She slapped the button to fire the gun. There was an exclamation of surprise from the woman as the gun slid back in recoil and the canister shot roared out of the barrel on its way. A millisecond later, a secondary charge ignited and released the hundreds of fleshettes -- small steel darts which flew downrange toward the cloud of demons, whining as they went. Neither of the occupants of the Sheridan heard it, but the sound was the reason for the name of the round. Randi hit the button to open the breech again and a little acrid cordite smoke filtered back toward them from it. She found the switches marked "NBC VENTIL." and turned them on. She hadn't really understood what they were for, but she knew from her reading that the system pressurized the interior of the hull slightly. She loaded another round and closed the breech. "You-you have slain most of them!" the woman exclaimed, "What was that?" It was true. The ground was littered with the torn bodies of the dead and the dying. The rest were regrouping, but they began to head off in another direction. "That was a beehive canister," Randi said, "It's for when you're looking at a lot of things coming at you -- like people or ... demons. It rips them up with little arrows. I've never used one before, but I sure like it now," Randi chuckled as she looked for bodies which were moving and she began to shoot them with short bursts from the coaxial machine gun. When nothing moved anymore, she slowly turned from the imager and realized that she hadn't been able to understand what this woman had said in her first exclamation, but she had understood everything since they'd come down inside -- and the more that she thought about it, the more certain she became that she had actually not really heard anything. She reached for her pistol, but found that it was gone. A hell of a time to lose it, she chided herself. When she looked up slowly, she saw the woman smiling at her as she held out Randi's shooter, "You lost this as you carried the thing that you placed in there." Randi stared as she took the weapon. The woman's lips hadn't moved and she could see the fangs in that smile -- though oddly enough, it looked to be a very friendly and thankful smile to her, all the same. Randi turned her head and stood looking at the screen again as she slid her pistol back into its holster, knowing that if she was right in her surmisal, she'd done exactly the wrong thing to offer this vampire a little safety. In doing it, she'd been a trusting fool again and it was now very likely going to cost her about the last of what she had -- besides this wonderful toy that she'd bolted together with her friend Copper, she thought that her unremarkable life was down to about its last minute or so. Rudhi stood waiting for her companion to say something. She'd have minded a lot more, but this was the first moment that she'd really had to look at this girl who lived in the most amazing contraption to her. The young woman had bright red hair, tied back as it was a little crudely. It was surprising to her, but everything about her was a little rough, just like her hair had been tied, and yet -- she seemed so lovely this way. Rudhi admired that face and the body beneath it. The girl wore heavy fur-lined boots and her pants were tucked into the tops of them, slightly dirty and torn in a few places. She wore something which looked like a wide leather strap around her bare right upper arm and it was adorned with a few bits of bright metal which caught the dim red lighting in here. Her other upper arm carried a few thin leather thongs and she could see several thin silver bracelets on one wrist. Her breasts were neither large nor small, and to Rudhi's eyes, they looked as though they were perfect on her, held and completely covered inside a short bodice of rough leather and laced together up the middle with a thin pair of straps over her shoulders. Looking a little lower, she saw that the pants had no waistband and were worn very low on her hips. She smiled a little; she could even see the outline of her cleft in the material and the top of her pubic hair was peeking at her over the top of her pants -- right there next to a small marking of some sort in her skin just above where her thigh met her body. There was also another thin thong of leather around the girl's slender waist and she wore a stud through her skin over her navel. Other than another marking in the skin of her upper left arm, the rest of what she saw were smudges of thick and dark jelly -- some sort of lubricant for this machine, she surmised. Rudhi had lain with females before. Where she was from, there were too few available partners of any sort as their days came to an end. To her, it had always only been another source of pleasure to be had, though in her heart, she preferred males to mate with by a fair margin. The thought reminded her of her two males, now long dead and gone, she guessed. She felt a little of this one's sadness and hopelessness as she considered her end and when that came to Rudhi, she was a little upset by it. "Why are you so ... sad now?" she asked in her mind, "You have done me a great kindness here, and I was hopeful to have made a friend in you maybe, but now I feel that you think that you will die now, or soon. I think that there is a mistake here, and I wish to know why." The green eyes which flashed a little as that face turned to regard her almost took Rudhi's breath away. She'd seen only a few humans from this close up and though the girl who had pleased her a few nights ago was nice to look at, she was nothing in comparison to the beauty who stood before her now. "It took me a while," Randi said slowly, "I was just too busy, I guess, but I've just noticed that you can speak to me and make no sound. I've also just seen your teeth. I'm an idiot, I guess, but I've just saved a vampire. I don't know all that much about them, but I guess that you'll want to kill me now. I hope it doesn't bother you too much, but I'm not real happy about that." Rudhi shook her head, "I only speak this way so that I can make myself understood by you. Neither of us knows the speech of the other. I hear your thoughts as you speak, but the sounds that you make? Well they sound good to me, but I understand nothing of it. If I were to speak to you, it would be the same for you. Like this, we can talk. I am no blood-drinker -- though I have done it when I have had the need, but I have no bloodthirst. A few days ago, I killed a few humans, but that was because I had not eaten anything in so very long. I could have eaten other creatures, I suppose, but those ones were there and it was an easy way to fill my belly in my weakness. None of them suffered. Look, it is daytime. What you think cannot be here now. And those things are dead, no matter what they might tell you, while I am not. I am only something else, brought here long ago and left forgotten. I have only just awakened a few days ago, and now I wander here and seek to find a way to live, knowing little if anything of this place." She looked sad then, "You have been kind to me, and I think that you do not like what I am. I am sorry for this, but I have no desire or need to harm you," she tilted her head, "Why would I, after what you have done? I can defeat the demons easily, but I have not recovered my strength or abilities yet as I try to remember -- and every time that they overtake me, I am not prepared." She looked around for a moment, "Please show me the way out of your home and I will leave you. A face like that should never look as sad as I see now." Randi had been taking her first good look at the other one as she'd spoken. What she saw astounded her in many ways. If she was lost here -- or as lost as what this woman was telling her, she didn't want to think about going around dressed as scantily as what she was looking at. Randi wasn't very attracted to anyone at the moment, and she really hadn't been since the last time that she'd been raped and had crawled off to hide herself away again. She didn't know what had happened to her friend Copper, and she'd have been amazed to learn of her relationship and love with a demon of all things -- and a female one at that. Randi had never had the slightest inclination to be attracted to women, though she had to give this creature her due. If there ever was a female that Randi would have looked at and seen beauty in the purest sense, then she was looking at it now. She still wasn't attracted to anyone, but she found that she could stand to look at this girl and like it. "So you're not going to kill me or suck my blood out of me or anything like that?" she asked a little cautiously. "No," she heard the thought in her mind, "Why would I kill someone who I hope for as a friend to me? I have no one here. I hoped that I could learn from you. I would do anything that I could for you for what you did for me." She sighed heavily, "I do not even know your name, but I tell you that I ache to know someone. I was a high one where I am from, long ago. I was proud there, but I was taken far from there by blood-drinkers and kept asleep. They are gone now and I cannot go back, and even if I could, everyone there is dead now," she pointed to her breast, "I feel this. There is no one left, and I am alone here, far from my home." Randi didn't know why, but she believed what she heard. "I'm trying to understand why you're telling me that I'm safe when you just got done telling me that you killed and ... ate some people? Why did you do that? And how can I be safe?" Rudhi thought that she could understand it, so she just said gently, "Try to think that I am not from here -- anywhere on this world. I come from another place. What we were there long ago hunted others for food -- and I say to you that what we were when I was taken from my home was a little different, but our beginnings remain with us. I awoke after ... I do not know how long it was that I slept, but I remember the city there, full of life and humans, though I was not permitted to speak to one or even go close enough to look, really. When I awoke a few days ago, the city was ruined and there was no one there. So much time must have passed. I had to eat, and so I ate some small creatures, but there were not many, and then I found some humans. I am not what you are, but you are the same as me in some ways. What you began as also ate meat. I can see this by your teeth, several of the front ones, anyway. She sniffed a little and looked at a knapsack in the corner, "What is in there, please?" Randi shrugged, "Just some ale and a little ... meat on some bread." Randi's eyes opened a little, "I think I see what you're saying. We still eat meat, though we don't just push a cow over and start to gnaw on it." "What do you do to it then?" Rudhi asked with a slightly challenging smile. "We -- we uh, ... we kill it and butcher it to cook over some fire later," she looked up then, "Please don't tell me that you cooked up those people ..." Rudhi shook her head, "No. In only minutes, I found that humans are a little too close to me to do that, but I had hunger, so I ate." She looked at the knapsack again. "Alright," Randi said, "Around here, when we try to meet somebody for the first time, we hold out our right hands and hold onto the other one's hand for a moment, "She held out her hand, "My name's Randi Farber. What's yours?" Rudhi looked at the hand for a moment before she grasped it, "I am Rudhi Natheah." Randi learned what she'd set out to know. Rudhi's hand was very warm to the touch. When she let go, she grinned, "If you're hungry now, well, I'll share my lunch with you -- seeing as how we're the same in at least a couple of ways." Rudhi nodded with a hopeful smile, so thankful not to have lost the chance to know someone. Randi opened her knapsack and shared her sandwiches and ale as they sat together. Rudhi was surprised at how good they tasted and she said so before she looked over and smiled as she watched Randi laugh a little. "So really, your name is Rudy?" "Yes," Rudhi nodded, "why do you smile like that?" "Nothing really, "the redhead grinned, "I just like our names, Rudy and Randi." "Where were you going in your home here?" Rudhi asked. "This isn't my home," Randi replied, "This is just my new wagon, I guess. I prepare meats like what you're eating. Taking it all to market and getting back home with the small money that I get from selling it has always been trouble for me, but it's what I can do well." Rudhi asked why it was so difficult and after listening to Randi tell of some of her experiences, Rudhi grew a little angry as she thought about it. "I have only been here a little while, and I know you for less than that, but I will help you if I can. No one will steal from you again or hurt you. When do you go to this market next?" "I was going to go tomorrow," Randi said, "If you want to come along, well, I could use some help loading and unloading everything in here." She didn't know about the rest, but Randi found herself liking Rudhi now and help was always welcome. "We're gonna have to find you something else to wear, though. Dressed like that, we'll have all the men hanging around, but their women sure won't be happy and they're the ones who buy the most for their families." "What is wrong with how I am dressed?" Rudhi asked, "This is proper where I am-" Her eyes opened a little wider, "Ah, you try to tell me something. Alright. Is this better?" Randi almost dropped the jug of ale. Except for the piercings and her eager to please smile, Rudhi was naked. "No," Randi laughed shaking her head as she admired what she saw, "I mean that you need to be wearing more, not less, Rudy. I've got some clothes at my place that ought to fit you. We're not far from being the same size, I think. Why do you have those little rings there? And what are the leather uh, strings there for?" Rufhi looked down at herself, guessing that things were done a little differently here and remembering that the humans that she'd met in the caravan had been wearing a lot more than she'd been, now that she thought about it. "The rings are to show something," she said, "I did not think it too unusual -- you have something here too," she pointed to the stud in Randi's abdomen, "Where I am from, it shows that I am of noble blood. What does this show here?" Randy shrugged, "Nothing, I guess. I just wanted it." "You are wearing more than I am," Rudhi said, "but you do not cover yourself that much more, Randi." "Very true," the redhead nodded, "But this is the way that I like to be when I'm alone or with one of my friends. In town, I wear a lot more than this. People are funny there. I just like my body and it feels good to me to be like this when I'm alone. Sometimes I don't wear this much, but only if I'm alone." "Where I was," Rudhi smiled, "this was the way that females went. I am the same as you, I think. When I am alone, I feel best with little on me, so long as I am not cold -- like I was outside." She looked up, "I should put the other things back?" Randi laughed, "If you want to, Rudhi. I don't mind looking at you like this -- or that other way, since there's not all that much difference. But you didn't tell me about the other rings and everything. Here, I guess that it means that ... well, I don't rightly know what it means." The dark haired woman looked down at herself a little uncomfortably, since it was becoming obvious to her that things were very different here. "Among us, these say that I was to rule one day, "she sighed, wondering if she ought to feel shame or something, "and also it shows that I like a little pleasure if they are tugged very gently. They feel nice if they move a little." She waved her hand and the thongs were gone from her nipple rings. "Well I think that they looked kind of nice," Randi said, "so if you want to wear them, I sure won't mind." The rings and thongs were back in a moment and Randi nodded, "Yeah, I do like that better on you, but they scare the heck out of me in a way." Rudhi tilted her head, "Why?" It caused Randi to laugh quite a lot, but when she settled down, she smiled a little ruefully, "Because I know myself pretty well, I guess. I think that I actually love seeing those on you and it's pretty different for me to admit it to myself, never mind to another person. But I could never wear anything like that. I know I'd just get them caught in everything and hurt myself." "Ah," Rudhi smiled, getting it, "I get them caught as well sometimes, but if I must be a little careful ..." Randi grinned when she saw that the thongs were now tied together, from one nipple to the other. "I'm glad that I met you," she nodded decisively, "Come on, Rudy," she said as she moved forward. She took the fleece from the driver's seat and laid it carefully on a gearcase nearby. "Can you please sit here for a while as I drive? You'll need to watch your head, but the fleece here will keep your butt clean from the grease on this thing here." A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 44 Rudhi sat down and her eyes opened a little as she looked over, "This is very warm! There is heat coming from this around the skin here." "Uh-huh," Randi laughed, "and that's the other reason for the fleece -- to keep your ass from getting burned. That gearcase will get hot in a while." Randi was about to put the vehicle into gear when she looked through the periscopes at the mirrors that she'd put on the "fenders". They stood up about a foot and a half on metal frames and they were there to keep an eye down the sides and toward the rear. She saw a motion in one of them and hissed. "It's that bastard again. I thought that I ran him off a long way back, but I guess he's got a stubborn streak as well as a tiny brain." Rudhi thought for only a moment, "He is the one who hurt you." Randi looked over, "Yeah, how did you know that?" "When we like someone, we feel much from them,"Rudhi said, "How do I get out again? I will make sure that he causes you no more hurt." ---------------------- The man was sneaking down the side of the thing carefully with his pistol in his hand. He didn't know anything much about it, but from what he'd seen it do to a cliff of solid rock, he thought that it was something that he might find a use for. He just needed to get inside and force whoever was in it to teach him a little before he killed them and drove off. He figured that it would be perfect to use for making a large withdrawal from the bank. He stepped away a little as he heard and saw the hatch on the top of the thing fly open. Something dark and transparent shot upwards out of it and was gone. He couldn't see it anywhere, but he knew that he now had his way in. He took one step and the thing was back -- right in front of him now, and the shape of it became ... he couldn't believe his eyes. He was looking at an incredibly beautiful - and naked - woman right there in front of him, but his appraisal took a downturn when she smiled and he saw those teeth. He raised his shooter and began to fire as he tried to scramble backwards to get away. Every time that he pulled the trigger, she was somewhere else and he heard laughter. He went through six shots in no time and threw the pistol as he ran back to his horse and pulled his rifle from its scabbard, but she was on him then and the rifle fell, swept aside with no effort from her. She grabbed him by the throat then and it seemed a little ludicrous, since he was taller than she was. But those were his last thoughts for a time. He fell to her feet in a heap, unconscious and forgotten for the moment as Rudhi flew back to the idling machine with her heart in her throat. She'd felt it as something had happened to Randi. Even though she'd told the redhead to remain inside the vehicle, Randi had climbed halfway out of the hatch. Now she lay sprawled half off the turret and there was blood seeping out from under her on the paint. Ruhi was there in an instant and turning her friend over, she could see that somehow in all of the shooting, one bullet had found the only person that she knew here -- the one that she was so happy to have found a friend in only minutes before. Randi's eyes opened and she coughed a little and Rudhi could see by the brightness of the blood that she'd been hit very close to the heart and since it was coming out of her mouth, it must have hit her esophagus as well. Randi coughed again, "I guess I'm ... too nosy for my own good." Rudhi gave quick and careful thought to everything and she sobbed a little in desperation, but she came to an idea several times as she thought furiously. Each time that it surfaced in her mind, she discarded it and sought for another way, but one after another, the other thoughts fell apart in her mind for one reason or another. By the time that she was down to the only thing which remained, Randi had lost consciousness again. Rudhi didn't know what to do, but she decided quickly to act in the only way that she knew would work, knowing that she might not get much in the way of thanks for it if she was successful, but then, if it was really unwelcome, she had an answer for that too and she'd give Randi the way out then. She untied the bodice quickly and pulled it open wide, looking down at a pair of perfect breasts that she couldn't bear to think about being dead. Rudhi thought about herself for a moment, and concluded that she had this to spare by a small margin, so she placed her palm over the wound. Things went in both directions after that; the bullet slowly lifting free and being drawn to the surface, and a lot of Rudhi's life force moving in the opposite direction into Randi's breast. The flow of heart blood stopped in a second and Randi's blood pressure began to increase a little as Randi went from feeling herself drift away down a long deep well to suddenly being caught in the fall and pulled back up. Rudhi kept her hand on Randi's breastbone, only taking it away for a brief instant to pluck the bullet as it rose through the surface and set it aside before placing her hand back gently -- as quickly as she could. She looked down at that face and decided that for the first time in who knew how long, this was someone that she didn't want to see leave her life and it felt good to her to feel determination once more. She began to press down on Randi's chest as much as she dared, not wanting to crack the already damaged cartilage which she felt underneath as she opened her mouth to place her lips over Randi's. At the first breath, Randi's eyes flew open and she coughed up more blood. Rudhi was prepared for it and took it, being what she was and she replaced it quickly with another breath as her hand moved slightly in patterns now over the bullethole which was already closing. The stricken young woman gasped and inhaled deeply, not understanding how she could -- with Rudhi's face there and her lips over her mouth like this, but every time that she did, she got air as she listened to what rushed into Rudhi's nostrils for them both. She felt pain at first left over from the gunshot, but it passed quickly, and though she felt less pain afterward, what she felt was heat -- searing heat in her chest. Her breastbone ached a little from the injury and the pressure and her mouth hurt somehow in a way that reminded her of having a toothache. The deed was done in another minute and Rudhi pulled back to look at Randi with worry and concern for a moment as Randi struggled to try to feel if she was really here and if she was still dying or not and if not then why not and what the hell had just happened here and what the hell had this girl just done here and ... Randi found that she could move her arms and she reached for Rudhi, who suddenly looked so relieved. "What ... happened to me?" she whispered. Rudhi stared and would have answered, but right then, she did something that she knew that this girl wouldn't likely appreciate very much, but she didn't care. Rudhi kissed Randi very softly for a moment and then pulled back. "I am sorry," she smiled a little ashamedly, "I am very happy that you live. Something from his weapon hit you and you were dying. I thought of only one thing that I could do which I knew would save you." She looked a little uncomfortable then, "There was no way that I could ask, and so I acted. The thing that was in you is gone," she said in her thoughts as she looked away and down. She lifted the bullet and held it up before Randi, "This was in your heart. I have removed it, obviously, and I have healed you, but, ... Randi, you may be very angry with me, because I may have done the wrong thing." "What. ... what do you mean? I remember tasting blood, ... and ... that you -- " Her eyes widened, "You sucked in the blood that I coughed up!" Rudhi nodded, "I told you that I could drink blood. I did it because it was more important to me that you get another breath and I wanted to waste no time in spitting it out, so I swallowed. Randi, I was not feeding on you. I never would. I ... I let you feed on me in a way. I pushed some of my life into you." She looked very uncomfortable then as she thought, "I gave you some of my life and I healed what was done." She looked away then at the gray sky and the land around them, "It does not come purely." She looked down again at the girl in her arms, "It comes with some of me in it. You may not want this and if I have done wrong, then tell me and I will ease your life away if it is what you want instead, but I could not ask before. You were a human and you are still that," Rudhi said, "You are not dead, and I am so happy to see this, but you are also a little like the one who gave this to you now." "What does -- what does that mean?" Randi asked, "You told me that you're not a vampire." "No," Rudhi said, "I am not. But in some ways I am a little like them. Until now, you had your life inside you. Like all of your kind, you have needed to keep it there by eating and drinking. This has not changed, but now, some of your life is from what I am. I need to eat as well, but it is not enough to keep my kind alive, and so sometimes I need to take life from other creatures -- and it does not matter what they are, so long as there is life for me there. It does not happen often, but it does happen. I would not have needed to do this again for a long time, but now ..." She looked down, "And you will need it in just the same way now - unless you wish for me to take it back so that you can die." "I don't want to die," Randi said in little more than a whisper as she shook her head, "I can feel something in me now that's like being hungry -- but I just ate a sandwich." "Not the same and not enough," Rudhi said, shaking her head. "What do I do then?" Randi asked, "It's getting worse. How do I make it go away?" "It will never go away," the other one said, "just like the hunger to eat; it only hides until the next time. You can take what you need from another by only your touch on their flesh. I am sorry," she said," It was the only thing that I could do to help you." She looked at Randi with a good deal of guilt on her face, but Randi smiled then, surprising Rudhi, "Thank you for what you did, if I was dying. So, I'm not dead, right? I don't feel dead or anything. Actually, I feel pretty good, except for that hunger." "You will gain strength and live longer," Rudhi smiled a little. "Well, this is going to be weird anyhow, no matter what, I guess," Randi said, "But, ... "she sighed a little, "I don't know how to say this, and Rudhi, I don't know if you can understand it, but, ... well, I've never been real big on girls. Now, I'm still not. But I've found somebody that I like an awful lot and I know that you've just saved my life. Thank you." Rudhi smiled with obvious relief, "I was so afraid that you would be angry. Was that all that you wanted to say?" "Yes -- I mean -- no, I ... well, could you kiss me again? Just one more time? I really liked that." Rudhi smiled and kissed Randi again and the redhead even giggled a little as Rudhi licked way the blood which was on her chest afterward, but it ended when they heard the man get to his feet and look around unsteadily. Seeing them, he began to run for his horse. He had a lot of trouble getting into the saddle and almost fell off in his shakiness, but he managed to get the beast turned around and galloping. Randi had been watching and she sat up as Rudhi allowed it, "I want him." Randi said. "Am I going to get his shitty habits?" "No," the dark-haired one replied, "You got life from me. From him, ... it is only like food that you need." She was alone an instant later as Rudhi became the dark streak once more and took the man clean out of the saddle. He fought and kicked, but it was to no avail. Rudhi only smiled as she held him fast. His eyes were huge with fear as he saw the redhead walking to him with her bodice hanging open, She was looking far more confident than he'd ever seen her before. "Remember me?" Randi asked, "You took my money and you kicked the shit out of me." Her hand flashed out faster than she'd have believed possible and she almost broke his neck as she slapped him. The man began to cry past his dislocated jaw. She grabbed him by the throat as she spoke around her new and slightly longer teeth, "You fucked me. You fucking RAPED me! And then you beat the shit out of me again, just for fun -- just to see me cry and beg. I pissed blood for a week, you ASShole! Well now it's my turn." She lunged for his shirt and tore it clean through, leaving red lines and bruises behind. As he tried desperately to fight, she raised the thumb under his throat and he began to choke, but he hung motionless and still as she placed her palm over the middle of his chest. His eyes bulged in horror as he felt his life leaving him. The eyes there sunk into his darkening face and when she let him go to drop onto the ground, he was a dead husk. Randi stood with her eyes closed as she began to feel better. "Just tell me," she thought quietly, "Am I a ghoul now?" Rudhi thought for a moment as she tried to understand the word. "No," she said at last, "As I take the meaning from you, it means someone who eats the dead. And before you ask, you are not hungry because we ate those ... sandwiches." "I didn't leave anything for you," the redhead said suddenly, "You helped me and - " "Listen now," Rudhi said as she put her arms around Randi, "You seek to find words for this which I do not know. You wonder about the teeth in your mouth. You can hide them. You cannot change what you now are, but you can change how you appear a little. You will use the teeth at some time when you need food as well as the life. You do NOT need to feed on only humans. You need to turn around and go back to your machine." Randi blinked, "Why?" and the other one rolled her eyes and pointed without looking, "The animal that he rode will be enough for me." Randi watched anyway as Rudhi flashed away toward the steed and a moment later she came back while another husk lay forgotten behind her. She handed Randi the man's weapons and his saddlebags. After a look and the quick removal of two boxes of ammunition for each one she threw them into the weeds. "We will not need this for a time now," Rudhi said and the two walked toward the idling tank. A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 45 ***There's a word in this chapter. I don't use it, but it's there. There's even a whole category on Lit for it. It's never held any attraction for me, but somebody's got to like the idea I guess. Anyway, I needed to use some of it as a vehicle in my plot. If you have an allergy, then skim that part, 'k? 0_ -------------------- Book of the Forsaken Part 2 At her home, Randi found more suitable clothing for her friend. Rudhi proved to be a hard worker and between them, they had everything stacked and ready to be loaded up in the morning, since Randi had changed her mind because the vehicle would still be warm and running then. She closed the locker and set about making a pot of stew for them to eat together. With that started in the pot, she placed a few pots of water on the woodstove to get them to boil. "Let's go fill the old bathtub. I want a bath and by the time that it's almost full, the pots on the stove will be hot and we'll have a hot bath after we pour that in." They talked about all sorts of things and Randi wanted to know all about her new friend's life. Rudhi was a little glad of it, because it forced her to try to remember more. She didn't have amnesia – she'd just lain asleep for so long. "It is a little strange," she said, "In some ways, things seem so recent to me, as though I only closed my eyes not long ago. But it is not so. I was caught and taken before I knew what was happening. I came home to arrange for more soldiers for a battle which was coming, and I ate a meal and went to bed. I remember missing my males because they could not come with me, being needed where we were. I closed my eyes and the next thing that I knew, it seemed that we were under attack. I assumed that the foes were our age-old enemies, but it was really more of a raid. My meal had been drugged and I could not think well. Then I fell and I awoke on this world." "I was a captive and only saw a little of the city where I was, but I remember that it was new and clean and full of people." She looked down for a moment. "As I have said, we feel the ones that we care for. Even where I was, I felt the ones who loved me. I knew that they lived. When I awoke a few days ago, this feeling was gone. I do not know how much time has passed, but the city was deserted and lies now in ruins. Things which were new – such as the building where I was kept – are now piles of rubble. So I know that it must have been ages that I lay there." "But why, Rudy?" the redhead asked, "Why did they grab you? Why did they bring you here?" Rudhi shrugged, "I only know a little. The ones who took me were blood-drinkers, all of them, though they did not touch me directly. From the way that they acted, I believe that they were a little afraid of me. They used others for tasks. I was forced to do only a little, but when they saw what I did, they were pleased. I thought that doing it would cause them to give me a little freedom, but they caused me to sleep and sealed me almost right afterwards. But I did learn a little. There was one other who worked for them and could remember nothing. They acted as though they taught that one – and they never spoke a name. But I know that this person was a female. No name – they only called her 'She'. It made me wonder what they called me." "Maybe they called you 'The Other One', Randi grinned and Rudhi laughed, "Maybe they did. I never saw her. She was away, they told me, doing their work whatever it was. No one ever said it to me, but after a time, I knew my purpose there. If 'She' ever tried to throw off their yoke on her, it would be my task to destroy her." "What happened to her?" Randi asked, "Did she live, or get away?" "I cannot say," Rudhi said into the other's mind with a shrug, "I do not know. When I awoke, the seals which held me were very weak. I broke them easily and walked away. I think that she must have been another like me – taken from someplace and used for whatever they wished. If she still lives, I have no ill will toward her, and I wish her well. The only thing that I was told was that I would know it if I was in her presence." After that, Randi wanted to go back to an earlier point. "What did you mean when you said that you missed your males?" Rudhi looked down, "There were different realms where I am from. Some were ruled by groups, some by kings. Mine – by queens only. Males could hold high places, but the rulers were always queens. My mother was the last, I guess. All that we knew were wars. The lands ruled by groups were the first to fall to the rest of us. It took time to discuss everything for them. While they discussed, we acted. Those lands were taken before I was born. In my time, there were only three lands left, but we were all weak from our stupid fighting and murder. In times such as those, a queen would take several consorts, since one never knew what might happen. Marriages were arranged when the princesses were only babes, and usually there were two males decided upon – also infants. My mother had four consorts – the two which were arranged for her, a third male and one female, who was her favorite. I always remember them being together. For me, there were two as well, but I had no wedding yet. It was still a year off when I was brought here, and years are a little longer there. As was usual, the males for me were from different backgrounds – one was of noble blood and one was not. I met them by chance once, and though it was very unusual, we fell in love before we all knew who we were. Both of my males were warriors with much fame between them – heroes of the people for the things which they'd done, and I was the princess who would rule one day, but neither of them knew it then. All that they knew was that their positions were besieged. Aid had been summoned and I led it. In our hidden messages, three commanders to each other, they suggested that my troops attack from one quarter and they would hold what they had while the old commander which they expected probed cautiously for the best weak spot to press the enemy. It was a plan which they hated, but they knew how they had to deal carefully with the old bird. But I had already heard this plan from the old one and I had relieved him of his head for it Thousands would die while he played and probed. My response was that I would attack in the night in a place of my own choosing, in case that our messages were being read. I told them to prepare to ride out to meet me when they saw the fight beginning. We met on the field by the first light of the next day, three young commanders with three small armies between us. I didn't know who led the fighters coming to meet my own and they knew nothing of the girl who led from the front to come to their aid. We were all surprised and said only a few words between us and did not meet again until nightfall. But we began it then between us." Rudhi was silent then and Randi saw her tears before she wiped her eyes, but she felt a lot of the other one's pain then and so she reached out and held her for a while, wondering about how she'd felt so much. When Rudhi seemed to have her feelings in hand again, Randi asked. "It comes with the part of my life which I gave to you," she said, "We feel for others. It is how I will know if I were to meet this 'She' person, though I would guess that it will not happen now. It is also how I knew that you were hurt. I was not looking when it happened." "But, but we'd just met," The redhead said, and the dark-haired woman nodded. "I have wandered for a while, chased mostly and fighting these demon things time and again. I am alone here, but you helped me, and I found myself liking you at once, so much, Randi. Also, I was so hopeful that I'd found someone who might tell me how I must live here. I am no princess anymore. I am nothing here, and I know no one, so when you were hurt, I knew it." When the pots on the stove began to boil, they carefully carried them and added the hot water to the large tub. "You're the guest, so you can go first, Rudy. I'm all covered in grease and dried blood anyway." As Rudhi was about to get in, she saw that Randi was about to leave and asked her to stay. "We are the same, from what we both said. Neither of us has a need to feel shame I think, and I like to talk with you." So Rudhi got in the tub and Randi sat on a stool and they kept talking. "When you – we I guess, drink blood," Randi began, "I think that I read somewhere in a book that you're not supposed to take the last drop. Is that true?" Rudhi's face twisted into a comical grin, "What sort of book was that?" "I dunno," Randi shrugged, "It was a novel. A story to make the reader a little afraid. They're called horror stories." She listened to her friend's almost musical laughter – from her voice this time. "First, we do not need to drink blood. You may wish to, if the one that you want is dirty, that is the most common reason for me. It is a meal but not a good one, since then you have a belly full of liquid. Also, your breath will stink after that for a time. Dead blood smells badly. Next, the statement in the book was stupid. You cannot ever get the last of the blood. The heart moves it around as long as there is enough to make some pressure. With no pressure, no blood moves, and you can suck until you have the asshole in your mouth, you will never get the last, because the arteries will collapse from your sucking. And anyway, the last is always the heartblood, so if you want it all, you must take the heart and eat that – and you still would not get the very last. Randi, my friend," The dark-haired one said earnestly, "You do not need to drink blood. You do not need to eat flesh. I did, because I was weak and there was nothing else. You can live just as you have always lived, but now and then, you will need to take life from something or someone, that is all. Look, this meat that you dry or smoke or cook to make these wonderful meals for people to buy, how do you get the meat?" "Well, I hunt for it, if it's deer or elk or like that," Randi said, "Some I just buy from a butcher, I can get a good price if I buy a half a steer or more at once." Rudhi smiled, "Instead of the butcher, buy the animal alive the next time, if you can butcher it yourself. Place your hand and take the life. I do not know how it is done here, but I am sure that the animal will feel no pain if you are careful and you save money. You do not need to hunt now, other than to find the animals that you mentioned. Once you see them, you can call them to you. I can show you this, and it is the same. No pain and you have the meat that you need for people to buy after you do what you do to make it taste so good. Maybe the best thing of all to you, you do not have to kill a human then." When it was Randi's turn, Rudhi heated the water up a little with her hand, though she said that to heat the whole tub before would have been hard since she hadn't regained her strength yet. They changed places and kept on chatting and joking. After the bath, they ate their stew and with a last look around, Rudhi asked where she was to sleep. "I've only got one bed made up, though it's a big one, since it was my parent's bed. There's lots of room for us both if you don't mind." Randi pointed to her bed and the pair crawled in. "This is really nice," Randi smiled, "I'm always alone and I have to keep looking around to make sure that I'm still safe, but I don't feel that way anymore. For once, I feel safe now." Rudhi had no way to say it, since she was unaware of the geography, but when she'd been attacked by one huge flock of demons, she'd chosen to lead them out over water, hoping that they'd give up out of fear or drown. But it hadn't happened, and though it had taken a couple of days, the steadily diminishing flock had chased her most of the way across the Atlantic. Rudhi could fly by her thought to do it, and falling was not an issue as it was to the gaggle of creatures which hounded her, losing a few at a time to either fatigue or to Rudhi's defensive attacks. With no idea of where to go, she'd kept flying, landing here and there to try to learn and finding that there were always more demons and the humans that she'd seen were too easily frightened by what they mistook to be a vampire. A couple of more days and she'd come to Colorado. Now, she was nearing exhaustion and she was a sleep in a minute, but she awoke a couple of hours later, flat on her back under the covers and feeling warm. She looked over and saw Randi on her side looking back at her. She blinked a little, "Is something wrong?" Randi shook her head, "No. I slept for a little while, but it was hard to fall asleep. I woke up a little while ago. I'm just thinking that I almost died out there. It's hard to put a thought like that to bed, that's all." Rudhi nodded and closed her eyes, but the silence lasted only a half a minute. "And I keep thinking about when you kissed me." Rudhi sighed and stretched a little, "Are you thinking or are you remembering?" "Well, both, I guess." The redhead replied, "I don't get very many kisses, not since –" Randi looked down and began to turn away. Rudhi looked over and saw that there was something there and so she reached over. "You have said very little to me about your life. I see that there is something which makes you sad again. Randi, we know each other only a little while, but you have done much for me. You feed me and let me wash and I am in your fine bed. But I will not be able to sleep now unless I know what bothers you so much. Can you tell me a little?" It was already too late. Randi had begun to cry very quietly. Rudhi reached over and pulled them together, holding her friend tightly and waiting. She couldn't help herself and kissed Randi's head softly now and then as she stroked her shoulders. Many minutes later, Randi began to speak softly, sniffling under Rudhi's jaw. "My real father was killed a long time ago when I was little," she said, "I never really got over it. He was so strong and he loved me ... so ..." Rudhi waited a little while after that before she heard anymore. "Mamma met a widower later and he had this farm and they got married when I was about twelve. We came here to live and he had a son, Samson. We hated each other at the beginning, but we were friends later. Everybody thought that because he had that name, ... well, I don't know what they thought, but Sam wasn't like that. He was not really much bigger than me. Out here, we were so far away from town and other people and we never really had any neighbors for very long. Sam and his dad worked the farm and I helped as much as I could. One winter, Mama got sick. It was that thing that goes around sometimes and the next thing we knew, Sam's dad got it too and ... and ... " She sniffled a few minutes later and pulled away to look up at Rudhi. "You're probably not going to like me very much now, but I feel like I've got to tell you something that I've never told anybody. Sam and me, we were two kids stuck out here all alone on this farm. We cut it back some, because we just couldn't run the whole thing by ourselves and we didn't have any money to pay for any help, so we just went on alone. We had to stay alive somehow, so that's what we did. Well, we liked each other and the way that I looked at it, we weren't blood or anything. After working side by side for so long, and keeping ourselves fed the best we could, ... well it just came natural to us and we ... " She looked down and let out the long breath that she'd been holding and just plunged on. "We started living like we were married and everything. We loved each other a lot, and we were happy like that. I was eighteen and he was twenty-one. We never told anybody about it and to anybody else, we were just two people; a girl and her brother who lived on a farm. But that preacher's wife in town, I guess she and her man got to thinking that it wasn't right and we didn't come to Sunday meetings. We probably would have, but we had this place to run and it took all week to do it between us. The next thing we knew, folks were talking about us when we went into town to buy feed and supplies. I heard about it from a bunch of ladies in the store where I was selling off our oats and mustard seed and some baskets of plums. When we left, it felt like the whole town was staring at us. It got worse every time. I thought that it might die down, but it didn't. It just got worse all the time, and one time Sam got beat up bad for it. That lousy sheriff wouldn't do a thing. Sam felt guilty enough over it all to start with. I tried to talk to him, but he wouldn't listen to me after a while. He stopped sleeping with me and stayed in his room. Things weren't getting done anymore, so I started smoking meats and selling it to the nearest farms that didn't do that themselves. I tried to stay away from town. One day, I came home late and Sam wasn't there. I looked everywhere, but he wasn't in the barn or anywhere. I didn't find him until I went out the next day as soon as it was light to get some plums to make jam out of to sell. I found him in the orchard. He'd ... he'd hung ..." Rudhi didn't get much more from her for a long while. She just hung onto Randi and kissed her head and her cheek. Finally, Randi got up to find a handkerchief and she went to wash her face. Rudhi went after her and a minute later she stood holding on to Randi as she let out her grief and she led her back to bed and just hung on to her for a long while. "That was three years ago," Randi said out of the darkness later. "I've been here ever since on my own." She looked up then, as though she was a little surprised, "You don't hate me for that, do you?" Rudhi shook her head a little, "I think that you are a very strong female," she said, "and I am proud to say that I have such a friend." Randi looked at the face beside her and Rudhi smiled a little as she kissed Randi softly. "Hold onto me, Randi. Hold me as tightly as you wish and sleep if you can. I know nothing of this place or its people, but nothing will hurt you this night. Push the shadows which haunt you away. I am sad because of how you hurt, but I am happy to have met you. I know that you like males and so do I, but I will kiss you as often as you like, only ask and all the kisses that you would wish for are yours." She pulled Randi close and they slept in each other's arms. Randi fell asleep soon after and Rudhi looked at her for a long time. ------------------------------- In a group of ancient dwellings, a female Tarkroth sat outside warming herself by a small fire which she'd lit with her mind while the male slept inside. In her life, she'd done many things for the good of her family, her tribe, her first male's tribe and her people as a whole. That had been on another world where they'd come from. She'd even given her life for them. Then she'd been a ghost, one of the ghost witches of her kind, but there was no one for her to help then because the people were all dead. In her lonely dreams, she'd seen where it was that her two sons had been taken to when they were children. For a time, it was enough for her to know that they lived. And then one day, in a flash of insight, she knew that there was still at least one of her kind alive on her world – a kinswoman of the tribe that she'd been born into still lived as a prisoner and she knew that this female would be brought to find something with which their enemies might enslave the spirit of the most powerful ghost witch of the Tarkroth. Her name had been Narreth then, but now she was beginning to wonder about many things. Even who she really was anymore. In a subsequent dream, she knew that that female would be taken far away to the very world where her surviving son lived alone, since the older one had since perished. If she could have done it, she'd have wept real tears of joy when it came to her that the last two living Mountain Demons of her world might meet and begin again somewhere else. After that, she'd put everything into engineering what she could, and it led to her being inside her own wedding band for a time before the transference occurred. A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 45 She'd been so happy then, she remembered. The two met and paired as was natural, but as the pregnancy of the living female took hold, it had begun yet another round of tragedy. She and Beyl'eth, the living female, knew each other. Beyl'eth had always been a proud beauty and to Narreth's eyes, she had a right – up to a point. There comes a time when two people pair when each must yield a little for the good of them both. There had been many fights and disagreements. Narreth stayed out of it, knowing that it was not her place to interfere. She'd had her own revelations to contend with. For one thing, on the world where she'd lived, she was a ghost and though she was dead, she was like many ghost witches and lived on by her strength of will and her spirit, helping any who needed it if it could be done. But here, a series of events had changed her more than a little. She was still dead in a real way, but her body had become more than a little solid. Overall, Narreth liked it. But the squabbles of her son Ayt'han and Beyl'eth continued unabated. When it grew too bad to her way of thinking, Beyl'eth would leave for a time, and usually, after she'd had time to reflect, she came to speak with Narreth, who always provided helpful, thought neutral advice whenever she could. But the last time had been different. Narreth had been standing with Beyl'eth as she prepared to return to her male, wanting to just get on with their lives. Beyl'eth planned to make up with him and she knew him well enough to know that he'd accept it and offer that he'd been unreasonable as well. As she turned, Beyl'eth slipped and fell backwards, hitting her head on a stone ledge. Narreth did all that she could, but the young female who had been named for her lay in a coma for the next three days. Narreth hovered around and worried. From what she could tell, the first trimester pregnancy was unaffected – so far, but how long would it survive like this? All of her talents – any of her abilities indicated to her that the one who had lived in this body was somehow absent. After another half a day of agonizing, Narreth came to the resolution of a very difficult decision for her to make. To any of the three, the survival of this fetus was paramount. Narreth knew that she had the ability to enter and run this body – hopefully until Beyl'eth was able to re-assume it. The danger to Narreth was clear to her. To do this, she'd need to abandon her own mysterious 'half-body' – the one which had formed out of nothing and looked just as she'd looked in life. She didn't really know what would happen to it, but she doubted that it would just wait for her to return – even if she could do that. And she doubted that it was possible to return. If she was successful and this young body lived under her control, she knew that if Beyl'eth came back to herself, Narreth would leave to allow it. But she had no idea what would happen to her then. Would she simply be a specter once more, or would she cease to exist altogether? She had no answer, but the baby was the most important thing to her, and Beyl'eth after that. Narreth had had a life. Now it was time to help again. The actual transfer was more easily accomplished than she'd have ever thought, though it took a day for her to do much more than open her eyes as her will extended through Beyl'eth's body to assume control of the synapses and musculature. When she was finally able to sit up, she wept as she saw the shell that she'd left behind. It felt a little like being marooned and watching your boat drift out of your reach, only to sink before your eyes. The body of Narreth was dead and beginning to decompose quickly. As a little strength returned to her, Narreth began to forage for food. Her short excursions brought her into contact with her large canine friend Tanre. But Tanre couldn't hear her thoughts anymore and didn't recognize her anymore either. Narreth was saddened to see that this had cost her the most wonderful friend. They parted and Narreth didn't dare to try to use Beyl'eth's wings, feeling somehow that the tiny life within her belly was very fragile at the moment. So she began to walk rather slowly, taking her time with things when she could. That night, Narreth sat under a rock overhang and wept. She'd lost everything; her male, her sons for most of their lives, her life itself. She'd known Beyl'eth from the time that the girl had been an infant. Now as hard as she tried to tell, there was no other will or spirit in this body but hers, and now the hope of renewal was all that there was. She couldn't go back and she couldn't abandon this body. She thought about her son and what she'd say to him, and then she realized that she couldn't just tell him that the spirit of his mother now inhabited the empty shell of his female. Ayt'han had been through a lot himself. She realized that she was hungry and seeing a hare, she had no trouble doing what she needed to do and she thought about everything as she ate. To her, it was still very important that the Tarkroth not die out here. She wondered about it for a long time. If she assumed the identity of Beyl'eth, then the body that Ayt'han would be mating with ought to be able to produce offspring. As she thought about it, the thought came to her that while she definitely would not have wanted to mate with her son in her own body, she was in someone else's body now and there wasn't a single thing of her in it with the exception of her consciousness. And if it happened, the Tarkroth would go on. All that she had to do was one amazingly good job at playing the part of Beyl'eth from inside Beyl'eth's body. That, and be ready to leave it if Beyl'eth came back to herself. And if that didn't happen, she had to be prepared to give birth again when the pregnancy came to term. And then she thought about being a mother again and to her surprise, she found that she wanted to experience it once more. ------------------------ In the event, there hadn't been very much in the way of acting required. She walked until she came to where he lived, but she found him waiting for her on a ridge and they embraced in the way of their people, him offering her the circle of his wings to stand inside as they embraced and talked. This was the way that it was done for their kind because of the harsh place where they were from. A female meeting a male which she knew in the snow and wind stood very close and was sheltered in his protection. Narreth thought about it and she knew that when she and her male were beginning, they'd had their own troubles and she had gone off for short periods, though nothing like the frequency that Beyl'eth did. She knew that if she was to begin this acting career, then his female wouldn't only stand there if all was forgiven between them and so she thought about how to try to tell him if she had to. Narreth expected that if they were past the difficulty, then at some point very soon, she could expect to feel his caress on her, but to her surprise, it didn't happen. Ayt'han said the right words, asking that the matter be forgotten, but he didn't reach for her mound and though Narreth felt a little relieved at that, she was more than a little surprised. As they spoke in the wind on the ridge, she laid her head on his chest and shoulder so that they wouldn't have to yell and this was also normal. It was even normal for a mother and son when they spoke under these sorts of conditions. But as she listened to him, she was still puzzled. She tried to tell herself that whatever unusualness there had been in their greeting, they seemed to be moving past that and were back where this pair ought to have been, she thought as she looked up at him. What she saw was his father in a younger day, so full of life and strength. She knew that there was power in him – enough to move mountains – she could feel it. He had all of the ability of his father the king and he carried what he'd inherited from her as well, the son of the most powerful Rohn witch that anyone had ever heard of. She saw a little bit of herself in his face and it made her smile a little. She'd given him life and she'd known him only seven years. After that, she had to live with the pain of a mother who missed her two sons every day over all of the years after that. In that time, she'd missed seeing him grow up. He stood holding her as almost a stranger by comparison. Back home, if none of the cruel fate of their kind had happened, he'd have had his choice of any Tarkroth female. But she knew that he was bright enough to want a Rohn girl eventually, since he was to be king himself one day and it was required. It came to her that in his generation, he'd have found Beyl'eth then anyway, though she'd have made him work for her love, setting many tasks and challenges before she spread her legs for him the first time, even if he was the crown prince. Beyl'eth had even said as much to her once, saying that she'd gone very lightly on him because of where they were and the fact that there were no other Tarkroth males here. Narreth was looking at his cheek and jaw when she realized that no matter what, he'd have been holding this body against his anyway. The only thing which would have prevented it was his disappearance as a boy. She'd remedied that herself and that fine male now held his female against him. It made her sad to think that it wasn't Beyl'eth here holding him, not inside, anyway. There was still no indication that the spirit of the girl was anywhere inside this body. She decided that if things were better again between them, then Beyl'eth would tell him so and not with the words which she'd already spoken, so she reached for his hand and placed it onto her mound for him. It was going to add another layer to the things which she'd have to explain to him, but the way that he closed his eyes and pressed his head against hers so gently said so much to her. Beyl'eth had been gone for over a month this time – probably wanting to make him hurt, Narreth decided, knowing that Beyl'eth could be a hard-hearted bitch at times. It was a damned shame to her, this fine couple who had managed to come together in spite of everything, only to have the troubles of any young pair made worse by what Narreth had thought of so often but had never told her kinswoman – that Bayl'eth was acting like a spoiled brat. She wanted to comfort him – even before she attempted to tell him what had happened. She wanted to tell him how she thought that they could move ahead while they – and mostly her – waited for Beyl'eth to appear in here, inside the mind where she belonged. Narreth sighed, enjoying the way that his fingers caressed her. It had been so long and she still missed this. She loved Ayt'han more than anything, and the things that he'd been through in his life, cast onto a world that he knew nothing of as a child, not even really remembering what he was and had been destined to become as he grew up alone with his brother – and then losing that brother as well. Everything was sadness to her in a way. Everything was lost for him. He had been destined to be a mighty king ready to assume the mantle of his rule – but there was no one to rule anymore – not here, and not where they belonged. She felt her lips against his throat and she kissed it, wanting to comfort him. He even smelled like the male that she'd given her life for. Narreth sighed as she reached to move his hand and she kissed his wet fingers for a moment before she slowly slid to her knees. She felt his wings move to keep her warm as she opened her mouth for him. As she made love to him there; a Tarkroth female pleasing a male on a mountain ridge in the wind and snow of a winter night in Colorado, she didn't see the way that Ayt'han looked down in surprise. He loved Beyl'eth more than anything, but he knew her well, all the same. He'd never said it to her, but he knew that Beyl'eth could be a stuck-up snot at any time, and this – what she was doing for him now ... His female often loved him in this way, but only on her terms. Only when she wanted him and only in one place – where they slept. He wondered what had happened to her to bring this on. Out here? Now? In this weather? Beyl'eth would have never done it for him. -------------------- After they'd gotten home and eaten the meal that he'd prepared, Narreth took him by the hand and led him to bed, tossing little flaming points of light around the chamber to make it well-lit. He was surprised, but he did as she asked and sat, waiting for her to tell him something. He could feel that there was something in her which needed to be said. He expected to hear that she was sorry and he was prepared to repeat what he'd told her on the ridge. He was even expecting the possibility that she wouldn't want to mate with him that night, for whatever reason that Beyl'eth might have had which he would have just accepted, even though he'd think that she was just going right back to the way that she'd been before. It was a bit of a hallmark about her to him. Three quarters of the time, he loved her more than his life, but the remainder? He still loved her but he had no use for her then. He was toying with the notion of listening to her as she laid out what he would do for her yet again, before he told her that he was tired of it all and that she could either be his female or she could fall off a cliff. The only thing which held him to her was their unborn child. He was more than prepared to be the best father that he could possibly be to that baby. But he was very slowly getting very tired of its mother and her nonsense. But that wasn't what he heard from her at all. When she'd begun, they were sitting cross-legged in front of each other as she told him something that caused him to doubt his female's sanity. Then Narreth showed him things which Beyl'eth had no knowledge of, spoke of matters which he knew that his female knew nothing about – matters which had happened when he was a boy, before he'd been trapped and brought here with his brother. She told him things about that brother what she couldn't possibly know- never having met him after he'd grown up. Ayt'han stared and after asking a few questions, he was lost as he tried to put this into place. Then she told him what had happened to his female and he had trouble believing it and that it was not really Beyl'eth who was running that body in front of him. They were silent for a time as Narreth thought of a way to prove it to him. She finally remembered something. When he'd been an infant, she'd had a bit of trouble getting him weaned – it had been far easier with his older brother Laish. So Narreth had come up with a little kissing game for her tiny boy to distract him. Once it had served its purpose, Narreth would still play it with Ayt'han when she put him to bed, even up to the time that he'd disappeared. No one knew of this. It had been just a bit of laughing nonsense between a young boy and his mother so long ago. Narreth moved toward him then, coming on her hands and knees. He looked up curiously as she put her hands on his face and began the game of light little fleeting kisses in little patterns on his face, just as she'd done it before to make a little boy laugh and forget about squalling for his mother's breasts and the milk there which he no longer really needed. Beyl'eth might have found out about this from his mother, he thought, but there was no way that she'd know the way to do this just as his mother had. It had always made them both laugh back then, she remembered. Such a shame that it didn't have that effect now. Her son's eyes opened wide for a moment and then they both began to weep. Hours later, they sat holding on to each other, thinking of what they'd each - and both lost. "On the ridge," he began, "why did you – " "I did it because I wanted to do it," Narreth replied evenly, "I wanted to see if I could. I now know that I can." "I don't know what I should do anymore," he said, "There is no purpose to anything for me now." "Yes there is," Narreth said, sniffling, "and it is what we will do. I hope very much that your Beyl'eth returns from wherever she hides in this body now. I cannot feel her in here with me, but that is my hope. In the meantime, this body is with child – a Tarkroth child, Ayt'han. While I wait for Beyl'eth, I will carry this babe, and if it is to be my task to birth it for her, then I will. We will do nothing until the babe is birthed," she said, "At least, I do not think that you will want to. I know that I can see past us to what must be, but I do not think that you are ready to. But you should think a little, Ayt'han. Think of what will need doing if this child is born. There will be room to make another, and another, and so on. It may be that Beyl'eth never returns to us, so you should think on this as well. What I believe that you ought to do is seek another female for yourself if this gives you trouble. It is a thought," she said. "You still have a female in me and you will make more young with me until such time as Beyl'eth returns. Inside here, in my heart, I am your mother, and though it is not our way for a son and his mother to pair, that is what we will do. I know that it has happened before in our history, though not anything such as this. That was between sons and a mother out of desperation, with no others for great distances after a calamity to a tribe reduced it to three people- a mother and her two children, and from that, and some time, and the meeting of others eventually, a tribe was reborn. We do not have that and the body which holds you now is not the one which gave you life. That body lies in its grave under a broken mountain where we lived. Here, I seemed to grow a new body around me for a time, as strange and ... thin as it was. All that kept it together was my will, and when I left it to be in this body, that one passed into nothing even faster than a real one would have done." She touched his face for a moment, "Inside here, I am your mother, and my life was a short one. But we are the only Tarkroth left if Beyl'eth does not return. The people must not be allowed to die out – not here – not in this place where there so much food and the weather is not as bad as where we are from. You still have a female," she nodded, showing the determination that even he knew that she was famous for once, "And I will have a male again, at least for a time. You and I will go on, Ayt'han. We will breed and make more Tarkroth. There is nothing of the weakness of a common line here. The body which I wear shares a little blood with yours far off, but our babes will not have the risk of what might come to them from you breeding with your mother." They looked at each other in silence for a time and then Narreth began to cry softly, for everything which had happened to them. He hugged her and cried again himself, and eventually, Narreth allowed the bright lights to fade out. As she lay there, she felt his arm reach around her from behind and she was glad that she still had that for the moment. She didn't know if he would accept her even still. She just enjoyed the comfort of his strength around her and closed her eyes. A few hours before the dawn, Narreth felt his hand turn from where it had lain on her inner elbow as it moved to rest with its palm against her breastbone and she lifted it carefully for only a moment so that she could kiss it once before she put it back. There was only stillness then for a long moment before she felt him pull her against him tightly and she sighed. "What am I to call you?" she heard him ask in a low whisper. She turned her head to look at up him, "When Beyl'eth comes to herself, you will call her by her name," she whispered, "Until then, call me by my name. Like this, I am not 'mother' to you any longer. Call me Narreth." A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 45 For all of her solid front, Narreth still faced a lot of things in this, but they had to go on and there was the child inside of her to be borne and then birthed. She couldn't imagine what Ayt'han faced. But there were two bodies in this and she felt the other one pressing against her. Narreth thought about it and to her, if she moved herself aside a little in her mind, there was a male for her. All of that seemed so far removed from her and after another moment, she saw that if she looked at it in another way, she had a reward in this. She'd grown wet only feeling that hard body against hers and she'd been fighting it off. She looked at him and she strained a little to kiss him, offering just the tip of her tongue to see if he'd be repulsed. But she wasn't rejected, and so Narreth the Rohn witch allowed herself to be swept off as she spread her legs for him and he slid into her slowly from behind. They made love out of a few different needs. It was quiet and careful, but it marked what to them both just had to be. ------------------ The next day, the two friends were up early and after a very light meal, they loaded up in minutes and were off before the dawn, rumbling off in the direction of the town miles away. The fleece finally did get too warm for Rudhi to sit on and so she sat in the gunner's seat or on the floor close to Randi with the folded up fleece underneath her. Things went well at the market, though the tank and Rudhi drew a fair amount of looks. Randi explained that the vehicle was there because she wanted a way to protect the food that she sold and that her friend couldn't speak, but she wasn't deaf. It all went fairly well and business was brisk, until Randi caught sight of the preacher coming with his tattly wife hanging onto his sleeve and his good book in his other hand. Randi's next few thoughts outlined the danger to Rudhi, who nodded. "This is the devil's work!" the preacher said in his imperious voice as he stood and looked at the vehicle which he knew nothing about. But before he could make his usual damning statements where he invoked the layabouts there to seize whomever he was pronouncing against at the moment, he was distracted by the actions of his wife, who had suddenly been overcome by the desire for the nearby shopkeeper which she'd held in her heart very quietly for years. They'd gotten together as often as they could for over half a decade now, and neither of their spouses were aware of their trysts – being rather busy with their own. None of it stopped them from decrying the actions of anyone – whether there was proof or not. Rudhi knew all of this in a moment and sent her strong suggestions to four people in her sight, pushing them to express what they really held in their hearts. It was either that, Rudhi decided, or she'd rip the preacher's wife open down the middle, only for the thoughts that she'd read in her mind. To herself. the preacher's woman couldn't explain the way that she felt, but she knew what she wanted and her stony self-control just began to leave her. "Oh come on Larry, and let's have a little fun," she smiled a little lasciviously as she reached into the man's pants in plain sight of everyone, "I just want to hold your beautiful prick again, my love. Why, it's only been a few days since I've had it in me, but I miss it so. My husband has never known what his little twig is for, and I gave up on it as soon as I had yours in me that first time when your missus went to her mother's." The man was horrified, but the preacher's wife was not to be denied and she fished the member out of his pants with obviously well-practiced motions and little trouble as she dropped to her knees and began to suck it. Nobody noticed the way that Rudhi was looking at the man and a moment later, the shopkeeper and the upright wife of the preacher were "fornicating wantonly in the public eye" – as the reverend would have said it, though the shopkeeper's own wife would describe it as "rolling in the street like dogs" for years afterward. Well, the preacher would have said it if he hadn't begun to make lewd and suddenly welcome advances of his own – to the sheriff. After a moment's struggle, the burly policeman responded, and the two men stood in an embrace which amazed the bystanders. The activity of the market stopped altogether as everyone stared and began to laugh. But Rudhi wasn't laughing. "What sort of punishment does the holyman mete out to others for this sort of behavior?" she asked Randi in her thoughts. "Well," Randi thought as she looked in the other direction to make sure that there were no thefts from that quarter, "Usually, and I mean every single time, he and his virtuous wife howl that the offenders be burned at the stake – forthwith, he always says. That means that they're burned alive in the square in front of everyone. It doesn't matter what they've done or even if there's any proof. I wonder what'll happen now. I'd think that what's good for the goose is good for the gander, myself." She did look over her shoulder once or twice and then she turned away, "Are you doing this?" she asked in her thoughts and to her surprise, Rudhi answered, "Yes. Ignore it and sell your goods." No one noticed him but Rudhi at first, but a young man who was too short to see a thing through the crowd walked into a store and, not even knowing what he said or why he said it, he began to say the words over and over. "Forthwith, forthwith" he said, "What's good for the goose is good for the gander, forthwith, forthwith, forthwith, ..." and so on. A few in the crowd picked it up then and before long, it had become a chanting desire in the crowd that the preacher and his wife and the others involved all receive the usual punishment. The people at the center of it weren't listening at all. Many of the usual drunkards who loved to watch their Saturday entertainment took up the chant – "What's good for the goose –" they yelled. The offenders were seized and quickly tied to the very same posts that the preacher had insisted be kept ready for immediate use in the square, since no one could tell where evil would strike next. The preacher tried to sound reasonable and his wife just screeched in indignation until someone gagged them both, tied as they were face –to –face with the sheriff and the shopkeeper. Perhaps the happiest person there was the shopkeeper's wife. She was actually doing her best to hide her grin as she thought about now being able to keep the stockboy between her legs for more than a few minutes at a time. The marketplace settled down after that, and the two friends made quite a bit of money and were sold out in less than another hour, so they packed up and rumbled away slowly. Back in the square, a few people were thinking that the humiliation of the preacher and his wife was complete and walked toward them to untie them. What they found were that the ropes had become sticky and they were caught there themselves. As the tank rounded the bend and drove off out of the view of the townspeople, the turret hatch opened and a dark flash shot upwards out of sight. Rudhi was more than two thousand feet overhead a moment later as she looked down and held out her war gauntlet, pointing down with her finger. A second later, a large fireball shot forth a little lazily from her hand and she turned and flew back to her friend unobserved by anyone. It wasn't long before the people in the square noticed the glow from overhead and they began to look up. Everyone ran for their lives, except the righteous couple and their lovers who were forgotten for the moment tied as they were and screaming in their fear as they looked up. The fiery orb landed on them precisely, so that there could be no doubt in the minds of the faithful and the flames rose higher than they'd ever risen as the most righteous shams in the town burned. ---------------------- "What will you buy with the money?" Rudhi asked, "I ask because I wish to learn the ways that one lives here." "Well, you might buy food or ale or something that you need," Randi said, and just then she had a thought. "Rudy? Back where you come from, what did you do when you needed anything?" She thought that she might know the answer to it, but she felt that she had to ask. Rudhi sighed and then her reply was in Randi's mind, "I only asked, and if what I asked for was there, it was given to me. If it was not, and I wanted it, then I commanded that it be gotten. I did not think of this often – how or where it was gotten for me. Most often, once I was grown, I was busy with the wars, always with the wars which never ended. Now, I am here. I see now that I was so ... privileged then and I never gave it a thought. But I do not mind having less now," she smiled, "That is not the most important thing to me. I have a friend in you to show me what is important in the manner of things which might be needed, so I try to learn from you. For anything else, I have you still, and I am happy." "I'm happy too," Randi grinned, "I know that this might sound a little sappy, but you make me happy and you help me to feel safe." She sighed as she checked her mirrors, "I used to feel safe, but I learned that I really wasn't. There's something about you, though. I feel really safe when we're together and I like that." They were silent for a time, and then Rudhi spoke in her friend's mind again. "You wear one of these weapons," she pointed to the pistol as Randi looked over, "Yet you do not feel safe?" "I feel safer with it, but ... I think that, until yesterday, I didn't have the guts to actually do more with it than wave it around if I was threatened." "Can you use it?" Rudhi asked. Randi nodded, "Now, yeah, I guess so. I'd need to practice with it before I could really hit anything." Rudhi came to a decision then. "Then, if it is not too much of the money that you have, I think that you should buy whatever it needs to kill with and practice. Is there one who makes swords here? And have you any, ..." she sought for the word, "silver?" "Why?" Randi asked, looking over. "I will explain when we are at your home," Rudhi said, "There are things which you must think about. You have much less to fear from anyone now, but even so ... " ------------------------ Narreth and Ayt'han returned from hunting together and she made a meal for them as he worked to butcher the doe before he set about skinning and stretching out the hide. After the meal, they just sat together and talked. "I still wish for you to take another female," she said, "if you ever have the chance of it. We are only two here. All that I ask is that I have the chance to meet and know the one, since there is work to be done here, no matter what. A male can breed any day because he has no time when he cannot. When this babe is born, the body will return to its cycle. I was without you for so long and you are returned to me a young male – who would have been a strong young lord in our land. I almost do not know you and it is a joy to hold you to me, but there will be nights when the female of one like you might welcome a bit of rest, and so I think that it will be no trouble to share with another – as long as we get another pair of hands to help with the work." He listened to all of that, and he smiled, "You have a lot of faith in me if you think that I can just attract girls out of the air. I'll try to to remember that if the time ever comes. I doubt that it will, Narreth. I think that people here pair just as Tarkroth do. What female would want to share a male with another?" When they went to bed, he laid her down and he made love to her with his mouth for hours. As she writhed in bliss and happiness, Narreth had only a little time to think and wonder. When he mounted her and she looked up at him, she came to a pair of thoughts that she'd never have wanted to have. Ayt'han was a much better lover than his father had been. Beyl'eth was a fool to ever leave him the first time. ----------------- Randi held out the two swords that she owned. She'd learned a little and knew the basics. To her, there was more value in it as a way to keep fit and she'd always admired the beauty that she saw on the rare occasions when somebody who knew what they were doing came to town and put on a demonstration like at the fair. They usually offered a few lessons, but Randi never had money to put toward anything like that, and to go there would have meant a long trip there and back to her rather secluded home several times. Just getting up the courage to go to the fair to sell her meats was a challenge. What she held in her hands were very crude approximations in the classic Japanese style and she'd gotten them at the fair the previous fall, little more than rough castings which were quickly produced, an edge filed on, and a coarse grip wound on. They might do if one really wanted to punish a piece of vegetation. Rudhi looked up, "No swordsmith here at all?" "I don't know of any," her friend said, "I only know of Herbert the smith and he sticks to hinges and horseshoes, mostly." "Then we need a forge," Rudhi said. "I have one. My father used to be a smith. I was going to sell all of his stuff, but then I found that I sometimes needed it to make things for my piggy out there. But why –" Rudhi set down her mug of the tea that Randi had made and stood up. The pair of them usually laughed a little at themselves, but they'd been truthful in their first conversation. Left alone and feeling somewhat secure from other eyes, each one was happiest in a warm place wearing little if anything at all. Almost as soon as they'd arrived and closed up the front of Randi's old and rambling home, they were back to wearing little and just seemed most content like that. They weren't lovers, other than some kisses that they liked to share, but they did like each other's bodies, and it just felt good to them that way. Randi saw that Rudhi had a serious expression as she stepped a little closer. "Because I am a warrior, and if you look around at your life, with that weapon and those swords that you wish to learn to use and that large machine outside, this is in you as well. You only had bad things happen to you before, so you had no chance to grow confident. I am here now and I may not know much of how to live here, but I can help in this." The thongs at her breasts disappeared and she held out her right hand. An instant later, Randi's eyes opened wide to see the strange gauntlet on her friend's left hand and she held a thin black object in her right. That object became a sword instantly, long and straight and rather thin. At the back of what Randi now recognized as the grip, a thin spike grew out from it perhaps five or six inches. The blade was rather ornate with many engravings on it which meant nothing to Randi, but she could see many differently sized scalloped gaps and serrations along the edge. The whole thing gleamed wickedly in the light of the lamp in the room. "I've never seen anything like, ... " Randi's mouth was open in her amazement, "That's so beautiful." "More than beautiful," Rudhi smiled, "it is an extension of the will – as any good sword is meant to be. Only touch the haft where my hand is and feel with your fingers." Randi reached out and gasped ,"It – it's quivering." She reached to touch Rudhi's forearm and found the vibrations to be absent. "As I said," Rudhi grinned, "Show me this forge." "It's not very big," Randi said as she led them, "it's just to make small things and repair some stuff." As they opened the doors and stepped into the cold smithy, Randi was about to apologize for the way that it looked, but she saw her friend's eyes as they took everything in; anvil, hammers, tongs, bellows, fire pit ... She looked around further and began to grin; casting table, quenching tank, bulging bags of coal, bag of casting sand ... The sword and the gauntlet vanished and Rudhi hugged Randi with a pleased smile, "Everything is here for you to make your sword. Come, we need something on our feet and our coats to begin, until the fire grows hot." "Me?" Randi gaped, "my sword?" "Yes," the other nodded decisively, "You will make your sword here. I will teach you and you will make it. You built that metal wagon that we ride in, and you said that you can make small things. Now you will become a warrior and the first step is to forge your blade." "What am I going to use for steel?" Rudhi smirked, "We begin with the swords that you have. We cut them up, melt them, and purify the metal to remove the cheap metal that is included. We may need both of your blades to make one. I have learned that you have little silver and what you have is much of your money. I will give the silver." "What do I need the silver for?" Randi blinked, "I wanted to ask before, bu -" Rudhi was happy again and she kissed her friend for a moment. "Silence, Randi," she smirked, "One thing at a time." She began to walk out to get her coat and her boots. Randi watched her walk off and began to follow. "You're happy," she laughed a little, "I love it when you're happy. I usually don't understand it," she shook her head to herself before she grinned, "but I love it anyway." -------------------- It was a bit of a strange and busy evening. Randi prepared a few cuts of meat to smoke and Rudhi got the firepit started with wood and switched to coal as soon as she could and the smoke from it qualmed up the old hood and chimney to be drawn outside. Between the two activities, the two women often ran back and forth, showing each other something as the thought came to them. Randi knew what her friend was doing to prepare at first, and when they had the meat hung on the smokehouse, they worked together at the forge. When the fire was hot and the coals were glowing, it was already very warm back there. Rudhi had found a pair of dirty work aprons and had them folded on the floor. The women knelt as Rudhi instructed and Randi was silent as her friend offered up prayers to her deities and asked that the work and its result be pure in purpose and deed. Rudhi was naked, aside from her boots and as she tied on her apron, Randi followed suit out of a desire to stay at least a little comfortable. The day had turned cold and as it grew dark outside it pelted freezing rain with a whipping cold wind, so there was no desire in either of them to open the doors even a little. With the aprons on, they laughed at each other and tied their hair back as they began. Randi's blades were cut up easily and the pieces thrown into a crucible. When the metal was molten, Rudhi pulled one of the thin spikes from her gauntlet and slowly added it to the mix and the pair stood together watching as the silver melted and sank into the red steel. As it 'cooked' and burned off the impurities in Randi's cheap blades, Rudhi quickly made up a casting box and filled it with the sand. Randi watched fascinated as Rudhi's sword appeared out of the air and the grip was removed so that the blade could be pressed into the sand slowly and carefully. As Rudhi stood considering everything, Randi's hand trailed over her shoulders for a moment and she looked back with a small smile. "It's nothing," Randi said, "I just wanted to touch you for a second." Rudhi grinned, "It is a strange thing to me," she said, "I have had lovers, male and female before, but I have never liked a passing touch from another as much as from you. It is different than the touch of a lover; much closer and it says much to me. We are not lovers, Randi, but I enjoy this." "I know," Randi sighed, "I've never seen someone as beautiful as you are and I like to touch you. Sometimes, it's like I need to." "I am the same," Rudhi nodded, "We ... are the same." A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 45 With the sand mold prepared as painstakingly as possible by Randi with Rudhi offering her constant suggestions, it was time to pour the steel and they looked at each other for a moment. "I keep taking a deep breath to start this and then I just take another one," Randi smiled as she reached to carefully lift the crucible with the tongs. The pour was done with the greatest care and the crucible returned to the fire. "I thought that there would only be enough for the one," Rudhi said quietly, "but now I believe that we will need another mold. I think that I can see that you will have a dagger as well out of this." As the molten metal in the first mold cooled, Rudhi made up a second box and using her blade again, she shaped a second mold. This blade would have the same style, but it would be smaller. Before the next pour, they broke the hot blade out of its mold and Randi quenched it by shoving it into the water as quickly as she could and the sound was a loud bang. As she swirled it around in the tank to keep bubbles from forming, she felt Rudhi's hand on her shoulder. "A good loud sound, that was," she said, "To us, it would say that this blade's birth begins well." The blade was drawn out still very dull red and hot, but cool enough now to begin to work a little and Rudhi took it and knocked off the rough flash from the edges, carefully saving the metal to put back into the crucible. "This is where the work begins," she said, offering Randi the hammer, "Begin now to beat it out flatter, and stay away from the groove on each side." As Randi began to beat it carefully, Rudhi set about pouring the second blade. Both of them were already sweating and they wore a covering of dirt held there by their stickiness. Randi knew what to do from this point and she laid several hammers out as she needed them, one of them being quite small to work the outward edges of the scallops carefully. Rudhi knew at once that her friend knew how as she listened to the steady double beat after Randi drove the hammer to begin and only guided it as it fell, bouncing once each time before she picked it up again for the next stroke. As soon as the metal had begun to cool a little too much to work, Randi thrust it into the fire again and one or the other of them would work the bellows to get it hot once more. With the second pour done and waiting, they undid their aprons and put them back on, but folded in half to protect them lower down from hot shards which might become dislodged from the beating out of the steel. The two women worked from opposite sides of the huge anvil bare-breasted and pouring sweat as they pounded the blades out between them so that the forge rang to the beat of two hammers. Again and again, the blades were sent back into the heat and the flames as they were forged, heated bright red and orange and almost yellow, over and over, only to be slapped back down on the anvil and beaten more. The work was hard and Randi's arms and shoulders ached, but it was honest work and she'd never been one to shy from that. She grinned a little over the anvil between them as she watched Rudhi wipe her brow with the back of her hand, leaving a large dark smear behind. Of course, she didn't know the dark smears that she wore herself, having made the same motions many times already. At one point, she stood there for a moment catching her breath. There wasn't much time for it, but she needed a few seconds, though she was mindful of the old saying to strike while the iron is hot – even if it was steel that she was working here. In that moment, Rudhi was passing by on her way to shove the second blade into the forge again. She kept her face impassive as she passed, but Randi yelped in surprise and looked down at her breast. "Hey! You left a handprint." The only reply was a quiet chuckle, but Randi left a handprint of her own a moment later when her friend bent a little to work the bellows. With the second blade being smaller, it took less time than the long one and they were heated together again and when they had reached the right color, they were withdrawn and coated with a heavy layer of black dust and heated once more to harden the skin of the steel. Randi stood and watched carefully, looking for hot spots which would show as white-hot and would be areas where the steel would be softer. "Their births are almost complete," Rudhi said quietly with her arm around Randi's waist. "I know," the redhead replied, just as softly, as though she was afraid that a loud word now would have the same effect as a sudden noise when baking a cake. "I am so tired and beat. Should we put the edges on tonight?" "No," Rudhi replied, "Let us and them rest first. Once it is begun, you will not want to stop, and I will need time for the engravings and then, you know that it will be hours of scraping and polishing. These do not carry long, straight edges. Each wave, each groove will be a work to sharpen." When she judged that the time and the color was right, Randi nodded and the two women removed their aprons and the blades were pulled out. They stood on opposite sides of the quenching tank full of black and filthy water and nodding that they were ready to each other, they thrust the hot steel into the tank again and there were a pair of detonations. They swirled the things for long minutes, changing hands as they grew tired, but they were careful not to bang the new blades into each other and they kept them moving until long after the point where the water stopped boiling against the surface of the steel. After a careful examination by the light of the hot forge, Rudhi pronounced that it had gone well and the rough and dark shapes were set on the anvil for the night. They looked at each other and smiled, "I still don't like girls," Randi said, "but, ..." Rudhi nodded, "I think that I need a kiss as well now. Other than a bath, I cannot think of a better thing to do." They embraced and Randi laughed as they slid together from the sweat that they wore. "My God, we smell awful," Randi said and Rudhi nodded, "We are filthy and we smell, but I like it. I cannot help it, Randi. I like anything with you." She laughed, "We know each other only a day and some, but I am closer to you than I ever was with my sister." "You had a sister?" Randi asked as she brought her lips against Rudhi's lips. After a moment, they pulled apart a little and Rudhi blinked, "I think I had a sister – the foul-mouthed and ambitious little snot that she was. I would have- " "Just kiss me, Rudy, "the redhead sighed, "You can tell me about your sister later." Randi was struggling a little. She didn't know what she wanted, she only knew that she loved being with Rudhi beyond any doubt now – and she still didn't want a woman. She just needed Rudhi. She had no idea what to do with the thought, and Rudhi's nipple rings were driving her crazy right then. It just felt so good to hold on to each other and slide their sticky bodies together, though there was an awkward and slightly painful moment when Rudhi's belly ring was caught on Randi's navel stud for a minute. Randi gave up trying to be quiet and she moaned loudly. "I love this, Rudy," she whispered when they pulled apart for a moment. "I love my friend Rudy, who's a girl and I don't like the idea of being with a girl one bit." She pulled her head back and stared at Rudhi. "What am I supposed to do with a girl, anyway?" Rudhi pulled her back and she leaned in as she kissed Randi's throat, "You are doing it," Rudhi groaned softly, "I love being with you as well, and I cannot help it." "I filled the tub and I'm sure the pots are boiling by now – if they haven't boiled themselves dry." Randi said, trying for some semblance of normalcy, "We need to get unstuck and have a bath." "We need to stay here and do this forever," Rudhi moaned as one of Randi's nipples slid against her own. "Oh fuck, yes," Randi groaned as she tried to work her thigh between Rudhi's, "I even want to do this, but we're covered in ..." The thought flew from her as Rudhi's thigh connected in the right place and the pair of filthy women stood clutching each other as they kissed and rubbed together. Outside in the darkness, there was a being standing in the cold rain and wind as she looked in through the thin gaps in the planks of the doors. She'd come there attracted by the sounds of the hammering and she'd been there for long enough to have gotten bitterly cold, even though she wore fur. She wasn't bothered by the rain which had long before soaked that fur. She didn't feel much of it as she stood leaning against the closed doors a little. She was an enigma here, but she was thankful that it had happened, because she was able to feel some things, such as the pleasure that her own fingertips were providing her as she watched two fascinatingly lovely beings through the doors. Narreth had never really been one to want for the touch of another female, but this was a thrill that she was enjoying – to see them like this was such a beautiful thing to her. They were both so beautiful to her as she watched them. Before long, she even came to a couple of ideas as she tried to sense them. What was returned to her was even more confusing and fascinating. One was human, but not entirely so. The other was entirely different from a human, and what she was to Narreth was what made her long to know them both, but most especially the one with the black mane. As they finally pulled themselves apart to leave the chamber, Narreth shook herself to get some of the rain out of her pelt before she ran off a little and she spread her wings to fly back to her home. ----------------------- When she'd told him what she'd seen, he looked a little confused and after he'd listened to where Narreth had seen it, he nodded. "I believe that I met the one with the red mane," he said and then he spoke of what had happened. "I didn't know that there was another person there," he said, "It felt to me as though she lived there alone. So then she survived it all," he smiled, "Good. We didn't say much to each other, and she was frightened of me to begin, but I liked her. My feeling was that she is a nice person." "I think that you should look in on her," Nerreth said, "to make certain that she is alright, of course." The way that she smiled made him guess at what lay behind it. "Narreth," he smiled, "even I can see through what you tell me to do. I think that it would do no good. She was terrified of me, only settling down near the end and by then, I am sure that she shook most of her ability to be frightened away. And anyway, from what you say, she has someone for her." "I will say three things here," Narreth smiled, "First, there is not much to be seen when a female – and I think that it is true of any kind if there is a brain in their heads – slowly gets over something which she might have feared and then finds little reason to continue to fear. The reaction begins far quicker than it abates. Secondly, I will tell of what I saw. The two like each other very much, being new friends. The one which you met is not all human, and the other is not human in any regard. That one carries some power to her, and in her I saw that while she might like the one which you met, she holds back, for she knows that the one with the red mane does not much like the notion of loving with another female. They kissed and made a bit of noise to each other, but I doubt that anything will come of it in a bed. Lastly," Nerreth nodded, "there is no kingdom here, but there is a king – or one who could have been one. A king needs to know when to dare. Those females are the closest people near to us, which makes us almost neighbors. In the more human one of them, it is their way when they live far from others to look in on those living nearby at times to be sure that they are alright. Do you know her name?" He shook his head, "Getting words out of her was hard. She shook and shuddered from the cold. As I turned to go, she asked me if I had a name. I didn't think that something like 'Ayt'han' would sound very friendly, so I gave her the human name that Laish called me by – Billy." "So, let us hunt up a fine pair of deer for them both and we will try to visit," Narreth smiled, "You may try to learn of that one's name if you can and I wish to learn of the other one. I seek to know about how many spirits dwell in this body – two or only one. Perhaps she can tell me this." A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 46 ***This chapter lay unfinished for a time because I wanted someone a little unusual in it - but I wasn't really clear on what. I had the personality and even some snippets of the dialog, but not the person. Oddly enough, my revelation came to me as I sat thinking, but not really seeing as the little VIP cam pix on some of the Lit pages wandered past my mouse cursor. 0_o ------------- Book of the Merren Part 17 She was looking at a part of her face reflected back at her distorted in the old chrome of a business card holder on an ancient desk. She saw her tear as it left her eye, shaken loose by the motions of her head and body because she was being fucked against her will. Again. Yet again, she thought. The tear was for herself, obviously. Looking back, she'd had a little happiness in her life and only one day of true joy. The rest -- all of the long years, well, they were just shit that had led her here to this unending indignity. "Is this good for ya, you ugly thing?" Purcell Elkington grinned as he thrust himself into her again and again. "I'll admit that at first, I didn't think that you'd be worth my time, but now you're my favorite fuck," he laughed, "You've lasted longer than any of the others." "Can you please try to hurry up?" the creaky old voice of the Merren came to him from across the large room. It had once been a large office in a shipping warehouse -- a busy place full of people working at clerical tasks and expediting shipments to and fro. Now it was as it had been for a few centuries, deserted and dusty. Most of the others were kept downstairs. Only his 'favorite' was here, trussed up with her legs spread cruelly, feeling like shit because she was dead and had no choice in this as he came to her often for his pleasure, nipping at her body as well to keep her drained and weak while drawing some of her strength for himself. "Can I have a few minutes here?" Purcell asked with annoyance, unaware that his annoyance was only a speck of what tested his employer at the moment. "No," the demon replied, "My time is worth more than this watching as you fuck and wasting more of my life as I do it. Stop and bring another group of Red demons." Purcell snarled a little, but he knew how it was that his bread got buttered. "I'll be back and we can play a little more," he said as he kissed her cheek. She wanted to throw up, but she kept her face impassive as he walked away through the doors that led him to a long balcony overlooking the huge space below. While Purcell began the motions and thoughts which were required, the ancient demon walked over and looked down. He felt her emotions and even knew some of her history in only moments as he reached out to touch her cheek softly. "Well this is a waste," she heard in her mind, "I can't change what was done to you, but if you want a chance to do more than lie there being abused, I think that it might be time to offer you that chance. I see power in you, a little, and if it were brought forth and allowed to grow, there would be far more than I need for what I want here. Will you take what I offer?" "No biting me?" she whispered, "No fucking me like this?" "Of course not," his words came to her, "I need help here, someone who can think a little farther out than their own genitalia. I am weary of having to come here just to insist that the egotistical idiot out there do what I empowered him to do. And I would never force you into anything with me. If you want that, you will have to ask for it. I am not what he is - what he has made you." He looked into her eyes for a moment, "And you are not ugly to me." "I'll do it then," she whispered. The Merren smiled as he walked past, dragging his long nail across her restraints one at a time. She looked up at the only one of them in her view and she saw the deep cut before it faded out of sight in the illusion that he left of it looking as undamaged as it had been a moment before. She felt his hands then; one on one of her breasts and the other against her mound. She would have flinched, but she felt warmth there, the first warmth that she'd felt in her since this had begun. She inhaled then as she felt strength flood into her body. He lifted his hands a moment later as he walked away slowly. "Choose your moment well," she heard in her thoughts. A few minutes later, the newest group of demons were gone -- sent elsewhere screeching and howling. Elkington walked back to her, masturbating a little. "Well, carrot-top," he leered, "now where were we?" "You were fucking me with your little dick," she said, "the one that used to feel like a little icicle that some shithead jammed into me. Now I'm as dead as you and it doesn't feel cold anymore. It feels like three pencils held together with a rubber band." Elkington's face contorted at the insult, "I think I'll finish fucking you and then I'll stitch your mouth shut." His eyes widened as she snapped the restraints which held her ankles and wrapped her legs around him tightly enough to really hurt. "You want to play, Pencil-dick Percy?" she chuckled, "Well alright then. Let's play." He stared in disbelief and a little horror as he watched her break the other restraints one after another to sit up still holding him fast. Her fist snapped out and bent his nose over against his cheek. He was horrified and tried to straighten it, but her next shot broke his jaw. She had him by the throat, held there by her large hand as he struggled, not believing that she was this strong after months of what he'd done. "Your trouble is that you must have always been in denial of the obvious, Percy," she grinned, "You're an ugly little shit who's always thought that he was a gift to women. You name me one girl -- just ONE who wanted you without some kind of coercion or force on your part. You don't even know what fucking is." She shook him violently to keep him off-balance and she wasn't going to let him go for anything -- not after what he'd done to her. She kept him right off the floor as she went on rattling his little brain with her shaking while she walked to another desk among the hundreds in the place. Ripping open the center drawer, she saw what she wanted and removed a few pencils. Holding them together, she waved them in his face. "This," she said menacingly as she clutched three of them together, "this is what you've got -- and it's not even as long as these. This is all you have to offer anybody, Percy. Smooth, short, and featureless, that's you in a nutshell." She pulled him close to her and glared into his eyes, "Here's a thought, you walking bottle of greasy hair oil, what you'd like to believe you've been fucking on me and all of the others is made to pass a child through. What you've got is nothing more than an itchy annoyance -- just like the rest of you. But don't worry yourself, you embalmer's nightmare, I'm big on practical knowledge. I'm gonna teach you what fucking is." She looked around and, seeing what she wanted, she dragged him over to what must have been the oldest desk in the place. When she bent down to grab one of the legs, she bent him down with her, slamming his face against the desktop. Setting her foot against the rest, she ripped the leg clean off -- well, almost clean off. Part of the side came away still attached to the leg. She looked at it for a moment and smashed it down against the thick wood of the desktop. She had to do it three times before the piece that she didn't want flew off, leaving a ragged end. Purcell Elkington had done his best to try to claw and tear at her flesh in his attempts to break free of her iron grip. Her wounds from it were healing faster than his jaw was setting itself back into place, but she slowed that down a little as she bashed his face into the desk a few more times liking the way that he began to cry and beg. She set the desk leg down for a moment as she held him up to look at him. "You need to be comfortable and relaxed if you're gonna get the most out of my lesson. Open your mouth. Percy." He shook his head and she bent him over backwards. His head didn't hit the desktop -- he wasn't that flexible, until she leaned over him and pounded her fist into his face a few times. Her voice took on a completely different tone then as it deepened and rasped, "Open your fucking mouth, or I'll rip your jaw off." When he complied, she slowly reached for his fangs and he snarled, baring them at her, but they were quite loose a little later after she'd almost broken the desk from smashing her fist against them a little. She plucked them out and tossed them away across the office. "Fucking leech," she sneered, "Now, the fun part I promised you." She thought about it for a moment. "I guess I didn't really promise you any fun, did I? Well this is gonna be fun anyhow, Percy. Maybe not for you, but I don't mind." She positioned him with a quick lift and a twist and he was bent over the desk as she picked up the leg of the desk. "You've just never really experienced being fucked when you didn't want to be, that's all." Purcell Elkington screamed and cried. He wailed and screeched as she pushed the desk leg into him in little strokes which grew longer and longer until at last he groaned and moaned since it was all that he had left, really. When she tired of it, she smiled and rammed the thick piece of oak all the way inside him -- right into his heart. She let him fall after he'd stopped twitching. She looked around and saw the old demon outside the glass doors, looking down over the balcony inside the warehouse. Pushing the doors open, she walked to him. "I want to thank you," she said quietly as she sank to her knees and began to do her best for him. He touched her head and smiled at her, surprised as the feelings that she gave him. To his great pleasure and amazement, his old organ began to respond quickly to her efforts. He roared a little later so transfixed in his release that he had to lean on her, fucking her mouth a little slowly and thanking her very genuinely. "I said that you wouldn't have to do this," he smiled. "I wanted to," she said, "Teach me what I have to do for you and I'll learn it. I'll also do this for you whenever you want. I love how hot it is to me. Do you think that you'd be interested in fucking me sometime? I'd like to feel a hot prick inside me for once." The Merran smiled again with a nod, "You seem to have a way about you which brings me back to life and makes me feel younger. I may even come to love you, but right now, I'd really like to know the name of the one who pleases me so well. She looked up and licked her lips, "My name is Monnie." "I have some time," he said, "I can make the time for you. We have all day to enjoy each other and I want to do that, Monnie. I'll give you plenty of ability to do what I need done, but first, I want to enjoy the beauty that I have found in you." He lifted her up so that she stood in front of him and to her, he no longer looked so old and frail. He looked a lot younger and closer to the height of his powers and he told her that he was -- that she'd done this for him somehow and that he intended to reward her well for it. All through the day, he found that he was more like he once was as he made love to the one who was giving back to him far more than he gave to her, and somewhere in there as he watched her writhe in pleasure under him, he found himself beginning to care about someone other than himself. ----------------------- They stepped outside later in the morning to see about getting some food. As Rosa turned and bent to make certain that the locks were secure, Tirran looked at her back and he had some serious thoughts come to him about beginning again -- right here on the doorstep. He didn't know how this was possible, but he knew that it was for real. Tirran the Xer who had always only wanted males was now slightly overjoyed at being in love with Rosa. It made him smirk to himself. Slightly. Who was he kidding? But it was a rather quiet sound which brought him back to the moment. A quiet sound, surely; but not all that quiet if it were multiplied more than a hundredfold. Rosa hadn't noticed yet as she fumbled with the one latch which had always been a little troublesome to get closed properly. But Tirran knew what it was as he turned. It was the sound of someone's attention being drawn. It was the change in someone's breathing going still when one watches and finally sees that they've been waiting for. It was the sound of hundreds of werewolves quietly getting to their feet. "Rosa?" Tirran whispered, "I think you ought to stop and take a look at this." She was about to make a comment that if it was anything on him that he wanted her to look at, she'd be pleased to gaze at it all afternoon -- right after she got the last damn latch done up. But she caught the tone in his voice and then she heard the whisperings and quiet murmurs of them all. She stood up and spun around. The street was full of them, hundreds of them. She couldn't even see the dirt and crumbled asphalt for them. They were on all of the overgrown and weedy lawns, sitting in the branches of trees, on rooftops -- they were everywhere -- as far as she could see, all the way up to the top of the street. She couldn't see farther than that, not being tall enough for it, but somehow she knew that there were even some standing there in the park. Two pairs separated themselves from the multitude and began to walk forward, looking at Tirran and Rosa as well as casting glances at the other pair as they came. One pair was comprised of a large male and the female which they'd seen in the park by herself the night before. The other pair were the two males which Rosa had mentioned -- who had also been in the park. They walked up and bowed their heads, before they looked at each other to see who ought to speak first. Finally, it was the female. "Lord," she said in their growling speech, "You commanded that all know and leave this bitch alone. We who were there have spent the night running to tell others that you have arrived. We have sought one to lead us." She looked at the pair of males for a moment, "it has even caused us to stop our feuds and fighting." "We need leaders," the taller of the pair of males said, "All that we do is brawl and kill each other -- there is no purpose to us all. It leads us to the end of our short lives, but we here," he indicated the pairs of them, "we can see that there may be a purpose for us all if we follow you." "Most of these here came because we heard that there was a bitch who we were supposed to leave alone," the large male of the other pair said with a hint of a Hispanic tone underlying his speech. "Dude," he said, "among us, the easiest way to bring trouble is to say something like that. A lot of us would come just to fuck her over and then kill the male who said it. But it was Maria here who told me herself and she told me a lot more. Now that I see with my own eyes well, you need something -- anything, and if I can make it happen for you, I will. We all will," he said with a sweep of his arm and the others out there began to bow their heads, the motion carrying back in a rippling wave. "Forgive me for my thoughts," he said to Rosa, "I see now that you are one of us too. Can you help us?" She thought for a moment, and then she nodded, beginning her words carefully, since this manner of speech was new to her, "I am called Rosa. There is a place in the mountains to the east. It's winter now, but that's where we ought to go. Tirran says that there will be trouble with some demons." Tirran nodded, "I fly the demon who is pushing this back and forth a lot. I can tell you that if he has his way, this world is finished. They take whatever they want out of the ground and they don't leave much. I've seen it before. They take enough of everything so that the worlds they leave behind are empty. It changes their orbits and the worlds tumble away or just break up and become smaller, but nothing lives on them after that. I think that he's acting alone, but I have no way to know that for sure. All that I know is -- what he's doing here is not even known about on his world. It's all about expense to them," he said, "I think that this one is doing the preparatory work so that he can go back and point to this place and say that there is no significant human life here anymore and so they can come and take what they wish. So you must do what you can to leave the humans alone. The more that they are killed off, the less of an argument there is against his crimes. He brings the demons here through his assistant. He must, otherwise it would be known that he did it himself." He went on to tell of the huge warehouse where the Merren visited the helper, "Go to the place which Rosa knows. I'll meet you and from there, I'll go on farther to take the large craft that he needs to travel back to his world. If I can, I'll kill him." Rosa suddenly stared straight ahead, knowing without a doubt that she could tell them all where they had to travel to, and so she began as so many came forward to hear her words to them. "we will go back to begin there properly." She went on to tell of her people and of the part which they'd played long ago. "Maybe the Xer have forgotten us," she said, "But there is one who has not. I will follow my male," she said loudly. The street was filled with their noise as they all said that they'd follow as well. When it had died away, Tirran outlined what he needed from them, saying that he was certain that it would cost some lives. He wanted to break it up then, but the werewolves needed a little time first as they came forward to see and touch the pair of them, bowing as they did and saying individually that they accepted him and his mate as their leaders on the way to a better life, if it was possible -- a real one, rather than what they'd had until now. They began to walk in their hundreds, through the park and the streets, meeting others on the way and telling of what had happened. When they got a little near to the warehouse where Monnie had been kept, Tirran stopped them. "You need to keep going," he pointed, "that way out of the city and as far from here as possible as a group for the rest of the day, at least until sundown. Do NOT remain here, not near this part of town, anyway. It won't be liveable for a while -- if I'm lucky. He stopped then, listening. The others looked at him, and he held up his hand. Everyone listened, and the ones closest to the warehouse heard a few quiet and soft sobs and a sniffle, but mostly, what they heard was someone who fought hard not to make a sound, in terror of being discovered. Tirran stepped over silently and pulled some old boards away from the dirty front of the building. It was the Merren dancer, trying to pull herself back into the recess and not managing it because she was already as far back as she could go. "What are you doing here?" He asked in the Merren tongue. She was naked and doing her best to cover herself. He didn't think that it was going all that well either. "Please," she said, "Don't hurt me. The old one has a new female -- one of the dead ones. He has thrown me out." She looked at all of the werewolves and whimpered a little, "These are not Xer," she said. She swallowed hard, "I don't know what to do. I was waiting for him in the bed inside as he told me to, and then he came in with her and ... and they threw me out here." She looked to be about ready to bawl, "I don't know anything here. I don't know how to live here, I -- I don't even have any clothes." "It's not going to be safe here either soon," he said. Rosa stepped forward, "I can't understand her, Tirran. Tell me what this is about." He held up his hand and nodded to the demon, "Speak and I'll translate." A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 46 The lanky demon spoke a little hesitantly as she looked up and began to speak in slightly broken Xer, which Rosa found was close enough to comprehend. "I'm just a dancer and a ... "she looked down a little, "I'm a whore. I lived on the streets back home, but I was a little cute, I guess, and some males offered me a chance to make a living working for them. I had nothing else, so I agreed." She sighed, "They paid for the work to make me look better, and ... and that's how I got these tits. I used to work the Xer bars on Merren because there's good gold in it and I had to pay them back for the operations, but there was always so much interest that it was going slowly. The Merren in there saw me dance one night and he paid for me and took me away. He likes what I am, I guess. But not anymore." The Merren dancer lifted her hand to wipe her face and they saw what she meant. The shape and features were all feminine, but the girl was really a male with rather small equipment, though that might have been due to the chilly wind. "What is your name," Rosa growled softly. "Shawa, Mistress," he said, "I am called Shawa. I know that you don't know me and you probably don't care, but, ... can you help me?" "I should bring him along for you in case you're in the mood sometime," she grinned at Tirran, but he wasn't smiling back . "No," he said, "Do what you like, but not that. I don't like Merrens of any kind." He looked at the dancer, "I don't have anything against you, I've just developed an allergy from working for that asshole in there and I've fought in a few of the wars that Mer financed." "We're leaving to go to the mountains," Rosa said, "You're welcome to come along, but you'll need something to wear since you have no fur on you and you know that it could get a little rough for you." "I have no other choice," Shawa said with resignation, "I don't know what I can do that's useful, but I'll try to find something. Just please let me come. I was from the farms on Merren, but there was no way to stay alive, and after that, all I saw were the bottom of the cities, but at least I knew how it went there. Here, I don't know anything or anyone." Maria came forward then, "He will need someone to look out for him among us. I can tell you that for nothing." She whistled for a moment and then she said, "If Tirran is going in here and we are not to be here, then you must lead us away, and for that, you will need help as well. I can help, and my male Raul as well. "she looked over at the dancer for a moment, "Him? He needs protecting, I think. Cesar can look after him until he knows a little better what is what." She turned and the crowd parted to allow a large werewolf through. He looked mean, and when he saw Shawa, he looked even less-pleased. There were scars on him and he wasn't pretty to look at, that was for certain. "This one will come with us and I wish to keep him close to Rosa, Raul and the two males here. Keep the others off his pretty ass at least until we get where we're going." Cesar was about to nod curtly when Shawa jumped a little and knocked into him. When Shawa looked back there was a male there with a crooked leer, "Baby, come here. You don't need anyone but me." Shawa was pushed aside and the creep's eyes bulged when Cesar grabbed him by the ear and drove his fist up under his ribs. As the male tottered backwards trying to keep his stomach down, Cesar only looked at him and nodded once. The others around them all got the message and backed away a step. "You need to keep up," Cesar said to Shawa, "I gotta watch you, but I don' gotta like you. I'm for damn sure not going to carry you." With that made clear, Rosa kissed Tirran for a moment before she turned to lead them all out of Lozenjellis. As they walked, with Shawa doing his best to keep up to the pace of the long-legged wolves, he began to notice that the group around him was always changing a little. He noticed that Cesar kept them just behind the group of leaders walking with Rosa, and he was a little confused by it. Then it came to him that they were coming to look at him, to stare and gawk a little before drifting away, only to be replaced by others. He noticed a female walking alone, not all that far off. She looked, but she didn't stare, and she made no catcalls or other sorts of comments. In fact, she made no comments at all, she only walked near them. He looked a little when he had a chance and he was a little surprised at how different she seemed from many of the other females. For one thing, the color of her fur was far lighter, coming a little close to a cream color, though her ears and her tail and paws were darker. She had a really long and thick black mane and she was stick thin and wiry. He couldn't even see her breasts from where he walked, other than the barest swells. He wondered for a second if she had any at all. Her face was stunningly beautiful to him, but she looked a little different there as well, and not being from here, he had no way to place her. They hadn't even gone ten miles before Shawa's legs began to give him trouble. He'd never walked this quickly in his life for more than a few moments. To him, this was just short of needing to trot. He tried that, but the increased demands on his heart and lungs didn't make it worth the expenditure. He just couldn't keep up. When he slowed with a stitch in his side and cramping thigh muscles, Cesar looked as though he could have killed him. "Get onto my back," he growled and Shawa hesitated. "Last chance," the large werewolf said through his teeth. Shawa was mortified after that, having to hang onto the back of a werewolf who plainly wasn't pleased at having to carry him this way. His ass hung out there in the wind and his genitals were crushed against the strong, bouncing, bobbing, back. The fast walk of these creatures was relentless and to them it was very smooth, but it was anything but smooth if you were an unwanted piece of luggage who had to concentrate on hanging on -- and willing away the beginnings of an erection. A pair of males noticed and stepped closer as they walked along, making comments and stroking Shawa's ass, even reaching to tease his scrotum and penis, making comments all the while that Cesar had better watch out now. Cesar just walked, snarling low down and softly promising himself a little bit of hopefully quiet murder when he got the chance. All of a sudden, there was a commotion behind them. Shawa heard a stream of curses in a female voice, and then a few yelps of surprised pain in rapid succession. "I got them off you," the odd female said to Cesar quietly and with more than a little pride as she sheathed a short sword and a long knife in the scabbards that she carried behind one shoulder. Cesar thanked her and Shawa lifted his once-again tear-streaked face to say his thanks as well. He'd been thoroughly humiliated. "Ain't no thang," the small female said with a smile as she patted his thigh only once, "We all need a little help sometime. Next time, it might be me, yeah? I'll walk wittchu now, if it's ok." Cesar nodded but said nothing and the girl fell silent as well, concentrating on saving her strength for the long haul, since she didn't know how long they'd be at this walking. --------------------- He made his way inside a little furtively and reached the small cutter in a few minutes. After pullng the master power switches, he pulled open a pair of panels and got busy. The first thing that he disconnected was the locator beacon. There weren't any other Xer ships here as far as he knew, and no other Merren ones either, besides the frigate waiting at the outpost. He opened the case of the beacon and found the two backup batteries, ripping the leads off them as well. After that, he pulled out the destruct charge. This was a charge which could be triggered remotely in the event of an emergency by someone high enough to have the transmitter. Since he didn't have it, he had a good idea who it was who carried it. He pulled off every lead from the battery and then closed up the panels again. He had an idea then, deciding that he might need a ruse during the critical seconds of his departure, so he stepped to the flare panel and made a few alterations to three of them before he stepped to another panel at the other end of the craft. He was panting a little from the exertion and tension, but he was a little happy. If this worked ... With everything closed up, he closed the main switches and the cutter's system began to initiate a self-test routine. There would be errors found. He knew that, but he had workarounds for them and stepped outside with a bundle under his arm. ------------------- Evening found them in the Sanberndino forest and the first of the hunting groups were beginning to return with food for everyone. Shawa sat near to a fire that Cesar had made before he'd gone off to hunt. He looked around. Everywhere there were werewolves, and he didn't know much about it, but they weren't the same as they'd have been in the city. Here, there was an air of being on a bit of an adventure and finding themselves in a place where they fit somehow. Some of them were eating, and a few of the younger ones were singing a little and clapping their hands together in rhythms that Shawa found pleasing in an odd way. He sighed as he looked down into the flames of the fire. Very few of them paid him any attention, other than the stares that he got from some of the males and the long wondering looks that he sometimes saw from some of the females. No one spoke to him or even acknowledged his existence very much. Cesar came back with four rabbits and he sat down without looking over as he drew a knife from somewhere and began to prepare them. Shawa only looked into the flames. "I'm sorry," he said softly and Cesar looked up for a moment. "Everyone here looks like they're at least a little happy. I'm only feeling foolish. I don't know what's good to eat here and I don't even know much about hunting for myself. I think that you'd be happy too if it weren't for me." A rabbit carcass landed in his lap. When he looked over, Cesar still wasn't looking at him. "That one's for you and I'll teach you in a minute," he said. He looked up and stared a little, "You don't know why everyone's like this, do you?" Shawa shook his head, "No. It's a little good to see, but I don't have any idea." "What's it like -- where you come from?" the large one asked. Shawa shrugged as he felt the softness of the rabbit's ear with his fingers, "It depends on how much gold you have. It can be nice and you live in a good place. If you're like me, you live in the same thing that we left. I did what I had to so that I could live. If I couldn't dance and get a few people to want to fuck me every night, I'd be dead. I don't know what I'm going to do now." Maria and Rosa came over then and handed Shawa a thick cut of meat, hot and steaming on the wooden stake that it hung from. He thanked them and they walked away, looking for others who couldn't take care of themselves. Shawa looked at it and set the rabbit carcass down carefully as he stood up and brought the meat to Cesar. "Here," he said, "this is for you. When you're done, I'd like it if you could teach me as you said." Cesar took the stake and looked at the meat. Somebody had obviously found a steer somewhere. "Why?" Shawa sighed, "Because I know that you don't like me much, and you've been told to look out for me. I know that you said that you don't have to carry me, but you did anyway after I couldn't keep up anymore. A lot of the others laughed at us, me especially, but you had to carry me anyway. I just want to show that I'm thankful for what you're doing." Cesar nodded and quickly cut the meat in half, "It's alright. I don't like you a lot, but I don't dislike you either. The ones with the loose mouths, I'll fix later, don' worry 'bout that. Here, let's eat this while it's still hot. The bunnies can wait." There was a fight beginning not far off, and Shawa couldn't see much of anything in the darkness because of the many spectators in the way. "Why are you here?" Shawa asked him, "What's making you come along?" Cesar shrugged, "I work for Maria and Raul most often when they need somebody big and stupid. I used to have a pretty ok life," he said, "I had a wife and two kids once. You know -- the working hard for the ones you love bullshit. Then I was bitten one night trying to protect my family from something like what I am now. My shotgun ran dry and she got to me before I got it reloaded. She kicked the hell out of me and only bit me, but it was enough to put me on my ass. I think what saved me was that I kept getting up. She left after a while. My wife was thankful until I changed later." He looked away across the distance and Shawa knew that he wasn't seeing anything of the others and the way that a few of the females had begun to dance to the clapping rhythms. "She threw me out." He sighed, "I came back the next night after I was stable, but I found one of the neighbor's teenaged kids eating my wife's throat. She was still twitching then. Everywhere else, ... " He looked down and was silent for a moment. It was a few seconds before Shawa noticed the way that his massive shoulders shook a little, so he came over and sat down next to Cesar. He wanted to put his arm around the huge werewolf, but he had to get to his knees to do it, and so he did. Cesar's voice was little more than a whisper, but it came out from between his teeth in such a tortured way that Shawa swore that he could feel the pain. "Pieces of my kids," Cesar said as he sobbed only a moment longer before he had himself a little under control again as the sounds of the fight turned a little frenzied. Shawa saw only a little from where he knelt and what he could make out was that it was only a spinning ball of bodies. They were so fast. But the one called Maria waded right into the fray, beating down a couple of those involved. When she stepped out of it, Maria was dragging the female who had helped earlier by the arm, and the girl wasn't pleased, "I can HANDLE it, Maria!" Maria stopped after she got them out of earshot of the rest and let go as she turned, "You'll get yourself killed one day, Noriko. I've told you before -- you can't get through life with only a big mouth and the pair of brass balls that you wish you had." She seized the other one's arm before she could react and began to walk again, dragging the other one over to where Cesar and Shawa sat. She flung the girl in the direction of the pair and Noriko almost fell on her face in the dirt from the force of the throw. "Stay with them," was all that she said as she turned to walk off. It was how the girl knew that Maria's famous temper was at just that point, so she held her tongue. A male walked past and made a lewd comment. Cesar did nothing and Noriko flipped him off, but Shawa looked up, his eyes glazed over and shining brightly. The werewolf's expression changed to fear and he ran but he ended up high in a tree anyway, quivering as several others stared at Shawa, who knelt beside Cesar with his small fist outstretched in the direction of the one in the tree. He looked around and opened his hand. The one in the tree fell thirty feet to the ground and lay there groaning. "Why did you do that?" Maria asked as she ran up. "Fuck that," Noriko grinned, "HOW did you do that?" Shawa looked up, "Cesar was telling me about his family and that one had to say something which I could not allow to go by. I'm sorry. I'm happy to be here with you all, but I'm getting tired of the jokes. Cesar doesn't deserve to hear things like he's had to because of me. He didn't deserve what was said either -- not right now. If it weren't for me, he'd be fine." Maria's eyes blazed and she ran to the one on the ground, kicking him viciously and stomping him a few times before she reached to grab him by the ear. She said a short phrase and it ended with another which was a question. He nodded in reply and began to sit up very painfully as she stepped back. Then she changed her mind and kicked him in the face to walk back to Cesar. She glared at the thin female and motioned over her shoulder with her thumb, "Noriko!" The girl flashed past Shawa, her silver blades out in a heartbeat, and the beaten werewolf sagged to the ground a moment later. Maria looked at Shawa for a moment, "Right here," she said, "right now, this is a little fragile, ok? There are two groups of us here, mostly, and we've never gotten along well. The peace between us is a little strained, so be careful who you piss off, alright? We've been talking among ourselves, trying to find ways to leave the shit behind us in the city." She looked at Cesar who seemed to have it together a little and was trying to figure out what had just happened. "My cousin is still a little broken," Maria said, "I think that I did the right thing to put you guys together. Noriko will stay with you now. Maybe you can all help each other." She tousled Cesar's head and kissed his cheek. "Cesar's always been the kind who would help anybody, so it's not good for me to see him in the dark place that he always carries around like a cloud. You did the right thing, Shawa. Just try to keep it a little more on this side of murder the next time, ok?" Shawa nodded and got up to go back to the fire. He sat looking at the flames again as Cesar looked at him in silence for a minute before he and Noriko stepped over and sat down. He offered his share of the good meat to Noriko, who split it further with one of her knives after nodding to him in thanks. Why do you have to stay here with us," Shawa asked, trying to understand. Cesar shrugged, "Maria is keeping all of the misfits together where she can keep them out of trouble." "Aya," Noriko nodded as she looked up from the meat that she was gnawing on, "Thass us, for sure, I guess." When the beef was gone a minute or two later, Cesar went back to the rabbits. "See here?" he said as he made incisions around all of the paws, "This is how you do it if you want the pelt. We got no way to do the skins up right, but if I can, you'll both get a little bit of fur to wear, Noriko if she wants it and you because you got none, Shawa and it gets cold here later at night, I thnk. If you keep what you got out of sight a little, maybe you'll attract less shitheads." He found a flat rock and used it as a cutting board to remove the heads before he made a long incision and with one pull, he had the body in one hand and the fur in the other. "Now you do it," he said. Come on, baby," Noriko said a few minutes later, "Let's get these bunnies washed in the stream and then they'll cook up nice in a few minutes -- if I don't burn 'em again." She sighed, "I usually burn my meat 'cause I get distracted too easy. Next thing I know," she grinned, "I got me an excellent source of dietary carbon, but at least I don' gotta fight anybody off when I eat it." She looked over, "If ya don' mind me askin', why you got tits AND a dick? I never seen somebody like you before -- an' I ain't even talkin' bout them horns and all." Shawa tried to explain it and it caused Noriko to laugh a little, "Well I like you," she grinned, "I just don' think I'd know where to start on you." They stood in a cold stream washing the bit of fur from the meat and as Shawa stood bent over a little, he suddenly froze as he felt cold fingers slip up under his tail to leave little caresses for a moment. "I think that you're more Cesar's kind of girl though," Noriko sighed as she leaned over his back with her arm across his hips, "I'm just giving you a little tease here, thass all. It kind of makes me a little sad in a way," she said, "I might not be real clear on what you are, honey, but I like you right off the hop." She washed Shawa carefully and a little quickly before she squatted down in the stream and washed herself. A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 46 She picked up the pair of rabbits that she'd been washing and held them both in one hand, clutching one hind leg from each one. "Do like me. These are big, but they're not heavy and you don' need more than one hand. "Why did you wash me?" Shawa asked with a shiver. "First," Noriko smiled, "We're gonna walk back to Cesar like we belong to each other. It'll help to keep some of the jerks here off your fine ass 'cause everybody knows I'm nuts," she said as she slipped her arm around Shawa's waist, "Come on, put your arm on me as well." She giggled a little as Shawa complied and she rubbed her hip into his a little as they began to walk back up the slope. "I like this, "she smiled, and Shawa smiled a little as well, happy to know another person here, but he almost dropped the rabbits that he was carrying in the next instant. "And the reason that I washed you a little," Noriko said, still smiling, "I don' think it's gonna happen, 'cause Cesar -- he's always sad, but you never know, we might get a little lucky, and Cesar's girls ought to be ready in case it happens for us, right?" The look that Shawa gave her caused Noriko to laugh and he liked the sound, but then she leaned closer and spoke very quietly. "Lissen, Shawa. I think I know what Maria's tryin' to do with us here. She wants us to keep each other out of trouble while she and Raul try to patch something together with the leaders of the others. She don' need us stirrin' things up anymore that they already are. Cesar is always like a barrel full of dynamite, ready to blow if you light his fuse. You're different here with us all an' you don' know nothin' 'bout the way that things are here. That ain't your fault, honey. You'll learn, trust me, but first, you need to see how it is. Me, I'm like Cesar, only you don' gotta light nothin' on me 'cause I'm a crazy bitch anyway. Sometimes all it takes is a look an' I'm in somebody's face." "Did you lose your family too?" Shawa asked a little carefully. "Fuck no," Noriko laughed a little bitterly, "They lost me.," she said, "I studied my skinny ass off all day at the Japanese school that they sent me to, and I worked all night in the family business, doin' what they needed to help. But then I got bit and turned. When I came home the next day, I told them what happened to me an' they chased me out of the house with cleavers and knives. My own family was afraid that I'd eat their shitty Japanese food before they could package it to sell it. My dad swung a cleaver at me and my mom told me to go away and not come back, but I did. I was back a week later when it was closed on the Monday night an' I kicked the door in an' killed off the two guys they hired to keep me away from my own home. I gave them all fair warming and then I burned the fucking place to the ground." "See?" she looked at Shawa and threw him a wink, "Toldja. Crazy-ass bitch, that's me." ------------------------ Tirran walked up the ramp and raised it behind him. He sat in the pilot's seat and exhaled heavily. To pull this off, he'd need a little luck, he thought as he looked at the error messages and engaged his solutions as he went through the list. When his board was clear, he started the engines, willing them to settle down quickly as he scanned his instruments. ------------------------ Monnie was smiling as she stood bent over and holding onto the railing of the balcony. She loved the way that it felt to have him slapping her ass with his hips like this. That wonderful thing of his felt so warm inside her. She'd asked if she felt cold to him, but he'd only smiled, "Only a little and only at first. You're a wonderful female, the way that you warm up for me in only seconds." He fucked her in silence for a little while and she loved it when she looked back and saw his smile to her. "I've decided that I can't do without you, Monnie. You're coming back with me when we go to Mer in a few days. I'm going to see if there's anyone who can give you back some of the life that was taken from you -- as long as you can do for me what needs doing here when we come back. We'll be here then for a while." "Ohh, "Monnie groaned, "that sounds good to me, boss. I'm very happy now." They both stopped when they heard and felt the rumble. "What's that?" Monnie asked, thinking that it couldn't be too much to be alarmed over since he'd gone back to fucking her right then. "That fool pilot," he hissed as he began to pound into her and she sound of the slapping of her ass grew louder, "He's trying to tell me that he's bored. If he's in one place for too long, he begins to go through every maintenance check in the book. He's probably just testing the engin --" --------------------- Tirran was grinning now as he threw the throttles all the way forward to the stops. "Here's some 'majestic handling' for you," he chuckled as he felt the cutter lift. When he had about fifty feet of altitude, he kept it wide open and diverted some of the thrust to forward flight, and the whole front wall of the warehouse caved in from the backblast of his exit. He didn't think about it, but he'd showered the pair of lovers with a lot of broken glass. As soon as he had the airspeed, Tirran pulled back and began to rocket skyward, knowing that he was showing his exhaust rings as bright white circles behind him. He wanted the old prick to see this. Three seconds later, he was out over the Pacific Ocean, still in full afterburner, the cutter soaring toward the heavens faster than a homesick angel. He looked over the instruments and paid attention to one lamp there, which was still out, but it lit dimly in a second or so later and he moved one hand to the preset series of commands that he'd configured for this. The Merren had pulled out of Monnie and was striding quickly to his bedroom with her following him, knowing better than to say a word now. He grabbed the little transmitter and turned it on. "I've had about enough of his lip lately," he said, "I can always have another pilot sent here to fly my frigate." He looked out through the hole in the wall and roof and he smiled as he pressed the little button on what he called his leash. When the indicator lit brightly on the communication panel, Tirran engaged the presets and the decoy was released, glowing brightly along with the flares which flew off into the air, popping softly as they slowed to fall glowing. He pulled the throttles back to flight idle and pushed the nose over until the ocean filled his windscreen. The old Merren laughed as he saw what to him was the beginning of the destruction of the cutter. He was not aware at all of the timer in the bag under the bed behind him. With the bright glow of his exhausts gone, the cutter was invisible in the night sky as it fell to earth. Tirran knew that he needed only a few more seconds before he pulled out of the fall. The little timer finished its last task and closed a set of contacts, initiating the detonation of a small thermic device. It was small, but small is a relative word. In any case, the destruction that it unleashed was not small at all -- unless maybe you were looking at it from space. Tirran pulled back on the control yoke and moved the throttle forward again as he began his turn to come back. He didn't look at what he'd caused. He didn't need to. The cabin was lit up like high noon. ------------------------ Several minutes later, the werewolves began to point and stand up to stare at the bright flickering cloud rising over part of greater Lozenjellis. Rosa began to dance and others joined her, seeing the proof for themselves that Tirran was a powerful lord. She pointed to something which was just visible as a glowing speck that moved sideways a little from their perspective. Before long, it was clear that whatever it was, it was moving toward them in a general way. Rosa began to cheer and yell that it must be Tirran, on his way past to where they were going. The air of excitement rose another notch and the dancing began again as they watched the speck grow in the distance. Noriko looked at Shawa for a long moment as she stood a little behind him. She just couldn't help herself a moment later. "Don' move now, Shawa," Noriko hissed in his ear as she stood behind him, rubbing herself against the place where his long and thick demon tail joined his body. "I think you don' like girls, but baby, you got such good places for me to hump on a little." She hissed a little as her breath dragged over her teeth behind him, "Maybe it'll make you smell like a bitch to Cesar." Shawa's eyes opened a little wider and he turned his head back, so Noriko kissed his cheek quickly. "Why do I want to smell like a bitch to him?" Noriko smiled at him softly, "You don' know? Listen honey," she said as she reached around to hold his hip with one hand and one of his breasts with the other, "I don' know if Maria thought of it, but if I know her, I'll bet that she did. She's handed you an' me a really fine male. He's a little beat up inside and he carries the scars of his fights on the outside, but he's a good male. He's just forgotten, thass all. We can fix him -- you an' me, Shawa. We just gotta find a way to get the two of you started. Him an' me, we'll protect you till you figure out how to be here with us, if thass whatchu want. You never been with a girl, have ya?" He shook his head, "Where I'm from, I'm too small and I'm not built like what a lot of girls want. I found that I could get money for something to eat if I sold my ass to males. I hated it the first few times, but then I just started to really like it. Then I sold it a lot more after I had the operations to make me look like a freak." "You don' look like no freak," she said, "you're beautiful. Thass why so many males want a piece. Cesar, he wants a piece too. He just don' know it yet." He groaned softly as he felt her fingers squeezing one of his nipples and she said, "Shawa, where you are now, you need a male to love you and take care of you. None of us knows what'll be there where we're going. You like males, yeah?" "Uh-huh, he sighed, leaning his head back against hers a little, "I've never been with a girl." Noriko moved her hand from his hip to reach around and touch his dick, caressing what he had as though they'd been intimate for a long time. "I'll tell you a secret, "she said after a moment, "I really hope that we can help Cesar. If there's a male here who deserves two bitches, it's him, you just wait an' tell me if I'm wrong. But Shawa," she hissed as she humped against him a little harder, "I like you too. We can at least be friends to help him and maybe ourselves too. We need to, at least a little. We're misfits here, like Cesar said, to live more than just surviving, we'll need each other -- all of us." She stopped speaking then as she quickly neared her little orgasm, still stroking Shawa as she came, moaning softly into his shoulder until she felt him harden in her hand as though she held a piece of steel. She hung onto him tightly as she looked around him to see him spurt onto the ground. She kept it up for him, slowing a she felt him begin to soften. "There," she smiled as she came around to the front of him, "you see? You really do like girls. Well, you like me anyway, and thass all I need, honey." She licked her hand and her fingers a little and then she hugged him. "I know you're sad too, Shawa. We all are, the three of us, but I'm gonna do my best to make you an' Cesar happy anyway." Shawa looked at her and he smiled, a little amazed at her and how she was so obvious with her heart. "Why, Noriko?" he asked and she laughed a little. "I need a hobby that'll keep me outta trouble, you know?" -------------------------- He was at two thousand feet, approaching what to aviators long past would have termed Mach 2 and he was still accelerating. Down here, this low, the atmosphere is relatively thick. The skin temperature of his cutter was climbing, but it had been made for this. What caused him to pull back on the throttles was the eerie way that the edges of the windscreen glowed and flickered a little in the darkness outside. He didn't want it to get to the point where he couldn't see through it. He was far too low for anything like that now, so he pulled back and his airspeed slipped to just below a point on his instruments which would correlate to a little under fourteen hundred miles per hour as he tried to ease a little lower and set the terrain avoidance at that altitude. But the low ridge that the terrain mapping radar picked out of the clutter forced the software to react and it felt like a solid kick in the balls to him, so he set it to just over four hundred feet. The numbers in human terms meant nothing to him, and they weren't what was displayed to him. He was reading Xerian instruments in his own language. He drew a relaxed breath, the first in a long while. Getting that bag upstairs and hidden under the bed had been nerve-wracking, what with the old bat and the large female fucking so joyously. But he' done it, he smiled. He could only hope that the blast had finished the Merren, but it wouldn't have surprised him very much if the Merren was already regenerating. He saw only a glimpse of the many fires on the gentle slope out there ahead of him, and he had no time to even look, but he knew who it was and he smiled, still not really over the way that the many werewolves down there wanted to believe in him and Rosa. He didn't know how he'd ever be able to keep that faith, but he now intended to try very hard. He was suddenly glad that he'd set this altitude. He hadn't planned on being this close as he passed them and of course at this velocity, there was nothing that he could really do to change anything, but he was a little glad anyway. He didn't what to think of what he'd be dragging behind him if he flew past at the hundred or so feet that he'd originally planned on. ----------------------- They all stood staring into the night as the saw the glowing speck transform itself into something which grew larger by the second. They heard no sound and it caused them to stand in wonder. The sharper-eyed among them might have seen a figure seated inside the front of whatever this was as it flashed by them a little under an eighth of a mile away. There was no sound whatsoever. For a brief moment, anyway. The sharper-eyed among them might have seen a figure and then they might not have, but everyone saw the white rings of his exhausts and then they heard the sound which followed him. There was a crack like thunder but it was so much louder and the mountains echoed the booming roar of his passage. ------------------------ The three of them were on their way back from a bit of a scouting trip down into what had once been Arizona, trying to find the gold repository there. They'd wanted the darkness to do it and they were certain that they now knew where it was. They'd be back again in force the next time with a proper plan, now that they'd mapped the ruin a little better. They didn't expect any opposition, but these days, one never knew. There was a settlement of sorts not all that far off. Arrax' attention was drawn to one of his displays. "What is it?" Shaevre asked as he peered over a little. "I'm picking up a search pulse," he said, "It's a narrow beam and there are multiple signals in it. Looks like terrain clearance and mapping. Who's out there? I've never picked up anything before, not since the Merren and the Xer left." He fiddled with something, wishing that his craft were not quite so old now and trying to define what this was a little better. "I keep losing it in the signal clutter near the ground and it's moving through the mountains over there," he pointed off to the left. Before he could finish the thought, he had a solid signal and he nodded, "A fast-mover too." He looked up and pointed again, "There. That's it." They all looked as much as they could and at best saw only a glowing streak miles away. "It's not very big either, like it's not much more than a cutter." "He's really hauling it, "Barrett said, "I've never seen anything move that fast." "Well," Arrrax nodded, "whatever it is -- whoever it is, it cannot be armed very well." After a brief conversation in Xer with Shaevre, she unstrapped herself and moved to the rear of the cabin and Arrax set a few selectors on his communication panel. ----------------------- Tirran's head snapped around to look at his threat displays. Nothing. So why was he receiving scans on his hull? His systems reported only search signals, but every once in a while there were also height-finder signals in there was well, almost as though someone was trying to get a preliminary lock, but his gear wasn't giving him a warning of that. The point of origin was a little behind and above him -- way above him. He tried to think of why anyone would want to target him and came up with nothing, but then he heard the warning and knew that he was on somebody's look-down targeting display. He thought that it had to be fairly sophisticated to reveal as little of itself as he was getting here. He wondered who this was. He'd flown back and forth this way or very nearly this way many times between the outpost and Lozenjellis. Now there was someone out there who was scanning him? What for? He really couldn't go any faster this low to the ground. His windscreen would begin to glow all by itself from the friction of the atmosphere and he wouldn't be able to see a thing then. In these mountains, he didn't really want to trust in the software all that much. He tried to think of what he might be up against here. What he was looking at was an airborne search sweep. "The nature of the signals that he's emitting are definitely Xer. Let's see how official I can sound." Arrax smiled before he cleared his throat. "Unknown craft, seven units off the west airway heading east, respond." Tirran listened to the call and thought about bringing his jamming gear into this. He didn't know if whoever was calling him was alone. It was all that prevented him from trying to fade out on whatever screen he was currently on up there. He thought back to his time flying interceptions. There was always a wingman, he thought, always. His systems didn't show much in these mountains -- that was the trouble. He'd have a better idea in clear airspace. He began to transmit his reply hoping that a little creative fibbing might stand him in good stead here. "Calling unknown craft," he said, "This is Redblade one-one on emergency guard channel. Say call sign, please." "Well," Arrax said as he tried to refine the image that he was looking at with the highest magnification and turning to follow as he slid his throttles up, "That's a Xer military pilot. Redblade is a call sign that is not used much anymore for Merren high priority flights. I've never heard of any higher than Redblade --four. He must be flying a deity or something -- or he's lying and trying to make himself sound too important to be questioned." "Redblade one-one, this is Mountain one-six-five transmitting on emergency guard channel, have you clear, and good signal strength. State purpose for your altitude. You are too low for safe operation. Do you wish to declare an emergency, over?" A light went on in Tirran's mind then and he thought of what he'd say. Arrax looked at the communication panel a little doubtfully, "Say again, Redblade one-one? State the nature of your difficulty, please." "This is Redblade one-one. We are having trouble with our navigational equipment. Request aid or guidance. Our destination is classified highest, but we need a fix on the nearest functional beacon, over?" "Not at that speed, friend," Arrax growled to himself, "Nobody goes that fast when they're lost and there haven't been any working beacons in months." A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 46 He began to transmit again -- deciding that he could lie just as well or better, "Understood, Redblade. Be advised that transmissions are being monitored by Mountain Sector Control. Rescue craft are on standby now. Climb and maintain zero-eight one, heading one one zero. Decrease speed to ..." "What are you doing?" Shaevre asked over the intercom. "He's asking for directions. I'm instructing him to meet us. But we won't be quite where he thinks." At his speed, it took Tirran over sixty miles to turn around. He hated to do it, but he knew that he was on their screens anyway, so he turned on his strobes and position marker lights. "A Xer cutter," Arrax smiled as they looked at their night screen while Tirran passed them without knowing it, "blacked-out with no markings and being flown by a Xer pilot with at least some military knowledge. I like this game more and more." Tirran frowned. If he were in the frigate now, he'd already be alone again and the other craft would be a wreck on a mountainside, but as it was, he knew that he couldn't turn on his own search equipment if this was an air defense unit craft. "Mountain one-six-five from Redblade one-one. Request that you turn on your positional markers, please," Tirran said as he looked around in the darkness. Oh, I can do better than that, Arrax smirked to himself. Tirran's warning receivers went wild and he knew that he was locked up tight in somebody's targeting system. If this was any sort of half-decent patrol interceptor, he had to play this by the numbers now. They had him cold. "Redblade one-one, from Mountain one-six-five. Slow to zero and descend straight down please. Current altitude above ground is ..." When he'd turned on his belly lights and landed, Tirran sat cursing himself over having fallen for the ruse when it had been his intent to steer them away a little and then get lost in the ground clutter, flying off as fast as he dared in manual control with no mapping scans. As he hovered along behind Tirran in a slow and careful approach, Arrax had dropped the rear ramp for a moment; only long enough for Shaevre to run out with a meg. Tirran stared as the other dark shape swung past him, turning in a large arc as it went to keep its weapons trained on him When it had set down, Arrrax turned on his lights and Tirran wanted to laugh bitterly. He was looking at an old transport. It had guns slung under its wings, but it was still nothing more than a transport skiff. Tirran suddenly knew why his systems had not been able to tell him very much about the search scans that he'd been hit with -- there wasn't anything much to tell -- the tracking and targeting on that thing must just be so old that they weren't known by his own. He was about to reach for the controls again when a snowball dashed itself against the side of the canopy. As he turned his head, Shaevre switched her laser to the visible spectrum and he knew that the dot was aimed at his throat. He was looking at a meg. What was it doing here? Who the fuck were these people? Where the female out there stood, she was inside the space where he could erect his shields. That weapon slung from her shoulder left little doubt that he was dead if he did anything but hold up his hands and smile. She dragged the edge of her hand across her own throat and Tirran nodded, reaching to shut his engines down. The meeting in the moonlit field had been amazing. Arrax wasn't known as a fighter pilot, but he still had a reputation all the same, and Tirran was pleased to meet a pair of walking legends. He'd never met Shaevre, but her name was known to him, since they'd worked together in combat before. To him, she'd been a voice on the other end of a communications link which never changed, no matter how bad things were on the ground as she directed the flights of close air support craft, telling them exactly where they needed to release in order to do the most good. "Tirran," she beamed, "So good to finally meet the one who never flinched and always laid it down where I needed it. I don't think that I can count the number of times that it was you more than anyone else who peeled our enemies off my face at a bad time. I owe you my life several times over." When he'd had a chance to explain things in only the briefest terms, he set a golden egg before them. "So you know the reason for these demon outbreaks?" Arrax asked, "They are all mostly one kind but something drives them to it. We live together with Reds AND Merrens and they do not behave the way that the masses of the Reds do when they come. "I can tell you all you need to know," Tirran said, "and I can do better than even that. If you can let me park this cutter somewhere and give me a lift, I've got a frigate, armed and ready to fly, and if they make it the rest of the way, I will need to find a home for about a thousand abominations. They follow me and my bitch, Rosa, wishing to have a life outside and a land that they can inhabit and live free. If I can, I want them to have a new name. But we must act soon. I need to get the frigate away from the outpost where it is now. Better if I had a place to hide it, but, " he shrugged, "It's a frigate, after all." "How much time do you have?" Shaevre asked, "And what is the threat?" A high Merren minister of some bureau on Mer," Tirrran said, "I demolished the building where he was when I left, but I think that it would not have been enough to kill him. He will regenerate and then he will want to contact Mer, and he will likely be hunting me as well, once he guesses that I faked him out when I left." ----------------------- "I feel a little silly," Shawa smiled as he held the rabbit pelts against himself so that Cesar could guess where to make the small holes that he'd need to run the thin deerhide strips through so that it held together, "But I'm thankful, Cesar." The large beast looked up and smiled a little, "I wish that I had a lot more of these. I could make something that might keep you warm then. You got no fur, and I'm worried about snow and blizzards. "Well I'm liking the cave-girl look," Noriko grinned as she shook her hips a little as she held up the pelts that he'd use to make something for her next. "There's so much that I don't understand," Shawa said with a shrug, I think that the furs would look good on you, Noriko, but why do you need them if you've got fur?" Shawa stared as Noriko changed then and became a rather small and very lovely oriental woman, standing on bare human feet and on bare human legs. Without the shape of her legs, the girl was a lot shorter. "I haven't forgotten who I was once," she said, without any of the cocky banter that so often came from the light colored werewolf. But after a moment, Shawa saw that though she looked and sounded so different to the way that she had before, there was even more quiet confidence to be seen this way. A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 47 ***So I'm picking up the pace here a bit and the focus will switch here and there a little. This chapter's got a little bit of everything in it, so you'll need a good comfy chair and some munchies, maybe. All I know is in this one chapter, almost everybody has a good time as the group of werewolves continues on its eastward exodus. What do I mean by a good time? Well, nobody goes hungry, for one thing, and they get to sing and dance and ... and ... Ok, there aren't any mosquitoes, alright? 0_ ------------------ Book of the Merren Part 18 Yuan wasn't happy as she flew through the night sky. She supposed that relationships change some as they age, almost as though each relationship has a life of its own, based on the lives of the ones in it. That was visible plainly in Rachel's relationship with her large male. Almost as soon as Simmit was pregnant, Copper was as well. Once that had happened, Rachel and Rokhanh became completely monogamous between them. As far as the dragon side of her went, the concept was a little foreign. But the human side of her understood it very well indeed. That was why she was hurting so much now, she supposed. She'd been looking for Luddy to ask her about something, having flown back from the mountain home of the others who were now becoming good friends. There didn't seem to be any one home. Without thinking about it, she'd gone into her bedroom, since Luddy might have been with Sheth -- one never knew. The troll loved Sheth deeply. But Luddy wasn't there mating with Sheth. Drene was. "You will be gone from my home when I return," she said coldly to Sheth. "You," she said to Drene as she grabbed her by the hair and began to walk, "You leave my home now." She threw Drene at the doorway in the stone, but she missed the opening a little. She got it right on the second try however, and Drene landed among a group of boulders. Sheth tried to speak then and she threw him out as well, changing her mind. Yuan spread her wings, needing to fly now so that she could think. She knew that if she'd followed her heart right then, the whole cavern would have fallen in. More and more, she was coming to the idea that she ought to just move on. --------------------------- He came over the ridge just above the trees, bone-tired and not far from collapse. It was dark and cold, and there were still three of them chasing him, but as weary and frightened as he'd been, he didn't know how far back they were and he didn't know if he had the time to look back there, either. He was going as fast as he could, but he was losing altitude from his weakness and he'd be in the trees any second now. He wiped the tears from his eyes, trying desperately to see. He had nothing left anymore to throw at them -- not without a long night's rest. There could only be one end to this. There were fires glowing out there in the distance and he made for them, giving the attempt all that he had. He didn't know anything about the figures that he could see as he flew nearer. He only hoped that the ones that he was about to crash into the middle of weren't worse that what hounded him. At least he'd be able to see a little during the last moments, so he might not smash into a tree on the way in. Cesar stood washing in the stream down the slope from the festivities. He knew that Noriko had always had the beginnings of feelings for him, and now he was a little afraid that whatever that was had spread to Shawa. He liked them both, but he didn't have it in himself to be much more than a pretend male to them to keep other males off them. As much as he was beginning to like Shawa, he couldn't see himself with her -- he meant him. Shawa was lovely, but there was still that male equipment and Cesar really didn't know what to do with that anyway. Frankly, he wondered what it was that they saw in him. He was just a beat-up old male to their eyes; he had to be. It was all that he saw in the eyes of other females when he saw anyone looking at him. The truth would have startled Cesar. What all of the females saw was a large and strong male in his prime, but down on himself for the most part. He was scarred certainly, but he was still alive and not crippled. All that the others knew was that if Raul and Maria needed someone dealt with that nobody could get near, Cesar could and did - every time. He heard a soft sound nearby and looked out into the darkness for a moment before stepping out of the stream to reach for his shotgun. More than perhaps anything, this tended to differentiate them from the usual sort of newly made creatures like them. All of them had come to themselves after being turned. Though everyone tended to be wild and uncontrollable at first, there were some like this large group, who had functional minds after the change and they knew their own shortcomings. That was why every one of them had found weapons of some sort which which to arm themselves. He jacked in a round and then began to turn again when something smashed into him and he found himself on his back. Cesar only had time to look once, but what he saw stopped his heart. He didn't understand it at all, but there was no time to think about it. There was a demon on him, young and frightened out of his wits, trying to tell him something in a language that he couldn't understand as he heard the whistling approach of something else coming to them through the trees. In the large clearing near the top of the hill, the dancing and the rhythm of the clapping hands stopped abruptly as everyone heard the roar of a cut-down, 10-guage pump gun from down the slope. As they all turned, they heard its song again and then once more as a scream of agony followed that. Dozens of werewolves reached for their weapons and ran down the hill. They saw a lone figure at first standing and cowering a little as he looked away to a spot just inside the treeline. He jumped a little as a large demon surged out of the bushes at him, but was struck down by Cesar, who almost rode the thing down with his knee on its back. When it hit the snow, the demon tried to roll over in an attempt to fight off the werewolf, but Cesar slammed the sawn-off butt of his shotgun into his eyes and tore the demon's throat out with a snarl. Blood sprayed hotly everywhere for an instant and then the demon lay still as the last of his life gurgled from his neck wetly. There was a blubbering sigh and the demon lay still. Looking around, they saw the two others -- or what Cesar had left of them, anyway. He rose to his feet slowly and looked up at the figure who stood shaking as he looked back. Cesar could never explain it to anyone whenever he'd been asked about it afterward, and the truth of it was that right then, he didn't know himself. But he stepped forward slowly and walked to the figure. They stood for a long moment, looking at each other as the thin, shivering gasps of the stranger floated out of him as wisps of fog in the cold mountain air to be almost blown away every time that Cesar let out a hot blast of breath as he looked at the most beautiful boy that he'd ever seen. He was a little tall for a human, but then he clearly wasn't one, standing there naked and shivering in bare feet. The long tail told that story along with the horns sticking out of his forehead. There were the strangest, beautiful wings as well. The pointed tips stood at least three feet above the male's head and they arced downward gracefully to end in other points which dragged on the ground. Every werewolf there had seen plenty of demons in their lives, so they knew what a pair of demonic wings looked like. This one's wings didn't look anything like that. One couldn't tell what they were made of, really. They might have been flesh and then again, they might just as easily have been tarnished and dirty steel, for the structure and the patterns on them, but the one before them all took a step forward toward Cesar then and the wings must have annoyed him somehow -- since they disappeared from view a moment later. The boy looked thankful and might have even been beginning to show a little happiness in his relief as he stepped forward with a quiet phrase spoken from his lips which no one understood. But he stopped abruptly as he saw the blood which his savior wore, though most of it was not Cesar's. There were a few bleeding gouges from the struggle anyway and these seemed to bother the young male the most. He lifted his hand and the blood was gone -- all of it. Another motion healed the wounds on Cesar before the boy looked up, hopeful to have done something for the one who had saved his life, and seeing that he had, he smiled a little shyly. But in doing what he could as his way of showing his thanks, he'd exceeded the last of his reserves and his thoughtful eyes rolled back into his head as he began to fall forward. Cesar was there and caught him gently. Many individuals on the edges of their own consciousness at times such as these do things then -- they make simple and feeble motions, or they speak some nonsense or other. This male did both, lifting one arm slowly as though the weight of it surprised him a little and he finally got it around Cesar's thick neck as he struggled to say something in a soft whisper which Cesar also didn't comprehend. The young and perfect face pressed itself against the startled werewolf's throat then and kissed it softly. No one there made a sound. Noriko stared and she turned on her heel to walk away with Shawa following her instantly. She didn't say anything, but Shawa knew that she was upset. When they'd gotten a little away from anyone, Noriko began to mutter a little angrily. "What the fuck was that?" she demanded of no one in particular, "I'da tried that a long time ago if I thought that he woulda caught me if I did." She began to curse, using the foulest expressions that she could think of in any of the several languages that she was familiar with, but Shawa was prepared for it when she finally ran down and stood looking down with her shoulders shaking a little. Shawa acted then, and he reached out to turn the girl around. He saw the quickest glimpse of her tears as he pulled her to him. "You love Cesar, don't you?" He asked softly, feeling foolish instantly for having said it. Noriko nodded against his throat, "I always have," she sniffled, "For the last year, I've tagged along like some adoring little girl wherever he went if he didn't chase me off. How the fuck did that just happen? Didja see their eyes?" Shawa touched the back of the girl's head very gently, "Yes," he whispered, "It happens. It's happened to me before. Whenever I thought that I found somebody different, they just turned out to be the same. They'd take me places and romance me. Then they'd fuck me and go home to the one they lied to me about. The one time that I thought that a guy was not like that and I really felt a lot of love, he was gone just like that when he met a real girl in one second. It happened just like that." Noriko listened and then she looked up, "What did you do?" "Nothing," he answered, "I hurt, that's all." Rosa walked up then with Raul and Maria, "What happened? One minute, there was dancing and then there wasn't. Who got shot?" Shawa tried to explain it as best he could and the leaders walked off in the direction of the stream, but Maria stayed and looked at Noriko a little curiously for a long moment as she regarded the girl's face resting there against Shawa's shoulder. Noriko wasn't crying, she was just sniffling a little and holding herself against Shawa. Maria stepped around the pair to put her hand on Shawa's shoulder as she leaned in. "Take care of her," she whispered. Shawa nodded once but made no reply as Maria walked off. The leaders all peered a little as they walked around the place where Cesar still held the boy up, though it was a little clear that he had at least a little consciousness, since he wasn't lying in a heap in the snow. He was unresponsive to anything that was said to him by them. He only stood leaning his full weight against Cesar with his face against the werewolf's upper chest. The eyes were closed, and there was a rather soft and sweet-looking smile on that face. "Well we'd like to try to talk to him at least," Rosa said. Cesar really had no words. He felt as though he'd stand there for as long as this person needed him to. He couldn't have explained it to himself let alone to anyone else. He felt the strangest things coming to him from the boy. "I'm wondering if this is anything even a little like what it looks like to me, Cesar," Maria said, "You ought to see the look on your face." She smiled then, seeing him in the way that she hadn't seen her cousin in so long. "Maybe you ought to stay near him tonight, but you know that Noriko is upset. That one has always wanted you." He sighed, "I never did anything to make her believe that I wanted anything with her, Maria. I never even showed her that much. We only got along because I got tired of telling her to get lost." Maria pointed with a smile, "And now?" He shook his head, "Don't ask me things that I know nothing of, cousin. I've just never seen anyone -- " "Yeah, yeah," the female smiled as the rest of them turned to go, "I know." Cesar looked down, "You need to be somewhere where you can rest. I can feel you shaking against me. Come on," he said as he bent to pick the boy up. Cesar hoped that carrying the young man would get his body to cooperate a little and allow his erection to pass. He was almost certain that none of the others had seen, just as he was equally certain that Maria knew - even if she hadn't seen. But he froze as he felt the male press himself against Cesar for a moment as the boy lifted his head and those soft brown eyes held his gaze as very quiet words came from those lips. Cesar wasn't certain of it, but he felt that his companion here was agreeing to go with him - if he could be helped and steadied on the way. It was so odd, really. Cesar knew this and yet, he didn't understand a word. He nodded his head and the shy smile widened as Cesar watched the young male sink slowly to his knees so that he could thank Cesar in the way that he'd wanted to from his first sight of him. There was another creature out there who sat on the branch of a tree unnoticed by any of them as she clutched the trunk, and she was more than a little relieved to see what had happened. Along with her mother, she'd been trying for a few days to find her brother, having gotten separated by the arrival of one of the largest flocks yet. She'd only gotten the barest sense of his frenzied passing and she'd come to help. She'd have arrived too late anyway. Now it looked as though he wouldn't need much help after all, and the best news to her was that she knew where he was. She looked up to the top of the hill, hearing the rhythmic clapping begin again. A few moments later, she heard the first of the singing voices begin, joined very shortly by others as the strange rhythms grew louder. She made sure that she was not visible and then she became rather small, so that she could flit out of the tree and move up the slope. As she drew near to the large number of celebrants, she was a little amazed. There were so many of these ones. They chanted and sang as many of them danced. It was mostly the females dancing, she noticed as she settled down on a thick branch to watch. She wasn't certain, but she thought that she was looking at a lot of happy and rather hopeful expressions everywhere. The beat of the song that she heard was a little primal, but there was nothing simple to it, and it required many to clap and add their voices to it so that the result was rather astounding to her. She looked up at the moon for a moment and it made a little sense though she knew that she didn't know everything. The females danced and the motions carried a little bit of a different hope to them. The one watching it all didn't know it, but there were usually more males than there were females in these populations, though it would change over time normally as males sometimes killed each other. But these ones didn't have any of that going on. They were all happy. Every now and then a female who was unattached might make a choice for herself and go to dance before a male. He might join her in the dance, or he might not. But somewhere in there, they usually went off a little way together. As she sat and stared, she noticed that some females came back to the dance again. But there were some who came back bleeding a little from a bite, and she suddenly knew that those ones had either mated with their males, or they had each just found the male that they wished for and had mated with him and now they celebrated that happy occurrence. She didn't know all that much about these creatures, but she was sure that her mother would, and so, as she felt the strange singing and the clapping beginning to get to her, she flew off to tell of what she'd seen. At first, she flitted through the trees in the same manner as the smaller forest birds -- a few wingbeats followed by a little gliding as she sank, bobbing up and down as she flew. Once clear of the trees, she grew a little larger and her manner of flight changed a little, since her wings were now larger as well. As she climbed, she changed again, until at last, she looked far closer to the feminine version of her brother that she really was, borne on her large wings and gaining speed easily. ------------------- On a rocky crag some miles distant, there stood a female. She was thinking and feeling as she combed her long brown hair out and in the wind, she needed both of her hands to do it. She stood in a long gown that had come to her mind -- one of her favorites, completely strapless and backless with a fitted bodice. It had a long trail and in the wind where she stood the trail of it wrapped itself around her legs and feet a little, but most of it blew up to rise a little beside her. She'd been spawned in a temple on a distant world, the daughter of an old and very powerful demon. There had never been many of her kind throughout all of the ages, and as time had passed, they too passed into legend, but as she began the long and slow process of dying, her mother had spawned one last time with another creature out of legend. Even so, it had taken almost twenty years of time in the measure used here for the child to grow up and for her mother to finally pass. Not long after, the daughter learned that if they had a fault at all, it was that they could be rather childlike and trusting when they were young. That was how she'd been caught and bred the first time. It was how she'd been traded and bred for the second time as well. But by then, she'd learned and grown tired of it all; deciding to come to the world that she knew must exist for her. Her captors and their minions were consumed in the flames of her annoyance as she gathered her two small children and left. Now she was here and on the whole, she liked it. But as her young spawn grew, she began to search for the race that she knew that she had been made to live with She yearned to be with ones who were like her father had been. She liked it here, even though it had its own troubles, but search as she might, she found that there were no longer any of the ones that she searched for. These days; she found herself beset by demons not infrequently, but they weren't much more than things which irked her a little. It made her a little sad for them as she'd observed them. It took little thought from her to deduce that they were strangers who'd found themselves here and that something had caused them to be even more upset than they already might have been. But if she waited long enough, any who survived would sort themselves out and some would calm down. The sad part to her was that most of the fatalities which occurred due to their madness were the males. As far as she'd been able to deduce, the males weren't the least bit inferior to the females in terms of intellect. Nevertheless, they seemed to be the ones hit the hardest by this affliction and most perished before they had a chance to calm themselves and gather their wits. A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 47 She looked behind herself for a moment and smiled. Once they'd found that the madness was a passing thing, those who'd survived had looked at her in wonder and they were now her followers in a sense. Behind her on the flat part of the top of the mountain that she stood on, there were over two hundred of them, mostly females by a huge margin. Some of them had found a mate for themselves in the relatively few males there with them, and there were also some pairs made up of only females. Most of them were only looking to survive now, and seldom had thoughts of mating with anyone. She turned to look forward again as she waited for her daughter, because she knew suddenly that her son had been located. Of the two of her children, her son was the most like her when she was like this, having the same hair and skin, even being very similar in stature. All three of them bore the long horns of their kind and all of them had the ability that they brought with them. Their wings were so large compared to most of the types of demons and there was another thing which separated them from the run of the mill. They didn't look much like demons at all. If the horns, wings and tail were hidden for some reason, they looked human in this form. Among all of the sorts of demons which were possible, if it could be said that there had once been a race which correlated to the side of light in many of man's old books ... Then she was a demonic angel. And her spawn took their looks from her. As she watched her young daughter come to her, she smiled with a fair bit of mother's pride. Pasha was so much like her when she'd been this age. She was just a bit of a shorter version, that was all -- a slightly smaller package, though she was as lovely as her mother had been and still was, though Pasha was blonde. Pasha flared and landed before she returned to her normal size and the two of them stood holding each other as the daughter told of everything; the pursuit and very near disaster that Pasha could see, but had been too far away to help with. Then she told of the creatures there and the one who had saved Talen's life. Her face almost lit up as she told of what she'd felt. "The one is large and very strong, Mother," she said, "and I could see that Talen has found someone for him. It was so good to see. The male was confused, but I could see that it will happen. Talen will give himself to that one, I am sure." Her mother was surprised, but what she'd just heard would explain the feelings that she'd gotten from her son, so she was happy for him and she asked her daughter for the best description of Cesar that could be managed. "Why not go there and see for yourself?" Pasha asked a little excitedly, and then she told of the dancing. "I want to go back and see more of it. They choose each other, and many go off to mate and then come back to dance more. You can see it when they have decided that they have hope in one that they have mated with that it will last. The males are so ..." She sought for the word that she wanted and her mother finished it for her. "Male?" "Yes!" Pasha nodded, "Huge and strong and very good to look at, "she nodded brightly. "I want to go back and learn this dance which they do there. I want to dance with them, I -- " She stopped suddenly and she looked at her mother's smiling eyes. "If I find one who pleases me, may I mate with him?" she asked, almost giving in to add the 'please' which she knew would ruin her chances if she said it, for it would have indicated to her mother that perhaps she was not quite mature enough in her outlook. "Why do you ask me?" her mother grinned, "You are old enough, though only by a few days, perhaps. Do as you like, Pasha. Talen is safe once more and I think that you are right about him. Why not go there and find a little joy for yourself? Just remember a few things. We are different from them, so do not make a big show of it in your entrance. Look to make sure that they do not drink or eat something to enhance their joy, and most of all, -" "I know," Pasha nodded, "Mate, but do not breed. I am not fertile now and even so, I will be careful. But you should go too! I saw some who must be the leaders there. Maybe they can tell you why they all look so happy." Cerinthe was about to demure, but she thought of the others behind them then. So she nodded, "We will all go, but it makes the arrival a little uncertain, to be sure." Talen sat with Cesar, feeling much better now, though he knew that he still needed rest. He didn't care. He'd never seen anyone who could make him feel this way. Which was exactly the thought that Cesar was having as he cut up some of the roasted rabbit and offered it to the beautiful young man. The feelings that he had in him now had come at him from far out of left field. He'd never been attracted to any male before in his life, and though it felt so strange to him, he knew that he was certainly attracted to one now. They were trying to learn to speak to each other and it had taken a little while just to get their names across. Perhaps the strangest thing to Cesar was the way that, while he found himself beginning to like the idea, he could see that to Talen, it was already as good as begun between them. They sat eating and Talen would caress Cesar's sheath for a moment in passing, as though they were already lovers and had been for months. It felt incredible to him, but Cesar also wondered if there was a misunderstanding here somehow. He put his hand on Talen's arm and did his best to ask. Talen blinked at him and then suddenly, Cesar could hear Talen's words in his head. "There is no mistake, Cesar," the boy smiled shyly. "I feel the same way that you do. I only accept it easily." He got up to kneel in front of Cesar and they looked at each other for a moment before Talen stretched up to put his arms around the werewolf's neck, loving the way that it felt to slip his long fingers into Cesar's mane. "I want to be in love with the one who saved me, but that is not the reason for it," he said into Cesar's mind as he moved closer and kissed him very softly. Cesar groaned then, knowing without a doubt that he was lost in this as he reached for Talen. Their kisses lasted long enough for both males to harden and Talen gasped when Cesar's shaft touched his own. ------------------------ It had taken a long time for Shawa to get Noriko to the point where she was feeling a little better, but he was rather dubious when the girl had insisted that they go to speak with Cesar. Shawa had wanted to know why. "Because, Shawa," Noriko said, "I just wanna see things clearly and set them a little straight. I don' see no problem if we let them both have us and we just stick together as a group like that then. I'd bet that the guy would want you right off the bat, and then you could be happy and --" "And you could have Cesar?" Shawa asked, a little upset now, "Aren't you being a little pushy here? I don't think that I want either of them. What is this? I don't want to meet somebody and then let them fuck me three minutes later." Noriko stopped and looked at the demon. "Why not?" Shawa turned then and began to walk away. He didn't want to hear the rest of Noriko's assumption that just because he'd sold himself before, ... Noriko ran after Shawa to grab his arm, turning him around. He looked at her with a fair bit of annoyance. "Look," she said, "I'm sorry, ok? That was a stupid thing to say. I just, .... I just think that I ought to try to see if I got even the slightest chance with him, yeah? I just want to --" Noriko looked into his eyes and she saw something that she really hadn't expected there. "Shawa," she asked, "you want ... me?" He shook his head, "What's the use? You make sounds like you want me and you even humped my tail back there. Where would I get the idea that you might like me? What you say doesn't mean anything. You just want Cesar. He helped me today, but he won't have to help me tomorrow. I'll just fly and then nobody will even have to look at the freak with tits, though I'm prepared to try to be his friend. You want to go see where you stand? Then go. You don't need me for that. And no, I think that you're mistaken. I don't want you." He pulled his arm free and walked away, cursing his fate and wondering why he'd allowed himself to feel a little for her. He should know better, he told himself. Noriko was torn, feeling that she ought to try to make this better, but also wanting to get things straight with Cesar. She knew now that she should have just told him about the way that she'd felt about him, but she'd never been able to get her courage up, fearing that he'd reject her outright As long as she didn't ask, then she wouldn't have to hear his rejection. She looked down for a moment. Shawa needed somebody, she thought. He couldn't stand up for himself around here, not with some of the big, dumb ones anyway. She knew that she wouldn't mind being with him -- the way that he needed somebody was written all over him. She looked up and watched as he walked away toward the dancing. She shrugged. If he was careful, he might find somebody for himself there. In her haste to want to talk with Cesar, Noriko was overlooking what she'd seen in Shawa's face. She thought of it a little later. She walked over the hill and soon after, she saw Cesar and the stranger together. For as long as she'd known him, Cesar had always worn one of three expressions -- angry, sad, or just lost and usually it might be said that he'd worn a combination of the last two. At the moment. he wore none of them and Noriko knew exactly where she stood. ---------------------- The dancing continued unabated, for, as one person decided that they'd perhaps had their fill of jubilation, another would come to take part. Things slowed a little when there were friendly calls out of the forest and the demons appeared, careful to hold up open hands full of meat ready to be added to the fires. The two kinds looked at each other, but it was Pasha who broke the ice, beginning to dance all alone as a few demon girls began to clap out their own rhythms. Rosa and the others stood and waited as Cerinthe approached and though she couldn't understand their speech directly, she was advanced enough to be able to speak telepathically and things went better after that. As they told her what they wanted and where they were going, Cerinthe asked if there might be room for a few demons there as well. Rosa thought about it and couldn't see any difficulty, though Raul could. "These demons here," he said, "they're the same kind that kill a lot of people when they show up." Cerinthe nodded, "The very same. But if you look where I am looking now, you will see that, without whatever it is that is done to upset them before they are released, they are much like your own people here." He walked over and she pointed out how the female werewolves were now joining in the dance again, many just walking up to the demons dancing there and smiling to begin and he could see at least three couples already copulating together. "The line between us is not as thick as one might have thought," she smiled, "You have too many males, and I have almost all females. There are many things which you can do and we cannot," she said, "and it goes the other way as well. If we might travel with you, you will gain protection from above. The typical flock which I have seen lately numbers about a hundred, though there are both larger and smaller ones. I have a little more than two hundred to offer, and if I am present, I will fight as well." Maria wanted to know why, and Cerinthe smiled, "I am here with my children." She looked at Maria for a moment, "My son and - your cousin. What more reason do I need to fight?" Maria smiled with a shrug, "I've never seen anything like the way that they seemed to be so - attracted to each other in about as much time as it takes me to blink. Your son has worked a miracle in a few seconds. Up to now, I've been a little worried that the things in Cesar's past would lead him to his death. I don't mind at all if they find something between them, if it helps him." It was a little odd to hear the beautiful demon's laughter while her words came to them at the same time. "They have already found 'something' between them. Talen has given himself to your Cesar. I feel this. From the thought, they will be happy." They shared a bit of food before Cerinthe stepped away to watch the dancers with Maria, who wanted to know a little about Cerinthe as she told of the ghosts in Cesar's past. "You spoke of your children," she said, "How many sons do you have?" "One only," the demon smiled, "There is my daughter there, "she pointed, and Maria looked to see the girl dancing and laughing as she and a pair of female werewolves danced together. From the smiles and laughter that they saw, they were showing each other ways to dance. Cerinthe accepted Maria's compliment about Pasha's loveliness. But she felt something then and looked up. The moon was full and hung gleaming brightly in the night sky. "We call that a mating moon," Maria said quietly and Cerinthe chuckled as she looked around, "A good name, I think. It would be good to see if any of the ones from both sides of this become pairs. Has it ever happened. Maria?" "I don't know," the werewolf replied honestly, "I've never seen demons who weren't acting as though they were completely nuts before, but I've got to tell you, I like them this way. What were you looking at?" Cerinthe pointed, "That," she sighed, "the very first one that I have seen." Maria looked up and they watched a dark shape slide across the face of the moon. She looked at Cerinthe in alarm, "Are we in danger now?" "I do not think so," the demon smiled as she spread her wings, "Forgive me, there is someone who I am hopeful to meet. You are in no danger, or you'd have known it already. I will return if I can." With that, Cerinthe was gone, the speed of her exit a little startling to Maria who watched from where she stood. All these years here and I have seen only this one, Cerinth told herself as she rose higher and higher in the night sky. As she climbed, it became easier for her as the gown faded away and she assumed her other form, the one that she hoped had enough in the way of feminine charms to hold the interest of the first male that she sought for herself in her life. What if this is a female? But that would be very large, she thought. Then she asked herself about the possibility that this was a very old male and past his prime. She hoped that her luck would prove better than that. With a thought, she faded from sight as she crept closer, gaining on the one who appeared to be starting a wide turn to come back. Cerinthe smiled to herself, knowing that her chase was being shortened for her. Her first pass in the opposite direction caused her to stare, and her hurried reversal to have another look brought her directly underneath, and a few seconds of looking up told her that this was a male, and not old. "What do you want?" she heard in her mind and she knew that this one wasn't stupid and had noticed the turbulence that she'd left behind in her wake. "I came to see one such as I have never seen as long as I have been here," she replied, "Are you alone here?" There was a pause and then came the reply, "I am alone -- once again." "Then slow down, wondrous one," she said as she faded back into sight, "I hope that we are enough alike to warrant a better meeting." She looked aside when he noticed her and he slowed down markedly, mostly because he was so shocked that he actually turned his head and the drag of that at this speed almost caused him to tumble and he heard her laughter as she slowed as well. As he turned around to come back once more, she hung there in the air, her great wings beating hard to hold herself stationary. They looked at one another for a long moment and then she was gone, diving earthward to lead him down. "Why do you run?" he asked in her mind. "I am not running," she said, "I am leading. I wish to see more of you where I do not have to remember to fly." The dancers stopped as someone pointed to the sky. A few moments later, they watched the pair flare in their landings on the next rise of rock. It was a little lower than where they were and they saw the two dragons step closer to each other. No one knew what was said down there, if anything, but a careful embrace followed the beginning of the meeting. They were different, to be sure, but they were also the same, and if you've spent years searching for someone who only might still exist, it's a little much to stand on arm's length first-meeting conventions -- especially if one does now know which conventions to use. They looked at each other for a time as though faced with a legend sprung to life somehow out of age-old carvings or from the pages of some mystic texts. "I never thought to see another like me," Cerinthe said as she gave up on the last shreds of trying to remain aloof and she reached to touch Yuan, who couldn't believe this. "How many shapes have you? Yuan asked, "I have three and I wish to be more comfortable." "Two," Cerinthe replied, "all that I need. Choose what you wish," she said and then she burst into happy tears to see that Yuan could look very similar to her as she changed. "Where have you been? I have searched in every place that I could learn of and found nothing." Yuan described her journey and her humble beginnings, but Cerinthe told her that she saw nothing humble about them, before she told of her own past, and when she changed her shape to the long-horned demon, Yuan stood transfixed with wonder. "Why are you alone?" Cerinthe asked, and Yuan told her everything, especially how she was both genders depending on what she wanted. "I can be happy with that," Cerinthe smiled shyly, "and you are so beautiful," she said as she touched Yuan's soft scaled skin, "I am alone also, but I wish for a male. I have never had the chance to choose for myself. Now, I see that chance and I want it." She laughed then, "I think that I was made for you. It is my hope now." ------------------ Pasha was one of the first to walk back to the dancing place, but she wasn't the only one there. She looked at someone who she'd seen before, one person who hadn't danced at all and mostly stood off to the side and only watched, politely declining any requests to dance. She walked in his direction and smiled up at him. "You are not like the others here," she said, "I have watched you for a time now. I would have asked you to dance with me, but I saw that you never agree to dance with anyone. There is no one looking now," she said as she stepped slowly closer. "My name is Pasha," she said as she reached for his hand, and to his surprise, he reached for hers. "I am Shawa." "Why were you not with everyone trying to see the pair of draken over there?" she asked. He shrugged then, "They are something that I know nothing of and they seem so beautiful when they fly as they did. I was watching them then. It was nice to see, but I felt a little sad then because it reminded me of my own troubles." He looked down, "I know nothing of them, but I think that they must be very rare. And yet, somehow those ones found each other at some time." "They have only just met," Pasha said, "What are your troubles?" "I am not anything," he said without sadness or self-pity, "I was made into something so that I could earn gold to buy food. Before that, I was an ordinary and rather small male where I am from and no one was my friend. Afterwards, I was only something to spend gold on. Then I was brought here and abandoned. These creatures took me along out of kindness, but I am not one of them." A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 47 He looked up from the ground after a moment, "You are not one of the demons here. I see that you are different as well. What are you doing here?" Pasha smiled, "I am here because of one of the drakens. The light one, she is my mother. I followed my brother because he was being hunted and I was too far behind to help, but one of these helped him and I saw the dancing, so I told my mother and she came back with me." Shawa realized the Pasha was still holding his hand when he noticed that she had begun to lead him under a few trees, where she stood very close to him and he found that he suddenly knew that she had come to some sort of decision about him. They continued to talk very quietly as he felt her against him and it felt perfectly fine to him when she stretched up and kissed him very softly once. I like you, Shawa," she said, "because you are different from anyone here, just as I am." She changed then to become more of a luminescent being with white hair, still so lovely and a bit smaller. "Please come with me," she said, "I like it when I am seen with you, and the dance will begin again soon, I hope." The people had begun to drift back and Pasha called some of the female demons to her and she asked them if they'd begin their songs again for her, and they nodded and grinned at Pasha and Shawa as they began. "Please, Shawa," Pasha said softly, "will you dance with me?" He was a little afraid and nervous, but his standing and feeling alone hadn't done anything for him yet, so he nodded, and they began to dance to the rhythms which the demon girls clapped out. Seeing them dance, some of the werewolf women came and began as well. Pasha began to weave and thrust her hips to him and they smiled at each other as they touched and kept on to the primal-sounding music. One of the werewolves noticed that the demons were only humming and chanting a little and so she thought up a bit of a melody. When she began to sing it, overlaying the chanting, many others picked it up and sang as well, demons and werewolves together. "This makes me feel so good," Pasha grinned to Shawa, as she slipped her hand under the bit of fur that he wore to caress him a little quickly. For once, Shawa didn't retreat within himself and he returned her light touches. He was rewarded as she danced all the harder and her simple clothing disappeared. The singing grew louder and the chants deeper as males began to add their voices to the primitive music. Many cheered and called out their encouragement. "You are a good dancer," Pasha laughed in surprise as Shawa danced and teased her a little before grinding himself down and back up as he slid his hands up her torso. "Come on, Shawa," she pointed to the fur, "You too! Take that off. We were the only ones wearing anything here, and ... I like your body. You are a little like the one that my mother has found, but I like yours much better. " Shawa hadn't told anyone really, other than Tirran when he'd asked to come along, but he'd been a dancer not all that long ago. He'd liked Pasha instantly, so he thought that if she was having this much fun, he'd do what he could. The fur came off and was flung aside, and the crowd cheered as many of them danced in one place to follow, though all eyes were on the young pair as their bodies slid against each other. Pasha turned away from him and backed up to him, grinding herself against him while she smiled back at him. Everyone who was not clapping as part of the rhythm began to slap out a beat for them. As they humped together, he looked at Pasha and he thought that she was the finest female that he'd ever seen. From Pasha's side of it, she was thrilled to feel herself growing wet as his hardening shaft began to rub her in a nice way. She pulled away then and turned around, suddenly not being able to keep her hands from his body. "Shawa," she hissed into his ear as she hung onto him and squeezed the breast under her hand, "Shawa, this is so good with you. Do you like me?" "I have never seen one like you. I want to dance with you forever." He kissed her cheek and she was on him then, kissing him in genuine need. "Oh Shawa," Pasha groaned to him, "Forget your troubles. Just be kind to me and dance with me a little longer. I want to mate with you. I have never seen anyone who makes me feel this way." Other couples joined them in the dance, which changed and evolved slowly, but in the middle of it, Shawa and Pasha made love on their feet to the primal music of the multitudes. "I have never done this before," Pasha moaned as she stood with her face against his breasts, holding the hardness in her hand and marveling at how much larger it had become. His hand was cupping her mound and he had his middle finger in her wetness, amazed at how good it felt to him to do that and how much better it felt when he had the thought that for the first time in his life, he was doing something for a female who liked him enough to allow it. There were other pairs around them who were just as far along and even more, but this time, no one wanted to go off into the bushes. There were even a very few who were already fucking as Pasha slipped lower to get to her knees, wanting to love this wonderful male with her mouth for a little while, but after a time, Shawa asked her to dance a little more. She looked up at him, but he smiled as he pulled her head to his nipple. "You were doing it too well," he said, "Another moment and I would have had to let it go." Pasha moaned then as she sucked hungrily, but she lifted her head and looked up again as she reached to hold his scrotum as she's seen some other females do for their males in this. "You could have done that, "she nodded, "I would have loved it. Oh Shawa, I love this with you." "And I love having you against me," he groaned with his eyes closed, "But if you want me to fuck you anytime soon, then it would have been too soon. You are so good to me, Pasha. Now I am afraid to stop dancing." "Why?" she asked, her eyes shining with the emotion in her. "Because then it will be over." "That is something that we do not yet know," she said, suddenly very earnest in her tone. "Fuck me, Shawa, and we should talk about standing beside each other afterward, but I need you now." He began to kiss her ear and her throat then, just to hear her moans to him. Pasha told him things in her passion that caused his heart to pound inside him. He thought that there was a chance that it was only the passion which he now never wanted to see leave her, but he ached to hear it anyway, because no one had ever said such things to him. She apologized to him somewhere in it and when he asked, she told him that she'd seen into him and now knew of his sadness and why it lay there in him. She groaned when he squeezed her breasts in the same way that she was working his, but she told him that he was wrong, that she'd heard many females here, demon and werewolf who wanted a chance with him. But she also told him that he was hers if he wanted to be because she knew that she was falling for him, and had been from the moment that she'd laid eyes on him. She threw one arm around his neck and pulled herself a little higher over and over to rub against him, "But I need more," she said, and he could have sworn that he could see her heart there in her eyes. He dropped to his knees and moved to press his face against her. Pasha gasped at the first contact and she grabbed his horns to pull him to her sex. She moved a little to get closer to him and he found that the angle was wrong. He needed to get lower. Or she'd need to ... Shawa grasped her thighs and he slowly began to lift her. Pasha got the idea and did what she could to help -- leaning over backwards as she held herself up in the air. The other dancers noticed it and there were cheers as Pasha levitated horizontally. Shawa's eyes opened in amazement and he thought that if she could do this, then he'd better get busy for her. He just wished that he had a better idea of what to do. He heard her soft moans just above the music, but after a second, he heard Pasha in his mind, "I have never done this either. Only do what you are doing, it is so good for me. We can try again later if you like this." Shawa resolved to do his best and for the few minutes that they were like this, he found that if he paid attention, she would teach him by her motions as she writhed. He realized that he now really wanted this for Pasha. On Mer, he hadn't been worth a look to any female his age. After the changes, he was only worth curious looks, but that was all, and though most males looked at him, some didn't even try to hide their contempt and only some males were interested and then it was mostly something that he didn't want -- but he knew that he had to play the part. His stomach had reminded him of that need often. But he knew that Pasha liked him and that alone felt so good to him. He knew that they had almost everyone's attention; the female demon who had the equipment of a male loving with the small and brightly glowing creature who bucked her hips for him and gave him this liquid treat to lick that he'd never known before. Pasha had such trouble holding her thoughts together, but she was happy, and for more than just the pleasure that this brought to her. She knew in an instant whenever she probed a little that the very first male that she'd chosen for herself to mate with was a long way out in front of anyone that she'd ever even seen and had the thought of mating come to her mind. Pasha knew that she could look at him for days and not grow tired of it, and she also knew something that he didn't. What she was -- what she'd been given at the moment that she'd been conceived as her beautiful mother had been forced to breed with a glowing creature so long ago, she could see Shawa as he'd been once and she liked that too. Pasha loved the way that he looked so feminine like this, so familiar and also so exotic, but for this -- what Shawa was doing for her now, she was more than thankful. She wasn't certain and she'd need to speak to her mother, but to her, she felt as though she'd found the one for her on the first attempt. And she hadn't been looking for much more than a little fun with someone her own age. He'd been far better than that. She'd was nearing the point where she was losing count of the number of times that her orgasms had caused her body to flare brightly. From the little that she knew, no female was this blessed in a partner. She sat up in the air and kept her grip on one of his horns as she looked at him with wet eyes and stroked the forehead just under the other horn. "Shawa," she hissed, "Shawa, I chose you at the start for this -- for me this night. But I didn't know that I would want only you so much. Let me down, I want to hold you against me." He helped her down and she almost climbed back up again as she pulled his beautiful face into her breasts. "Look around when you have a moment," she thought to him, "You and me, we are good for these ones, Shawa. No one leaves the dancing place to couple," she said as she bent her head and kissed the top of his. "The females do not try to remove the seed which seeps from them. They stare at us and smile, and they show each other what comes out of them proudly. This is all because one demon loves with his shining girl in the middle of them all. You could have had me anyway, Shawa, but now I want you even more." He looked up at her as she slid down a little, "I have never wanted anything so much, Pasha," he groaned, "I never want to stop now where I always wanted to stop before, as soon as the one who paid for me was pleased. I love this with you so much." She held his neck and caressed his head as she opened her mouth to kiss him. They felt the heat of the other one's breath against their cheeks for a moment as their tongues danced between them -- and she kept right on with her next thought. "Then I offer you something," she thought, "I offer you me. See how I shine for you, Shawa. You do not see it, but you shine a little too, your eyes most of all, but your body shines for mine. Do you know what this is?" "Yes," he replied, "You are choosing me." "As you have already chosen me," she smiled as she kissed him, reaching down for the wet end of his shaft and lining them up, "I have only used objects for my pleasure before. I broke my own pathway all alone one night. Now, I give myself to you. I want my male, Shawa." She slid down and her moan was almost a cry as she laid her head against his shoulder, "Pasha chooses. Take your female, Shawa. Love me, and I am yours." He tried to sound human as he said it, but he hadn't heard enough of their males to know the sound well, and so he tried to sound like one of the large werewolf males then, but what came out of him at last was the voice of a young Merren male who was in love. "Shawa chooses Pasha," he moaned as he came, and as he looked into her eyes, she knew it and moaned to him that she loved how it felt to be filled by him. Pasha clung to him as she slid down onto his hardness fully, and then she leaned back a little so that she could get a little more of him inside, "Then we pair and we hold together," she whispered before she pulled herself against him as tightly as she could, "And we love forever." ---------------------- There were a few relatively unaffected observers that night. None of them were completely unaffected, but they weren't a part of all of the mating which was going on. Cerinthe stood with Yuan, having come here after their mutual decision that they would be a pair. All that was left was to begin it and they wanted a little time to get a little used to the idea. Now, they stood and watched hand in hand, as Cerinthe's eyes opened wide at what her daughter was in the middle of doing. She didn't mind it if all that this was here was a girl who was of age wanting a little fun and pleasure for herself. Pasha was old enough for it. But she saw with a rising sense of alarm that the two young ones were on the verge of declaring themselves -- and that was not the same thing at all. There was nothing wrong in a little fucking after all, but taking the first one? On the very first try? She was beside them in an instant, but she felt their feelings and she felt her reservations leaving her like a falling wind against the sails of a ship. She reached out to touch her daughter's head, "Are you sure that this is not just the joy of a first time which sweeps you away, Daughter?" Cerinthe knew the answer before she'd even begun the question, but she had to ask. Pasha opened her shining happy eyes and smiled, "Yes. It was not planned, but I found the one. This is Shawa." Shawa opened his eyes and she saw the same thing in his. Lust was not the overriding emotion that she saw. She leaned a little and she kissed them both, one after the other, "Then I can only hope that you have chosen well. If it means anything to you Shawa, I give my blessing," she smiled as she turned to walk back to Yuan. He felt a little different then, and he didn't really understand why until he saw it in Pasha's sweet face and heard it in her soft sigh as she looked up at him. "I see that you have used only one shape for yourself in all of your life," she said. He nodded, wondering at the same time why it was that he no longer felt as though he'd just climaxed so much as he felt as though he was ready to begin all over again, "A lot of my ability for that was used to make me into this." She giggled a little, "I hope that you will think better of 'this' shape now, for it is the one that I saw first and the one which attracted me to you. I love it so," she said, "but that is not all that I fell over. I fell for you -- all of you, and so I give you this. "Look at yourself, Shawa, "she smiled as she let go of him to defy gravity once more out of a need to stretch her arms out over her head for a moment with a pleased groan before she reached up again to rock him harder. He looked down and he saw that the breasts were gone, and he was as he had been born again. He looked at Pasha and she smiled so that he lost his heart again. "Now I have real trouble," she groaned as she began to buck, "I like this Shawa too." She eased herself down and they began to dance again. When a pair of demon girls passed by, the three danced together for a few moments and it was noticed that Pasha's legs now wore the sign of being mated. The three giggled and laughed together for a moment as the other demons showed her that they'd been successful as well. One of the demons grinned and she kissed Shawa's cheek once before the pair of them walked on, dancing as they went. "My friends," Pasha laughed, "but they have only found the same thing that I sought, not the male that I have found. They said that you are very fine." She reached down and held him in her hand as much as she could for a moment and then she looked up into his quizzical gaze, "I wanted to see more of the one that I will see all of my life," she smiled as she pulled herself against him to kiss his very male chest for a few moment as she stroked him. "I wish for more with you, Shawa," she sighed as she hugged him, "I think you are ready. Mate with me again, and I will show you all of my heart. I am so happy that I saw you." He nodded and with that, Pasha stepped away and turned around, bending over to allow him to mount her, and cooing softly to him as he slid inside. --------------------- Noriko felt her shoulders sag as she watched them. Not being a demon, she didn't understand the significance of what she was seeing, but she got it when she saw Cerinthe step forward. She'd never gotten the chance to do much of anything with Shawa, but she knew somehow that she'd missed something important while she'd hesitated at first and then gotten upset over Cesar. So many things were going on in one day, she thought. Well she wasn't like that, she told herself. She was the kind of girl who had to cover everything, most of all, her feelings with a solid layer of bullshit to hide them away. After she'd seen Cesar with the 'new guy', since she didn't know his name, she'd stood there, a little out of sight and watched them without being too obvious about it. She gave up her last foolish hope when she'd seen the way that they looked as Cesar mounted the other one and began. On the way over here, Noriko had come to a decision, knowing that she'd said some things to Shawa which she'd never meant to say and that he didn't deserve to hear. She'd decided that she'd show him that she was sorry and if she could manage it, she'd also show him that she liked him as well, hoping at best to maybe get him to allow it if they just stayed out of the center of things. What she wanted for them if she could swing it was to kiss him and maybe he'd let her suck him if she was lucky, just to show him how she really felt about him. That was going out on a limb by miles for her, but there was serious competition here and they'd only met that morning. Now? While she'd been moping around, somebody else was showing him that he was worth something. In a fucking heartbeat, too. Right out there in front of God and everybody, she thought. Noriko didn't know why, but right now, she felt so defeated as her hot tears ran. She couldn't catch a break if it was handed to her on a plate -- and Shawa had been pretty much handed to her that way, but all that she'd done was rub herself against his tail a little and think about the same guy who'd been making it as clear as he could without threatening her that he wasn't interested. She turned to walk away, not really knowing or caring where she was going, and her steps took her to the same group of asshole males who just liked to make everyone miserable. They were such rude and crass losers that even the two hundred-odd female demons who'd come wouldn't have anything to do with them. There were about thirty of them and right now, Noriko had their undivided attention. A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 47 What she should have been doing now was reaching over her shoulder for her blades, since she'd likely need them in a minute. The application of a little pain was about the only thing that could hold their attention for any length of time. Well, after she'd killed one or two of them. Instead, she reached for her blades and let them fall to the ground as she walked forward. She was beyond her thoughts of having Shawa and she was farther away than she'd ever been to having Cesar. She was so far gone as she thought back to the very first one that she'd ever held a silent dream of loving. That was so long ago, and like all of her crushes, not a single thing had ever come of it but her quiet longing and some silent tears on her pillow. She didn't care anymore. They'd rape her and rip her up six ways from Sunday and if she was still alive in the morning, then it would only be another bright plan of hers which only came to nothing. But they didn't move; their leers and grins fading from them as they began to back away. "What the fuck?" Noriko said, "I'm not good enough for this no more?" "The first one who touches her will get his balls fed to him," a voice growled from behind her, low-down and dripping with menace, "You want to see the last beats of your hearts, motherfuckers, I'll do it for you. I'll even let you hold them as they stop. We ought to have open-season on you worthless fucks." Noriko turned then and she saw that it was Maria, doing her best to hold down her temper and only barely managing it. Like a lot of them, she stood there with a pair of bandoleros on her, hers crisscrossed over her chest, each loop there holding a shotgun shell, causing her breasts to stand out a little. She was barehanded for the moment, but that changed in a heartbeat and Noriko saw the cut-down double muzzles winking in the darkness a second or so later as the tall bitch leaned forward a little. "Boo!" she said and in the next instant, they were alone. "Maria ... I-" "You shut up, Noriko," Maria said, though she did try to take the edge out of her voice as she looked at the smaller female for a moment. She sighed heavily to let out the tension then, "Just shut up and pick up your blades." As Noriko stood up, sliding her weapons back into their scabbards, Maria walked up and put her arm around her shoulders. "What the hell were you doing?" she asked as they walked away, "You know what they'd have done to you. A lot of them would kill you only for the way that you've humiliated them in the past. Shit," she said, "They'd probably kill you first and THEN fuck you. They're not all that bright, those ones." Noriko kept her gaze down, "I know that. I was kind of banking on it." Maria stopped and turned to Noriko, "Why?" "Me, I'm tired of everything," Noriko said wearily, "I'm not the kind of girl who does single life all that well. I -- I need somebody, and I'm too stupid to find anyone." She sighed then as she looked at her own feet, "Right then, I just didn' wanna to go on anymore. I been like this for a couple of years now. I lived in a huge house full of people, but I was the loneliest one there. You know that. I wanted to try for Cesar, but I just never had the guts. Tonight, it's too late." Maria watched as Noriko raised her head and looked off across the mountains in the moonlit darkness, and she saw the tears which had begun again on that face, "I even had a shot at Shawa. He was so lost -- and I know that he liked me, 'cause I saw the way that he looked hurt when I said something really stupid to him. Now, ..." She smirked bitterly, "I feel it, Maria. I ain't dead. Rosa is takin' us away, leadin' us to a better place where we can live for ourselves. We're makin' friends, too. Look at all of them demons who came here to join us. Something like this just doesn't happen, this is special -- and it's even a mating moon." She shrugged then, "I guess there's just not enough magic or whatever this is left over for me, that's all." "Stupido," Maria said softly, "Maybe that's what I'll call you from now on. While you're so busy kicking the shit out of yourself every bit as hard as my cousin has been, do you think that you have any time to look around at all?" "Yeah," she shorter one said, "I guess. Why?" "Oh yeah?" Maria grinned, "Well then you tell me who it is that I sleep with these days." "That's nuts," Noriko said. "You and Raul, you're so tight --" She stopped as the suddenly knew that she was wrong. "You're not?" "Not for long over a year," Maria said, "We just fell apart. We don't hate each other and we need each other to run everything. We get along great, we just can't live together, that's all." She watched as Noriko thought about it, trying to answer the earlier question. Now that she knew, she tried to think of any times when she'd seen Maria with anybody else. "Well then, who are you with these days? I think you're right. I am stupid if I missed that." "Nobody," Maria replied with a shrug, "I'm such a strong leader and everybody and their fleas depend on me to handle things for them. There really isn't a male among us who has the balls to handle a foul-tempered bitch like me." She laughed a little, "They're way wrong of course, but that's how they think, I guess. I can't really ease off either, not with dumb fucks like those ones back there always looking for a crack in the armor. The truth is, that I'm not all that hard if I'm alone, and I'm alone far too much." She put her arm around Noriko's shoulders again and they began to walk. Noriko felt bad now. "Shit, you mean you've been goin' through bad times, an' I don' even know? Maria, that's just nuts. Thass all wrong. You're always helpin' everybody. You pull my ass outta so many fires. Now I feel worse that I didn' know for one, and for makin' you waste your time when you had to drag me outta the stupid things I do sometimes. Is there anything I can do for you? You just tell me, ok? We been friends since, ... I dunno how long and -- " "School," Maria grinned a little, "fourth grade, end of April, at the edge of the yard under the only tree that still grew there. I was pounding the shit out of a guy that you were a little sweet on and I just got done with him for reaching under my dress for the fifth time that day. That was the first time that I broke anybody's nose, but when I turned around, I was looking at a little hornet's nest of a girl with fire in her eyes and the foulest mouth I've ever heard, fixin' to bring a little justice as you said. I pulled you off my face over and over but you just kept getting up. You always were a stubborn thing. Fuck, Noriko, I HAD to make friends with you. I've never known anybody like you before or since. I even used to go to your school afterward so we could walk home when your folks stuck you into that special school to get us apart." Noriko stared, "You remember that?" "Uh-huh." Maria chuckled as they walked, "You haven't changed much, either. You're still getting stuck on a guy for some reason that you don't even know, but you'll defend him with your life til the end. That's the kind of friend that there just aren't enough of." They walked in silence for a minute before Maria finished her thought, "It's just too bad that you're always so hungry for the wrong one." "I know, "Noriko sighed, and then she looked up, "Wait ... What do you mean?" The tall werewolf chuckled a little, "I'm right," she smiled, "Stupido. How long were you hoping for Cesar? A year, right?" "Uh-huh," Noriko nodded, "Why?" "He's my cousin, yeah? I know how bad he was broken up over what happened to his family. I'll tell you one thing; his wife was a stuck-up bitch, though she didn't deserve to die for it that way. Same goes for his kids, though thanks to how hard he worked, he wasn't around enough to see that she was turning them into smaller versions of herself. As far as the world is concerned it's no great loss, but to my cousin, it was the end for him. So I had to stand there off to the side and watch as somebody really nice tried so hard because she wanted to love him. I had to let you try, old friend, because if you were right and it worked, then everything would have been ok again -- except for the loss of his family. But it didn't work and I knew that it wouldn't. But it's not my place to say anything, no matter how much it might hurt me." Noriko looked over, "Hurt you?" Maria sighed then and looked at her own feet as they walked. After a moment, she just said it. "Noriko, Hang onto your socks here, but ... I've been in love with you since we were in school, ok? You're not the only one who can never get her courage up. Now, I don't care about it anymore. I've just accepted that I love you, while you run around all over everywhere hoping that somebody will love you back. I've always been here. I guess I'll die this way, but I do love you." Noriko stopped then and her mouth fell open for a moment. Just a moment and then she began to cry again. Maria rolled her eyes, cursing herself for revealing what she'd kept hidden for over a decade. "What have I done now? Look baby, if there's anybody who ought to be crying here, it's me, ok?" Noriko almost jumped at Maria as she pulled herself up a little to kiss her quickly while she whimpered a little, before anything else happened. When she pulled back, she looked into Maria's eyes, "I've loved you since the end of the fourth grade, Maria, since I was ten years old." She wiped her eyes, but at the rate that she was sobbing, it was a little pointless. "I don't remember the kid's name - the one that I was sticking up for," she sobbed, "but I walked away that afternoon with your name on my lips, and that was before I even knew that I like girls too. I only knew that I loved you. I always have and I always will. I just didn't think that you'd ever feel that way about me. I've been trying to find somebody 'cause I just don' wanna be alone anymore, thass all. I'm just so tired of feeling hopeless." "That's the best, absolutely shitty word that says how I've felt for so long," the tall one said softly. They looked at each other and Maria smiled, "So, ... maybe we don't have to feel hopeless anymore?" Noriko nodded a little, wiping her face again as she tried to stop crying, "I never knew. All those times when you'd come so we could walk home? Those times when I'd sometimes just hug you for nothin'? That was me, as brave as I could get." Maria smiled then, "Yeah, I remember. Those were my best days, when I'd get a hug from you." "Didja like the kiss, Maria? I kinda need to know," Noriko said as she smiled softly, "'cause I got a few that's been waitin' a good long while for you. There's maybe a whole warehouse-full of hugs that I wanted to give you too." "Ohh," Maria smiled as she whispered, "Oh yes, Noriko." "Then shut the fuck up and lemme kiss you like I need to," Noriko chuckled, "It's a mating moon you know." They walked on a lot happier later, holding onto each other. Noriko looked up, "If we're together now, that means that what I do can sorta reflect on you, yeah?" Maria looked over, a little puzzled at that, "I guess so. Why?" "Well, I think that maybe it's time for me to try to talk a little nicer to people. I'd never want to embarrass you, that's all." "You don't embarrass me," Maria said, "I'm just with somebody that I've always been very proud to know. Look, after all that we've been through, I'm not ashamed of anything anymore." "Yeah," Noriko said, "and I've always looked up to you, but I'm always getting into these spots and you're always saving my ass for me. I don't want to make you mad over the dumb things that I do." Maria laughed, "Baby trust me, I only put that on 'cause I have to. Most times, I want to laugh because that's just who we've always been. I don't mind helping you out of a jam, Noriko. That's been my hobby all of our lives. I sure wouldn't want to change anything now." No one saw them as they made love that night. Maria dropped to her knees as she took Noriko's hips in her hands and leaned in to begin something which she was so happy to do and prayed as she did it that they'd go one forever now that they'd found each other. When Noriko couldn't stand for very much longer, she pushed Maria a little as she moved back and fell to her knees with her. She reached out and rose up on her knees as she took the face of the one that she'd ached for over all of her life and she kissed her with everything that she could put into it. Neither of them felt the cold night air, they only felt their hearts pounding against each other. After a time, they just held on. Maria's bed was only a pair of blankets under a small rock overhang where they ground themselves together and hung on to each other for an hour to trade a lot of kisses and some hopeful talk until they fell asleep, tired but happy. --------------------------- As the night wore on, there were a lot of revelations for the six individuals on-board the coal black cutter which rocketed through the mountain passes heading in a general north-easterly direction. There's been time for only quick introductions and a brief meeting with everyone inside the mountain as the old skiff had been left behind. "The old automated security is still there, "Tirran said, "We ought to be fine until it's noted that the old bastard is not on-bard and that it's not just me that gets out of this thing. I don't know what will happen then." "I might still not be seen as unfriendly, "Arrax said, I still have access and it was agreed that I was to file reports if I found anything as I supposedly searched for Dahlgren and Nahl'een. I hope that it's so, anyway. I'll be needed, I think, if the systems detect what they would decide were intruders, ... and also, there is at least one idol there to pass visual and audio information on to Mer. It probably has highest priority, so someone will be paying attention to it if it starts sending. How much time do you need?" "Not long," Tirran said, "a minute or maybe two. I need good, healthy engine starts, and then I can meet up with you, Barrett, if you think that you can hold this thing steady long enough for me to pull you aboard in this." "I can try," Barrett smiled, hoping that he looked a little more certain than he felt. Arrax had been teaching a few of them how to operate the skiff and Barrett had been his best pupil so far. "You really had me fooled when you started to question me before we met," Tirran chuckled, "I kept thinking that it had only been days since I flew him out to Lozenjellis, and on my way back, there's suddenly Xer here and they've set up patrols? It didn't make sense to me, but you sounded so official that I just bought it. I'd really like to think that I'm not that foolish, but I guess I was wrong." In the event, there was little in the way to stop them or even slow them down. Barrett was on the controls in the co-pilot's seat when Tirran handed control over to him, and he just held it at a ground idle as they all disembarked. The security systems became active, as they'd been designed to do, but they didn't really pass any information to Mer. The old bureaucrat was no fool. He'd disabled that ability when he'd come here the first time. He wasn't here in any official capacity, though he had the clearance to be. He was here breaking Merren laws, and he needed to hide that fact until he was ready for it to become known. Arrax found the deactivated idol and Sheavre destroyed it with a burst from her meg anyway. They took a little longer than they'd intended to and the two minutes had turned into twenty instead. Well, they'd found the gold storage. The stonemen rumbled up the hillside, but by the time that the first of them had reached the crest of the hill, the frigate was already airborne and was heading off to recover the Barrett and the cutter. The stone guardians would have taken less time, but Selena had a little fun knocking them apart as she stood at the top. They were determined not to destroy the place, but the dark shadows which howled as they came down the long corridors at them caused a nervous moment until Ksyusha stepped forward and held out her palm. She knew what they were and at a word from her, they stopped and only stood waiting. She asked for the leader and when that one moved to the front, there was a strange conversation. "They have been held here against their will for centuries," she said, "I have offered to free them, but they say that they would not know anymore where to go. They ask to be taken along, and offer to guard in a new place in trade." "Do you trust them?" Arrax asked and she nodded, "These ones do not lie, for they cannot. They would add no more weight to the load than a shadow, and would feed themselves on the wicked that they find." Arrax looked at Selena, who nodded her agreement, "I doubt that we'd need to ever close the doors with them around." And with that, Cheyenne Mountain had real hellhounds to walk the grounds and the passageways. Selena stood close to the garden, looking at the birds. "I wish there was a way to bring this home for Nahl'een. It's something that she misses a lot." With everyone aboard, Tirren got his good engine starts and after stopping to recover the cutter, the large black bird shot through the night on its way to a new home. ----------------- Cerinthe and Yuan walked among the others, a little in awe of them all and what was being attempted if they wished to remain together. Their travels brought them to where Cesar lay asleep and Talen sat wrapped in a blanket watching him. When he saw Cerinthe, he stood up and walked over, reaching for her as she pulled him close. "You have found what you sought and never knew yourself what it was," she smiled as she kissed him. "Yes," he said, "Who is this?" Cerinthe chuckled a little, "I was told that this is what is known to these ones as a mating moon. It seems to have a lot of power. In an evening, my family has all taken mates, I as well. This is Yuan, a male draken for me. Tomorrow, we will all journey together another step to this place where we might live." She kissed his cheek, "Go back to your lover, Talen. He stirs and will miss you soon. bring him to me tomorrow so that I can meet the one who holds your heart so in such little time." The young male looked back and nodded as she released him and said that she loved him. A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 48 ***Some people have strange jobs. Others have strange hobbies. Some people manage to combine the two, and Jonas Bull is one of those. 0_o ----------------- Book of the Forsaken Part 3 With the dawn, the many travelers began to stir -- some needing to get limbs disentangled a little first. But they all managed it eventually and after a bit of milling about, Rosa and the others who were leaders here somehow began to get them all marshaled and off they went. The natural tendency here was to walk in numbers across the flatter parts and to work out a single file progression through the hills, but Raul put a stop to that. "We need to stand and walk together," he said, "If we're attacked for some reason while we're all strung out in a line, it's just bad planning and we'll lose good people for nothing." He looked up at the demons wheeling above them, "I know we got some protection, but I want us to walk a little wider than single file -- unless we get to someplace where we've gotta do that." ----------------------- Randi sat in the bed looking down at Rudhi and holding her hand loosely. What had begun with a lot of hope and promise for them didn't materialize beyond some kisses and quiet petting. Neither one was upset -- they were just a little sad and they were better friends than ever from it all. Randi found that no matter how she wanted this for them, she always came up against something in herself that stopped her. While she tried very hard to get past it, Rudhi had her own troubles. Where she was from, lovemaking was mostly very similar to the ways that it is done here. There are soft and quiet times -- and those were the ones where Randi found that she stood the best chance to begin -- and there were more urgent times. That was fine. But on the world where Rudhi had come from, 'urgent' was an open doorway to 'aggressive', and though she tried her best, not wishing to hurt her friend or put her off any farther, it still oftentimes came up in her and that stopped things cold every time. In a very real lover's sense, the two were forced to agree to disagree -- though they now knew that they did love each other, even needing to be close and touching often. They just couldn't find enough common ground to make love with each other. After breakfast, they walked back to the forge to begin the work of finishing Randi's blades. ------------------------- When it got to be a little past noon, there was a quiet and barely discernible shift in the activities of the seedier part of the town. The church had emptied out and the God-fearing people had gone home. But there were many who came back for an entirely different attraction. Down at the largest bar in the town, business was steady all week -- until about Friday night when it began to get a little brisk. That commerce picked up even more on Saturday afternoon and evening, and then it began to taper off once more, Sunday afternoons being the end of the activity cycle after one last event. Besides the booze, the bar had entertainment as many did. Out here, that meant strippers most nights, but toward the end of the week right on up to the Sunday matinee, there was a very different sort of entertainment offered there. On this particular Sunday afternoon, the house was packed as it had been for every single show. It was busy every weekend, but once a month, one had better get there early or give it up entirely. The place was jammed early and the crude coal oil lighting kept most of the audience in almost darkness as the footlights lit the center of the large room. Waiters moved through the crowd because for these events, the waitresses just couldn't handle things. Most nights for these convocations, the crowd was almost entirely male, but for the Sunday matinee, that's when almost half of those present were females -- the very same ones who'd sniff with an air of obvious distaste if the subject of the matinees came up in civil conversation. Like almost everyone else, they were there for the wicked thrill of this and the more sensitive members of the townsfolk looked the other way. Numerous attempts had been made to shut this down, but thus far, nothing could stop these cage fights. The crowd hushed a little expectantly as the portly M.C. strutted into the open area in front of the structure and after his usual braying attempts to stir the blood of those present, the first matches got underway. People watched politely as the fighters tore into each other and though there was the occasional injury, it was only the current equivalent of any of the more serious forms of entertainment fighting, still alive after all of the time which had passed. People were pummeled -- some were knocked cold, and a few left the ring bloodied. The spectators were getting their money's worth. But underneath it all, they all waited for the main event. An intermission was declared and a group of six men entered the cage after the last preliminary bout and got to work quickly. They were there to clean up any slippery spots and they were done in a few minutes as everyone tried to order another mug of ale for themselves and maybe a bowl of nachos to go with it. But at length, the M.C. was back and as he droned on the crowd watched as three rectangular boxes covered in dark cloths were wheeled up against gates which were built into the cage wall. "Ladies and Gentlemen, "the master of ceremonies boomed though the handheld megaphone in his deep voice, "This is the main event about to begin. We have taken all reasonable precautions, but we strongly recommend that you all remain in your seats, and above all, do not come near to the cage once this match is underway." As he went on, the doors of the rolling squares were lined up with openings in the cage and left open, so that whatever was in the rolling cells could come into the cage. The audience peered, trying to see into the smaller cages, but there was only darkness there. "This is not anything to be witnessed by the faint of heart," the M.C. shouted out above the noise of the crowd, "On average, we lose about one person a week here, but there are always some who seem to think that this is a staged event, and so we always offer the chance to compete to anyone -- so long as they are of age and have signed the necessary waivers. Oh, and paid the entrance fee, of course," he grinned, "For the mere pittance of only one gold, you too can try your luck at and have a chance to win the purse, which at present, stands at over seven thousand golds. Yessir," he shouted, "You can try your luck at defeating ... the mighty mountain queen herself, ... the one and only, ... mmmMMUNGRA, queen of the mountain goblin hordes and her two handmaidens!" The crowd roared as he shouted louder, trying to be heard over it, "Yes! What you've heard is true! Mungra and her girls are the last of a ferocious tribe of goblins, found in a cavern high up in the mountains of Idaho by our own expedition." Mindful of the make-up of the population in front of him, he dipped his voice just a little, "They were known to be the ones responsible for the disappearances of many young women from the communities there, reputed to come in the night to steal away an unsuspecting farmer's daughter now and then, bringing them back to their cavern to perform unSPEAK-able acts upon them against their will. When they were found, the goblins here were living with a few of the surviving captives in squalor and those girls are now living in institutions, the effects of the depravity to which they were subjected leaving lasting scars on their poor minds." The crowd roared again, but the sound from one of the smaller cages silenced them. The sound which came forth was a little deafening in that it hurt the ear. The audience fell silent and then the beasts bounded out into the large cage, one from each of the smaller ones. The crowd went wild as they watched the three large and very naked females come to a stop and look around at the audience. They were all a dark and dull grayish green as they stood growling low in their throats. Someone threw a mug at the cage, but they saw it coming and turned their heads. The heavy ceramic mug smashed against the bars, and the goblins were there in an instant, roaring and trying to see who it had been as several beefy bouncers wrestled with the thrower to get him out. Anyone who had never witnessed these events would have stared at the three of them, but it was easy to tell which of them was Mungra. She looked out at the audience with disdain, and unlike the two others, she wore a necklace which was adorned with bones. And it didn't take much of an imagination to see that they were the linked and wired-together bones of a very human-looking hand. Mungra could speak, it turned out, though not well and she reached out through the bars pointing here and there, howling out her challenge, "You! Fight me. Come here! Come here and fight Mungra!" No one came, and after waiting another minute, the large goblin began to hurl insults in a sneering and derisive tone. But everything stopped when two men entered the room at the back and walked down the long aisle. "Ladies and Gentlemen," the M.C. cried out, "I give you -- the only man insane enough to fight the mountain queen and live to tell of it -- though he's never prevailed -- JONnaaaaAAAS BULL!!" As the cheers grew to a deafening pitch, one of the men turned to the other, "You don't have to do this, Jonas." "I know that Sully," Jonas smiled, "I want to. I'm the only one who keeps coming back and they waive the entrance fee for me every time. They also pay me pretty well for this." "Oh yeah," the other man nodded thoughtfully, "Why not? You're good for their business, Jonas. You come here every month to fight them and they beat the shit out of you over the course of four shows during the weekend. Look around you, fool. These fine respectable people are here to see you die. They leave when it's all over and go back to their boring lives, and won't think about you until the next month. They're not the ones who have to scrape you off the floor with a dustpan, are they? No, 'cause that's my job. Every month, it's the same thing. You come back here and disappear for the weekend somewhere and you turn up for these shows where they give you enough punishment to kill most any man in here, and then it's up to me to come after the last show to gather up what's left of you." More of the audience saw Jonas then and a roar of approval and recognition went up. Jonas smiled and raised his arms to egg them on. "You can bitch all you like, Sully," he said, "but we're not exactly millionaires yet, are we? We scratch around at all kinds of odd jobs. Doing this goes a long way to keeping up both fed. Besides, I kind of like it. Why don't you stick around to see this just one time?" "Because we're friends," the older man said, "We've been friends for a long time, Bully-boy. What would it do for me to watch my friend get hurt? I got my hands full for the next week and a half just trying to patch you up. Even if you don't do this final show this time, you'll need me just to come and help you get out of your bedroll tomorrow morning so you can have a piss. Fuck," he snorted disgustedly, "I even have to hold you up sometimes." Just then, Mungra saw Jonas through the smoke and the lights and she charged the cage wall, roaring and snarling as she tried to break through the bars, her tusks almost gleaming in the light. "There!" she yelled to the crowd, "There is man!" She spit at the crowd in her hatred of them. "One man to fight us. Only man here. You," she sneered at them all, "You not men." She shook her head and growled out one word. "Pussies." Just then, a female voice rose out of the crowd and a woman in maybe her thirties stepped up. "Bitch!" she yelled, as the other two goblins walked over with a bit of interest, "You hurt my sister! Three years, she's been in the hospital where you put her. Three years and she'll never be the same. I'll kill you!" The M.C. stepped forward to try to calm the woman, but the goblins egged her on, calling to her and beckoning lewdly, thrusting their hips at her. Mungra laughed, "Woman better than men here." She looked around, "Woman want to fight Mungra." She turned and sank into a crouch, spreading her knees as she licked her lips wickedly, "Come, pretty girl. Taste what sister had to have every night. She not happy without this." "You LYING piece of SHIT!" the woman screamed back and for a moment, the M.C. had his hands full trying to hold the seething woman back. The atmosphere in the place was nearly humming now, the flames of their prurient thoughts fanned brightly at this unexpected turn. The M.C. was doing his best to try to reason with her, but the woman glowered at Mungra, and she wasn't having any of it. "I came here to beat the HELL out of that thing that you keep here for what she did to poor Becky," she said. "Here's your fucking money," she said angrily as she slapped down a gold coin, "Where do I have to sign?" Sully stared, "He's -- he's gonna let her go in there? They'll tear her to pieces." Jonas leaned over and smiled as he spoke in a low voice, "I uh, ... I wouldn't think of trying to save her if that's what you're thinking, Sully. Or are you now interested enough to stay and watch? Don't worry, old friend, I'll get her out of there, but not after she's whipped these people up this way. Not right yet, anyway." Sully stared, "You can't be serious." "Just calm down, Sully," Jonas said as he saw a pair of young women approaching him, "Make nice for the people, ok?" He smiled graciously as he took their autograph books and signed them, listening politely as first one and then the other of them gushed some nonsense to him. As they were about to walk away, one of them turned back suddenly and opened his cape to slide her hand over his chest as she stretched up to kiss his cheek, whispering her desire to him as she did it. The pair of them walked away to the sounds of a few catcalls to them from the audience near enough to have seen it. They grinned and strutted a little, laughing as they went. Sully couldn't believe it. "You have fans?" Jonas shrugged, "You play your cards right, Sully, and there's always at least one who'll decide that Jonas Bull's friend and manager is plenty good enough if she can't quite get to the one that she really wants." He sighed, "I'm only a little famous in here. Nobody will even nod to me if they see me out in the street." "Ladies and Gentlemen," the M.C. boomed out at the crowd, "It seems that we have a challenger for Mungra and her girls, a bit of a grudge match, as it were. I'm sure that Jonas won't mind waiting." The angry woman now stood near the cage door yelling what to her might pass for hard words while the goblins reached for her through the bars. They snarled as three men armed with cattle prods threatened them, but they drew back far enough so that the door might be opened. The woman took off her coat and stood there in jeans and a white blouse. After a moment's hesitation where it looked as though she might come to her senses, she stepped inside and the door was closed. The other two stepped back as she walked toward the mountain queen, who stood with a smile curling past the tusks on her lower jaw. The woman walked right up and threw what was mostly her first and last punch in this. It didn't take all that long, really. She swung at Mungra, who allowed it and then stood with the same smile on her face as the woman stared in disbelief for a moment as she realized that defeating a mountain goblin was perhaps not as easily accomplished as it might seem -- without at least an elephant gun or a mace of some kind. Mungra proceeded to wipe the floor with her, and it wasn't hard to tell that she was holding back a little, trying not to kill the fool. Even so, she threw her against the cage wall a few times, just enough to keep the woman's temper flaring brightly enough to shake the stars that she was seeing away a little and keep coming back for more. Mungra was a little methodical about it after the first minute, tearing off parts of the blouse until she had it torn and ripped-through enough to slap her victim down and tear it clean off her. The woman managed to get to her knees, clearly dazed as Mungra nodded to her handmaidens and they stepped forward laughing to rip the woman's brassiere off. Her pants were next a minute later as the pair pushed her over backwards, grabbed the cuff of a pant leg each and ran laughing around the cage, dragging the now-screaming fool around so that she slammed into the cage several times from their turns. They stepped away from her as she lay there groaning and holding her ribs and head. By that point, the poor woman put up no fight at all as they pulled her jeans and underwear off. Mungra walked over to where her victim lay with a crooked smile, but the sounds of the crowd's hatred rose then and she charged the cage wall, glaring her own hatred right back at them. More than one mug sailed through the air to crash against the bars. Mungra howled out her rage at them. "You! You NEXT, little males!" She turned away and strutted toward the moaning woman in a bit of triumph. The others grabbed the woman by the wrists and pulled her up cruelly, until she was held there, pulled back against one of them, who licked her cheek and ear as she crooned to her. The other handmaiden knelt down and forced the woman's knees apart as Mungra sank down to look and smile. A hush fell over the crowd as Mungra reached out slowly and a moment later the woman groaned a little piteously. Mungra pulled her hand back and turned to the crowd with a soft smile. You could have heard a pin drop in the hush as Mungra licked her fingers lasciviously and grinned. "So sweet and wet," she nodded, before she held up her hand for a moment. She rose up to stand in front of the naked woman and she pulled the long hair away from her face as she leaned in and kissed her very softly. The woman only moaned a little, so the goblin ran her large hands over the breasts there and though she said it loud enough to be heard in the hush, she crooned to her victim a little softly all the same. "Not fight anymore," she said, "Men not save you. You sleep in my cage tonight. Mungra make you happy. You not need men." She sank down slowly, keeping a hand on one breast as her other hand slid down over the now-heaving ribs until she was facing the woman's sex and she leaned in to begin, quite obviously delighted and pleased. The brown-haired victim in this writhed a little to try to pull herself away, but the goblin who held her fast from behind stepped up her quiet words and kisses. Mungra licked for a few minutes and there was no sound from the audience, other than a combined gasp when the goblin slid her long tongue in a little slowly to the hilt and the audience heard the victim's loud moan as it became obvious to everyone that she wasn't fighting anymore. Her hips bucked a little now and then, and in only seconds it seemed, Mungra's conquest was almost complete as the woman threw back her head and cried out. Jonas looked over at his friend and smiled, since Sully's mouth hung open far enough to look like a fly trap as he gaped. "Think I ought to go in now, or do you think that the lady would be pissed if I tried to drag her out?" Sully blinked and looked over for a moment. He was about to speak when his attention was drawn to the cage once more. The woman had been let down to a sitting position, her arms held behind her now as the mountain queen stepped over her hips to straddle them as she crouched just a little. A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 48 They looked at each other for a moment as Mungra smiled, "Pretty lady Mungra's toy now. You stay with Mungra tonight. What name you?" "S-Sarah," the woman said just above a whisper as her eyes went from the goblin's sex to her eyes. Mungra caressed her head a little, "I not hurt sister. I love Becky, miss her still. She was happy with me. You sleep with me. Never need man again, Sarah." With that, the goblin pulled Sarah's head gently to her and after her first kiss, Sarah went at this willingly. Mungra groaned and looked up at the ceiling in her pleasure as the crowd began to howl out in the repulsion that they now remembered that they ought to be feeling here. Mungra ignored them, humping Sarah's face softly for a time, until at last, she groaned loudly and stepped away. With a nod indicating her permission, her handmaidens fell on Sarah and began to writhe on her wildly. It took only a moment before it was plain that Sarah now was as hungry for them as they were for her. Mungra spun on the crowd. "Not like this?" she shouted out in a challenging tone, stomping her foot for emphasis. The roars rose as well as the shouts. Mungra hung onto the bars and she laughed at them. "Pussies!" she yelled, "Men like to watch, but not like Mungra, no." She pointed at them all, moving her index finger in a wide arc as she did, "Men not brave enough to fight Mungra. Hate Mungra. I not care. I take women from weak little men." She looked here and there a little closely and she threw her head back and laughed for a moment, "You little men not see. Mungra sees. Mungra knows. I see MANY women here with only one hand to see. Where other hands?" She tried to rock the whole cage as she howled to the rafters, "Where women's other hands now?" The mountain goblin roared in laughter as she watched about a hundred women look a little flustered now as they straightened their clothing. But the crowd roared out their approval as Jonas Bull threw off his cape and flexed a few muscles to limber up as he stepped to the cage door then and this went up another notch. "Are you sure, Jonas?" the M.C. called out and Jonas nodded. The cage door was opened and she stood waiting for him with a leer on her face. She nodded once out of respect for him as she pointed and glared at the audience. "Pussies," she called out, "Look. See only man here!" Sometimes, it was two of them who worked Jonas and had to stand his powerful swings, one or the other of the handmaidens always staying to hump against a now-very willing Sarah. Mostly, it was just Mungra and Jonas as they beat each other. A cheer rose when the people saw that he'd bloodied her lip, but she roared then and almost knocked him clean over with a haymaker from out of nowhere. Two of them ran up to him and threw him against the bars of the cage. They did it to him over and over -- every time that he stepped forward and Sully winced every time, knowing how they were hurting him. Jonas recovered almost instantly to connect solidly with a blisteringly fast combination and Mungra rocked back on her heels for a moment. Sarah had seen it and she jumped to her feet, trying to get to him. One of the handmaidens tried to hold her back, but she got loose and it looked as though Jonas might have a little help here, at least something to even up the odds just a little. To everyone's surprise, Sarah went for Jonas' eyes, screeching until Mungra pulled her away and she seemed to settle a little then as the goblin kissed Sarah to show her thanks before she was handed off to one of the others who pulled her down to the mat. While the mountain queen beat the tar out of Jonas, the handmaiden straddled Sarah's face and as Sarah began to love her, the goblin howled out in her joy and began to rub herself over the woman's face gently. She looked so pleased for a moment in a bit of bliss until she leaned forward and began to reciprocate for Sarah and the two rolled onto their sides together as they did their best for each other. Jonas came flying off the cage wall on the rebound, but Mungra was waiting for him and her kick to his face laid him out on his back. She smiled then, though not in any nasty way as she stepped over to look at him a little softly for a moment. "He almost sleeping," she said to the crowd with a small chuckle as she got to her knees beside him. She looked on for a few more seconds and then she drove him hard with her fist and Jonas' lights went out. The audience howled in rage at this, but Mungra plainly didn't care at all. She straddled his face and grabbed him by the hair as she began to hump herself there, enjoying her triumph once again. She called out to the other maiden and in a few seconds, that one had Jonas' pants open and pulled down a little so that she could begin to try to get, if nothing else, a rather automatic reaction from this male by using her mouth. She was successful after a few moments of it and she spoke then to tell Mungra, who looked back with a happy grin, and Sully stared as he watched the goblin queen lower herself onto his friend. "Oh, Mother of God," he whispered. She was facing away from him as she fucked herself and it was clearly evident to everyone on that side of the cage that there was actual penetration going on. Mungra fucked on him furiously after a moment as she caressed her own body with her eyes closed. She opened them once as she looked at the crowd, seeing many people with their hands in places where they ought not to have been -- not in a public place, anyway, and it made her smile widely past her tusks to see how many of them were working each other, not only themselves. It helped her. It brought her off in an actual orgasm and she threw her head back and howled out her joy before she slowed to a stop and looked back at Jonas for a moment, as though she was surprised at something. As she got off him, she saw that Jonas would be coming around very shortly, so she laid down beside him and kissed him softly before he woke up enough to see it. The men with the cattle prods came then and the goblins were forced to retreat reluctantly back to their rolling cages, and Jonas was left forgotten for the moment as he groaned softly. But try as they might, Mungra wasn't about to give up her prize and she pulled Sarah into her cage with her, becoming very protective and suddenly even more vicious in her defense of the woman. The men had to give up after a time and they closed the cages and rolled them away as a few others came to carefully lift Jonas Bull from the mat to get him to the doc's office in the back of the place. -------------------------- Rudhi was more than pleased. They could only assume that it came from a combination of the way that Randi had tried to learn and from something which had come to the redhead when Rudhi had saved her, but ... it was amazing all the same. The blades had shone up quickly and well and Rudhi had the ancient and sacred markings engraved on them fairly quickly. After that, it had been a fair bit of work, but the two weapons now carried their living edges and gleamed no less than Rudhi's own sword. But the big surprise was the way that Randi knew what to do with them. She'd seemed as amazed as Rudhi shortly after they'd begun, but now, perhaps an hour later, her body knew all of the ways to move as they fought together in the open space of the forge, their blades ringing in rapid time to the attacks or the blocks of them both. Rudhi finally motioned for them to stop and she pulled Randi to her, kissing her softly. "I had a hope that I could teach you in a few weeks what should take far longer, but I see now that you have it all inside of you. Now, we need to raise you higher, warrior." Rudhi's sword disappeared and she held out her right hand. "See the stone in my hand. It is nothing. The setting for it is the thing here. With this in my flesh, my mind rules my blade and my glove." The reached for the inside of her left arm, where there were a pair of smaller settings embedded into her flesh. "These were so that I could command many on the field and say nothing. I have no need of one of them now, so I give it to you, but Randi -- there will be some pain, and ... " She stopped then and sighed, "You will see." Rudhi reached to grasp the metal piece and after a long and slow struggle, the plucked the thing from her arm. Blood ran there instantly and Randi dropped to her knees, knowing that it was a chance not to be missed, so she licked what came, never closing her lips over the place where the blood came from -- never sucking. All that she was doing was her best for her friend. But the flow didn't slow and Randi came to another idea then. With her thoughts bent to it, the flow of Rudhi's blood slowed and stopped as Randi lapped up the last of it, so pleased that not one drop had fallen away. Rudhi smiled, knowing that her friend had found the answer for herself. "Why did you taste it?" she asked, "Why did you take it?" Randi looked up as she got to her feet, wiping her lips a little, "I wasn't hungry. You told me that I wouldn't have any thirst for blood and you're right." She shrugged, "It was just so suddenly important to me that not one drop fall from my friend." Rudhi smiled as she kissed Randi again, "It was right to do that. If my blood had fallen, then what I seek to do might not have worked. With a little of it in you, I think that this will go even better." She took Randi's arm and turned her hand over. "With this, you can hide the blades or your weapon. It is a little hard to explain, but you can keep then with you always -- in the mind." As she brought the metal piece over her friend's hand, Randi was shocked to see that the thin hooks which hung down were moving as they neared her skin. "It looks alive," she whispered. Rudhi chuckled, "It is alive, my friend. It will live in you, taking nothing and giving everything, seeking always to protect itself by protecting you -- the other one in the partnership." She chose the place carefully and laid the thing down on Randi's flesh. Randi stared as she felt a little stinging pain and the hooked ends were gone from sight then, digging their way down deeper. When the pain stopped, she saw that the outline and the shape had changed markedly, looking something like the one on Rudhi's hand and she watched a similar jewel begin to form on the metal. "Look at the work that we have done together there as you hold those blades together in your hand there." As Randi stared, they faded from sight. "Ready to be in your hands at any time," Rudhi grinned, "and more eager than ever to work." They looked over at the doors of the forge as they heard the steps outside in the snow and with a thought from Rudhi to guide her, Randi now wore her clothes, and they no longer lay where she'd set them down at the outset of this. There was a heavy but careful knock on the old wooden doors and Randi stepped forward to open one of them. "Hey, Billy," she smiled. ------------------------ The people had all gotten up out of their seats and gone home -- or wherever they had to go, and the arena was still except for the sounds of the men who were cleaning up. Thomas Sullivan decided then that enough time had elapsed for whoever passed for a doctor in this place to be finished with his friend by now, and so he began to walk there. He knew the way; he'd made this walk quite a few times already as he'd come here all of the other times to pick up what was left of Jonas Bull after they'd tried so hard to take him apart. He'd just never seen what it was that they did to his friend before. He'd only come here long afterward. As he walked down the long corridor, he stopped for a moment as he saw a few figures already waiting there in the hall. They were wearing long dresses under hooded cloaks now, but he recognized them all the same. He was just surprised that they cleaned up as nice as they did. Getting a little nearer, one of the tusked faces turned to him and after a moment's thought, she smiled at him, reaching out to offer her hand. "You must be Sully," she said, looking pleased to meet him, "I'm Caroline Mungra. These are my sisters, Kate and Lizzie." The three of them bowed a little to him in the polite way of goblins who had no desire to harm anyone. "Thomas Sullivan," he smiled. genuinely surprised as he thought that he could see that though they sure were different, they carried their own form of beauty all the same. "Jonas' manager," Lizzie said. He shrugged, "I don't really do much managing for him. I just show up to help him onto his horse afterwards. I'm only his manager because he needed a name to put down on the paperwork." He looked for another moment, trying not to be rude. "Please pardon me for not knowing much, but you three are the first goblins that I've ever seen. I thought that you'd be a little smaller." Caroline shrugged, "We really are mountain goblins," she said, "the largest breed, I guess, but we're not really from the mountains of Idaho or any of the nonsense that old Harry lays out for the crowd. We're from Nebraska. Not a whole lot of mountains to the place, to tell you the truth. We were born and raised on our daddy's farm. I came out here to try to make a living, and it didn't really go too well until I found out a way to make a good living being what people expect me to be. They sure won't let me be anything else. After a little while, I knew that I hit gold, but I needed to expand the act, so I sent for my sisters and bingo," she smiled, "Mountain Queen Mungra had her handmaidens." Sully was astounded, "So all of that was -- " "It was entertainment," Kate grinned, "I get to make out with my girlfriend in public and get paid for it." "The cage fight is a little real," Caroline said, "though we try not to hurt Jonas much more than we need to make it look good. So yeah, what you saw was entertainment, a good old cage fight and a live sex show. The rubes keep coming back to see it." "So does Jonas," Lizzie said with a chuckle, "though it's nothing like the ones that Caroline and I put on with him back at our house. He stays with us while he's in town to do the shows with us." "The regular shows don't have that much girl stuff in them, "Kate said, "other than me and 'Sarah' rolling around. Her name's Francine, by the way." "Yeah, "Caroline smiled, "we all just pretty much beat up Jonas and then fuck him. It's the Sunday matinees that we tailor a little more for the womenfolk around here. I don't really understand it, but they come in droves on the Sundays. We can't figure out if they come to feed a fantasy, or just to see a man get beat on by wild goblin girls. Well, there are the parties that we get booked to perform at without Jonas. Some of them are just the regular stag parties that men put on for their friends when they get married, but most of them are all girls who want a little fun with a goblin girl or three. Those ones pay REAL good. I keep telling Jonas that he ought to go with us to those ones instead of to the open invitational cage matches where he beats the snot out of any man who challenges him. He could pick up a lot of easy gold, he wouldn't need to get beat up much, and there are a LOT of warm and fuzzy places that he could be in where he'd be wanted. I wasn't kidding when I looked out of the cage and pointed at all of the women. Why do you think they all come wearing dresses? It looks way too obvious for a woman to sprawl in her seat with her hand down her pants." She indicated the door in front of her, "We're just waiting to see if Francine needs a lift, and I want to say goodbye to Jonas. I know that you guys are leaving to go back to wherever you cowboy types go. This is the part that I hate - seeing him leave again." Sully guessed that he must have looked as though he didn't comprehend until Kate smiled a little sadly, "Caroline loves Jonas. But he never stays." "I can't help it," Caroline said, "Over the last year, I only see him when he's in town for this and we've broken three beds. I won't even let him near my bed anymore. Lizzie and I sleep with him in a pile of furs by the fire when he's with us. I know that I'm not anything all that special to him and he must have other girls all over. But I can't help it, I ... " She looked down at the floor. The door opened then and Francine stepped out, followed by Jonas, who moved very stiffly. Francine and Kate shared a hug and a kiss for a moment and then Francine was introduced to Sully as Jonas stood in the doorway, holding on to the frame as Caroline Mungra very carefully hung onto him. "Are you ok, Jonas?" the goblin asked, "You know you can always stay with us while you heal up. I know that I'd like that." Jonas smiled and kissed Caroline Mungra one time very softly, "Honey, I'd love to, but there's an early spring rodeo in a week and a half over in --" Caroline looked down and nodded as she took her long goblin arms from his neck, "I understand. I just wish that we could, ..." She looked at him and began to whisper, "Jonas, while you're gone this time, would you please consider something? I know I'm not somebody that a man like you would normally think of when they think of forever, but ... You know that we're good for each other. Look, you were almost out cold, but you came, Jonas. You came in me. I almost cried, because I knew that we'd be here again saying goodbye, when all I really want to do is try to live together and make a pack of mutts with you. What's wrong with that?" "There's nothing wrong with that, Caroline," he said quietly as he raised his arms with a pained expression so that Sully could get a shirt onto him, "I'm just not ready yet." "Well I'm ready, Jonas," she said with a little sniffle, "I love you and I'm sorry about that, I guess. I can't do what we do and not be affected by a man like you. Please think about it while you're gone, alright?" Sully looked at her with an odd expression for a brief moment, but he smiled after that, "Don't worry Caroline, I'll keep him reminded." He felt her tusk against his cheek as she hugged him briefly, "Thanks, Sully. You take care of him, ok?" Sully nodded and Jonas embraced Caroline for a long moment before they walked away. It took a few tries before Sully finally had Jonas on his horse and they rode off in silence. Jonas let Sully lead him and only sat looking down in pain from each step that the horse took. Whenever there was a dip in the road or anything, Jonas hissed, sucking in his breath and he let it out with a quiet groan afterward. They rode in silence out of town and up along the winding path out of the valley. "You know, Sully," Jonas said after a long while, "by now, most times, I'd have already heard half of your lecture to me that I'm an idiot for doing this and how I'm only gonna get myself killed or worse one of these days. You haven't said a word yet." Sully didn't look back, he only spoke over his shoulder, "That was before I learned the things that I learned today. I'm not going to lecture you anymore. I thought that you only went to compete in cage fights and I know that you do that a lot, but I never knew what you did to get beat up this bad every month. Just leave me alone for a while. I have to think." Jonas was surprised, so he said nothing for a while as they rode higher into the hills, but after a time, he felt that he ought to ask anyway. By then, the road was easier to negotiate and Jonas was able to take the reins of his horse back so that they could ride side by side. "What's bugging you, Sully?" The man snorted, "A lot of things are bugging me. I've just found out what you do when you're gone, and I'm not happy for it. I don't give a rat's ass about the shows that you do, but I'm deciding that I've about had enough of playing nursemaid to a fool and a bastard." A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 48 Jonas looked over as Sully lit a cigar, "Huh?" "You're a bastard, Jonas. It's a little hard to stomach for me, that's all," he said, "We've been through a lot together, you and me. That's why I'm finding it a little hard to stomach -- to find out that Jonas Bull is a bastard and a low-down prick. What the fuck was all of that 'cowboy' shit? You lied to her, is that it? On top of everything else, now I find that my friend is a lying dog? That lady back there loves you, Bully-boy, and you don't love her. That's alright I guess, but you won't tell her, will you? Not when she'll take you back into her home and her bed every month because she can't help but hope that you'll decide one day." "Decide what, Sully?" Jonas asked as he tried to see through the eye which was still threatening to swell shut. Sully looked over and it was obvious that he was a little angry. "Try to think with the one part of you that never gets much use, other than your fool brain. Try to imagine for a moment that Jonas Bull actually has a heart. The world is a cold place, Jonas. It's cold and it's cruel to most of the ones trying to make their way through it. From what I've read about in the history books, there used to be a lot more people here at one time. Now there are a whole lot less humans, but I'd guess that there are even fewer mountain goblins. Those three back there, I'd guess that they know that pretty much, Bully-boy. That girl Lizzie back there, she's just accepted that she'll probably never have a man for herself. Caroline hasn't yet because she's in love with you." Sully was a big man, though he wasn't quite as muscular as Jonas, who was still in love with the gifts which nature had given him. The build was still there, however, shaped from years of hard work as a sailor. He was one of the very few people who'd come here, far from the place that he'd been born in the dingy dockyards of his native Ireland. He had a rough, workingman look to him and he'd come by it honestly. Jonas was a handsome dandy by comparison, the kind which all the girls fell over and all of the older women entertained naughty little thoughts about as soon as they laid eyes on him. Sully knew that Jonas had a few falls waiting for him in his future. For one thing, nobody -- not even the great and mighty Jonas Bull could keep doing the things that he'd been doing forever, though Sully knew that there was no point in telling him that because he'd never believe it until he was ready to. When you're young and strong, Sully thought, it's not that big a stretch to think that you're immortal. So sad that youth is wasted on the young, he thought. And when you're young and before you've had the stupid smirk beaten off your face by life at large, things just come easy. But we all have the same needs in us, Sully thought. Even the homeliest man wants someone. Even the ones who have never had anything come to them easily -- even the poor dockworker's sons who'd shipped out to man the large sailing ships because it was the only work that they could get. Even the ones who could tell a tall tale of being married once when they'd never, ever had the chance for it, because they weren't pretty enough to stir the hearts and loins of the girls who'd never been able to see them because they never looked at those men. He looked down at his cigar and flicked the ash off carefully, remembering the times that he'd been hopeful and had gotten looks back as though they thought that he must surely be a little vapid to be trying to talk them up. He remembered the times when somebody like Jonas appeared. It still happened. If he was talking to any woman about anything, not even thinking about anything other than offering to do some work in exchange for a small bag of potatoes -- once Jonas appeared on the horizon, Sully became invisible instantly. For another thing, Jonas had never had his heart handed back to him in pieces. It saddened Sully a little to think that it was a lesson that the young fool sorely needed now, and that until it happened, Jonas wouldn't be complete as a person. He took a puff of the cigar that he was enjoying a little, though his right hand was feeling the chill from being bare in the cold air so that his glove didn't pick up the smell. He sighed then, knowing the way that this would go -- because it needed to. "She's lovely in her way," he said, with a hint of his old Irish accent coming through, "If I was only five years or so younger, I'd tell her that too. She's a goblin and you can't hold her to the standards of human women, but if you're not a fool and you have eyes to see with, you'd know that a whole lot of the men there didn't come because they wanted to see an idiot get thrown around." He smirked at the horizon for a second, "Sorry for having to tell you this, Bully-boy, but a lot of the men there came to see Caroline and her sisters. There's a whole lot of females around in this world, and they all love with different parts of them, and most with a combination of those parts pushing things for them. Some are just like you and they only use what's between their legs. You need to meet up with one of them one day. You might learn something, though the lesson will be hard, I can tell you. I find that human girls tend to let their heads get into it too much for my taste. I guess that's why I never married again. Well, after the first three. I've had to learn my own lessons along the way." Other than the fib about being married at all, it was true, though Sully had been married once in a rather unconventional sense that he never spoke about. He looked at the sky for a moment, deciding that it would snow soon and that they'd better be finding a place to hunker down in before too much longer. He thought that he knew that the goblin women wouldn't be living in a conventional house. They'd live in a home underground, accessed most likely by a door in the base of a large tree. Wherever it was, Sully thought, he knew by looking at them that it would be clean and brightly painted. He also knew that in a few hours, it would be the kind of warm and cozy place that he'd love to be in when the weather turned to shit, especially if he had someone like Caroline there who loved him as much as she loved Jonas. "Some girls love with their hearts and those ones are the kind who need a man who is no fool himself. Your opponent back there is the kind who loves with a combination of the two; her heart and her cunny, and if you had a heart and a brain, Jonas, you'd know what it was that you just rode away from. She'll do whatever she has in mind to do today, and late sometime tonight, she'll give in to what she really feels and it'll be her pillow that's the only one who'll know how hard she aches to know your love." Jonas sighed, "Sully, she's a goblin, for Christ's sake." Sully smiled a little as he tossed the end of his cigar into a snowbank and pulled his glove back on. A second later, he leaned a little and his fist cracked Jonas across his already bruised cheekbone and knocked the young man clean out of the saddle to land with a cry of pain from his aching and beaten body looking up in amazement. Sully looked down, "If you even ask me why, Bully-boy, you'll find yourself alone here. When I found you, you were a small and skinny kid who was on his way to starvation. I took you along with me and I taught you what I could. I just never got much of a chance to get my lessons about feelings through your thick skull, mores the pity. I'm finding that I'm losing the patience to try to teach you much more after what I saw today. It's not worth my time anymore since you never listen anyway. Jonas Bull thinks that he knows it all, and that's another shame, because I know what's inside you to give to somebody. So she's a goblin. So what? A lot of men think she's got a touch of a wild look to her and they find it beautiful. I happen to be among them. But she's been handed a raw deal, living here among humans who look down on her for what she is. I'm thinking that this will be my last sermon to you, so I think that you'd better be listening to it a little carefully, Jonas. One thing about us humans, and we're all the very same, not matter who we are or where we're from. None of that matters one little bit, oh mighty Jonas Bull. We each of us, deep down in our black little hearts that we spend so much time and effort trying to prove that we haven't got; every single human there is now, ever was, or ever will be Bully-boy ... We've all got to have somebody to look down on. We need to have them so that we can tell ourselves that we're better than they are in some way. Most of those people there today came because they might want to see a little blood and murder when one of you idiots finally manages to kill another one for their entertainment. Why they'd shudder, most of them, to think that you might be fucked by one of those girls in that cage when really, they'd all love the thrill of that. They just won't admit it, even to themselves because that's what decent, God-fearing folks do, isn't it? So fuck off, Jonas Bull. That's my verdict and decision to you. If you were worth anything, you wouldn't look down on those girls at all. And maybe the greatest sadness to me here," he said in a bit of disgust... "I wouldn't be needing to be here telling you." Jonas' horse had stepped ahead in a little confusion and Sully leaned over and looked down and his face wore a look of impatience and even anger now. "I'm getting long past tired of telling you the obvious, Jonas. You're a fool. Do you really think that in a dark bed, that girl looks any different? Does she feel much different to you then, other than how her cunny is actually hot when you fuck her? Do those tits feel any different to you? Do they taste different somehow? When she wraps those long legs of hers around you and makes her happy little sounds just to have you there, does it make you want to get out of the bed and leave? Fuck no, it doesn't. She's plenty good enough then, isn't she? Tell me, how does it feel when she drags those tusks of hers over your prick before she opens her mouth to please you, because she loves you so much that she'd do that all night because she likes the way that you feel to her and half the next day if you'd only ask it of her? Does it make your stupid dick shrink away in disgust? He nodded once, "Damn right, it doesn't, because that's the wisest part of you then, isn't it? And before you start to tell me that you don't like the thought of seeing that face looking at you when you wake up every morning, I'll tell you a bit of a little secret because I've been around and had women most of the world over, Bully-boy." The statement wasn't incorrect in the strictest sense, but Sully was leaving out the little detail that he'd paid to have those women, some of them doing nothing more than sleeping beside him because that had been all that he'd wanted at the time. "I don't care who it is that you might really long to wake up with, they all look like that in the morning, more or less, and a lot of 'em don't have a nice word for you then, either. But that one will, every time. Because she knows what she has if she knows that she has a man's heart. I don't know that girl from anyone, but I'll tell you this -- if she ever finds somebody to love her the way that her fine heart needs, well then, Bucko, don't you be getting into any cage with her to fight her. Because she'll kill you then and you'd deserve it. Now get your fool ass up out of the snow and get on your nag here. It's gonna snow something awful soon. I can feel it." He rode ahead a little to make it clear that he had no intention of helping Jonas anymore. "And from now on, you can get yourself mended all by yourself. I won't be there." ----------------------- "Your mother?" Randi asked a little incredulously. He had no easy way to explain it, but Rudhi saw everything clearly in a few glances as he'd tried to say it. She explained it to Randi, who got it then. "And now?" Billy shrugged, "She tries to carry my child and she wishes to meet you both." He looked at Rudhi, "She cannot understand why she does not feel any presence from Beyl'eth inside her. She hopes that you might tell her if she is there at all. In the meantime, she tells me that she is my female." He looked at the old wood stove there in the warm kitchen, "I see the body of Beyl'eth there, and I hear the sound of her voice, but it hurts me because it is not Beyl'eth anymore. The way that she speaks to me carries the patience and kindness of my mother, so I can never look too hard. She is like Beyl'eth was -- hopeful that we do not die out here, but I think that we already have. All that is needed is more time." He asked, trying to change the subject and they told him everything as the afternoon passed into evening. Randi tried and failed to say what she'd become a little of, so Rudhi explained it. He thought about it and shrugged, "I think that a lot of people would be a little frightened of this. I am a little glad. I liked you when we met, and I'm happy that you lived though all of the challenges. If you don't mind having demons for neighbors, I'd offer my friendship. I don't really know anybody here." -------------------------- They rode on as far as they could until the failing light of the day and the rising wind of the late winter storm showed them that the idea of further travel was a foolish thought, now that the heavy and wet flakes began to pelt them. Not a word was said as they set up their little camp in the shadows of a group of boulders. Jonas could see that they wouldn't be tying their little tents together that night as Sully worked on getting a bit of a fire going. They ate their evening meal in silence as well and though he'd been angry and indignant over it at first, Jonas was beginning to have a few thoughts seep into his brain. He thought about the things that Sully had said and he suddenly wanted to be back in the town. He still didn't think that he wanted Caroline, particularly, but he did want to talk to her now and tell her how he felt. He stopped then and asked himself how he really did feel, and he found a desire in him to get to know her and Lizzie a little better, and if he could manage to get it across, well then, Jonas wanted to tell them that he had an earnest desire to be a friend to them. Another thing that came to his mind made him sad. He knew that however much Sully's heart had held for him as a friend and mentor after all of the time that they'd traveled together, he'd likely exceeded the brimming horn of goodwill that Sully had for him now. More and more, Jonas was coming to see that he'd lost something, and he knew that very soon, Sully would part company with him. Sully wiped off his metal plate and he got himself into his tent, turning away from Jonas -- something which he'd never done, even if they didn't join their tents for a bit more room and warmth. He threw a little more wood on the fire and fishing into his coat, he pulled out a cigar and looked at it for a moment. It was one of the ones that Caroline liked to smoke very occasionally. She'd given it to him the day before and told him to smoke it and have a few nice thoughts about her. Well he was having those thoughts now, he decided, though not perhaps the ones that she'd intended. As he puffed a little, he saw that he'd been fortunate to have a few people who cared about him. He knew Sully well, and he knew that there was very little chance to fix this with the Irishman. When he liked you, the sun shone down on you. But if you weren't his friend anymore ... He thought about that for a long while and when it was almost gone, he tossed the cigar butt into the flames as he sat for a while longer until his attention was drawn by a noise, and as he listened, he knew that it was getting closer. He reached for his shooter and thought about waking Sully, but the man turned over then, his old Colt already in his hand. What came to them a minute later was something out of a nightmare until they could see past the distractions of the snow and the blood on it. The thing spoke a few words in a weak and wavering voice before the last of the micarriage began. As the small mess oozed and slid to the snow-covered ground, the creature looked down and moaned piteously before falling to her knees and then onto her face before she pulled herself into a fetal position, weeping softly. "That's a demon," Jonas said while Sully rolled his eyes and bit his tongue. As Sully got to his feet and walked to where Narreth lay, he nodded, "No matter who you are or even what you are, this is a cold and shitty place to be all alone." Jonas stared as Sully put his gun into his coat pocket and knelt down to try to turn her over. He even knew that to do this at perhaps any other time was asking for it. But somehow, he just knew that this creature was a little past that. He turned her over very gently and she was still crying quietly as he reached to brush some of the wet snow from her face. Jonas was about to ask if they ought to just shoot her, but he knew what the reply would be as he began to think in the way that he knew Sully would in this. Sully turned to look at Jonas, prepared to tell him to put the fucking gun away, but he saw that Jonas was already doing it. "A little help here, Jonas," he said quietly as he tried to wash some of the blood from her loins with handfuls of snow. There wasn't anything there in the snow but the small mess that he assumed was the very underdeveloped placenta and he judged that she hadn't been very far along if it was that small, not that he knew more than a little about the plumbing of demons, he told himself. Sully picked her up a few moments later and carried her nearer to the fire. "What was that?" Jonas asked as she opened her eyes and looked up into Sully's concerned face. Sully spoke quietly as he looked down. "She was pregnant, Jonas, and for whatever reason, it took but then she lost it. It happens sometimes. If she's like a lot of human girls, she's hurting in many ways now." Narreth began to cry harder then, thinking of the way that this all went for them. She'd tried, but Ayt'han was obviously reluctant to couple with her, though he did if she asked him enough. It took her long minutes to know that the human who cradled her gently was speaking to her and she eventually opened her eyes to learn a little more about her predicament. "There there," he said in words which meant nothing to her as he stroked her cheek a little, and without knowing it really, his accent came to the fore because he wasn't really thinking about it, just the way that it often did when he was in the middle of things and his mind was on the task at hand. "I know we're not anyone that you might hope to see in a time of trouble, but you could have done a lot worse than us. Jonas, "he said over his shoulder, "I'm needin' you to do a thing for her. Gently try to get her knees apart and take a handful of clean snow and then swipe at her cunny a little to get more of the blood away. If you can do that, then I'm needin' you to look a little carefully by the light of the fire, if you can. Try to tell me if you see any more blood weepin' out. I expect a little, but I'm worried if you see a lot, so say it if you do. Can you do that for me?" Jonas shrugged, "I guess so, Sully." As he began, she resisted feebly at first, but the sound of Sully's voice as he spoke to her in low tones had a bit of a calming effect and so she finally allowed it and Jonas was as gentle as he could be. "Here's the cold part," Jonas said as he did his best. She was about to try to push him away with her feet, but Sully did something then that surprized them both after he thought hard, trying to remember something that he hadn't tried to do in years. A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 48 Narreth's eyes opened fairly wide as she heard demonic words from him. They weren't the right dialect, but she understood most of it as he told her that they wouldn't harm her and that they were trying to see if she was bleeding or not. "You -- you speak to me," she whispered, "How did you learn?" Sully held up his hand and looked at Jonas, "Don't you be starin' at me like that, Bully-boy. I've been alive and rambling around on this world a sight longer than you. Now, dya see much in the way to blood at all?" "No," Jonas replied. But it wasn't enough for Sully for some reason and he looked down, "I believe a girl has a right to her privacy, but I need to know. Forgive me, Lady," he said as he straightened a little and with two fingers and the softest touch that he could manage, he spread her cleft just a little and looked for blood for a moment. When he looked back down at her he smiled, quite obviously relieved. "Better than I had hoped," he said in demonic before he looked at Jonas again. "Do the lady a favor now Jonas and look in me large pack there. Bring me my spare blanket and get me my Mexican cape, that poncho thing, would you?" Jonas nodded and brought what he'd been asked to, and he looked at Sully for a moment. "Don't get mad at me again, Sully, but why did you call her a lady? I'm not being stupid. I'd just like to know." "Jonas," he said as he worked to get her wrapped in the blanket, "These creatures, most sorts of them, they're not stupid. They've got brains the same as us, and they've got living hearts too. You wouldn't even blink if she was a human girl and I said that about her. Well, they're all ladies, Jonas. You just need to see that." He looked down at Narreth and drew a deep breath as he began to speak to her. "I was a man who sailed on large ships for a time, and once, the ship that I was on was in the hands of a fool when a storm found us far away from here. I'm sure that I am the only one who lived. I found myself in the water and hung on to a piece of the mast and beam. When I opened my eyes, I already had a burn from the sun, but the wood that I clung to was dragging along a beach in the waves. It was a small island, and I lived there for a time alone. I was beginning to think of ways to make a raft when I found that there was someone else there, a young demon girl. We lived there for two years, and I'd say that it was the happiest time for me. But when she was with child, the same thing happened to her as has happened to you." It was clear that Jonas didn't understand a word, though he didn't interrupt at all and only listened, watching the female demon there in his arms as she looked up. Sully was quiet for a time, but then he said quietly, "She bled to death, and there was nothing that I could do to staunch the loss. I lost my love and the child in an afternoon." He smiled a little then, "But I think that with a little luck, you might be alright. How are you called?" "Narreth," she said quietly, "And you?" "My name is Thomas Sullivan," he said, "but most call me Sully. Where were you going?" -------------------------- Billy had been listening to the wind and wondering with a little worry where Narreth had gone when she'd left to hunt, saying that she wished to hunt alone and without his rifle involved. He was about to say that he'd better try to find her somehow, when they heard someone calling from outside. Billy became human to anyone's eyes and walked with Randi to see a pair of men on foot, leading their horses in the thick snow while Narreth rode on one of the animals under a few layers of clothing. Randi got the horses squared away in the barn with Jonas after the brief introductions had been made as Rudhi helped to get Narreth inside. With a lot of talk which caused eyebrows to rise all around, Randi and Rudhi began to get a hot meal ready for them all and Randi broke out her second last keg of Copper's ale to share with them. Narreth had an earnest conversation with her son for a few moments as he held her, thankful to have her returned to him. She knew that he wouldn't be as upset about what she'd come to accept as she was, but she'd given up on wanting to resurrect their breed of demons. The effort would be better served in just trying to live as well as they could. It was still her wish -- and it was only a mother's wish by then that her son find someone for himself. "I do not know how it is done among humans, but I have met one who seemed to care for me when I came to them earlier. I know little of him but his name and that he can speak some of our words. If nothing comes of it, then I have lost little, but I think that we might have friends here and to me, that makes this world a little better to live in." She tilted her head a little and he saw that she struggled a bit over just how to ask him a question. "From what he said to me," she said looking down, "He had a demon for him once, long ago, but she died. How different are we to humans?" Her son smiled as what it was that she might be asking for came to him, "Near enough and far apart," he said, "What matters most is what the ones like -- as in anything. Humans fear demons, mostly. But if this one does not -- " She looked past him to see Randi standing by the door, "I think that this one wishes to speak to you." Randi had come to say that she didn't think that Narreth ought to be anywhere but resting in a bed, now that she knew what had happened, and that there was a bath for her to get cleaned up. Narreth smiled and tried to beckon to Randi and when the redhead had stepped a little closer, Billy gladly translated Narreth's heartfelt thanks and asked if she might have a chance to speak to Sully for a moment. When he stood before her, looking down at the small female who looked up at him from the uncharted depths of his poncho which she still wore and looked lost in, Narreth smiled as she reached up and managed to get the huge hood pulled back. "I wish to say my thanks to you for what you have done. Many here would not have raised a finger -- at best, I have learned from my son. I have my own sad tale to tell," she said as she reached for his hand to hold it in both of hers to look at it for a moment. "I am told that there is a bath for me, and I would obviously like to be clean again before I am to be sent to rest in a bed, and ... you cared for me not long ago. I wonder if I can ask it of you again to help me in and out of the bath. I now would rather not have my son do it, and the rest are strangers to me -- and I would not ask your companion for this. Would you help me again? I have nothing more to hide from you, Thomas, and I hope that it is not too much to ask of you." Sully nodded and asked Randi where the bath was. As she stood in the bathroom holding onto the edge of the tub, Narreth watched as Sully removed his flannel shirt and his undershirt before he stepped forward to help Narreth into the tub. But before he took his hands away, she asked him if he would mind staying with her. "I do not think that I am in much danger of drowning, Thomas, but I like you and I wish to talk." He held most of her mane up so she could lean back before he let it fall to hang over the edge and she smiled again, feeling better for the warmth. "Do you have a female now?" she asked, "I think that you must Thomas. You seem to be able to care for one well for a male of any kind." Sully smiled a little as he shook his head, "No, Narreth, I've got no one. I'm much too rough and tired-looking for anyone to have much interest, but thank you for the way that you make it sound." She reached for his hand again and as she looked at it, she spoke even lower, "I am not as young as I might look to you, Thomas, and the way that I look is proof that I am not as wise as I had once thought myself to be, but I know a few things, I think. I know that you do not find me ugly, and the knowledge pleases me to know. You might laugh, but you have your own attraction to me." She smiled as she turned his hand over and ran her fingers over the work-hardened callouses. "I know that you have much strength for your kind, and though we are different to each other, I think that I can tell that you are a good male." She sat up a little as she reached to place her hand against the middle of his chest, marveling at the size and the way that it felt to touch his warm skin. Sully looked down and then he looked at her face as she pulled his hand gently so that she could place it in the center of her own. On someone like her, his hand covered some of both of her breasts, spanning both nipples easily. "Here is another thing that I know," she said, "We both have hearts which drive us. I find such a hope in me to know Thomas as a friend. Neither of us is young but, ... I find a little hope in me that you might wish to know me and if you wish for a female to love you, I think that if we are careful, I would like nothing more, when I am a little better from my trouble. I am sad for the loss, but it is better this way if there was something wrong with the small life which was in me. In you, I find someone with a kind heart, and I think that ones like me are not unknown to you. It is me who has the most to learn," she smiled softly to him, "and if you wish it, I would learn of you and be happy for the lesson. I have always been one who was strong and cared for others. Now I wish to care for me -- and you, if you think that you would want a small demon female. With a little care and perhaps a lot of luck and your help to guide me, I wish to find a shape to hide here as a human female now." Sully stared a little, but he knew what he was hearing and he wasn't stupid at all. He lifted his hand from her chest and touched her face. "I think that I must be in a dream, Narreth, but I know what you're trying to ask me. I'd be happy to help you, and happier still that I met you, though you need to get a little strength in you by resting. I would be happy to take care of you. You're right," he said, "we're not all that young maybe, but we're not dead either, are we?" Narreth sat up fully and she put her arms around Sully's neck. They looked at each other for a few moments, and then she asked him if it was the custom here to touch their lips together. Sully grinned a little and he nodded slightly, "It's called kissing, Narreth. Each touch is called a kiss, and if you're offering one to me ..." Narreth nodded a little shyly and he kissed her then. When they drew apart, she was grinning herself. "Thomas, my tale is a long one -- too long and sad for a night where I find that I wish to sing over this and you, but I can say that there was once a time when I was dead, though I am not dead anymore, so this and you are gifts to me, I think. But I can say that being dead is to be empty and alone. It was a few years for me in the time here, I guess, but for ... kisses such as yours here, it was almost worth it." He was surprised, "I don't understand. How could you have been dead?" He thought that perhaps he wasn't comprehending a figure of speech or something like that. "I have learned that there are many kinds of demons," she said, "far more than I had ever thought. Where I am from, almost all of the females of my tribe were witches. If one was a little powerful in her life, then when she passed, her spirit would go on, free from the body and able to help those in need. The stronger the witch, the longer she was able to help. I was very strong. The rest is part of my long tale, but not long ago, I had a chance to help my son's female and him, but she seems to be gone from her body. I feel alone in it -- and I am not dead anymore, am I? "You have touched me, and you have carried me. I am obviously alive. I must be, for the way that I am happy in spite of everything and now I ache for another of your kisses." Sully put his arms around her slender shoulders and he kissed her again, both of them sighing before they broke the kiss to look at each other from very close up. He watched her light eyes as they went from one feature on his face to the next, and he thought that to her, he must surely seem very strange, and yet, from her expression, she didn't seem to be put off in the slightest. But her expression changed to one of slight dismay then, "I must be filthy. I have left dirty smudges on your cheeks. If you think that you would want me as your female, then I want you for me as well. There is nothing to lose anymore. But if that is so, Thomas, then I wish to look my poor best -- at least I wish to be clean. You did your best for me with the snow. Here we have warm water. If you do not mind the mess that I leave from my dirty fur, then I wish for you to bathe with me." She chuckled a little, "I am the smallest one here, and I take little space. There is room for you to be here and your new and dirty female wishes to be washed -- if it is not wrong for us to do here." She looked at him and put a tiny little whine into her voice then, "At least, I need help to wash all of my hair. Please Thomas?" One of the things that Narreth liked about Sully was that he was not so young, since to her, experience counted for a lot, so it thrilled her a little to see him nod and stand up to get undressed. She was used to the size difference between the males and the females of her own kind, but the relative hairlessness of humans was rather striking as she looked as him while he got into the tub with her. She found that she quite liked it after only a moment's thought. She could see that while he wasn't barely out of his adolescence or anything, he looked very good to her since she could see the way that his muscles moved under his skin from his motions and she decided that, for the want of a relative reference, Thomas Sullivan was in his prime, or not long past it, and he had many miles left in him. She also really liked the way that his pubic hair was so short, which led her to realise that there was another similarity that she knew that she'd like later on, once she was better. She reached out to touch the hair over his genitals with a fingertip. "Why is this hair so short?" she asked, "It gets cold here, but where I am from, the males have much hair here because they need it. This part of my son is well hidden in fur." He shrugged, "We wear clothes here and try to live in places that we can make a little warm. Since I have clothes to keep me warm, I cut this hair some, just like I shave the whiskers on my face, when I think of it and I can find a little hot water to do it with. I heat the water in a pot on a stove if I can." She reached for the long stubble on his face with a smile, "I like you this way," she said, "It is new and different to me. I do not mind it at all, because I am a girl who has the same fur on her face as I have everywhere else, only it is shorter." They washed each other and after a while, Narreth surprised him by the way that she came to him slowly on her hands and knees, moving up onto him very carefully until she sat and reached for him and he waited until she was settled with her head on his shoulder. Sully reached for Narreth then, pulling her gently against him. Neither of them said a thing, they only held on. Narreth saw it when he told her in absolute silence, everything that she needed to know in the way that he allowed a female demon -- but a demon nonetheless, to be against him as she was this way. She lifted her head and looked for a long moment as Thomas Sullivan kissed her softly once and laid his head back against the edge of the tub as he closed his eyes. Narreth laid her head back down on his shoulder and closed her own eyes with a little smile to herself, knowing everything then. Randi wondered about them. She didn't know a thing here, but she quietly knocked on the door politely. She smiled when she'd opened it to look in, hearing no response. Thomas Sullivan was asleep, leaning back in the tub, with Narreth hall-sitting, half-lying on him. Her head was on his shoulder and she slept there as with an expression that made it very easy for Randi to see what she must have looked like when she was very young and small. She woke them carefully and offered to bring another pail or two of hot water for them, but they declined, feeling a little foolish, so she left them. Sully dried Narreth with a towel carefully before she stood and watched him empty and clean the tub. It was only a little trouble for him to get dressed and a minute later, Narreth was lost in a huge shirt of his and sitting on his lap at the table as they shared some food with the others. She understood little of what was said, but she didn't mind. There was a brief conversation between her and her son and she told him that she wished to be with Sully, though nothing more than a bath had happened between them. He nodded, trying to show that he was hopeful for her while doing his best not to show the relief that he felt, knowing that he wouldn't have to sleep with her anymore. At the moment, Billy didn't really want anyone. He just wanted time to sort out the way that he felt. "Pardon me," Jonas said to Billy, "but I'm having some trouble understanding this. From what you said, the lady that Sully and I helped there is your mother. You don't look anything like her, and Rudy over there can talk but she doesn't say anything, only Randi there knows what she says." So it was then Randi's turn to explain things a little patiently. "And as far as the way that Billy looks, Jonas. This is only a way for him to appear." Sully touched Jonas' arm, "A lot of demons can appear in at least two ways, Jonas. I know, I used to live with one. I'll tell you about it sometime." Randi nodded, "Billy kind of saved my life a while back. When I first saw him, he looked like this, because he didn't want to scare me. But he also wanted to keep me warm, and I guess that it's easier to do that while he was looking like he really is, so I can say that I've seen him, and he is a demon." Billy shrugged, "I look like Narreth, just bigger." Jonas looked over as Rudhi came nearer to look at him a little curiously for a moment before she looked at Randi. "Rudy says that she's wondering a little about something that she sees in you. She's a little afraid to ask you directly. She can speak inside your head, Jonas, but she's afraid of scaring you. She sees that you're pretty sore and wonders about it, that's all." Before Jonas could speak, Sully began to roar with laughter. "I can see all of the strange things here among us and I'd say that we're a pretty odd group of folks that have met under circumstances that are weird to begin with, but I'm not minding any of that very much at all. But Miss," he said to Rudhi, "what you're wanting to know here," he said as he raised his mug of ale, "that's a tale for mighty Jonas Bull to tell himself, and I'll warrant that I'm going to be laughing until the morning as I watch all of the faces here as he does. I'm sitting here with demons and girls and who knows what-all tonight and that's fine. Go on then Bully-boy," He nodded to Jonas, "and try to explain how it is that you came to be so stiff and sore and what you were doing to get that way." ------------------------------ After the meal, Randi was busy with trying to make up several beds. To her surprise, Billy was a great help, able to make a bed and have it look good in less time than her and with what appeared to be a lot less effort. "I feel like an innkeeper," she smiled, "and you're making this look easy and go a lot faster, but I'm dying to know how you learned to do that." He smiled a little, "I came here as a kid with my brother. We lived on an old base out in the desert. It was huge and there were a lot of beds, but Hank and I wanted to stay in one building since it was easier than trying to remember where we were sleeping all the time. We had to look out for ourselves a lot, so we just learned it, like a lot of things." A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 48 When they came back downstairs, Billy found Sully waiting for him with a concerned expression. "I'm wanting to have a talk with you, man to man," he said. "I can't say as I understand how you and your mother were between you," he said, "but she and I have found quite a bit of common ground, you might say. I came looking for you because I wanted to know how it is that you're feeling about it, Billy, and if it's alright with you." Billy smiled as he looked down for a moment, "I came here at the age of seven, Mister Sullivan. "I've only had her back in my life for a little while." He looked up then, "I want to keep her in my life, though I'm feeling better now that she's feeling better because she's near you and not as tied up with the idea that our kind of demon has to keep going. I'm a lot happier as her son. I think that you might see that we have a lot of catching up to do. I don't mind if she's with you. She needs somebody and I hope that you are as good for each other as what I see beginning. But you ought to know one thing. My mother looks as though she's decided about you. I hope that you're up to that. She's not very big, but most of what's inside of her is her heart, so I want you to take care of that for me." -------------------------- Narreth looked to the doorway, watching as Sully walked into the room and closed the door behind him. She was smiling as she rolled onto her side and held her head up with her hand and wanted to laugh because she couldn't stop her sigh as he took off his clothes. He looked over at her. "Don't you be getting any grand ideas, woman," he smiled as he found that he couldn't keep up his stern look to her, "I can see what you're wanting, but you'll get none of that from me tonight. I'm only here because it was either this or sleep on the floor in the corner. Don't you go making me regret me choice. You need your rest, Narreth." She waited for him to get in next to her before she put an arm and one leg over him. "I have a wish, Thomas, and it can wait a little while. Give me your hand." When he reached over, she took his hand and held it against her mound before she moved her leg a little so that it was kept there. "I wish to learn about you, and you will learn about me. One of the first lessons is this. I think that I belong to someone again. Now is not the time to do more than this, but I wish for you to know that I enjoy it when the one who I belong with lays his hand there -- even if nothing is done most times. There are places on me which have longed to be touched for so long, and this is one of the most important to me. I try to show you something like this. Do you understand?" He nodded, "Yes Narreth, I do. Now what I want is for you to put your lovely face on me chest and then I want you to close your pretty eyes. We'll have time for everything later. Tonight, I want to sleep with my woman and I'm only hoping that I don't ruin what we've begun with my snoring." "When you lived on the island with the demon," she whispered, "How did you sleep then? If the speech that you learned was as close as what I hear to mine, then I think that we are not much different. Demons make sounds when they sleep too. Most of us snore and growl or grunt as we sleep. Ayt'han tells me that I grunt loudly." "Ah, that'll be perfect then," Sully sighed with contentment, "I'm looking forward to the first good night's sleep in the arms of a grunting demon that I'll have had in over ten years, so you make all the noises that you want, Nerreth, and I'll be a happy man for it." Narreth laughed a little softly and she moved his hand so that she could curl herself around him, sighing when he held her in his arms and pulled the covers up to her shoulders, though they were a long way from covering his. "You will not be cold like this?" she asked him. "No," he said as he ran his thumb over her pointed ear a little, "Unless you've changed, demon girls are hot things and the one I have against me here has a soft fur coat that smells so good to me. I plan to keep you well, Narreth, and I'll never know another cold night again. Narreth chuckled a little in the darkness and they were silent after that for a time as each one thought of the other and felt more hope than they'd felt in ages. "Thomas?" Narreth whispered softly. "Mm-hmm?" She thought of what she wanted to say for a moment, "From our talking, I begin to feel that I am fortunate to have been found by you -- because that it how it feels to me. You are so good to lie on a little and talk with. You know much about demons." "No I don't, Narreth," he said quietly, "not really. I knew the one who I lived with well, but I haven't known any others." "Still," she said, "I am against the body of a human male who wishes much with me. I think that I might be a little like a human female. I have the pieces which are required. But you know that demon girls ..." She wanted to do so much more then lie with him right then, but she knew that after the loss of the fetus which she'd been carrying, it wasn't an option, and she knew that even if she was foolish enough to have the thought of beginning that night with him, she already knew that Thomas would never allow it -- not after the sadness in his own past. She raised her head a little and looked at him, learning to love that rugged face. He watched her in the very dim light which came through under the door from the hallway. He saw the way that her light eyes flicked over his face, taking in details and features as she looked with her mouth open a little unconsciously. He could see some of her long teeth and he knew that he was already under her spell, though he also knew that she wasn't doing anything other than looking at him. He wanted to ask her for a kiss when she did something else with no conscious thought behind it on her part as he saw the tip of her tongue emerge to lick her lips for a very brief moment. He smiled then and she looked a little surprised before she smiled back very shyly, knowing that he'd seen her struggles. She also smiled at his other reaction to it as she felt him harden, the tip of him pressing against her side a moment later. "Don't mind that," he said, "I'm not about to risk a thing by doing anything too soon." "I know," she smiled," I only wished to say that demons like me have teeth," Thomas, "I see that you look at them and I see how it makes you happy because you like them. I do not know how your female was, but I am a Rohn girl, and I have always been. For us, it has only natural to use our mouths when we love and -- " She stopped then, not knowing how to say it and a little desperate now not to put him off. She reached back and her hand closed around the hardness which instantly swelled a little more. "We love to taste and feel the flesh of the one that we love with. Sometimes, we bite a little, but it is not meant to hurt -- " "No," he smiled, "Not much anyway. I know the sort of love bite that you mean, Narreth. When you're better, I promise that you can do that to me if you want to." Her eyes opened wider then, "Why Thomas? No matter how careful I am, there will be sometimes when I may break the skin. I will feel badly for it after, but in the moment, I may not be able to hold back beyond a certain amount and -- " "And I'll have a few bite marks, and maybe one of them might bleed a little bit, "he said, "It won't be anything much, but you'll feel bad over it. I know that, Narreth. But I think that you're not seeing it the way that I would," he smiled, "For you to want to do that would tell me that I've driven a demon to her passion and that she loves me enough for it. It would make me proud to watch you lick away the little bit of blood in your lust. I also know that you'll heal the places right afterward. That's how a fine girl like you would do it. I guess that I'm saying that I'm ready for that when it happens." "I am a fine ... girl to you?" she asked and he nodded rather seriously. "Yes, "he smiled, "I don't know how it is now, because I've never been back. I come from a land with many legends which reach far back in time. I'm from a large and dirty coastal town, but my people came from the hills and the forests there, and they tell tales of beauties such as you. You're trying to compare yourself to human girls, Narreth. You're a fine beauty to me and I know my luck to lie here with you." She gasped in some surprise then and stared at his face, seeing the soft smile there, so she pulled herself up on him because she suddenly needed to and she opened her mouth wide after the first touch of his lips against hers, so hungry to feel his skin under the tips of the razor-sharp teeth that she pressed there so softly. Thomas groaned and the shaft under her small hand throbbed. She pulled back and looked at him, her pupils wide then as she shook her head slowly, "I surely do not deserve the male that I have found. I will never hurt you much, Thomas. It is not my way. I only say that it can happen. My teeth are too sharp." Her tongue slid out of her mouth to lick his lips for a moment and he watched her eyes close as she moaned very softly. "Oh, you taste so good to me," she hissed softly. "I am only a lost demon girl, and not a young one, either," she said, "no longer the Tarkroth queen that I once was far away." She let go of his shaft and she took his face into her hands as they gazed at each other. "Say it to me, Thomas, "she whispered so softly that the hair at the back of his neck rose and the throbbing far down on him became almost painful. "You have had a female something like I am once, so you know where we are in it. We are no longer young and I need no courtship beyond this. But I am still Narreth the Rohn witch and I wish to hear your words now -- if you can say them and have a want to." She waited then as his eyes took in her face, seeing the tribal markings of her kind on her cheeks, and the horns. His eye went to the beautiful, almost white irises which regarded him so hopefully. So Sully did what he was dying to do then; what he'd never thought that he'd ever have had the chance at again. He reached for that face, caressing her ear and the soft fur on her cheek with his thumb as he took one horn in his hand and watched as her eyes almost rolled back for how he made her feel inside. "You have some powerful hope in you now, my girl," he smiled, "and it's for someone that no one of either of our kinds of people would say was the right one for you. The trouble is, sweet Narreth, that we know better. I've been here before, where we are now, so listen before I wake up from the dream that I must be having. Thomas Sullivan chooses." Her eyebrows raised and her jaw went in the other direction as she stared for a moment. With a tiny sob, she held that face for a moment and felt his ears under her fingers. "Narreth chooses Thomas," she said before she threw herself a little higher and hugged him tightly. "Everything is possible now," she crooned into his ear with a sob, "Narreth takes a mate once more and for the last time. I will love you until the last of me is gone and there are no more stars in the sky." They rolled over onto their sides and Narreth pulled the blanket higher as she kissed him so that he gasped and rolled onto his back a long time after, smiling at the ceiling and wanting to laugh like the twenty-year old that he'd been once. He asked when she began to move, and he heard her soft giggle, "I must not do what I ache to do with you this night," she said, "for it is too soon after and my fine male Thomas would not allow it anyway, telling me the same thing. But he is my male and I wish to begin this with something." He blinked then as the tip of her tail brushed over his nose once slowly. Then he felt the warmth of her lips on his stone-hard shaft for a moment and it was followed by the heat of her mouth as she took him in and began to make love to him, holding it in both of her small hands and making little noises that sounded as though she was whimpering to herself in happiness as he laid his work-hardened hand on her haunch and caressed her tail where it joined her body. Narreth shivered in joyful surprise that he'd know of this gesture. She was tired and her body still ached a little, though she'd been careful not to overdue anything. But she was not alone anymore and she had a man who she felt was her equal. Best of all, she knew that he could love her in her way, so she was determined to love him in his as well and if only a little of the promise that she felt within her came to fruition, then Narreth planned to live up to her oath to love him until the sky held no stars anymore. A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 49 ***Fairytales can come true - it can happen to you. If you think that you might want a demon. 0_o ---------------------- Book of the Forsaken Part 4 In the still-smoldering mountain of rubble and debris that was once the warehouse district of a part of Lozenjellis, there was a pair of beings struggling for survival. For well over a few days, they'd been trapped by both the sheer weight of the mess and the small amount of oxygen which came to them. There wasn't much to begin with and the remnants of the slowly burning fires burned lazily, fuel-rich and oxygen-starved, and leaving noxious fumes billowing. Where they were, they heard no roar coming from the fires. They heard the dull hissing moans of the flames not far over their heads and little else. There were only a few small openings where a bit of air whistled in and to get much of anything at all one had to have one's face right there. The predicament slowed the demon's regeneration to a crawl as Monnie strained mightily to keep the ceiling of the room from falling in on them. The best that she could do was to pull a fallen beam to her now and then and get it set against the wall so that she could get her shoulder underneath it and muscle it up so that she could continue to keep them alive. The old demon sat at her feet, straining to even breathe as he tried to regenerate. As he looked down, she looked at him. He'd shown her what he'd wanted to do and she knew that she could bring the wild and fear-maddened demons to her easily after he'd given her the ability for it. He'd talked a good game, she figured, but she knew that when push came to shove, he'd finish regenerating and would probably leave her here without a thought. No matter what anyone said to her, Monnie knew the lay of the land here. She saw a chance for herself and she took it, telling him that she was weakening slowly. She said that she needed more of his strength to keep them alive. But there was nothing that he could do for her in his weakened state and so she carefully asked, with as much fear, respect, and feigned devotion to him as she could put in it. He'd refused her request flatly at first, but as she let a little of the hot and glowing embers fall around them by pretending to be at the limits of her endurance, he'd gotten it. He could stand the flames far better than she could – if she remained here with him. He was painfully aware that if he gave her no sign that she meant something to him, he knew that she could just rise through it all and leave him to choke under a huge and greedy fire which would leave him nothing to breathe. There was a time once, long ago, when this situation wouldn't have troubled him at all, but she hadn't had the chance to give that back to him yet. So he agreed and extended his arm toward her. Monnie did her best to look both reluctant and thankful in her desperation to keep him alive as she sucked some of his demonic blood and turned away to hide the way that she got so much power from him. They'd done this over a dozen times in the days that they were trapped here, Monnie trembling in her phony weakness and him shuddering as the loss of his blood all but stopped his regeneration. He hoped that she'd find enough strength after a while to throw off what lay and burned over their heads and pull him out of there. Once she'd gotten him clear of this as she'd promised, he planned to take it all back in a second as he regenerated quickly. He liked Monnie, but he found that he liked what she could give him a lot more, and so he planned to keep her in much the same state as Elkingtion had done once they were out of here. But it didn't go that way. When Monnie had so much power that there was no way that she could hide it anymore, she smiled her thanks to him and becoming not much more solid than a wisp of smoke herself, she slipped upward right through the roiling flames as the full weight of what she'd been holding up fell in on him. As she rose, she looked around and laughed. She'd timed this perfectly as she found herself in the smoke over nighttime Lozenjellis, and with a last look down at the place where she knew that he was buried, Monnie waved her arms and heaped the whole mess together over that one spot before she flew away to look for a place to rest and to sort things out in her mind. --------------------------------- Jonas walked into the stable and made sure that the horses were alright. He noticed that his horse had a shoe which was a bit loose, so that would need to be seen to. He thought about a few things, mostly his friendship with Sully as he looked down at a full trough of cold water. He knew that he needed a bath, but he didn't want to cause any trouble for Randi. He could see that she was busy enough, and though they'd been invited to stay the night, he still felt as though he was intruding. Well, he thought, here was some water. If the mighty Jonas Bull couldn't handle a little cold, what was the world coming to? He began to struggle slowly with getting his shirt off. Every motion hurt. Rudhi watched from the doorway behind him knowing how he must feel. She'd had times in her own life when it hurt enough to yell only lifting her arm. "I can help you get that off more easily," he heard in his mind as he froze, knowing that he hadn't actually heard anything. She walked up from behind him and he stared at her while she smiled and helped him to ease his arms up. When she pulled the sleeves up and began to get the shirt over his head, he felt her body just barely touching his own. She was still smiling when she handed him the shirt. "I still do not understand why this was done to you," she said as she looked at the welts, scrapes, bruises, and assorted claw marks on his skin, "this was done to you by a lover?" Jonas shrugged, knowing that he didn't really want to try to explain it in any more detail. Everyone else had seemed to understand it, Narreth aside, since she didn't understand English directly. "I guess you could say that," he smiled a little ruefully. Rudhi looked at him and liked what she saw, though she saw a little of his thoughts as well. She sighed as she looked away, "I wish that I had someone who could love me like that. I miss it so much." He looked up and turned his head, "What do you mean?" "Well, there is no one left of us anymore but me," she said, "In the place where I come from, life is a struggle. How hard you are in the wars and the conflicts go far to determine how high you will stand. Life is a struggle – every time that the sun rises, to hunt, to eat, to earn your way, to kill those who would kill you for what you have. Life is a struggle every day, and love is just as much of a fight – if it is worth having. From what I see here, loving is something soft and still, done by fearful creatures in dark and hidden places," she said as she ran her palm over his shoulder and leaned in closer to whisper to him, "Little creatures who must fear to do everything and hope that no one sees them to kill and eat them." Rudhi wondered if he had it in him, or if he was only another one who fucked quietly like a mouse, praying that what he did was not discovered and taken from him somehow as everything else was. She found that she had a hope that he was not like that. "Where I am from," she whispered as her hands roamed over his body, "we who rule do not make love – as I have heard it called. When we find one who is worthy of us, "she said, licking his throat in between her thoughts, "we do not make love, we take it proudly together. Do you know what I mean?" "Yes," he hissed quietly, and she smiled then as she opened her mouth. She was a little sad that, though he said it, and looked as though it was the way that he did it, she doubted that he really knew what she was talking about. Still, she thought, he looked as though he was good at her kind of mating, and so she bit him a little playfully. Rudhi landed among some hay bales on her face a moment later. As Jonas reached for his neck and looked at the bloody fingers that he drew back, Rudhi's own hand reached to feel her lip. As she felt her lower lip beginning to swell, she saw her own blood and was a little amazed. He'd done exactly the right thing. Her lovely lips pulled into a smile. "So you do wish to mate, "she grinned as her clothing and piercings disappeared. Jonas watched as she seemed to gather herself into a crouch and he knew then that she'd spring at him, so he decided that the best defense in this would be a good offense as he began to run at her. ------------------------- "I'll be fine here," Billy said as he took the blankets that Randi offered and set them down in the hayloft of the barn as she looked at him a bit doubtfully. "Look," he smiled, "Narreth needs to rest and I'm thankful that you were so adamant that she do it in a bed. She and Sully seem to have something starting between them and I can see that there's nobody better to make her stay there. It's kind of nice to see them when they look at each other." "I know," Randi smiled, "I have to turn away every time. They look like two people who've never been intimate before but want to be so much. I really love to see them like that." He nodded, "And Jonas will need a bed to rest up in as well. I don't really understand what he was talking about, but he looks like he's fought a war all by himself. After the big bed that you and Rudy sleep in, I think that's about it. Out of all of us here, I'll be fine up here. I've got a fur coat, just like my mother. I'm built for the cold." Randi nodded with a smile, "I guess, if you say so. Thanks for your help before with getting the beds made up." He shook his head, "I'm here enjoying your fine food and hospitality. But if you need help with anything, just tell me, Randi. It must be late. You should get to bed yourself. Rudhi is probably ..." He stopped as he saw her shake her head, "We're not like that, Billy. We wanted to be – even me, and I've never wanted to be with a girl before. We're really close and we love each other, I guess. But I can't do what she wants and she always gets rough in bed. We gave up. Maybe some time it'll work for us, but I kind of doubt it. I've had all the rough treatment that I'm sure that I'll ever want for a long while." He saw something in her face then and he was trying to find a way to ask, since he'd suddenly remembered her ripping off her pants to wash her bottom end furiously the first time that he'd seen her and he thought that he might finally know why. But his thoughts were interrupted as they heard a yell and then the impact as something crashed against the wall which separated the barn and hayloft from the stable and the forge. Randi was down the ladder in a flash and Billy was right behind her as they ran through the doorway to stop and stare. They stood transfixed for several minutes, watching with absolutely no idea who was raping whom here. Jonas and Rudhi looked to be locked in some rather deadly-looking conflict with each other. She'd slam him down backwards and then almost dive on him. Once she'd gotten herself onto him, she'd grind herself down on him hard and they'd fuck like that for a little while before he'd hit her really hard to get her off him and then he'd jump up to slam her up against the wall, lifting one leg up and jamming himself into her so that he could do his best to nail her to the wall standing up. Billy looked from that to Randi, who looked back at him in just about as much amazement as he was feeling before they turned to watch some more. Rudhi lunged for his shoulder and she bit him, drawing a fair bit of blood and leaving a gash before he had her in a bear hug, squeezing the life out of her – or trying very hard to, it seemed. She threw head back in a silent scream before she hit his throat with the heel of her hand. She got away then and tried to run far enough away to turn for him again, but he seized her and, spinning her around, he forced her to bend over some hay bales so that he could grab her hip and get into her again. The expression on her face as she looked back was one of murder and desire at the very same time. Randi grabbed Billy's hand and pulled him out of there, not stopping until they were back in the kitchen in the main part of the rambling building. Billy followed, wondering now if he was about to watch Randi feeling hurt and deciding that it must be a look that he didn't want to see on that lovely face. But she surprised him as she grabbed a pair of mugs. "I don't know about you Billy," she chuckled quietly, "but I need a drink after that." She handed him the first pour and then began on her own, still chuckling. ---------------- Out in the stable, things were nearing a crescendo as Rudhi managed to beat Jonas down to his knees in a surprise move, and before he could get up again, she crouched down and managed to get them together once more. Jonas groaned as Rudhi grabbed the hair at the back of his head and pulled him to her breasts. She'd have preferred to be on her knees here; but she settled for a deep crouch, since it fit for them at the moment as Rudhi groaned and kissed his head. She really wanted to chew his ear off, but she joked to herself that it would be going a bit far for a first time. The next thing that Jonas knew, he was flat on his back with Rudhi grinding her pubic bone against his hard enough to hurt. She watched his face and as she saw that his eyes were beginning to regain the ability to focus clearly, she knew that it was almost time. So before he managed to give her the glower that she knew would take her a long way toward her own climax, she reached for his arms and flung them from her so that they slapped down onto the straw-covered floor above his head, and with a thought, she pinned them there so that he couldn't swing at her anymore. Because she wanted to finish this now and let him know that she was the victor. She could have done it in an instant, but there was far more pleasure in it for them both this way. His legs were drawn to the floor as though by magnetism and he couldn't move after that; he was reduced to just watching as she controlled this completely now. Rudhi put her hands onto his shoulders and she leaned forward for the long strokes now. Her nipple rings were back as well as the thin thongs which hung from them as the most beautiful breasts that Jonas Bull would ever see in his life dragged over his chest lightly and she looked down at his face in her pleasure and triumph. When he knew that he was helpless in this, he looked as though he'd have loved to shoot her. He also looked as though he was about to beg her to never leave him, and she looked away before that was too evident in his face. Jonas looked up at pure feminine loveliness as he watched her fuck him out of his mind. He was becoming a little certain that he was losing the ability to speak as he watched that beautiful face smile in her bliss, her mouth open more than a little and those long fangs bared. A little of her drool swung for the duration of one thrust and he watched it as it fell free to land on his throat somewhere. She wasn't looking at him now. He doubted that she was seeing much of anything, really. Whenever her eyelids opened, those amazing blue eyes looked a little glazed. Now and then she'd gasp a little just when he did, but to him it was a tiny flare of pain as her nipple rings caught in a bit of the hair on his chest and pulled it out, one hair at a time. It was an unintentional by-product of this, but it drove her higher and it drove him nuts, having barely the ability to wince anymore. Rudhi was so close. She'd had many climaxes in this, but for what she was, they didn't do much to make her stop, not matter what they'd been doing at the moment. She'd had them as he'd hit her. She'd had them as she'd hit him, but her kind never stopped when it happened. You never wanted to give away your advantage in any combat by stopping – no matter if it was because of pleasure or pain – whether you were fucking in joy or fighting for your life. All through this – every time that he'd entered her, and all though every coital act between them as it happened, she'd felt the tiny bit of life come to her from each and every spermatozoa which had leaked from him and it had been a struggle every time that she felt it to allow it. But now she had him and she was exploiting what she'd won. As she felt him harden, she prepared herself and as the seed of Jonas Bull came in a gush, Rudhi felt a rush as so much of the life-giving semen came to her. She leaned back and placed her hands on his knees to receive it, bringing her muscles into it to draw more – always more, until the last of his gush was hers as she shuddered and screamed in a high and thin wail. Her clitoris had been on fire, but it wasn't needed anymore beyond the delicious way that his hardness dragged it inward a little on its way by. What drove her now was the rush of the life what she felt flooding her. ------------------------ "I thought that you'd be upset," he said as she led him away to the large front room, still giggling a little. "Can you put another couple of logs on the fire?" she asked as she reached to take his mug back for a moment. He put the wood on and he found her sitting on the floor in front of the hearth with a wide grin, "I'm not upset," she smiled over the rim of her mug as she sipped, "I was at first, because I thought that one of them was using the other, but then I saw that they both liked it, so I'm not upset at all. Rudy likes that. It's why her and I couldn't do much of anything together. I'm very pleased that she's having a good time, since I sure as hell can't do anything like that with her – leastways not in any way that I'd enjoy." They sat together looking at the flames for a while and not saying much. "Is that anything like you'd do it?" she asked out of the blue, "I mean, I don't know about you personally, Billy, but from what I've heard, those groups of demons who fly around seem to want that sort of thing. I shot one group of them up a little while ago when Rudy and I met, but I looked hard first to make sure that you weren't in with them. I didn't think that you would be, but I looked anyway." Billy shrugged, feeling a little funny to be addressing the issue, "I could, I guess, but ... well, I wasn't always like you've seen me, not when I came out here, anyway. It was like turning on a switch or something, since I'd been running around in this shape for a long time by that time. I guess that I just sort of matured somehow. Next thing I knew, I was like you saw me and I was also a lot stronger. I wouldn't want to hurt anybody and to tell you the truth, I kind of like it gentle most times." he shrugged, "That's just me, I guess. Frantic can be fun sometimes, but I guess that I was a bit of a disappointment to Bey'leth that way. She liked it gentle, but she liked to go a little crazy most times. It was good, but it's not really the natural way for me to express my feelings then. She never really understood." "I've never liked it hard all that much either," Randi said quietly, "and in the last few years, I never even got to pick the guy. It was always some bastard who grabbed me. Until I met Rudy, I haven't wanted to do anything with anybody." She shrugged, "Just my crummy luck, I guess. Now, I don't really want to do it with her all that much, since she always goes back to needing to drag me around all over the bed and shove her thing in my face. I used to have a man and I liked doing that for him and I loved it when he'd do that for me too." She sighed, "But that was then." -------------------- Jonas was dazed as Rudhi got off of him. It wasn't what he'd have wanted her to do then. He really ached with a sudden need to hold her against him then, but she didn't seem to want that and didn't allow him the use of his limbs again until she stood before him dressed as she'd been when they'd arrived, fully clothed and showing little of her body now. A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 49 She helped him up and as he tried not to fall over, she looked at him as she steadied him at arm's length. The straw and the dirt on her body had fallen away, and she was doing that for him the next instant. "That was the best time that I've ever had with anybody," he said after noticing that he had control of his mouth again, "Nobody –" Rudhi placed her fingers against his lips as she shook her head. "Be still while I heal you, Jonas," she said as she looked hard at him and he felt many of his hurts, new and old, fading from him in moments as she went, "I need to know the way of what you are as I go so that I do not do the wrong thing and do more harm than good." When she was finished – as much as she dared in her relative ignorance of human males, she stood before him and held his genitals very gently in both hands as she looked into his eyes. "Before this gets any worse for you, I will tell you now that we will never do that again. I took you very close to your death and it was a struggle for me not to take more life from you than what came to me in your fine seed. We are not anything alike and though it is easy for me to see that to your own kind, you are a powerful and fine male but, between us and what we are, you are a very weak being. I know that this will make you sad to hear, but I like you and I say this not to hurt you. But it must be said; this was nothing more to me than a bit of play and you have fed me in it, little more. It is my curse to find that I am here on a world with such wonderful people in it – but I have seen none yet that I can hold to my heart and love in the way of my kind. Not one of them would survive it," she said sadly. If I was not like this – if I was anything at all like you are, I swear to you that I would not ever let you go far from my arms, so you should know that you are not the only one here who does not like the fact that like this, you would not last long with me. I was being very gentle with you." She looked down for a moment at what she held and caressed so softly, "I am not sorry for what we did at all, only that it cannot be – what I feel already beginning in your heart for me, and so I try to give you a gift here, for what you have done for me. If I can, you will be able to give any female that you couple with more of the gift which you have given me, and more often as well." She gently released him and she put her arm around his neck to kiss him softly once before she turned and walked away. ------------------- They sat quietly for a while and heard Rudhi come in and go to the bedroom to sleep. Rudhi saw them as she passed by on her way to bed and she smiled at Randi but said nothing to her in her mind. Billy didn't see her, but even by the light of the fire, Randi could see that Rudy was a little beaten up. She seemed happy though, and so Randi said nothing. It was a few more minutes before Jonas walked through. He didn't appear to see them at all, looking a little unhappy and lost in his own thoughts. After another few minutes, Randi looked at Billy for a moment. "Would you do me a favor, Billy?" He nodded, "Sure, if I can." "I like the way that you look when you're like this," Randi said, "You're really cute and to me, it feels like I've found a friend in a way – as though I've just stumbled on the great guy in school who everybody liked, and I never thought that I'd ever get a chance to meet him, but I have now all that time later, and I find that he's not with anybody and he's a really great guy. Does that make any sense? I mean, I'm trying to describe the feeling the best way that I can, not the facts." Billy shook his head, "My brother and I were pulled into a hole in the air and then we were here. We were a couple of kids. I was seven then. There was a man there who did it. He fed us and he kept us around for amusement, I guess, and he did teach us to read some and we picked up the rest. We never went to school. Mostly, it was just us out there alone. Before that, we learned from our mother and father, and there were a few teachers. I guess you could say that before we got here, we were a little spoiled. But the more that I think about it, Randi, I think I understand the feeling that you mean to say." He smiled then, "But I forgot why we began this." She laughed a little, "Well, I wanted to ask you if you'd mind going back to the other shape. I like you either way, but I've wanted to see you the other way, now that I'm not freezing to death and scared. She felt it when he changed then. She'd been leaning on him just a little bit and she noticed it instantly when the feeling of being against a flannel shirt changed. The shirt was gone and when she looked down at his knee, the blue jeans were gone as well, replaced by his mottled fur. When she looked at his face, she found him looking down, as though he was embarrassed. "Please don't look like that," she said, "What's wrong?" "Well, I'm a demon," he said. "I don't know if you can understand it, but human girls were some legendary creatures out of fantasy to us. Hank and I found all kinds of pictures of human women, but we never saw any where we were. I didn't think about it until after I left you when we met, but you're the first true human girl that I've actually touched, and I guess that I was a little afraid of frightening you again." "You don't frighten me at all," she smiled as she looked at his face, "At first, yeah, but then it was a shock and I was right up against you. Why is your fur not all the same color? I've been meaning to ask." He shrugged, "To hide better when we hunt. Where I'm from, it's really cold for most of the year, but all-white fur doesn't work as well as this. We lived in the mountains there. The lowlanders called us mountain demons or snow ghosts. To ourselves, we were Tarkroth, but there are only two of us left anywhere and we're not there anymore." She reached to touch his face for a moment and he allowed it as she studied the patterns there. "The fur on the rest of you is one way, but it's a little different on your face and in a few other places, like your shoulders. More camouflage?" He shook his head, "There were many clans or tribes of us, each with different markings to show what we are. We were all Tarkroth, but the markings here show that I'm a Ch'arnn. If you get a chance when she's better, take a look at my mother. Females take the clan markings of their males if they're from different clans, but their faces always show what they began as. Beyl'eth and Narreth were born Rohn, so that's what's in my mother's face. My father was a Ch'arnn. I'm half Rohn, but I'll always show that I was born a Ch'arnn." Randi sat fascinated as she listened, "So, from the sounds of it, there was some intermarriage between the tribes?" "Yes," he said, "all of the clans were friendly to each other. There wasn't ever a whole lot of intermarriage, but there was always some. The biggest part of that was Rohn females marrying Ch'arnn males, and it happened the other way as well, though not often. The Ch'arnn and the Rohn were very strong allies, and the Ch'arnn were the rulers over all of the Tarkroth. The kings were always Ch'arnn, and it was the law that before a king could rule, he had to take a Rohn wife. I guess it was to keep the alliance strong, and also, if he could survive the courtship, it was seen to be the sign of a good future king." Randi tilted her head," Survive the courtship?" Billy smiled with a nod, "All Rohn females are witches. My mother is really strong in that. The intermarriage at the ruling level was so that the future kings would have at least some power and their mother's teachings," he said as he waved his hand and Randi stared as the scene in the front room turned into a vista of snow-covered mountains before her eyes. He showed her glimpses of the lives of a race of demons in the wilderness from his memory. She saw his brother and learned that his name had been Laish. It went on for a time and then it faded so that the room was back to being a simple room in a large house. Randi sat with her jaw in her lap. "That was wonderful! It was so beautiful there, though I could see that it was really cold. At first, the people looked strange to me, even though you don't at all. But then I knew that I would have been the one who looked strange there. They all looked so strong and yet gentle at the same time. I could see that the females were much smaller than the males, like your mother is next to you. That was so nice to see," she said, "I liked the way that the mothers would hold their children on their hips and just talk to each other while their kids nursed – the whole thing was so peaceful." Billy smiled, "That's what I remember. I'm sure that it was a little simple, since I was just a kid then. I missed out on a lot of that because Hank and I were here when we grew up. We wanted to leave the old creep where we lived, and we finally did – but Hank died and I came here alone." "Who was the beautiful one who was with you the most?" Randi understood what he'd meant about the viewpoint, but to her, it was rather charming. "That was Narreth," he said, "Remember that I said that she wears the body of Beyl'eth now. As you saw her, that was as she was then. I'm sure that I've made it all look a little rosy through my young eyes at the time – and I guess I saw her that way then." "Why did everyone come to ask her things?" Randi asked as she saw him look past her into the flames for a while. "It doesn't mean shit anymore," he said quietly after a moment, "The one that you saw was Queen Narreth as she was before when she lived her own life, in her own body, before my life turned into this." There were waves of heat shimmering off the ground in the scene before her and when the hot wind blew fitfully, it carried dust and the odd bit of dried-up vegetation with it . Some of the buildings had fallen in and in many places everywhere, she saw machines scattered around. The viewpoint changed a little as it moved toward a large building and once inside of it, Randi saw Laish again from the back as he ran to a large wheel and beckoned, wanting them to hurry. Then she was looking up into Laish's worried face as he looked down through an opening as the viewpoint changed and she knew that she was climbing a short metal ladder. Once inside, the ladder was hauled up and a hatch closed, and the pair of boy demons hurried to crouch in a compartment of what had once been known as a Boeing B-52H. Once there, Laish lit a candle so that they could eat something and speak in whispers before the candle was blown out and the demons crawled into a bed made from a sleeping bag and a sheet to hold each other and try to sleep. "That was my home for most of my life, "Billy said as the scene faded, "I guess I was about nine then. We used to sleep inside a big bomber that was in that building, the one that we climbed into. The machines that were everywhere were airplanes that humans had to fly around in. It was years before I learned that the big thing where we slept was made to drop explosives called bombs. We liked it because that was where we felt safest at night. The man who brought us there would find humans and drink their blood and when we were kids that scared us, so we hid ourselves away every night for a while. We could close the hatches and lock them. It probably wasn't any safer than anywhere else, but that's where we'd go to hide and sleep in the Radar Navigator's section. There were maps there and sometimes, I'd sit and sweat in there all day, burning candles and looking at the maps. I didn't know any better then, I guess, but I was trying to figure out the way back so that Hank and I could get home." "Laish looked very scared in the glimpses that I got of him," Randi said in a hushed voice. "He was," the demon nodded, "and he was the brave one. I was just a notch away from pissing myself every night for a while back then." "That must have been awful," she said and he shrugged, "Well by then, we'd pretty much gotten the idea that nobody was coming to save us. I forgot all about the home that we had after a while. It wasn't a palace like what I've seen that human kings and queens used to live in, but it was a good place to live." "Wait a second," Randi said as she shifted a little for comfort, "Can I lean on you more?" she asked and he nodded, "Sure. I like it." She moved to stay on the floor, but turned around a little so that she was sideways to him as she sat cross-legged between his knees with his left leg bent over her knees. As she settled against him a little, Randi looked up. "You said that I saw Queen Narreth. Your mother was the queen?" He nodded a little uncomfortably, "Uh-huh, but all of that's gone, Randi. The last time that I saw it was in a dream where I met my mother as the ghost that she'd become. We have dreams which reflect reality, so I saw the place that I showed you as it is now, under the broken pieces of the mountain behind it." He raised his hand to show her, but Randi reached to stop him, "Please don't show me that. Billy," she said softly, "Not unless you want to see me cry, 'cause I'm pretty sure that I would. I don't need to know about everything that happened. I'm just sad to know what you had and lost at such an early age." She thought for a second, "So if none of that had happened, Laish would have been the king one day?" He shook his head, "Tarkroth queens always spawn twice, not far apart at first. The first child might be a girl or a boy, but the second one is always a boy. The first child was always the one whose role was to protect the second one their whole lives until the second one rose to become king. Hank always looked out for me in everything. We're just wired that way, I guess." He looked at her and smiled a little, "I got nothing from all of this, other than the abilities that I'd have needed one day to rule there. I didn't want any of it – it just came to me here while I wasn't looking. I'm not the king of anything and I never was, though Beyl'eth always made noises that I was. I'm just a demon with a history that I never got to live in, that's all." Randi felt the pressure against her leg, not far above her knee and she knew what it was right away, so she reached to his surprise and a bit of shock as she moved her leg a little and took his hardening shaft in her hand very gently to move it so that it rested against her thigh and might be a little less uncomfortable than it had to have been getting where it was. She hadn't meant to, but the way that her leg had been must have been pressing against him. She knew that she was right after a moment's thought about the warmth that she'd felt there. "Sorry about that," she smiled a little ruefully as she touched it lightly, "I didn't mean to cause that. I wasn't thinking. Is that better?" Billy nodded, but he was still a little surprised, and he saw her little grin, "I don't mind it if that happens, Billy. I used to have somebody for me once, so it's not like I'm gonna get all flustered because I accidentally caused that to get a little hard. I am a farm girl, you know. The only thing that's different is that it's a demon's and it belongs to somebody that I'm beginning to see as a friend. Just don't start rubbing it on me." She raised her hand and looked at the wetness of the thin fluid on her fingers in the dim light of the fire, "Crap," she said and she amazed him further as her clothing disappeared, "I don't have anything to wipe this off with," she shrugged as she wiped her fingers against her bare leg for a moment. She looked at him and almost laughed at his expression, "Don't you get your hopes up," she said with a little chuckle as she waved her other index finger at him, "I like you. I just don't like you enough, "she smiled as she leaned against him more and pulled his arms around her. "I might, though," she sighed as she felt the warmth and comfort of his soft fur against her. Right then, she felt as though she could have been happy forever just snuggled up against him like this with her head on his shoulder. He looked at Randi and she looked back. "What?" she asked. "I feel something like ... as though you have accepted something," he said, "I don't know what it is, but I feel it." "I don't know," she said, "but I was alone here for a long time, and I guess that I can understand how you felt, always wanting to feel safe. After what Rudy did to save my life, I don't feel so nervous anymore." She pressed her head against him for a moment as she spoke. "I know that you were thinking that I'd be afraid of you, but the more that we talk, I'm beginning to think of you as the biggest, best teddy bear in the world. She had to explain what a teddy bear was after that, but Billy smiled once he understood. "I'd better be going," she said after a few more minutes, "or I'll want to feel that body against me all night, and I'm not anywhere near ready for that." He nodded, "I think that I finally understand about you and some of what you've been through yourself. Now I'm the one who is sad. I used to read books in the library at the base, and there was a section for their children. So I read all that I could to see what it was like to be a human child. From what I read, what happened to you shouldn't have happened any more than what happened to me and Hank. I think my favorites were about a girl named Trixie." Randi smirked a little, "Billy, I read those books too. I don't remember the name of where Trixie Whatever-her-name-was grew up, but those books painted things a lot rosier than your memories from when you were little. Neither one of us is lucky enough to be living a fairytale." She moved to get herself a little untangled so that she could stand, "After you brought me home that day," she said, "I thought about you for a long time afterward, and I suddenly knew that you'd never have hurt me, so it's not a big jump for me to want your friendship the way that I seem to, but I'm not the same girl that you pulled against you and tried so hard to warm up as I was that day. I've got to think about that, Billy." "Randi," he whispered looking up with a little sadness, "I'm just a fucking demon. What the hell would you want with somebody like me anyway?" She didn't answer. She just looked down at what she saw now standing up in his lap, almost pressed against his abdomen. "What are you gonna do about that?" she asked. He looked surprised, "Nothing," he said with a shrug, "It'll give up and go down in a little while." He watched as Randi rolled her eyes, "Wrong answer, Handsome. I'd have felt better if you'd just have said that you were gonna take that up to the hayloft and do what comes naturally to a male like you. Give me a little room here," she said as she reached down to push against the inside of his thigh. Randi Farber thought back to the first scenes that he'd shown her, of people like him living their lives in a bit of happiness and peace. She was sure that they were his honest memories from when he was just a little boy. It had amazed her, the way that she could look around in them, as though she was seeing everything with her own eyes then. She was thinking of something that she'd seen there and she was certain that he hadn't noticed it, but she had. She didn't know much about the culture of those long-dead ones there in that snowy paradise, but she did see it as a pair of young adult demons stood off to the side in the panorama. Billy might not have noticed or maybe it was just a common thing which was such an everyday occurrence there that it was just not a big deal. She'd seen the two of them standing almost face to face with the male's wings around the female. From what she now knew of the range of expressions of his kind and their motions, she knew that they'd been doing some heavy petting between them standing up. A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 49 When she had the room for it again, she placed her knees very carefully and knelt down in front of him and the way that he looked at her almost took her far past the point where she wanted to be as she took that almost-hot thing in her hand and began to stroke it for him. His eyebrows rose and his beautiful mouth opened a little as he stared at her in wonder. Randi moved only a little closer to him since she needed some space at least. She laid one arm on his shoulder and she smiled at him. "I didn't mean to cause this, Billy, but there's nobody here to see it if I do something a little nice for the one who saved my life. I grew up here and I know how things are for a male. Maybe I know it more than a lot of girls might, I dunno. You're my friend, Billy, and I think I've never needed a friend like you more. You might be all big and powerful to most people, and maybe you're enough to frighten some people out of their wits. But you're my friend, and to me, you're a teddy bear who makes me feel good to lean against, and you sure look good to me. So I don't want to hear you say that you're just a demon as though that's a bad thing to be. If you were a man, I'd probably have died out there that day instead of being in the arms of somebody wonderful. Just put those wings around me again if you can like this." Billy's ears went back then as he looked at her, "You're so - I've never seen anyone like you, Randi. I love your eyes and that hair, I – " She looked at him with a sigh and a smile, "So it's not just what I've got in my hand that likes me, huh?" Billy looked embarrassed then, but the way that he looked was pretty hard on her heart to see it. "Come on, Billy," she sighed to him, "you don't need to feel shy with me. I know that you've just said what you've been thinking for a long time and I'm really flattered. I'm not some twit who'd think that what you said came out because of what I'm doing. So we like the way that we look to each other. There's not a thing wrong with that." She saw it in the darkness as he brought his wings forward and she moaned a little in spite of herself as she felt them ease themselves around her. The warmth of them was incredible and the way that they felt against her bare skin was the most amazing feeling to her. She leaned in and kissed him then, moaning as his mouth opened and she felt those teeth against her cheeks and that hot tongue of his beginning to respond to the way that hers licked against it. She listened to him groan to her as she worked him. She didn't mind doing this for him at all, she thought as she raised herself up a little and she felt his strong arms as he held her. "Please Billy," she whispered to him, "suck on my tit a little while, if you wouldn't mind." When she felt his lips there she moaned as she looked down, but the way that those jaws opened for her breast brought her a long way nearer to a thought that she was beginning to come to accept and when they closed over her flesh so softly and his tongue began to work its heat into her nipple, Randi actually shuddered, shivering in amazement that this one thing could bring her off so sweetly. "Just listen to me for a little while, Billy," she sighed the words to him, "I – hhhhh, I used to do this for, ... hhhh, ohhh, ... for my stepbrother all the time because I knew that heee, ... he needed it from me. I never had a reason to trust any man for a long time after." Billy stopped then and she looked down at him, "Please don't stop now, Billy." He took her nipple between his lips then and she went on, "I know that I can trust in you, Billy. I just need a little ... hhhhh, time, that's all." Things were getting a bit frantic for Billy down in his loins then. He couldn't help it and he couldn't hold back for very much longer. He lifted his mouth from her breast and Randi heard the sounds of his whispers as his lips grazed her nipple, "I'm going to – Randi, I'm going to leave more of a mess any second." That sweet face was in front of him an instant later and he could see that she was earnest. "That's ok, Billy. You just come on me all you want, honey. I've never liked it all that much, but I sure want it now." He looked as though he hadn't comprehended what she's said, but the real reason that he looked that way was because of the pretty green eyes that he saw before him as she smiled, "I hate it if I'm forced and I really hate being dragged around and beat up. But my teddy bear would never do that," she smiled sweetly enough for his heart to go into overpressure, near to the range that was reserved for life or death combat or ... deep into something else. "You just put your beautiful face into my hair and come on me all you want. I hate being beat up, but I think that I'd just love to be messed up and covered in what you've got." It finished him, though not at that second. Billy looked at her a moment longer and she nodded her encouragement as she pulled his head so that his face was in her hair against her neck, "Let it go, Billy," she whispered. Billy the lost demon came then. He made no sound other than his soft grunting against her throat as she felt his the hottest wetness from a male that she'd ever felt as it sprayed against her. She was amazed and she shuddered again as it came to her that he'd actually hit the undersides of her tits – both of them. The way that it felt as it hung from one of them was it for her and she groaned as she felt his hot semen all over the inside of her arm and her belly. It was headed for her lap, and she did what she'd have never dreamed to doing for anyone as she moved her thighs apart to allow it to run so slowly into her pubic hair and beyond. They hung on to each other for a little while after that and Randi loved the way that his heated breath came to her whenever he exhaled against her throat. "Thanks, Billy," she whispered, and he looked up with his mouth open. "Why are you thanking me? I was about to say that to you, Randi. You're so beautiful to me and what you did – " "What YOU did, "she smiled, "was teach me that I'm good enough for somebody – one person. For one person, I was perfect." He shook his head, "You are perfect in my eyes, but I'm only –" "Somebody who would never hurt me," she smiled as she leaned in to kiss him softly, "I think that we've both got something to think about for a little while. I know that there's a lot of hurt in you and it's the same for me. Maybe we can help each other, I don't know," she said as she looked down then. Randi felt it as she drew the life out of his semen and the fluid disappeared a moment later. She hadn't known that she could do this and now she was a little saddened that she'd done it, especially after the way that it felt to her as it ran so slowly over her mound and her outer lips. To her, what had been there was right. The way that it had felt was right, too. What she'd done was natural for what she was now, but she didn't like it. "Rudy thinks that I don't know, but I do. We love each other, but we can get to anything like you and I could do for each other so easily. I can't believe it, but I came a couple of times and you didn't even touch me anywhere but my boobs. I've never felt anything like that before. Rudy will leave someday soon. I know it from the way that she asks me things about how to live here and by the way that she tries to teach me to defend myself as well." She looked at his face and felt herself wanting to begin again, but she fought off the urge, wanting the space of a little time to think things through before she blurted much more of her heart out, but she did smile. "I guess it probably doesn't mean that much to you, but tonight, I made a really handsome demon come. I'm chalking that up as one big accomplishment. I'm actually a little proud of myself over it" Billy chuckled then. "It means quite a lot to me," he said, "because it means a lot to you. I don't know why you'd think that it's such a big accomplishment, though." "You shut up now, Billy," she smiled, "It is to me, ok?" He nodded, "Ok, I'm not trying to take anything away from what I see is important to you at all. I'm just trying to see why I'd be handsome to you and why it would seem to be such a big thing. If it helps you to feel any happier, I can say that from the second that you grabbed me, I was lost and had no choice." "Really?" she asked, and when he nodded, she was even happier. He was a little lost again as she hugged him tightly. Then she began to whisper into his ear, "I'm not a demon." "No," he whispered back, "you're a lovely and kind human." "And you're a gorgeous demon, no matter how you choose to look," she whispered. "To somebody like me, it's something. I know that a lot of the demons who fly all over grab women to rape them, but they never really do that more than once and then they kill them most times. I've even heard that they eat them, and not in a good way. So to me, when you helped me that day, I had a lot to think about after I calmed down. You were walking away and I was looking at your little butt, trying to think about why it's supposed to be so wrong. I was looking at your tail and that fine demon ass that I was supposed to feel icky to be seeing." She shifted a little to get more comfortable, and it brought her breasts against his chest. She kept her face against his cheek, but she shivered a little and he groaned, which made this worse for them both. "Feel that?" she hissed softly into his ear, "Can you feel the way that we just seem to fit together? I know that you're not doing anything, Billy, but I'm so wet – " "I know," he sighed, "I feel it on my leg." "God, "she moaned a little, "I'm never like this. I know that right now, I'm just pouring for you. I watched you walk away that day and I had my hands full over what happened to me before I met you. I was upset and angry and I don't know what. I couldn't think straight and I just wanted to kill somebody for what he did to me. But right then," she whispered, "while you were walking, you changed back to looking human and I was looking at the same really cute butt in a pair of jeans. The only thing that was missing was your tail. After you were gone, I took your advice and I stoked that old stove and tried to get warm. When I was in the tub, finally feeling the warmth of that really hot bath, I knew that I'd met one demon who was different." She drew back and looked at him, "So you get your feelings sorted out over the one that you lost, and I'll try to get mine sorted out too, over Rudy, ok? You offered your friendship to me and I'm taking it, Billy. We'll just have to see if there's something left over for us out of all this, that's all." Randi stood up then and Billy stood up too. She tried to say goodnight and he did as well. They ended up in each other's arms all over again. "Just for a little while," she sighed, "I just need to feel your wings on me for a little while longer." When he'd wrapped her in his wings, Randi sighed and leaned her head on his shoulder again. "The biggest, best teddy bear in all the world. Thank you for wanting to be my friend." She lifted her head and she kissed him very softly as he lowered his wings and brought them to their position, folded against his back. She left him then, while she still had the will for it and Billy watched her go, glad in some ways and more confused about things than ever as he turned and walked to the ladder to the hayloft. -------------------- Randi got into bed with Rudhi and she kissed her goodnight, but she felt her friend against her a moment later. "I wish to talk," she heard in her mind, so Randi nodded. "I have felt it as you were with the demon," Rudhi said, "and there are things that you should know. I am happy that you are so close to him. I think that you need each other." Randi rolled over and found herself in Rudhi's arms then. "What do you mean?" she asked. "You both have sadness," Rudhi nodded, "and I have not been able to help you as I wanted. I believe that he can help you, just as you can help him. But what we are changes things. If it is done wrongly or by accident, Randi, you must know that you can kill him. From what I see, there is so much life in one like him, but even so, it is something which you must guard against doing. There is a much better way, I think." The redhead blinked up in the darkness, "What do you mean, Rudy?" The blue eyes glowed a little as the thoughts came into Randi's mind, "If you grow close enough for it, as I think that you will soon, then you can couple with him all that you like, and he can feed you at the same time, when you draw the life from his seed. If there comes a time when you wish to have his little ones, then you must allow his seed to remain and do as it is intended to do. After that, you must allow this life in you to be and to grow. For what we need, you will need to take other life, from cattle and so forth until the child is birthed." Randi was sad now. Until that moment, she was beginning to think that something good might turn into something wonderful if it worked out, but now Rudy was reminding her that she was no longer just a simple human girl. She wanted to cry then, but she didn't. "What would the child be?" she asked, "A weak demon kid who looks a little human and needs to feed on her mother's life instead of her milk when she sucks my tits?" "No," Rudhi said patiently, "A wonderful child somehow, I am certain. You are not what I am, Randi. You are LIKE what I am in some ways." It was true, Randi thought, she could do a few of the things which Rudy could, but she sure couldn't fly. The more that she thought about it, the more differences that she found. "So it's not hopeless?" she asked, "I was wondering what I was gonna do after you're gone." Rudhi looked down at her and shook her head, "That day is coming, my lovely friend, but it is not yet here and even so, I will never forget you and it is my hope that I will always be welcome, because it is my intent to return to you often." "That's good enough, I guess, "Randi whispered softly as she kissed Rudhi's nipple and opened her mouth. --------------------------- Things were different in the morning, and Randi noticed as she and Rudhi worked at some breakfast for everyone. Sully came to ask for something for Narreth and he smiled a little shyly, though he was very grateful to be handed two plates to take back and eat with Narreth. Billy sat at the counter and asked Randi what he might so for her that day and they talked of the things that she'd need. But it was Jonas who looked a little different to them. He ate his meal and thanked them both, and then he brought up the matter of the loose horseshoe. "I can handle that, Jonas," Randi smiled, "You just give me a little time to eat with Billy, and I'll be out there and get you fixed up in no time. But why the hurry? You fixin' to leave?" He nodded, "Yeah. I think it's time for me to move along. Sully doesn't know it, but there's an early spring rodeo in a few days over at Fort Collins. They got a pretty fat purse that they're offering, and I want to try my luck." "Well then you'd better get a move on, so I'll do the shoe right now," Randi said, "Fort Collins isn't just over the hill." ------------------------ While Randi worked, there was a polite knock at the door to the room where Sully sat feeding Narreth her breakfast and having a ball doing it. He was a little surprised to see Jonas, and one look told him that they'd come to the parting of the ways. "I dunno, Sully," Jonas smiled, "I just want to be on my way and it's no big stretch to see that you've found yourself a reason to come in off the road and stay here someplace. Me, I've got nothing like that." They talked for a while and then Jonas left, and with the shoe back on his horse and fitted better than ever, Jonas expressed his heartfelt thanks for everything and loaded his gear onto his steed and rode off as Randi sat down to a still-warm breakfast with Billy. After the meal, Billy got started on the small mountain of wood which needed to be cut to stove length, split and stacked in several places. Randi went to see Narreth and Sully as Rudhi tagged along and brought them all hot cups of coffee. "I wish to ask some things of Narreth," Randi smiled a little awkwardly, and when it had been translated, the demon patted the bed with a delighted smile, "I want ... English," Narreth said with a laugh. "I was with ... "Randi tried to remember the name that she'd heard, but she had to give up, "your son last night." Sully translated and Narreth nodded, "Ayt'han," she said, wanting to encourage the girl. "Ayt'han," the redhead smiled, "Well, he showed me the way that it was where you're from, and I think that it was so beautiful, though he said that it's not like that anymore. I saw the people and now I want to learn some of your ways." Narreth's eyes opened wide at this, but she thought that she saw the reasoning behind it, and Sully's translation reflected that. "Narreth says that she thinks that she knows why you'd want to know, and if she's right, then you're making her very happy, but she says that Ayt'han grew up here and never really had much experience at what you're talking about." "I know that," Randi said, "but I still want to know a few of the customs, and I'd especially want to know the right way to address someone like him." Narreth leaned forward a little, wondering for a moment. "She'd like to know the circumstance of the address," Sully said, looking a little confused now, "Do you mean, how does one address Ayt'han the male, Ayt'han the lord, or Ayt'han, king of the Tarkroth, since he is all three." He looked at Narreth in confusion, "I don't understand now." "Sully," Randi said, "I'm happy to tell you that your Narreth here was once the queen of her kind – all of them. The king, her male died, as did Narreth herself. There are only two of the Tarkroth left anywhere now; Narreth and her son Ayt'han, though I hope that I'm not insulting her if I call him Billy. Billy was once the crown prince, and if he were there now, and if there were any others, Billy would be king." Narreth looked at Sully and she could see that some of this was a bit much for him, "This is not important, Thomas," she said, "Not anymore and not to me. This one only wishes to learn the customs of a people who no longer live. She seems to like my son from what I see and I want to help if I can." Sully nodded and they began. -------------------------- He rode through most of the morning and came to a meeting of several roads. There was a horse there whose rider looked at all of the way signs in a bit of frustrated confusion. Jonas stopped and asked if the young man needed a bit of help. The man looked over at Jonas and was trying to frame his question when Jonas lifted his head a little and the young man saw his face. "You – you're Jonas Bull!" he exclaimed and Jonas nodded, "I am. What's your trouble? Maybe I can help." It turned out that the young man – whose name was Elliott T. Hopkins, was on his way to the same hole in the wall town that Jonas was riding back to, but he'd misplaced the map that he'd been given and was lost. "I've got a job waiting for me there at the bank," he said, "I've been trying to get this all set up for over six months to move there." "Well we can ride there together, then," Jonas smiled, "It's not all that far now. How do you know me?" Elliott looked a little embarrassed, but he finally just came out with it. "I was passing through, looking for work that I can do. I'm not the strongest sort like you are, Mister Bull. Anyway, I spent a weekend there and I found the place where you do those shows with the goblins. I came to every one after I saw the first one. I just had to." A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 49 Jonas smiled at the horizon for a moment, "I don't suppose that you came to every show to see me fight." "No sir," Elliott said, "I mean, I enjoyed seeing you fight and all, but ... well ... " He looked down in silence for a moment. "Those goblin women, what do they do with them in between shows? I don't know how to say it so's I don't look any more of a fool that I must already look to you, but I'd really like to meet them if I could." Jonas tried not to look like he was enjoying this anywhere near as much as he was. "You don't look like a fool to me at all, Elliott," he smiled, "I guess I'd like to know why you're so interested and if you'd want to meet all three, or if it's only one that you'd really like to meet in person. Seems to me that you're coming an awful long way if you only want an autograph." Elliott struggled over it for the next few miles, but Jonas finally got the answer to his question, though it looked as though young Elliott was going to screw himself into the ground in embarrassment long before then. "Well, there's one of them, not the mountain queen one. One of her handmaidens," the young man said with difficulty, "Not the one that carries on with Sarah," he said, "Well, they all carry on with her. But the one I mean does that the least. She looks like the youngest of them and, ... well I ..." "She's the one that you'd like to meet so much?" Jonas smiled, showing that his amusement was more from Elliott's struggles than anything else. "Yessir," Elliott said quietly, "I know that I ain't much to look at to somebody like her, and she's probably got herself somebody anyhow, but she's the reason that I'm going there to live. I've never seen anybody like her and I guess I'm hoping that ... maybe one day ..." Jonas sighed as he looked ahead and Elliott looked over as the large man spoke then, "I'm hoping that I'll get to hear this all before I get old and die, Elliott. Promise me that you won't faint if I tell you something?" "Yessir, I mean no sir," Elliott stammered and Jonas reached over and laid his hand on the young man's arm, "Calm down, boy. Now, you say you went to see all of the shows one weekend? You saw what they do to me there?" "Yeah," Elliott said, looking down, "I saw it. I couldn't help but watch and I was wishin' it was me there, but I know they'da killed me. I wanted to be the man that one got to have." Jonas Bull looked serious for a moment as he spoke, "Well 'that one' has a name, friend, and if you want to have any chance to get to know her for longer than a very short and polite introduction, you'd best commit her name to memory – though I'm sure that there's no chance that you'd forget it somehow. I know which of them you mean." Elliott looked over, "Is it hard to say?" he asked, "Would you teach it to me so's I can say it right to her one time?" "Sure, Elliott," Jonas grinned, "Do you think that you're ready to hear it so you can begin to practice saying it in your private moments and maybe even your sleep, if you're hit as bad as I think you must be." "Yessir," the polite Elliott T. Hopkins said as he turned and tried to listen intently. "Her name's Lizzie," Jonas smiled. "Lizzie?" Elliott stared, "You mean like in – " "Yup," Jonas chuckled, "Like in Elisabeth. With a little luck, I can maybe help you meet her." But Elliot hadn't heard that that part. Jonas looked over and he saw Elliott looking down a little as he said it, "Lizzie." "Oh Murphy," Jonas said softly, shaking his head a little, "You sure have got it bad, haven't you?" "Can she speak to me, or, ... is there some way that you can teach me the language that they use?" Jonas laughed then, "Elliott, she speaks good old-fashioned English better than I do, and hold onto your saddle there for a minute, but she's really very charming and sweet. Sorry if I'm bursting your bubble for you if you need to meet a savage goblin girl. Lizzie is a sweetheart and I can maybe get you a chance to meet her. You've got a bit of time to kill anyway, since you need to find a place to live and all. There won't be any shows for another three weeks now – plenty of time to get to know her, if that's what you really want. You want to make a good impression, then if I can do this for you, you'll need to bring her a bunch of snowbells. They're here favorite flower, and no, she doesn't eat them or anything." ---------------------------- Billy was a little startled to see Randi standing in the open doorway of the forge, calling out to him holding a pair of steaming mugs with spoons sticking out of them and doing her level best not to spill a drop while trying to keep her fingers from getting burned at the same time. When he got to the door, he found her inside, setting the mugs onto the large anvil. "I brought you something to warm you up a little, though I know that busting wood like that keeps the chill off pretty good all by itself. I thought that you might want a break," she smiled. Billy said his thanks, but she seemed to have a bit of a funny look on her face as well. "I'm not wearing more than my usual for when I'm running around inside and with the fire here gone out a long time ago now, there's not much warmth from it." She looked at him, "So before we have the hot soup that I brought, I'd like to stand inside your wings, if I could. I'm not a Tarkroth, but I'm pretty sure that I'd like to have been one, and I am a female. From what I know, you have to give me your warmth and protection if I ask for it – and I'm asking for it." Billy looked at her a little strangely, but she ignored it as he changed his shape and brought his wings forward with a smile to offer what she'd asked for, though he was rather surprised. "Jesus, he's a lot bigger like that," Sully whispered to himself as they watched from the doorway. He felt Narreth's arms around him. She was wearing the look of a proud mother. Randi bowed just a little first, the way that Narreth had coached her and her words were far from perfect in their pronunciation, but she did try and Billy understood them. "Randi Farber sees the Ch'arnn lord, Ayt'han," she said with a hopeful smile as she reached for him and felt his wings against her. Billy smiled as he closed the circle of his wings around her and he nodded back, "I am no lord, but Ayt'han sees his friend Randi," he said in English as her clothing disappeared so that she could feel his fur against her. Her hands were around his waist and she lifted one hand to poke his ribs gently. Billy flinched right away and Randi laughed a little, "You let me have my little daydreams, Billy, and you'll find that we'll get along a whole lot better, just telling you now, alright?" "Alright," he smiled as she kissed him once and laid her head on his shoulder. "I know that all of that's gone," she said, "but it's a nice thought to me to imagine that I found myself there in a place like that and I met you. I guess it would be a big stretch to hope that I'd even rate a look by the young king, though." "You'd have to downgrade me in that daydream," he said quietly, "My mother is standing over there with Sully now and I can see that she likes us together, but back there in the Quarn of the of the king, she'd be standing on tradition like crazy because she'd have to, whether she liked you or not. I think that's the trouble with fairytales. So I'd have to be the young lord who found you lost in the mountain passes and fell for you. That way, I'd only have to brave the disappointment of a family that I wasn't bringing back a Tarkroth bride, and not the royal family." "Well, what if I was a Rohn?" she asked, "That would work, right? See? I have been listening to you." He sighed and held her tighter, "That would work. Then you'd just have to pick me out of all of the hopefuls who came for you, and you'd only have to get the queen to like you, but my mother was never a snot in any way, and I get the feeling that you're already in her heart." Narreth looked up at Sully, "I think that she will try now." Sully shook his head, "I don't think so," he said, "Not yet. Human girls uses their heads a lot, and from what I see, she's not ready just yet, though I can see it in her." Narreth let go of Sully, "That is good," she said, "As much as she has for him, it is too soon if she is not sure. And that she is not sure tells me that she has wisdom." She stepped away and began to walk to them. As the former queen neared the pair, Randi opened her eyes and noticed her. She didn't understand what Narreth said in her quiet smiling tone, and she wondered about it as Narreth's hands went to her own throat. Billy gasped quietly as he saw what her intent was. "Move your wings, Ayt'han," she smiled, "This girl seeks to know of us and our ways before they are forgotten. For one like her, I would do a great deal." Randi looked surprised as Billy stepped back and Narreth went to her knees, "Surely this is a first among us," she chuckled, "that an old queen kneels to one who is not one of us yet has a want to be a little like us." "What's she doing?" Randi asked, her nakedness forgotten in her surprise as Narreth continued to speak. "She says that we are not where we once belonged, and so we must seek to belong where we are," Billy said with a surprised smile himself, "She says that we must accept with grace the honor that is shown to us by one who seeks to know of us." Narreth reached out and gently pulled against the inside of Randi's thigh until Randi moved her foot to allow it as she continued to speak and her son translated for her. "Where we were, none wore this clothing that she sees all around her. She understands the need for it in humans, but she says that there is no shame for you to be as we were when it suits – as long as it does not cause you to be ill from it, but you are missing one thing which says that you are marriageable. A Tarkroth girl wears her wedding band before she marries. My mother says that she doesn't need her band anymore, but she'd be honored if you'd wear it if you want to be like one of us. It doesn't mean anything but that you're single and of age." Randi stood still as Narreth strapped her wedding band onto Randi's calf just below the knee before she drew back her hands and stood up. "She says that she sees a fine Tarkroth girl before her now, and if you want, she'll teach you anything that you'd care to learn, but that right now, you should get back to where it's warm for you." Randi looked down at Narreth and she hugged her. As she drew back, Narreth kissed her cheek, and walked away with a warm smile to Sully as they left to go back. Randi shivered a little as she reached for Billy again, "What, um, ... what just happened there?" "The impossible," Billy laughed a little quietly, "My mother gave you a Tarkroth wedding band. It was hers when she was a single girl." Randi thought about it for a moment, "But she had it around her neck." He nodded, "Single females wear it on their legs. When they marry, it goes around their throats. Most always wear it there, but it's not necessary unless there are other males around who might not know that she's married. It saves a lot of misunderstandings." Randi began to smile very slowly, "So, am I wrong, or did your mother just give me her blessing? ... You know, in case I was foolish enough to want to think about taking my little fairytale daydream to the next level?" "Well," he laughed, "she must want something, and I'd say that you're pretty high up in her books. No Tarkroth queen has ever knelt before anyone as far as I know, except maybe to her king in a private moment. I do know a couple of things. That she called you a Tarkroth was a high honor coming from her, and our queens were known to be pretty crafty. My mother was famous for a lot of things, and brokering peace or taking care of the less fortunate were just a couple of them. I'll have to be careful now; you've got yourself a pretty powerful friend in her." Randi smiled to herself and then at him, "Come on, Billy. I don't know all that much about this stuff, but I do know that Lord Ayt'han's friend Randi Farber is just as hungry as he is, and our soup's getting cold." As they ate, she found Billy looking at her now and then. She mentioned it and asked if there was something bothering him and he shook his head, but Randi knew that there was something. "Come on," she coaxed, "there is something. I want to know if it's something that I can help with." He drew a breath and then let it out as he tried to think of how to say it. "I see how much you like what I am, and I ought to be really happy that you do. I just ... you said that you might want to go further with me and, ..." His shoulders sagged then, "Randi, I could love you – I already do." Randi set her mug down on the anvil again, "I guess this is where I get the news, whatever it is. Is this because I'm human or whatever Rudy turned me into?" He shook his head, "No. It's about my life. Everything – everyone always gets taken from me. I had my life taken away when I was dumped here with Hank. That old prick back then loved to give me something and then come up with a reason why I couldn't or shouldn't have it and he'd take it away again. We tried to get away, and it didn't stop. My parents, my friends, my brother, all of them. Bad things happen to anyone who gets a little close. Beyl'eth – " He stopped then and walked away out into the wet snow which was falling. As Randi watched, the wind picked up for a moment and he disappeared as her sight of him was obscured by blowing snow. She wanted to run after him, but when the wind dropped off again, he was gone. She could hear him as he got back to work on the other side of the mountain of wood, she just couldn't see him. It was as though he was gone from her life. She picked up the mugs and went into the house. She set the mugs into the sink and turned to go to her bedroom, but when she looked up, she found Rudhi there with Narreth and she found that she couldn't help the tears which came to her an instant later. ------------------------ Billy worked with a vengeance, angry with himself for allowing what had happened between him and Randi to even begin. He almost broke the saw and uncharacteristically for him, he threw it down and then went to splitting some of the wood that he'd cut because he wanted to hit something. His first swing with the sledge hammer at the steel wedge that he set drove it through the wood and over two feet into the earth. He dropped the hammer and got to his knees to pull the wedge up and then he knew that he was beyond his ability to use implements as he saw the way that he'd peened over the end of the wedge with the force of the blow. He set everything aside and began to just pick up the sawn sections in his hands and rip them in two, throwing them into a rough pile that he intended to stack properly later as his angry tears ran. Finally, he tore up the last section that he'd cut up and as he threw the pieces, one of them landed against another, smaller piece and the way that it had been lying until then caused it to flip into the air and hit him in the head. Billy almost roared in blind rage and frustration then until he noticed that his mother stood there in Sully's shirt with another piece of wood in her small hand. "What are you doing outside?" he asked, "You should be there back in the bed." "I am here to see if you need another piece to knock your head with," she said, clearly looking annoyed with her son, "What sort of foolishness is this? You have lost much in your life, but I have lost more, and by a wide margin. I lost my sons and my happiness left me that day. I lost my male later," she said her voice rising with the wind as it picked up from the emotion in her. She threw the wood down at his feet, where it didn't bounce, but only splashed his legs with mud as it was embedded in the soft earth and snow. The wind picked up unnaturally and the two of them stood looking at each other in the maelstrom of her ire. Their long hair whipped around them as the wild wind buffeted them. Narreth's shirt flapped and fluttered so hard that she looked as though she might blow away any second. "I lost my clan!" she shouted at him over the howling wind, "I lost all of my family! My people! I lost the very ones that I cared for – thousands of them! Rohn, Ch'arnn, Sheshlet, Morden'th, Shanh, all of them! Seventeen clan chiefs I knew, male and female, and all of their mates. Over a hundred of their little ones, I knew. I knew all of their names, everything about them all. Over a hundred young Tarkroth who looked up at me and called me their Great Aunt Narreth. I see them in my dreams still. All of them dead. All of them! I lost my life and everything in it. I had no choice but to do as I did, and even so, to me, I am a queen who failed her people." She was starting to cry herself as she went on, "I have lost my kinswoman, who helped me when I needed her after my passing. I held her when she was a babe. She was not only your mate, Ayt'han; she was my beyllix – my heart and the last hope of a murdered people. I am trapped in her body. How do you think that it feels to be where I do not belong?" She stepped closer to him and she leveled her finger at him, "You tell yourself that you do not wish it, but you were to be king. Like it or not, that was your purpose for a race of people. A king knows when he must think of everything and not only his sadness, lest he lead those who follow to a foolish doom. Whether we are cursed somehow or not means nothing. We are not only Tarkroth. We were rulers, being made for the task. Stop thinking of yourself. Like this, you are the same as Beyl'eth was and just as selfish. You have a right to your sadness, but you have no right to drag others into your darkness. You think to wander away and do what? How romantic the thought of the young and cursed king over no one as he wanders the land where he does not belong. The romance of the image fades as soon as he is out of sight. We have found such wealth here for us, and we can give it to others because they love us in spite of what we are. Even I have found a male for me and in that home there sits a female who loves you and weeps because she thinks that now SHE is cursed and cannot win your love! Until you can rule yourself, you cannot rule others. Even though there is no one to rule here, you are the last Tarkroth king, Ayt'han. A king needs to know when to give comfort and help and he must know above all when he is wrong. Rule your own heart and then go and rule the one that she aches to offer to you. In doing that, surrender yours to her then and you will both be happy, for that is all that there is under everything else. The poorest male and female are the same in the darkness as the highest king and his queen as they cling to the one who cares for them and wishes for a little love. To do anything else proves me right and it is the most bitter argument to win for me. You are a fine male - in any way that you wish to appear. That one knows that. She sees the same one for her either way, and she has had her own sadness to live through." She walked up as the wind of her anger fell away and she put her hand on his shoulder. "Show her that you are the king that she dreams of." She walked away then and he was alone. ----------------------- Randi was coming to the conclusion that she was now even more defective, somehow as she wiped her eyes and was about to get up and plan out some evening meal for the others that she wouldn't be eating with them. She didn't want to eat. She didn't want to do anything anymore. His touch amazed her when he came to her. Especially since she was in a room with a closed door, and that door hadn't opened. But she knew that it was him from the feel of his hand on her shoulder. A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 49 "Before you lose all of your hope," he said, "Please look at me." Randi turned to find him there, looking very human and sad as he got to his knees next to the bed. He held her hands in his and he looked up for a moment before he spoke. "I have hurt my friend, and I only hope that I haven't lost your friendship. I was being selfish and stupid, and I – " He looked down, "I've made you cry, and that's even worse. I liked it before when you had a daydream. I'm very sorry if I took that from you." "What happened to your head?" she asked as she noticed the bit of dirt on his forehead and reached to remove it gently, "Did something hit you from that wind out there? I though the roof was gonna blow off or something. Are you hurt?" "No," he smirked with a sigh, "I'd have probably come to the idea of what I ought to do eventually, but knowing me, it would have been far too late, if it isn't already. I got knocked in the head with a piece of wood because I was being an idiot. But the light came on then, so I came to tell you that I meant what I said, Randi. I love you." He rose up on his knees then and he kissed her. When he drew back, she looked at him for a moment and he knew that he hadn't lost what he'd only just found when she put her arms around his neck and hugged him tightly. "We're still friends and I love you, Billy," she smiled, "None of the men that I've ever known ever said they were sorry for anything. Would you help me make dinner in a little while? After that, I want to go for a walk with you. I think we need to talk some." She touched his cheek and smiled, "Don't worry, I just want to get some stuff said between us, that's all. You didn't really wreck my daydream, you just made me see that it might work as long as we're careful. I just need for you to know, that's all – and I really want to go for a walk with you too." ---------------------- Randi sat on the bed with Narreth and stared at the scenes that were painted for her, just as Billy had done for her. "There!" she exclaimed as she pointed, "What are those two doing? I saw that before in Ayt'han's memories." Narreth explained and Sully looked a little embarrassed, but he did his best, "Those two are a pair of young lovers," he said, "It's allowed to be fairly intimate before a girl marries, but actual uh, ..." "Intercourse?" Randi volunteered. "Ah, yes," Sully nodded, "That's forbidden. They're allowed to do that there in public since nobody can see what's going on, though everyone knows anyway and they think it's charming to see. Nobody really cares." He listened to Narreth for a moment and then he said, "Among the girls, it's a bit of quiet pride if they show each other what they've been doing, so they leave the traces of it to freeze, and only get it off once they're in someplace warm. Parents don't much mind, since it means that their daughters are desirable, so to speak and are only using their hands. But Narreth says that a lot of girls go further than that in private and she did as well. Because of her status in her clan, she couldn't let any male go at her, as much as she wanted that, but if it weren't for that, she says that she would have, with the right male. She had to settle for a lot of ..." Narreth saw the difficulty and slapped her own haunch with a quiet chuckle, and Randi nodded with a laugh, and from the way that Narreth spoke of it, Randi saw that it was not all that much of a hardship for her back then. "She says that Ayt'han's father was very hard to resist and it was even harder for her to see him leave after they'd been courting awhile. Rohn and Ch'arnn have always been very attracted to each other, she says. She knows that you're not a virgin, so she says that to her, it's a good thing, and what you do is your own business anyway. She's never liked those old rules." Randi thanked them both and she settled in to watch more of Narreth's memories. As she watched some scenes of life in the Quarn of the Rohn, she just quietly said, "I almost wish that I could look like that." The statement caused Narreth to look over quizzically, and Randi just said, "I don't know if Ayt'han and me will get to much of anything, though I'm beginning to want that a lot. If it happens, I'll be very lucky in a way, because he can look human for other people. I like to see him like that, but I also love it when he's like you are, Narreth. It would be nice if I could look like that for him sometimes. I know that he likes the way that I look a lot. It's just another little daydream, I guess." While Sully was translating, Rudhi was thinking, and she said, "You might not get all the way to it, but you can make some changes, Randi." The next hour was a struggle as Randi tried with mixed success to turn herself into what she knew just had to be the tallest Rohn female there ever was. What she ended up as had no wings, but she had a very long thick tail and Narreth patted her long shanks with a knowing nod, saying that she knew that like this, Randi could run faster than many Tarkroth could fly with a heavy tail like that to balance her. "Now," Narreth said with Sully translating once more as Randi sat on the bed and Narreth stood between her knees, "All of this – what you have done is mostly for you. I see that you wish to feel as though you are one of the Rohn, and it pleases me to see it. But we come now to something that you wish for Ayt'han to see and to know." She reached up and touched Randi's face, "Feel my touch, and the marks will come which tell him that there is one for him – if this is what you wish with him. You can hide this or you can show this, so it is something that no Rohn girl could ever do. Close your eyes and feel my touch." It took maybe a half an hour, but when Narreth took her hands away, the others gasped and Rudhi left to get a hand mirror. When she returned, Randi smiled to see the tribal markings on her face. "Make yourself into the human again," Narreth said softly, "and then choose to show these then." Randi looked into the mirror and she saw that if she wished it, her lovely face could carry the tribal markings of the Rohn. "Before, I saw a human who wished to be as a Tarkroth," Narreth smiled, "Now, I see a Rohn girl such as there has never been in many winters." She hugged Randi for a moment, "and I am proud to know my young tribeswoman, if it is your wish to learn more." "I feel a little silly," Randi said, "Like this, with no wings, I feel a little like a lizard. I wouldn't know what to do if I had wings, but still, ..." "You look very lovely like this, " Sully nodded. "And more important, "Narreth smiled as he translated for her, "You look like the other Rohn – the ones who were lost to us long ago. We were the only tribe of two kinds at one time; like me, and like what you look like now. Those ones died out from the battles as our nation was being made and before the Rohn joined with the Ch'arnn to finish the fighting before all were killed. The loss of the Long Tails was held up as proof of all of our foolishness, and when the children sang to the mountains, they still sung of the ones who were gone." "What were they like?" Randi asked, intrigued once more and amazed that there was so much to be found out. "They were beautiful – as you are," Narreth smiled, "Though I never saw one, only pictures that were drawn in the temple. In my time and long before, the Rohn intermarried with the Ch'arnn, but before that the Long Tails bred freely with us, and we sought for no Ch'arnn for our hearts. That love we learned later. The Long Tails were as we are, and many of their features were to be seen in the faces of the Rohn until the end. Many Rohn were a little of both kinds, but after much time, the remnants faded." She looked at Randi and rolled her eyes, "And I have forgotten the stripes which should be there on you. It is where our winter color comes from. All Rohn carried Long Tail blood." She waved her hand at the wall and they saw some scenes from more of a racial memory to Narreth then. "There," she said as she indicated a group of the creatures as they walked on their long legs and slightly large feet. Randi smiled as she watched them and hoped that she could manage that sort of grace when she walked. They lacked wings to be sure, but in most other respects, the two kinds of Rohn were the same. "Would Ayt'han know what he was looking at?" she asked, and Narreth chuckled, "Oh yes. He will stare at you, but he will know that he sees a lovely one from out of our legends. Now let us look at the ones there so that you may see the sort of stripes which you should wear on your sides. See? They are not bold, but they are there to help hide them in the hunt." She thought for a moment and began another line of thought to Sully to pass on, "If you decide on what I know is in your heart, how much do you wish to follow the way as it was done? I think that to you there is something a little ... romantic to it?" Randi sighed, "Well, I think that I'd like that, but I don't even know – " "One never knows for certain, "Narreth said with a small smile as she related what ought to be said. "Is Randi your proper name?" "No," she girl shook her head, it's a short form of Miranda. My proper name is Miranda Lee Farber." "Ah," Narreth smiled, "Much better, I think." -------------------------- Billy was working in the kitchen now, trying to save Randi some work as he scrubbed potatoes and cut them up to fry them a little. He looked over and saw his mother there. "I wish to say that I am sorry for shouting at you before," she said and he nodded, "It's alright. I'm trying to fix this with Randi. At least, that's what I'd like." "Will you take some counsel?" she asked and he nodded. "There was once another who sought for something with you and she went a way to trying to become what Beyl'eth told her that she ought to be. Randi seeks something like this." Billy looked up at the ceiling, "It's not necessary. We're not there, I'm not the king, a lord or anything like that. I'm just a demon." "That is true in some respects," she nodded, but then she smiled, "But I can say that Randi likes our ways so far and seeks to learn. She does not want to live the ways of the Tarkroth very much, but she seeks to know of them, and to her, it is a nice thought for her to think of the one what she cares about as what he was once destined to be, and to her, she sees it in you. So if anything comes to pass in this friendship," Narreth smiled, "then perhaps try to give her a little of what she seeks. She sees herself as a simple female in this place, so to her, the thought of a little love with a fine young lord is a good thought to hold onto, that is all." ----------------------- After dinner, they walked for a time in the darkness holding hands and talking. There was nothing unusual to them that a mostly human woman walked with a large and powerful demon. They stopped now and then so that he could hold her and surround her with his wings when they got to some of the sticky parts which gave them a little trouble. "What are we gonna do?" Randi asked from his shoulder, "I mean, we'd have had it tough before maybe because we're different. I know that you'd do your best and that's all that I'd expect you to do. I'll try hard too, Billy. But I'm not really all that human anymore. You know what I need sometimes, but I promise that I won't ever take it from you." "I think that my mother will stay with Sully now," he said, "They've become really close – closer than I'd have ever believed possible for what they are. But he's the sort of man who needs something to do and work at." "I've been thinking of asking them to stay and live here. This old farm was a good one once, and somebody who knows what he's doing and isn't afraid of a little work – ok, a lot of work can get a good living out of it. your mother is a demon, but she's the nicest lady that I think I've ever met. She's asked me to help her with her English and she told me that she want so take a human shape so that it'll be easier for them. "I guess I just need to know what you plan to do. I don't really know if what I have my silly daydreams about will work out, but I really wish that you'd think about staying too." "I'll stay, if you want that," he said with a smile, "It's what I want, and I've got a friend here who thinks a lot of me, so I'll try not to disappoint you again." She lifted her head and shook it a little, "You didn't disappoint me, Billy. I know that you and Narreth have ghosts. You didn't really ruin anything, you just made me see some of what hurts you. I was upset, but well, I believe in you." ------------------------------ The flames were finally out, though the whole neighborhood for blocks around still smoldered and smoked. In what had once been a maintenance room in a large warehouse a burned and blackened thing blubbered quietly, seeking to draw as many of the partly consumed molecules of its former self together as it could. For the moment, all that it knew was searing agony. -------------------------------- Monnie awoke and began to wander high up in the air. Her eyes caught on a large and ancient set of tall letters still standing on a hillside. Most of them were partly overgrown with vegetation and a few had fallen over the centuries, but there was still something to be read there. OLLY OO, the letters said, and Monnie tilted her head, trying to decipher what it might have meant. Nothing came to her mind and so with a wave and a thought, the rest of the letters fell to the ground in flames and the fire that she began with her mind began to catch in the dry vegetation and though she didn't know or care at the moment, it would burn for a week. A little while later, she found what she'd been seeking, looking at the ancient stadium from above. At the moment, it housed many people who lived there is its bowels in an entire neighborhood of shanty huts and dwellings. She didn't care about that either. She'd been looking for a place and this was it. As she hung in the air, she began to chant and sing, letting one leg drop to point down and raising the opposite arm to point skyward. She spun like that for a few moments and then she stopped to wait. In minutes, the air before her was filled with the sounds of the beats of over five hundred pairs of demonic wings. As she looked around herself, she grinned at all of the expectant eyes that she saw. These ones weren't insane and they sure weren't afraid. They were out of the depths of some hell on another world, and they were hungry. She pointed downward and several fireballs left her hand to float down slowly, illuminating the many human faces which now looked upward. "Suppertime!" she cried out pointing as she chuckled, knowing that they understood her, "We'll talk later." The frightened screams and cries of the terrified humans filled the air a few moments later as the hundreds of voracious things dropped out of the air above them to eat. A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 50 ***I was driving home late at night recently and I saw the half-moon hanging big, fat and a little dirty-looking near the horizon. It got me to thinking of writing something nice for the 50th chapter of this. So with a little thought and a few changes, the world's on hold for couple of nights in Colorado. 0_o ----------------- Book of the Forsaken Part 5 Jonas rolled his eyes as he looked across the late winter landscape. He was careful about it because he didn't want Elliott to feel badly, but if the young man didn't stop pestering him with endless questions about Lizzie Mungra soon he'd have to say something -- or slit his own throat in desperation. It had gone on for miles. "Why are you goin' to Leatherville, Mister Bull?" Elliott asked, "Do you live there, or, ... You know where that Mungra lady lives, don'tcha?" "In the first place, my friend," Jonas sighed, "you need to stop calling it 'Leatherville'. Saying it that way just tells everybody that you're not from around there. Nobody says it that way. Anyone who knows the place calls it Leddervile. In the second place, why I'm going there is my business, and yes, I do know where they live." "Why have we stopped?" Elliott asked as he saw Jonas sitting in his saddle and looking a little ruefully down at some depressions in the snow from his passage in the other direction with Sully the day before. He was learning, but he wasn't nuts about the cost to him of Sully's friendship. "I'm waiting for you to get busy," Jonas said with a smile as he pointed, "I remember this patch here. All these plants here sticking up out of the snow under the edges of that tree like they're hiding under there? They're snowbells. This patch is the first one that I've seen this year." He didn't finish his thought that he was now glad that he hadn't crushed them all when he'd landed there after Sully belted him one for being stupid. "Well?" "Well do I just pick 'em?" "No, you just take your knife and you cut them down low on their stems," Jonas said as he waited. After the first two attempts where he worked in silence, Elliott found his curiosity again, "Hey, Mister Bull --" "Uh, it's Jonas," the larger man said. "Ok, thanks," Elliott nodded, "Are you seeing one of them yourself?" Jonas looked over, "You mean one of the wild mountain goblin girls?" "Yeah," the young man said looking up as he walked back with a large bunch of the flowers. "No, Elliott," Jonas smiled with a sigh, "I'm not as smart as you are. I'm glad to have met you, though, and I'm glad that we got here before it got too dark to see the flowers. Now, we're going to ride to where she lives, and if you don't want to ruin this chance to do any more than meet her, well I'm telling you now. Besides maybe telling her that you were new in town and you only saw one of the shows that we do by accident -- and only if she asks, don't you say one thing about those shows. Lizzie is a really nice girl. She's pretty open about things, but she won't want to hear about how you got stupid over her because you saw her doing the things that she does to make a living, alright?" Elliott nodded, "I hear you -- and thanks." Jonas smiled, "You might make out ok, Elliott. I can see that you're brighter than most, already. You'd best try to keep them flowers covered in a handkerchief and tucked into the front of your long coat just a little, and I'll thank you not to wave them around as we ride through town, ok?" "Ok, Jonas," Elliott shrugged, "But is there a reason?" "Well, you need to keep them out of the cold, now that you've cut them, and ... well, Ledderville's a bit of a shithole in some ways. I mean, it looks a little nice in a lot of the town, but there's assholes there the same as there are in any other place, I guess. We ride through there together, you and me like we are, and you holding a bunch of flowers with that dazed and happy look on your face, ..." He shook his head, "There's enough things said about me as it is, ok?" Elliott was about to ask further, but he got it then and said nothing as Jonas looked away, grinning from ear to ear at the hot blush that he saw on Elliott's face in the gathering gloom. He sighed to himself quietly, thankful that he'd finally found something to keep Elliott's mouth shut for a while. ------------------------- Lizzie Mungra was very surprised as she opened the door. "Well hey, Jonas. I thought you were headed out for a rodeo." "Well I was," he smiled, "but I changed my mind and decided to come back. I uh, ... I brought you a birthday present," he said, indicating his companion. "This is Mister Elliot T. Hopkins, future banker, and not long after I met him on the road here, it seemed to me that I ought to introduce you to each other." She looked a little confused, and Elliott looked shocked. Lizzie held out her hand and Elliott took it in a gentle handshake, "I'm very pleased to make your acquaintance, Miss M-." "Lizzie's fine," she smiled. It took her three seconds to decide that she liked him a little right out of the gate, since he held onto her hand where most people didn't want to touch her, and the way that he was polite and so unsure of himself over wanting to make a good impression to her counted for a lot in Lizzie's book. "Jonas never told me that it was your birthday, Lizzie," Elliott said rather bashfully, "but he did tell me that you like these." He held up the bunch of half-frozen, half-wilted snowbells and her surprised smile past her tusks made him feel pretty good. "It's not my birthday, Elliott," she smiled at him a little shyly, but it was obvious that she was very pleased to meet him, "I'm afraid that Jonas was just kidding, but I think that it must be Christmas again or something. Would you like to come in and have a cup of tea or coffee? You look a little chilled from the road." Elliott nodded and Lizzie got her first look at his profile. All in all, she really liked what she saw. More importantly, she liked what she didn't see. He might be a young man her age trying to make his way in the world the same as anyone, but she knew right away that Elliott T. Hopkins was not an asshole. That counted for a lot too. Most of all, she could see that he liked her as well and he had a way about him that put her at ease and made her forget that she was a goblin, and for once, Lizzie Mungra felt like an ordinary girl in the company of a nice-looking young man who liked her. "Please tell me that I can keep him," she smiled at Jonas and he nodded, "Oh, please, if you would." "Aren't you going to come inside, Jonas?" she asked, "Caroline's gone to get some flour. We were going to have a roast and she needs it to thicken the gravy." "I'd really rather just know where the store is, Lizzie," he smiled, "I've been wanting to talk with her." Lizzie suddenly knew, and she beamed up at him, "It's right over there," she pointed, and he nodded his thanks and turned to go. Caroline was still a little annoyed with herself for the way that she'd tried to make her feelings for Jonas plain the day before. It had just come out of her and she was embarrassed over it. She should have known better, she told herself as she walked back to her home looking at her own feet. She found her way blocked by a large man in a dirty duster coat and a low-down cowboy hat. "Excuse me, please," she said, hoping that he wasn't one of the many jerks that she ran into everywhere who seemed to think that the idea of reminding her that she didn't fit in here -- or anywhere -- had never come to the dim minds of anyone like him before. "Hi Caroline," he said as he looked up enough to let her see his face, "Are you doing anything tonight?" "Jonas!" she said in surprise, "What are you doing here? I thought that you -- " "Well I was, Caroline," he said a little sadly, "I was doing the same thing I've always done, telling you some garbage about a spring rodeo, There's no such thing." "I know that," she said, "but I never said anything, because I could see that you just wanted to get away every time. What happened? Why are you back now?" "I learned a few things," he said, "I found out that I have some people who care about me -- leastways I hope that they still do. I found out that I'm not the greatest thing on legs as a person, and I learned that I've been a big idiot. It's already cost me Sully's friendship. I wanted to see you again before I lost the last of yours." He shrugged and smiled ruefully, "I've been an asshole, Caroline and I'm so sorry for it. I -- I, uh, also wanted to say that if I haven't completely trampled your heart into the dirt, I'm ready now. I finally know what I might have and I'm really hoping that it's not too late." He felt Caroline's tusk against his ear then and he felt as though he could let out the breath that he'd partially been holding back as she hung onto him tightly and she sobbed a little. She pulled back to look at him, "You mean that?" "Yes," he nodded, "I just needed an adjustment and Sully gave me one when he clocked me. I had it coming. If you still want me, Caroline, well I want you. If you try hard not to kill me, I think that I'd love to spend my life with a wild goblin girl -- if you'll have me. The more that I rode, the more I saw that I love you, but I guess I was just too full of myself to know better, and when I thought of how I must have made you feel, month after month ... Caroline, I'm so sorry that I hurt you." "It's alright," she whispered with another little sob as she wiped her face, "I love you, Jonas, I always have. Come on, I've got a roast to cook up. We'll have a while to talk." Jonas Bull put his arm around Caroline Mungra the wild goblin queen and they walked back to her home. Caroline looked up and she was a little surprised at the look of happy pride that he wore. "Does this mean that - " "Yup," he said. "That you want to be my man and everything?" "Yup," he said. "Well is that all you're going to say?" she asked him. "Yup," he laughed, "Caroline, honey, I've got a lot of things to say to you, and I really hope that you'll be my girl. I can talk to you all night if you want, but you know that I'd really rather just show you, and for once, I don't want to break your bed if you'd let me try to show you how I feel about you. Would that be alright?" "Yup," she chuckled as she put her arm around his waist. ------------------------ As Billy stood in the bathroom trying manfully to get some of the tree sap from his palms, Randi was in the kitchen, laughing with Narreth as she tried to teach her some English with mixed success when Sully came in and shifted a little uncomfortably. "I wanted to tell you something, Randi," he said, "and now I'm finding that I don't really know how to go about it." Narreth smiled a little as she touched Randi's arm, "Thomas like you like girl." She shook her head, knowing that it hadn't come out as she'd wanted, "Like you ... his girl small," she said, holding her palm fairly low to the floor. "I'm wanting to say that we -- well, Narreth and I are thankful that you've offered to let us stay and begin here, but ... well, I've never had any children, but I'm finding that it's a nice thought to me that if I had a daughter, I'd hope that she was like you, that's all." Randi smiled, knowing then what was meant, "Thank you, Thomas," she whispered as she hugged him for a moment, "You'd have been a great father, you know. I see it in the way that you take care of Narreth -- who ought to be getting back to bed, since we agreed on another day there before she gets to run around much at all." As she turned to go with Sully back to her bed, Narreth stopped and looked back, thinking of what she had in her mind suddenly. Sully turned back, and she spoke to him. He looked at her and then at Randi as though he wondered what he'd done to deserve to be tested in the way that he often seemed to be. He looked down at the floor for a moment and shook his head. "My girl here wants to say that she thinks that you might get up to something with Billy soon. She says that she's happy if you do, but she also knows that humans are different from demons. You might find it in your heart to be wanting something with him that goes on for a long while and I've tried to tell her that human girls use their heads and not only their hearts -- especially if they've been hurt there in their hearts in any way. She says that she understands." He listened to the demon a little more and then he looked a little skeptical for a moment, but Narreth nodded firmly to him, so he did his best. "She's telling me that I don't know the ways of some demons," he shrugged, "but I can see that she's got a point, since the way that she took my old heart and claimed it was as quick as lightning. She says that you might see what you're looking for -- if it's what you want, before he even speaks about it. She says that there was a sign that girls where she's from used to look for. The other kinds of her people did this, she says, but no males did it like his kind, and I'm thinking here that she means the Ch'arnn." He listened a little more and he tried to argue a little bit but Narreth was adamant, so he shrugged, "I don't know," he said, "I know Billy as a good-natured young man, always polite and considerate. But Narreth says that if something happens between you, you're to watch his wings if you can. If you have his heart in it and everything else, you'll likely see it in his wings before he says a word. She says that it can happen just that quick -- they lay their hearts down in the blink of an eye. But there's a danger right then all the same, and not to you, Narreth is telling me. She says to choose the place well so you're not disturbed at all. At that instant -- if it happens, and I'm still for doubting -- as much faith as I've got in me girl here - well then he's yours, my love, but he's also claiming what's his at the same time." He bent to hear a bit more and his eyebrows rose before he straightened, looking rather surprised, "Right then, Billy will only be kind and considerate to you. She says that in that moment, he'd likely kill anyone who disturbed you both. She says it comes from their past, and that the moment passes quickly, but right then, watch out. She says that long ago, that was when a male would likely be attacked by others for his female. I'm not really getting what she means here, but if the moment comes, then you'll see it in his wings. She's telling me that it's the emotion of it and that it's also a warning to other males." He smiled, "I still can't see it, but I think that I can understand it. Also, it's Narreth telling us, so I believe her." --------------------------- "Where are we going?" Billy asked as she led him and Randi rolled her eyes. "Well if you need me to spell out it for you," she chuckled, "I want to be alone with you for a while, that's all." He watched her clothing fade from sight in a little wonder as she climbed up to the hayloft, "But, ... it's cold for you up there, Randi." "I know," she smiled down from the top of the ladder, "I put a ton of blankets up here earlier. Come on up." He was a little astounded. There was a large basket there, and he could see that she'd packed it with all sorts of things to eat if they wanted, and there was a large flask of Copper's ale there as well. "It's for our discussions," she said, "This way, we don't have to go anywhere if we get a little hungry or thirsty." Billy wasn't stupid, but he wondered if he was missing something here, "What will we discuss?" he asked, doing his best to keep an innocent look on his face. "Oh, I dunno," she smiled, "we'll have to see what comes up, but like this, we can talk about philosophy, or even simple arithmetic. I think that there might be differences in the way they teach that in a human school compared to a Tarkroth school." "How do you mean?" he asked, "I think that it must all be the same anywhere." "See," Randi smiled as she pulled him down to the blankets, "that's something that I'd like to test if I could. I'm pretty sure that where you learned it, it's the same as it is here to start with. One plus one is what, Billy?" "Two," he said. "Of course," she smiled, "and how many times does one go into one?" "Once," he shrugged. "See, that's where there might be an error," Randi grinned. "I think that we'll need to experiment because I hope that the true answer might be in the thousands. Just wait here for me a minute, ok? I want to go and lock the door from the house," she said as she got up. "I'll be right back," she smiled at him and he watched in shock as she ran to the end of the loft and jumped off the edge and disappeared from his view to land on the floor twenty feet below in darkness. "Randi?" he called out, "Randi, are you alright?" He heard no reply other than the soft sounds of a few footfalls and a half-stifled giggle. Billy looked out over the darkened barn floor, but his eyes flicked to the door which led into the house when he heard the quiet click from that direction as it was locked, but he was too late when he looked and there was no one there. As he scanned the darkness with his eyes, he heard the footfalls again in the straw on the floor and his eyes flicked in that direction, but he was too late again. Whatever he'd heard - and he had to assume that it had been Randi - was now on the other side of a wall which separated the cattle stalls from the main room. The soft swish of long steps was nearing the other end of that wall a little quickly for the slow speed of the sounds. He was startled and a little at a loss as he heard more steps moving away. Billy leapt out of the loft himself, spreading his wings to land almost silently on the floor below and he began to hunt for her, wondering what had gotten into her and liking her little game. As he came around the wall, he heard the steps on the other side and when he looked there, he saw nothing, but he heard a soft scraping noise from the loft a moment later. He didn't understand how this was possible. He'd heard no wings fluttering other than his own, he thought as he walked to the ladder and began to climb up slowly, careful to make no sound as he listened. Not far from the top, he stopped and listened to a little more of the scraping and then he saw a match flare into life ahead of him at the other end. In the middle of that flare of light, he saw someone and he blinked. He was looking at a silhouette which made no sense to him for who ought to be here, and yet it seemed to stir some dim recognition in a way that he didn't quite comprehend. The shadow there which was surrounded by the glowing halo of the match raised its arms and a moment later, there was a little more light from an old hurricane lantern which hung from a beam up above and the match was extinguished carefully as the lamp was turned down to a little above being barely lit at all. The shadow dropped down low and it turned to stand facing him in a deep squat almost directly under the lantern. Billy could see well in total darkness, but the glare of the lamp actually made seeing more difficult because of where the shadow was in relation of the placement of the lamp as it softened the edges and cast a bit of a warm glow. He stared as he saw some details as the shape before him seemed to weave just a little from side to side. He wasn't certain of what was going on, but he stood absolutely motionless as he tried to determine enough for him to go on. That was Randi's trouble now. She crouched in the shape that Narreth and Rudhi had helped with and advised her on as she'd learned to form it. Outwardly, she was the thing which Narreth had gushed over, but inside, Randi still had mostly human vision, only slightly improved from what hers had always been. She could sense in other ways to a degree, but for the night vision that she had, she'd have been better able to locate him if he moved a little. Since he was standing still, she had trouble seeing him, and so she weaved to try to gain a little definition, and she sniffed softly to try to catch his warm scent and maybe a little of the heat which must be coming off him here in the cold loft. A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 50 Billy watched her ease herself left and right very slowly as he watched and his eyes began to take in other details as the moment played out. Her legs were long and as he looked a little higher to where his eye was drawn by the shape, he could see the barest glimpse of the general shape of her labia outlined against the background of the straw on the floor of the loft behind her. Most of that was obscured by the softly hanging mass of her long pubic hair which was not curly at all and hung there moving a little in response to the way that she swayed back and forth. Looking higher, he saw the long clawed hands on the sides of her knees and he could just barely make out the soft swells of her breasts. He supposed that a sight such as this might be enough to stop the hearts of human males in terror, most of them, but then, he wasn't one and he was looking at loveliness such as he'd never seen in his life before. The eyes which searched for him were not the near-white on a Rohn. In the darkness, he couldn't determine the color exactly, but he was fairly certain now that with just a little more light, they'd be green. He could see her dark pupils, though, long, wide and rather goat like in appearance. She was sniffing a little, he saw, and he knew that she hadn't seen him enough to be satisfied that he was really there at all, so he remained still as he looked a little more. Her horns were amazing to him. He'd never seen horns like hers. They emerged from her hairline and swept back low until they were over the sides of her head and then they plunged downward around her long and pretty pointed ears to end in points not far from her jaw. Randi's facial features were still evident enough, now that he saw them. She'd always looked a little sweet to him. Like this, she looked sweetly demonic, as though this shape brought out what was in her heart for him much more than her soft and gentle smile could convey. That face, framed as it was by that pair of long horns was the face of a Rohn demon beyond any doubt whatsoever to him and he marveled at how this could be possible. She was still sniffing for him, yet her mouth was open and he saw the long teeth there and almost groaned as he forced himself to look elsewhere before his swelling shaft betrayed him in this. He fought off the urge to flex the internal muscles that he needed to tighten now in the barely-conscious reaction of any hardening male because it felt good to do as his erection progressed. To do that now would cause his hardness to bob and the motion would give her all the information that she sought for and then some. His eyes fell on the facial markings which he knew couldn't be there because there was only one of this kind left alive in the entire universe. But they were there all the same; the tribal indicators which told him that he was looking at a Rohn female of a kind which had not existed in anything other than the old legends of his people for many generations. It couldn't be. And yet it was, he noticed, as he saw a movement there when the tip of her long and thick tail flicked a little in an unconscious movement out to the side of her. He wasn't sure if his voice would come out of him under much control at all, but he had to say something. This had gone on for several seconds too long already. "Randi," he sighed, "You look so beautiful to me any time, but this ... I don't know what to say." The creature stared at him for a moment and then she smiled. "Aw Billy," she chuckled, "How'd you know it was me?" She stood up then and walked to him and he stood there with no breath in him whatsoever. "Do you like it?" she asked as she stepped over, but then she saw his erection and giggled, "Whoa, I guess that was a dumb question, huh? Come on, how did you know?" He smiled a little awkwardly as she lifted the member which throbbed between them like the country girl that she was and pressed herself against him to reach for his waist. "I was sure that you wouldn't recognize me." "I can still see you in that wonderful face," he smiled, "You've got the nicest nose, and I can tell that when you were a little girl, it was what humans would have called a button nose. I read that in a book someplace. I can still see it when you're the way that I saw you at first, and it's something that I've always liked. Like this, it's still there just a little, my favorite nose. Your eyes are LongTail Rohn eyes though they're the wrong color, but I love them more like this. But what made me know for sure was your hair. No Tarkroth ever had red hair. The rest of you is the right color, but your hair is still the same shade of red. It just took a little while to see it up here." "Well, crap," she laughed a little, "I didn't think of it and nobody told me." "Don't you dare change it," he smiled as he reached to touch the long mane which ran down the middle of her back in a stripe that reached her tail and parted around it since she was standing up. As soon as she felt his fingers in it, she felt the throb against her belly and she promised him that she never would. "You feel so good to me," she moaned very softly as she stretched just a little to kiss him, "You always feel so good to me." Randi laid her head on his shoulder to kiss his throat as she felt his fingers move down her hard belly to a place where her long legs met her body. She couldn't say anything for a moment as she felt the way that his fingers traced the edges of her labia or teased her by sliding farther a little, nestling softly in the hollow between her mound and her thigh. "You make me feel so happy and light one second and then I'm hungry like I'm aching to do something sinful to you." Her soft breath against his throat made him groan once as she felt him harden more. "Like this," she said, "there is no sin is there? It's all just bullshit that they tell you. Her right hand slid up his back under his wing and it curled over his shoulder from behind, and a moment later, her other hand reached around to hold his haunch. She left one soft kiss against his neck before she raised her lips to his ear. "I did this because I want to be free to love you the right way." She shivered as she felt his hot breath against her own neck before his long tongue found her pointed ear and began to slide along almost all of its length and she groaned to think of that hotness in another place on her. "I'm not a demon," she whispered, "but like this, I want to be someone special to you. Now I need to find out if I'm good enough for the one that I want." His face came around from the side of her head and that long tongue licked her mouth to draw her own tongue out. They opened their mouths and began the kisses between them that held nothing back. Their teeth touched a few times as Randi learned the best ways to place her mouth for him and they groaned quietly for minutes as his hand ran through her long soft hair. He reached for her horns with both hands and he held her face there before him as he licked along her lips and caused her to whimper a little as she looked at him through lidded eyes. "You have always been far better than good enough for me," he said in a low and rasping voice, "To see you at any time makes me want to hold you to me forever. To see you with no clothing -- to feel your wondrous body against mine is enough to drive me to my lust. But to sense the need in you to know my love is an ache to me. What you have done shows me that you have decided. I was about to tell you that I have decided as well. I have known very few females of any sort, and for one reason or another, I have never felt that they were mine. Even Beyl'eth seemed to want me to be hers in a way that I was a little lower than she was for all of her talk, though I loved her. Now I hold someone who offers always, but it is an offer nonetheless, if I understand it." "Always," Randi whispered, "I did this to be what I want to be; free and in the heart of a lonely king. I want you to be my king, and we'll never be lonely. I'll never need anything else." She reached for his face with one hand, "I'm happiest when you're near me, and I'm sad when I see you walking away, or if I have to go somewhere. It's a little thing, but it tells me that I love you." She pulled herself to him again and laid her head on his shoulder, looking for the best way to do it because of her horns as she reached down to hold him. "Even this shows me that this is the right thing for us. I never minded Sam's juice, because it came anyway. But I've never been crazy about it. Well I am about yours. Every male I've known leaks a bit at the start. You never stop leaking for me -- and I know that it's for me. We've only been standing here and my stomach's wet from you. That's another reason why I did this. Narreth tells me that Ch'arnn are the largest of the Tarkroth, and that you're a big one for them." She looked up for a moment and saw the low beam not far above his head, so she leaned back a little and raised her leg quickly beside him to grasp it in the claws of her foot as she pulled herself up and stood on the toes of her other foot. She changed her grip on him a little and began to rub the tip of him against her opening softly. "You're a big boy, Lord Ayt'han," she smiled softly, "I'm pretty sure that I can handle that either way, but I can't take you in my mouth very far, and to me, you deserve a lot more than a little sucking at the tip. With my mouth like this, we'll be fine, I just know it." She looked down for a moment, watching as the end of that thing slid against her lips and peeked up at her from her thatch of wet pubic hair a few times and then she smiled, "I love the way that I want you. Just wanting you is something new for me. All I've ever had is somebody that I didn't want, and before that, it was just me and my stepbrother since there wasn't anybody else here and we loved each other. Push it in a little, Billy," she whispered, "if it's for me, then push it in." Billy eased himself into Randi slowly, but he stopped when it became a little obvious that this wasn't the best way for them, since she had to work a little hard to keep herself lined up in an awkward position. He lifted her leg from the floor and they slid together a lot more easily, though Randi stopped him once by hanging onto him until she felt herself relax enough to go the rest of the way. They smiled at each other and Billy had no words for the way that he felt his heart being taken by her so easily. "Let go of the beam," he whispered to her and when she did, wrapping her legs around him, he carried her as though she weighed nothing and pressed her gently against the thick and roughhewn support which held the beam. "I love you so much," he rasped in that voice of his and Randi almost cried then as he began to slowly fuck her in a way that she'd never felt or even imagined that it might feel. They were sopping wet between them and she was so surprised at her own body's reaction to his touch. ---------------------------- In another bedroom of the large and rambling house, Narreth was having a bit of fun. She knew that Thomas was set on her allowing her body the best chance to heal and he wouldn't jeopardize what they'd found for anything. But she had a hell of a time keeping an impish smile from her face as she kept thinking of ways to try to tempt him. For one thing, it was her nature, though she hadn't really allowed this side of her personality to show much in her adult life. She actually agreed with him on the point in question. But she was having such a good time at this, all the same. "I know!" she chuckled, "I still wear your shirt here," she pointed to the garment which on her, resembled a large and ill-fitting flannel nightgown, "Though it is a little wet, your eyes cannot see through it, Thomas. With a little care, I could have a fine and gentle ride and you would see nothing and could tell yourself that it didn't happen at all." She wasn't incorrect about the state of the shirt. They'd been playing for a while, and Narreth was a little wet in her want of him, though most of the moisture had come from Thomas, since she loved to coax gushes from him so much. What he didn't know was that she'd helped him with the things that she wanted for him as he slept and she looked at him, knowing what they'd found for themselves in each other. Whenever she did it, she looked down at that sleeping face, wondering why he maintained his assertion that he was old and tired-looking. With nothing other than his word to go on, other than her quiet questions to her son, she'd begun to make the changes that she saw that he'd need if they were to go on for longer than the normal span of human years. She had the care of a queen in her heart for her people and also the care of a mother for her child. These were familiar things to her. Now she was full of the love which she felt for her male, and given that she was a witch, well, there was ability in her to help the one that she now loved so much. Sully was a little amazed at the way that he'd begun to feel over the two days. Things just came easier for him in anything that he did now, it seemed. The sameness of living in the body that he's always known had changed somehow. It wasn't a marked thing, and it certainly hadn't been noticeable to him at first, but he knew now that he was different somehow. The last time that he'd washed and stood before a mirror to carefully trim his beard for Narreth had caused the scissors to fall from his fingers as Thomas Sullivan, former sailor, castaway, rambler, and migrant worker stood there in the looking glass as he'd appeared at roughly half of his current age. If he'd had the reason or the want of it, what he was looking at now could have walked into the cage that Jonas Bull stood in to beat down all human challengers, and pound the daylights out of him and all comers and be thinking of what he'd have for lunch while he did it. And that was the quiet and outward way that he'd changed. Inside, he knew that there was something else which was different now. Back in his day, Sully had been a little burdened with the same need to mate as any human male. Given that he'd never been much of a lady's man and didn't have very fine looks and was a poor man changed nothing for that need. When he'd had the chance and paid for some girl to lie with him, he'd surprised a few who still might have had a heart left after whoring for a while. But now he was much older, he told himself, and when they'd begun, it had been Sully's fervent prayer that he could please Narreth once they actually began to make love in the conventional coital sense. It wasn't time for that quite yet, but he'd hoped that he could please her often enough for her to want to keep him. The thought was absurd to him now. The ease and the effortlessness with which she could manage to draw forth renewed life from his old cock was far beyond amazing to him. In perhaps a little more than an hour by his guess, that sweet little demoness could get all that he'd have been able to give a girl in his youth over the course of a long night of loving -- and now he still could play with Narreth all night long with both of them dreaming of the night when it would be safe for him to take her. They couldn't keep their bodies apart to save their lives, he thought. He loved the soft and hopeful looks that she gave him when she wanted to offer her little furry breasts to him as his large hand caressed her mound very gently until the little bean emerged and grew a little under his touch. She'd wrap herself around him and hold his head, whispering things to him that his knowledge of her dialect didn't allow him to comprehend as he felt her tail wind itself around his thigh. Where he'd once had to pay to have a girl jerk him off briskly, or pay even more to let him feel her mouth on his shaft, Narreth loved nothing better than to lie on him a little and stroke him with that magic touch that she had as she kept the tip against her lips and talked to him there while she did it holding him with both hands or with only one as she softly stroked and very gently tapped the front of his scrotum with her free hand. He'd asked her about it once, since no one had ever done that for him. She'd sighed then and looked back, "Try to think how it will feel when this swings a little and touches me when we finally begin, Thomas. I know that I will love it. That is why." When she'd said that and gone back to it, it was only moments before he'd heard her delighted giggle as he'd come against her face. And that was another thing, he'd realized. He'd never known anyone who loved it beyond only a little in a rather polite way at best when he'd come. The way that Narreth revelled whenever it happened made him think that she'd probably like to bathe in it or something. When he'd mentioned it as a joke to her, her mouth had fallen open, and she'd rolled over onto her hand for a minute as she'd frigged herself carefully, "Yes!" she'd moaned to him -- or herself, he couldn't tell, and she'd come only a minute after. "I seem to be smitten with your seed," she'd admitted to him a little shyly after that. "I think that it is a good thing for you," she'd smiled as she'd lowered her face to kiss him after that, a rather wet and happy female who loved to hold herself against him -- wet of not - as her tail ran over his body. They were fooling around in a large wet spot, and the shirt reflected that. Narreth laughed when she said that SHE was the wet spot, but she loved it so. Narreth had these moments where she looked as though she was a little unsure of things -- specifically that she was what he wanted forever. Thomas knew it when he saw her like this, and he always tried to reassure her. "Stop your little games, Narreth," he smiled up from the pillow, "and come to me here. I think I can offer you a bit of a good time that won't risk a thing." Narreth looked doubtful, knowing what he wanted and feeling suddenly bashful about it. He couldn't understand it, since he'd seen all that there was to see of the one who held his heart. "Darling Narreth," he smiled as he tried to coax her to him, "What is your trouble here? We've seen all of each other and I've washed your fine body a few times now. I'm just wanting to give you a little happiness." "I know, Thomas," she said, "and I know what you would do." "Well you were married for over twenty years, precious," he said, "Surely your man did this for you in that time." "He did," she said quietly, "but I only allowed it in the darkest place and under the blankets or the furs, and he never did it as I see that you would do. There is nothing of beauty to me there." He took her hand, "You let me be the one to judge that. Why, you can't even see it yourself as I'm wanting to see it. Come on, you sweet girl. I've been dying to do this for a day and more. Lift up the hem of that shirt there for a moment." She looked down in sudden shyness, but he was her male, she told herself and so she lifted the hem for him. Thomas reached under her arms and lifted her, setting her down very carefully so that her knees were on either side of his head before she was really aware of much more than he'd lifted her with ease. "Why don't you just pretend that I'm a short little man who's got a really bushy mustache?" He asked, and Narreth began to giggle as she saw what he meant. But a few moments after he began for her, Narreth stole his heart all over again as he watched her sit on his face, still holding up the shirt and smiling down a little shyly with a look of delight and a little bit of childlike wonder as he loved what he always called her 'cunny', keeping one hand on her hip and reaching up to caress her breast. When her eyes closed in bliss, Thomas Sullivan lost the last of any uncertainty that he might still have had and he knew that he'd love her forever. A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 50 As much as he enjoyed loving with her, it was the quietest times that he waited for. He loved to whisper to her and he'd tell her little stories of his life when she asked and she'd listen spellbound with his arms around her. Sooner or later, he'd hear her breathing shift and he'd very carefully try to be able to look at her in the darkness for a time before he fell asleep himself. It hadn't come to him yet, but it would one night as he looked at her and saw her quite well in the darkness -- far more easily than he should for a human male. He loved to wait for her to slip deeper in her sleep, and then she'd make her little noises; those soft little whimpers and growls against his skin and if he was lucky and had managed to stay awake long enough, he'd be rewarded by being able to watch and listen as she grunted a little loudly and snorted once or twice. He knew that she'd be embarrassed to know that he did this, but it meant a lot to him because he knew enough about demon girls to know that it meant that she felt at ease with him. He'd fall asleep then, listening to her noises and feeling wonderful to have the love of someone like her. And of course, Narreth didn't know this, and he'd never tell her, just as he didn't know that she awoke for a time afterward to look at him and know what she had as well. ------------------------------ Randi came so softly with the sort of soft whimper in his ear that broke his heart free and if he could have, he'd have handed it to her right then. "I've never come like that before," she whispered as he went on slowly, "it was the barest thing, considering what you're pushing into me. But I don't think I've ever come so nicely. I didn't need anything more right then and I felt it in my toes -- everywhere, Billy. That went right through me, I -- I -- " The next one was coming to her and it was far different. He'd begun to stroke just a little harder, and it was nothing other than just a little bit more purposeful. Right away, Randi knew that she wanted this one to be for him, and so she tried to tighten things a little. It was all that she could do. It was all that she had control of. For a few seconds, anyway. She tried to buck for him, but the position prevented a lot of that, so she just hung on and did her best as something roared out of the darkness at the edges of her mind and when it arrived, she was like a dried autumn leaf, feeling bright red as she skittered in the wind of a passing tornado. When the middle of it hit her and swept her off in it, Randi slammed her head back against the post and screamed. Just as she thought that it was passing, she felt it as his semen came to her, and the tingling rush began as she felt that life inside of her. She'd never felt it as a man came in her, other than maybe the hardening that she sought to feel in them most times, because it meant that the rape was nearing its end and the challenge of getting away to hide and weep would begin. But not with him, she told herself as a thrill came to her suddenly when she had one lucid and clear thought in this. He wasn't even fucking her very hard. Randi was fucking with a demon. That was a nice thought to her since she loved him. But now she knew that she had no choice but to find out exactly what that meant. All of that power - that magnificent body pressing against her. The wonderful scent of him challenged the very muscles that she clung to him with. She looked up. She saw the teeth and the fur and almost came in the insane lust that rose even as she sat at the apex of her climax, and in the next instant, she was looking into the eyes of a demon and saw no madness there at all. What she saw for her there almost made her want to weep at how he loved her. She felt like a moth alone in a dark room with a lit candle. There was only one outcome. There was nothing that she could do -- other than give herself to him, and feel the heat of him against her as it consumed her. The way that her breasts were crushed against him like this was wonderful to her. She found her voice in a bit if surprise as she heard herself gasp and yell to him, and she felt his rough voice vibrate clean through her when he told her that he loved her as he grunted against her ear and her horn. For a moment, all that she knew was his name, "A -- Ay -- AYT- Ah, ah, ah, AH, aaaAAAYYYT-HAAAANNnnn! -- nnh, nh, nn". -------------------------- Sully and Narreth had already had the discussion that while actual coitus might wait for another day, they both agreed that some increased blood flow would more than likely be good for her and now they were testing that as she rubbed herself softly over the length of his manhood while she rode him. "Thomas, "she sighed, "did you hear that? Randi and Ayt'han have begun. I am so happy to hear that cry." "I am too," he nodded, "Demon or not, I've never met a finer pair of young people. I wish them happiness." She chuckled, "I as well. And I wish me a grandchild one day." She began to rub herself a little harder and Sully was quick to offer his concerned caution once more, but Narreth the small and beautiful demon began to rub herself in much longer strokes then as she looked down at him, somehow managing to look pleading, and yet patient to him at the very same time. "Thomas," she began, doing her best in the limited way that her demonic speech could convey her imitation of the way that his Irish brogue often came to her ears to charm her, "Ayt'han is my son. He is the last of my spawn, and he is a very fine male. I think it is only natural for his mother to rejoice a little that he and our young friend try to begin something." Sully nodded, since he felt the same way. She moved the forward part of her motions enough that she slipped clean off the end of him and his hardness nudged against her anus for an instant before they began the next stroke and she began to speak once more. "But there is something else here," she said, "This affects me in a way that you might not understand as a human, though I don't know that it's certain that you can." She replicated the previous stroke and felt him against her there again, and she pressed herself there a little this time. "In the beginning, we hunted many things where we were and there were other things which hunted us, so we lived in groups for protection. We still carry our beginnings in us." She moved languidly back and forth on him to pick up as much of their juices as she could as she continued, "If a pair of us began to mate then, it was taken as a sign that we were safe, since that would never have happened otherwise. Can you understand this?" Sully nodded; fascinated as he was whenever Narreth spoke of things such as this. Anything that he could glean of her kind was enough to hold his attention and in that, he was a lot like Randi and how she loved to learn anything as well. "Once one pair began," she said, "I think that you might see that all of the rest who had someone would begin as well. The urge to mate has always been strong in our kind. The place where we lived was colder than this for much more of the year, and it was easy to mate and try to breed, but not so easy for a female to conceive and spawn a little one. No matter that he is my son and no matter that she is not a demon, there are demons mating near enough for me to hear the sounds of it and it brings out my own want to mate -- and I have such a fine male for me. It is only natural that I wish to please us both. I do hear you, and I will risk nothing for us, but you will take your female this night. I love you and it is my joy to suckle on you, but Thomas, I have a bellyful of your seed. Now I wish for you to put it elsewhere." With that, Sully's eyes opened wide as he realized what her intent was. Narreth reached back and moving herself a little, she held his shaft and leaned forward a bit with her other hand on his chest as she pushed back. "Narreth," he gasped, but she shook her head with a little smile, "Be still now, Thomas. I need to concentrate a little to get us together. You said to me yourself that I was a wife to another for over twenty of our years. This is something that I was made for as well. All that I ask from you is your kindness to me, and we can enjoy another way together." She grunted a little as she worked at pressing herself backward and allowing him in. It caused Sully even more concern, since hearing her grunt against him at night very often brought him to hardness again and he felt himself swelling at a time that he would have rather offered her a little less of that. She paused often to rest, but she was getting him inside of her and she waited for a moment to get up her determination to get him past the tightness. It happened with a gasp from her and a very deep groan, but then her progress in this became easier, and at last, Narreth was sitting on her male with him inside of her in a new place for them. She smiled down as she tried to get used to it, and her experimental little wiggle caused them both to gasp and grin. As she began her careful and very slow motions on him, he watched her as she knelt in a way that took his heart as well for the newness of it. Her hands were on her thighs for the moment and she smiled up at the ceiling. "I have always loved to do this," she said when she could, "it was my way to please my male when I could not in other ways. It began when we were courting and I found another joy for me this way." She looked down at him with a soft smile, "But it is very different to me this night, Thomas. Tonight it is you who is my male and I love you so -- and," she grinned a little with a soft grunt, "I have wanted to do this with you since our first night, and ... and now, I -- I find my old ..." she grunted again, "joy once more with a male who is a little larger there for me." ------------------------- "I love having a Rohn against me," Billy said as he lifted her and slid out from her warmth as he carried her to the bed of blankets on the hay, "but I want to love the girl that I knew." "Why?" Randi smiled as she changed her shape for him, "I'd have thought that you'd want to - " "Oh, I do," he smiled, "but not at the moment. Right now, I want to hold my friend." He laid her down and she watched as the large demon crawled over her to take her in his arms and kiss her. Randi groaned loudly and she reached up, needing to touch his shoulder and his side. "I feel a little like you do," she sighed against his ear, "I like me that other way and you feel so good against me, but not quite as good as you feel now. My horns get in the way a little then too. I'll have to get used to that." When he drew his head back to ask her if what she'd just said indicated her want of him for more than this, his voice failed him as he looked down. Her lovely face smiled up at him and there was no mistaking what he saw in her shining eyes. Just as there was no mistaking the markings which were still there on her now-furless face. He gasped a little and ran a finger over her cheek to trace them. "These are still here," he whispered, and she nodded a little. "Uh-huh," she smiled, "They'll always be there unless I have to hide them or something. I can make them disappear if I want. But I like them, because I want you to know that I'm thinking that they'll need to be there for a long time. Miranda Lee Farber wants to be a Rohn for Lord Ayt'han. I think that must be a little obvious by now. But I want a little more than that, you know." She lifted her hand from his shoulder and she touched his cheek for a moment before she toyed with his long hair and looked into his light gray eyes, "I want my friend to be more to me than that. Oh, we'll probably have some fights in it, but I'll never leave you, Billy, not even if I'm mad at you. I want a huge Ch'arnn demonlord as my husband and my place is to be next to him." As his eyes widened, she sighed and smiled softly, "Now that I know that we can actually fit together somehow." "You want this?" he gasped, "You -- you want a demon?" "Don't be silly," she chuckled, "I went through that round of questions to myself a long time ago. I didn't know anything about you or your situation then, but I began to wonder that night, and when you came back here, I just knew then. I sure hope you agree, because I don't think that I could ever want anybody else. Holding somebody like you against me and tasting your fantastic kisses has been just a little life-changing to me, you know. So do you think that we can try it, Billy? I really want to be your girl." She watched his beautiful eyes as they looked at her and she saw his smile, "It might not be as easy as that. Far easier to be your boyfriend than it is to just say that I've chosen. We tend to be a little permanent in our intent at times like that." "I know that too," Randi said a little seriously, "so I understand. But we're here now and I'm trying to tell you with all of this, that I'm ready to choose whenever you are." Her head went back then as he began to kiss her throat and his large hand ran over her shoulder, where he could just make out the edges of more of her markings. "They're on the sides of my ass too," she chuckled with a shrug, "Sorry, I couldn't help myself. When I love somebody, I guess I go a little large." It was the last thing that she said for a while as he kissed her and she felt the warmth of his hand on her breast. Randi's universe shrank then to little more than the space that their bodies occupied, taken completely in the way that Billy began to make love to her. ------------------------- Lizzie shook her head in a way that broached no argument. "The only thing that you and I are going outside for anymore is to take care of your horses," she said to Elliott. "But Lizzie," he said, "we've only just met. I don't want you to think -- " "Shush, Elliott," she smiled, her ability to maintain her sternness fading from her, "Listen," she said as she put her arms around his waist, "I know that your Momma and Daddy raised you up proper to be a gentleman. I see that and I really like that about you. But it's already late for going to the hotel and hoping that they've got a room for you there. If you're really that big on it, we can go tomorrow. Right now, well I'd really like it if you could try to see things my way. We had a great dinner, and you know that it's gonna snow tonight to beat the band, so the horses need to go into the stables with ours. I don't like the thought of you being out here with no hotel room to go to, because I already know you enough to be able to tell that you'd just freeze to death not wanting to feel like you'd be putting us out any to come back and stay here tonight, that's all." She leaned in to kiss his cheek quickly, "I have my own rooms at the back and you can stay with me. I like you a lot and I'm not going to want to sit in here and worry about you freezing to death over a simple thing to me. I know that you can be a gentleman, Elliott. I know we just met but we like each other so I'd much rather sit by the fire and get to know you better." She smirked more to herself then, "And I'm sure that there's a lot of things that you'd like to know about goblin girls, too." "No," he said, not wanting her to feel badly in any way, "I mean, yes -- I mean --" Lizzie hugged him then and all of his worries faded away in an instant. "I meant," she said with her tusk grazing his jaw, "that I know that I've just got to be way different to you, that's all, and I really do want to sit by that warm fire and just spend time with you. Come on, Elliott -- please?" Elliott looked at her and he just, ... he just felt that the way that she'd said it removed his will from him. "It's gonna be a little awkward, me staying here tonight, but, ... Ok, Lizzie, I'll stay with you." Elliott groaned then as Lizzie kissed him and at that moment, they both knew that everything else was just a long list of details to be worked out between them. Lizzie's heart flew in her chest over this young and shy man, and she knew that it just had to be Christmas again. She knew that Elliott T. Hopkins was hers without a fight and would do anything for her -- and she planned never to abuse that or treat him badly as long as he treated her well in return. She already knew that he was different and special when she'd asked him if he knew what it was that she did as an occupation and he 'd nodded, "I know, Lizzie. I don't mind that if you don't mind that I'm a bank clerk. There just can't be anything more boring to be." For somebody like Lizzie, there might be a long list of men whose interest only extended to fucking a girl like her once. Nobody wanted to even get to know her let alone live with her. They went outside then and saw to the horses. "Do you really think that it'll snow up a storm tonight?" Elliott asked her, "You said that you're a farm girl from Nebraska, so you'd know more about reading the weather than me." Lizzie closed the door of the stall behind Jonas' horse and looked up at Elliott slowly. She looked into his soft brown eyes and he looked at her yellow ones and her dark greenish skin along with the small tusks that he saw protruding from her lower lip. "I'm afraid that you'll have to kiss me really nicely and for longer than a count of -- about a hundred, if you want my honest opinion, Elliott." Well he did, it seemed, and they stood in each other's arms for a few minutes, sighing to each other, and in that time, Lizzie felt the erection that Elliott would no doubt be mortified to be having. With any luck at all, Lizzie hoped, it was only the first of many that she'd have to deal with. It was a hell of a job, she thought to herself, but she was up to it if he liked her enough to be her boy. When he tried to break the clinch out of his shame, she held him against her tighter. "I know what that is, Elliott, and I know that you can't help it," she said as she looked into his eyes a minute later. "But I can, so please don't feel embarrassed over it. I know what to do with it -- if you'd let me help, and I think we can get along just fine." Elliott stood in shock until he remembered that Lizzie was no stranger to males after all, and then he felt a little proud that she was rather nonchalant about it, knowing the truth as it hit him between the eyes. This girl liked him and he liked everything about her. Until now, he'd had only fumbling and reluctant attempts at anything with human girls who liked his body because they thought that they ought to, but they really didn't like more than having the idea of liking his body and that it ought to be good enough for him somehow. The most satisfying times for him had been with a girl from a poor family who'd treated him well and he'd learned from her -- until they'd moved far away. He sighed, and Lizzie loved the way that it felt against her ear. "You don't mind that I'm a ... well, what I am?" she asked him, suddenly needing to know. "I like you, and I'm proud that somebody like you likes me the way that you do," he said, not knowing much better and scoring huge points with her in that moment. "Do you really think that it'll snow tonight? You never answered me." She looked at him and saw a little of the future then so she hugged him tightly again. "Oh God, I hope it does," she said. -------------------------- Randi was still on her back as Billy loved her with his mouth and hands. She writhed and made little sounds of joy when she wasn't in one of the faster parts of the rollercoaster that he was keeping her on. She bucked her hips gently because she had to -- a little at least for the way that this made her feel, and also to let him know that she liked what he was doing for her. She knew what she was to him in this. A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 50 To him, she was a female who was worthy of this kind of his attention. Those weren't his words to her; they were Narreth's words earlier. "It is not as cold as it sounds," she'd told her through Sully's translation, "It means that he has at least some love for you if he does this. If you like," she smiled, "think of it as his way to worship one who has his heart." Whenever she knew that he was going to drive her harder and as it became more urgent for her, she reached out and took his horns in her hands and rode the wave. His large hands roamed her body and she loved the way that he made her feel, but gradually, his attentions changed and she felt his hands spending more and more time with her thighs and her hips, and the things that he was doing to her with that long and hot demon tongue had long since caused her to melt. She suddenly knew that here was a danger in this. If he kept this up and gave her the slightest indication that it was his want and intention to do this to her often, Randi would beg him for it, allowing him anything at any time. She thought about that and to her mild surprise, she knew that she wanted it from him. "Billy?" she asked weakly, so relaxed that she doubted that she could stand up if her life depended on it, "I love you but, ... well ..." He'd been grunting a little as he'd been doing this, but he heard her and he stopped to look at her, raising his head a little. The motion allowed her to see those teeth and then she ached to feel them against the softest flesh on her body again. She didn't know how he managed it, but he'd never bitten her even once. "Billy, I love you to death," she whispered, "but you've been loving me like this for a long time now. Nobody's ever done anything like this for me before. I just ... I don't know what it means, I guess." "It means that I like what you offer me," he said, "It means that I like to do this as I enjoy you." They looked at each other for a moment in silence as he reached to hold her hips a little and she laid her hands on top of his to caress the backs of them softly. "I feel like I'm someone that you care about when you do this." He looked a little surprised at the slight uncertainty that he heard in her voice, "I must care for you," he said, "I have to. You are the one that I love." He went back to it and she watched him for a time, listening to the way that he actually grunted and slurped as though she was a meal to him in some way. But after a little while, his urgency came into it again, though this time, Randi said nothing, wanting to see where this led. Well it led to something a little other than what he'd been doing when his hips and his back told him that it was the time to move this along. Randi felt herself being pulled along a little as he clamped his hands on her hips and began to lift her. Randi hated being manhandled the way that she had been so often and her alarms bells were clanging loudly as more and more of her body was in the air and less of it was on the blankets until all that remained of her there were her shoulders and her head. He held the rest of her up. She wanted to ask or demand that he put her down, but she couldn't. She was a little afraid, but she knew that she trusted him. "What -- Billy, what are you doing to me?" she asked in a slightly timid voice and it was that voice which got him. He liked it best when Randi was happy and feeling confident and safe. Like this, he felt that she was becoming afraid. "Am I hurting you?" he asked and she shook her head, "This is sure not a position that I ever had in mind, but I'm not really uncomfortable unless you plan to hang me upside down or something like that." He shook his head, "No. But you told me that you want to be mine." Randi tried to smile, "Well I do, Billy. I can't think of a thing that I'd rather be that the one who sleeps with you every night forever. You give me a chance, and I'd be happy to be yours ... though if I have a choice, I'm pretty sure that I'd much rather be your wife than just a girlfriend." She was a little sad now, since the moment had obviously passed, so she was about to ask him to put her down, unsure now if she was what he wanted, after all. "But, ... "he began as he kissed her there again for a moment, "that would mean that I would belong to you. It's an equal partnership." "Yeah," she smiled softly, feeling better instantly as she moved her hips, "Uh, could you kiss me there a little more -- if you're not going to put me down?" He kissed her and licked her a little more and she felt a lot better then, knowing that he'd been considering what she'd said and she could allow him that. He raised his head again, "Then you'd be mine, right? It's the same for humans, isn't it?" Randi nodded hopefully, "Yup. I'd be yours too. Though I think I'd get the better deal out of it. There's so much more of y --" "Then I want what is mine," he growled and rather than argue the point, Randi sighed and whimpered at the way that his tongue began again. He grunted and growled as she watched him a little helplessly. There wasn't a thing that she could do now, since she was at least a little sure from the reflective eyes which regarded her that he was no longer listening. She tried to reach for his horns, but it wasn't possible like this. If she did that, it would put all of the weight that he wasn't holding up onto her neck and head. She closed her eyes and just went with the things that he was doing to her. The one time that she did open her eyes to look, she actually saw a droplet of something fly into the air. She closed her eyes again. But then that demon tongue went lower and she was looking up at the rafters in surprise as her ribcage heaved in a chestful of air. But he took the wind out of her sails, and all that came out of her was a long "Ohhhhh." Somewhere in his frantic activity he was back to loving her clit and this time, she bucked hard and howled out that she loved him. Her next breath was spent in trying to tell him how much she loved him and that all that she wanted was to belong to him if he'd only love her often and ... The breath after that was a little more desperate and she began to plead that dear God or whoever his deity was, she only wanted to make him happy and in the course of the next few breaths, she almost promised him the farm if he'd only be her male and -- She felt herself being eased down very gently and caressed so softly everywhere as he kissed his way back up. When he got to her shoulders, he reached back and raised her hips a little so that he could slide into her. He wasn't slow about it but then he didn't jam it in either and Randi groaned as that long thick thing took her. "Raise your legs a little around my waist," he said very softly, and when she did, he began so very slowly. Randi shuddered and moaned, but there was something at the back of her mind, and it was getting in the way of things. "Billy?" she whispered, "Those things that I said -- " "Did you mean them?" he asked. After a moment, she nodded, "Yes. I meant every word. I want to be yours." She looked away then, but she still spoke, not wanting to see what she was afraid of in his eyes. "I'd do anything." Then his face was there, nuzzling against hers and kissing her nose. "Why do you do this?" he asked very quietly, "You are afraid that you have lost something before you fully have it." He turned her head gently, "Randi, I know at least some of what happened to you in your life. Other than how it made you hurt, none of it matters to me in how I see you. You keep hinting that you hope that you're good enough for me. It confuses me. You're worried over nothing. Why do you think that I'm here with you? You know enough about me to know that I have my own problems. I should be worried about being good enough for you. I'm the one who doesn't belong here." "You belong here," Randi said seriously, "You belong right here with me. Anywhere that we are, I want to be that place for you. You're my place, Billy, you're the safest place there is for me." "So we're each where we belong then?" he asked as he continued to move very slowly. "Yes," she said. "And you love me, yes?" he asked. "Yes," she said, "I even know the words. Narreth taught me." He smiled, "Then make me happy, Randi, and say them." Randi looked up at Billy and swallowed hard, knowing what he was asking of her. "Don't you want to marry your friend?" he asked, "I'm beginning to feel foolish." "Will you marry me?" she asked. I'd marry you any day or night," he said, "but as much as you seem to want to be anything for me, you're already everything -- just as you are. We're different, Randi, and I'll marry you in the way of your people if you say the words to marry me in mine." She looked at him and then she smiled so softly, knowing just the way that she wanted to say them. She reached for his hair and watched for a moment as her fingers slid through it before she looked at him and put the same gentle shyness in her voice as she'd used when she'd spoken to her father, the only other male who she'd ever really believed in. It wasn't the same relationship, but her implicit belief was there, and that was what counted to her. "Randi Lee Farber chooses Lord Ayt'han, King of the Tarkroth." He smiled a little uncomfortably but she took his face in her hands. "You can't run and hide either, Billy. I've chosen you." He exhaled and drew another breath, "Ayt'han, last King of the Tarkroth chooses Randi Lee Farber, the most beautiful Rohn LongTail and human." Randi smiled, "I don't care if nobody knows all of that. I love you so much." "I love you," he said and he began to go at this just a little faster as he managed to find a way to thrust into her at a slightly lower angle. It felt just fine to Randi, though it was a little different and he wasn't using his whole length now. The purpose became clear to her a moment later when he lowered his head and began to kiss her between her breasts over her heart. "Ayt'han chooses," he said, humbly as he stroked in and out of her slowly, "I am nothing, but I give myself to you." His hands held her shoulders as he went and then she watched him as he slowly lowered his horned head to rest his forehead against the breast of his female. "Ayt'han is my king," she whispered, knowing that the words would cause him to look up, and when he did, she held his upper arms, pulling herself onto him by pulling him, "If I can't be afraid that I'm not good enough for you, then you need to know how I feel, Ayt'han. You're not nothing. You want me to know that I'm good enough, then you be my king and I'll believe it. If a king says it, I have nothing to argue with. I believe in you, Ayt'han." She watched as he raised himself so that he could give her all of him and she mewled out her love for him in between her soft cries. But her cries turned to little whimpers as she watched those wings of his rise up over them and she felt the seed rush into her from that hardness deep inside of her as her eyes saw the tremors of his love for her in the way that his wings quivered. Randi's eyes rolled back into her head as he fed her the life that she needed to sustain her own. As the rush of the wave passed her, Randi clung to him and trembled as well. ----------------------------- "How long do demons like you live for?" The night had turned bitter cold, but they lay together under several blankets in the hayloft of her barn. Randi was anything but cold and she was happy as she hugged him wearing the fur of the LongTail Rohn girl again. They'd loved for hours in each of their two shapes, and they'd eaten the food and drank the ale. Their bed was hay, but they were warm. Still, the question was an odd one for Billy, "Three or four hundred years, why?" "No reason," she said, "I was just interested. Sometime in there, I'll want to have your children, that's all. Rudy told me that they won't be like me and need to take life from other things, and I was just thinking that somebody like you ought to make children." He chuckled, "Really?" "Uh-huh," she nodded against his chest, "It's gonna be a hell of a job," she sighed wearily, "but I think I'm up for it." ------------------------- The fire burned low in the hearth as Caroline tip-toed though the main room with a large bowl of soup to share with Jonas in her bedroom. She smiled softly as she saw Lizzie and Elliott asleep in each other's arms in the pile of furs that they kept for evenings in front of the fire. Just like the heavy and rounded door that was set into the low hill which was their home, it was sort of a throwback and nod to what they were and where their kind had come from. Lizzie had her own rooms and Kate stayed there as well on those nights when she and Francine stayed over, all of them spending time before the hearth together at the end of a day just talking and laughing. Like the polished stone floor and the clean painted walls -- and the round door -- this was a timeless tradition, just like sleeping with your new boyfriend for the first time in front of the fire was to them. Humans could say what they liked, she smirked, but this was the way to get and keep a male, once you know that he was the kind for you. You brought him home and you loved him quietly in front of the hearth. If he had a brain, he was yours then. Jonas seemed to have found his brain all of a sudden, that was all. Elliot was wearing the nightshirt that her sister had found in one of his saddlebags and insisted that he wear, since he'd asked her to wear one of his T-shirts. From that, Caroline knew that he'd be staying, and it made her happy for Lizzie. She made her way to her room and closed the door, setting the bowl on her nightstand so that she could take off her nightshirt and enjoy the soup with Jonas. "Any sign of those restless feet of yours wanting you to be on your way?" she asked. He shook his head, "No, Caroline. I meant what I said. I don't want to be anywhere but in this nice snug burrow with you. You can hold me to my word if you like, and I'd marry you tomorrow. You just say the word." Caroline smiled, knowing that he did mean it, "I believe you, Jonas. I've always just accepted whatever you told me -- even if I knew that it wasn't true. I guess I was hoping that one day, you'd say something like this to me." She kissed him then and told him that she'd always wanted to be his wife, but that the ceremony could wait for the first warm days of Spring. The soup and crusty bread didn't last long and soon, Caroline was riding Jonas again a little slowly so that there no danger to her bed, leaning forward now and then to enjoy the way that her breasts and nipples dragged over his large chest. When she'd come, he lay behind her, making love to her slowly one last time tonight before they went to sleep. Caroline needed to look at him suddenly and she held onto him with her leg to keep them together as she rolled the top half of her body onto her back and then pushed a little to let him know that he could continue with the leg closest to him bent a little. He looked into the soft yellow gleam in her eyes, and she told him that she loved him very much and she thanked him for coming home to her and even bringing Elliott for Lizzie. That look to him and the feeling that it conveyed caused Jonas to want to thank Sully for opening his eyes for him. As he looked, she knew it as he came and she sighed as he groaned. It meant everything to her the way that he held her then, since he'd never done that before. He reached to brush her hair out of her eyes and Jonas bent down a little to kiss what he now knew was the love of his life, the mighty mountain queen herself -- who looked anything but ferocious now as she lay there in his arms. "I'm so glad that you got here when you did, Jonas. You ought to see it outside. It's snowing and drizzling out there to beat hell. Nights like this always worried me." "Why Caroline?" She smiled, "Because I didn't know where you were and I was afraid for you, that's why." She rolled over and hugged herself against him with her face under his and he felt her warm breath against him and in that moment, Jonas knew how much she'd always cared about him. He also knew that if there was one man in all the world who absolutely knew what was what -- it was Sully. Jonas smiled and closed his eyes. ---------------- Randi opened her eyes and looked at the chest and throat of him. As she looked in silence by the dim light of the hurricane lantern, she tried the words a little experimentally in her mind. Her demon. He was her demon, she thought, and then she tried the next one. Her male. She liked that one so much. She had a male now, and she was against him as close as she could possibly get as she lay beside him in his arms and under one of his very warm wings. She wondered about that. The only sexual partner that she'd ever gotten to choose for herself had been Sam, her stepbrother. It seemed like a million years ago to her now. They'd just found that they loved each other and after the deaths of their parents, it seemed like the only thing that they could do, other than sell off the farm that nobody wanted because it was so far away from anything, pocket whatever small money they got from that and just walk away as strangers. Samson hadn't been a very big man, though he was always sweet and kind to Randi and they'd been happy for a time. She'd loved to lie like this with him too. They might not have been 'proper' for each other, but they were two of the same kind. Now she was lying with a large demon -- who loved her and could keep her feeling safe and warm under his wing this way. She guessed that it was because of the loss of her biological father that she was like this. She had a few dim memories of being hurt or frightened out of a bad dream as a little girl and at those times, it had been her father who had held her like this, though she was only a small child then. She'd stop crying right away, feeling safe against him. Her mother had always liked to see it when it happened, because they looked so happy then, a man holding his little daughter in his arms and them both asleep. Randi supposed that was likely why she'd never gotten over his death, not being able to rationalize that even for someone like her strong father, there had been something that could take him away from her. Her trauma had never really left her, she realized. Samson had left her alone when he'd hung himself. She'd tried to go on, since she didn't know what else to do, and she'd only found abuse and exploitation at the hands of a few pricks who'd raped her after they'd taken her money. She looked a little higher on Billy and she saw the face of somebody who loved her for herself and who she was to him. Then she had the thought that swelled her heart so much that it brought tears to her and she sighed softly. Her male, she thought again, her husband. She felt a little self-conscious as she looked just a little higher and saw that he'd been looking at her the whole time. "Why do you cry?" he asked, looking surprised now and concerned. "It's nothing," Randi said as she smiled and stretched up to kiss him, "Just girly thoughts, I guess." "I don't think that I like any thoughts which cause you tears," he said quietly as he pulled her a little tighter to him, "There's nothing wrong?" She shook her head with a soft smile, "Not a thing," she said as she reached to touch and stroke the tuft of hair at the tip of his chin, "Will this grow any longer?" "I don't think so," he said, "all Ch'arnn have it, and I'm glad that you didn't pattern yourself as one. I've never liked them on females." Randi stared, "You mean that Ch'arnn females had little goatees like that?" A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 50 "No," he smiled, "Females grow long beards." She knew that he was kidding her then, so she began to tickle his ribs, and in a few moments, she was straddling him and looking for the blankets. The good thing to her was the way that his erection had discovered her presence and nudged against her behind. She spun around on him and they rolled onto their sides, loving each other with their mouths again after they'd pulled more of the blankets over them. "I'm going to go back to my furry shape," she announced to him, "I love how it feels to be naked against you, but it's so freaking cold up here ..." "What kind of Tarkroth are you?" he taunted her gently, "This is like a night in the early spring to me." "Oh yeah?" she asked, "I think you're full of crap, just so you know. I've found that I love talking to your mom. She tells me a lot about the way that I need to be to take care of you." "You don't need to be any way," he said, "I'm happy." "Ok, I think I could have said that a little better," Randi smirked as she kissed the end of his hardening penis and licked it since it was what she wanted to do right then, "The way that I WANT to take care of you. I've also learned something. Narreth agrees with me too. We're not the same kind of animals, but we think that the biggest reason for the ability to love each other comes from some strong similarities." "Ohay," he said as he caused her to shiver from the way that he'd opened his jaws wide and begun to chew very gently right at the place where her leg joined her body. He didn't want to take his mouth away, so 'ohay' was as good as his enunciation was going to get for a while. "Well there's something else there because we're so similar," she said as she rubbed her cheek against him softly, "Females anywhere often feel a little cold." Billy thought about that for a moment, "Hats frue," he said with his mouth full and Randi laughed for a moment. "Your mother's right," she chuckled, "you ARE pretty wise to be able to have that thought. We agreed on that too. Most males of any kind are way too thick to ever get that. Girls like to be wa-" There was a quiet rustle and the blankets moved again as Randi felt his wing slide over to cover her in a heartbeat. "God, I love you," she groaned as she felt the warmth already beginning. Randi sighed as she kept her mouth wide for him, learning to drag the tips of her pointed teeth over the tip of him very carefully. She'd learned that he liked it when she did this at just the right point, just as he loved it when she closed her jaws a bit to bring her teeth together a little so that she could rub them against what to her just had to be the finest toy to play with. Her long leg was over his head as the second-finest toy began to bring her to the point where she knew that they'd begin again. She chuckled, "I love being with you. Every time that we finish, I can't believe how good you make me feel and when we start again, I can't believe that there's more for me." Billy didn't answer since he couldn't right then and they spent a while just doing something that they loved to do. She moaned when she came and sucked him hungrily when he did a bit later. But then his long tongue got to wandering again and Randi groaned in quiet joy as he licked right under her long tail. "Ayt'han?" she asked very softly so that he had to stop to listen, "Narreth told me that if we chose tonight that you'd need to claim me as yours. That's happened, right?" "Yes," he said, "but you claimed me as well." "I know that," she smiled at the thought, "I was just wondering something. She said that while you were claiming your female, it would be dangerous for us to be disturbed right then." "I guess," he said, "but that only happens the very first time when we choose each other. Once we're paired, we're like most, ..." he thought for the words, "regular folks." Randi laughed, "Why sure," she chuckled, "you and me, we're just regular people deep down, aren't we? So that won't happen again?" "Probably not," he replied with an angelic tone, "After the first time, it's usually the female who turns murderous if we're disturbed." "Oh, you're so full of it," she laughed, "Anyway, if you're all done being the dangerous wild male, I just thought that we've been a couple of idiots here. I brought us out here to mate with you if you wanted me, because I knew that I wanted you for more than just a roll in the uh, hay up here. But while we've been freezing, there's a bed inside, you know. I changed the sheets on the bed that Jonas slept in." "Well I'm glad that we didn't do this in the middle of a pile of snow-covered boulders then," Billy said with a smile. "That's not where it usually happened, was it?" "No," he admitted, "the female usually had a place for them picked out -- something like you've done, so you're not all that far from being a Tarkroth after all." "Can we go inside then?" Randi asked, "If I've proven to you that I'm the one for you, then I want to sleep with you in a bed, as strange as that must seem to a wild demon king like you. I'll tell you what; you tell me that we can go inside, and I'll let you have what you were licking on me, if you're nice about it. I want that too, but that'll be the last time for tonight, ok? I'm getting tired and a little sore." They got up after he agreed and went down the ladder to walk across the floor to the house. "Wait a second," he said, "I just want to know. Are we a pair now? That's what it feels like to me and it's what I want. I'll marry you in the town any time you say, but right now, I need to know." Randi smiled at him, "I do want to do this both ways -- human and Tarkroth," she said, "So to me, that means that I'm your wife and you're my husband. That's why I got a little teary-eyed back there for a minute. I was just really happy." He knelt then and began to undo the old leather thong around her leg. "What are you doing?" she asked. "You're not single anymore," he said as he stood up and slipped it around her neck to fasten it, "I never cared much, but I do now and I can't explain it. I think it's because you want to be a Rohn so much and seeing you like this --" "Then help me do it up," she grinned. "We'll find some money somewhere to get rings and then we can get married in front of the judge or the mayor later. In the meantime, this'll do, and I'd be proud to wear it for you. Narreth told me that it's not about ownership or like that, she said that it's your right to see it on your female, and it's my right to wear it and when to wear it." They walked the rest of the way together with their arms around each other. --------------------------- The issue of her tail caused her a little trouble in the bedroom, since she insisted on doing it with him like that, and when he'd asked why, she'd replied that it was what she wanted. Copulation was easy for her from behind if she was standing up in that LongTail shape. She only had to lean forward on her long legs a fair way and move her tail aside for him. But this other way ... She stood looking at the bed and trying to think. Billy kissed her cheek and held onto her hip beside her. "How do we -- " "Easy," he said, "Your shape is different like this. You just can't see the answer because it's new to you. Just lie on your back." They made love in the conventional way for a time, and when she asked him for it, he withdrew and moved back on his knees. As he lifted her very gently, she felt him at the other opening and allowed it with little trouble, other than a lot of care at the beginning. As he began very slowly, Randi sighed as she looked up at him and lifted her tail to stroke his back. A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 51 ###NOTE: One of the characters in this speaks several languages, and there are several used here which I've written in English, obviously, but when that one character speaks in English her speech carries a heavy Russian accent. It's a challenge to write that accent into the dialog and love scenes, and though it might not flow - it is intended to be that way, and is not a long line of grammatical errors. It's only the slight and natural imperfections which come as one's grasp of a language improves though usage.### ***In a later part of the chapter, there's ... well, there's a theme that is used by many fantasy artists and I've seen it done many times over. I wanted to write something like that for this chapter. It worked out to be a little long, and it just wouldn't split into two very well, so here it is in one piece. Oh, there's no fascination with this on my part, believe me, but later on, near the end, if you find that it's a bit messy, well just skip that bit. Where the characters are, well, sometimes things are just the way they are, and not what they might prefer. 0_o ------------------- Book of the Forsaken Part 6 Monnie chuckled to herself. She was getting to really like these ancient stadiums. You could always count on them being filled with a sea of humanity which sang such music to her after she turned her hellions loose. Since there had been no thought given toward a plan when the people erected their squatter's shanties, the narrow passageways were little more than a rabbit's warren through the mess. There was no easy and quick way out unless someone lived near the exits and placing a couple of her new friends there before the festivities really got underway solved the issue nicely. She drifted down to perch on the roof of the announcer's booth to watch. She'd had to revise her outlook lately. She now thought of her life's path as what led her to this pinnacle. It was all in how you looked at things, she thought. She was making the most of what she had, what had been done to her and what she'd gained in all of this. Monnie didn't give a fuck about humans anymore. She didn't give a fuck about anything anymore. Everywhere that she looked there was slaughter as the demons that she'd brought here carved their rapacious paths through everything. People cowered in their homes for perhaps a few minutes until at last, the roof was torn off or a wall was flattened and they were looking at their doom then. She watched a woman being raped and she guessed that the noise was upsetting the one who was enjoying her. As she looked, he tore her head off and kept on fucking. What she supposed was the victim's mate began to scream louder than she had, since he was discovered seconds later as he reeled in horror at what he saw. Another demon was on him in a heartbeat and she supposed that he'd have been screaming over being raped himself, but he seemed to be more upset at the way that a third demon had already begun gnawing his arm off. Monnie became aware of a presence near her. She stopped watching and began to think and feel a little. Her teeth flashed in a grin when it came to her and she jumped forward to grab the edge of the roof of the booth to swung right through the ancient glass and land inside. It took her four seconds to find the two people hiding there. As the girl jumped up to run, Monnie's hand flashed out and she had her by the hair as her other arm went around the man and she closed her jaws on the side of his neck. His struggles grew feeble after a few moments in inverse proportion to the rate that his blood pressure fell. When she had the last of what she could get, she looked at the corpse for a moment and threw it out of the gaping hole where the glass had been and she turned to the small blonde. There were no hysterics, thought she was shaking in terror. What there was in its place was quiet and mumbled pleading. Monnie looked down and decided that she liked the girl. "I suppose that you'd do quite a lot to keep on existing a little longer, huh?" The blue eyes looked up and the face nodded. Monnie smiled, "Alright," she said as her smile turned into a grin, "I'll give you a shot and we'll see. All that fucking out there is making me a little ... well, you know. You just put that pretty face right there and if you can get me off really good, I might just keep you around." The girl looked up and nodded fervently before she looked straight ahead at the task that she'd been given. She'd never done this before in her life, and never even had the thought of it cross her mind before, but considering the alternative ... She reached out with trembling hands to place her palms on Monnie's dark green thighs and she didn't know it, but the timid way that she licked her lips in preparation to begin went a long way toward keeping her alive. Monnie had seen it and she liked what she saw, already deciding that she'd allow for a little uncertainty and fumbling. She leaned back on the commentator's desk to allow the girl a little more room and to situate herself a little better for this. She'd never been all that interested in this sort of thing herself, but after a few days of fucking with male demons, she figured that she was up for a change. As she felt the warm tip of that tongue slip into her a little, Monnie noticed that the girl was wondering a few things. A few seconds into this, and Monnie knew. This little blonde beauty was quickly coming to like doing this, for one, and Monnie felt a slight change in herself then; deciding that she liked both what was being done for her and the way that she knew that the girl was growing wet. She sighed and caressed the golden curls in front of her so that those pretty blue eyes looked up. "Do I taste alright to you?" The girl nodded and Monnie smiled a little sadly, "I'm really sorry that I must feel a little cold to you, honey. You just do your very best for me, and I'll see what I can do to fix that for you if you like me." The girl nodded again and Monnie closed her eyes, loving the warmth that she felt in her loins, and moving her foot aside a little to give her new toy a little more room. Outside, the din of the carnage and the howling wails and screams faded into the background for them both. Unnoticed by anyone, a pair of eyes glowed hotly from the blood and gore-covered entrance to the underground portion of the stadium. Relatively few humans had made their homes here because of the dankness and the seeping groundwater which came through the cracked old foundations. It just wasn't healthy. Those few had already been killed off by the handful of demons who'd been able to get past the intense feeling of dread which they found there. They'd killed and eaten a little and then they'd gone, liking the noise and commotion up above far better. The eyes watched for a while longer and then the creature turned and began to walk deeper, past mold and slime covered doors hanging from nearly rusted-through hinges. It took some minutes until the beast was able to get to the opening that it sought and then it disappeared and emerged in an underground cavern. The walls looked a little weak and that wasn't really surprising, given the seismic instability of the whole region. But the creature didn't care much and in a few moments, it was bounding away into the pitch blackness at an astounding rate, moving along underground pathways unknown to almost all surface dwellers these days. The muscles moved like heavy machinery built to perfection as the miles flew by in an effortless blur. There were softly glowing spots all over the thing, but what lit the way most were those eyes. ------------------------ They'd been walking together, speaking quietly as Maahes told of what was happening far away. Dakhete looked over and sighed, "We have seen these flocks," she said, "we kill them as we find them, but it blocks what I want for my kingdom here. I cannot send people forth to farm and build in other places if they are found by these demons and killed before much of anything is begun. I must keep the people close so that they are protected." She pointed to a dark smear near the horizon, "Pyres to burn the bodies of the ones who come to kill my people." Maahes nodded, "It grows worse, Kandake. There is a new bringer of them, and that one does not bring the ones who are easily driven to madness in fear as the demons seem to have been before. To the west, across the ocean, a new terror grows. The ones that she brings fear little if anything and they are murderous to humans -- far more so than the ones that you have seen thus far. She has only a few hundred so far, but we think that she will summon more to her." Dakhete turned, "She? Who?" "We do not know," he said, "We only knew that there was one of the higher ones who wanted all of this. It was through his hand that the bringer worked. We think the first bringer is dead and we do not know where the old one is, but the new bringer is a blood-drinker the same as the first -- that much is known." They walked a little further in silence as they considered. The young god stopped as he looked a little, trying not to stare at the two females who lay in the sun before him. Once they'd gotten a little used to the bright sunshine, Khyan's sisters had gotten much better, the exposure to free and clean air and the sunshine had worked wonders to heal and dry the scabs and sores that they'd been covered in when they were imprisoned. Now, they were a pair of happy girls for almost the first time in their lives and they loved to feel the sun on their bodies. Every day, they spent at least an hour or two out in it and they no longer felt so shy and withdrawn -- something which made their brother and Yasmin very happy and relieved to see. The trouble was that the heat of the sun made them feel very comfortable and it was never very long before one of them had the thought of a little pleasure in the sunshine and her hands would begin to wander on her own body. No matter which of them had begun it, the other would notice not long after and then there were two beauties lying with their eyes closed in a little quiet happiness as they masturbated more or less side-by-side. That was what Maahes was looking at now as Dakhete rolled her eyes and smirked. She coughed once very politely and the two females opened their eyes and sat up, laughing a little at being discovered but not feeling any shame for what they'd been doing. In fact, they liked what they were looking at in the young lion-god as well. The Kandake made the brief introductions and they remained only long enough so as not to appear impolite in any way until she grabbed Maahes' hand and got him away from there before she'd lost his attention completely. "Something must be done," she said when they were a little way off as she looked at him -- while he was watching the pair lie down and begin once more. "And I do not mean about this," she said with a smile as her finger gently tapped the erection that she saw beginning on the god. To his credit, Maahes managed to look a little embarrassed over it. Dakhete liked Maahes, and the look caused her to like him even more as she considered what it must take for a god to look that way. "We think that it is time to gather up the arrows," he said, "There are some that we wish for you to meet. They know more of the problem than we have seen." ------------------------- Monnie moved her growing host one night. In spite of feeling rather omnipotent lately, she had a sense that there was always the possibility that stasis brought inevitable decline and one way to at least sidestep it was to move. Besides, she thought, Oakland was a nice place, smack in the middle of many other places -- and a few stadiums. At the moment, she was reclining, looking down at Goldilocks who napped on her belly. Monnie was torn between offering her the gift of immortality and leaving her to remain as she was. Monnie had feelings for the girl now and they were reciprocated, the diminutive blonde having figured out that as a way of life, what she now had beat being dead, and also, she was rising in the eyes of the demon horde because she was the consort of their "queen". The way that Monnie looked at it, they could go on forever if she turned Goldilocks -- as she preferred to address her. But then there was always the amazing way that her hot little tongue felt to her and so she could never decide. ------------------------------- Dakhete walked with Khyan, his sisters, Yasmin, and a few others to one end of the city. Maahes met them there and nodded to them, "There are many kinds of life on this world," he said, "Some are known to those who live in the free air, but others are not so well-known and some are not known at all. I doubt that you will need your weapons or even if they would do you much good if you were foolish enough to think to use them where we go now, but you will need to bring your goodwill and a fair measure of courtesy." He raised his arms and they were in a place far to the north and a little east of Medewi in the next instant. It appeared to be a temple of some sort, bathed in almost total darkness but for a very few torches which sputtered in holders here and there. The columns were not bare and weathered; rather they were sleek and ornately decorated. It didn't look as though anyone had lived here recently, but from the looks of it, it might have been inhabited only a few years ago. "Where are we?" Yasmin asked as she looked at the symbols everywhere around her. "A very old place," a voice came out of the darkness and as they looked, they saw Anubis and Sekhmet walking with Bast toward them. "This region still bears the name of Jordan, though I would guess that it had several rulers through the ages. It was here at least a few hundred years before the one called Jesus of Nazareth was born. The place above and not far away is where he is reputed to have driven many demons out of a man and into a herd of swine." There was a snort from a way off in the long corridor and they heard some quiet clacking on the stone floor which drew nearer a little slowly and a deep voice began to rumble to them. "Were you there, mighty Anubis?" the voice said, "I was here, where we stand now, while this event occurred above me. I missed it somehow, for I was mating with a female at the time. I hope that I might be forgiven for thinking that what I was doing was more important. As the legend goes, he drove many demons out of a single man. I would not care at all what he did were it not for one detail which the scribes wrote in error." "O Meu Nome É Legião," a second voice said, "Legión me llamo." They saw a pair of eyes then, perhaps ten or twelve feet above the floor. "My brother plays with the incorrect phrase which has irritated us since we first heard that it was uttered there that day. Legio mihi nomen est, quia multi sumus," he said in Latin, "My name is Legion for we are many." They looked as a second set of eyes neared the first, "We were not there that day and so we cannot say if it was said at all, but if we were and had we heard it, the puny imp who was being cast out would have found his doom at my hands for the insult. I am Legion, though it is not my name," he said. "We are Legion, for it is what we call ourselves, and we were not inside some fool's head. We may pass through humans in our haste and harm nothing, but none of me can reside there. It is a fool's thought for I am a little large and no human could live with only my hand in him. Yet many were supposedly there, it is said. From this, we think a fool scribe erred -- or wrote a mistruth. We were here, under Umm Qais where we often were then, having no interest in the doings of Man at all. If the word had been uttered loudly there that day, we would have been there; wanting to know who it was who threw our name around in pretense. We have never cared about the doings of Man; the weak and presumptuous creature who believes that he is the only one with a mind and has always thought that it bought him the right to sit on a throne of some sort. Such a race of imbeciles. Their only saving grace is the speed at which they breed more of themselves. There is no such throne and there never has been, though at one time, they ruled the world. But we think that it is perhaps the time that we interest ourselves," the voice said, "Here," At that instant, the dusty floor shone and gleamed under their feet, and many cushions and large pillows were seen to be strewn about. "Rest yourselves while we talk, and also, we think that it is time that we make ourselves known to the others here." The torches flared brightly then and most of them stared at what they saw. The hall went on a long way into the darkness on the other side of the chamber, and they saw that it was filled with many sets of eyes glowing faintly. Two creatures stepped forward, their hooves and claws clattering a little against the stone and one of them came close enough to cause a little nervousness in one or two of the visitors. For a moment, there was no other sound, but then they heard something far off, a thin jingling which after a moment's thought came to their ears as though they were being approached by an individual who wore bells or something such as this. Most of what they saw looked to be covered in hard plates and yet to a careful eye, it could be seen that the plates wore the same gray leathery skin which covered everything else. The creature's rear legs were long and as muscled as any other part appeared to be, looking a little human-like in the shape of their thighs and knees. But below the knees the shins were a little thinner in proportion and a spike grew out of the calves to protrude rearward over a foot in length. Below that were cloven hooves which appeared to have the ability to be splayed out a little for a better grip on the smooth floor. The waist was very thin in proportion to the chest which was deeper than that of a draft horse, though it was plain that the ribs carried far more muscle than what might be found there on any Clydesdale or Belgian. It was obvious at once that they had to in order to support and power the massive shoulders. The hump over those shoulders was the tallest part to be seen like this and it wore some rough and bristly fur. All that rose above that were long spiked horns on the upper back, three facing forward and one or two smaller ones behind then facing rearward. The shoulders were huge and they supported massive arms which were longer than the thing's hind legs. In their outline, they were shaped very similarly to human arms, and they functioned as forelegs, but had the full range of motions that a man's arm might have. At the outsides of the forearms and near the elbows, a single spike grew there as well, about two feet in length and facing backward in this position. The clawed hands were huge as well and the knuckles were thickly padded, since the beast walked on them with his fingers curled backward. Each finger wore a claw and there was one vicious-looking one which stood out from the back of each hand. The neck was far thicker than the waist and well-armored; carrying more of the rough fur and it ended in a head which was more like a lizard's than anything else which walked the earth above and had warm blood. There were thick ridges of muscle along the top and the bottom of that neck ended in a long line of fur which ran back to the chest. Behind that skull, there were perhaps twenty long black tendrils which looked a little like thin hoses and they seemed to be able to move a little by themselves. The long tail seemed to have the same ability. It left the haunches as a thick and plated appendage, but it narrowed not far after, turning into a whip-like thing which was held up a little over the back for the most part. A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 51 But that head and that face held the observer's eye as soon as it was noticed that the thing was looking back. The eyes were either yellow or red, depending on mood or the thing's thoughts and they changed a little almost continually. The creature's head appeared to perhaps be the most protected part of the animal, being heavily-plated and looking most of all something like the head of a cobra, though that neck prevented the sort of movement that one might expect. There were no ears to be seen outwardly and the eyes sat in grooves along the sides of the skull, though it was obvious that their placement and size allowed for easy vision in the forward direction. There was no emotion shown there at the moment, other than perhaps interest and a great deal of intelligence. Below that was the mouth. Such a simple thing to say in regard to a part of an animal. Like a lizard or a cobra, the mouth was hinged far back and was filled with rows of razor-sharp teeth. There were four fangs; two on the top and two on the bottom jaw perhaps four or five inches in length and when the mouth was closed, they folded back. Hanging down from the chin, what appeared at first-glance to be a wattle was in fact a long tuft of hair which hung down about eighteen inches. "Now that we have allowed a little time to get past the shock which we saw in many faces here," he said, "I will tell what is to be known of us before my brother tells of what is known to threaten us all." He sat down in a squat of sorts and he began as he looked from one to the next, "We do not know much of our origins," he said, "for it has been so long that it has passed from the memories of the ones before us who are long dead and we live long. My brother and I were spawned together more than three thousand winters ago. A careful look at us must show that we are not the same as most creatures here. We do not know where we came from. It was said by some of us that we were brought here to serve one being, but if that is so, we have not known or seen that one yet. We live here, for most dealings with humans cause only trouble for us and death to them. Our blood is hot to them and most things about us are fearful to them as well. We live here under the earth and we move through the pathways where we wish." He looked at Khyan, "The same pathways which your kind knows, though we do not show ourselves to you. There are enough things which think that we must be killed and come for us only to die. It grows wearisome after a time, so we hide when we can." "Lately there are other things which run the passageways," Khyan said, "these come from you? We spend a lot of time killing them to clear the paths." "No," the beast said, "what comes to you are only the ones that have gotten away from us. There are many more than you know. They are new here and we kill all that we find." As they spoke. Siroc and Ghibli stood holding hands and Siroc leaned toward her sister, "Do you see it, sister?" Ghibli nodded, "Yes, "she whispered, "I wish to know more." She felt Siroc's lips against her hear as her sister whispered quickly, "I would be happy to see more as well." All the while the jingling was growing louder and now they heard light clattering on the floor much like what they'd heard earlier, though it was perhaps not as heavy, until at last, a third one of them walked into the large chamber. This one was markedly smaller, perhaps only a fifth or a fourth the size of the two which were already here. Besides the size, there was another difference to be seen. This one was a female. She stood as they did for a moment, listening to what was said around her and looking this way and that, her head swaying slowly from side to side and the source of the jingling became clear since she wore small metal trinkets in the thick black tendrils at the back of her head. With her was a younger male, who stood apart and watched having come in almost unnoticed. None of the newcomers here knew it, but she was listening to them speak among themselves and deciding which language this was. "Have the tellings been said?" she asked of one of the males, "I was elsewhere and could not come right away, but I am here now." "No," the male who had spoken first said to her. "Then I have come in good time all the same," she nodded. "I see some of the Djinn people here by the flames which I sense within them, and yet most are not true. Much of what I see surprises me," she said, looking at Saddiq and Sha-sha. "Please tell me how you are called, and I will tell of our names and then we may begin." The others told of themselves and the creatures listened politely and with interest, though they were also looking at Ghibli and Siroc now and then as though something bothered them. They waited patiently until it came the turn of the sisters who looked unsure of how to begin. "There was once one among us," the first male said at last, "He was the leader of a small group which followed him as though he had some important teachings. He advocated the view that we were here to serve the unknown one, and since none of us had met him, then we should seek to find him ourselves." "It was a thinly disguised hope that we might go to the surface and make it our own," the other male said, "Mostly, that meant the murder of humans who had done nothing to us. The followers were killed and everyone hunted for him for a time. He was Dharohm - a name which in our tongue means 'Sit-Before-Stone'. He was gone from us for a time, coming seldom and then not at all when he learned that his death was wanted by the rest." The female nodded, "That one has not been seen by any of us in a long time. My brothers were barely of age then and I was but a little older. Thousands of winters have passed. "But in these two here," the female said, indicating the twins, "I feel a little of his life and, ... " She tilted her head, "I also sense his death." Ghibli spoke then, telling of what had happened and how she and her sister were spawned by their mother and how their father had been killed by the pair of them -- his own daughters. "But he did not look as you do here," she said. "That is because he chose to change himself wanting always to go out into the world, and so he prepared himself, thinking that the day was nearing. I hope for you that you did not take his notions to heart. Tell me how you are called, and I will tell more of us." A while later, she nodded, a little relieved that she found no ill will in them toward anyone. "These are my younger brothers," she said pointing, "Mirai and Amraish. I am called Sheel and over there, is our nephew, Mahkhad." "Who rules here?" Dakhete asked. "None," Sheel said, "We three lead by right and deed, but we have no queen or king. We are also not as 'legion' as we once were. There are perhaps a thousand of us, maybe a little less. We have waited and no one has come. It is as if we all slowly tire of everything. But that does not mean that we will allow the new ones to come and destroy everything as they do. We have our place here and we do not yield. We hunt and we kill those we find. Anubis is here to try to continue his pleas that we come out and join what war there will be, he says, yet we do not see a place for ourselves in it anywhere." The statement began a series of polite objections and gentle arguments on the part of several of the visitors. Siroc and Ghibli grew a little bored in fairly short order and, seeing that the one called Mirai kept regarding her while listening, she stepped forward and approached him. "I wish to say that I am not one who can hide her thoughts behind her words very well," she told him, "It is something which we learn only lately from our young brother. We have spent a little time as very young ones outside, but as we grew older, our mother slowly imprisoned us more and more, so we lived our lives inside a mountain. Now we may come and go as we will," she said smiling up at him, "and I see one who pleases me much to look at in you Mirai." He bowed his huge head a little in thanks and expressed his pleasure to meet her and her sister, "I have never seen anyone who looks as you do." "Can you go outside?" she asked, "or is it forbidden?" "My brother and sister and I go out now and then," he said, "to see and try to learn a little. Mostly, we hide ourselves, but there is a wadi where I like to go alone. I like to look at it and bathe in the water there. I often sit on the sand and wonder how hard it would be to make a life in a place like that." "Why not try it and see?" Siroc asked, "Go there with your female and your young and try. If it does not work, then do not give up. I am sure that Dakhete would welcome a family like that in her land. I know that my brother would welcome you to our land as well." "I could go alone," he said, "My brother and I have no females anymore. We lost them in the shifting which happened long ago. Parts of the earth here opened under the ground and many fell then." Siroc asked his forgiveness then for mentioning something which must hurt him, but he shook his head, "We grieved for a long while then, but it is the past. Have you a male?" "No," she smiled, "To say the truth of it, I seek a male, but there are not many for what we are, my sister and me." She looked around, "Is this wadi far from here? I would like to see it if you would take me there and bring me back. The talk here looks as though it will last longer than I wish to sit and listen. My sister and I have already decided what we will do when war comes." Mirai looked down and smiled," It is a little far, but not for ones like me. As you wish, Siroc," he said, leaning forward to get to his feet again and lower himself a little, "Climb up a little carefully and I will bear you." She looked at the spike which protruded from his foreleg and, seeing that it was not sharp-edged along the top, she placed one foot there and stepped up, looking for a way higher to get to his back. Reaching for one of the horns on his shoulder, she pulled herself up, helping a little with her feathered wings at one point. It seemed to amuse him a little as she sought a place to settle herself. "Such pretty wings," he said to her, "I see that you have grace, but I think that they give you even more." She thanked him and looking over, she saw that Ghibli had stepped over and was pointing to her and Mirai as she spoke to Amraish. A moment later, she was climbing up on him and the sisters smiled to each other for a second, before the brothers turned away and they began to move down the long passageway through the throngs of the others. As they neared the end, it looked as though they'd walk straight into a blank wall, but Siroc saw the opening as it materialized. Once through that, Mirai told her to hang on a little tightly and as he felt that she did, he began to run. The ride where she sat was smooth, but the pace was incredible. She looked back and saw Amraish's eyes as he followed. In only moments she began to notice that Mirai slowed and she looked at the walls around her, "Where are we now?" she asked him. "Not all that far now," he smiled, "with you to accompany me. We are leaving the caves of Qumran." They emerged through a passageway of rocks into the sunshine of what looked like a part of another world. There was a light blue pool in the center of several walls of stone, A thin waterfall cascaded through the air and the whole place was surrounded by rather lush vegetation and lightly wooded hills beyond that. Mirai walked right into the pool a little way. As Siroc looked around in wonder, she heard Ghibli laugh as Amraish stepped alongside his brother. "Such beauty," Ghibli said, "does anyone live here? I think that I could live here forever and be happy." "Oh, there are some who live nearby," Amraish said, "humans, mostly, and the animals who come for water. Some trade caravans pass by now and then, and there have been fights over the place." Ghibli couldn't understand why a place such as this could cause anyone to want to harm another, but Mirai explained. "With the setbacks which the humans have suffered along with everyone else, they use beasts once more to haul their goods and belongings. Those beasts can only go so far without water, so places such as this are important. To their minds, who controls the oases and the wadis controls trade and to control trade is to control people. We do not care, of course and do as we like." The sisters climbed down and began to bathe. It brought laughter to the pair of males as they stood and watched while first one sister and then the other -- and then both squatted a little in the shallow water to flutter their wings and splash as though they were a pair of sparrows before they stood up and pulled the brothers to the waterfall so that they could have a little fun in washing the huge beasts. The brothers were amazed, but Ghibli only laughed and said that they were in such a place of wonders and with a pair of males who they liked at once and who seemed to like them. Siroc nodded, "Back there, we must be as a pair of princesses from our land as our brother tries to help Anubis and the others in their requests for you to join them. Here, we are only a pair of girls and we can have fun. It is an easy choice for us to be here with you." She reached up and took Mirai's face as she stretched up a little and he lowered his head, amazed as Siroc rubbed her cheek against his for a moment. She kissed his cheek and said her quiet thanks for being brought here, but Mirai thanked her in his turn for asking. The looked at each other for a moment and then Siroc brought her face a little closer to his and the tip of her tongue slipped out between her lips to lick his very softly for a moment. She tried, but she couldn't get her arms around that thick neck of his. "Please do not argue with me over it," she sighed as she looked up, "but I have never seen ones like you either and to me, you are very fine." She sighed after he shifted his weight and she felt his arm around her hips and the way that his fingers slid over her skin. His mouth opened and she watched as his fangs rose up in his jaws. If she stood with her hands at her sides, he could easily take her halfway down his throat before he'd have to snap her in half to swallow. He did none of that, of course, only opening his mouth to slide out his own tongue and they stood for a time trading very wet kisses and Siroc stood it with a little quiet joy when he licked her face very carefully. Even so, she was soaked in moments from it and when they drew apart, she laughed and stepped to the waterfall to wash her face. But the reverie was broken a few seconds later as they heard gunfire from the opposite rim of the walls. There was a pair of humans there, a man and a woman who stood with bolt-action rifles to shoot at them all. Ghibli heard it when Amraish was hit by the slap of the bullet against him and the brief hiss of pain. She turned then, her eyes glowing in rage, but it was clear that the pair of humans had overlooked something a moment later, and it was their own safety. There was whistling sound from close behind them and the woman turned to see a look of startled shock on the man's face and a quickly widening line across his neck at an angle as the gout of his blood began. His head fell backward a little, hanging on what was left of his spine just as he toppled over. She began to scream as she raised her rifle, but the sound came again and the rifle clattered to the ground, her hands and one forearm falling with it. A dark hand reached out to grab her by the throat and she shuddered for an instant, her eyes bulging just after that whistling tail ran her through to emerge from just above one collarbone. The eyes rolled back as the tail was whipped out again and she was allowed to fall then as Sheel and Mahkhad jumped from the rim to land with a splash in the pool. Ghibli turned to Amraish, "Are you hurt?" "No," he blinked as he looked at himself and plucked away the bullet. Sheel was smiling as she waded across to them, "I think that this adds to my argument that we should remain and only watch as these fools are killed off, but I know better." She extended her forearm and there was a satchel there as she began to speak to the twin sisters, "We have brought food. Mahkhad is healing from a fight in a dark place underground. It takes some of his strength to do and so he remains silent for most of the time to conserve what he can. We found him with many of the new demons which are brought here now. He slew many, but they were wearing him down." They looked and saw the young demon nod his head and offer a pained smile and they nodded to him before he ambled off slowly to find a place in the sunshine before he washed. "I do not wish to be disturbed again," Ghibli said as she raised her arm and the wind began to blow hotly. As they looked, a wall of sand rose up to obscure the low hills in the distance. Siroc raised her arm and another wind was added to her sister's, but at an angle and the wall began to spread around them. In less than a minute, the oasis was in the eye of a funnel, the air perfectly still, but in that wall of wind it was very much a different story. The only things which saved most of the land around were the trees which withstood the blasting wind because of their thick numbers. Out beyond that, buildings were obliterated and the pieces simply blew away. "I came to get away myself after leaving others to argue and debate," Sheel said, "and I had other reasons besides. I can see that there is something of us in you both at moments and I wish to know more, since I see that my brothers are looking a little smitten to me now. I wish you well, lovely ones, but I wish to know." "We are from the pairing of our mother with one of your kind," Siroc said quietly, "and so we are partly Djinn and can change ourselves some ways. The other way that we are is as you three. No one -- not even our own brother has seen this in us because we feared to lose his love for us. He is very young to us, and from the time that he was a baby, he has meant so much to my sister and I. He is the only one who came to see us these last few years in our prison. Now we are free by his hand and those of others, but we still fear to let him see us." She bent down then and her hands touched the bottom of the pool. What she looked like now was very similar to Sheel in appearance and the males both sucked in their breath as Siroc returned to her more familiar shape. Sheel laughed and nodded as she stood up on her back legs, "I knew it, and now I can give my small blessing to you both for I can see what will happen here soon. If it is your wish, I can take my leave, but I would rather stay a while and enjoy being away. You may not know much of the way that it might be, and so I would like to stay. I can offer advice if you wish and would not mind at all," she said as she began to walk away. "Sheel," Ghibli said, "Thank you, but please stay. This is a lot of food and we would share with you." Siroc nodded her agreement, "And we do wish to know. If Mirai and Amraish do not mind, we seek to know." They found the small spit of sand that served as something of a beach as they ate and talked in the eerie brown light while the wind blew in a circle around them. "So it is not us?" Siroc asked as she sat on Mirai's thigh and fed him bits of a strange and wonderful-tasting plant which grew underground and needed no light, "We have always felt foolish when we ask things directly or do things the same way." "Not at all," Sheel smiled, "That is our way. You will both mate with my brothers very soon, because that is our way as well, and you all like each other enough for it. I can see that you like Mirai and Ghibli likes Amraish and that is enough for Sheel to be happy over. You make what you can of it and if it works, there is much happiness for each pair. A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 51 We choose our mates quickly -- it has always been our way. We live in small groups, family groups mostly, and for so long, our family has been only I and my brothers. We mated together out of our need and the want to mate with one who can be trusted. If this works, then I welcome you to our family." She looked away a little, "Though I will lose the ones who mate with me, it is what is best." "Can you not find another?" Siroc asked, and Sheel shook her head, "I have tried and there is no one. Most are already paired and the few single ones, ... All can only see that I am one of their leaders and it changes things for us all. Do not let it trouble you." She moved away then, not wanting to be in the middle unless one of them asked as she saw that Amraish was toying with Ghibli's cleft gently already and she hung onto what she could of his neck. Siroc and Mirai finished eating and she reached to pet the bulge in his abdomen. Sheel knew that in only seconds, his male organs would emerge from the fold where they were held tightly at most times in males for protection. She smiled to herself then, because as soon as she'd had the thought, it happened and Siroc had her hand on the hardening shaft of her brother as his long tongue also made an emergence to lick her nipples. She saw such happiness in them all and she wished fervently that it grew into lifelong pairings for them as she stepped a little closer. "Mirai has had human females and even other demons kinds before," she said softly. "Allow him to love you in his way, and you will be well-pleased." Siroc looked over as she found herself being lifted carefully into the air before him, and he began to make love to her with his tongue. She was awash in moments, but she was happy for it as that almost-hot and very wet organ teased her in places which surprised her. At one point he was dangling her by her ankle and licking her between her legs as she writhed and moaned. "Just allow it," Sheel smiled up at her from the ground and they looked into each other's eyes. Siroc was not that far above the other one as her smile turned into an upside-down frown and her tail reached out to tickle Sheel's nose for a moment in a playful gesture. They heard Ghibli's loud groan and as they both looked, they saw her on her hands and knees as Amraish's tongue was performing the same service for the other sister licking her with enough gentle force to lift her knees from the ground every so often. Sheel reached for Mirai to pet his shaft out of a bit of habit as they watched, but her hand met Siroc's on the way. Sheel was about to apologize when she saw Siroc shift herself to be as she was and they looked at each other for a moment with the slow smiles beginning as they stepped away a little to circle each other. "You know of this?" Sheel asked, and Siroc shrugged, "I have not seen this, but two females -- one male, I think we fight or -- "she looked over in a little confusion, "This is done among you, yes?" Sheel grinned, "Yes, but we do not need to fight. I wish for you to have Mirai as I wish for your fine sister to have Amraish. It is just in us for two of the same kind to fight to see who has the last male. For me, it would be a little sport and I wish to learn of you." Siroc nodded as they circled again, each of them dropping to a low stance and looking like a pair of angry iguanas in a way. Mirai watched as he stroked himself idly and Amraish stopped licking Ghibli to mount her slowly and gently as they both watched the pair. There wasn't all that much fight to it, since other than with Ghibli, Siroc had never fought anyone in this way while Sheel was very proficient and well-known for her abilities. In little time at all, Siroc found herself on her back looking up as Sheel crawled over her to smile. "If that was what you have to fight with, then I will need to teach you," she said, "if your pairing with Mirai goes well for you both, you might need to be able to fight now and then. Not all females are as generous with their males as I am. Hold still and keep your right eye closed for a moment. There is sand about to fall in." Siroc lay motionless as Sheel reached and brushed the sand away gently and blew a little to dislodge the rest. Siroc felt a little odd to be lying under another female who was not the sister that she'd known for all of her life. "Why do you do this - all of this to help my sister and I?" she asked in a whisper. "I see two females for my brothers," Sheel answered, "and I am hopeful for them. We are the last of our family, us three, and though we mate between us, is it seldom because of who we are to each other. I would be happy with only one other, but with one for each of my brothers I almost tremble in my joy. We would become a proper family once more," she said, "As we are now, it is only a matter of time before we are challenged over the right to lead. If the challenge comes from a much larger family ... it would be very difficult and sad to have to follow and no longer lead to me." She leaned down and kissed Siroc's cheek lightly, "You should mate with Mirai now." Siroc nodded, "It is what I ache to do from almost my first look at him, but I do not know much about mating with males like him." "Go to him and begin," Sheel said, "For any difficulty, you have me to help and guide you. Ghibli already has Amraish. See how they are careful and slow, since they do not know each other but seek to. My brothers are not cruel to females. I have taught them well." Siroc nodded and reverted to her winged shape as they stood up and walked back to Mirai together. After some minutes of kissing him and listening to Sheel's whispered suggestions -- as well as Ghibli's quiet moans, Siroc asked for his tongue and he laid her down very gently. Siroc was on her back with her feathered wings spread, looking hopeful. Mirai was in awe of her and he said so with no hesitation, "I have never seen anyone like you," he growled low in between the long wet strokes of his tongue over her body. Siroc wanted to answer but found her thoughts slipping off before she could give voice to them. All that she could do was sigh as his tongue went everywhere on her, never stopping or staying long in any place. As the hot tip of it left one of her nipples, she had a passing thought and wish to complain a little, but it felt so good as his tongue slid over her throat and was gone in a long wet line down her front in such a way that she just had to splay her knees out widely in hopeful anticipation and she wasn't disappointed when it arrived. Siroc heard Sheel's quiet instructions to her brother and she looked over for a moment. Sheel squatted there with her hand working her sex as she watched carefully. When she saw Siroc looking, she smiled, "Forgive me if you feel that I intrude, but I wish to make this good for you. I have told him to rub himself on you when you are wet enough. When he feels the need and it is plain that you do as well, he will move to his knees to mount you." Siroc nodded and was about to say her thanks when the tip of Mirai's tongue left the bottom of her cleft to slip over her perineum and her hips rose involuntarily and she gasped as it entered her anus to remain at the entrance and widen. Siroc moaned loudly and almost cried out in pleasure from only that, but then it was removed to perform the same action in the passage above and she tried to fold herself in half so that she could coo to him and see his eyes as she touched his face. "Mirai shows himself," Sheel said, meaning that his genitals now hung down and began their own preparations, "It will begin soon." She looked over at Ghibli and walked there to watch as her other sibling picked up the pace of this in response to her begging cries. She stood next to the pair and kissed her brother's cheek softly. "You look so happy, brother," she said with a smile. "I am happy," he replied, "I seek to win Ghibli for me. I wish to have her with us. I only do not know her ways or if I do anything wrong." "Nothing ... wrong, "Ghibli groaned with a smile, "Fuck me, Amraish. Only fuck me and the rest can wait." Sheel knelt beside the second half-Djinn, working her own slit with her fingers as she squatted. "You are both so fine to us," she said as they looked at each other for a long moment, Sheel smiling softly at Ghibli looking back through half-closed eyes. Sheel put her hand on Ghibli's back and leaned to squeeze her nipples, one after the other. Ghibli moaned loudly from the feeling as well as the thought when she realized that her nipples felt a little cool from Sheel's wetness. Sheel leaned forward a little and she regarded Ghibli for a second. "Welcome to our family," she sighed as she kissed Ghibli's cheek. "If it is your wish, Amraish would keep you happy and I would be happy to call you sister." She chuckled and pointed to where Mirai crouched on his knees before Siroc, gliding his shaft against her cleft as she held her knees up and her thighs together. She looked up smiling and then looked at what she held. Her mouth opened in surprise as he leaned his head lower and she felt his saliva flood her loins as it ran from his mouth to wet them again. The laughed a little and then he stopped a moment later. Siroc couldn't take her eyes from him as he shifted himself and moved her knees. Each breath was a soft gasp as she noticed some detail on him that she'd somehow missed earlier. She looked from the massive chest as he moved forward a little and rose up, and as she felt the tip of him against her opening, she saw him reach for her with those large arms and was amazed at how gently he could hold her with his cruel-looking clawed hands. Siroc groaned and moved her hips downward a little to welcome him as she felt him enter and she smiled up as that head and face began to loom over her. "I have never wanted something such as this with anyone as much as I want it now with you," she said as she raised her arms above her head to allow him anything. His face was against hers and his mouth opened to invite her tongue in. The sight caused Ghibli to moan and buck herself back against Amraish and he began to drive her then. Siroc came quickly, but she urged and begged Marai for more and he obliged, taking her shoulders in his huge hands to hold her captive as he opened his mouth to take her nipple in gently. She arched her back, and he placed his hands over her ribs to feel the way that her chest heaved while he licked her throat. As strange as it seemed to her, mating with him this way came very naturally to her, as though she'd been made for him. He was so very much larger than she was, but they fit well in spite of it. The thought of the amount of saliva that he leaked onto her would have been a repugnant thought to her before she'd met him. Now she wanted it, feeling ever more lust as she watched it run from his incredible tongue and lips onto her. Sheel was beside them a moment later, "He looks to be so good for you," she smiled, genuinely pleased at what she was watching, "It is my strong wish and hope that this becomes the pairing of a lifetime between you." Siroc looked over for a moment and she smiled, "He is so good for me, but ... I ... I wonder about how I crave the ... water from his mouth so. It is not ... something that I have ever had the thought of nor ... the want." Sheel shrugged, "I think that it shows that you have what we are inside you, Siroc. There is a purpose, since it can keep things wet. His is made to make this better for you and yours is to inflame him a little. It is not much of an effect either way. One either likes it or not, depending on what they are. The humans that he has lain with hated it. You love it, I see. Who can say beyond that?" Siroc asked Mirai if he would stop for a moment and lie on his back for her. He looked amazed and so did Sheel, but Mirai smiled and he complied. As she climbed onto him, Siroc leaned forward to run her hands over his chest. A moment later, she poured herself onto his ribcage with a sweet groan, "I could lie here forever," she sighed, "your fur feels so good to me. But," she grinned as she reached back for him, "I have a task for me. Mirai has a hope and Sheel has a hope as well. Me, I have what is becoming more than a need. If this might be mine to have, then I wish to belong." Sheel's eyes widened and Mirai reached for her hips and smiled, "I would do anything for you if you say that you are my female." As she pushed herself backward with a humming moan and a happy smile, Siroc said, "You already have your female. Mirai. We need to learn of each other and try to live together, but I want you." Before Siroc could really begin, Sheel jumped to her feet and she stood beside her reaching to hug her, "I gain two sisters in a day after hundreds of years with no one for the hearts of my brothers. I cannot say my thanks," she almost sobbed and reached for Siroc. As she kissed her briefly, she felt Siroc's hand against her chest and she moved hers to hold the other one's breast for a moment. "Is this right?" Siroc asked, "I feel that I should do this, but I do not know." Sheel nodded and kissed her again, "For a new one to come to a family, this is correct between the females of the same generation. We become like sisters -- and I have two in a day. I am so happy now." "Well this is good to see," Mirai smirked, "but can I have a little happiness as well?" Siroc smiled and she began to ride him, "I am pleased that I can take it all for you this way." Sheel smirked, "Another thing which shows me who your father was. The humans that he has lain with complained." "Oh, I find nothing to complain about here," Siroc said as she caressed his ribs. Sheel stepped away as they heard Amraish roar out quietly. Ghibli looked dazed, but happy as she quivered in his grasp. "So much he gives," she groaned. Sheel looked and nodded, "He is still in you and you run with it," she smiled as she reached to catch a little on her fingers and she brought them to her own cleft to rub it in. "Why do you do that?" Ghibli asked, having seen it. "I want a little for me," Sheel grinned. She was about to explain, but their attention was drawn by the sounds which Marai was making as he stared up at Siroc. Her face wore a look of pleased bliss as she leaned on his abdomen with her hands and pounded herself against him. She was only barely bringing herself down and not going for fullest penetration at all. She was just going at it as fast as she could at just the angle to allow this and there was no element of forward or rearward motion to this whatsoever. They stared at the speed of her motions. Her feet were as tucked under him as she could manage so that she had control in both directions. Her hips were almost a blur and she fucked him in little strokes faster than any rabbit. She turned her head toward them all, though she wasn't looking at them as she bit her lower lip a little and worked him. Her breasts only wiggled a little and her hair hung almost still -- unless she tossed it if it got into her face. And she kept right on working him as he groaned. He made a few feeble attempts at raising his arms to touch her, but he never did manage it, his hands falling to his chest. Mirai's breath flew in and out of him in great gulps, but Siroc fucked on in her joy like lightning, her own breaths shallow and quick. She stopped abruptly and smiled down at him as she began a few long and languid strokes, "Do I please you, Mirai?" He looked up at her and laughed, "Yes! Your feet hurt my waist, but I think that it must be for you to do this. I do not mind. You please me so much. Can you do that again?" Siroc beamed at him and nodded before she looked over to either side to make sure that her feet were placed to anchor herself well, and with a playful grin to him, she began to bop like a wild bunny again. "I have never seen something like this," Sheel said in amazement. "I have," Ghibli said as she looked up, "I can do this as well," she said with a little grin as she looked straight up into Amraish's startled face, "Do you wish for that from me, Amraish?" He looked upside down to her, but she saw his slow smile, "Yes," he said quietly with a nod, "I wish to try that." She groaned when he eased himself out of her and Sheel knelt beside Ghibli, rubbing the semen over Ghibli's skin, "How is it done?" she asked as her fingers worked Ghibli's sodden mound for her, "How did you learn to do that?" --------------------------- The differences for them as a people were obvious in many respects, though Sheel and her brothers explained some of them, knowing that the twins knew little of it, other than the way that they seemed to be driven from inside themselves in some ways. "We choose ones to mate with in seconds," Mirai said, "it is only after when we try to make more of a love out of what we have found. That can be very hard to do, but, ... "he shrugged. "It is our way," Sheel smiled, "and it is the way that we became legion in the first place, I suppose." Siroc glanced at her sister for a moment and then indicated Sheel with her eyes, as Sheel lay on her back in the weak sunshine. Ghibli nodded and cleared her throat, "Sister," she began, "Siroc and I wish to ask something and we are afraid to offend." "Speak then and see," Sheel sighed, happy to hear the way that she'd been addressed, "I do not think that I could take offense." "We are a family, you have said," Ghibli began quietly, "Two males, two females as pairs, and the eldest sister. We are all of a very close age, and you have said that you and your brothers have mated before. You seek to make us welcome among you. My sister and I have a wish to please you, but we do not know if this would be welcome from us." Sheel groaned and stretched as she looked up, "If it brings us all closer and love is shared among us all, nothing can go amiss." Several minutes later, Sheel was in bliss as her brothers took her together, front and back very gently while their new females helped in any way that they could. As they lay spent, the twin sisters held Sheel between them and kissed her slowly for a time afterwards, and then they looked at each other and allowed the wind to fall to stillness as the five of them stepped into the pool to bathe. Twenty minutes later, a motion caught Mahkhad's eye and he looked across the pool from where he stood. A moment after that, the rest looked as well as a human woman in a torn desert-toned combat shirt and very worn khaki shorts waded toward them slowly and carefully with an old rifle in her hands. He thought that, as humans go, she was lovely though it was as though she carried her very own flavor for that and she certainly didn't care what the observer saw. She was not lithe, though there was little in the way of fat to her. Oddly enough, she didn't appear to be muscled either, at least not what might be visible. Rather, she appeared to be a little above the median height for a human female -- and yet she seemed to be a little heavier while still well-proportioned, as though she was one-quarter to one-third more girl in the same package, with long slightly curly almost copper-colored hair and even at the distance that he was from her, he noticed her light blue eyes. Behind her, there were perhaps thirty others standing warily on the sand behind her and another hundred or so standing along the rocks above. Mirai thought for a moment about the language which she might likely attempt when she spoke in halting Lebanese Arabic as Ghibli lifted her face from Sheel's breast to see who it was who interrupted them. Mirai sensed that this woman didn't have the background for that and he shook his head, seeing the nature of the badges sewn onto the woman's clothing. She tried a northern Syrian dialect and saw that he shook his head again. A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 51 "The weapon," he said in Hebrew, "not in your hands." She stopped and stared at him, amazed that he could speak, the rifle almost falling from her grip into the water. "Who -- who are you?" He pointed, "The weapon." She hesitated a second too long and Mirai disappeared, though the line of disturbed water which accompanied him left little doubt where he was. The woman screamed in surprise as she was lifted and the other humans made ready to open fire. What stopped them was the woman, held -- still screaming and struggling now - in the air in front of Mirai as he stood on the sand, so that they were offered a choice as he glared at them all. "Stand down," he said loudly, "or this one dies -- and if she dies for such stupidity, then you will all die." He looked at the woman, who now cursed a little in her efforts to free herself. "Calm yourself," he said as he forced the rifle away from her, "You are a leader among these ones? How can you lead when you cannot listen? I wanted the weapon out of your hand. It can be carried over your shoulder. I do not care, but not in your hand. They annoy me. Can you listen now?" She nodded and he set her down gently on her feet. "What do you want?" he asked. "I -- I am Natasha," she said, "We come in thanks." "For?" He asked. She looked surprised, "You have killed the ones who imprisoned us -- enough for us to overthrow them, anyway." "I killed no one that I know of," he said, "What happened?" Natasha related how the sandstorm had destroyed buildings where the weapons and troops of a local warlord had been housed, killed him and his family and tipped the scales in their favor, making an uprising possible and hiding the progress of it until it was a fact. "We are grateful," she said. "You fear us," he said as an observation, "and I did nothing of the kind. It is these ones whom you should thank -- if you think that you have the courage for it." Natasha looked at Ghibli and Siroc, who nodded to her cautiously before she looked back at Mirai, "Why do you say it that way?" she asked. "It is the truth," he smiled, "You alone do not shiver and quake -- most of rest do. And why?" He snorted, "We have had almost nothing to do with humans because of your kind's stupidity. We hide from you because we are tired of killing you in our own defense. We came here to bathe and we were attacked for nothing and we had to kill two more humans over no more than our wish to be clean." He leaned a little lower and she backed up a step. "What now?" he asked, "I only wished for a better look at you and you are ready to run." "I will not run," she said a little hotly. "Fine," he replied, "then thank who you must and be gone. I only wish to see you do it." "Why do you mock me?" she asked. "I mock nothing, but you show your foolishness once more," he said, "You say that you are free by the hand of one of us? Do you know who you speak with?" "I asked you who you are and I was treated roughly," Natasha said. "You did not listen when I told you about your weapon. You are alive and you are not harmed, "He said, "You try to take insult where there was none meant, and you still do not show me that you can listen. Who I am is not something which I think that you wish to know, since those others would only be more afraid. Sit." She didn't move and so he bellowed it. "SIT!" They all sat. "First," he said, "Forget what you think that you know -- or you throw away an ally before you even know that you need him -- and you will. I did nothing to help or hinder you. I am a demon to some though it is not our name for ourselves. It was the two winged ones here who aided you and they are half-demon. The other half is Djinn." "What do you mean?" she asked. "I mean," he said, "they are half something which is not mentioned in your books, yet there they are. The dust which rose came from their winds. I did nothing. So if you must say your thanks, say it to them and I will translate." Natasha got to her feet and bowed politely as she thanked Siroc and Ghibli, who bowed back and smiled when Mirai translated for them. He looked at Natasha, "They say that they are pleased that they helped you, but they knew nothing of your trouble; they only raised the sand so that we might have a little peace to mate." "Now," he said, "Where will you go?" "Jerusalem, I have heard," she said with a shrug. Mirai nodded, "There are many allies of the one who imprisoned you between here and Jerusalem, if that is where you mean to go since you do not seem sure. It seems to me that you say this because it was said to you by another. At worst, the powerful men like the one you have killed are his allies and at best, they are his rivals and would imprison you themselves if they do not kill you outright. They are all the same. " "We don't know, "she said, "We have to discuss this." "How many are you and what can you do?" he asked further. "I think that we have about two hundred who can fight," she said, "and about three hundred others, not fighters, and there are children in that number." He shook his head, "I do not doubt that you have the spirit," he said, "but can you fight through to get to a place which is not your home? There is war coming. Man and demons and other sorts of things against demons and others as well. This is known by us. I think that you will need to fight no matter where you are as will we all, but there is a queen who can help. She seeks settlers on her lands to the south. You would be welcome there and your faith can remain your own, she cares not. She seeks settlers who would fight for what is theirs. Choose some leaders to stay here with the people and a small group to come with you, and we will take you to her and you can decide." He leaned down, "Why do I see that you are uncertain? I think that you all are being told where you must go by someone else here and it is not the right thing." He tilted his head, "Jerusalem is a ruin -- the same as any city in this time. How long has it been since you were there? You cannot have seen it before its fall." Natasha thought for a moment and then she looked up and squared her shoulders, "I have never seen it," she said, "None of us have. We were born either here or on the way here, but we have always trained against this day -- to go home." Mirai looked closely for a moment, "That is not where you came from, yet you call it home." He shook his head, "Then you are lost," he said, "Think to how you feared and distrusted me only a moment ago. Which of you would believe me? Who would take the word of a demon when he says that there is no place to go home to? I know your kind. With a desire and a hope burning in you, you would go, fighting and dying the whole way to get to something which is a wasteland, driven only by your hope that it is still there. Humans are known to us for this. I could show you and you would believe nothing. Come," he said, "and I WILL show you." He held her rifle out to her and began to walk. She looked astonished until he looked over, "On your shoulder. Not in your hands." Natasha nodded and slung the weapon over her shoulder. He walked off the spit of sand on all fours and she saw that whatever he was, he preferred to move that way as he led her back to the others on the opposite side. "Can you walk on just your back feet?" she asked. "I can stand that way for a time," he said, "walking that way feels uncomfortable and unnatural. You can stand on your hands. How far would you wish to walk like that?" As they drew near, the others all shank back and a few raised their weapons. "Remind them that I told them to stand down. Tell them that I am no enemy, but that I will become one if they show more of this to me. The next one who lifts a weapon will die. Tell them." She spoke to them all and they lowered the weapons. "I brought you here to show you this." He said in Hebrew, "You will see how much I am to be trusted." A shimmering portal opened, and then another beside it. "Jerusalem," he pointed to one, "In this one, other places where man lives," he said, indicating another before he showed them what was left of Damascus, Medina, Moscow, NuYawk, Buenos Aires, London, Berlin and Lozenjellis. "Go if you feel that you must, but from what I know, it is the same everywhere. They stand as you see them. None have much of any order. Some are run by men like the one that you have overthrown. There is little to go there for. The people starve and scrape to live there as they do in any other place. Some are worse than others." He moved his hand and the image of Oakland began to grow nearer, zooming in as the focal point closed on an old sports stadium. The people on the sand spit recoiled as they watched the carnage before them as it was happening. "Those winged ones are demons," Mirai said, "though they are not of this world and have been brought. This is the war that I spoke of, Natasha, and unless it is stopped and soon, it will grow and spread -- and there will be nowhere that anyone will be safe." "You cannot believe him," a slightly older man said, "He is --" Mirai's hand shot out and held the man by the throat as he looked around, "Yes," he said, "a demon. I think that we all know now." He pointed to the man in his grasp, "There," he said, "Wisdom from an idiot. He was not where you were." "He is my commander," Natasha said. Mirai shook the man and leaned close as he spoke to Natasha, "Perfect," he sneered, "A leader who leads from safety. I'd wager that he did little or none of the fighting, waiting until you all handed the victory to him." He looked closely for a moment and leaned closer still. "You stood next to me and the others and you barely shook. This -- leader -- quakes and he will foul himself in only a moment more." He turned to woman, "Yet you follow him. You would be better served to follow your own heart and mind Natasha, you and those like you here. An important bit of advice; there is a difference between being led for a purpose and being led by one who holds up a purpose -- when really, it is his sense of importance that drives him. That is what I see here." Mirai looked at the man, "I will let go now. You will now show that you are no leader. I will set you down and if you move even a hair away from me, I will kill you. Do you understand?" The man nodded as much as he was able and Mirai set him down. "You are her leader. How interesting. You were slaves here? Forced labor, perhaps?" Natasha nodded and he went on, "And none of you have seen where it is that you wish to go, having been born in captivity here or elsewhere, the children of slaves. And this one here, who now pisses in his fear of what he does not know, he has seen nothing either and he would lead you - where?" He looked at the man, "Do you know the direction to Jerusalem? Show me." The man raised his hand and pointed. Mirai smirked, "That way leads to Istanbul. Do you wish to try again?" The man licked his lips and pointed in another direction. Mirai grinned and said only, "Cairo. Keep pointing, sooner or later you will be right. By what right do you lead? I seek to offer a chance, and you offer them only to be led by a fool with no sense of direction." "You seek to divide us!" the man said, "Do not listen to this demon!" he yelled at the others, "He seeks to deceive us! He seeks t-" He stopped when he noticed the hot wetness on his leg and foot. Mirai was urinating. "Well," he smiled, "you began it when I picked you up." He sighed wearily, "I grow tired of this." His hand reached out in a blur to seize the man's rifle from him and he examined it for a moment, "This one seems to be newer and more functional than the old ones that your fighters have. Yet I see that it is full and has not been used. The old weapons here have seen use this day. I think that the better weapons are in the hands of the wrong ones. Since you cannot have had this at the start, you must have gotten it somehow. Tell me how you came to possess such a weapon when you did not fight and Eyal, do not think to tell me a mistruth." "How did you know my name?" Eyal asked, amazed and confused. "We have been over this," Mirai said, "I am a demon. Now tell me." "I gave it to him," Natasha said, "I killed a guard and I took it. He ordered me to give it to him." Mirai held the weapon out to her, "Then I give it back to you." He took her bolt-action rifle from her and held it out to Eyal, who took it and shook in anger until he found himself lying on the sand with his cheek bleeding. Natasha had noticed the others and what she thought that she saw was five of them, two with wings and three of whatever this one was who spoke to the humans. A movement across the pool caught her eye and she tried to look there was she was listening. What she saw after a few moments was an area in the background which seemed to ripple slightly and then it was gone. She kept her attention there and at times, she saw the ripple again for an instant. It didn't seem any more threatening than any of the others there, and Natasha didn't feel any sense of dark intent from any of them, so she more or less forgot about it. But the ripple did not forget her. Mahkhad looked at her fairly often, though he didn't want to stare, knowing that humans can sense many things which they might not even know much about. He liked what he saw, and had a slight wish to get to know this human out of interest. It hadn't ever happened before, but he found it a pleasant thought. Of course, he also knew better than to even think about the razor-thin chance of that coming to pass. In his experience, a fair percentage of humans lost their minds in fear at only the sight of what he was and the rest got the hell away as soon as possible. Mahkhad didn't normally give it a thought, but right now, he thought that he'd have liked to meet her for a few minutes. That wasn't going to happen, so he tried to stay in the background and observe as he enjoyed the warmth of the sun on his bruised and tired body. Mirai's contempt of the man was plain. The longer that he looked, the more that he disliked what he saw. "You command a group of fighters who have proven themselves today while you were not even near to them. If anyone deserves the right to lead here, it is Natasha from what I know -- because I can see these things." He thought for a moment, sensing from the young woman, probing her memories of the event. He looked around, "You led them," he said to her, "It was you who won the day for everyone. I see a group of fighters. I also have a choice before me -- the same choice which lies before you. I know what I will do. You can follow Eyal to your deaths, or you can remain here and die when the friends of the one who held you here come -- and they will - rather soon - since they trade between them. I offer a chance to have your own place if the queen of that land will allow it, and I believe that she will. The land which she holds is in the Sudan. If you wish to go there, then remain here, and I will have others like me take you there quickly. There is food, game and water. All you need bring are a small bag of possessions, your weapons and whatever the weapons must have." "No one will go," Eyal said as he got to his feet, "You are a demon and would lead us to our deaths." Mirai looked around and smiled, "No I will not. I see that you have many here who would listen to you. Your deaths will come to you as they do to everyone. I offered a chance for a place to live. You might have to fight there, but you would fight for what is yours -- for the ones that you love and hold dear." He shook his head, "I am wasting my time and my breath. Die wherever you like." He turned and began to walk. "Wait!" Mirai turned and saw Natasha as she picked up a satchel of ammunition. Slinging it onto her back, she began to walk toward him, her hair blowing a little in the breeze as she stepped to the water's edge in her shorts and old combat boots. "I will go if only one is worth your time." Mirai was surprised, but he nodded and waited for her. Eyal was surprised as well, but he raised his rifle. "Give me that gun," he said, "If you're crazy enough to believe a lying demon, then I don't want you armed." Natasha turned and after half a second, she felt her indignation coming up, "I don't think that I've heard any lies that I can recognize out of him yet, Eyal, but I know you lie like a dog more than half the time. I think he's right and I'm going." She drew back the cocking handle and raised her own rifle while walking backward, "Come and take it." Eyal might not have been a great leader and he might not have been all that truthful sometimes, but he did have at least a modicum of charisma. With a few choice words and phrases, he had several others raising their weapons at Natasha as well. Mirai turned back to shield Natasha with his body and at that point, many things began to happen at once. Eyal couldn't hit a mountain from twenty yards, but after one shot, it didn't matter much. His rifle moved in his grip then and the stock hit him hard in the face from the way that Mahkhad knocked it aside. Eyal fell to the sand holding his head and Mahkhad rushed past him in a blur looking for weapons which could fire quickly. Several people literally fell in bloody pieces and others recoiled in horror as they realized that they were wearing the warm blood of the fallen. What was there moved too fast to be seen as more than a dark flash when Mahkhad passed by the ones who were not shooting to get to others who were. In the meantime, the water around Mirai and Natasha churned with the splashes of the bullets from the shooters on the top of the rim. That didn't last long as Sheel and Mahkhad bounded up there and began to kill them. When there was no more gunfire, they stopped and the rest of the humans saw them and began to run, though one group of about forty hung back uncertainly, their weapons down and unused. Mahkhad jumped down onto the spit and Eyal saw the imprints of his feet when he did and turned on his knee to raise his old rifle, working the bolt as he did. The bolt came back, drawing the spent shell of his previous shot out of the chamber and as it flew out of the rifle's action and spun upward flashing in the sunlight, the man was knocked on his back and the rifle flew off to land in the pool. Mahkhad looked down, standing still long enough for the man to see him and void his bowels. But the beast was gone then, running across the shallow pool to get to the others. Natasha was surprised to see a demon beside her that she hadn't seen before as Mahkhad asked his uncle if he was hurt badly. Mirai just grunted and shook his head. But he had been hit many times as he'd shielded Natasha, who stared at him before thanking him. "Now you see why they annoy me," he smiled. Mirai looked at Amraish and with a glance between them, Amraish spoke a few words to Ghibli and was gone. "Natasha!" A woman called from the rim, "What now?" Natasha recognized her friend Kalina and beckoned to her. The entire group walked down and began to wade across a little uncertainly. Mahkhad stared at them and knew that there was something common about them all. Man or woman, they hadn't been born here and had come as slaves from elsewhere. He tried to speak to Natasha but he couldn't speak Hebrew and so he tried a few other languages. Her Syrian was better than his by a wide margin, but to their amazement, they both could speak English, though hers was heavily accented. "What is your name please," Natasha asked, "I wish to thank you for what you did." "Mahkhad," the beast smiled with a nod, "You are Natasha. How did you get here?" A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 51 "Our families were from Leningrad," she said, "They wanted to go to land where our people came from. We are Russian Jews. Well they were." She shrugged, "But they were caught and ..." She shrugged again, "Slaves. It was long time ago. Where we traveled, some were sold and we never see them again. What is here -- us -- we are last ones and men buy us here. I never see Leningrad. I was born in wagon on road. We are the last anyway. Eyal and the others were here before us and so we are always treated as lowest of the low ones. I would be happy if I never see him again." She looked at them, "What are you? I see demons, yes, but ..." Mahkhad explained what he could to her and over the course of the next few minutes, he learned that there had never been any use in these ones forming pairs out of love, since they were owned and seldom had any chance to be together. Natasha said that she'd been raped several times and had given birth to two children, but that both had died, since she was never spared much if any time for them. "I come here at nineteen," she said, "I am here almost ten years now. Today I am free, maybe for only a time, but I thank you, Mahkhad." He felt pity for her, though it was a little clear that she didn't ask it of anyone as she turned and spoke with the others for a time. They were a range of ages from eighteen to perhaps thirty and about three quarters of them were women. It was clear to him in only moments that they all deferred to Natasha and she seemed to be the de-facto leader of the group. They turned when they noticed the other demons as they began to arrive with Amraish leading them. "What now, Mirai?" Natasha asked, "We want to go with you." Mirai smiled then, "Now you are free, my new friend and it shows. These others are to carry you. Is there anything that you want to take?" Natasha looked over to see how Siroc climbed up, so she tried it with Mahkhad and when she looked back, they smiled at each other and the group rode off after the others figured it out for themselves. ------------------- The group milling around the mostly ruined settlement stared as Natasha's group rode toward them. Eyal was about to order those around him to open fire when he was seized and pulled into the air by Ghibli and Siroc and lifted high up. "Tell them to lower their weapons, Eyal," Mirai smiled up at him, "or you fall in pieces. Natasha wishes to take what is theirs." It took only minutes since they picked up only the few possessions that each one owned and some ammunition for their weapons. There were complaints that what was being taken would be needed, but no one tried to stop them. "You should think of colder weather if you have anything like that as well," Amraish said and Natasha looked at Kalina, who grinned back and together they found the fallen-in warehouse that they sought among the others. Asking for a little help, they had fur garments for all in only minutes as well as unfinished furs which they sat on for now. "No matter what happens," Natasha said, "Eyal will blame us for his failure, and what is here belonged to the dead ones anyway, not to him or us." The man would have cursed her but he landed a little hard from about fifteen feet and when he'd found his voice, they were gone. Minutes later, they arrived back to the pool and gathered at the entrance of the passageway that would lead them to the caverns and then on to the pathway which they needed to return. Natasha stared at Mirai as she watched bullets working their way out of his tough hide. When she remembered that there was another demon, she turned and found Mahkhad looking at her. "Are you alright?" he asked her and she nodded. She said in English, "I never heard all of your names." Mirai spoke for them, "I am Mirai. This is my sister Sheel, my brother, Amraish, and the females are Ghibli and Siroc. The young one beside you is our nephew, Mahkhad, whom you have already met. You should think a little now," he said, "I know that you likely cannot go back now, but to come with us will take you all from your people for a time. You are in no danger from us." Natasha looked at them all around her. Aside from the females, she felt a little like a child among them. She shook her head, "You're right, Mirai," she said, "but if we'd stayed, even if I didn't speak to you, we'd only have been putting our fate into another's hands. After I saw that Eyal really hasn't got a clue, I think I'd prefer holding my fate in my own hands instead. I guess there's really no point in going to that land that you spoke of, is there?" "You can if you wish," he said, "I would take you there, but I will not go for a little while yet, There are things which we must do first, so it will have to wait for a short time. A small group would have been easier to bring there quickly. All of these ... I need to think on how many I can spare to take you. But Dakhete will be where we go now, She is the queen which I mentioned and you may speak with her there. We should prepare to leave. The humans will be back soon to see where you all went." "Are you alright, Mahkhad?" he asked, "You moved a little slowly." Natasha was astounded, most of the time, she hadn't seen him at all. "Well enough," he smiled, "though I am a little stiff." "These caves don't lead anywhere," Natasha said, "Where will we go?" "We go to Um Qais. The northern tip of Jordan." "Jordan?" Natasha asked, "How? How many days?" "Minutes," Mahkhad corrected with a smile, "Minutes. There are paths for us." ------------------------------ The discussions were still going on when they returned to the large chamber. As everyone turned to look at the group who now walked down the long dark corridor toward them, Mirai nodded with a smile, "We have decided to join your cause, Anubis. And we have found some allies in these humans." After more earnest discussions - some nothing more than attempts to fill in the newcomers, Anubis and the others all expressed their pleasure at meeting humans who seemed to want to take an active part in this and when he asked, Kalina shrugged and said that her whole life long, she'd been at the end of a tether. Now they were free and wanted to do something for themselves. The next few hours were spent in Sheel and her brothers trying to fit together combinations of humans to demons, since there were variations in size on both sides of this. The odd thing was that after several trials, most of the humans asked for the one demon that they'd ridden there on anyway. They were taken to a huge chamber where there was an underground pool and the humans sat together and sorted out what weaponry they had. Mirai looked up from his meal a day or so later to see Mahkhad and Natasha before him with an obvious desire to ask a question, so he nodded and Mahkhad spoke. "Natasha and Kalina wish to return to the oasis with a handful of others to see what might have been left." ------------------------- They left the pool and the waterfall as they worked their way up the sides to the rim of the place and from there, walked to the remains of the warlord's settlement. It was deserted and there was little to be gleaned there, though they did fine a few treasures like a case of military-grade compasses and some more ammunition. Kalina cried out and held up a compound bow that she'd found in a crate of twenty. Mahkhad looked at her quizzically, but Natasha smiled, "Kalina prefers to use a bow for many things and also, we must think of what will happen when we cannot find bullets anymore." Deciding to follow the trail left by the others, they found them in less than a mile as a dark line on the horizon a few miles distant. Using the binoculars which she'd found, Natasha said that she saw no one moving. But after a moment, she saw some motion and they rode in that direction. As they got nearer, they saw that the motion had been that of crows, vultures and jackals. Mahkhad shook his head, "He was leading them the wrong way. Istanbul lies that way." All that they found were the slaughtered bodies and those of a few demons. Mahkhad looked for a moment, "These are not the ones that you saw in what my uncle showed you. These are the weaker ones who are afflicted with madness and fear -- and look at the mess they have made." They salvaged what they could -- mostly the few good rifles like the one which Natasha had been given by Mirai, and they gathered several satchels of ammunition as well. They rode back to the oasis then, more watchful as they went and just as they rode through the wooded hills which surrounded the pool, they were set upon by about twenty-five howling demons. No one knew if it was by the madness which seemed to guide the demons, or if they'd been weakened somehow by hunger, perhaps, but what was gained in the short conflict was that the combination of demons and riders was effective, as long as the demons were low. Siroc and Ghibli came to the fore otherwise, forcing the attacking creatures to fly lower with their winds. With a thought and a gesture, the pair could clear the sky over the others, generating sudden gusts violent enough to break the thin bones in a flying demon's wing. They returned to the passageways and made their way back to the cavern. Comparing notes, the humans learned that their new companions were intelligent and if one could get past the language issue -- if there was one between any particular demon and rider, they found that there was a lot of common ground and so they set about trying to find the best ways to work their relationships. Saddles weren't really required, but something a little soft to sit on was a welcome addition. Noticing that all of the creatures had the horns of their shoulders in exactly the same place, Kalina and Natasha worked toward finding a way to keep one's seat when the demons moved so as to use their forelimbs in a fight, since they'd almost found themselves in the dirt more than once when it had happened. What was really odd to Natasha was that, if she was seated and a little prepared for the motions, she'd found that all of the sudden course changes didn't really affect her all that much. As it turned out, the answer lay in the way that the rider could hold on with one leg around one of the horns which left both hands free to use their own weapons. On Mirai's advice, the unfinished furs were turned into many articles of clothing, padding, mittens and such and, looking at a few scraps, Natasha caused a lot of raised eyebrows all around and a bit of laughter when she made herself some underwear which looked like a fur bikini. "If you have enough," Mirai said, "I think that each of you should try to craft something such as this. I have been where Anubis tells me that we should go. Winter is ending there now, but it is still a cold place until spring truly takes hold. More than one layer of furs would be a benefit to your kind." There was no superiority shown between the humans and the four-footed demons who'd befriended them. It wasn't the way that say, a human might ride a horse and at the end of it, put the horse in a stall in a stable and walk off for lunch. They'd just stop and the human would dismount and in most cases the two would walk off in conversation if that was possible for that pair. Natasha was in the worst of her period and did her best to hide it, though she suffered for it. She'd always been one of those girls who really needed to closet herself away until it had passed. Her cramps were often debilitating and despite having years of it by now, she'd sometimes need to stop and do her best not to weep from the pain. It had lessened somewhat after the births of her children, but not all that much. Mahkhad noticed and he asked his sister. She had a better clue, but there were large differences between what they were and humans, so together, they asked Mirai, who had perhaps the most experience of them. He explained what he'd seen before and the others listened closely. Natasha sat in a corner of the chamber that Mahkhad used as his own and she groaned quietly in pain. This was now about the worst of a bad period for her and she just wanted to hide herself away. At least now she was free and didn't have to struggle through whatever task she'd been saddled with while this was going on. She could sit like this and suffer in her misery, feeling worse for not having a way to really explain it to Mahkhad. She was finding that there was a quiet friendship being offered to her. Despite their differences, they'd found ways to joke and laugh a little, though one couldn't go too far with it before one or the other didn't get the humor and had to have it explained. But they spent a lot of time together and he allowed her to sleep in his chamber so that she had some privacy. That was making her feel -- if not better -- at least a tiny bit comforted in her misery. She liked to look at him, often stealing glances where she could. She loved the deep sound of his voice, especially when he was being quiet when he told her things that were only for her to hear. The chamber was like any other here, in that it was always a constant temperature, but at the back of it, it could be a little cool for a time until Mahkhad had been there for a little while. It wasn't particularly noticeable to the touch, but in a closed place, his body temperature and the size of him could make it warmer. Natasha smirked, despite the way that she felt. The warmth of him was one of her favorite things about him. Just before the onset of her period, they'd been walking deep in conversation as they usually were when she'd had a thought that had caused her to wonder if she was falling in love with him. She now often felt a desire to be near him and it was the strangest thing to her. She doubted that it could or would happen, but she'd found herself liking the thought for a number of reasons. The others in the group of humans seemed to look on her and Kalina as leaders a lot of the time, and the two of them could do that without a thought. Natasha didn't know about Kalina, but there were times when she wanted someone to look toward herself, not to lead her, but to give her a comforting place to stand, and without their knowing it, Mahkhad had become that for her. She'd said as much to him the other day, and he said that he doubted it that she needed someone like that for her, but if it was so, then he was pleased and happy to be the tree that she leaned against then. She'd turned and looked at him for a moment and before she could stop herself, she'd reached for him and kissed him. It had looked as though they were about to be presented with an embarrassing moment then and Natasha was already cursing herself for showing that much of herself to another, when he'd kissed her back, reaching for her with one huge arm to hold her to him. He moved his other hand then, taking the weight of his body onto his legs so that he could caress her head for a moment. Above all, Mahkhad was careful to keep his kisses a little dry, since he'd spoken to his uncle who'd warned him that human females would not appreciate the wetness that demon females often craved. Just then, Sheel had come to summon Mahkhad and Natasha was left alone, leaning against the cavern wall in amazement. She'd sunk down to a squat very slowly as she thought about what she'd done, and then she'd just leaned back to sit down, her knees wide and her head back against the wall. She'd stared off into nothing for a time, her hands on the top of her thighs in repose and her hair a dark, copper- colored mess the way that it had been tousled, but her eyes were open and her face held a wondering expression as she sat thinking that she'd never been kissed like that before. Now as she tried not to groan in her misery, she thought of the men that she'd known. Natasha had never been in love -- not really, anyway. When she was a teenager, there were boys that she'd liked, but nothing ever came of it, because the one who'd owned her than had seen it and sold the boy to another every time. All that there had been for her was submission as the fat man had used her when he'd wanted her. No matter who had owned her, it had always been the same. Nobody owned her now, but she found that without meaning to, a demon was stealing her heart just as she was stealing his, and despite the strangeness of it, Natasha liked the thought and the way that it felt to her. She looked up as he came into the chamber carrying a bucket of water and moving a little awkwardly on three legs. She asked him what it was for and he looked a little uncomfortable. "We are different from each other," he said, "but I have learned a little. I know what this is that you suffer through in silence, and I know that females of your kind are the same as ours. At best, you would want to be away from everyone until it passes." He set the bucket down in what might pass for a corner in the room and with a long touch of the water with his finger; it began to steam gently as she watched. "I know that you will want to wash, and I have brought this so that you may do it unseen here." She thanked him, but sighed and said that it was not that easy. "We are all a little different in how this comes to us. When I am at my worst," she said, "you're right; I feel dirty, but water then, like bath or waterfall back at oasis will make it to stop right away and cramps are even worse after." Mahkhad looked at her, plainly wanting to do something to help her and she could see it. "Thank you all the same," she smiled, "it is a nice thought to know that you care." He sat down against the wall and he very carefully picked her up, "Hold onto my arm for a moment," he said almost as a whisper when she asked what he was doing, "I know only a little, but my aunt has tried to teach me and I have done this for her when it was her time before." He looked rather serious for a moment, "When Sheel is like this, I must be very careful near her. I am almost certain that she feels my footsteps in the very stone of the floor then and it bothers her." Before Natasha could even register the thought, he'd pulled away the leather belt that she'd made and setting the rags aside, he sat her down facing away from him on his lap and pulled her backwards so that she leaned against his front. Natasha was about to protest when she felt the heat in his hands as he began to carefully and gently massage her sides and belly. The warmth was wonderful, and despite her feeing vulnerable, getting up was more than she could do besides offer her fading protests. She certainly couldn't have gotten up then, so after a moment, she just melted against him and leaned her head back against his huge chest with a sigh. "Do not feel shame. You see me without covering all of the time," he said, "and I am lucky enough to be your friend. I want to help." He reached for a large blanket made of furs stitched together and he pulled it over her, "So that you do not feel so bare here. I cannot see much of you, but I thought that you would want it." "But I think I am making a mess of you like this," she said. "Likely not much and I can accept it," she heard him whisper, "and I am not as easily shamed when I wash. Just rest, Natasha." ------------------------------ Kalina knew of Nataasha's trouble and stopped by to look in on her friend. She found Natasha on her front in a bed of furs, still awake and aching, but not so badly now. She asked in Russian if it was a 'worse time' to visit -- as opposed to only a bad time, and Natasha smiled and invited her to stay for a little while. "Where is Mahkhad?" Kalina asked. "He went to wash. He has been so kind to me, picking me up to hold me and rub my belly and hips. He tries to make it bearable and I think it is better because of him." A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 52 ***Sorry for the delay on this, but I was uh, overtaken by events, you might say. I've been trying to get this written for a while now and I've had a few um, obstacles along the way... Anyway, this chapter is going to be a 2-parter. Not a lot of fooling around here - that's in the next chapter. What we have here is a bit of hope for a few characters out in the wild and woolly hills. So there's a bit of a horse chase which I hope I've managed to convey well. It doesn't happen here, but there is a threat in this chapter of non-consent. Just saying. And all of this grew out of me watching a nice lady take blood samples... 0_o -------------- Book of the Forsaken Part 7 "Where are you going?" Rudhi asked as she watched Billy and Randi make a few preparations and place some things into her tank. "Over to the old base where I put my piggy together. There's something there that I want to add and never got around to. It wasn't even anything that I thought I'd ever need or want, but now I can see that it would be a good thing," Randi said, "Why? Do you want to come along?" "Of course," Rudhi smiled, "I am so much in love with you both. I must go along." She thought for a moment and then laughed, "I learn so much from you and to me, you are both so beautiful. For myself, it is not hard to find women here who are lovely, but it is a little harder to find men who I like to look at. I don't know why that is, but it is something that I've noticed. So, since there is a drought and I cannot have my own, I am happy just to look at your man." The two girls remained close, in spite of Randi's happy relationship with Billy. From them, Rudhi was learning how to make love without the hard sort of fights that her people had always employed as a backdrop in their personal relationships. She'd asked, and though Billy had been uncomfortable about it at first, they now didn't mind it if she watched them as long as she didn't interfere in any way -- though she had a way of asking the most startling questions sometimes. "And anyway," she smiled as she found a few things to help with, "you make me laugh so much. It is like watching two people's first love, but without the sticky foolishness that accompanies that in people who are much younger." She meant that if the pair of them found themselves within arm's reach of each other, they gravitated together without even knowing it and when it was noticed, it was that they were touching somehow or holding hands, yet without the seeking for it which happens with a pair of young lovers. For the two of them, it just happened and wasn't thought of or sought for at all. "And there is something else that I have learned from you," Rudhi said, quite earnestly, "When Randi rides anywhere in her rolling home, she always makes the sandwiches that I love so much to take along and eat on the way. I would go for them alone." "Fine," Randi nodded with a laugh, "come on then, and I'll teach you how to make them for yourself." -------------------------- The night was cold and clear as Samantha reported for her shift at the hospital. Given the general shape which mankind had found itself in a few hundred years earlier, the fact that there even were still a few barely functional hospitals was remarkable. And of course, their use and services were for the sort of people who could afford them. Sam hung up her coat and when she turned around, she was looking at her manager rather than her boss -- which was a blessing, she thought. Clancy Harrington was a great boss to his many minions and he rewarded dedication. To herself and a pair of others, he was the most awesome uncle and father that you could ever want to have. "Put your coat back on, Sam, " Clancy said, "you're going out to a quarry. They've got a prisoner there who's a little fucked-up and they need you to tell them if he's gonna die or not." "But I just do blood samples," Sam protested, "I'm not a doctor or anything. You know that, Uncle Clancy." "Yeah, I do," Clancy replied, taking a pull of his cigar with a grin, "If you were, I'd be able to get a lot more for sending you out, wouldn't I? Look kid; let's face a few facts here. Think of it as a day away from that old bitch, Margie. That's gotta be worth it right there, huh? I do know how she treats you, but I can't be here every day to look out for you, can I? If you think the guy's fixable, then push to have them let you bring him here for treatment. Otherwise, just bandage-over whatever holes you find and hand 'em the bill, honey." Samantha nodded with a shrug. "Hey," she said, "what if I find that this guy is really busted? What happens then, Uncle Clancy?" "Well I get paid regardless," Harrington said. "but they'd probably just throw him onto the shitheap. He'd die there eventually. Everybody does. It won't make any difference to you either. They just need to know if he's worth keeping, that's all. You oughta go and get whatever you need ready." As she packed her kit, Sam reflected on what she'd heard. She might come off occasionally as a little bit naïve, but for the most part it was just her way of verifying what was expected out of this. One of the biggest stress factors of her existence was her boss Margie -- who was at minimum, a Size 12 asshole, officially, and though Samantha could deal with her rather easily, she was hobbled in that her methodology was of a rather permanent nature -- which would be frowned upon to some extent at least. She wasn't anywhere near being a doctor either, but she was the nearest thing that her uncle Clancy had to send and she was meticulous in her note-taking and accurate in her observations. She was also not a hematologist, but for the more basic interpretations, she knew what was what. Blood work these days wasn't anything like it used to be, from what Sam had heard, but it still had value as a diagnostic aid. She also knew why it was her who was being sent. Little Sam was a lot easier to send, transport, travel with and just plain easier to defend out on the road. Margie likely would have wanted to go, since there were bonuses involved, but Sam knew that all of her uncles' roadmen had threatened to quit if they had to take Margie anywhere again. Travelling anywhere with Margie was known to be a pain in the ass of monumental magnitude. Any activity with Margie's name in the same sentence could be, it was said, whereas all of the roadmen loved traveling anywhere with Sam. Samantha was just a little thing, maybe four feet, ten and she was a flyweight, but she had the sense to keep her mouth shut if things got a little tense and with the way that things had been lately, it helped everyone's nerves if the payload knew when to keep her head down and even better in Sam's case, could shoot half-assed decently as opposed to bellowing out that she was important and needed protection, as Margie was wont to do if they were attacked out on the road. Nobody knew but her uncle, her cousin and the roadmen, but Sam had a secret, and it was the nature of that secret which allowed her to take care of herself in a tight place a lot better than most girls would be able to manage for themselves. It always amazed folks who didn't want to be cooperative when the diminutive girl with the honey-blonde hair and the dark eyes set to work on getting the samples that she required. They might try to resist after agreeing initially, but once Sam grabbed an arm and twisted ever so slightly, well it was over almost before anyone knew it had happened and the person who might have wanted to give Sam a hard time over allowing her to take her blood samples usually just sat there in a bit of shock wondering what the hell had just happened while they stared at the bit of gauze they were holding over the hole on the inside of their elbow. Sam got her gear into her saddlebags and she checked the load-out for her rifle and her pistols twice as she got ready. This was going to be a long trip and so the first part of it had to be made while it was still dark. The horse had been Sam's idea. There had to be a wagon along anyway in case the patient needed to be transported, but if there was no patient, Sam didn't see the need to center herself out before then. She'd much rather ride with the roadmen. It made for a better trip, kept her out of the clutches of whatever nasty old fuck was driving wagon for this, and it kept her nearer to D'Arcy and Shane, Clancy's adopted sons and her cousins. They'd always gotten along great and if there was a place to be on one of these road trips, it was next to those two boys. "Who we gotta go see?" Sam asked D'Arcy as they rode. "Dunno much," D'Arcy replied, "He's supposed to be a big fucker, so you need to watch yourself, cuz. I also heard that he's their best, so they might want him fixed if he's busted not too bad." The statement was worth a smile to Sam because D'Arcy was not a little man himself, probably going better than six-three and over two-thirty on the scales. In many ways, they weren't anything like each other, but in temperament and drive, they were synchronized if such a thing were possible, one often knowing the state or the feelings of the other without the need to waste breath on words. The trip out was fast but otherwise unremarkable and though she was still a little dazed from the road and the fast ride, Sam threw off her cloak and coat revealing the old neoprene suit underneath. She'd been told that they were keeping the patient out in the showers, so she'd dressed a little accordingly. It was part of a strategy which she's worked out with D'Arcy the summer before. For a place like a quarry where they'd keep their injured fighters in their showers, she and D'Arcy geared for it so that he could accompany her and keep her safe. Clancy did his best to make sure that the calls were genuine, but more than once, Sam had found herself in the middle of a bunch of addicts who thought that she must carry some form of opiates in her crash bag. So these days, D'Arcy went with her, but the result was always the same if they found that they'd been set up. That was when that little secret which Sam shared with her cousins might just slip out of the place deep inside where it was usually kept tightly restrained at most times. When they walked away afterward, there was usually no need for opiates by then anyway since nothing back there was breathing. The quarry, like a lot of other places which needed a rather steady supply of new workers, was really just a form of prison in the current culture. A prisoner could elect to remain in a regular jail or transfer to a work farm or a quarry to work their sentence off a little quicker. This particular quarry also fielded some fighters who would be matched against the fighters of another quarry or factory someplace. Typically, the fighting was much like the Roman gladiatorial model, and while it was theoretically true that a prisoner could work off his or her time even more quickly by volunteering for the fighting pits, there was also the possibility that a severe enough loss would end more than one's career. All that Sam knew in regard to her charge today was that he was he was reputed to be a large man and that he never lost. Keeping him in the showers would keep him out of sight of most of the others, keep him a little warm, and clean out his wounds as well. She cocked her pistol and set the safety before she slid it inside of the holster strapped to her leg. When D'Arcy indicated that he was ready, they walked after the young woman who was to lead them. There were no words exchanged as they walked through the dripping water and hissing clouds of steam until at last, they were near a series of rectangular pools filled with hot water. "What's all this for?" Sam asked and their guide shrugged, "Healing tubs. The water is hot enough to make you whimper climbing in, but they tell me that it's the best way to get your body started on fixing itself in a lot of the cases and once you're in, well, most people have a hell of a time getting out. That's your man there -- third tub from the left. Name's Ewan." "Ewan what?" Sam asked, and the girl shrugged, "Damned if I know, Lady. All I know is that Ewan is his real first name. Most people here don't even know that much. They all just call him Samson." D'Arcy looked at the young woman a little hard, "You don't really give a shit, do you? I mean, I can see that all over you, but is there a reason?" She shrugged, "I just work here. If you really need to know, talk to one of the hub here; you might get better stuff from one of them. To me, this guy is just a walking turd like the rest of them." "Why?" Sam asked, "Because he's a prisoner or because he's trading off his time for keeping the bunch who run this place rich?" The guard shook her head and shrugged but D'Arcy saw it, "They taught you right, didn't they?" Sam didn't really get it, but she watched as D'Arcy nodded coldly, "I've got the same disease that he has, Muffin. Best not get too close." The young woman turned away then and Sam asked her cousin what he'd meant. D'Arcy just snorted, "Ewan's trouble -- in that woman's view because she was trained that way - is that he's a male. That means that to her he's stupid -- at best -- and a piece of bothersome livestock the rest of the time. I'd lay money that this place doesn't have one female fighter and that all of the others in the hub are women. Males are useful to them -- occasionally as guards - and that's about it. We'll see how this goes, but I'm telling Dad when we get back, and then he'll decide how much his profit picture needs this place's bullshit then." After that, D'Arcy barely acknowledged their guide. Sam would have questioned it further, but she knew that look on her cousin and she knew that she could always get her question answered; she just might have to wait for a better moment. She also knew her uncle. To Clancy's way of thinking it was a man's responsibility to take an active role in the protection and care of any female in any sort of difficulty, but that if she were in an area where her own skills and abilities could help another, well, then he thought that she ought to help just the same. He laughingly called it "old school equality" and he was big on it -- since without it, everybody was in for just that much more of a hard time staying alive in the present age. Samantha loved and looked out for her cousins. It wasn't out of anything more than family, but she also knew the backstory. The two boys were far apart in age; D'Arcy being six years older than Shane. He'd left home at eighteen and came home after a while with his tail between his legs to get a breather from the harsh world outside. Only when he came back, there wasn't any home to come back to. Young Shane was the only one that the flock of demons had missed and he'd been starving on his own for ten days out on the little that was left of their remote little farm by then. Shane had watched his parents being killed from his hiding place and it had affected him deeply and caused him to withdraw from everything and everyone -- except D'Arcy. It had been D'Arcy who had held Shane for a few weeks' worth of haunted nights and let him cry it out as he'd needed to. It had fallen to D'Arcy to finish growing up fast so that he could raise Shane himself to where he was now a twenty-two year-old man. It was as if the two belonged to some private club which neither one would have ever wanted to belong to, but it was what they had. The only other person who had visitation rights was Sam, who'd kill for them in a heartbeat if needed -- and that had already happened a time or two. D'Arcy was the sort of man who was a natural leader and that was reflected in his leadership role among the roadmen. Tall, hard, and ruggedly good-looking, he fit the role easily and was incredibly good at it. Shane was a little harder to figure out. He was a bit shorter and far thinner than his older brother and he tended to keep his thoughts to himself. He shared a few features with D'Arcy though; having the same clear and piercing light gray eyes and the long, ash blonde hair which could look almost silver depending on the way that the light hit it at times. Shane had been told by Sam and his brother, but he seemed to reject the information as though they couldn't possibly be correct and weren't being anything more than charitable, but the truth was, that as good-looking as D'Arcy was to a lot of people, that was what it was. But Shane wasn't just good-looking -- he was beautiful. Beautiful enough to make the hearts of most girls his age and younger threaten to explode on contact. Females who were his age and a little older tended to get weak in the knees and feel stupid over the way that they seemed to have trouble speaking clearly in his presence -- and Shane's interpretation of that was that his awkwardness and poor appearance was the cause of the trouble. Women who were say, in their late twenties all the way to the age where his late mother would be now just had tremendously lusty thoughts about him as soon as they laid eyes on him and if they gave voice to those thoughts, if just scared the hell out of Shane. There was something sweet yet tremendously masculine about him. He looked as though he knew what he was doing -- because he did - and yet, he also had a way of looking slightly lost sometimes and that look was the lady-killer that he didn't even know that he possessed. All of that caused Shane no end of trouble and embarrassment, but that wasn't the worst of it, because as godlike and desirable as his appearance caused him to be to females, it was just as effective on males who liked boys. Shane and his brother shared something else which had somehow grown out of the horrific murder of their parents. Like most other men, they would have wanted to find that one perfect girl for themselves. The trouble with that was the dark little detail which they kept hidden. It precluded falling in love with almost all girls in the area -- and indeed, in most areas of human habitation. The other thing was that due to their past, they'd grown close and that closeness came to the surface now and then. Whether they wanted it or not, their bond made them love each other because they were pretty much the only ones who understood. They weren't lovers and likely never would be, but as Samantha watched them, she could see that they shared a deeper bond than most married people ever would. It made no difference to her. She'd still love them and she knew herself well enough to understand that she was bound to become even more murderously protective of them if anything happened to either of them, though she wanted more than anything for them to find a girl for themselves. They protected her well-being and she protected their hearts. Looking around, they saw the in-ground tubs and saw a more or less human-looking head resting on a pair of huge forearms. The hair that they could see was long, light brown and matted. There was no telling what color the eyes were, since they were closed and there looked to be a beard, though it was quite obviously under the chin on those forearms -- those very furry forearms. "What happened?" Sam asked and the girl shrugged again, "Nobody knows, to tell you the truth, friend. He's the hub's favorite fighter, but suddenly yesterday, he said that he was hurt and came down here. Of course, the Ladies didn't believe him and kept sending in other guys to fuck him over and force him back, but Ewan would just kill them and then get back into the water. Nobody will come for him anymore, no matter how much they offer. The Ladies upstairs are some pissed over it, but Ewan has made them all rich, so ...." Sam nodded and their guide left, saying that she'd come back if she was called, and Sam looked at D'Arcy, who nodded, and then she stepped forward to sit on the edge of the bath. There was silence for several minutes before she spoke up. A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 52 "Hi Mr. Ewan, sir. My name is Sam and I'm here today to see if you're alright." As she watched, the pair of golden eyes opened to regard her silently for a time. When it came, the voice was low and Sam could tell that it was normally a lot louder than what she was hearing at the moment. "If you're here to get me back to the pit, then I need a lot of medical help," he growled, "several weeks in hospital at least. The bosses won't stand for that expense, so they'll order me killed. I want out," the voice grated quietly; "I'm in for twelve hard. Got two and a half left, but I'll never make it now. If they send me to hospital with you, I'll escape. If they keep me here, I'll eventually kill everybody. If they order me killed, it'll just go sooner and at least I'll be dead." Sam looked at that sad face and she already knew. Two minutes in and she was feeling something that shouldn't be. She looked down and smiled a little, "I'm trying to understand and whatever you say to D'Arcy or me is confidential. You'd probably never believe it, but if what I feel is right, we're on your side. Are you hurt at all? I mean, really hurt or damaged somehow?" Those brown eyes looked up at her again, "You need to actually see me so that you can make your report, right?" Sam nodded, "Sorry, Ewan --" "No worries," he said, "And you're Sam. Samantha, right? Can I call you Sam? It 'll feel pretty strange calling somebody else that, but I think I like it." "Sure, "Sam grinned, "I think I'd like that, actually." She watched in a bit of awe as Ewan pulled himself up and out of the pool to sit on the edge next to her. He offered no trouble as she got her requisite samples from his arm. He had several deep wounds but they all looked to be well on the way to healing. Sam didn't know about the therapeutic effects of hot water on the rate of healing, but she could see another reason as to why a man like this could heal so quickly and it had nothing at all to do with water - hot or cold. As much fun as it was, she was having a difficult time keeping her eyes on the task at hand. Ewan was closer to seven feet tall than he was to six, and he was covered in enough light brown fur to draw the comparison to a bear, but that wasn't correct. As large as he was, he wasn't thick. Everything was in proportion, in fact, he was built much the same way that D'Arcy was though a fair bit larger and with more body hair. He held out his other arm for Sam to take his blood pressure and she sat with a little smile that he found endearing in a way. "Is something wrong?" he asked. "No," she sighed with a little shrug," I've just gotta use the one with the longer cuff. This one's too short for your arm." As she placed the stethoscope against his chest and began to pump up the cuff, Sam began to count, but in doing that, she looked into his eyes and that was when she noticed the hunger there that no bear -- or human - had ever shown. "According to your blood pressure and pulse rate, you ought to be unconscious," she said. "According to the Law of Averages, I ought to be dead," he smiled, "which is why I want out." He looked away for a moment, "But nobody ever walks out of the pit free. They offer to reduce your time if you come here to work. I've seen people get out after a time, but it's never sooner than their original sentence and usually it's much longer. They always add some time for committing some bullshit infraction or something. I was here two days. I barely even knew where the washroom was for my section and they slapped on a year for "Failure to be Respectful." I didn't know who to be respectful to, so I scraped in front of everybody. Didn't matter. I got another year added to my time. Regular prisoners get out eventually. Fighters never make it. The problem is that they're outside the law here. They don't need anyone to add time to your sentence. They can just do it -- and they do. No fighter has ever left here with a pulse. They'll never let me go, so I guess I'm here to make my stand." D'Arcy looked around quickly before he spoke quietly, "Listen Ewan, ...Little Suzy Prison Guard is around here somewhere, standing in the steam listening more than likely, so we oughta be a little quieter." Ewan nodded with a curious expression and waited. Samantha leaned in against Ewan's arm and she reached around to pull his slightly shocked face toward hers as she brought her face to his and spoke in a soft whisper, "You're wolf-born, aren't you, Ewan?" Ewan nodded slowly and looked a little bit worried for the first time, "Does it show that much?" "Uh-uh," Sam replied with a shake of her head, "I guess it just takes one to know one is all. From this close, I can see the gleam in your eye -- and the hunger too. Ok, so this all makes sense now. You're afraid that you can't suppress this before your time is up -- or they won't let you go before it comes out anyway, right?" "Yeah," Ewan nodded, "I got no trouble killing any of the hub. Shit, I'd rip them all apart for the way that they use people to get richer, but I don't want to hurt nobody else." He seemed to want to be very clear on that point so Sam smiled, "First off, you're among friends, so relax, ok? How did you come to be here?" Ewan shrugged, "I wanted to see a bit of the world, so I left home, headed for the coast and hired on as a sailor. I didn't know anything about that, but they gave me a chance to learn, I guess. Somewhere in there, they figured out that I'm good to have around in a fight and so they made me a Marine. If you show them that you're good, they send you away to learn how to be a Marine. If you're in that program, they send you back to your ship after two years where you're like a little army to protect the ship along with some others. I spent a few years at it. Of course, nobody ever wondered WHY I'm good at shit like that and can take a beating and like it, but that didn't matter to me. I just kept my secret hidden and I was alright. One day, I got a letter from home that said my dad was dying, so I took a leave to go see to my Mom. When I got home, Dad was dead and they was running my Momma off our land. I stepped in so that Mom wouldn't let her other side out -- since she was obviously some upset over everything. Anyway, they killed her as a matter of convenience and they arrested me for being difficult, I guess, and I got ten years hard out of it. I wanted to minimize the time because of what I am, so I asked for this place because I was told that I could hurry it up even more by fighting in the pits. Of course, I thought they'd play their end fairly, which was my mistake. I got another year like I said, and one after that for refusing to go to bed with one of the hub last year, and ever since, she's had it in for me. Now I don't care anymore. I guess I can die here as well as I can die anywhere else, so ..." Sam shook her head, "No, Ewan. I'm gonna recommend that you need to come with us and get healed. You want to escape on the way, that's ok, I guess. My Uncle Clancy'll understand and he's gonna get paid for us coming here anyway so it's nothing off his back, you know? If they try to keep you here, we'll spring you, that's all." "You can't spring me," Ewan whispered, "They've got lots of good shooters here. I might make it to the gate, but you'd all be dead, and I can't have even more on my conscience." Samantha laughed quietly, "Ewan, my uncle doesn't just provide roadmen to keep his niece alive on the road. He's got the best roadmen in the business anywhere and one word from me and they'd fight hard to help you get out. There's a reason why they're that good." She leaned in close enough to rub her cheek against his chin very lightly for just a second before she drew back a little with that endearing little smile of hers, "I did say it takes one to know one, didn't I?" He looked into her eyes and saw the feral gleam for just a second before it disappeared. The next time that she spoke, he also heard the low growl in her throat, "I'm wolf-born too, the same as you, the same as D'Arcy here, and the same as every fucking one of the roadmen who brought me here. We're all the same, Ewan. We all understand how it is to have to stay hidden 24/7. We all know how injustice feels. Like I said, one word from me and you've got eight guns at your back, plus mine as well. You were a Marine, you said? What was your specialty there?" Ewan's eyes were opened wide to hear all of this. "I was a squad gunner, 'cause I'm big enough to hump all the rounds and shit." "There's an old belt gun in the wagon," Sam smiled, "I think it's time you came home." "Ain't got no home," Ewan said, looking down, "Nowhere to go that's safe." "Yeah you do," Samantha laughed, "you just don't know it yet, that's all. I like you, Ewan. We might be able to make something out of it later, but for right now baby, you just put your sweet self in Little Sam's hands if you think you can trust anybody in the world at all anymore. I've already decided on you, honey, but if that happens, there won't be any using going on. Get back in the water for the next little while, ok? I gotta have a word with a few people, that's all." She pointed to the pool again, but Ewan touched her shoulder, "Sam, you don't know me from anybody. I've lived the last eleven years without a friend in the world, now you tell me that I've got some to help me? What do I have to do? I'd do anything in exchange for what you're talking about, but I'm afraid of getting screwed over again, I guess." "This is no transaction," Samantha grinned, "We came to see about a busted-up fighter. What we found is a broken-down brother, that's all. I already know that there's nothing wrong with you at all that a little freedom won't fix, and the rest, well, I'm hopeful that you like me is all, but even so, getting another wolf-born free is everything that any of us need to feel good about. Now you sit tight, 'kay? I'm gonna be right back." She had a brief word with D'Arcy, who had heard most of what had been said anyway and you almost couldn't see him for the glow of his eyes and shine of his toothy grin. The two left quickly to find their guide. Out at the wagon, D'Arcy passed the word and reached for a long bundle of rags. When he tried to get back inside with it, he was questioned, but Sam said that Mr. Ewan required the splints inside for his leg and D'Arcy was allowed in again. When they reached the baths, Ewan was standing up to his neck in the water being berated and threatened by one of the people who ran the place -- and who also happened to be the one who had been spurned by Ewan. She stopped her stream of dismissive spittle when Sam and D'Arcy arrived. "What's wrong with him -- specifically?" the official, whose name was Nancy, asked Sam. "More than a few things, I'm afraid," Samantha lied as she began, "His hemoglobin is low. His blood sugar too. I'd say it's likely 'cause he's so fucking malnourished. His right ankle is sprained and he'll need a splint just to stand. This is how you treat your fighters? Holy fuck Lady, do the regulars get any food at all?" "He gets fed enough," the woman said, "and he gets more than the ones who don't fight. Fifteen hundred calories a day." Sam shook her head, "Fifteen hundred? For a guy his size? Are you nuts? He needs that for breakfast. And you want him to fight on that? That's like somebody handing you half a tuna-fish sandwich and asking you to work hard all day cutting down trees. He needs to be in hospital for at least a week just to get some strength back in him." "No way," Nancy said flatly, "This one's always been trouble. I'm not paying for that. He can stay here and fight until he can't anymore. He's not worth it to me." "Well, you do have an obligation to provide care, since he is a prisoner under your control," Sam countered, "You do whatever you think is best, but when I get back, my report will spell out the way that you treat prisoners. As far as I know, he hasn't done a thing to merit your refusing him care -- especially since you make money off him in the ring. Once you do that, it changes a lot of things. Fighting him to death is just not an option for you." A lot of things happened in the next few moments as Nancy drew a pistol from her pocket, which unfortunately for her was not cocked. As she sought to remedy that, she told the guard to shoot D'Arcy. As the young woman raised her weapon, he slapped it out of her hand and she scrambled into the steam to crawl after it. Ewan looked over and saw the pistol in the Nancy's hands as she was leveling it at his face. Faster than she could even register the motion, he grabbed the gun in one hand and the back of her head with the other and slammed them together twice. After that, he just took the pistol away. Sam unwrapped the "splints" which turned out to be the disassembled old machine gun and gestured to Ewan, who climbed out of the bath to sit and assemble it. He had it together in less than a minute with a piece of belted ammunition in it while Nancy, who was one of the part-owners of the quarry knelt holding her head. The young guard came stumbling out of the fog at that point, her gun in her hand to find Ewan smiling at her with the muzzle of the machine gun against her employer's head. "I think you can guess what you ought to do right about here if you even like your boss a little bit," he grinned. The guard licked her lips slowly as she looked from one person to the next in this. "What -- what are you gonna do?" she asked. "We're taking Mr. Ewan away," Sam said, "Once he's in hospital, he'll be under the sanctuary of the place legally, until the investigation is completed. Places like this always think they can just fuck the prisoners over and it's ok. But all you need is one prisoner to get away and ask for asylum and the shit-storm starts." "Shoot him, Callie," Nancy commanded, "she's right, but we never did anything wrong. All the same, they'll close the quarry and we can't let that happen. So shoot him now or - " The guard surprised them all at that point. Sam and D'Arcy had just thought her to be someone who was only there because it was a paying job and in that, their surmisal had been essentially correct. But they assumed that she was content with the status quo and that was most definitely not the case. She lowered the pistol and looked at D'Arcy. "I'm not killing anybody just because she orders me to. I know enough that if the law comes down, she'd let me hang. So she can go fuck herself as far as I'm concerned. Take me with you? I'd do anything to have a life of my own - away from her," she pointed directly at Nancy. "I've been here two years and I don't want to see what goes on here another day. Please, take me with you when you go." It took them all a moment to comprehend it, but they agreed -- if she agreed to surrender her weapon, which she did, and her astonished employer became a bound and gagged hostage at that point when they gathered everything together and walked out. One of the other roadmen had a word with D'Arcy and he in turn spoke to Samantha regarding the way that the guards, who were mostly male were outfitted and armed. The wagon was loaded up with Ewan and the woman. The guard looked at D'Arcy questioningly. He just nodded, "You can ride in the wagon. I think you'll be safer there. Just try not to fall out." She climbed up and they left through the gate under a lot of guns, as Ewan knelt in the bed of the wagon with the machine gun against Nancy's head. "Don't think about following," he said to the guards, "Just warning you now." As they thundered off in the proverbial cloud of dust, Ewan hoped that they could make his threat good, since he really didn't know any of these people who had suddenly offered him their friendship and protection at least for a little while. The problem was, that there were a lot of guards available to join in the hunt, and the other Ladies of the hub all made outraged noises about Nancy's abduction, saying that they wouldn't stand for it, when really, they were all a little hopeful that there would be some gunplay involved -- at least enough to kill Nancy with any luck, thereby increasing everyone else's share. A couple of miles down the road and Ewan removed the gag from Nancy's mouth. She looked at him for a long minute. "What are you going to do with me?" she asked. Ewan shrugged, "In a little while, I won't need you as a hostage at all, will I? I'm wondering just how angry I am at you for adding to my sentence because I refused to fuck you. Part of me wants to shoot you just for that, and the rest of me keeps asking why I should bother. If that part wins, I suppose that I'd just kick you out of the wagon -- without stopping first, of course." "I still don't understand why you said no," she said. He laughed a little, "You think that I'd have jumped at the chance to screw the woman who added to my time for essentially nothing, withheld food just because and insulted me every chance she got and that would be alright as long as I got my dick wet, huh? That makes it all better, right?" "Well yes," she said, "what was the problem?" "I think that you ought to pretend that the gag is still in your mouth," Ewan said, "or it might just go back there again." He thought about things for a second. "You um, ... you really believe that we're all stupid? That people like me are just the primitive side of the species? That we're just knuckle-draggers who live under the awning of one huge eyebrow on a sloping forehead and that we're slow to reason and quick to anger?" She looked at him a little nervously for a moment, but then she nodded, "Yes. It's true, isn't it? If most men had a brain that wasn't connected to their nuts, they wouldn't be in there, would they?" He shrugged, "Well, MOST men aren't in there, are they? I think that some are that dumb, just like there are people who shoot themselves and others every day because they're too stupid to make sure their guns aren't loaded before they start to clean them, but I don't see what that has to do with their gender." "That's because you're a man," she smiled, "and too stupid to know better." He looked down in thought, "I guess you're right." "I know I am," Nancy replied, "There can never be equality between the sexes, or men would just become unmanageable." They rode in silence as Ewan peered back to see the first signs of their pursuit if it happened. Four minutes later his open palm hit Nancy's jaw hard enough to send her sprawling half out of the wagon. He leaned over and pulled her back in. When she came around, she looked up at him through tears of pain and spoke around her stunned shock, asking why he'd hit her and why so hard. He looked up as he removed the unfired belt of ammunition from his 'new' weapon and slapped in a new and much longer one, "I hit everybody the same way pretty much, but I was light on you or you wouldn't be talking anytime soon. And I hit you to make a point which is that you're an idiot. Just because there's nobody arguing if you're in some kind of power, it doesn't make you right in some God-given way. I wasn't thinking. I was just holding my tongue. I'm not all that slow in reasoning; but I might be accused of being a little slow to get pissed off. But that's ok, I guess," he smiled, "with enough goading, I get there all the same. So, you were gonna keep me another year for not knowing whose ass to kiss after two days. You added another year because I wouldn't fuck you -- which had nothing to do with your looks or anything. I just didn't think that I could keep from killing you for what you did to me. That's ok too, Nancy. I've found a workaround for that -- though I don't suppose that you're as hot for me now, are you? Seeing as how you probably think I broke your jaw and all. A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 52 I've spent a large part of my life making you rich. I got nothing more than a little food out of it but I did find out one thing; that place was never supposed to be for somebody like me. I talked to everybody I could and you know what I found out, Nancy? I'm sure I couldn't have spoken to every single other prisoner, but they all told me that that quarry was designated especially for people who had committed murder. Everyone there told me they were there for killing somebody. Well I've never killed anybody, but somehow I was approached by this quarry to fight for them for reduced time -- which was a lie. For what I did, I shouldn't have been eligible to go because I shouldn't have gotten ten years hard time for what I did. But I did, and then I found out after three years into this that one of the hub had asked to have my sentence turned hard -- so that I could be approached. Do you know who that might have been, Nancy? Any one of your friends back there who might have wanted to twist the justice system so that she could make a little money on a new fighter? I remember you from that day, you know. I know that you were there." Nancy's eyes were wide as she lay on the floor of the bouncing, rattling wagon looking up at a very patient man with plenty of reasons to want to cause her harm. Samantha rode close to the wagon. "Bad news," she said, "There are about fifty guards after us. We might be able to handle them, but it might not go well, is what they're telling me. And I think they wouldn't mind it if Nancy doesn't make it." "They'll probably try to kill me before the smoke clears," Nancy said quietly. "Why would they want to do that?" Samantha asked. Nancy shrugged, "Because if it were me back there and there was somebody else from the hub here instead of me, that's what I'd want to happen." Ewan snorted, "And you consider yourself better than the ones inside? I've never killed anyone. For all of this horseshit, I'll never get a fair hearing now. Wherever they send me, I'll be treated like I was a murderer." He raised the muzzle of the weapon, "As soon as it hits the fan, I'm gonna give up this game and play for keeps. And if I gotta live like I'm a killer, well then I guess I'm gonna want to deserve the punishment -- instead of what I got for coming home to help my mother." -------------------------------- The lid of the crate only put up a token amount of resistance before it gave up the fight with a tortured squeal and lay next to the shipping crate. Billy lowered the crowbar and looked over at Randi, "Remind me again why we need this?" Randi smiled as she straightened up from dragging two full cases of ammunition over, "I know you've never met her, but one day, I'll introduce you to my friend Copper. She's the one who gave me the idea to drive around in one of these things -- since she's got one herself. But hers is way different, Billy. This one can handle a lot of things, but one thing that it's light on is overhead attacks. Copper's Bradley can handle that all by itself -- almost, but I -- we don't have much of anything for that, so that's why we needed the extra bits and this gun here. Ever used one?" "Uh, no," Billy laughed as he carefully set the eighty pound gun into its mount, "but I like it already. The more I get used to your little piggy here, the better I like it, but I've been having the same thoughts, I guess. There's not much defense against flying demons the way it was without this thing." "Well, don't get to liking it too much," Randi laughed, "I think I'd rather have you driving, since you're a lot better at it than I am. I get all flustered and busy and I'm much better at gunning." They finished getting everything stowed and after getting the fuel rig filled, they were on their way home. --------------------------------- There was a narrow draw up ahead with a right turn at the end of it and everyone slowed to a stop as they approached the turn. The wagon was pulled ahead and sat in the shade of some trees behind a few boulders as the riders rode up a little and dismounted to tie up their horses out of sight on the far side of the slope while Sam and the roadmen hid behind some cover and waited. It wasn't more than a minute and a half when the first of the pursuing riders rode down the draw. This was a more or less classic trap and ambush and the quarry's guards rode straight into it. The springing of the trap was up to Ewan and he waited to see how many were following him. There were twenty in the killing ground when he fired from a more or less head-on position while the roadmen shot from the side and in a few seconds there were none living to chase after them anymore, though they all knew that there was a second wave somewhere back down that road. The horses were scattered and the bodies dragged into the undergrowth before they mounted up and rode on. "Feel better now that you've killed somebody?" Nancy asked in a sarcastic and mocking tone. Ewan thought about it for a moment and then he nodded. "Yup," he said somewhat grimly. They rode on, the landscape placing them in a position to be seen by their pursuers every now and then. Every time, the guards opened fire as soon as they caught sight of their objective. "Are they gonna catch us?" the guard asked Sam a moment later. "Daylight's the problem," Samantha said, "We're armed, they're armed, so it's a bit of a draw unless we can improve the odds a bit more. If it was nighttime, they'd already be dead, since we'd be hunting them." Her words finished the train of thought which was running through D'Arcy's mind. "Shane," D'Arcy called over, "This is just getting stupid. Help me slow them down." It was at that point that the captive guard really noticed them. She'd seen and been close to D'Arcy when they were inside, but she knew that the way that she'd spoken had annoyed him. He didn't know it, but it was expected behavior for a quarry guard there. It had nothing to do with her own feelings on the subject of men or any sort of person; it was just part of what she had to do if she wanted to get the two silvers a day in pay. D'Arcy was large and to her, he was attractive as anything, but even if he wasn't pissed at her, he looked to be a little too fierce to her in a few ways. But all of that changed when she saw Shane sidle his horse over to where D'Arcy sat. She could see that they were brothers easily and her eye took in a lot of details in an instant. He looked so cool and calm as he sat on his horse discussing some sort of plan with his brother and she watched the steady and purposeful way that his fingers opened the loading door on his colt and began to empty the spent casings out as he rotated the cylinder of the pistol. As she watched, he nodded a time or two to D'Arcy and then he pointed out a feature of the terrain which they'd just ridden through before he lowered his hand again and went on loading the pistol. The colt went into a holster strapped to his thigh and then he drew two more pistols, these a matched set of competition-grade semi-automatics in nine millimeter. To her, they looked even deadlier than the one that she'd been issued since the ones that he had were equipped with barrel weights which gave them a very blocky and businesslike outline. He thumbed the magazine eject buttons on them and their magazines dropped out to the ground before he slapped in full ones, cocking each pistol and setting the safety on it before he jammed it into one of a pair of holsters at his waist far above the one with the old Colt in it lower down. D'Arcy carried a pistol and a long, double-barreled rifle in a large caliber. Shane always referred to it jokingly as D'Arcy's 'elephant gun'. It was slow, but then D'Arcy figured he had plenty of firepower in the group, so he handled the long shots whenever the need arose and the thing packed enough of a punch to likely drop a rhinoceros -- not that there were any around which needed it at the moment. Finally, Shane pulled an ancient and scuffed-up M-14 rifle from a scabbard on his horse. Changing the magazine for a full one, that went back into the scabbard and Shane continued to listen to D'Arcy intently for another few moments. The ex-guard saw his head begin to turn in her direction and she tried to decide what his reaction to her might be if he turned his head far enough to see her. She knew that she wasn't the prettiest girl in the world or anything, but just this one time, she really ached to be worth at least a little more than the sort of glances which D'Arcy gave her. But she'd been working her shitty job and it had been a long shift, not to mention that she'd gotten a little dirty crawling around in the steam looking for her gun so she knew that she was likely out of luck right off the hop. She really couldn't have said why it was important to her right then either. She had issues of her own and in her mind, she'd all but accepted that she'd never find somebody without some serious settling, though for the most part, she wasn't even looking and never had been. To her surprise, Shane's gaze went right past her, since he was looking for details in the landscape and then he swept back, right past her again before the double-take. Which became a triple and quadruple-take right afterward and though she was startled that he'd look that much, she was able to keep her cool and nodded to him once very briefly. "I'm a good shot," she said, "and I can help if you trust me." Shane smirked a little, "And why would I want to trust you?" She reached up and made a passing attempt at getting her hair out of her eyes, "Do you know what happens to guards who became hostages and don't die trying to get away?" she asked. "At best, in the larger places and jails, they ditch you quietly and you're out of a job. Way the hell out here, I'm not worth much more than a bullet now. I was serious when I asked to be taken along." He looked as though he was toying with the idea for a moment, "Hey, grumpy-bitch," he grinned at the other woman in the wagon, "Izzat true, what she says?" Nancy kicked the guard as hard as she could and her feelings on the subject were rather plain in her eyes, "Give me a gun," she snarled just before she spit in the guard's face, "You don't even have to untie my hands. Just give me a gun and I'll blow her away before I shoot Ewan." Ewan turned and smiled at Nancy for a moment and she smiled back. Then he hit her again and sent her sprawling. When she picked herself up, she brought her hand to her face and felt the blood and the way that her lip was swelling rapidly. "If you say one word now," he said, "I'll hit you hard enough to kill you." She tried to spit in his face as well, but it took her too long because her damaged lips wouldn't respond quickly enough and she found herself on her face next to bag of horse feed. D'Arcy's attention had been drawn by then and he smiled down at the ex-guard, "Hey, you mean what you said?" She nodded, "Try me. And my name is Callie." D'Arcy reached into the pocket of his long coat and drew out Nancy's pistol. While they were bringing Ewan out, he'd swung out the cylinder of that pistol and emptied the cartridges into his palm and pocketed them and the gun. He was certain that Callie hadn't seen it. He looked at the fancy filigree work on the piece for a second, "You need to convince me that you're for real. Even if I give you a chance, you'll have a lot of guns at your back, so move slow so that nobody gets confused. Would you do what I tell you to do?" Callie looked up through her long black hair and nodded with a thin smile, "Sure." D'Arcy handed the gun to Shane, "You look like you're thinking of trusting somebody one time in your life. I dunno why, but I kind of like it on you. I'll leave it up to you." Shane chuckled quietly as he looked back at the road, knowing that they couldn't waste much more time like this. "I'm gonna give you this gun, Callie" he smiled, "You won't believe me, but even if you shoot me, you'd need every shot in it to hurt me much and by then, D'Arcy will save you -- so he can skin you alive later over a fire. So I'm giving you your chance. You want to play along with us and we get out of this, I'll do what I can to keep the law off you. If that's what you want, then when I give this to you, I want you to shoot Snaggletooth there. Do you think you can do that for me?" He watched Callie's dark eyes twinkle from behind her windblown hair as she nodded. He handed the pistol over and Callie seized it so quickly that it was out of his hand almost before he knew it. She spun around and grabbed Nancy's hair, lifting her head up at what must have been a painful angle. The whole thing was done almost as one swift and fluid motion. Callie's hand slammed down into Nancy's hair, she yanked her head up, placed the muzzle of the pistol against the woman's forehead as her thumb drew back the hammer and she pulled the trigger as she looked straight into Nancy's shocked eyes. There was a loud click and then Callie looked up and over her shoulder, "Hey, you said to shoot her. Either give me a full gun or tell me I gotta kill her with this even though it's empty. I'll do that if you want, but it's gonna take a lot longer that way, just sayin'." She turned to look at Nancy, "If you spit again, I swear I'll staple your lips together." D'Arcy reached down, "Here, Callie," She found six cartridges in her hand, so she loaded one and grabbed Nancy's hair again. As she pulled the woman's head up, Nancy began to whimper, all the fight gone out of her. Callie pulled back the hammer, but she found the twin barrels of D'Arcy's rifle under the pistol and pressing upward. She looked up. "I admire your determination -- or your hatred -- whichever it is, but now I DON'T want you to shoot her." Callie smiled up at them both, "I was in the army for a little while, they taught me that if you get no new orders, you're s'posed'ta keep doing what your last orders were." The brothers looked at each other with raised eyebrows. D'Arcy didn't say anything, but Shane nodded, "Well, I kind of like her." It was worth a quiet laugh from D'Arcy as he rode off a little way. "Ok, don't shoot her unless you're about to get captured, Callie, but I don't think that'll happen. Just sit tight and try not to draw any fire." "What if she tries to call them or get their attention?" she asked. "Well, I don't think she's that stupid, but if she tries to do that, THEN you can shoot her, ok?" "Whatever you say, Boss." Callie smiled and looked at Shane. She beamed for just a second and then looked into Nancy's eyes, "Two minutes, and I get more job satisfaction than I did in two years with this rich asshole." Something sounded a little odd to Shane then so he asked, "How rich, exactly?" Callie looked over at him, "C'mon, use your head. She's worth tons, just by the way that she's dressed." Shane looked hard, but drew a blank, "I don't see any more than a woman in work-style pants and a shaped blouse or whatever that is. What am I missing?" She smiled at him and spoke in an explanatory tone, "She's wearing a fucking bodice, Shane. Do you know how much it costs to have one made and fitted? It would take me three months to be able to have one made for me -- and that's if I didn't waste any money on food." "But you're wearing-" Callie shook her head, "I'm wearing a leather breastplate. It's held on at the back by a pair of wide straps and it's uncomfortable as anything. Not the same. She gets to have her tits held by a bodice while the rest of us have to use a strip of cloth to hold our boobs. Really rich women have brassieres made. I'll be she's got a few of those too." Shane smiled in as goofy a way as he could, "I'll have to think on all of this. I'm sure there's something of a lesson for me in there somewhere." "That'll be good for a week and a half of deep thought from a man," Nancy said and Callie lowered her pistol slowly. "Ewan?" she asked and he nodded. Then he slapped Nancy again. "I'm putting the gag back in," he said, "She keeps this up, I'll cut my hand on her teeth sooner or later. Probably get infected." Back on the road, the first of the guards rode over the small rise and D'arcy whispered the name of his horse. The animal had been trained to recognize the cue and stood stone-still while D'Arcy sighted in and pulled one of the triggers. Three hundred yards away, a man fell out of his saddle. The timing was about perfect, because in the time that D'Arcy had been aiming, the first guard had ridden a little nearer and a second had come after him. He was followed by two more, but they were just coming over the rise when the first man fell. They stopped and doubled back, leaving one man still out in plain sight. That man now felt terribly exposed and alone as he looked around, wondering where the shooter was. During that time, D'Arcy whispered the horse's name again. As he turned his horse around slowly, the guard in the saddle felt as though all of the skin on his body was waiting for the arrival of a bullet from somewhere. He tried to look unconcerned but his fear was plainly evident. From D'Arcy's point of view, the man was disappearing behind the rise, but it didn't matter. Before the man was out of D'Arcy's sight he toppled from his horse to land in the dirt. D'Arcy kept his motions to a minimum as he sat on his horse behind a pine tree reloading slowly, since he knew that all of the remaining guards in the party would be trying to catch a glimpse of him now. All the same, his motions were noticed and three men raised their weapons. Shane was hidden from view a lot closer and opened fire from behind a boulder, hitting all three. As Shane slipped away, D'Arcy shot anyone who looked to be too interested in finding Shane, and so they covered each other and frustrated the men pursuing them. The brothers met back at the wagon. "Let's try to get across Hampden's Ford while we've got a minute for it," Shane suggested and D'Arcy nodded. The next few minutes were covered at a breakneck pace, but they reached and were crossing the ford before the guards rediscovered their courage. ---------------------------- "What the hell do you suppose all of that shooting's is about?" Randi said from their vantage point where they'd stopped for a minute as they watched the proceedings in the valley down below them. "I dunno," Billy said as he lowered his binoculars and looked over, "but I'm kind of partial to the ones with the wagon. They're outgunned, but they seem to have a method for making the ones chasing them overextend themselves. Every now and then, they manage to pick off the ones chasing them one at a time. What do you want to do? I guess we could just sit here tight and block the road." "I don't want to do that," Randi said, "I don't know the story, but I think I'm with you. Let's just pull off to the side so the wagon can get by. I'll load up the main gun and we'll find out soon enough, I guess. And wear your headset. Once things get busy, you'll never hear me without it." As Billy moved the tank as she'd said, Randi loaded up a canister shot and placed another round on the floor nearby. She sighted on the road and they waited. ----------------------------- Nancy thought about things as she tried to keep from being dislodged from the back of the wagon from all of the violent bumps and motions. She didn't know what her future held now, but at least Ewan hadn't tossed her out onto the road. She hoped that it wasn't just something which had slipped his mind in the excitement. He sat as hunkered down as she supposed that a man like he was could get, ever watchful for a clear shot as they rattled along, escorted by the strangely silent roadmen, who seemed to be able to communicate among themselves perfectly well using only exchanged glances and the odd hand signal. From the occasional look that she'd gotten at any of them, they all appeared very similar -- eight tall and lean men with taciturn expressions as they thundered along looking over their shoulders whenever the roadway ahead gave them the chance at a few seconds. A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 52 Her gaze wandered over to the young guard, who sat on the bed of the wagon near her. She found that she couldn't fault her too much in any of this -- even though she'd have shot her in the face for switching sides if she could. Being a guard was a dead-end job -- if it didn't kill you somehow. Little wonder, she thought that the guard had seen a chance to change her life in the face of one of the handsome leaders of this group of roadmen, because if anyone in this part of the world could say that they lived life on a thin and fast-traveling edge, it was them. Their occupation meant that every day was a risk to be taken and hung onto with both hands -- unless one happened to be shooting a pistol at the moment, she supposed. The river which ran through the valley wasn't much to write home about, being perhaps three feet deep and only thirty feet wide for most of its length. But it was a fast-flowing one with a lot of boulders hidden in its depths which precluded crossing it in most places. Hampden's Ford was about the only exception for about twenty miles to either side. At the ford, the river was only about a foot or less in depth but it was over three hundred feet wide there and moved rather slowly. As they made their way across, Rudhi probed their thoughts and decided that of the two groups, the ones who were running stood higher in her consideration so she decided that she'd help them if she could. "Here is a chance to use what you have learned with your sword," she said to Randi, "Let's go for a walk." Randi looked at her as though she had a few doubts, while Billy looked as though it was his considered opinion at the moment that she'd lost her mind, but he said nothing as the pair climbed out of the hatches and began to walk down the slope toward the ford. As the wagon and the roadmen began their climb out of the fords, they looked up and gaped at the two beautiful women who were walking toward them. "Ma'am," D'Arcy began when they'd gotten close enough for conversation, "don't go down there. We're being followed by guards from the prison quarry. We're helping that man in the wagon get free, but the guards who are chasing us are a bit upset at us and likely won't be inclined to be too polite to anyone right now." "We know," Rudhi said with a smile, suddenly seeing the roadmen for what they were, "Go on up the hill and you may hide behind that large thing there. It belongs to my friend and we'll protect you if we must." D'Arcy stared, his mouth open as he saw that they weren't going to heed him for one thing, and he was a little astounded to see them here like this at all, but he shrugged and motioned for his people to get up the slope and behind the object that had been pointed out to him. At least they could hide behind some cover while having the advantage of being up-slope from their pursuers. Still, he remained behind as he watched them wade out into the shallow water wearing cloaks and not all that much more. He'd never seen anything like it in his life. "The water's freezing," Randi complained quietly as more of a statement than anything else. "Use the feeling to force your will," Rudhi said as they moved apart and took positions near the middle of the ford about two hundred feet apart. Since there hadn't been any shooting for the past fifteen minutes, the leader of the guards urged his men forward until they stopped on their side of the stream and stared as the two women began a series of very graceful movements which looked like a form of ballet. At one point, they both extended their right arms out to the side and a sword appeared in their hands and the nature of the movements became clear. They were series of ritualized movements against an enemy who was not there other than in their minds for the purpose of practicing the motions at a speed many times slower than they'd be made against a living foe. Rudhi was watching the guard men intently. "We wait until the first ones make ready to shoot their weapons, "the words rang inside Randi's mind. They might have kept their guns down, but they could all see D'Arcy quite plainly and as they began to cross the shallows, a few of them raised their guns. The next motions that the pair in the stream made were more sudden, looking as though they were thrusting their swords at an invisible foe, but as their reach attained full extension, there was a ripping sound, not low to start with, but rather high in pitch and it went low, ending in a rumble. From a point directly under the tip of each sword, a long geyser of water shot straight up into the air about fifty feet and shot outward for hundreds of feet as though something from the sword agitated the water into a long, and straight plume. "The water is the key," Rudhi said in her thoughts, "if you were on land, and sent this across land, it works, but the water shows it better. From a point in the water as we now stand, it works and will continue on out of the water onto the shore if we desire it. But it will not work from land across water to land on the other side. It is just the nature of what is sent." Every time that the motions were made, another hissing wall of white water shot up. At the far end of each one stood a guard who had been aiming at D'Arcy. At that point the geyser turned crimson and when the wave subsided, there was no trace of the man -- other than some red froth in the water. By the third time, the men were beginning to see that their numbers were decreasing and so they began to aim at the women. But whenever they pulled the trigger, they found as their guns were firing, that the women were not in the same place anymore. They'd moved in some eerie way to another place in the stream. Randi saw a guard standing behind a boulder, using it to steady his aim and she sent a line of disturbed white water rising straight up in a direct line in his direction. When it reached the shore, it went right on, throwing clods of mud and sand into the air until it got to the boulder. There was a very short pause of perhaps a tenth of a second and then the boulder shattered with a bang. The man behind it came apart with a lot less noise. This went on for a minute or so until at a sign from Rudhi, they both dragged the tips of their swords around themselves in an arc, which pelted the men on the bank with a painful and deadly barrage of ice shards. When it had stopped, there was no sign of either the two women or D'Arcy and the guards prepared to cross. They were nervous now and went cautiously. "How did you do that?" D'Arcy asked as they walked and Rudhi smiled, "There are things about you and your men which I could ask about and you would have no reply. You only know what is. This is the same. My name is Rudhi and this is Randi, my friend." D'Arcy nodded and held out his hand, "I'm D'Arcy. Thanks for your help." As they crested the ridge where the others waited behind the rumbling tank, Randi said, "Stay behind this, and don't come in front of it for anything, ok?" D'Arcy nodded, "What are you going to do?" Randi smiled down at him as she climbed onto the Sheridan, "We're going to remove your problems -- well, those ones anyway. You ought to hang onto your horses. It's gonna get loud in a minute." Nancy had worked the gag out of her mouth by this time. She looked up from the bed of the wagon, "Those men are guards from the work quarry that I'm a part-owner of. You'll get life in there for what you've done. I'll recommend that you be execut-" "Can somebody shut her up?" Randi asked and Callie nodded, "Ewan?" Nancy ended up sprawled on her face again and Callie tied a gag on her. "I think you're getting to like that a little too much," Sam said. "Just trying to help," Ewan said, managing to keep a straight face. Randi slid in through the driver's hatch and called up to Billy who stood holding that heavy machine gun above the hatch, "Come down, Billy. The way this thing moves when I shoot, the hatch ring up there will break your ribs or something. " He answered in agreement but climbed out and jumped off the frame near to the roadmen, "I'm Billy," he said, "hang onto your animals and cover your ears for a minute." He stepped over to the wagon and stood between the two horses, holding onto their bridles. Inside, Randi watched and adjusted her sight picture. Then she slapped the firing button. Sheridans have a drive wheel and a take-up wheel on each side for the tracks. Between them, still in the tracks, are the road wheels and on Sheridans, there are five sets on each side. Sitting as it was, the main gun was pointed down -- or depressed slightly. The recoil, when it came was in a very slightly upward direction and the result was that when it fired, the first three sets of road wheels left the ground and then the tank slammed back down. Billy was thankful that Randi had remembered to warn him. The turret had moved quite a bit and his ribs would have been very sore for certain if she'd forgotten. The buzzing of the darts sang off down the hill and the rest of the guards gave up the pursuit in the next few seconds, since most of them were gone. Billy sprang up onto the turret and pulled back the handle of the heavy machine gun. As the smoke cleared, the last of the guards perished and the few living horses ran off in terror. "Did I hit any horses?" Randi called up. "A few in the middle of the stream, two or three, I guess," Billy answered, "The rest are ok, I think." Randi shook her head, "I think I've just wrecked the ford for everybody. The bottom's got to be covered in darts now. Horses who cross will go lame." Rudhi shot upward out of the hatch and a minute later, she returned with two handfuls of the projectiles and a horse which was walking beside her nervously. "How did you do that?" Randi asked. Rudhi shrugged, "Magnetism," as she placed the darts on the ground off the road and looked around. When she saw D'Arcy, who stood looking shocked and deafened, she walked over. "I think you will be safe here for the night and I think that we will remain here too, but I have a problem now. This horse follows me and I can't carry her inside. I think that when Randi's machine moves, the horse will be frightened. If you are going the same way that we are, would you tie her to the wagon for a while? As long as we are on the same road?" D'Arcy looked over in more than a little awe, "Lady -- I mean, Rudhi, for what you and your friend have done, I think we owe you that much at least. Why do you want the horse?" Rudhi looked down a little ashamedly, "My answer will show to you that I am not from here." "No shit," grinned Shane, though it earned him a withering glance from his brother. "I come from a place where we rode beasts, but they were not anything like horses. Their minds were very different from these creatures. To get them to carry us and serve us involved things which were normal and usual for those animals, but the same things would be cruel to horses." "How do you mean?" D'Arcy asked. "If I wished to ride one that I owned, as an example, I would walk up and strike it on the shoulder. That is how to make it even notice me. Such a thing cannot be done to a horse. The first touch would be an injury and even if it lived, the horse would be ruined for nothing. I see how everyone here rides horses and I think that if this one likes me, I would like to learn how one rides a horse. I think she seeks to make a friend in me." "What kind of horses did you have?" Shane asked and Rudhi shook her head, "Not horses." She held out her hands and in the space between them, they saw lizard-like things, six-legged lizards which were very fast. She lowered her hands and they stared at her. "Where the hell was that?" Shane whispered in awe and she shook her head again, "Far away. Long ago." She looked up at D'Arcy, "Would you help me?" "Wait a minute," Shane interrupted quietly, "You mean you rode those things and had to hit them to get them started? You don't look like you could hit a horse and cause it any damage." "Shane, use your head," D'Arcy said with a smirk, "After what we just saw her do, I think I believe her. If you need it proved any farther, I'll ask her to hit you." He turned to Rudhi, "Sure, Rudhi, but I don't know how far we'll be travelling together. But if you rode those things before, I'm sure I could have you riding a horse in no time." He began to examine the saddle and the bags on the horse as Rudhi stood by. "What did you mean when you said that there are things about us that you could ask about?" Rudhi shrugged, "I am the last of my kind -- as far as I know and can believe. I am not human. Randi began as a human, but I changed her a little because she was dying when we met. Now she is still a part human, but she has changed the rest of herself to be something which lived in another place with the people of her male there, Billy. He is not human either. Actually, he is a demon who tries to make friends wherever he goes. He is not murderous without a reason to be." As D'Arcy looked at the ones she'd mentioned, she reached over and put her hand on his shoulder so that he'd look at her. "I can see that you and your people here are not human either, not completely, and I wish to know and see more, if it is allowed. The females in the wagon are the only true humans here." D'Arcy looked uncomfortable, "Are you sure that you want to see that? We don't usually show ourselves while we're working." Rudhi nodded, "Yes. Very much. To most people here, I can see and know many things." She smirked a little at him, "It makes me appear to be very wise, but that is not so. I am only very different and alone. Once, I was to be married to two males -- high ones among us -- and we loved each other very much. Now, everyone is long-dead and I am here. I have learned that the way that we loved is too harsh for most of the people here. No," she said, shaking her head sadly as she revised her statement, "for all of the people here. But I met Randi and now she has her male and I have seen that it is possible to love someone and not be hard about it and I wish to try again with someone. I saw you today, and if you have no female, then I want to see if I can --" "You can't," D'Arcy said, shaking his head, "Sorry, and I mean no disrespect to you. I find that I like you, Rudhi, but there are two things here. One; we'd need to get to know each other to a fair degree unless you only want something quick, and for that, I'd tell you to find someone else. I'm not like that. Two, I'm not sure that you know what it is that you're asking." She put her hand on his chest lightly and she smiled up at him, "I know that my hand now rests over fur. I know that you are all wild-looking creatures as a people, and that is what you are to me, though most humans would never agree. I know that all humans and even your people here see gray eyes right now when they look at you, but that is not what I see, D'Arcy. I see yellow eyes -- quite wild and beautiful for me to look at." She looked over her shoulder and saw that no one was looking at them, so she reached for his cheek, "My hand is not on your cheek, because your cheek is a little farther back on your face. My hand is on the side of your snout in truth and I can see your teeth quite plainly. Can you see mine? I can say that of all of my features, they are the things which cause humans to fear me as soon as I smile whenever I try to make a friend. The marks on my face make humans nervous, though they were nothing and normal for my family where I am from." She sighed, "Everything that I do is wrong in a way. I must wear far more to cover my body than I wish here. Women think badly of me and some men think that I seek them in lust. What I see in you is a strong creature, and one who is attractive to me and it was my hope that you would be strong enough to be someone who I could know and love, but ..." She turned away and looked down, "I think now that I was right before - that there is no one here like that for me." She began to walk away, but D'Arcy reached for her and she stopped, looking up at him quizzically. "I don't know why I want to argue," he said with a small smile, "but I think I need to make something clear to you, Rudhi. What I am, what you see is something which humans fear as well. We are what they call werewolves here, but among ourselves, we say that we are wolf-born -- those of us born this way and not bitten. Even those ones can say it and we don't argue as long as they try to get along. We hide this way so that we can make a living and survive. It's why we all look a little alike to some people who are observant enough. You say that you want a friend? Well, ok, I'd say that you've made a few here today, if you're a little careful in how you approach things. But don't just give up and walk away. I do like you and I think you're pretty fascinating and I hope you don't need to be told that you're beautiful, since the word is pretty weak when it's applied to you. But I'm not in for anything quick or short. I've wanted somebody for a long time. But there aren't many females around here." Rudhi tilted her head just a little as she looked into his eyes, "I do not know if I could be a good female for one like you," she said as she reached for D'Arcy, her hands encircling his waist so that she could draw herself up a little, "but I wish to try to be." Her soft breath tickled the whiskers which were there on his face unseen by anyone but her as she moved her face closer to his jaws. "I am not afraid of you and what you are, D'Arcy," she smiled softly; "The truth is that I have never seen anyone so wondrous to me." She kissed his lips so lightly and softly that D'Arcy let out an almost silent groan and Rudhi sighed as they looked at each other. "I can see the man that you show yourself as and you are so fine to see, but I also see the truth which lies underneath and for the first time since I was brought here from my world, I see a male whose young I would bear gladly if I only had the chance of it." She kissed him again and stood on her tiptoes as she threw her arms around his neck when she felt his arms encircling her. When they drew apart, they were both out of breath and all the rest were grinning, though Sam likely smiled the most. "Can I have a chance, D'Arcy?" Rudhi asked and he nodded a little uncomfortably, but then he looked into her blue eyes, "I want that too." "Well that's just awesome, "Sam said, as she noted the pausse in the moment, "And I meant that, so don't you dare fuck this up D'Arcy, you hear me? Just put all your 'distant D'Arcy' crap on hold for her and you ought to be ok. Uh, can I talk to you a minute, Rudhi?" Rudhi nodded and they stepped away a little. "We've been talking, "she said, "and we're all gonna spend the night right here, but the other girl in the wagon would like to talk to you if she could. She started out on the wrong side of this, so now she's a little nervous about getting on D'Arcy's bad side -- though I think you've gone a ways to keeping him a little calmed for the moment." "Have I done something wrong already?" Rudhi asked, and Samantha laughed, "No, not a thing. Don't mind me, I'm D'Arcy's cousin. Shane's too. I'm happy if something happens for you and him. He gets a little mean out of loneliness sometimes and if you knew him the way that I do, you'd see that it's really not like him." Rudhi nodded a little thankfully and she saw Callie standing a little away from her, "What do you need?" she asked. Callie looked uncomfortable and Rudhi tried to smile a little, "I will not harm you. What is your name?" "I'm Callie," the girl said, "I heard you were looking to learn how to ride. I can teach you if you'll go with me and help me. I think we can be back in an hour or so." A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 52 "Where do you have to go?" Rudhi asked. "I'm pretty sure this is the place," Callie said. "What place?" Rudhi found her words being echoed by Shane's, who now looked embarrassed, "Sorry." "There's a wolf hunter who lives not far over that ridge there," Callie said, "I want to go see if I'm right, and if I am, I want to kill her." Shane's eyes opened wide, "Why? You're human." "I don't know if you'd understand it," she said, "She took somebody from me. I can't do anything to bring him back, but I want that murdering piece of shit dead and cold, as long as I'm this close. I don't know if I'll ever get another chance." She looked at Rudhi, "Will you help me? Just go with me. You don't even have to do anything unless I fail and she kills me. I'd like it if you could kill her then, so at least it wouldn't all be for nothing. The things that I just saw you do, you must be able to kill a bounty hunter without thinking on it too hard." Shane looked as though he couldn't comprehend her words, but Rudhi got it right away. "He was not human, but he was everything to you, no?" Callie's head hung down as she nodded, "I was six when demons killed my mother. I found out when I walked all the way home from school alone since my mother wasn't there to meet me because she was dead. When I got home, there was nothing left but smoke and fire. Bobby found me three days later. He was the same as what you are, Shane." Shane looked a little shocked but Callie nodded at him, "I know what to look for, believe me, ok? I guess most little kids would have been scared shitless, but I wasn't. Bobby was only about sixteen then and on his own. He kept me alive. Bobby fed me and took care of me and he held me at night when I cried for my mother. He was like my brother and my father all rolled into one. Bobby raised me. I guess we were together maybe ten years and I learned everything from him; how to count and read and work numbers and ride and shoot. We never had much, but we had each other. Bobby was everything to me. He was my family." She looked up with her eyes blazing. "Until that hunter skank decided that Bobby had to die for what he was. She made out like she was in love with him and while he was distracted over a human woman who said she wanted him, he made his mistake and she shot him for his fur. Silver bullets. Nine silver bullets and then she skinned him and turned in his hide for the bounty. His body went into a hole in the ground and that was it. The only person who loved me in the world and he was gone so she could get richer." "How much was the bounty?" Rudhi asked. Sam turned toward Rudhi then, "Two hundred silver -- or forty gold," she said, "It's been the same on us for a long time now. You'd think we'd be worth a little more to cover inflation at least." Rudhi's eyes opened wide at that, but Samantha waved her hand and shook her head, "it's a figure of speech. Forget I said anything." Callie said, "Look, you don't know me and I know that you don't have any reason to want to help me, but if you could, I'd do anything to repay you." "Callie," Shane said quietly, "I know how it feels to lose everything. If you need help, I'll go with you." "Thank you, but no you won't," Callie said determinedly, "I don't know you much, but I like you a lot, Shane. I think out of anyone, a wolf-born would be in the most danger from her. I'm not doubting your ability or your courage or anything at all. It's just that the way I see it, she's made her living at killing wolf-born and since she's still alive, she must be at least a little good at it and I'd rather that you don't lay anything out on the line for me. Rudhi would be like an unknown to her. I think I'd like that better. She wouldn't see it coming." She looked over, "I just don't think that I've got anything that you'd want." "I think that you do," Rudhi smiled, "and we can go now. Just help me to find a way to get onto this horse." Sam walked back to th ewagon and saw Ewan's questioning look. "We're staying here for the night, so right here's where I get to clean you up a bit." She set her bag down on the wagon and withdrawing a pair of scissors, she began to trim his beard shorter so that it was just long stubble on his face. He'd sat holding still for it, still not daring to believe that he was on his way to freedom. As Sam worked, he had hie large hand on her hip as though he was afraid that the dream would end and he'd find himself back at the quarry again. "I like your hand there, Ewan," Sam smiled, "but is there a reason?" There was just a hint of a tear in his eyes when he spoke, still in a low and very quiet growl as though he was a little ashamed, "If you disappear, I hope that by touching you that I can go along. I don't want this to end yet." Sam stopped and stared at him for just a moment before she took him in her arms - which was a little silly, since there was far too much of him to hold properly lie that. "Oh Baby," she sniffled with her own tears, "I understand you, but you've gotta believe more. Believe in me, Ewan. I'll never let you go if you hang onto me. I've dreamed about finding somebody like you. I always have." She opened her eyes and found herself looking into Nancy's hateful glare. "And you, you fucking exploitative entitled snot, this is where your nightmare starts." "What are you going to do?" Nancy sneered, "Kill me?" She watched the feral gleam in Samantha's eyes become an unearthly glow, "Fuck no," Sam growled down low, "I wouldn't dream of it. No death for you, though you may want that after a while. If it's up to me, you don't get death," she began to smile as she pointed to the others who were seeing to their horses. "You get roadmen, if I can convince a couple." "To what?" Nancy asked, "To rape me? You think that'll crush me or something? Fuck you. Bring it." "Don't ask for what you don't want," Ewan said quietly, and he wasn't being particularly hateful anymore, "You don't even know what you're talking about." "Sure I do," Nancy spat, "They're gonna rape me. Hell, a good fuck was what I wanted from you. So what's the difference, other than there'll be more than one man involved and committing the crime, I guess? I guess I'll live through it and the first chance I get, I'll swear out warrants on all of you. I'll laugh when they drag you all to me in chains where you really belong anyway. If I'd known that you were a big dog, I'd have given you kitchen scraps, Ewan." Ewan snorted, "I thought that's what I was getting." Ewan had been feeling a little sorry and charitable toward the woman up to now. But as usual, she'd managed to piss on that in his mind. She didn't see it, since he gave no outward sign, but mentally he shrugged and closed a door on her. He looked over and made certain that her bindings were tight enough. "Wrong again, Nancy," he said, "No man is gonna rape you. Take a good look. They're not men, any more than I'm a man." Sam leaned close to Nancy and whispered so that only she could hear it, "You can call it whatever you want. They won't kill you while you're all having fun together. I'm actually looking forward to seeing you as you start to enjoy it, but that won't be the final payoff - the final reward that I have in mind for you." She smiled as she whispered it even more softly, "When they're done with you, they'll bite you, Nancy, all of them. That way you'll know, won't you? Then we'll leave you tied up really tightly until you're done with your change and then we'll let you go before you wake up. By then, we'll be long gone and you'll be a wolf-bitten bitch with the hunger. Only you'll have no way to control it, since it'll be brand new to you. You'd better not go back to the quarry, honey. They'll be so happy to kill the sad bitch who can't go back. Welcome to the world of the wild, Nancy." Sam and Ewan got out of the wagon and Nancy watched as Samantha spoke to the roadmen. Of the eight of them, two were in relationships and so they declined, but six of them looked over at the wagon and nodded a little hungrily. Nancy began to whimper and yank at the bonds which held her. A short distance away, Callie took Rudhi's arm, "This is just to show you. Never hit her harder than this on her shoulder," she said as she slapped Rudhi's arm, "This is how you tell her 'Good Girl'. " She helped Rudhi find her way aboard and they rode off together a little slowly with Callie instructing all the way. "And watch what you do when you're behind her. She doesn't have eyes in her ass, so she's liable to get spooked and if she does, well then watch out for her hooves." After they'd gone on for a bit, Callie turned and said, "None of this is worth killing somebody for, Rudhi. Are you really gonna help me if I need you to?" "Yes," Rudhi nodded, "and you will not even talk to her. I will do it for you, just be sure that you are showing the right one to me and I will do the rest." "But what about the price?" Callie asked, "I'd at least want to know." "You said that Bobby was your family," Rudhi began, "so to me, that means that you lived with a wolf-born male very closely, yes?" Callie nodded, "Yes." Rudhi thought about it and then she just decided to admit it. "I want to have D'Arcy," she said, "and not only for a night. Could you teach me how I must behave if I wanted him for a mate?" Callie turned, "Is that what you really want?" "The more that I think of it, "Rudhi said, "the more that I want him. From the little that I know, when they love, most human females might not survive it if they are loved often by them, correct?" "Oh yeah," Callie said, "they can be rough and not mean it at all. I always wanted to be Bobby's bitch, but only after he bit me. We loved each other very much, and it was what I'd always wanted. It was Bobby who needed convincing. I almost had him agreeing and then we only had to wait till I was old enough. Bobby was a little funny like that. I had to be old enough first. But then he'd bite me and if I lived, we could be together, and have little ones and everything. But the hunter got to him first. It took her a good six months to get Bobby away from me, telling him that it wasn't healthy, what we planned to do. Well it was a lot healthier than nine bullets," she said looking down with a tear on her cheek. "She looked at me when I came. I wanted to take his body home to bury it there, but she'd already skinned him and she was just filling in the hole when I got there. She told me to be on my way or she'd shoot me too." Rudhi nodded and rode on in silence for a minute before her face clouded over in thought as she looked down and then her arm shot out into the air beside her as though she was holding something. "Ride this way, "she said as she turned her horse around. Callie was confused, but followed to find Rudhi getting off her horse next to a tall woman with a rifle on the ground in front of her. The woman looked to Callie to be held up by an invisible hand around her throat and she was on her tiptoes. "Take a good look, "Rudhi said, "I need to know if this is the woman whom we seek. She was aiming that rifle there at your back from behind us." Callie leaned forward and peered in the late afternoon light for a moment, "Yup, that's her." Rudhi looked at the woman, "You hunt the werewolves for the bounty?" The woman nodded, "Well yeah, or it wouldn't be worth the bullets now, would it?" Rudhi looked at her a little thoughtfully, "You have skinned some before they were even dead, yes?" "Bullets cost money. Why use two when one is enough to bring them down so you can tie them with metal cable? Then you just skin 'em and toss them in the hole." "Do you know this woman?" Rudhi asked and the hunter shook her head, "No. Should I? Did I kill her pet or something? Wait a second. Oh yeah, she was living with a werewolf for a few years like an animal. I'd have shot her too if there was any money in her hide." Rudhi looked at Callie, "How long ago?" Callie didn't blink, "Eight years, and yeah, this is her. For sure, Rudhi." Rudhi looked away for a moment and then the woman disappeared. "Where did she go?" Callie asked. "Not far," Rudhi grinned, "She is over there in the ground." While Callie came to grips with it, a human skin fell to the ground in front of them in one piece and Callie knew all that there was to know then. "Thank you Rudhi," she said, "Ask me anything you want to know and tell me anything that you need." Rudhi picked up the rifle and handed it to Callie, "I do not know much about these, but this one looks to be well-made and expensive. Take it as yours, if you do not mind what it was used to hunt." Callie nodded and said thanks as they rode back discussing things for Rudhi. "So you like D'Arcy, huh?" Callie smiled, "I think you'd look pretty good together, though I haven't seen him natural or anything. It's just the way that I feel it." "Natural?" Rudhi looked over, "it means as he is?" "Yeah," Callie nodded, "as he is. I really like Shane. That's why I didn't want him to come along. From what I've seen, he's good at what he does and I know that he's all brave and strong without being stupid, but I ... " She looked over, "Do you know what it means to tempt fate?" "I think so," Rudhi said, "To you, it would be tempting fate to have Shane there, yes?" "Yeah," Callie said, "I just met him, and I probably would never, ever be lucky enough to get a little close to him, ever, but I do like him. So I was afraid that if he was there and somebody was gonna get killed, to have Shane there would just be asking for it to be him. Even if he wasn't in danger there, then I'd be in more danger -- especially if he liked me. 'Cause then, I'd probably get killed. " "Then you were in greater danger than you knew, "Rudhi laughed. "How do you mean?" Callie asked, not getting it. "Because I can say that Shane has been pacing restlessly ever since we left,"Rudhi grinned. "How do you know that?" Callie demanded and Rudhi shrugged, "I cannot explain it so that it makes any sense to you. It is just something that I know. You do not see your long hair as it blows behind you in the wind and yet you know to a fair degree that it is alright and not on fire now, correct?" "Well... yeah," Callie said, a little nervously. "Just so," Rudhi said, "I just know. You could ask one of the others when we return if you wish, but I know that it is so because Shane likes you. They do not have these hopes for anyone because of what they are. To meet someone like you, who is lovely, and who knows the life of the wolf-born -- even though she is human, " Rudhi smiled over, "that is rare and he knows it." What about D'Arcy?" Callie asked. "Why do you think I wish to know so much?" Rudhi smiled, "I see that I have the chance that I desire so much, and I will not waste it. In all of my time, I have never met one like him. I have never even seen one like him." "Can you uh, ... " Callie thought hard on just how to frame her question, "Can you see them as they really are?" Rudhi nodded, "I can. I see everything at once. I see them as the men that they hide as in their human clothes but I can also see them without all of that. Why do you ask?" "Please don't misunderstand me," Callie said a little uncomfortably, "but what does Shane have, uh, ..." She motioned a little lower with her hand and her companion laughed, "I cannot say. I see what is there, but it is a little different from what I have seen on other males here," Callie nodded, "That's because they're made more like wolves there. But what you ought to be seeing should be bigger than what you'd see on a wolf." Rudhi began to laugh, "I have not seen many wolves here. I was not looking at the ones that I saw for this! But I think that I can say that if there is what I think there is there, we should be pleased. " She looked at Callie, "But -- " Callie shook her head, "Not like a man. It's different. The end is more pointed though it ought to be fat overall, and the part close to his body is the thickest. I don't know exactly because I was just a kid and Bobby wouldn't do anything until I was eighteen, but there's a part there that's supposed to feel pretty good to a girl." "How do you know that?" Rudhi asked, intrigued now. "Because Bobby had an older sister who was married, that's how I know," Callie stated with a degree of certainty, "I asked her and she told me. She and her husband had to go to Mexico to see his family, but before they left, she was always telling Bobby to hurry up and make me his bitch because for sure, he'd never find one who'd love him as much as me. And I ought to say that to them, they use that word to mean a female of their kind and it's not like we say it. They mean it with respect, not as an insult like humans do. They'd call a human girl a female, but a wolf-born girl is a bitch." "What about someone like me?" Rudhi asked, "I do not think that a bite can make me what D'Arcy and Shane are. What if I am with D'Arcy as his female? Is there a name for that?" Callie shook her head, "No. If you mean that you're paired with him, but you can't be turned, well then, I guess that if he loves you, then you'd still be his bitch." Rudhi smiled a little at that. "Then if I can have my chance, I wish to be D'Arcy's bitch. I do not know how, but I will try to be a good one." She looked over and Callie was smiling at her warmly, "They have a name for that, Rudhi, and I'm sure that if I asked him, D'Arcy would already tell anyone that you're a fine bitch to his eyes. Hell, even I could see that just by looking at him. I don't even have to be a super girl like you for that, Rudhi." They rode on in silence for few minutes before Callie turned and looked at Rudhi, "Hey, you do know that they're different to human men in bed, don't you?" "Yes, Rudhi nodded in a general sort of way, "I thought that they would be. Stronger, rougher as you said. Does that mean that they go longer?" "How would I know?" Callie laughed, "but Bobby's sister said they did. She also said they were were different in another way." Rudhi listened looking over and then her jaw began to fall open. "How many times?" Callie laughed as she held up the number of fingers and then she rolled her eyes, "Oh, so now you want to hear about that, huh?" Shane and D'arcy looked up from their meal as they heard the two of them, still far out in the darkness and laughing as they approached slowly. "I guess that must have gone well then," Shane volunteered. "Must have," D'Arcy nodded as he made up a plate for Rudhi. A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 53 ***I've been trying to get back into the groove of this after a while away and I can say that I've learned something. Never, ever, try to write four separate story lines at the same time. They all get bogged then. Ok, so we rejoin the odd collection of folks who have met each other on a lost and forgotten stretch of cowpath in the mountains. After this long, you might need to go back to refresh your memory by re-reading Chapter 52. I know I had to. Oh, and I'm sorry about the humor in this. I really couldn't help it. 0_o ---------------------------- Book of the Forsaken Part 8 Randi almost spit out her tea as her eyes widened and she struggled for breath in the middle of being torn between swallowing that mouthful of tea and trying hard to suppress the gasp which came to her. Finally, she had it together and stared. "You really said that?" she gaped as Rudhi blinked a little innocently. "Well,... yes," Rudhi nodded, "Was it wrong? I wished to show him my interest." Randi thought about it for a moment, "No, I can't say that it was exactly wrong to say it," she said as she looked through the grove of trees at D'Arcy, who was trying to find a little bread in his pack, "but holy smokes, Rudhi, let's just say that there are maybe more subtle and quiet ways for a girl to show her interest than to tell a man that she'd like to bear his children." "I did not tell him a mistruth," Rudhi said, "I was very sincere with my words. I would be happy to bear his young if he became my male and if I could. That is one of the ways that we tell each other where ... I am..." She looked down in silence for a moment as her voice trailed off. She shook her head then. "I am a fool," she said and she turned to go but Randi stopped her, pushing her back until she was up against a tree in the darkness. "No, Rudhi," she said, "I know you. You'll leave now because you feel ashamed and I won't see you for a half a week at least. Don't feel bad. This is all strange to you. I know that. Look, I wasn't exactly too shy for words myself when I wanted to show Ayt'han how I felt about him, was I?" She pressed herself against Rudhi and leaned in to kiss her ear very softly before she whispered, "The facts are, that we've found males we liked, and those males – both of them - are very different from what's normal around here. Ayt'han knew it and I'd bet my socks that D'Arcy will cut you some slack too. Don't leave now. I think you'd be making a big mistake if you did." Rudhi looked over her friend's shoulder at D'Arcy and she nodded a little finally before she drew her head back and kissed Randi to thank her. D'Arcy waited where he was, now that he had some chili and a couple of slices of bread for Rudhi. He wanted to speak to her, but he was unsure now as he saw them standing together the way that they were. Randi wished her friend the best and looked for Billy, seeing him coming up behind D'Arcy. "You look confused," Billy said as he walked up behind the leader of the roadmen. D'Arcy nodded as he turned his head, "I am, I guess. I thought that Rudhi and I might get to something, but the way that she's standing there with Randi, well, I don't know now." "It's nothing," Billy smiled, "You just don't know them yet. Those two are really tight, that's all, and they're not shy with each other, either. It's nothing to find them stuck up against each other closer than that and you'd think they were about to go look for a bed in about another minute, but that's just how they are. Most times, they're just talking and that's just the way they do it. I've seen them with their hands in some odd places for a couple of women who are discussing what they'd like for dinner, but that's just them. You get used to it and to be honest, I've come to like seeing it. Randi told me that Rudhi really likes you. She's had a tough time since she's come here. She didn't know anybody and the way that the people were back where she's from were very different from how people are here, so she always feels like she's said or done something wrong. At first, she was too forward about everything, but now I think I see that she's afraid to even open her mouth and believe me, it's not a look that goes well on her. She's not anything like herself like this. If you think you like her, then go and show her. Just don't be surprised at what might come out of her mouth, that's all. She's trying hard to fit in and to her, she always thinks that she gets everything wrong now." D'Arcy nodded his thanks and began to walk over. As he approached, Rudhi turned around and smiled. "I've brought you a bowl of chili and some bread," D'Arcy said, "I thought you might be a little hungry." "Hold the bowl for her until she sits down," Randi smiled as she slapped the top of the fender of her tank, "Here's a good place, if you don't mind sitting five feet off the ground." He nodded and Randi walked away as Rudhi looked at where she'd suggested. D'Arcy was a little surprised to see Rudhi flit upward and end sitting and looking at him with her legs dangling over the side. He smiled and handed her the food before he got up himself by grabbing the fender and placing his boot onto the tank tread and then stepping up to sit next to her. "So you were able to help uh, Callie?" he asked. She nodded, "There was little to it. I only had to be sure that I had the one." She looked at him a little curiously for a moment, "You do not say anything about the way that I speak into your mind. I have found that it bothers or even frightens people here. But not you, D'Arcy. Is there a reason?" He smiled a little uncomfortably, but he shook his head, "No. I just know that it's how you speak, and I like the way that it sounds in my head to uh, hear it that way." "That is not my voice," she said, "It is only a way to be able to talk to you. The way that I sound is different from one person to the next because it is how they think that I should sound. I must do it this way, I cannot say words to you that you would understand and I can't understand what is said to me unless I hear the thoughts of the one speaking to me." He looked away for a moment, "There's more to speech than just the words, Rudhi. You ought to eat a little of that before it gets too cold. It tastes best when it's hot." She nodded and was surprised to find something else which she now liked to eat. "Everywhere that I go here, I find such good things to eat. Thank you for this, D'Arcy, and what was meant when you said that there is more to speech?" "Well, I guess that I was trying to think of a way to get you to speak to me with your voice, now that I know that you've got one. I know I won't understand any of it, but I'm pretty sure that I'd love to hear it," he smiled. But she shook her head, "My people spent all of the time – I guess that I could say thousands of years in war. Our way of speaking shows it and is very direct and forceful. I do not think that you would like to hear it." D'Arcy chuckled quietly, "You told me that you can see what we are. Wolf-born have a language, Rudhi, and it's not very pleasant to human ears either. You don't have to let me hear your voice if you don't want to. I'd hate to make you feel ashamed of what you are." He spoke to her in a very different way then, down low in his throat and though it was quiet, there was no mistaking the growls in it. But to his surprise, Rudhi grinned at him and nodded. "Oh, I like to hear that," she smiled with a little laugh, "I do not know what was said, but it was very pleasant to me." D'Arcy couldn't help but laugh a little, but his jaw dropped open a little as Rudhi spat out some words in a flat tone which ended in a guttural growl as well for emphasis, as if she was a little angry with him. She looked at him a little shyly, as though she was a little ashamed that it had come out of her. "What did you say to me?" she asked, her hand on his knee as she leaned forward, very interested to know, "Your words sounded so good to me. I must know." He looked away then, "It wasn't much of anything, really. I'm not really a poet or somebody who's good with their words or anything. I just said that you're the most lovely girl that I've ever seen in my life. What did you say to me? I thought that was amazing." Rudhi looked down and smiled a little shyly, "I tried to think of how things would be said by two people as we are where I lived. Our words are straightforward and seldom carry anything hidden such as it is done here when one says anything. I hope it was not wrong to say, but I only said that I hoped that this would lead to a mating attempt between us later. Was it wrong to say to you?" He took her hand as he shook his head, "I see what you mean about speaking directly. It's ok, I was ready for that, and I really do like the way that your voice sounds." He said a very short phrase to her and then smiled, "I just answered that it is my hope as well." She offered him one of the slices of bread after dipping it in the bowl and he accepted. Neither of them said anything until Samantha walked over grinning. "Excuse me," she laughed, "but I heard D'Arcy telling you that you're beautiful. So to me, that means that he might just be feeling a little hopeful." The two people on the tank looked away in opposite directions then, but Samantha was determined to help – even if they hadn't exactly asked her to. "Stop looking like you want to kill me and go get Rudhi a flask of that beer in my pack, D'Arcy. I want about a minute and a half with somebody that I don't want to have an unpleasant surprise later." The look which he returned to her ought to have caused her to wither on the spot, but she just laughed a little and slapped his butt after he'd jumped down and begun to walk away. As she turned to Rudhi and began to speak, Rudhi saw her as a female wolf-born for the first time and thought that she was lovely. Her face was as she'd seen it earlier, but now there were none of the undertones of her human appearance. Rudhi looked at her eyebrows there as they floated on a sea of short honey-golden facial fur under her long hair. It was quite a striking visage. "Listen," Sam smiled past her teeth, "I'm not trying to embarrass you or D'Arcy. I just want to tell you the way that wolf-born girls are and what he might sort of expect, you know?" Rudhi nodded earnestly, "Yes! This is what I wish to know." "Good," Sam grinned, "But you know he can likely get a little ... uh, rough sometimes, ok? I'll belt him in the mouth if he hurts you, but you ought to know that about us. Even if we're trying to be gentle, it still might come out. The other side of that is that you can do the same thing. Fair's fair. If you want it, then you just show him that you want it – and there's no harm in it if you even show him WHERE you want it, ok? There's nothing wrong if you find yourself getting to where you think you'd really like to get things started and you just show him the place. Lean over something while you look back and he'll get the message if nothing else works." She looked away and saw that D'Arcy had found the beer and was about to come back. "Ok, I'll need to hurry this up," she said with a little smile, "I do want this to be good for you and him, since he's my cousin and I love him. Now, if it does happen and he gets really close to uh, finishing, he's gonna want to bite you. It's natural that he'd want to hold you with his teeth while he comes. But you don't have a ruff of fur around your neck like one of us," she pointed. "Because of that, knowing D'Arcy, he'll hold back, since he won't want to hurt you. If it's ok with you, then you have to let him know that you'd accept his bite then. There's a little of him making you his bitch in it, but these days, there's not a thing wrong if you show him that you're making him the wolf that you want for yourself – though you might want to save that for a later mating. It's up to you. He might even ask you in the middle of it, so if that happens, then you ought to think hard and not just agree." She leaned back a little and looked at Rudhi, "I don't know much about you and what you are, Rudhi. Was it normal for males to bite their females where you're from?" "Oh yes," Rudhi nodded, "if the mating was between two who cared about each other, it would be a form of insult NOT to bite, but can the female bite too?" Sam looked at her a little searchingly with a new measure of respect in her eye, "Was that normal there?" "Yes," Rudhi replied. Samantha reached out and touched Rudhi's jaw, trying to see her teeth. "Well as long as you don't do more damage than he does to you, and you don't open any arteries," she smiled as she leaned much closer to whisper. "Oh – fuck – yeah. If you feel it, honey, then you just bite him right back. Bite him first, if you want to. It's ok to draw a little blood, but nothing that'll leave anything permanent, ok" "Thank you," Rudhi whispered, and Samantha hugged her briefly then, "You're welcome. Just don't hurt my cousin's heart, that's all. Both of those two mean a lot to me." They drew apart then as D'Arcy arrived and Sam turned to go. "What did you guys talk about?" He asked with a little grin, "Or is it a secret?" "No secret," Rudhi giggled a little, "I asked if it is permitted to bite your bottom if I have the chance and the want, and Sam said –" Samantha was laughing by then, "You just bite his ass all you want to, honey. Finally," she said, talking to herself while she walked off, "a bitch after my own heart. I like her already." "Who?" Randi asked as she came around from the other side of the tank. She was still sort of looking for her husband, but she felt a little torn over wanting to remain nearby as well. She wasn't nosy or anything, but she really wanted for something nice to happen for her friend. "Oh, hi," Samantha said in a little surprise as she held out her hand, "I'm Sam. Is this your's?" she asked as she looked at the dark metal mass beside them. When Randi nodded, Samantha smiled, "I want to thank you for your help earlier. We were sort of sitting ducks like that until it got dark." "I didn't like what I was looking at," Randi said, "so ..." "Well it was a lot of help that we hadn't looked for," the other one nodded. "Oh, you're welcome," the redhead grinned for a moment, "Hey, who were you talking about just now?" "That Rudy girl," Sam said, "It's kind of looking good for D'Arcy and her. Well that's what I was thinking, anyway. Is she a friend of yours?" "Yeah," Randi nodded, "and I'm a little hopeful too. She has trouble with English sometimes. Not so much with the words, but in what she thinks that she ought to say and the way that it comes out. People were really direct where she's from and here, well a turn of phrase that we all understand leaves her in the dust a lot of the time." "Doesn't matter," Sam grinned widely, "Sometimes I think that it's just what my cousin needs. That, and a plank across the back of the head when he gets shy and pulls back. I keep telling him that shy is something that just doesn't work for him, not under that gruff front that he puts up a lot of the time." She nodded, "That's why he needs me, and that's why I need the plank - and a good head start right after I bash him with it." "Bash him?" Randi said, "Why?" "He's good-looking enough to make a lot of girls drop to their knees and thank their maker as soon as they see him - either of those two, really," Sam smiled. "He's wicked smart, strong and as fearless as they come for the kind of work that he's in. He just needs to get laid a lot more. I keep telling him that. Most of us look at something and blink. In that time, he's putting together a plan. But for something like this with somebody like her?" She smirked and snorted a little, "as thick as bullshit. That's why he's got me to help." The two of them laughed and Sam explained what she'd meant by her earlier remark. "Oh, I get it," Randi chuckled, "it means the same as a woman to your kind of folks." "Yup," Sam nodded, "It's been great meeting you, Randi. I've got to get going though. I need to find my brother and see if I can put something together for him too." She sighed heavily, "It's a hell of a job, but I'm up to it." "It is?" the redhead asked with a smile, "What job, Sam?" The short wolf-girl strutted a little, still in her human form as she was as Randi admired her for that instant, "My brother is a lot like me," she grinned, "I gotta go see about getting us both laid too tonight. Um, a lot." See ya later." Randi laughed and waved a little, watching Sam strut her back end off into the darkness. She wondered just for a moment and then she looked again, though by then, Sam was gone. Just how hard could that be, she wondered, the blonde had a little body that ought to give any male a case of whiplash if she walked past them that way. She wondered about what she'd heard regarding Sam's brother for a moment and then she walked on, looking for Billy again. -------------- They were silent after the remark until Rudhi looked over, "Will there be trouble for the killing of the ones who were chasing you?" D'Arcy shook his head, "There might be, but I doubt it. Those guards aren't like lawmen, no matter what that Nancy woman says. They're really nothing more than hired guns out to make a gold or two in beating up a prisoner or in this case, trying to recapture one – and THEN beating him up. We also have a little immunity from malicious prosecution, since we're here working for my father to provide protection to whomever we're escorting. That quarry can't very well try to have us jailed when they're the ones who sent word to have Ewan looked at in the first place." "I want to say something – or maybe fix something that I said," Rudhi began, "When I said that I wanted to bear your young, I meant it in the way that it would be said where I am from." She sighed, "I am always saying the wrong thing, or it is not the way that people speak here." "Well I'm disappointed now," D'Arcy grinned, "That's not the kind of offer that I get to hear every day." Rudhi looked down, "Well, I meant that ... " she looked up and saw the sparkle of humor in his eyes and then she found that she could laugh a little. She lowered her head and felt only a little foolish now. What she liked a whole lot more was the way that his arm was around her shoulders now. D'Arcy chuckled a little, "It's alright, Rudhi. I have to admit that it was a bit of a surprise to hear something like that, but I knew that you were different right from the first time that you spoke to me and it's not hard to see that somebody who's from a different culture can get all balled up when they try to make themselves understood. I guess that what you meant to say is that you found me appealing – and that's the way that I interpreted it. I don't really know why you would, but I know it when I'm having a little good fortune for a change and I think you're so -" There was a sudden shout from the other end of the section of road where they'd parked. By the time that Rudhi looked to see what it had been about, D'Arcy was already gone, running through the trees to the edge of the road where he could go even quicker out in the open. Once he saw what the cause of the disturbance was, he slowed and slipped into the trees silently. There was a trio of the guards, all who were left alive out of the initial fifty-one who had been chasing the roadmen. They'd been a little foolish and had been discovered and were now standing around Callie, threatening to shoot her unless they were allowed to leave. All of the roadmen were still in human form, but Shane looked to be nearing the point where he'd lose control and shift. A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 53 "Let her go," he said, "This won't get you anything." "Oh, it'll get us away," one of the men said with a cocky grin, "and it's all we need, a chance to get back with this girly here. She's not worth much, but I can see that she's worth a bit to you, kid. Like I said, it's all we need." "It's not going to buy you a thing," Shane said as he stepped closer, "You'll never get away. You just don't know why yet." "Shut the fuck up," a second one of the men yelled as he shot Shane in the chest. Callie cried out and then fell quiet as all of them placed the muzzles of their pistols to her throat. She looked and began to cry as Shane stood looking down at the hole in his shirt. It confused the guards and the one who had shot him raised his pistol to do it again. D'Arcy stood behind them, unnoticed as yet and wondering about how to get Callie out of harm's way without surprising the men to the point where one of their fingers tightened on a trigger involuntarily. He thought that the fear aspect might serve him, but he was still a little nervous. Shane looked up, just barely hanging onto his self-control as he plucked the soft lead bullet from his chest, "D'Arcy," he said. "Show them," D'Arcy snarled to the roadmen, "Show them why they'll never see the sun again." The three heads spun around to look behind them and they looked up. They had to. D'Arcy stood in his feral form, seven feet tall on longer legs and not looking to be pleased at all. One glance was enough and the nearest one swung his pistol toward D'Arcy. But then it was gone, flying off across the darkened road to lie lost in the long grass there. The man's hand was torn almost clean off and it was only the horrific sight of that which kept him from noticing how much the muscles and tendons of his arm and shoulder were hurting from the physical shock of D'Arcy's swing and the way that they'd almost been torn from him. Other than the way that D'Arcy now stood in a different position, no one had seen him move, but it was quite obvious that he had. The other two jammed their pistols against Callie's throat hard enough to make her cry out in pain. D'Arcy lowered his head a little as he seized the disarmed one by the throat and held him up to the others as he began to pull the man's head off by twisting slowly. The man screamed in pain and fear, but it wasn't long before a nerve in his brain stem was severed and he hung limp as D'Arcy pulled a little more to finish it before he dropped the man in two pieces, more or less. Other than D'Arcy, who couldn't have cared less, everyone else was pleased that the shrieking had stopped. "Look around, "he growled, "and you'll see why you can't get away." The two men looked a little frantically, but all that they saw were six more werewolves. The buttons and seams of Shane's clothing were already losing to the differences in the two states of physiology that his body was capable of. "If you hurt her," D'Arcy said, his breath billowing out in a cloud of fog in the cold night air, "the last thing that you'll see will be my dick when I fuck your eyeballs out." Far off down the long thin clearing next to the road, Rudhi stared at D'Arcy and a gasp slid past her teeth, just before she let the breath out as a tiny whimper and acknowledged something to herself. Her body wanted his at the molecular level. She knew that because she was sopping wet just from looking at him like this. It was still a bit of a stand-off. The last two guards had the presence of mind to stay close to Callie and they wouldn't move their guns no matter what Shane or D'Arcy said. D'Arcy noticed the movement through the trees in the flickering light of the two small campfires and he looked past the men and Callie for a moment. Then he stared. Rudhi was walking toward them. She was walking toward them all wearing little more than an open leather bodice and the smallest of thongs. Other than that, they could just see the tops of her boots. The rest of her was obscured by her cloak which billowed and blew around her like a dark rumor though there was no wind. Her long black hair moved to the same ghostly wind as her cloak and there wasn't a person there who didn't hang in her spell then. They saw someone who was nearly naked walking toward them, her breasts bared in the open bodice – strips of leather trailing from the rings through her nipples. She smiled then, not caring how her long teeth might look now and her blue eyes fairly glowed in her happiness to help in this. Her cloak turned into a smoky-looking thing which began to obscure her outline. "Wh - who is she?" one of the men said, but no one replied. If Rudhi heard it, she made no sign of it, but as she walked, she began to turn around, still walking. The effect was that she appeared to be fading from view, but as she completed the turn, she drew a pair of thin blades from her war gauntlet one after another and tossed them gently, the way a child might toss the bloom of a flower into the air. She made no sound, the effect of her motions causing several of those present to think of her as more of an apparition than a living person. But Rudhi wasn't tossing flowers and the two blades sang as they suddenly flew to stand quivering from the wrists of the men. The two pistols fell to the ground from numb fingers as the men cried out from the pain of the cold which they felt. "Do not pull them out," Rudhi said as she stepped up, still smiling, the fangs in her smile matching the ones on her cheeks. "You do not possess the strength." She stepped a little closer and gently pushed Callie away – out of the middle of this. As soon as Callie saw that she wasn't in peril any longer, she thanked Rudhi and ran to Shane. "Why didn't you just thank your luck and run?" D'Arcy asked the men who both stood bent over, holding their damaged and frozen wrists in agony. There were quiet crickling sounds as the blades twisted slowly and barbs came out of them to bite into the cold flesh of the two. "It was him," one of them said, in between his gasps, indicating the dead one as they both hissed in pain, "He said we might find out something to use in explaining why this didn't work." D'Arcy leaned down, his face inches from those of the men, "That was stupid," he said, "you should have just run and left town, not even going back to the quarry. Have you learned anything?" "Yeah," the heavier one nodded, "the best roadmen in the business are stinking werewolves." "Stinking?" D'Arcy chuckled, "It's not us who've shit themselves." He looked at Rudhi, "I'm sorry that you had to see this." But Rudhi only grinned, "See what?" the words rang in his mind, "All that I see is the male who I was speaking with. I see nothing wrong here, D'Arcy. Other than these fools, I like what is before me." D'Arcy smiled then, feeling better, "I'm just not used to being near somebody who knows about us and isn't just like us, I guess. Though I'm starting to see that for all of our differences, there are things about us both that are sort of the same." The men stood wondering why the werewolf seemed to be talking to himself, since they only heard one side of the conversation. She nodded, "If you wish, I can show you more of what I am." He nodded, looking at her body while trying not to be terribly obvious about it, "Sure, Rudhi." "Only step back a little then," she smiled, "This can be ... a little wet." D'Arcy nodded and the two men noticed that they now stood alone as they watched the tall werewolf step back a few paces. When they turned again, the pain in their wrists began to ebb a little because the thin knives had disappeared. They straightened up and looked at the strange female who stood there seeming to billow a little in the thin moonlight. Her smile was as enigmatic as ever. "Thanks," one of them said a little nervously as he tried to flex his hand. The other one just cursed. As they looked at her, they saw dark swirls begin hear her hands and before anything had really registered, the man who had thanked Rudhi for removing the blade hung in shocked silence from the long dagger which now protruded from his chest as she stepped forward, and with an overhead swing which looked like more of a spiral, the sword in her right hand lifted his head from his shoulders in a spray of blood. His body fell twitching violently and the last of the human guards who had chased them all day screamed in terror. The dagger and the sword were gone in the next instant and Rudhi held him by the throat in a vice-like grip as her smiling face came closer. "If you felt badly about my seeing what you are," Rudhi's voice came to D'arcy's mind, "then I can do the same and show you this – the way that I feed on the lives of others when the mood is on me." He heard what sounded to him as a slightly saddened sigh from her then, "I would never harm you. But I must sometimes take life to live on. It is just what I am." Her left hand reached for the man's chest and she tore his shirt open in one motion. As he stared, she placed her hand on his skin and he stood transfixed for a few seconds before he fell to the ground as a darkening husk. She saw D'Arcy looking at the ruin that she'd left and she wanted to turn away, but she had to know. "Does this change anything for you?" He looked up and shook his head, "Why would it?" he asked very quietly, "You're a lot neater about murder than I am. Though you're wearing bit of the mess, I think." She looked down and then the blood on her faded from sight, "Better?" "Much, "he smiled as he stepped over the husk on the ground. "Ask Callie if she is hurt," Rudhi chided him gently. He spun then, "Are you alright, Callie? I think you spent a few seconds right at the edge there." "I'm fine," she said in a bit of shock from what she'd witnessed, "Thanks, all of you," before she turned back to Shane. They stood holding each other for a long moment before Shane suddenly realized that he was standing in a very feral form in rather torn clothing and he tried to disengage himself, thinking that Callie might not have thought of it. But her fingers dug into the fur over his chest and she looked up with a pleased smile and threw an arm around his neck. "You're not going anywhere," she chuckled as she held onto him tightly, "Are you hurt? I saw one of them shoot you." She knew that the wolf-born are usually not badly hurt by most regular firearms, but she wanted to be sure and she felt a little concern. He nodded, "I'm uh,... I'm uh," he stammered, not knowing what to do now. "Muh muh muh," Callie giggled as she mocked him gently, knowing now that he was not hurt and feeling a little giddy at having cheated death again – and that marked at least three times in a single day. "I'm ok," he said. She looked up then, "I'm glad then. C'mon, Shane, let's find a quiet place. I want to talk to you." He nodded and they walked away. --------------------------------- Nancy was alone in the wagon and miserable. Her cheeks and jaw hurt. She was sure that she had a split lip and if she didn't – well that would likely be a miracle for the way that her head and face hurt. Samantha's hatred for her was patently obvious even though she'd done nothing to the small woman. Samantha was quite plainly in Ewan's corner and that was another thing that had been made quite clear to her. As well, now she knew that all of the people in Samantha's party were werewolves. They usually transported and guarded human patients on these trips and those humans never knew what it was that protected them from highwaymen, thieves, bandits and even flocks of demons as they traveled the often lonely and desolate roads out here. Nancy realized that it was just a way to make a living and she did have to hand it to them in a way. Nobody knew their secret, but even she had heard of this bunch and their successful record. They didn't come cheap unless they were feeling charitable or bored, she'd heard, but with them along, you were pretty much guaranteed to be alive and fit when you got to wherever it was that you needed them to take you. That was all well and good, but now most of them were looking at her and she wondered when they'd begin the rapacious depredations which Samantha had promised. Her response to Samantha had been mostly empty bravado, and now she really prayed that it wouldn't come down to her being assaulted and likely killed by a pack of wolf-born – or whatever the fuck they called themselves. She looked over and saw one of them looking at her in a rather intense sort of way. She looked away and tried to concentrate on the little bit of the landscape which was still visible to her in the fading light. When she looked back a few minutes later, the tall roadman was still studying her silently. It began to bother her, but not as much as her full bladder was screaming to her at the moment. She hadn't peed since before all of this had begun. She caught a glimpse of the one called D'Arcy and wanted to catch his eye to ask him, but the same tall and silent roadman had his attention first. She cursed under her breath as she watched them speak quietly. Just then, the silent watcher stepped away for a minute and she was able to call D'Arcy over. "I hate to bother you," she said in earnest, "but I've got to pee. I know that you all hate me, but I'm really hoping that I'm not expected to just pee my pants and sit in it all night. Is there a way that I can be allowed to go? I promise not to try to run away." The large leader of the group smirked at that. "Think about it for a second. You know about us now, right? Exactly how far do you think you could get away from noses like ours? But you do have a point, I guess. I'll see what I can do. You'll have to wait a few more minutes anyway while I try to line something up." Before she could thank him, D'Arcy was gone and she sat with her knees clamped tightly together. The tall silent one came to the wagon after a minute and he looked at her from only a foot or so away and said nothing. Nancy looked up then, "Is that all you're going to do, is look at me? Can't you talk or something?" He made no answer, but D'Arcy came around into her view from the other side of the wagon then. "This is Roland," he said, "He's the only one who's volunteered - or could be bothered - to look after you, I guess. You ought to try to play nice." Nancy looked from one to the other, "Does he understand English?" "Look, "D'Arcy said, his voice turning hard, "Don't push your luck, ok? Can't you ever restrain that shit attitude of yours? I've found you somebody. I'd have thought that you'd be a little thankful." "I am thankful, "Nancy said, "It was an honest question. I wasn't being sarcastic. He just stares at me and I haven't heard him make a sound." D'Arcy stepped over and spoke quietly though the silent roadman was close enough to hear everything, "The others just call him Wheezer, but I wouldn't recommend that you ever say that to him. He can understand English and about a half-dozen other languages, but he can't speak above a whisper. I owe him my life about a hundred times over and he's saved my kid brother's ass a lot more than that. He taught me this job and he really ought to be doing it but his voice prevents it." D'Arcy fell silent then and walked away again. Nancy looked over after a moment, "I really need to pee, Roland. Is there a way that I can do that without any more shame than I've already had to sit through?" Roland nodded and he beckoned her closer. "I can't move much more," she said, "I'm tied up and tied down to the fucking wagon as well." He leaned over the edge and she had to listen hard, since his whispers were very quiet. "I'll untie you from the wagon and help you out. Please don't try to run. It can't go well and it won't work. You might be able to run away in the darkness, but it won't hide you from me. My eyes are a lot better than yours in the dark. I want to help you, but you have to let me do that." She looked at his face and was surprised that there wasn't the dislike there which she saw everywhere else, so she nodded, "I won't try anything. I really have to go." He untied her bonds from the wagon and then he reached for her, but she recoiled a little and he shook his head, "I was only going to pick you up." Nancy thought about it and nodded her assent and to her surprise, she found that he was very gentle with her as well as incredibly strong and he set her down on her feet, taking one of the ropes and making it into sort of a lead, "This way, please," he whispered and so she went. He led her to some scrub grass out of sight of the others and she looked at him, "What now?" He looked a little embarrassed for her, "You can go here." "No, I can't, "she said, "My hands are tied together and I need to get my pants down to do this, don't I? I'm trying not to be difficult, but I just don't see – " "Stand up straight," he whispered, "and I'm sorry about all this." While she was wondering what he'd meant, he undid her pants and she found them around her ankles in one motion. "Now, I guess you squat, or whatever you have to do. Tell me if you need help with anything." Nancy was sure that her red face was visible by its glow a second later from the way that it felt to her, but she tried to get it done, "I'm sorry," she said, "I can't pee if somebody's watching me. Please look away." He shook his head, "No. I'm not going to enjoy any of this at all. You said you had to go. If you have to go that badly, then it won't make any difference if I'm looking to make sure that you're alright." She was going to argue further, but she found herself about to fall over backwards onto her ass. Roland caught her and steadied her without a word, so she just let go as she leaned against him. A few seconds later she began to speak, but she couldn't look at him because she was sure that she'd cry in her shame if she did, "I'd have liked to have been able to wipe. This is fucking awful." "I know and I'm sorry, "he whispered, "but there's only so much that I can do and your pants are still dry unless you fall backwards now. Are you done?" Nancy nodded with a quiet sob and she found that she needed to lean against him to steady herself, but she was surprised when he wiped her and then helped her up. "What was that, your hand? I couldn't see." "No," he said, "I brought a clean rag from my pack. I always carry a couple." He pulled up her pants for her and got the button done up with no trouble and then he folded the rag a little carefully and stuck it into her pocket for the next time before he led her back to the wagon. Once he'd lifted her back in and tied her down again, he tried to smile, but it wasn't working very well. Nancy decided that he likely didn't smile all that much. "I'm going to go and see if I can find you some of that food that they're having. I hope there's some left." Nancy was still feeling mortified and humiliated so she just nodded silently and then she was alone. As she knelt there, she realized that he'd actually tried to help her through what was a normal biological function made incredibly difficult and awkward by the need to keep her restrained and she did appreciate that he hadn't been a jerk about it. She was a little angry with herself for playing the whole thing as high-handed as she had earlier at the quarry, reasoning that if she hadn't been as stupid as she had been, she might have spared herself a lot of trouble. Now she was miles from the place where she had any authority. Here, she was just a human woman in the middle of a pack of werewolves; at least some of them with grudges – and they were only the ones that she could figure out. She had no idea what the others were who were helping suddenly. A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 53 She considered her position and fought off the urge to cry. The others back at the quarry were no less greedy than she'd always been. She remembered that Callie had said that her life wasn't worth much more than a bullet. Nancy knew that even if there still were a few of the quarry guards nearby, she couldn't expect any help from them. Even if she could get free somehow and make her way to them, she was pretty certain that they'd been offered a monetary reason to bring her back as a corpse to collect what had been offered. She sobbed a little. Ewan had been right about her. She wasn't one bit better than the prisoners in her quarry. And her life was probably worth less than a bullet. Nancy heard a few soft sounds and when she looked up, her heart felt as though it was banging against the bottom of her esophagus. There were three of the werewolves standing by the side of the wagon and they weren't trying to hide as human men at all. She was looking at large and powerful creatures from out of somebody's nightmare for damn sure. They towered over her, leering down and one of them was reaching for her. Nancy wanted to scream, but no sound came. She was sure that if she hadn't just emptied her bladder, she'd be sitting in a puddle of her own urine now. In fact, she was a little sure that urine wouldn't be the problem in about another minute. But two of them yelped then and the third backed away a step, though he fell over backwards and disappeared from her sight a half a second later. The two others now stood on their toes as Roland pulled on their long ears. They couldn't move their heads, but she saw that they were listening to the soft sounds that Roland was making as he hissed some words at them through his teeth. "Aw c'mon, Wheezer," one of them said, "We weren't gonna hurt her. Sam just said to scare her a little, that's all." The one who had spoken whined in pain quietly and found himself looking sideways into Roland's yellow eyes for a few moments. Roland still looked like a man to Nancy, just barely, as he hissed something else which Nancy couldn't make out before he released them and the three were gone a second later. Roland turned away for a moment and bent down to a flat rock where he'd set a platter of food and a tin cup. "I'm sorry," she heard him whisper quietly, "Some people here don't like you much, I guess." Nancy nodded, "I guess they've got their reasons. Thank you, Roland. I really mean that." "It's ok," he shrugged, "Nobody's gonna hurt you. Or they'd better not, anyway," he smirked just a little, "I'm the one who pays them every week. I brought you something to eat and drink. Can you manage tied up like that, or should I try to feed you?" "I think I can manage," she tried to smile, "Have you eaten?" "I stuffed a sandwich in my mouth over there," he whispered, "That red-haired girl who owns the big machine made it for me. They say she makes the best sandwiches anywhere. By the one that I had, I think they're right. Here. Please eat." "Can you stay here?" Nancy asked and Roland nodded, "Sure." As she ate, Nancy tried to get a better look at Roland without being too obvious about it. He looked so serious under that Stetson that he wore. His long brown hair appeared to be clean and it spilled down over his shoulders. His eyes were part of the cause for his stern look, but she could see that it wasn't anything that he meant. It was just how he was. Like this, he appeared human and to her, he was even quite attractive with that long, down-turned mustache, in spite of the usually silent and dour persona that she saw around him. The rest looked quite scruffy by comparison, but Roland looked as though he shaved about every day. Nancy had no explanation for it, but though she usually disliked mustaches, she found herself admiring the full and longish one drooping from his upper lip. "Tell me," she said, "Those other guys were - I dunno – being themselves, I guess. I mean, they were ... um, -" "Natural," Roland hissed softly, "We usually never show what we look like to outsiders – especially on the job. But D'Arcy said it was ok tonight, so they just took off their clothes and changed." Nancy gaped," Took off their, ..." Roland smirked again, "Yes. We have to, or we'd wreck the clothes. They're made to fit human men, right? No way they'd fit one of us if we're natural. It's just a waste of money to change without getting undressed first." "Why didn't you do that too?" she asked, "Or is that too personal?" He shrugged, "You looked like you were about to crap yourself as it was." "I was, "she chuckled a little, surprised that she was able to, "It was a hell of a shock, and they didn't look friendly." "Am I looking friendly?" he asked. It put Nancy off her stride for a moment and she looked at him, "Well, you don't look like you hate me, so I guess I'm thankful for that." He shook his head, "I don't hate you. They don't either, most of them. I'd say that Ewan holds a dislike for you – and from what I hear, he's got a reason. Sam hates you, because she's pretty taken with Ewan, though I've told her to smarten up. D'Arcy and Shane don't hate you, though to them, you're a bit of a bothersome detail, and the new people with the big machine likely don't give shit either way." "What are they, anyway?" she asked, "Do you know?" Roland began to chuckle and on him it sounded odd, a wheezing laugh which was mostly silent, "Lady, if you have a problem with what we are, you're in for a shock. Nobody knows what the black-haired girl is, but we all figure that she's just some real bad ju-ju in a beautiful package. The one with the reddish hair is a little less of whatever that is, but she can change her body like we can. Only then she looks like I don't know what, though she's still really pretty like that. The guy though," Roland said, "He's the one who'll make you fill your pants. He's a demon, though from what I heard from D'Arcy, he's not like the ones who fly around and fuck everything up – though he can fly. I've seen his wings myself." He looked over, "Finished already? You must have been hungry. Do you want me to get you more? I don't mind." Nancy shook her head, "No, thank you. I'm really thankful to you, Roland. Nobody gives much of a damn about me and I guess I can say that I deserve it, but it is good to have someone's kindness, at least. Thank you very much." Roland said nothing, but he nodded and took the plate and her cup, "I'll be back in a minute," he said, "I just want to clean these off and put them back in my pack." She nodded and watched him walk away; suddenly realizing that he'd fed her with his own things. She guessed that it shouldn't have been a big jump to think about it, but it did come as a surprise to her somehow. She saw Shane walking with Callie and called to them. Callie looked as though she still wanted to shoot her, but at least she was holding her tongue, so Nancy forced her own courage a little. "May I ask something, Shane, or would it be wrong to even speak to you?" He shrugged, "Ask." "Please, if it's not being too nosy, what happened to Roland's voice? Why can't he speak louder?" Shane's eyebrows knit together for an instant and Nancy thought that he'd refuse to tell her, but then he spoke quietly, "His vocal chords were cut when he was a kid. He got separated from his mother when he was little and he was caught by humans who didn't know better, I guess. They thought that he was a dog or something. They must have been either idiots or they were blind. Anyway, they kept him for a few years until he got too big. He was always kept with their small daughter to protect her or something like that because he'd never hurt her and was very protective of her. But he used to cry for his mother at night and the woman and the man slit his vocal chords so he'd be quiet." He shook his head, "Roland could have killed them even then, but he held still and took it because he loved the little girl." Shane looked disgusted then as he remembered more, "I don't know why, and I think that he's forgotten the reason, but they whipped him and he ran off sometime after that. My guess is that the man must have finally figured out that their 'dog' hadn't stopped growing after a few years like a real dog or a wolf cub would have by then. Or maybe somebody told him that he was an idiot and said exactly what that thing was in their home with their daughter, so he whipped Roland to drive him off. I guess it must show something about him, but even at that age, Roland could have ripped that fool apart for it. But he didn't. He just ran away and then started walking when he was far enough away, he told me. Is that what you wanted to know? Don't tell him that I told you, ok? I hate it whenever he gets mad at me and kicks my ass all over. He's worse than D'Arcy, for Chrissake." She nodded and they walked away. Nancy slumped down to sit on the floor of the wagon in shock. Roland was back a minute after that, "Here," he said, "It's getting cold and you don't have a coat. I brought you these." He held out a stack of blankets and set them down. "Try not to lose your mind now. I'll have to climb in and lay them out for you. Then I'm going to move you a little so that you can lie down. I figure there are enough here so that you can use one for a pillow. I think it might snow tonight. If it does, don't worry. I'm not going anywhere. I'll be right here with you." While he was whispering, Nancy realized that it had grown a lot colder, since she was already shivering and it annoyed her a little to see that he was right. She wondered why for a moment, before she remembered what he'd said and looked up, "You'll be right here? What do you mean?" He looked surprised for a moment, "Nancy, touch the floor of the wagon for a second." She did and noticed that the wood felt cold and damp as she looked up at him. "It's not gonna get any warmer for you by itself and you'll likely be sick by morning – even with the blankets. You've got nothing to cover your body like a roof. So I hope you don't mind too much, but I'm going to be sleeping with you. I won't do anything to you but keep you warm." When he saw her doubtful expression, he reached out and grabbed her bound hands gently before he brought them to his chest and held them there. At that moment, she was startled to learn two things; his chest was very, very warm and he was now naked. She gaped as she stared at his lupine face and wondered how it was that she hadn't noticed it before during the conversation. Then she realized that she wasn't at all afraid of him like this and wondered about that. From his expression, she could see that he'd almost read her mind. "You looked into my eyes just a bit too long," he smiled a little, "Didn't anybody ever tell you not to look into a werewolf's eyes? Jesus, Nancy, you're lucky I don't do all kinds of things to you now. You fall under really easily, you know. Anyway, I'm being honest. I won't hurt you or take advantage of you. Just relax and use me to stay warm, ok?" As she sat on her knees quite helpless, he climbed in easily and lifted her just as she was with no apparent effort to move her out of the way. Nancy was struck dumb with wonder as she watched his body move while he spread out a blanket and then laid another three down so that they could obviously be used to cover her. Finally, she watched him pick up a fourth blanket and fold it further, rather than spread it out. "This one's for your pillow," he said almost silently. He picked her up again then and he tied one rope to her ankle. It was loose enough to allow her some comfort and movement, but as she watched him knot it, she knew that there was no give in it so that it couldn't be stretched at all. She'd never get her foot through it to escape. Oddly enough, she wasn't bothered by it a bit as she sat on his leg while he untied all of the others. "Please lie down here," he whispered softly, "and you'll be warm in no time." She stared at him, but she did as he asked and true to his word, he lay down next to her very carefully and covered them both. Nancy found herself looking into his eyes again from very close up and fought with herself over something that she wanted to say. The trouble was that it was very difficult to get out. "You should roll over, facing away from me," he said and he looked a little uncomfortable when he reached out and pulled her to him so that her back was against him. She was about as enveloped by his body as it was possible to be there in the bed of the wagon and she found herself feeling the warmth and heat of his massive body in seconds. It felt good to her; so very good and far beyond being more comfortable than she'd been in a long time. She thought about that and wondered how long it had been since she'd felt this good lying down to go to sleep and realized that the answer was probably never or too long to remember. She felt his chin over her head and pressed her head back a little, seeking more of his comfort without really thinking about it and he asked her if there was something wrong. She answered no and they were still for a few minutes. Something came to her as a distant feeling and she reached up behind her and touched his head without meaning to, really. It was just something that felt right to her and she had no way to explain it to herself. She just hoped that he wouldn't mind. His reaction was to sigh slowly and then she felt him move in little tiny movements. Before long, she knew what they were. He was sniffing her as covertly as he could, smelling her hair and drawing in her scent. She kept touching his head, drawing her hand over his long ear and sliding her palm along his snout. It caused him to move his head forward a little, as though he was just as helpless as she was in some ways, but Nancy didn't mind at all now. She was warm and very comfortable, lying on her side in a wagon in the middle of nowhere curled up with someone large who obviously didn't hate her. In her present position in the world, it felt like a small but very important victory. "Roland? Can I ask you something?" she whispered and she felt him nod once ever so slightly. "Where did you get that name?" she asked, "I don't know much about werewolves, but I'd have thought that their mothers give them some other kinds of names. Maybe it just shows my ignorance, I don't know." "It's my last name," he whispered, still sniffing her neck and hair, "I forgot the name my mother gave me, since I never heard it after we got separated, I guess. I lost my mother when I was very young. I can't even remember her anymore." His head was now a little over her neck and Nancy felt a little thrill at that. It made feeling good even better and she was a little sure that none of the other werewolves would ever do such a thing or make any sort of gesture like this. There was something coming up in her from somewhere and she noticed something in his voice – as though he was having a little trouble speaking at all now. She didn't understand that and wanted to ask if he was alright, but then she smelled his scent just as he spoke again. His voice was just a whisper in the darkness to her, the same as it was at any other time until now, but it sounded just a little tortured and raw to her. "I knew it was you," he hissed so softly, "I remember your smell. Roland is one of the names that you gave me. You said that it was my last name, since I was a part of your family." Nancy Lynne Roland's day had been just about pure shit up to the point where he'd taken over her care and custody. In the past few minutes, she'd been getting more and more little cues and signals which now gathered and ran through her mind in the most disturbing and insistent way, refusing now to be ignored or squashed down any longer. Her eyes opened wide as she listened, her upset and misery now threatening to burst the dam of cool resolve that she hid behind as she lived her lonely life – a life which she hated, but was helpless in because she didn't know how to change or remake it. There was a moment's silence, and then he spoke again – a quiet thought, but it came out as though his heart was coming out along with it just as she felt his tear on her neck. "You used to call me –" She suddenly fought to get free and before even Roland's reflexes could react, she spun in his grip to face him, looking at him – searching his features in the darkness - seeing his normally hard yellow eyes awash while her own eyes filled faster than she'd have ever believed possible as she gasped. "Buttons?" He nodded and then her dam was sundered. Nancy threw her arms around his thick and powerful neck and she buried her face in the fur over his throat and sobbed hard enough to hurt her ribs. She couldn't even begin to get a handle on resuming control – she'd just lost the last of her self-management. Nancy felt his quiet sobs, but she heard only little sounds from him, since he couldn't make any louder sounds than that. But she was making up for it. Her own crying was enough for them both for many minutes. D'Arcy appeared beside the wagon asking what was wrong and if Roland could do anything to keep Nancy a little quiet. Roland looked up and shook his head, his tears running like rivulets. "Nancy is the girl that I used to watch over when I was young," he said haltingly and D'Arcy decided that on Roland, that wasn't a flattering look. "Holy shit," he whispered as he walked away to where Rudhi stood, looking over questioningly. Randi and Billy walked past then and looked at the two of them walking for a moment, "Hey, if you want a place to talk without all the walking," she said to Rudhi, "We've pitched the tent behind the tank. Might not be the quietest place, but it'll be warm." Rudhi nodded and thanked them, taking D'Arcy's hand to lead him back to the other end of the clearing. "Uh, how do I get in?" he asked, looking at the strange rumbling machine for a moment, since he could see no easy way to enter the tent. "I think it will be the same as with any other female that you have known," Rudhi chuckled. He turned to look at her and saw her little smile then, "It takes me a little longer," she said, "but slowly I am learning to make jokes with you." ------------------------- Roland just hung on to Nancy and cried silently. "They told me you ran away," she bawled when she could get a breath to work her way for a moment, "I cried for months." "They ran me off," Roland hissed with a quiet cough, "Your father threw rocks at me until I left." Nancy looked at him in the darkness lit only by the soft flicker of a little firelight from the campfire some yards away. Now that there was no doubt, she could see him as he was back then, the young and confused male canid who never wanted to be very far away from the little girl whom he protected. She remembered how it was strange to find out that her 'dog' was the only one that she'd ever seen who could talk, though he begged her never to tell anyone his secret – the secret which she'd never been able to understand, being only a little girl. She remembered how he'd stand up in a way that other dogs just couldn't and how he'd pick her up to help her out of her bed long after her parents were asleep. They'd sit together quietly on the floor and he'd reluctantly show her his other secret – how if she wheedled and begged him enough, he'd turn into a boy several years older than her and they'd curl up together on the floor to sleep together. It was how they'd often been found by her mother in the morning; a tiny little girl asleep against her huge dog on the floor. It was how she still remembered him – a massive creature who she'd loved to sleep on or against. A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 53 "Oh Buttons, "she sobbed, "I'm so sorry." He drew a deep breath and she heard it shudder out of him, "It's alright. You didn't do anything wrong. It was your parents. I couldn't tell them, and they were just too bull-headed to understand. I didn't cry for my mother, I couldn't even remember her face by then. I didn't cry at night if we were together. But they locked me out of your room. Then I cried because I couldn't help it. Your father used to beat me and kick me around because I scratched up the wall and the door trying to get to you at night. I didn't know how to work a doorknob until later." She nodded her understanding and dove for his chest again, wanting only to feel him against her and the way that it felt to her to bury her face in his neck and inhale his gentle smell. It reminded her of a time when no one threatened her, when no one teased her or pulled her ponytail. One look from Buttons and everyone left her alone. "I'm sorry," she sniffled, "I just can't help wanting to hug you." "It's alright," he whispered, "I still love to hold you as well." She looked up into his eyes again, "I only know a little about what you are, but I'm dying to know as much as I can. About all I know is that your kind looks for somebody to spend their lives with and they stay that way. If you've got somebody, I'd love to meet her. She must really be something to –" She stopped then, seeing the look in his eyes as he tried to blink away the last of his tears. "There isn't anyone, is there?" she asked and he shook his head, "Females are very rare around here," he said, "and I'm not particularly – " Finally, Nancy found that she could smile as she waved her finger at him, "Oh, don't even try to tell me that, Buttons. You look amazing to me, no matter how you are. Is there another name that I should call you? It seems a little –" "It's fine, "he smiled, "It was good enough for me before, and I haven't heard it in so long. I like the way that you say it." "Are you married or anything?" he asked, and she smirked, "I'm not well-liked enough to be married, Buttons. I've never found a man who could put up with me. I can't think that anyone ever would, to tell you the truth. So I guess I'm in that 'anything' category." "How do you mean?" he whispered and she grinned a little, "I'm almost thirty and that's what I'd settle for – anything. But right now, I'm so happy that we've found each other somehow. Thank you for all of this and for taking care of me. I don't know what they'll do with me tomorrow. They'll have to decide something before we get to that hospital where they want to take Ewan. Maybe they'll want to shoot me. I know their secret now and maybe they won't want it known that the best roadmen are werewolves." "I think it all depends on you and if you plan to tell on us," he said, "That kind of word gets around, my business will drop off pretty quick." Nancy looked at him, "Your business?" He nodded, "Yeah. I started this by myself a while ago. I needed a way to feed myself, so I'd hire out and guarantee anyone who hired me to get them someplace that they would get there alive and in good time, even if I didn't make it. I hired the rest as business got better – and as the roads got worse. I was the first silent roadman. It pays not bad now and it's a good way to make a living if you like being outside the way that I do. It gets a little adventurous sometimes, but that's life. Nobody's going to shoot you, Nancy, but I'd like it if you didn't tell anyone what we are." She shook her head, "I won't tell, Buttons. Besides, I figure that I'll be pretty busy just trying to stay alive myself. This morning, I had it pretty good. Now, I've got nothing and I didn't really mistreat the prisoners like some of the hub back there did, but I reckon I'll be going to jail for something or other. Ewan thinks I arranged it so that his sentence would be changed to hard time. I know who did it, but it wasn't me. I actually don't have anything against him, but I won't even try to tell him that. He just keeps hitting me. The only thing that I wanted from him was one night in bed with him. I'm not mad at him for saying no the way that he thinks. I was just lonely." She looked away, "I'm pretty much always like that." "Tell me the things that you're good at," he whispered as he moved her hair out of her eyes, "most everybody's good at something." "I dunno," she said with a shrug, "I can ride and shoot ok, I guess, and I can take care of myself – if I'm not up against one of you guys. I used to think I was pretty smart, but I guess I was maybe a little wrong. I do know that I'm not stupid, and maybe the thing I can do best is grow money. I never just put my money in a bank to sit and rot. I always try to make my money work for me instead of the other way around." "That's what I need to learn," the werewolf said, "I just earn money and then bank it. When I need to buy anything, I hate parting with any because I always remind myself of how hard I had to work to get it. You don't have anything now, do you?" She shook her head, "Just what you see. These are all the clothes I own now, since I can't go back to get my things. No coat, no clean clothes, no horse and saddle and no gun. D'Arcy gave my gun to Callie." "You should try to get some sleep, Nancy," he said, "Let tomorrow work itself out. Just sleep for now. I'll stay with you." He looked at her quizzically as she began to squirm and fidget under the blankets. "What are you doing?" he asked, and she stopped, since his point of view had just come to her mind. "I'm taking off my clothes, Buttons. I think I'll be pretty warm under here with you, but what I really want is to hold you with nothing in the way between us. We used to be family, didn't we? I was never so happy as when I was against you. Maybe tonight is all that I'm gonna ever get, but if I have my way, then I'll at least have one night with the closest friend that I ever had – that is, if you don't mind. If you want to fool around with me a little, well that'll be alright too. I always wanted to be your girl when we were kids. So we're all grown up now and I don't know about you, but my life is pretty much ruined right now. I want a night in your arms if you still like me enough for that. I used to have something that nobody else had when I was a kid," she said, "After I was grown, I found out that it's not really unusual for a little girl or boy to have a friend that nobody can see – because that friend is in their imagination. You were my friend then and you were real. You were my secret, Buttons. You were my boy." She shrugged, "I've never really known anyone after you who seemed worth being close to." He nodded, "Get undressed then and I'll do my best to keep you covered. When you're ready, then just come here. I'm still your boy. Nancy." She stopped suddenly and looked up, "Huh? You – you are?" He reached over to move her hair again, "I didn't want to go. I didn't ever want to be away from you. They whipped me and threw stones at me." She saw the tears there again as he struggled to speak, "I cried for you too." Nancy almost dove against his wide chest and they stopped speaking as he made certain that she was well covered in blankets. To him, the feeling of her body pressed to his almost precluded speaking. There was nothing to say. He held her as tightly as he dared and drew comfort from her that she had no idea she could provide. To Nancy, it was an epiphany. She remembered being a little girl and being held by her much larger friend. But over the course of the many intervening years she'd grown, of course, and he'd grown as well - a lot more than she'd grown. Where she'd once loved to be in his arms against his chest when they were children, she now sighed and reveled in the way that his body felt against her bare skin. As she moved a little, Nancy felt as though her nipples almost sang to her in their joy at finding themselves in a warm furry place which wasn't all that soft underneath and felt so good to press herself against. His arms were around her, his large hands running over her bare back and bottom keeping warm and happy thrills in motion all over her. She opened her eyes and looked into his, only wet now and not weeping. She smiled and lifted her face to his, opening her mouth as she felt his lips against hers. After the first one, she had to make a concerted effort to keep her moans down to quiet sighs. As children, they'd kissed each other, but this was different, fueled as it was by adult emotion and even need and driven by their want to hold onto someone from a time in their lives when things didn't have to make any sense. He began to kiss her neck and throat and she threw her head back to give him the room for it as she hugged his head to her in the darkness. The night grew cold, but none of the feeling touched Nancy as she laid her cheek against his head and felt his ear as it grazed the end of her nose. He smelled so fucking good to her that she kissed his face over and over. After a moment, she tried to pull the blankets tighter around them, and he noticed it, so he did that for her. As he moved things around for that, Nancy put her leg over his hip and moved it up until it was around his waist. The motion brought his sheath in contact with her mound and she smiled at him. "I'm not like you, Buttons, but now I have a little fur myself. Want to feel?" It made him smile and laugh just a little in his silent way and as he moved his hand there, Nancy moved a little so he'd have the room to feel her lips. She reached down herself and held his sheath to carefully rub the tip along her cleft when he pulled his hand away. They stayed like that for some minutes as he swelled and she felt the hot hardness as it began to protrude. Nancy moved her free hand and touched his face. "If you can be gentle, then I'd love to let you fuck me, Buttons." His brow furrowed then, "I don't know if I can please a human, Nancy." "You're already pleasing me," she said, "I know that we ought to be able to make each other happy, and I won't care if I don't get there. As long as you get there, Buttons, that'll be enough for me. I don't expect to hear a choir the first time. Things like that can take a few tries. I just want you to love me the way that I've always daydreamed about since I was old enough to know about things. When I was older, I used to pretend that you'd never left and I'd try to imagine what it would be like with you." She rolled onto her back and the werewolf moved over her. He was careful and slow as he slid into her and Nancy wiped a tear or two away as she looked up at him. When they were together, he made sure that she was covered to keep her warm and then he began to move rather slowly. They stayed slow the whole time and though he was gentle, there were a few times when he had to thrust a bit harder and Nancy was ready by then. She looked up and ran her hands over the finest male in the known universe to her. When that male lowered his head to nuzzle against her breasts, she arched her back to give him the best access and though she hadn't intended it, she told him that she still loved him. His physiology was different to her in this natural shape for him and though she hadn't expected to feel much of anything other than strangeness, he surprised her. As she grew used to it, she found herself enjoying it more and more until she found that she did indeed reach climaxes under him – many climaxes which she twitched and shuddered through as she learned to clench onto his shaft. When he came, Nancy felt something different again. She actually felt it when he came. It wasn't that she felt the actual ejaculation, other than the way that felt when he contracted. That was about all that she'd have hoped to be able to feel – if she thought about it. And that was what she felt – at first. What came to her a second or so later was the feeling of his very comforting warmth there inside her as his semen left him. It didn't feel like he'd left her a gallon or anything, but Lord, it was nice and so warm there. Nancy hadn't exactly had enough partners at this to qualify as an expert, but this was something which she'd never experienced before with a man. But then she wasn't lying under a man, was she? She told him that she loved him again and he replied with the reciprocal phrase and a smiling shudder. That was when Nancy learned another thing about having a werewolf as a lover and she asked. He shrugged, "I dunno, it depends, but I ought to be able to give you more about three times at least." He watched her eyebrows rise and then she laughed a little, but very gently so as not to force him out of her or anything. She didn't want to disrupt this for anything. She felt some if it leave her and guessed that she must be fairly full - not that she knew exactly how much semen that she could hold – she just guessed that lying the way that she was and the fact that he was still inside of her must allow for some to be displaced. Well she wasn't exactly an expert on the subject of fluid dynamics or anything. Nancy just knew what she liked, and she decided that she liked being held by a gentle werewolf who loved her and could keep her filled with his seed. "Buttons?" she asked as she looked up, "Buttons, if you think you want to do this with me after tonight, well, I'd love to sleep with you every night for the rest of my life, if we can find a way to let you fuck me the way that feels best to you – and doesn't kill me. Do you think you'd want that?" He looked down at her and she saw that he was near to tears again. "I'd want that," he whispered, "I've always wanted that. I've always only really wanted you." She reached up and pulled the blankets higher and then she put her arms around that neck as her legs rose up again to wrap around him, "Then I'll do my best to keep you happy, Buttons, and I'll never let you go again. I don't think either of us has had a great ride through life so far, but if you'll let me, I'll try to make yours better now." "How will I make your life better?" he asked and she smiled then. "Listen," she chuckled, "if we can each keep the other one fed, warm, loved, and laid, I don't think we'll be doing too badly." ----------------------- "Where do you want to go?" Shane asked. "Have you laid out your bedroll yet?" Callie asked and seeing his nod, she tried not to let her face show what she felt, "Then that's where I want to go. I don't even have a blanket." "Oh," Shane said, wanting to curse himself a little for not thinking of it, "I'm sure I can get you something." "No," Callie replied, shaking her head, "Please, I'd much rather sleep next to you. I don't snore – at least I don't think I do." He stopped then and looked at her. Callie did her best to summon up what little courage this day had left her to play with now. She moved to press herself against him very gently as she looked up, "I really want to talk to you, Shane. Please try to hear me out, ok?" "Alright," he said, "talk. Here." Callie didn't like the way that this was going to this point, but she really couldn't see an alternative, so she began. "Look, I want you to notice something. I'm human, but I know a lot of things about the wolf-born. I was raised by one." She looked up at him and raised her arms a little slowly, as though she was afraid of frightening him away. "I know that humans are smaller to you, but for a human girl, I'm just the right size for you, aren't I?" He had to think about it, but he saw that she was right. For a male of his size, Callie was the perfect height for a human female. If she was what he was, they both knew that she'd be just a bit taller on the sort of legs that she'd have then. Like this, she'd have to just about stand on her tiptoes to kiss him. "I see that," he said quietly, "but what are you getting at?" "Well," she said, "do you have a girl right now?" He looked as though she was about to lose him, so she went for it, putting her arms around his neck again to pull herself up and she did in fact go to her tiptoes. It stretched her body out and it made her a little unsteady on the uneven ground there. Without thinking about it, Shane put his arm around her and in the space of one and a half breaths, he was pulling her against him to steady her. He looked down into her eyes and felt her breasts pressing themselves against the bottom edge of his ribcage. "You don't, do you?" she asked and Shane returned a rather curious look, "Don't what?" Callie grinned a little, "Hey, stay with the program, ok? I just want to say that I know how to be and behave for what you are, that's all, so if you think you might – " "What are you trying to say?" he asked, "Look, Callie, I'm not really wise and sophisticated like my brother is. I'm sorry, but you're losing me here. You'll need to say things pretty much directly or I'm liable to just miss what you mean." Callie looked down for a moment. This was going to require her to be even more direct. She looked up again, "Shane, I know I'm not beautiful like Rudhi there, but I don't think I'm exactly homely either, so – " She saw it then. He wasn't going to get it because he didn't think he could understand anything other than direct speech. She knew that he was wrong, but she was afraid that he'd just shut down or something. "Hey," he said as he tried to smile, "I like her and I even like the way that she looks, but she's not exactly a human and I think you look a lot better to me." "Thanks, but you know what I meant. Ok," she said, "I'll try to show you what I mean. For now, just trust me a little and kiss me just one time." He stared at her a little, but he allowed it as she stretched herself up again and he kissed her. He felt her lungs filling in a deep breath and then she sighed as they pulled apart. He looked at her, but she didn't say anything; she just laid her cheek against his chest with her eyes still closed. Shane felt his heart pull a little as he looked at her, because that face said a lot to him, even though they weren't speaking at the moment. When she did begin to speak, his eyebrows shot upward and remained there for a time. "Humans live in houses," she growled to him softly in the language that she shouldn't really know and certainly not be conversant in, "When Bobby found me, the last person that he thought that he'd see alive there was a little girl. He was living in a burrow, since he was all alone. But he knew that I needed someone to take care of me, so he dug his den a little larger for me and we lived there for the first little while; a little girl and a young wolf-born. I can barely remember it, really. We were poorer than dirt, but my clothes were always clean and I was never dirty when he walked me to school and back every single day. He'd work at whatever he could to make a little money so that I'd have shoes and such, but it was a year or so before he found a deserted farmhouse for us to live in. Even so, the only place that I felt safe was in his arms when he'd hold me." She looked up then, "Do you know what I mean?" Shane nodded, "I remember when my folks would hug me when I was little," he said in the same language, "I remember." "I'm just a human," she growled to him softly, "so I'm a little slower and weaker, but I can hear and smell a couple of rabbits rooting around in that grass over there on the other side of the road. I'm not as fast as you'd be, but if you grabbed one of them, I'd show you how I know how to get his fur off and get him ready to cook in only a minute with only my hands. If we didn't have a way to make a fire, I could sit down with you and eat it raw, since I had to learn how to do that. A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 53 I'm just human, Shane, but really, in here, "she pointed to her breast, "I'm a wildling wolf-girl. It's how I was raised." She looked up at him then and spoke even more softly in almost a whisper, "I never had the chance, because of the hunter who killed him, but I always wanted to be the female of a wolf-born. We never did anything, since I was so young, but I wanted to be the one for him one day. It just never happened, that's all. But I know how to be one," she said a little proudly, "If you'd take me, I'd do my best for you, Shane. About the only thing that you'd have to do differently would be to give me just a little room and not hold me too tight. Mandy told me that a male can bang hard enough to break a human girl's pubic bone, so I'll need a little room to bounce a little when you do me, that's all, and I'd push right back every time." "Mandy ..." he said and she nodded, "Bobby's sister." He looked down then, more than a little amazed, "I hear you," he growled, "but the bite – " She shook her head, "I'd let you bite me, Shane. I don't have the hunger that you do, but I understand it perfectly. I know that you'd need to hold me when you come, so you can bite me for that." "But – " "Listen, "she crooned to him, "Just try not to bite me hard enough to break the skin until we decide if it'll work. If it's what we want, then I'll let you do it so I can be a real bitch for you." She'd used that word to trade on what it meant to him, being what he was. She looked around for a moment, "Come on. Take me to bed and let's fuck a little. I'll prove that I know how to love you. It's all I've ever wanted to be and I'm really asking for a shot to try for you." "Hey, come on," she whined just a little, "at least take me to bed so that I can tell myself that I've at least been fucked by a wolf-born just one time in my life. I don't want a man. I've tried it with a man. I want a wolf-male, Shane," she ran the back of her hand across her wet eyes as she looked at him for a few seconds, waiting to hear him say something. "You're not even going to answer me?" She began to let her arms go then as she eased herself back onto her feet, but he stopped her and she looked up at him. She watched his eyes as he looked at her searchingly and she made sure that she returned the glare. Since he still remained silent, she pushed herself away from him. "Fine," she said, "That was as close to begging as I'll ever go, and that was the only time that I'd ever do it." "Wait a minute, " Shane said, but she pushed past him. "I did," she replied, "and you wouldn't even answer me. I get it, ok?" "Where are you going?" He asked and she ignored him as she walked away. Shane looked at her back for a moment and then he walked after her, reaching for her arm. "Hey, wait a minute, Callie." Callie stopped and turned on her heel. As Shane looked at her and began to try to speak, she plowed him in the face. He wasn't so much hurt as he was shocked and as he raised his hand to his cheek, she walked out of sight. She sobbed quietly once, but he heard it. She walked until she came to rear of the idling tank. She had no real outer clothing and no bedroll, not even a blanket. The night air wasn't much more than a degree or two below freezing, though it was damp, and that made it feel colder. As far as she could tell, they kept this huge machine running and there was a fan in the engine compartment which sucked air in and blew it through a radiator where it came out a lot warmer than it went in, so she guessed that she'd climb up and sit down over the outlets. It smelled like warm metal and diesel oil, but at least it would be warm. Callie tried not to give in to the urge to cry. "Take me with you," she said quietly, mocking her own words as she stood looking at the mass of warm metal in front of her and thought about the best way to climb up. "Really bright, Callie. That's right up there with 'take me to bed and let's fuck a little'. You still don't belong anywhere – ever since you've been on your own." She sniffled and wiped her eyes before everything spun around her and she found herself suddenly facing the other way being held by Shane. "I'm sorry," he said in English, "I told you I'm not all that smart. I guess I took too long to get over what I was hearing." He looked annoyed as she looked up at him and tried to get free. "Anyway, you're coming with me, Callie. I know you're probably mad as hell, but you've got nothing. You can't sleep here outside like this." "Fuck yeah, I can," she said pushing him to get free of his grip, "In case you missed it along with everything else, I'm not in the mood and I doubt I ever will be again as far as you're concerned. I'm not going anywhere with you. Let me go!" He held on to her and shook his head, "Not in the mood? Gee, no kidding. I'm not here for that. I can guess how bad I blew my only chance. But that doesn't change the fact that it's cold for a human with no coat or cloak. If you step away from the wind that this thing makes for a minute, you'd see that it's starting to snow. The flakes are tiny, but you can feel them on your face." "I don't care," she said, "and it's not your problem anyway. It's mine." Shane looked at her and thought that he saw what likely no one else here could see. She was miserable and wanted to be alone because she wanted to cry. He'd caused it and now he felt even worse- and more determined that it not get worse for her. "I kind of figure that D'Arcy will be with Rudhi tonight in this thing – unless he suddenly gets stupid like his little brother. He and I each have a small tent. On the road, we put them together to make a slightly bigger one. You're staying there with me tonight so I know that you're not freezing to death. It ought to work out," he nodded with a very small smile, "The way you look right now, you won't need me to keep you warm at all in there. You'll be keeping me warm just being mad at me." "Just where is this little fantasy world of yours?" she asked, "The one where I actually go along with this?" He chuckled as he slowly pulled her against him. Callie fought it, but he was so much stronger and it didn't matter at all what she did. He pulled and then he reached under her backside with his arm and began to lift her gently until her face was next to his and her feet hung in the air as he held her against himself. "You can kick me," he growled in the tongue of the wildling wolf-born, "You can try to scratch me. You can even move your head a little and bite me, if it makes you feel even a little better. I made a mistake and I'm going to do the right thing to keep you warm and safe. I'm not asking you to change your mind, Callie. Why would you? But you can be as right as you want to be, you're still coming with me. I'm not going to do anything but keep you with me and warm, and I'll carry you if I have to." For a minute or two, she resisted. But as much as she fought it at first, eventually Callie found her face buried in his fur and she nuzzled his neck. She couldn't help it. He was so very warm and he smelled so good. He wasn't sure that it was what he'd felt her do until he heard her inhale and then sigh against the side of his throat. That soft warm air felt so good to him. She wasn't pushing against him anymore either. She was holding him as tightly as she could. "I'm sorry I hit you," she groaned, "I was upset." The words were muffled, spoken into the ruff of his neck as they were. "You promise you'll carry me?" Shane smiled then and he rubbed his head against hers very gently, "I promise, Callie." She pulled her head back then and he saw her sniffle and smile at him weakly, "Good, because I've always wondered how it might feel to be carried off over somebody's shoulder. Do you want to carry me like that?" The thought made him chuckle and he nodded, "Sure." "Then put me down for a second," she said, "We gotta do this right." He set her down gently; very curious now and she amazed him by undoing her pants and pulling them down a little along with her underwear so that the waistband was just under her bum. "Uh, ..." Shane said, thoroughly confused now and Callie reached for him to hug him again. "What's your last name?" she asked him. Shane blinked, "This is a test, right?" "No," she giggled a little, "Just hug me and put your hand on my ass for a minute so it doesn't freeze off. I just want to know your last name, that's all." "My last name is Harrington," he said, "Why?" "A couple of things," she chuckled, "I live like a nun, but it's my personal policy that I don't get sticky with any man whose last name I don't even know. The other thing is that I want you to carry me off over your shoulder. To do that right, you need to have your hand on my ass. You can even slap it a little, I'm sure I won't mind if you're nice about it." He thought that she looked a little hopeful so he was determined not to mess this up for her. "I've never done this before," she smiled, "but I want to do it right. That means that you carry me laughing and screaming over your shoulder to your tent. I want to make sure that everybody knows that Shane Harrington is gonna get some tonight – that is, if you want me." He picked her up, giving her plenty of room to perch a little on his arm like a child, since the differences in their sizes worked for them like that. "Where do you get these ideas that you're ugly or something?" he said smiling at her and holding her shoulders with his free hand to keep her from falling backward. "I know I'm not ugly," she said, "I just look ... like I don't belong." "Callie," he said, feeling a little thankful that he thought he could see a glimmer of the trouble, "There's not a thing wrong with you. What I've seen of your body is amazing. I've never seen a girl like you, and ... " He stared into the dark jungle of her hair, "It's your eyes," he said, "They're blue, so it can't be, but ... it's like I'm looking at the hunger, but in the face of a human." He stared for another moment and watched spellbound as she opened her mouth and reached up behind his head to pull him to her. He saw a human mouth with human teeth. He watched the tongue stretch out to tickle his lips open. She hadn't been joking, he thought as he gave in. This human girl knew how to behave. She knew when to kiss like a human, and she was demonstrating that when the mood was on her, she knew how to give herself over to the primal urges of the wildlings. Well, he reasoned as he felt the beginnings of the erosion of his will, she'd been raised as a wildling by a wildling. He didn't know how far that went and what he could expect for her, but he knew that he wanted to go there with Callie. He was astounded by the way that such a small female could make his knees feel weak. Her mouth was smaller and as she was, she lacked the same sort of teeth, but it didn't matter. Their lips were against each other and their tongues were dancing anyhow, though it was Callie who was dominating him more than anything. "I told you," she said, her breathing just beginning to show her arousal, "I'm a wildling. I live alone and I couldn't find work that pays more than shit, so I do as I was taught to do. I fish and I hunt for my meals. Sometimes, I trap in the winter if the hunting is bad and if I need the fur – for me. I won't trap to sell furs. I just take what I need to stay alive." She took a breath and was back to kissing him again until he pulled back to look at her for a moment. "You hunt for your own food? Take me with you? I've only hunted as a human, never as what I am. Please take me hunting with you the next time." She exhaled into his ear gently as she pressed herself against him, "You know that you need that, Shane. How can a wolf-born live and not hunt? It's gotta be driving you nuts. When the weather gets warmer, I'll take you. I know somewhere where there are no people. I hunt there. We'll go, and you can't take guns. I hunt with a spear and a bow because I'm not what you are. If I was, I wouldn't need anything else," she said as she pulled his head to her so that he could kiss her throat. "You ought to hunt at least a few times a year just to stay healthy. Oh God, Shane," she groaned as he opened his mouth widely enough to take most of her neck in and she felt the tips of his teeth in two long rows from one side of her neck to the other. Every time that he exhaled, she swore that she felt herself almost gush onto his arm. "That feels so good," she half-whimpered. "When I hunt," she groaned, "I only wear buckskin because I have to protect my skin. I'm only human. But I don't wear much unless it's cold," she said, running her hands over and through his mane and over his shoulder, "I can't wear much then," she hissed, "because it all feels so good to me and I can't keep my hands off myself." That was it. Callie had said the magic words she supposed when she thought of it much later. Shane picked her up and the next thing she knew, she was over his shoulder and he was walking, though he did ask her if it was uncomfortable and she laughed in delight and told him that it was fantastic. So he slapped her bottom and they were both a little surprised at the way that she squealed and laughed then. "I can't help it," she said, still laughing, so he slapped her again and she shrieked until she felt his hand begin to caress her. "It's still snowing," he said quietly, "I wouldn't want for you to develop an ... accumulation." "Aw, can't you just slap me there a couple more times?" she pleaded, "You can feel my ass all you want to later." He found that he didn't have it in him to deny her. She squealed all the way to the tent. ------------------------- "It's freezing in here, "Callie said, shivering as she began to get undressed. She looked at him and stopped then, "You said you'd keep me warm. That's still on, isn't it?" "Yes," he nodded as he got into his bedroll as much as he was able, "Get in here with me." He looked at her as she knelt next to him, "Hey, can you help me for a second? Can you just lift my hair? I want to untie my boob wrap here." He nodded and reached to hold her hair and she slipped her fingers under his hands to pull the slipknot free so that she could remove the long piece of linen which she used, since she didn't own anything like a bra. The strip of linen was about six inches wide and almost ten feet long, since it had to go around her chest nearly three times. She rolled it up a little loosely and stuffed it into her pants before she dove at him so that he could get her inside the bedroll and covered up. "You're so warm and comfortable," she grinned against his chest, "my boobs want you to know that they're in love." He smiled then and looked down his chest at her. Callie's eyes were closed and she was smiling as she kept her head on him. "Your boobs are in love?" he asked, "Have I got any chance with the rest of you at all?" "Oh heck yeah," Callie sighed, "Don't worry yourself on that account – just like you shouldn't read too much into what my tits have to say. They're easily impressed you know, since they're just tits after all. That's why they're called boobs, right?" He nodded, seeing that she was looking at him. "Nipples," she said, "much harder to get a solid vote out of." "I don't understand," he said. "Well, where they are right now, they're content," she said in explanation, "your fur is so warm and it feels nice to them. But if I lift myself a little and move just a bit, dragging them over you lightly, they feel your fur brushing against them and bingo!" He looked at her, waiting a little, "Bingo?" "Uh-huh," she nodded, "Bingo. Your approval rating spikes." "So that's good, right?" "Yeah," she nodded a little, "it's kind of a big deal that way, but it's really six of one and a half-dozen of the other. I mean, the downside is that to do that, my boobs get cold because they're away from you, so you see – " "Just tell me if you like it, "he smiled, "on average." "I like it," she smiled and he held her for a time. "Callie," he whispered, "please help me, ok? I can face a shitstorm and I can even take getting shot a couple of times. But right here, now, well I'm a little scared." She giggled for a moment, thinking that he was making a joke and trying to sound absurd. But then she got it and looked at him, "What could you possibly be afraid of, Shane?" "I've never known anybody like you," he whispered, "and I'm afraid that I'll mess this up again, that's all." Callie lifted her head up and looked down at him, all traces of humor gone from her, "Then you just listen to me, Shane. You don't need to worry about that. Just so you know, I'm really happy right here with you. If you're nervous about it and you're not sure, then we can just sleep and I'll be happy. We only met today, so it's no big thing. But I've never met somebody who I could ever say appeals to me more than you do. We're both young and I guess we're both a little fucked up because of what we are, but we do share that between us, right?" He nodded, "Yeah. I do feel very comfortable with you here. Are you warming up yet?" "Just my feet are all that's still cold, and I hope they get the news that they're in a good place soon. But I want you to know something, ok? You don't need to feel nervous at all. If you need to hear me say it, well then I will. You got the girl." He blinked a couple of times in the darkness at her, "I got the girl?" "Yes," she nodded, smiling, "There are all kinds of things that I don't know, like how I'm gonna eat next week, but one thing that I do know is that I want Shane Harrington any way that I can get him against me." Shane had been with human females before. He supposed that he could have had a lot of success at it, but he tended to shy away from them for a few reasons. For one thing, you had to keep up the illusion that you were the same species as they were. Most women might like to have you, but not if they suddenly found that the man they were enjoying so much was really a lot wilder than they'd planned on and they tend to scream the house down if they get the idea that they're fucking with someone who isn't human at all. Another real problem for him had been ejaculating. He could do that and keep up appearances – once. The problem was his latent underlying physiology. What he really was didn't keep a ready supply like human males do. He made it as needed, the first "batch" being ready to deliver when he came. But there would be a few more shipments ready to go afterward at intervals of a minute or two and that was plenty difficult to explain away as well. The worst thing was his need to hold the woman so that he could give her the rest. How do you explain that since humans don't come with this feature? And if the woman decided that the interlude was over, the animal inside of him didn't like to hear that at all. All of his adult life, he'd wanted to meet a female wolf-born, knowing that she'd understand and even approve, since she'd have the rest of the physical features needed to allow the two of them to lock together for the length of time that he was making semen and filling her with it. Heck, the two of them could likely enjoy a cigarette together and smile each time that he pumped more in, he thought. He really liked Callie, but ... well, he thought, she was human. "Callie," he whispered, "You're so amazing. I see that you really do know a lot about us, but ... what am I supposed to do when I ... you know, ..." Her eyebrows shot up, but she got it right away, "You mean when you need to hold me tight because you need to make sure that I take it all?" She smiled before he could nod, "That's ok, Shane. I know that's natural for you. Just do it, I'm not gonna pull away or anything. Just don't push in as hard as you can, and no banging me while you're coming." A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 54 *** Meanwhile, out on the west coast... Remember the little "Goldilocks", the little blonde toy that Monnie keeps for a playmate? This is what starts to happen to her. It also starts out with sadness, but hey, ya get the bad with the good, right? This one had to be long, just like the last one, I'm afraid. But things are beginning to move along as this picks up speed. If you've followed this, thanks, and I hope it's liked. 0_o ------------------ Book of the Forsaken Part 9 Bronn Qums sat in the 'office' that he'd been ordered to appear in -- at the appointed hour and on the appointed day. He had no idea whatsoever why he'd been summoned here, either. At first, he'd thought that it was about his caseload and he thought that he'd be asked to summarize where he was in each case, so he'd prepared for that, bringing everything that could possibly be required in that event -- and it had been a ton of work to do that, too. But that wasn't the purpose for this meeting at all. This was more like an interview for some unknown (to him at this point) purpose. He flicked his long dark hair out of his eyes and sat back in the chair with his arms and ankles crossed, fuming a little at the waste of his time. Then he thought that the posture would be noticed and some inane and stupid body language rule might be applied, which likely told that his posture was indicative of some sort of psychoanalytical signpost which could be interpreted by one of the countless twerps who were employed for just that sort of nonsense - to waste more funding on nothing but the employment of those very same twerps. He dropped his hands to his lap. He was there alone. He was the sole living occupant of the room, and he spoke to someone somewhere else, likely right down the hall, he thought. It pissed him off to no end. He was an investigative agent, charged with keeping the peace and running down criminals -- of which there was no shortage in the larger Merren cities. And why was that? He snorted as silently as he could. Because people like him were kept off the streets and out of their jobs , sitting in offices and answering drivel spewed at them by little boxes disguised as idols of the faith. Everything was about the faith, he thought, and almost nothing of what really went on had the slightest thing to do with that faith. He was young and early in his career, certainly, he thought. But he was damn good at it all the same. "We have a new assignment for you, "the little box whirred from its place on the desk in front of him, "Your caseload is to be transferred to others. It is noted that you brought everything along and that is an indicator that you are thorough, young Qums. You are instructed to leave it in a neat pile on this desk at the end of this meeting for redistribution." Bronn bit down on his tongue right then, deciding that a silent nod would have to do in the place of the protest which he really wanted to throw up. Many of his cases were nearly at completion, and now some stupid and half-dead snerk was going to finish them and no doubt line his nest with the rewards as the clock ticked down to his or her retirement. Half of the ones that he shared office space with hadn't been outside and on the job in decades. "You have been chosen for several reasons," he heard the tinny voice drone, "You are very successful and accomplished in bringing results forward in a timely manner. You are young and energetic, being driven no doubt by your youthful enthusiasm and idealism. You are a shining example of what the Merren educational system and policing institutions are able to produce, given the right students at intake time. You-" "With respect," he said," I am able to produce the results which I do because I am a product of those systems. And as such, I was able to determine fairly early on -- right after I hit the streets and watched as my training mentor was killed in front of me while following the same procedures that I was taught. My surmisal afterward was that what I'd been taught was useless to me and so I formed my own methods, deciding to stay within the law while throwing the rest away." He waited for the blast, but none came after the long moment of silence. "We were about to commend you on your ability to reason and deduce patterns in criminal investigations which we interpret as your startling tendencies toward unconventional logic and thought processes, but no matter." Bronn looked down as he smirked. It didn't matter, he thought. You could call them on their ability to make fertilizer and they didn't miss a beat. They just made more to cover your arguments. "In any event," the box rattled, "there is one overriding reason why you were selected -- you have no dependents and no traceable family connections. That is necessary now because for the purpose of this assignment, you are going off-world." His jaw dropped right then. "Off-world?" he asked incredulously, and the idol sounded a little smug in its reply. "Yes. You are needed to find the cause of a set of troubling circumstances and expenses. This will take you far from your usual sort of investigations. We have reason to believe that there has been and continues to be criminal activity on a far-flung and unimportant world. But those activities threaten that world and it is believed that there is an attempt being made to shape that world so that we might be convinced to return there to extract resources. It was decided some time ago that our efforts there be curtailed, since the world is inhabited. Efforts of this nature there would contravene The Balance. As well, this world has suffered for some time from the importation of Red demons from many places, so that the natural inhabitants there would be decimated eventually. This is a blatant disregard of The Laws of The Balance and cannot be tolerated. We had a ranger there for a time, but he is lost to us and it is believed that he no longer lives, since we cannot establish thought communications with him. Most troubling of all are the expenses brought forward by a certain minister in our own government though they are well-buried to be sure. Our investigations have revealed that we are forced to pay exorbitant invoices sent by the Xer military for the lease of a sophisticated and unidentifiable war craft, weapons, and the wages of its crew, though thank The Balance that it is only one pilot. The cost for that pilot's service is high, nonetheless. The minister pays the invoices, but makes up the loss by skimming from other accounts. You might imagine the howls that would be forthcoming were it known that part of the funding for the Friends of the Balance group is paying for the operation of a heavy warship which runs as a rogue across the empire on missions which only that minister thinks up and is not answerable for -- since he had not been seen for months now. This activity has gone undetected and unchecked for a long period of time due in large part to the way that it was kept hidden from us by a pair of highly-placed officials believed to be in the pockets of that minister. As it happened, one of them passed from heart failure due to advanced age and when we noticed the undocumented expense being charged to other accounts, severe pressure was brought to bear on the surviving official. The interrogation was very fruitful and now we wish to accumulate what is required to bring the rest of this to light. You will now be the agent for this. Bronn was incredulous. "Just what am I expected to do there, exactly? I can do the investigation single-handedly, I guess, though it would take longer with no help. But then what? I have no jurisdiction in that place -- wherever it is." "You do now," the little cube rattled, "As of this date, you are relieved of all regular activity to prepare for this. As well, you are granted broad and sweeping powers so that your efforts cannot be thwarted at any level. Some of those powers are in the form of personal abilities which we will bestow on you. More questions?" "Am I supposed to just step up to this wayward government minister and wave a set of wrist restraints at him and ask that he come along nicely?" The volume from the idol surprised him as it seemed to roar at him then, "You are supposed to do what you are sent to do, Qums. See that you accumulate enough investigation to merit the cost of this. See to it that you lay it all out so that the prosecutors can smile at the indictment that will be handed down. The arrest and how it comes about is none of your concern at this point, understood?" He nodded slowly before he sat up and leaned forward, "How long is this projected to last? Is there an end date as yet or a time limit?" "It is open-ended," the little box whirred in an airy tone. "But I have do have a relationship," he said, and the idol ran his objection over instantly. "We are aware of your relationship with the Watcher Jerrthi. It has been ongoing for four planetary cycles now and though we are cognizant of the attraction and the reasons for it, knowing that both of you are Grotto Dwellers and as such are a little rare, we have observed only stasis there, and you have been selected nonetheless. You had your chance to pair properly, Qums, but our need is great and it is for the greater good." "So, because we haven't paired yet officially, you're sending me on a one-way assignment? You would have done this even if Jerrthi and I were a documented pair, wouldn't you? The greater good and all that, right?" The idol was silent then, waiting. "Why me?" he asked in annoyance, "Surely my fine training doesn't prepare me for something of this nature. There must be others who-" "We require an agent who can think on his feet and you are able to do this -- as you have told us yourself a little earlier. You were selected in secret. It was thought that the activities of any of the regular investigative agents in an arena such as this would be noted and the individual or individuals would be warned and then act pre-emptively. As it happens, we were correct. We have already lost seven regular agents to this. That is why we sought for a superlative agent from a different bureau who would not be known to whomever is acting to screen this from us." Bronn Qums sank back into the chair, somehow already knowing the answer to his last question. "Do I have the right to refuse the assignment?" There was a silence in the office then before the idol ground out its reply and prepared to shut off. "No. You have one-quarter cycle to prepare and you may use any resources which you see fit. Your clearance is hereby elevated and you are now a High Merren agent. You answer only to us from this point forward. Your point of ingress will be the port of Lozenjellis. We suggest that you begin your preparations immediately. Oh, and Agent, we do recognize your emotional investment in the Watcher Jerrthi and we regret the upheaval that we cause for you both. There will be allowances made for brief messages between you as you undertake this mission. You are dismissed." With the silence of the office and the weight of what had just been laid on him bearing heavily on his mind now, Bronn slowly sat up and got to his feet, absolutely stunned at what had transpired here. He walked out in a daze. As he closed the door behind him, a panel on the desktop slid sideways and the files, documents, memory cartridges and everything pertaining to Bronn Qums's caseload disappeared down a chute as though it had never been there in the first place. --------------------------- He walked into his living unit three weeks later, needing a drink and a long rest. His head hurt from trying to digest everything that he and others had tried to cram it with. But the quiet rest of sitting and sipping only brought out more questions in him, so he sighed and walked to his personal terminal to begin. He accessed everything known about the world where he was headed; sifting quickly before he bore in on Lozenjellis. He wanted to know about its inhabitants, for one thing. He started at the photos of humans of many sorts and decided that he'd better be able to fit in. Along with his 'High Agent' status, one of the powers given to him was a shape which could be changed rapidly to suit events and circumstances. He peered from one type of human to the next. Since there was a sizable population of various sorts of humans known to the Merren as Eastern Asiatic Human, that was what he selected, since their overall appearance appealed to him as well. He looked at that middle word and then re-accessed a series of maps of Earth that he'd been looking at earlier. Reading the sidebar, he determined that many of the names had been gleaned from human maps . Well Lozenjellis was situated in ... North America, he read. Why would a group of people -- a segment of the population be known as Asiatic? Then he nodded to himself. It must have been a point of prior origin. With that decided at least, he accessed what he could find of one of that group's sub-cultures. He resumed his decision process for which group to pattern himself after. As he looked, he absorbed several of the prevalent languages in use there presently. He rubbed his eyes after a few more minutes. This wasn't getting him the rest that he'd come home for, though it did a bit toward keeping his heart and mind away from his troubles for a while. Staying with the cultural angle and with the sub-group selected and it's prevalent languages (as was known to be in use in the greater Lozenjellis area at the time of the last Merren anthropological study which now provided him this study material), Bronn grazed over the type's history on the islands where they were from, originally. He'd done it again, he told himself as he realized that he wasn't resting. He was still studying. He accessed the human arts archives in the Merren systems and began to scan their sizable film catalog and the titles flashed past his tired eyes in a blur. Merren can gather visual data and process it very quickly and with his new abilities, he seemed to be able to do that even faster. That was why his eyes shifted to the visual select icon to stop the scrolling to move back a little slower. He's seen a word in a title which had given him an idea. Locating the particular film, he selected it for download and then got out of everything for the two minutes that it would take him to watch the film at Merren speed. Then he watched it again at a normal speed. He got himself another drink and re-accessed the Merren anthropological systems, looking for material relating to that one word. He frowned, seeing that it would be a challenge to separate fiction from legend and legend from the very sparse list of known facts. Before the great Merren Unification long ago, Grotto Dwellers had lived in, well, grottos situated in the steaming jungles which ran in a rough line along the planet's always-hot equatorial zone. The jungles themselves provided most of what was needed, but those demons were not the only predators there and though both genders are known for their speed and tenacity, there was always a substantial size difference between the sexes and the need to rear and protect their young had mandated that this type of demon stay near to their unique type of caverns. Most of the things and individuals which went there to hunt them never saw the light of the twin suns again. But while a lone female could manage some rather remarkable techniques as she battled alone to protect herself and her young while her male was elsewhere hunting for them all, they worked far better as a team and on their own turf -- right in the dark grottoes where the rivers of steaming water ran to the great sea near the equator. When Merren was coming together on the long and bloody road to a single world government, there had been many rulers and other who'd had aspirations to power and sought to come out on top. Perhaps the single common warrior type to find some quiet and covert work were the Grotto Dwellers later on, individuals of both genders -- some of them quite legendary in their exploits. It was one of the few things which pieces of Merren history shared with the families of a similar type of warrior on Earth, far back during the feudal period of Japan's history. With this in his own familial lineage, though far back, Bronn had found this common element and had his way to hide in plain sight on Earth, if needed. He was exhausted when he decided to sleep, but he felt a little better. He'd found a way to move through the seas of humans in that city in a human-like form and also a way to confuse any Merren that he might find there. For a little while, anyway. He hoped. The next morning, he washed his body and looked at himself in the reflective surfaces of the room. As what he was, he supposed that he was quite ordinary and probably unremarkable. Just a young Merren male of the utilitarian classes -- the 'doers' of the society. But he'd shown promise at an early age and so he'd been selected and sent for enforcement training and that had led to investigative training and now here he was, half a decade into a career as a glorified cop. He smirked at his reflection then. He didn't consider himself remarkable to any degree whatsoever and he didn't think that he was terribly attractive as a male. But he'd made out alright, he grinned to himself. It led him to think of Jerrthi again and that slowed him down with a sudden pang of regret. She was the one female that he could have seen himself with for the duration. But after their last evenings together, it became very strained between them and so it had ended at her request. It all saddened them both because from his side of it, he'd wanted to do this right and pair with her officially long ago, but she'd always held back. As what they were, it was hard enough to even find a partner who was the same kind, though it had always been possible to pair with any other of the many sorts of Merren people. It was just that they never wanted to, that was all. Grotto Dwellers were getting rare now and their numbers were dwindling, so it was a special thing to have found another to be in love with. The end had been a tearful one for them both. He knew that he would likely never see her again, but he knew her schedule and that she'd be up and getting ready for work, so he called. She looked at the image in her communicator and nodded a little cautiously, "Bronn, is there an issue? I have to go to work." "No issue," he smiled, "and I am sorry to disturb you, Jerrthi. I wanted to express my sadness about us. It's not fair. I keep thinking that we should have become official before. It might have saved us this." Jerrthi burst into tears then. "It would have saved nothing," she sobbed, "They'd have done this to us regardless, Bronn , even if we lived together and had young by now. They chose you and our love be dammed. I know the way that they work. My family has handed them my brothers and they died in the service of the Balance. If we had paired, they'd still take you from me and I would be a mother to young who had no father anymore. It is what I wanted to avoid. I work for them too, Bronn. I know what they do. I watch it every day. They made you a High Demon, didn't they?" Bronn nodded, a little surprised that she knew this since he hadn't told anyone at all. "They did that because the one that they're sending you for is a High Merren himself and cannot be touched by low lives like the rest of us." She snorted angrily then, "There are only allowed to be so many High Merrens," she said, "an easily bestowed honor on one who they know can never return. I was reluctant to begin with you officially for just this possibility. I have no wish to be in a lifelong relationship with a male and make the required emotional attachments when there is a risk that he would be taken from me in the course of his employment. I recognize the need for your occupation, but we all know that the system serves itself and I will not take a male only to have to see him pass in the service of a society which does not deserve that male's sacrifice -- especially since he would be my male and it is the same as making my own sacrifice for them. I have sacrificed enough to them. Now they want you and it does not matter what we need or want. I love you, Bronn. I have loved you for a long time. A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 54 In my eyes, you are the male that I have selected for me. I think that I know what is meant by 'open-ended'. To me, it means that I will likely never see you again." He sighed and thought about it. This had been one of their problems and he could see it from her side. He could even agree with her on many points. But he was what they'd trained him to be and there hadn't been that many choices open to him. He couldn't tell her where he was going anyway, and it was only more proof that she'd been correct. He looked at her and ached to be there with her, to hold her and never let her go. But there was no way that it would be permitted and they both knew that, so he tried to smile and it caused beautiful Jerrthi to almost crumble before his eyes. "Please care for your health and your life, Jerrthi," he croaked, trying to hold back his own emotion. "I treasure my memories of our time together and you know that I wish you only the best. If I ever can ..." "I will try to wait for you, Bronn," she moaned a little, desperately trying to keep it together in front of him, "Try to complete this and come back to me somehow. If you can do that, I do not care if we have to live in a real grotto to hide from them, I want only you. I do not think that I will look for another. Communicate with me when you are able." She leaned forward onto the bathroom counter and she began to sob much harder, closing the line when she couldn't stand it any longer. ------------------------ Jayne was unhappy as she walked. She smirked bitterly and shook her head. No shit. All that she had was her life and that was about it. But what was that? What had her choice given to her other than to remain alive? She was the pet of a large green-skinned and quite dead female known to her only as 'Monnie' and in order to remain alive; she had to do things for her keeper which disgusted her. Mostly because of what Monnie was. It wouldn't be so bad otherwise, she thought. If they were elsewhere and if the girl was like her -- living and drawing breath and NOT feeding her ego and spending a large part of her time seeking places where humans lived together in numbers so that she could feed her ever-growing horde of demons, they might have had something before. It would also help if it wasn't always made quite so clear to her that her 'cuteness' was one of the few reasons why she was kept in the first place. And if Monnie wasn't what she was and they'd met under other circumstances, Jayne thought that they could have had something nice back then. She hadn't started out wanting the affections -- or lust -- of a half human, half goblin whatever Monnie was, and she'd certainly never wanted to spend as much time as she now did with her face buried between a pair of thick and strong (and green) female thighs. But she might have found that she'd have wanted a relationship like this otherwise -- as much of a surprise as that had been to learn about herself. Of course the threat of her death had been a strong inducement at the time, she supposed. But not when those thighs and what lay between them were as cold as they were. It was like licking a side of beef hanging up in a cooler and worse. And when Monnie wanted to do that to her, Jayne thought that it was killing her to have to look enthusiastic and keep up the charade. What human girl wants to be poked and prodded with a long, wet, cold -- and dead -- tongue in that place? And she hated how it was always held out to her that Monnie could fix this and turn her so that the coldness wouldn't be an issue then. Great, Jayne thought with more disgust. It never seemed to occur to Monnie that her little pet 'Goldilocks' might have an aversion to being dead and having the thirst which Monnie had to constantly try to slake. She'd had to remind Monnie -- yet again, that being here near a stadium packed with humans who would soon be torn apart and eaten, mostly while they were still alive and screaming, was not exactly her cup of tea. "You suddenly remember me and then you have your demons bring me a moaning, dying human and you think I want to eat that?" she'd say and Monnie would remind her that if she ordered it, Goldilocks would eat it and like it. That had been almost her death on more than a few occasions, But Monnie had been contrite each time and now they had their system. Monnie would take her to where they were planning to eat and she'd give her little pet a few coins beforehand to go and buy herself some human food from a street vendor or wherever she liked. She just had to return when it was time to go or whenever Monnie needed her 'hot little mouth' again during or after the feast. Jayne would nod and actually have to thank her benefactor before walking off quickly, knowing that she had little time before this began, thought the few hours of freedom felt great to her. The sadness of this was killing her, though. She'd make the attempt as she searched for some food to buy and she'd try to warn people as she went that they'd better leave and soon if they wanted to live. She even told them why. No one ever believed her and it was always the same. Every human being would be killed in the stadium and in an ever-growing radius around it sometimes for a few days before they moved on. She also knew that one day, one of Monnie's demons would kill her, a newcomer not having gotten the message clearly that the leader's pets were to be left alone and even protected. There had already been a few close calls. Jayne looked up at the sun's position in the sky and knew that she had a few hours. She went to a little eatery which appealed to her on sight and she looked forward to a quite enjoyable meal there. But it was the people in there - the family who ran the place, which hurt her the most to see, knowing that they would be dead in only hours. She tried once again to warn them and the waitress, a girl near her own age had brought the owner -- her father - out of the kitchen. He ran her out of there before her crazy talk could frighten away any customers. She managed to find another place and she kept her mouth shut and found it equally unsatisfying, but she did it and then she went shopping for a few clothes, mostly schoolgirl stuff like Monnie wanted her 'little girls' to wear, and a few tight little skirts and a kind of footwear that she liked herself for their comfort called sneakers. She shuddered to think of the way that she'd be forced to parade around and act wantonly, rubbing herself on things while Monnie watched until her need overcame her and she lunged, pulling Jayne down to lift one of her legs and rip off the pink underwear that she specified must be worn at these times. Jayne would then have to move her hips as though she loved having a dead goblin's face in her crotch. It had quite the opposite effect, no matter how much the dead goblin crooned to her and tried to make nice. Jayne knew the way of this 'relationship'. Jayne wondered just how many pairs of pink knickers in her size there might be in the area, the way that she was going through them. To herself, she knew that she never wanted to see another pair again. Jayne knew the risks, but she was getting tired of it all. There was no life for her down this road. What was the point? Monnie already had her 'training' another little toy, this one a young and very frightened female half Red demon, a girl who was a little larger than she was but every bit as frightened as she was of the slavering beasts which Monnie commanded. She also shared Jayne's loathing of what she was forced to do for Monnie. She guessed that it marked the still-distant but now visible end of her road. But at least the pair seemed to like each other a lot, so that was something. She supposed that she'd have already tried to make a run for it otherwise. She sighed as she thought of it. A rather small woman like her trying to run from a vampire who could smell her blood. How absurd to even hold the hope of success. Even more ludicrous, she thought, her chances with a ravenous pack of demons on her tail who could run faster than horses could and who could also fly. Jayne shook her head. She'd be dead inside of ten minutes. As she turned back onto the main street which she'd been following, she heard Chan's voice and turned back to see the one that Monnie had dubbed 'Muffin' come running to her in her human form. She felt for Chan. Her mother had been raped out on the family farm by a flock of Red demons and she was the result. But their present set of circumstances did give them each a friend. Chan didn't want to be what she was. She wanted to be human. She ached to be just like her friend, though she never said it. As they found each other there on the dirty street, Chan hugged her and asked if she'd eaten. Jayne lied and told her no, since she hadn't eaten a lot and the two of them walked away looking for more to buy. "I bought you some clothes," Jayne said, "but most of it won't last long. It's for Monnie to tear off you, but I did get you a couple of T-shirts and a pair of jeans, and I'm pretty sure that they'll fit you, too. I made allowances for your longer legs, Chan." "Thanks, Jayne, you're the best." Chan stopped then and Jayne knew that she had to be careful now or Chan would fall into her sadness right here in the street. "No," Jayne said, shaking her head, "Don't you dare get all wet on me out here in the street. I don't have anything to wipe your tears with on me. Just, ... let's just try to enjoy the time that we have before the shitstorm starts and we have to go back so that we can make the ogre happy. I fucking hate the act that we have to put on, pretending to like licking each other for her." "But ... "Chan hesitated, "but I like it when we do that. I hate that it's a show for her, but I like you, Jayne and I like what we do then." Jayne sighed, "I like it too, Chan. I try to do it for us. I just really hate that we have to do it and pretend like it's a show. I just wish that we were somewhere else and that we could just be fucking normal girls who have fun and not always have to be so careful over what we say and all that. One of these days, I'm not gonna go back after I buy something to eat and a few rags to wear. I'm gonna keep on going and try to run for it. I know that she'll probably catch me and kill me or turn me then, but more and more, I'm feeling that it's all I've got." "Take me with you," Chan said excitedly as she stood in front of the only friend that she had in this fucked up world. "I want to go with you -- wherever you go." "I was hoping that you'd want to leave with me" Jayne said. "I'd feel a lot braver with you along." She sighed, "I hate the way that she makes me stand there on my toes and lean against the wall with my ass out in the wind and pretend to like the way that you have to shove your face into my ass and lick it." Chan smirked then, "I don't mind that part so much. You always wash there for me first. I even like it a lot, but I never show how I like it. But I hate it when she says that I have to be a demon then and I know that you don't like that part. I hate being there as a demon in a skirt. What the fuck kind of demon girl does that?" Don't worry about it, Chan," Jayne grinned, "I'm getting used to you like that and I know that it's still the same person. I'd love for you to do that to me if we were somewhere else and on our own." They turned and walked off then, holding hands a little, a pair of young females of two different kinds who needed each other as friends in their dark and grisly existence. "And anyway," Chan said as an admission, "I do love kissing you there and the way that it feels to hold onto you when I do that to you. I love the way that you squirm then and sometimes I really have to hang on. I only hate having to pretend that I'm only allowed to do it because she's forcing us with her threats. I wish we could just go away together and that somebody would just kill that fucking bitch so we could be free." "We wouldn't have any money then," Jayne reminded her," we'd probably end up as waitresses or dancers and part-time hookers after that -- at best." "I don't care all that much," Chan said quietly, as Jayne looked over at her friend's Oriental features. She was coming to like the way that Chan looked to her in either shape so much. "As long as I've got you with me. It'd be worth it to me then. It would be a lot better than what we have to do now." Jayne stopped suddenly, "I've got an idea. We each save as much of what Monnie gives us over the next few times as we can and then we pick our moment, I guess. That time, we don't buy any clothes. We just have a quick bite to eat someplace. Just something light and then we run. We go for maybe an hour and then we find a place to hide and sleep, like a place where we can rent a room for a night or two. Then we pay them to watch an hourglass for us and we'll also need to buy some muscle to watch the door so nobody tries to fuck us over. After that, we have a bath and go to sleep for a little while. I want to be with you and sleep. Just rest and sleep because by then we'll both likely be bags of nerves and worn out. If we do it right, we might have time to play a little all by ourselves for once. We just need to be lucky enough that Monnie doesn't find us the first night. Then we run farther the next day after another bath so that our scents will be harder for the demons to pick up. Every day that we run, we get farther from her and our chances get better. We'll have to get out of this whole area though. After that, I dunno, but I want to do it with you and maybe try to make our own lives. We might find a couple of guys and all, but I want to live that way with you, Chan. What do you think?" The two diminutive females stood there in the street hugging each other for a long minute, before they walked away again, each one cursing quietly a little at the way that their tears had caused them to look a little like a pair of raccoons. -------------------- On an intellectual level, the average Merren is a little brighter than the average human -- only one of the reasons why the Merren as a people owned a far-flung intergalactic empire and we earthlings never rose far above the technological equivalent of Huckleberry Finn drifting down the Mississippi river on a raft by comparison. A lot of Merren were brighter than the average and Bronn was one like that. He wanted to be close to Jerrthi, but he knew that it couldn't be, so he did what he needed to do and what he knew that Jerrthi wanted him to do, and that was to give thought to getting there, doing this investigation and then see about getting home. But he also knew as well as she did that it likely wouldn't be an option that their employers were building into this for him, so he just got on with what he had to do and held his mind on the hope that they could at least communicate a few times. Without the option of returning home, Bronn had to maximize the time that he had before his vehicle went dark and lost power -- if he hadn't starved by then. Jerrthi was a Watcher. It meant that she was one of the ones who monitored the millions of video streams from the thousands of communication and surveillance satellites over Merren and other worlds and who had access to the data streams of the billions of messages which flashed around their empire. He knew what she'd meant in what she'd told him. She would try now and then to search for and pick up on the data streams of his reports. She couldn't access the data itself, but after she'd pulled his system ID and set it into her pad of working memory, she hoped that she could message him now and then. It was all that they had left. As he prepared to depart for his assignment, he elected not to spend the time in cryogenic stasis. He chose instead to pack a little extra food which would keep well and learn several types of physical arts at an accelerated pace, plugging his head into the teaching apparatus on board his automated vessel and literally torturing himself by allowing it to fire the synaptic receptors required to be able to feel the movements in his body as his musculature was driven in rapid spasms by electrical impulses matching the movements involved -- literally a form of physical on the job training. He'd be conscious the entire time, feeling the way that his limbs and body would be thrown around so that when he sent the impulses from his mind, his body would respond accordingly. This method would never be able to replace the years of training in the tried and true methods, but it could come a little close and might be close enough in a pinch. As well, he knew that just by doing this, the patterns and movements would likely allow him to re-learn what had come to him from his genetics, since he came from a long line of the very same sort of individuals. Every 'day' for a couple of weeks then, Bronn worked himself to exhaustion in the human form which he'd selected, but as his ship neared Earth and began to prepare for entry into the atmosphere, he was going through the ritualized movements on his own. His means of transport wasn't large by any means. It was little more than a space for his practice, a place to wash and eat, a small 'office' if it might be called that and a couple of places for him to sleep. The rest of the space was given over to a little storage for clothes and some odd weaponry, food storage and engineering spaces -- as well as a bay holding three small surveillance satellites for his use on Earth. But his genetic past had been taken into account, so every 'night', he dragged his bone-weary body off to the small spaces which had been built something like the warm and wet grottoes which lay in the past of his kind. He came over the horizon in a low arc, electing to land at night off the coast not far from the old Point Mugu Naval station. It took the automated systems a little while, but he swung around in a wide turn and the three little satellites were set out in geosynchronous orbits before the stage which housed them was released to fall into Earth's atmosphere and burn up on entry. The satellites wouldn't last there forever, their orbits decaying at some point. But it was hoped that he'd have his own eyes in the sky for maybe as long as a couple of years. As well, there were three of them and it would give him a rather precise way of locating things. He slid past his target losing height as he came around and then, his instructions followed to the letter by the automated governance systems, he hovered in off the coast to settle in the water and submerge as soon as the satellite tests were complete. The craft surfaced before dawn long enough for Bronn to leave, flying inland with his own wings to begin his hunt. Each day for a time afterward, he'd return to his vessel which would surface to receive him and he'd move along the coast at night, following the leads, reports and rumors of a strange individual who left a trail of death and destruction as he searched for someone named Monnie for his own reasons. It was how Bronn found himself submerged in San Pablo Bay, scouting around Oakland, California some time later. ---------------------------- "Run along now, Goldilocks," Monnie grinned as she ran her hand over Chan's belly, some of Chan's blood trickling thickly from her lips, "just come back when you know it's time, that's all." Jayne looked over at her friend, who lay pale and at death's door, not seeing much at all anymore. "What are you gonna do, Monnie?" The large woman smirked, "What I should have done to you a long time ago. You see, Chan is very young and she's also a little uncertain of things -- mostly herself. I didn't do that to her. It's just something that was added to her, being what she was born and wanting to grow up in a human family. Her mother fucked her up this way, being half-torn herself between hating what had been done to her by the demons who caused her unwanted pregnancy and the love that grows naturally in most forms of females for the life that grows in them regardless. Chan hates showing her demon side because she found that she was treated better by her mother if she hid it. A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 54 She hates what she is, and will always want to belong somewhere. It makes keeping secrets very hard for her to do and I'm nosy and I know how to play her need to seek approval. I know when to feed her need to feel loved. She didn't want to tell me your secret but she had no choice because she's very weak as a person. So I know what it was that you two planned to do one day soon. I've got her halfway to immortal here. I just need to feed her a little and it'll all be good. She'll be mine forever, just as you will be soon. Don't even think about not coming back, honey. It'll be your turn soon. Just not today. I might even let her do you so that the bond becomes bittersweet between you." She smiled, "You'll never want to leave me again and all of our troubles will be over." You ought to get going now, sweetcheeks. I doubt you'll want to watch this." Jayne looked at Chan, whose head lolled over in her direction. The bright eyes that she loved were no longer that way, and her skin looked to be almost paper-white. The lips which had always shown Jayne love moved a little and in a moment of absolute horror to Jayne, she found that she knew what Chan was trying to communicate to her. Her lips were forming only a few words. "I'm sorry. .... Ru .... Ru ...nn." Jayne groaned in fear and ran out of the room. Monnie smiled down at Chan as she turned her face up to look at her, "Now where were we, Muffin? Oh, yeah," she smiled slowly as she opened one of the smaller arteries in her wrist, "We'd better get started, baby. You need this now." She allowed her blood to swell out of the tear in her own skin and then she brought her hand to Chan's mouth. "Drink, baby. You know I'll always take care of you, don't you? I'll be your mother now and I'll be so much better than the one I took you from." Chan parted her lips a little, feeling the fluid there that she knew would bring her back and give her life again. She felt her tears as she realized that even from this close up, she hated this. Her lips almost defied her will by themselves as they closed over the wound and she felt them working to suckle. But though she felt her mouth filling and even felt the tingling of what was in that blood, wanting it, and needing it to survive, she found that she still had control over her esophagus. Monnie smiled down benevolently as she watched, waiting for the moment when the temptation of the life that she was offering would be accepted and the girl would swallow and begin to drink deeply. It was so very close to being the same thing, after all. A lust to breed and mate was not very far at all from the lust to live. Monnie was soaking wet herself in this, loving her little toy so much for it. She just needed for the last moment to pass so that she could see Chan swallow to accept her new eternal life and remain a luscious little plaything, eighteen years old forever. Her eyebrows rose when she saw that Chan hadn't swallowed her gift yet. "What's wrong, baby?" she asked as she lifted her arm to see if there was some problem here. She knew that she had mere moments now and she wondered if there was anything wrong. Chan knew that she was dying. All of her worthless life, she'd found herself the victim of her easily-broken will. Time and time again, she'd found her will turned aside by her need to be accepted. Anyone who knew this about her knew that they could get her to do anything at all. Only Jayne had been different to her. Jayne hadn't used her for anything. What that had happened between them had been freely given by the little blonde. Chan closed her eyes and opened them again after squeezing the tears from them that she no longer had the ability to wipe away herself. She was beyond feeling faint here. She was nauseous and so very weak. But there was one thing that she absolutely knew. There was no way that she would do anything to harm the only real friend that she'd ever had in her life. She waited until she reached the point where the darkness in her vision threatened to overwhelm her. Chan wanted no automatic reactions in her body to betray her as her will had always done. She felt her stomach kick once and so she waited for the next spasm. As it rose in her, Chan rode it, still waiting for just another instant. When it came to her, Chan Lin, the lost little half-Chinese human -- half-Red demon opened her mouth and spit Monnie's blood into her face. As she felt the vomit rising in her gorge, she inhaled at the perfect time -- the last instant when not even Monnie's blood could bring her back, filling her lungs with the burning acidic fluid so that there was no turning from this. With her last conscious act, she sucked more bile and vomit into her lungs and coughing once weakly, she felt herself passing. Monnie gaped at the girl. She knew what had been done and she was in disbelief. Who wouldn't want what she was offering? She pulled the limp body up to off the floor and shook if violently. But she knew that it was too late when she heard the girl's last urine begin to seep out of her onto the floor. Monnie roared in rage and threw Chan down then as she began to beat the dead body with her fist over and over. Jayne was running now, dodging the humans who wouldn't ever listen to her when she tried to warn them. She even found a couple of Monnie's powerful demons as they crouched in a few dark corners, waiting for only the word to begin. But they hadn't been spoken to yet. Their queen always had some words for them before she turned them loose, so they waited for the feeling when they were summoned. Jayne ran a little blindly, upset and crying over Chan -- horrified at what was going to be done to her friend and terrified that once turned, Chan might be used to hunt her. She went left instead of right, and up instead of down and before long, she found herself in about the last place that she wanted to be in this place where death and lust were about to be unleashed. She saw the door there in front of her, a little ajar as it was. An instant later, she burst in to the announcer's booth and the press gallery. By luck, it was unoccupied by the humans who lived there. Jayne was stuck now as she watched Monnie out there on the other side of the glass, near the other side of the stadium. But she could see that something was wrong. Monnie stood already covered in blood and gore and in that second, Jayne knew that things hadn't gone Monnie's way with Chan. She looked around a little frantically. Whenever Monnie was in one of her moods and wanted her pets near to her, she insisted on them being naked unless she told them beforehand that she wanted one of their schoolgirl dances for her. With no word from her, Jayne had gone in unclothed to avoid having to listen to Monnie's displeasure again. Now here she was naked except for a pair of sneakers and the shit was quite obviously going to hit the fan in another moment. She could almost feel the way that Monnie stood there trembling in her rage at being thwarted as she hung there in the darkness, calling her minions to her to set them to their joyous task. Besides all of the other emotions roiling up in her young breast, Jayne knew that she was in a place where she'd never be able to get out of once this started and she also knew that even if she ran her life away now, she'd never make it. Her own fear and panic had trapped her. Monnie was plainly out of control now. Jayne doubted that she'd stop at what had happened and it was only a few words from her that would remove what protection that the little blonde had enjoyed. It had been dangerous enough before this. But if Monnie said those words, Jayne knew that there were many of those slavering beasts out there who would now seek her to tear her apart. She looked around the room, as frightened as a hunted rabbit already. There were dark places in here, but she knew that they wouldn't hide her at all. The demons could smell her. They could feel her warmth. It was how they hunted. In a dark corner, Bronn watched her. He'd seen her many times over the past few weeks and he knew who she was in all of this. He was looking at the terrified and shaking girl who was used by the leader for her own pleasure. He eased back farther into the corner, hidden by the darkness and safe for the moment in his disguise as one of the half-crazed lunatics who now surged form their own corners to heed their queen's call. He hadn't come here to witness this. He'd seen enough of the carnage left afterward a few times already. He knew why this was done. The queen would summon more of them and finding themselves in a sea of their own kind, they'd calm down a little over their upset at the way that they'd been brought here and warm to the task of feeding on more human life than they'd have ever hoped to stumble across where they lived naturally -- because those humanoids in that far-off place knew that they were food and so they knew to act far more intelligently than the ones here. It had been his search for the one that he sought to learn about that had brought him here because he felt that he was here somewhere, unknown to these ones and their vampiric leader. Bronn even knew by now at least a little of the reason why he'd been seeking for Monnie. There was a showdown in the offing and this poor human female was about to become as fucked over and half-eaten as the rest. He knew that she didn't know the things that he knew, but he realized that she was the only human here who knew what was about to happen to her. He eased into a maintenance room silently and thought about it. There was a window there which faced away from the stadium. Jayne looked in his direction then. She didn't see anyone there, but she did catch sight of another door and being desperate, she ran through it and collided with something out of her nightmares. She looked up, already drawing the breath to fill her lungs for her scream when he clamped his hand over her mouth. He looked lower and rolled his eyes with a quiet groan. Jayne's fear had overrun a lot of her body's conscious control and left to its own devices, she was pissing herself in her terror. She hung in his strong grasp, shaking and urinating helplessly. Bronn knew that this was bad now. The smell of their prey's fear in their urine was a key marker for this kind of demon to follow when it hunted, never mind what it was for his kind -- the sub-species of High Merren demon that he was underneath all of this. He lunged for a pile of human clothing and produced a soft rag. He didn't know its purpose, though it was for swaddling a human infant since the squatters who lived here had two of them, but he clamped it over the girl's mound and held it there as she emptied her bladder, her eyes as wide as saucers as she looked up at him. When he saw that she'd stopped, he threw the sodden thing through the door and closed it before reaching for another few to wipe her off with. At that moment, the outer door crashed in and one of the real demons pushed through with a second one behind him. If it hadn't already begun, Bronn knew by this that it was only moments away. Bronn pushed Jayne against a dark wall and he reached into a pouch that he wore. When his hands came into view again they were as blurs and there was a buzzing sound for an instant before the first newcomer gasped loudly and groaned. The second looked around and saw Jayne then as she shook violently where she stood. He stepped forward and his body fell over to the floor in one direction and the top of his head fell off in another. The demon who had entered first straightened and inhaled to roar out his pain and rage as he tried with shaking fingers to pluck the metal pieces from where they stood embedded in his chest and face. A thin whipping sound preceded his collapse on top of the other ones' body. With a kick, Bronn rolled the body over and he tore out the metal stars that he'd thrown. He shook them once and they went back into his pouch while he turned and reached toward the frightened human. Jayne was almost catatonic in his grasp now, fearing almost to breathe and she found that she had to will herself to gulp in some air as she looked at something darker than everything else in here while he looked out through the window at the night sky and considered. The glass seemed to glow then and in another moment, it sagged and ran like a thick liquid to lie in glowing puddles on the floor, beginning to start little fires where it touched anything combustible. Looking back at her, he spoke then, the words meaning nothing to Jayne, but she did hear a sense of quiet urgency in them. He looked around and saw that the room was often used to hang up washing and he looked along the line at what was hung there. He grabbed a knapsack which had been sewn by a mother for her young girl to resemble a happy animal with legs which would flop along behind the child as she walked. Bronn flipped it open and he stuffed as many articles belonging to an even older child into it as he could for a few seconds. That done, he pulled Jayne to him and he shook it at her, wanting her to put it on. She reached for it with trembling hands and she did as he indicated, very confused now but wearing a knapsack over her nude body. She squeaked a little as he wrapped her in a blanket roughly and hefted her to hold her against himself with one large hand as he used the other one to grab the frame of the window and step up to squeeze them through the opening. Thankfully, it was a double-wide window and they were through the hole in a second. All that Jayne could see around her out there was a long way down. She squeaked again as his feet and legs launched them through the last of the way. Jayne waited for the fall, but it didn't happen and they were gone in slightly bobbing flight as his large wings bore her away at dizzying speed. She was frightened again as she hung in his tight two-handed grasp now , the wind roaring past her ears. In a few seconds, they were away from the stadium and racing low through the streets, dodging wires and clotheslines which she couldn't see though he obviously could. Every time that she opened her eyes to look, she regretted it almost instantly and she closed them again after a few seconds of more terror. She found that she preferred not seeing where they were going. Besides, it helped her to think. In time, she began to reason a little and it surprised her, as upset as she still was. Something was very different here. She'd seen that when the demons began their feeding, there was little greed between them. If one of them was busy with one screaming human, he or she didn't try to hide the meal away at all. If a second or even a third joined in, there was no anger there. She'd often seen one of them fucking one person while a second one began to feed on the same screaming human. That was what she'd witnessed with her own eyes many times. What had happened back there, then? Was this demon trying to carry her away to feed in a quiet place? They never did that. And what would he want the other clothes for? Why had he held out the knapsack to her? Jayne looked up then at his face. The expression was hard to read in human terms, but it looked to her like an expression of intent concentration. He looked down at her once very briefly and she whimpered in fear then, hiding her face against his chest. She thought about how she'd come to be kept by Monnie and then she thought about her young husband and the way that he'd been sucked dry of his blood by Monnie and thrown out through a window as though he was garbage to her. She thought of what she'd had to do in exchange for her life and the way that Chan must have died. Her tears came then and she wept. Bronn looked down again for a moment and saw the wet streams from her eyes. They weren't anything alike and he didn't belong here at all, but he wasn't just an unfeeling lump of flesh. He gently tried to move her forward a little and he held her face against the side of his own for a little while, wanting her to see that he didn't mean her any harm in this. Jayne turned slowly in his grip, seeking a little more comfort and she looked up at him again. He didn't look quite so frightening to her now. He even seemed to have been trying to comfort her though she couldn't really be certain of it. Hanging upside down as she was, she needed to think any planned movement through beforehand , but she decided that she was held tightly enough to place her head against his chest near his collarbones. What she heard there against the backdrop of the wind was a sound that the attributed to his muscles as he flapped his wings. But she knew that she was wrong after a minute and she thought that it must be his heart beating. She hazarded a look forward and she could see that they were out over water now and sinking lower. There wasn't much moonlight but it looked to her as though they were heading for a ... a frame of some sort which seemed to rise out of the waves there in the darkness ahead. There was suddenly more of the thing to be seen, though Jayne had no idea what she was looking at as he slowed and flared to land on a wet surface while still holding her. He touched a control plate and a doorway opened to a dark passageway. They stepped into that and the door closed behind them to the sound of quiet pumps and motors. The room was suddenly lit brightly and he began to speak in unintelligible words then. She heard another voice asking questions and the way that he replied told her that he was issuing some sort of commands as he walked, still carrying Jayne deeper into whatever this was. "Were we pursued?" he asked the controlling systems in the High Merren tongue and he was told that there were no airborne threats noted and that nothing had followed them. "Good," he replied as he walked, "Make our depth so that we encounter no obstacles and are too deep to be reached. Take us out to sea and set us down on a stable and calm stretch of the bottom. I need to process what I've learned .This human with me was about to be killed. I do not know what to do with her as yet, but I hope that I can glean something. She will likely require food and liquid before then, so prepare two servings, please." The automated controller mulled this over for a moment before asking what sort of food the creature might require and he smirked then. "Something warm, bland and harmless. As far as I know, these creatures eat much the same things as Merren do. Prepare whatever you think best, but I think that it should be something which does not still have its legs attached." She felt the change as he walked on. He was growing smaller and there were other changes to be seen when she looked up at him. Jayne only stood about five feet, two inches and as he'd been back there in the stadium, he looked to be about eight feet tall and very ... demonic to her eyes. She gasped as she stared at him now. She was being carried in the arms of a very human-looking male, with Oriental features who looked at her from deep brown eyes out of long black hair with a lot of concern showing through. It was all too much for Jayne. She'd been faced with a demon who'd looked as though he was one of the ones whom she was in terror of and for good reasons. Yet he'd looked a little different then all the same and he'd sure acted differently. What she was in fear of wasn't especially smart in any regard, being little more than highly efficient predators -- something like sharks. But this one had taken her away and brought her here -- wherever this was. She knew that he operated on a technological level far beyond her own and she struggled with it. She had no outward frame of reference, but she knew that this home that he lived in was under the water of the bay at present and she also knew that it was moving, though rather gently. A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 54 She'd barely come to grips with the fact that she could allow him to hold and carry her and now he was doing this while in the shape of a human? A naked one? She began to shake and tremble again and he set her down in a bit of a hurry in the large shower stall just as she felt her dignity leaving her again. She hadn't even had anything to drink since the last embarrassment and here she was, standing on shaking knees and pissing in fear again. He pulled the blanket from her gently and she slowly collapsed to her knees on the smooth surface, her fear running out of her in spite of her mind's commands to her body that it stop. She fell in a heap then, bawling for several reasons, none of which made the slightest sense to her now, but shame was in there somewhere and playing a large part. Bronn looked at her and spoke another word that she didn't comprehend, just like his instructions to someone as they'd walked in. She heard a word of acknowledgement and the lighting dimmed from its former brightness to something a little more comfortable. Jayne didn't know it, but like this, he could see her even better without the glare and he knelt close to her as he regarded the one that he'd saved from a terrible end. As she cried, he found that he liked her on balance, hoping that they could eventually get to some sane conversation. He hoped that she could tell him a few things about Monnie, since pretty much all that he knew about her was what she was and that she ruled the growing flock back there. He looked down and smirked a little to himself as a thought came to him. It hadn't been intentional, other than his feeling a want to get her out of there, but as he looked at the small female, it came to him that, other than the obvious differences in her body to his, she was rather close in stature and body shape to a female Grotto Demon. She just wasn't one, that was all. If she was one, he'd have to admit that she was strikingly lovely. But that wasn't the issue at hand, he decided. First, he had to get her to calm down and at the moment, she was hyperventilating. He moved forward on his knees, smelling the warm scent of her fear as it ran toward the drain. He gave another quiet command and the water began to spray down in a warm and very gentle mist after the system acknowledged what it had heard from him. When his hands touched her very carefully, Jayne reacted and screamed, trying to fight him off desperately. He'd guessed that this might happen, but it couldn't be helped and he strained to hear some kind of speech from her so that he might know how to respond. Oh, he heard words from her alright, but it was a while as he struggled to figure it out. He spoke to her softly in Japanese and she quite obviously didn't understand him. He tried some of the other languages that he'd learned and he failed rather spectacularly, seeing the way that she remained upset and struggling with him. As he tried to restrain her just a little, it came to him that she wasn't anything like someone who could normally belong to any of the groups which spoke those languages, so he tried others; Spanish, for example, and he saw that she understood a few words before he finally tried English. That got him somewhere. Her small fist hit him in the eye, but he saw that she did understand him. "Stop," he said to her quietly, "I did not get you out of that place to bring you here for this." He grabbed her then and he held her a little tightly, trying all the while to show her that he meant no harm to her. He held her close to him and he kept up his gentle words into her ear. It was a long while, but he did get her to a point where she stopped struggling with him and she just cried softly. ----------------------------------- The flock was excited. It could be seen in the many pairs of gleaming eyes as they hung flapping in the air or sat perched on anything nearby to listen. There was another hundred or so of them now and those ones looked around themselves and were welcomed by the ones already here. Monnie was still supremely angry over the incident with Chan and there was a part of her that she recognized in herself which just wanted to say 'Fuck it' and be very specific in adding Goldilocks to the death toll by very pointedly omitting her usual instructions that she was be left unharmed. But as she turned to see all of her flock, twisting slowly in the air and her mouth opened to speak, she was seized from behind in a pair of large and incredibly strong arms. She tried to fight it off, but it was plain that what held her had strength far surpassing her own. "Hello, dearest," a voice grated in her ear as she felt the hot lips against her throat, "It is good to see you once more. Shall we begin again where we left off before you left me to perish in that burning hole under the ground?" Monnie's eyes widened and she fought harder, but she felt herself being restrained by more than only physical force and she groaned as she found herself pushed over while still being held up as he entered her roughly, right there in the air in the middle of a stadium full of humans and surrounded by all of the demons. Monnie groaned as she felt him begin and she knew that she'd tasted the last of her freedom. She called out to her minions for their help, but as soon as she saw them all clearly, she knew that she'd lost them. They were his flock now, just from the thought that he sent them. A lot of them were even pleased at what they watched as many of them reached for others of their kind, and it didn't seem to matter to them which gender the one that they found for themselves happened to be. Excitement was what they craved and the lust which grew out of the promise of more excitement easily knocked down the barriers of sex and hunger. The feast was on and as soon as they'd gotten a little satisfaction, they'd drop out of the sky to begin on the humans who now stampeded shrieking from the dark mass writhing above them. ---------------------- "What -- What are you going to do to me?" she asked as she'd gotten a little calmer. He tried very hard to remind himself of the prevalent speech patterns commonly used by people who spoke this language, "To you? I won't do anything to you. I'd like it if you'd wash yourself and then we can see if any of the clothes that we took in the bag might fit you so that you feel better. Are you hungry? I'm having a meal prepared for us both." "Who are you?" she asked, "You -- you're not a demon like I thought you were, so you're probably not a man like this now, are you?" He rose a little slowly then, taking her along as he stood up, the two of them under the warm mist. She began to fight him a little again, but he didn't allow it, though he wasn't especially forceful with her. He was mindful of the effect of her helpless urination on him and he knew that he didn't want her to turn toward him completely now. There was no way that she could understand why he was hard at the moment. To what he was -- the Grotto Dweller, what she'd inadvertently done was to toss him a sign that she was receptive. He knew that she wasn't at all and he understood it all clearly, and anyway, it was only one of the signposts which a receptive female of his kind showed -- though it was a strong one. But his body didn't think at that level, so before there was any more frightened confusion from her, he picked her up and held her as one might pick up a child, holding her head near his shoulder so that he could speak to her calmly -- hoping at the same time that his erection would subside before they ran out of things to talk about and really hoping that she didn't swing her right foot and bump it into what stood out from his body now. "No," he said quietly, "I'll tell you anything that you'd like to know and then I'd like it if you could tell me about that Monnie female and what she does. I won't hurt you and I understand how terrifying this has all been for you. I couldn't help the way that a lot of it went. I just knew that you had to get out of there." "Where are we?" she asked, pulling her head back to look at him and thinking that she liked this body or whatever it was that he was in at the moment, "What is this place?" She was still afraid of him, but at least what he looked like now was better than what she'd seen before. "This is a ... "he wondered how to say it for a moment, "Well, call it my home for now. Right now, we're underwater and moving slowly to get out of the bay and go a little deeper. I want to get us -- you and I, out of the bay and into deeper water so we can hide better for a little while. We need to do that because there was someone else there near the place we left and I don't want him to know that I'm here right now. But let's start somewhere, alright? How about a name? I'll tell you my name and we'll go from there. My name is Bronn Qums. What's yours?" "Jayne," she said, "Jayne with a 'y'." Jayne thought about his name and she thought that he'd said 'Coombs' as his surname. That's what it had sounded like to her. He looked at her a little curiously, "I had to study the humans around here a little, and I think that 'Withawye' is about as unusual a name as my own must be to you." She looked at him, still upset to a degree, but a little intrigued and rather surprised at him and she wondered most of all perhaps why she was in this shower or whatever it was with a naked human man and why he wasn't ... "My name isn't ... what you said. That's how it's spelled. There's a 'y' in the middle of my first name. My last name is Mazenkowski and you still haven't told me what you are yet," she said and he apologized. "I am a demon," he said a little uncomfortably, "I'm just not like ones back there. I can shift shapes a little. I was there like that as a disguise, you might say. Right now like this, I'm trying to keep you from being frightened and I think that I must be failing at it at least a little, but I'm afraid that if I show you how I usually look that you'll be frightened all over again -- and I don't want that. I did take you away from where we met, but I'm here to hunt for another demon. I just need to know if you can help me by telling me what you know. I wasn't there to harm you." "If I help you, what will happen to me?" Jayne asked. To her amazement, he smiled and she had to admit that he did have an effect on her. He stepped forward with her under the stream of the water and reaching for a tub of soapish fluid, he began in an awkward way to wash her a little. "Nothing bad, I promise you. We can eat and I hope that you like what my home prepares for you." "Prepares?" she asked as she tried to slap his hand away from her breast, "Your home? How many of you are there here?" She squirmed a little as he went on washing her gently, "And why are you doing that? I can do it myself." "I'm alone here," he said, "this is all just ... machinery and systems to provide for my comfort and survival. I just tell it what I need and it does the rest." He stopped and looked at her then, "Jayne, I don't know how to tell you this any other way. When you were so frightened, you did what must come naturally to someone like yourself -- humans. I mean, and you made water. I don't think I can explain it all to you, but I need for the last traces of that to be off you. We'll both feel better then." She'd been looking down at his chest and throat for a few seconds, feeling shame for what had happened again, but now she looked up, "I -- I couldn't help that." "I know," he smiled, "and there's no harm done. That's why we're in here." "Well let me do it then," she said, "I won't have to worry about you dropping me and where your hand is right now isn't even polite." His eyes widened then and he gasped, "I'm very sorry. Of course. I'll set you down, then. Please forgive me. I didn't know." She found herself on her feet again, knowing that there wasn't anywhere for her to run, so she tried to concentrate on washing and reached for the tub of liquid that she'd seen him use. "No harm done, um, Bronn. But it was way too familiar to a girl and I don't know you. I can see that you're trying to make me feel better, but that was just too much. I don't really want to feel THAT much better right now if you know what I mean." She saw the look of shocked horror from him as he realized that he'd broken what must be a social barrier to her, but she smiled a little at him, "It's ok for now, but people don't just meet and start groping each other, most of them, anyway. I understand that you didn't know." He turned away then and began to wash himself feeling embarrassed. She saw it and smiled as she turned away. After a moment, she risked a look over to him and he was still facing away from her, washing himself, so she hurried with it, though from what she saw, she didn't mind all that much as she looked. "If we're underwater the way that you said," she began a little cautiously, "then I guess that there's no way that I can run from you, is there?" "No," she heard him say over his shoulder, "but you won't have to. After this, I'll make sure that you're warm and dry and in some clothing that might fit. I see even more reason for the clothing that humans wear. We can eat and I'd like to ask you questions. After that, if you really want to go, I'll fly you to land and you can leave. But what I'd much rather do is take you nearer to Lozenjellis, since there are less ... Monnies there, though I don't think that there will be much of a threat to you from her now or soon." "What do you mean?" she asked. "The demon that I'm looking for. He was there at that place. I could feel him. I don't know why he wanted Monnie so much, but it was why he was there. I don't know if he knows about you and I doubt that he'd care much, but it's better for you if you're somewhere else." He held up his hand and asked a question toward the ceiling. There was a pause and she heard some speech as a reply to him and he said, "We can be there in two days. Would that be alright?" "I don't know," she said, "I guess so. I don't have anything to my name and the clothing that I saw you grab is meant for a girl of about twelve. I'm twenty-two. I know I'm not very big, but ... well, I'm getting a little tired of always having to look cute. Clothes like that sure won't help, even if they fit me, which I sort of doubt." She found that she had to explain it to him a lot better, but he did get it, becoming fascinated at the concept of fashion in the clothing which humans wore. "Well, what do you wear where you're from?" she asked. "Nothing, for the most part unless the surroundings require it, such as working in an office. Why were you without clothes most of the time when I was watching you with Monnie?" She looked down at her sodden sneakers, kneeling suddenly to take them off and wash the insides of them before setting them aside. She drew a breath and sighed, "That was how she wanted us to be, mostly, Chan and me." She looked up then with wide eyes herself a moment later. "You saw us?" Jayne turned away from him with a groan and she wanted to die. The thought also caused her to remember her friend and she began to cry once again, finding that she couldn't help it. The mist of warm water stopped and he was on his knees in front of her, wrapping her up in a large piece of fluffy fabric which she guessed was a towel of some kind. She'd just never seen or felt one this soft before. Jayne was surprised at the concern that she saw in his face, though she did like the way that he seemed to want to comfort her and even seemed to want to pamper her a little for some reason. As he worked at drying her, she admitted to herself that it felt really good and she allowed it, while sneaking little glances at his body when she could. It wasn't what she'd meant to do, but he was there, close up and she found that she couldn't help it. "I know why you were kept near Monnie," he said, "so you do not need to feel this shame that I see in you. I see that there is more that you have to feel sadness over, but you do not need to feel shame. I do not know many things about humans. I only learned what they were very recently. So when you are ready, "he said gently, "Try on what clothing that you find gives you comfort and then walk that way," He pointed and she saw the heavy human-looking muscles in his arm, "I will be waiting for you there and I have a hot meal for you." She looked up and thanked him, "Do you know what happened to Chan?" she asked and he nodded slowly, "I was there in the room when you ran out. I came to look for you later. I did not want for it to happen to you. The other human perished. I believe that it was what she wished for herself." Jayne looked at him a little hotly, "No it wasn't. I know -- knew Chan. She wouldn't have wanted to be what Monnie is." He nodded, "I did not mean to say that. I saw her perish, I think by choking of her own bile in order to escape the other fate. I am sorry." Jayne nodded and looked down, grabbing the edge of the fabric to wipe the new tears which came to her eyes. Bronn stood then and walked out. He sat thinking, lost a little in his thoughts and trying to sort out what this day had brought for him to learn when he looked up from the table and saw her. He had to fight off the need to smile at her more than the caring expression that he wished to show for her comfort and well-being. He knew by now what she'd meant when she told him what 'cute' meant as a concept, but he almost couldn't help himself. She was standing there with her long, light hair cascading wetly over her. He liked the soft curls that he saw in it but he knew that she wasn't comfortable that way, standing as she was with the child's knapsack held before her like a shield with its limbs hanging over her arms as though she held up a small pet of her own. "None of it fits," she groaned, "I can't get into any of it, really." "No matter," he smiled, "Come sit and eat." She wanted to shake her head, but she knew that he'd already seen all of her long before this point and, well he'd had his hands all over her too. Besides, she was hungry now and whatever it was that she saw there smelled really good to her. She saw and guessed that it was some kind of roast along with vegetables which she couldn't identify any more than she could make out what the main course was, but it smelled a lot like roast beef to her and so she came a little closer. "That looks and smells like roast beef, "she said. "Close enough," he nodded as he stood up to hold a seat out for her. It had no back and was only four legs and a curved, padded place to sit on, "The animal is very much like the cows that I have seen illustrations of here." She nodded and wondered about how to get her butt onto the chair while hanging on to the knapsack. Then she thought about how she could even eat like that. "You do not need to hold that," he indicated with a nod, "only move your hair to cover yourself if you wish. I will try not to look at you for the sake of your comfort and I have not harmed you yet, have I?" "No," she said as she did what he'd suggested and tried to climb up onto the seat, "that's true, I guess." She felt foolish as she sat with her feet dangling a little and she looked around the table, "There are no forks here." She had him there and had to explain what the utensils were and how they were used by humans. He thought it a little strange. "We use two knives," he said, "one shorter than the other". She watched as he demonstrated, so she did the same. After several minutes where they ate in silence, Jayne's questions about him began to tumble out. Somewhere in his explanations of what he was and why he was here, he learned the things that he wished to know from her. A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 54 "What's this drink?" she asked at one point, indicating the larger cup near to her left hand. "Water mostly," he said, "though it also has flavoring in it and there is a little alcohol, though not much at all. The cup on the other side holds water. If you wish, I also have a little milk. I know what that is and we drink it as well, but what I have is powdered and must be mixed before drinking it, though it comes from the same animal as the one on your plate." Jayne tried the water, but found it tasting flat. She nodded and lifted the other cup to her lips, smelling a little cautiously for a moment. "This is beer -- or very close to it," she grinned a little. "Ah," he smiled, "Now I know what the word means. I'd read of it and assumed that our drink is a little like that, but I hadn't made the connection." He sighed a little, "I was only given a little time to learn the ways of a world of people of many kinds. I see that I have much more to learn. Do you wish for something else?" She shook her head with a smile, "Don't you dare. This is really nice, though it tastes a lot weaker than what they sell in the city. I do like it though, Bronn. Thank you and this meal is amazing as well." They sat and ate and talked, the gates finally open between them. In that time, she'd managed to wheedle and whine at him enough to get him to show her what he really looked like and though he sat looking embarrassed himself after changing to that shape, she told him that she liked him this way best of all and she laughed at him over the way that he looked slightly confused. "Well couldja stand up?" she asked, feeling a little of the drink, though she was aware of it, "I can't see all of you with the table in the way." He stood up for a moment and she stared at him with a wide smile, "Oh yeah, I definitely like this one the best." He turned around briefly and she giggled at his back end and the slightly shorter and much more slender tail on him then. She was raising a knife to her lips with a piece of meat on it and she gestured with the utensil for emphasis, "Nice ass, Bronn, "she grinned, "REALLY nice ass you've got there." He sat down then and leaned on the table toward her, "I do not understand. What is an ass, and why is this shape more appealing to you than the others?" She thought about it for a minute, "Do you know what a horse is?" When he nodded, she said, "There are smaller kinds of the same sort of animal. A pony is smaller than a horse, and a little smaller than that is what used to be called an ass. Nowadays, we call them donkeys. The back end of a donkey looks something like a larger version of the back end of a human, so that's what we call our rear ends -- asses. I like your shapes," she smiled, "They're all appealing to me, Bronn. But then, I'm a little used to being around demons. When you were in the first shape, I thought that it was all over for me. That's why I was so scared. When you make yourself look like a human, well, you're really good-looking then, but this, ... I dunno. This way is just so, ... " She wanted to say 'sexy', since like this; he really was to her, but she didn't want to say it that way. She was also surprised at how she was having a fair bit of fun here with him, naked as she was here and all. "You're just really nice to look at this way to me. I like them all, but this way is the nicest to me. You can do what you want and change back, I guess, but I think I'm saying that if it was up to me, well then I think that I could just look at you like this all day." She set her knives down and shrugged, holding up her palms a little helplessly, "I guess that I mean for right now. The truth is that even when you look a little nuts - so tall and strong, I like it now and I've never seen a guy who looks as nice as you do as a human either, though you're a little tall like that. Do whatever you want. Just don't mind me if I drool a little." He laughed then and suggested that it must be the drink and she nodded, adding that right then she didn't care. After the day that she'd had, it was a nice touch to feel a little relaxed. They found that they enjoyed each other's company a lot more after that. He now knew all of the things which had happened to Jayne and he told her that he felt that it had all been unfair and unwarranted, the way that her male had been murdered. "We were together since we were kids," she said, "I just got used to him and he did take care of me, so we just kept going. He could be a bit of an ... Jayne had wanted to say 'asshole' right then, but she decided not to confuse Bronn any more than he must already be, so she smiled, "Well, he sometimes didn't think too much about what he said or did. I guess that I might have found somebody better for me, but he was there and he took care of me. I think that I'd have had to go a long way from where we lived to find somebody better." She asked about what he was doing here and why -- specifically. Inside of his explanation, she saw a little of his sadness and asked about it. What she heard shocked her. "You mean that you can't ever go home?" He shook his head, "No. It's a class thing. It wasn't planned for by me, and I could not refuse or they would do things to me to make me regret my refusal for as long as they then would keep me alive and in pain. They always get what they want." She shook her head at how awful it sounded, and then she had a thought. As it settled into her completely, she gasped a little, "Oh, Jesus. Was there somebody that you loved back there? It sounds to me like they wouldn't care much about that, either." He nodded slowly and looked up with a phrase. She didn't understand it, but he was commanding that the systems access the vocabulary of other languages then. When it responded, he looked down in thought for a moment. "What it the current time of day on Merren?" When he had his answer, he looked up again, "Show me the view from the desk camera of the Watcher Jerrthi if she is on duty, please, but if she is active at her post, do not call." "Our communication raft is up on the surface now and what you wish can be accessed," the voice said, "but there is a delay due to the distance and there may be issues with image quality. You will not have long for this before the rotation of this planet makes the communication fail. It will be better again in ten rotational segments -- almost half of one day." "I understand," Bronn said slowly, "Please make the attempt for me." A holographic screen appeared to them at one end of the table and in a few moments, Jayne saw a female of his kind as she worked, looking at her own display before her. She was as alien to Jayne as Bronn was, but she was incredibly beautiful nonetheless. "The Watcher Jerrthi," Bronn indicated with his hand, "She and I were paired, though we never made it official. Now we are both unhappy and she looks this way whenever I look at her, as though she is ready to weep at any moment." Jayne stared at the image, as slightly jerky as it was in the movements that the female made and she knew that the image quality was poor. As different as this was to her, Jayne could see that the person there was not large either, looking to be about the same size as she was, though there were other features there which the two of them didn't have in common. After a moment, Jerrthi looked up at a corner of her huge display and she moved her hand to sweep it over to the center. "Disconnect, please," he said, but the system replied that it was too late. "Watcher Jerrthi is among the very best of the watchers, "it said, "she is already running down our identification and it is too late. She will know in a moment and what we see is delayed." Jerrthi stared at the screen, "Bronn?" She issued a series of verbal instructions and Bronn's system said, "She has her lock and knows who we are." Bronn nodded, "Allow her a visual, then," The short conversation that Jayne witnessed then was a little heartbreaking to watch and she heard her name in what was said as Bronn indicated Jayne with his open palm. Jerrthi looked at Jayne for a second and gave her a bit of a sad, but smiling nod. Jayne saw that Jerrthi's breasts were a little smaller than her own when she leaned closer to the screen to try to see a little better, and she also saw that she and Jerrthi looked rather similar in some respects, but at the end of it, the other person peered at her screen for a long moment and said a few more words to Bronn, ending the transmission with a brave smile and then they were out. "She's so ... "Jayne began but her words failed her. It caused Bronn to smile a little weakly at Jayne and he nodded, "She said the same of you. She is leaving to go to her home. I am sorry now that I disturbed her. She is distraught, but I managed to give her a brief version of who you are and that you are helping me." "I wish that I could have told her how sorry I am for what was done to you guys," Jayne said, "Such a beautiful girl, and those dark little horns that she has, like they came off a black goat, just like yours there. I wished right then -- as soon as I saw her face that I could have known her, close up, like in the same room and not I dunno how far away. He looked a little uncomfortable then for just a moment and then he added, "I told Jerrthi that you are intelligent and she likes this, and asked if you could read. I guessed that you could and she said that she would prepare something for you -- a presentation about what we are, her and I. She thought that if you would be here with me for a time, that you would soon become bored in this small craft and with nothing to do. She hopes to send you something to keep you entertained if you have an interest as she thinks that you might, from the way that you looked at each other. She asked for the name of the speech that you prefer and I told her so that she could use the translational filters." They were a little quieter for a time, but she found that she had a really big reason to feel thankful, now that she knew Bronn. "I want to thank you for what you did for me tonight," she said, "I'm sure that by now, all of my troubles would be over." He reached for what looked to be a plate of glass, but as she watched him, she saw that it was a way to enter things into his systems as he began to prepare a report on the day in his journal. "It was what I could do for someone in a bad place," he said, though he didn't smile. "I am happy to have met you through it. What will you do when you are back on land?" She frowned for a moment, "I don't know. I never saw any of my family again after the night that Monnie grabbed me. I can't imagine that they'd have survived it. The demons are very thorough and they never leave anyone alive -- even if they're full. I don't really have anywhere to go, Bronn, so I can't say." His long fingers flew over the glass and he spoke to her at the same time, "I would imagine that in the very disorganized culture that I have observed here, a female has few options -- a lot fewer than she'd have where I am from. You would be best to seek for a male somewhere. Failing that, you would have to find some occupation so that you could feed yourself, I would guess." She watched him for a time and then he looked up at her for a second. Both of them stared at each other and it came out of their mouths together all jumbled up, since they were saying different things. "You could --" "-stay here with you?" They stopped then and tried again after a second. "I'd have to be careful, to manage --" "I don't eat much and I'd try to be useful --" Then they smiled at each other, "We're both all alone here," Jayne smiled, "and I find that I like being with you. I'd like to think I've made a friend." "I as well," he smiled, "and we have no lives to return to, do we? Please stay, and at least we will not be so lonely. You can teach me how humans are. I tried hard to learn, but there is only so much that one can absorb in so little time and I was not given anywhere near long enough to learn what I needed to know. You are very complex people." "Oh, it's worse than that, Bronn," she laughed a little, "I'm a girl. Humans don't come any more complex than that." He grinned and nodded as he plowed through his journal. It was a little later when he led her back to a place near the shower, since she'd told him that she had to pee again. He pointed to a fixture roughly similar to one that she'd seen only rarely in her life and none of them worked in the way that she now understood, modern plumbing being a thing of the past now. She'd always thought that they were a curious and very hard seat to sit on. "You just sit there and go," he smiled, "then you press this and it's gone and you will find clean water over there in that receptacle there to wash your hands. I will leave you to it so that you have privacy." "Wait, "she said, grabbing his arm, "Where does it go? I mean, we're underwater, aren't we? You can't just throw it out the window like you do back in the city." He looked at her a little oddly and said, "No. I suppose that I could request that it be pumped out, but that is not what normally happens. It would be processed and purified for re-use." "For ... re-use?" she asked and he nodded. Jayne understood then why the water had tasted so ... like nothing. Purified meant that everything was removed, no matter where it had come from. She guessed then that even water from the finest-tasting spring would taste flat after that. "I think I'll stick to the beer," she said, adding that she could guess where the water for it had come from as well, "I'll get used to it, Bronn," she smiled, "I just don't have to be thrilled about it," she said as she began. She didn't think much of it, since he'd seen her do this under a lot more unpleasant circumstances, but she saw the look on his face and began to apologize. "I'm sorry. I guess I must look a lot more crude than I thought you must already see me. Give me a second, Bronn. I'm very sorry if I've offended you." "I am not offended," he said as he turned away, "You should not do that in my presence. I should have mentioned it before now. I will wait for you outside." Jayne was embarrassed again, cursing her lack of manners. She had thought that if anything, what she'd done might show him that she trusted him now. She pressed the control that he'd indicated and her yellow by-product was gone a second later in what looked to be a slightly fascinating process to her. She dashed to wash her hands and almost ran out through the doorway, nearly colliding with him. "Please explain, Bronn," she said looking up with her eyes pleading, "Don't tell me that I've wrecked this so soon." He shook his head and tried to smile, "It was not wrong, the fault lies in what I am. The people where I am from are comprised of many sorts of what humans call demons. We use the word as well, though it has none of the dark overtones which it seems to carry for humans. What Jerrthi and I are is getting rare now and I guess that before too long, we will all be gone as a type. We come from caverns and jungles and used to make our homes in the darkest of places for safety. There is water everywhere in those places, rising up hot from the springs, made hot as it is by the heat from the center of the world." He looked away then, not wanting this to sound any worse than he knew that it likely would to her. "Come with me," he tried to smile and he led her back into the room. He asked her to sit and then he explained a few of the other features of the device, leaving to stand facing out of the doorway when she'd gasped at how pleasant the stream of warm spray felt to her now. "Well this is nice," she announced brightly and he finally laughed a little. "In those dark places, we made our homes so that they could be kept clean very easily and one of the reasons for it is because, ... well," he said a little uncomfortably, "I suppose that a human female would be the same. If she had a male whom she liked and wished to mate with him, then I guess that it goes best if and when she is feeling very safe and comfortable, correct?" Jayne looked over at his back while she got down and dried her bottom end with a towel, "Oh yeah," she nodded, "if she wants to enjoy it at all and is given the chance for it. Go on, Bronn." He looked down at his feet then, "I don't know beyond the barest minimum that I read of it, but I think that a human female would exhibit signs to that male of several sorts so that he might recognize what she was hopeful for." "Sure," she chuckled, "Not screaming in fear and running away would be one and yeah, there are a few others." "Female Grotto Dwellers in the dark exhibit likely the same signs," he said, "It is astounding to me how very similar our kinds are, Jayne. But when she wishes to show that she is ready, a female such as Jerrthi does something which the male would know that she would not do otherwise. It does not affect the cleanliness of the place, since a little more water would remove it and there is water all around there, so the female would show that she is completely relaxed by doing the same thing as you seem to do when you are frightened out of your wits." Jayne stared at his back then, "You mean, she pees herself?" He nodded, still facing the other way. When she saw it, she knew that she must have looked like an idiot right then, staring into space in shock. Her comment took Bronn a little by surprise then when she said, "Well yeah, I guess that it would mean that she really was relaxed and feeling safe. Other than today, I'm not anything like that. Usually, I couldn't go to save my life at a time like that, looking at demons and all. Back there, I dunno, I just let go, somehow. You mean, she just gushes because she's relaxed?" "No," he said quietly as he shook his head, "She does it much more slowly. A male Grotto Dweller interprets this behaviour as what it is; her want of him in the most pleasant way, since he knows that it is something that she would never allow him to see otherwise. She might even have a hole in the floor in her home for it. If she does, she would likely show him as she does this. That is why I was very uncomfortable when you did that in your fear. I knew that it was not arousal, I am not stupid, but the sight affects my body and makes everything worse. I am sorry, I suppose that I must seem even more primitive to you now. That is how we are seen by the majority of the other kinds of Merren." He felt her hand in his as she came to him, "Don't worry about it. There are some things that we're different in, that's all, and I think that I kind of like primitive anyhow, not that I ever gave it much thought before now. Now that I know, I'll try to respect that about you. Let's not wreck a fine evening over something like that." They were almost back at the table when she nearly floored him with her question, "So that's why you picked me up in that shower thing? You didn't want me to see your stiffy?" He looked over at her, "What is a --" She nodded, "You were as hard as a stick. There wasn't any way for me to miss it. You might be a big-assed male demon in some ways, Bronn, but I'm a girl, aren't I? I've been around a lot of those big bastards that Monnie was bringing and I saw quite a few of what they have, not that I'd ever want one of them. They just fuck and gnaw, often at the same time. There's not a lot of expectation for a human girl beyond the end of her life at their hands. We would kind of like to survive it afterwards, kind of like that relaxed and comfortable thing we were speaking of earlier. Hard to relax if you know you're going to die." "I have heard it said of that kind that they are all ... well, large," he said a little uncomfortably as he brought them each another beer. A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 54 "So what?" Jayne asked, "It's only nice if you can have a reasonable expectation to be alive the next day," she said as she nodded in thanks and picked up the full cup of beer. "And you can't go by the size of their horns," she said with a definite air and she took a long swallow. "You can't?" he asked. "No, I love your horns, Bronn and they're not big at all, but they sure say something to me. She shook her head a little, "Not an indicator at all. There's no correlation there." Mmph!" she exclaimed as she took the cup from her lips and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, "That's just a legend," she said, "Probably started by their females to cover their own disappointment. Well have you ever seen one of those girls looking happy? I know that I haven't. Nope," she said, "what those boys all have is fat, but it's short. I've had to watch, remember? Both sexes are miserable in that bunch. Maybe that's why the males kill everybody -- out of their frustration that they can't really get far into anybody and the girls kill everybody just 'cause. The only ones who even looked a little happy were the ones who could get a male human to get hard. They liked that, but as soon as he was done and had gone soft ... WHAM! No head. No such thing as gratitude with those girls. So just remember, it's not the size of the horns. When you're like this, your horns are like a pair on a young goat. I really like them a lot. And for what it's worth, from what I saw, you got no worries, Bronn." She took another sip before what she'd said got through her own slightly fogged and happy brain and then she looked embarrassed yet again. "Come on," Bronn smiled as he put his arm around her shoulder, "It's been a long day. I'll show you where you can sleep. If you really want to stay, then we'll need to go to shore anyway somewhere tomorrow and get you a few things that will fit you." They parted at the door to a very small bedroom. Jayne put her arms around Bronn's neck and she stood on her tiptoes to stretch up and kiss his cheek softly for a moment before she hugged him and stood with her cheek against his chest for a minute. "Thank you again, Bronn," she smiled from behind her closed eyes, "Our lives suck, but I'm so glad that I met you." She watched as he walked away and then she repeated her appraisal of his bottom and went to bed, the bed and the whole room looking bright, clean and antiseptic. With her head on the pillow, she thought about how close she'd come to dying. She felt sad for Bronn and Jerrthi for what they'd lost and then she thought of her husband and then eventually, her thoughts turned to Chan for a moment or two. They were two girls, but she was sure that they could have been happy. She forced her mind from her dead friend and thought of Bronn again as she felt herself starting to drift off. They'd seemed to have started to become friends, she thought and she decided that this time, she'd just concentrate on that. ------------------------------ Jerrthi sat at her home terminal and typed through her tears. As she thought of what she wanted to say, she was poring over documents on the Merren version of the internet, grabbing files which related to Grotto Dwellers and embedding them into her presentation. She was still heartbroken over the way that Beyet had been taken from her and sentenced to death off-world by a government that didn't deserve to rule over a fungus farm, in her opinion. But now that she'd seen that there was a chance that he wouldn't be alone there, she felt at least a little better. It would help her with her choice a little later on, when she was over the loss to her heart enough so that she could function again, and yet still not over it enough to give her pause when she disappeared to join the underground. She'd lost something so valuable to her and she knew that she'd never find another one like Bronn, but now she wanted to see the rotten government which could do things like this with impunity toppled. Without her male, this was something worth devoting her empty life toward. She went to bed then, thinking about the lovely creature that she'd seen there with Bronn. She hoped that they'd be happy together. When she got to work a little early the next day, she decided to log on the system and insert the tiny memory drive that she'd bring with her. As what she was, she was one of the very few in there to have the right to use a drive such as this on the system. She'd upload her package to Bronn and it would go to the front of the buffer for rapid scan and priority transmission at the right time. The thought crossed her mind that it might be examined in a random scan, but she smirked to herself then. If anyone asked, she'd tell them that the package was for her boyfriend -- the one they'd sent on a task and exiled for nothing but loyal service to them. She'd tell them that she was just sending him a few pornographic videos of herself. She was the highest Watcher there in terms of her skill and what she was doing wasn't illegal, specifically. Lots of lovers did this for the ones whom they loved if they were separated for business purposes, for example. Besides, what could they do to her? They had given permission for the two of them to communicate with each other. ------------------------------ Jayne found that sleep eluded her after the many minutes of thought. What made it worse was that she even knew what it was and she was angry with herself for feeling such foolishness. Finally, she got out of the crisp and clean-smelling sheets to pick up her knapsack. He was nearly asleep when he felt her eyes on him. When he opened them, he saw her standing there peering in through the 'rocks' at the entrance of his sleeping area, looking a little lost again and so ... cute, now that he had a word for it. "Is something wrong, Jayne? "He asked her and she even looked as though she couldn't decide what the correct answer was right then. "Yes," she said and he waited for her to elaborate. "No," she said then and she squirmed a little visibly from behind her knapsack, holding it in front of her once again, though it hid little from him. "How about 'sort of', "he offered with a soft smile and she nodded a little uncertainly then. "I can't sleep," she said and he could see that she felt stupid over it. "I used to always have my husband next to me. After Monnie took me away, I didn't have anybody to sleep with because she slept in the daytime. She wasn't good to sleep with anyway, always pawing me the way she did. I was so scared every night at least sometime. I slept with Chan after Monnie took her and I liked that and I guess I got used to that, but ... I had a rotten day until you came along and since then it's been so nice and I had so much fun with you and ..." Bronn had to smile at her warmly while she chattered a little nervously at him. He knew that she wasn't a little child -- not even close. He also knew that she hated being forced to look cute on the instructions of this Monnie who had kept her, and it was something that she had to do to be able to live and eat. He got that. But she sometimes WAS a little cute in spite of herself, and in the oddest sort of way, he found that it appealed to him more every time that he saw it in her. So she needed someone to sleep with. He thought about his situation and he needed someone to sleep with as well. Maybe he could sleep properly then. She bent a little so that she could see him better in the low artificial cave entrance. "Would it be alright if I slept in there with you, Bronn? Humans always like to have somebody to sleep with, well if they have somebody they know and like them enough for that, and I think you must be the same, aren't you? I don't think I snore. Chan would have told me if I did, and she never said a word to me, ever and -- " "Just come here, Jayne," he groaned, "and bring your ... pillow there." She stopped then and blinked once. "Can I? You mean it?" He nodded with a small yawn, "Yes." She was beside him like a shot, placing her knapsack down and then she was in his arms, smiling with her eyes closed. It felt a little strange to him, but he liked the way that she was against him. She moved only once to get herself settled and then she was quiet, her soft breathing having a very calming effect on him almost at once. Bronn Qums had to smile as he willed his erection down. It steadfastly refused to obey him. Before he knew what to do or say, he felt Jayne's hand there, moving him underneath her as she carefully placed her leg over his waist and asked him if it was alright to do. He opened his eyes again and looked into hers then, liking what he saw in her shyness. "We'll figure this out tomorrow, alright?" she whispered, "Just tell it to be a good boy for tonight." She stretched up a little and kissed him on the lips softly for a long moment. "Thank you again, Bronn. We don't know anybody but each other and, ... well I think you're wonderful. I've been naked with you all evening and now I can't imagine us not being like this, so I kind of think we need each other." "I think you're right, Jayne," he whispered, "This feels better to me already and I don't mean because of --" "Shh," she whispered back, "I know. I think we ought to try to live like this if we can and take care of each other if it works, though right now, I can't imagine it not working. Can you?" He shook his head a little and told her that he really wanted this to work. The look that she returned to him made him sigh and then she placed her head against his throat and listened as her soft sigh escaped her. It felt so good to him. By the time that he'd processed that, he noticed the shift in her breathing. He had to smile at that and with a warm female in his arms, he closed his eyes and drifted off after her. -------------------------------- When Bronn awoke, he found Jayne still with him. He was on his back and she was lying on his chest, looking down a little at him with a soft sort of smile. It had been the best that she could do, though she'd really wanted to get a little more height for comfort. But doing that would have meant having more weight on him and she didn't want to disturb him by moving at all, so she settled for what she could get. "What are you doing?" he asked with a smile, and she smiled a little wider, "I'm just looking at you." She reached out and he felt her hand , "I really love your horns," she said slowly so that he'sd know that she'd meant it, "To me, you're beautiful, Bronn, and I've never used that word before in describing a man. I'm trying to imagine why humans always talk about demons looking evil or vile or something. I can't see it. I think they must have been talking about the other two kinds that I've seen, the nasty ones and the bigger, REALLY nasty ones." "But not me?" he asked, his smile not wavering. "No," she said, "To me, you look just as good as a handsome human man. If it wouldn't freak everybody out, I was just thinking that, well, it's a really nice feeling if a girl is out walking with her man, especially if they've just gotten started and everything. She feels a little proud, of course, but that's not all of it. She just feels ... good then. I'm probably not saying it right, but I wouldn't mind walking with you as you are right now, even though we're not more than a couple of friends. I don't think I'd care what anybody thought. It's just that some fool would run to get a bow to try to save me or some shit like that." "No, I understand," he said, "We are the same under those conditions. A male feels a little pride but it is mostly that they are together and can enjoy the day." He stretched a little and it suddenly came to him that he'd woken up hard and he was only just noticing it now because of course, he needed to pee, but there was something else. What he felt was a ... a comfortable erection, very warm and pleasant. He thought that his surprise must have shown in his face because Jayne nodded to him a little then. "That part of you has been up for a little longer," she smirked, "So when I felt that and saw that you were still sleeping, I sort of made a little room for it. I'm holding it between my legs. You don't need to worry about it at all. I'm keeping it warm until you decide to get up -- and probably pee. That's what Terry always had to do when he woke up." "Terry was --" "My husband," she nodded. "This is still the best shape for you?" he asked. She stared a little as she felt him shift and he was the human then. It made her laugh, "I wasn't expecting the way that I'd move along with you when you did that. I can't decide now, and the really weird thing is that I know that it's still you. But I'm still good either way, Bronn." The next thing was a little unsettling for her at first as she found herself lying on the much larger demon then. He was still under her looking up a little expectantly to hear her comment, "And now?" Jayne really laughed then, "You'd better stop, you know. Every time that you do that, I get moved a little and I'm really starting to like the way that this feels. I'm already doing my best not to rub on you as it is. We'd better get up and pee or I don't know what'll happen. I like you any way that you can be, I guess." She rolled off him carefully and asked why the floor was so soft. He shrugged, "In the caverns which this space is supposed to mimic, the floors are just hard smooth stone. I don't know how it was done, but the material here is softer, yet it is still seamless and they have put a drain here where the best caves have a hole somewhere. I guess that it must be that they thought that I would have to urinate in here. I found a small control here on the wall. It causes water to run, I guess to wash the floor. It's a nice thought that they had for my comfort, but why would I ever do that? As I said to you last night, that is a sexual aspect. To put this here for a male who is expected to be alone until he dies only shows their ignorance." He watched her hips sway as she went to use the strange appliance in the bathing area and afterwards, she fished through her sack, looking for the largest clothing that had any chance at all of fitting her, since they were going to go ashore. She saw it when he urinated, and she guessed that it must not be a very private thing for his kind of people to do. "Bronn, she said, "Help me out a little. I understood what you said last night about, ... well, about peeing. But it's not a sexual thing for you now, is it?" "No," he said, only realizing then what he was doing, "I've just thought of this and I'm very sorry." She chuckled, "it's ok, Bronn. I guess you're just comfortable with me. I was just asking because I saw you doing that. I'm not grossed out or anything. Besides," she smirked, "I wasn't lying. I think I really could look at you all day. I have seen a man do that, you know. I always thought that it was funny when I'd hear other girls talk about a man peeing and how it turned them off." She looked down then and grinned a little so he asked. "I was just remembering myself when I was just starting out with Terry. We went to look for a quiet place because we wanted to try fucking for the first time." She looked up at the ceiling and laughed, "I said two things to him that still embarrass me today to think about. We sat down on his bed side by side and I looked over and said, "Ok, make it hard." Bronn chuckled at that, nodding, "What was the second thing?" "Oh," she said, grinning by then, "I guess that I completed my display of ignorance then. As he moved to get on top of me after I was on my back, I had a worried thought and I guess my face must have shown it. He asked, and I sort of pleaded with him not to pee inside me." Bronn laughed then, "It cannot be done." She nodded, rolling her eyes, "Well I know that NOW..." She shook her head, still chuckling, "I guess that was when Terry knew that he had a real winner there under him. Of course, a little later, I had a wiener in me, so it was all good." She had to explain what that term meant and the two of them laughed together until the arrival of a message caused them to stop for a moment as Bronn went to read it. He came back then and held out one of the glass boards to Jayne. "It wasn't much more than an acknowledgement for the receipt of what I sent to them last night," he said, "and it also contained a letter to me from Jerrthi. She promises to send a few more, but she also sent something for you. " Jayne's ears perked up at that. "What did she send?" "Can you write as well as read?" When Jayne nodded, he passed his hand over the glass and the characters changed to English on the board, "I've put it on this for you. Just move your fingers over the touch pad at the end here and you can read it when you want to. Touch here and the nearest display will appear to show you. If you want to reply, then just ask me and I'll show you how to do that." Jayne nodded and tried to open the message. She found navigating this so very easy and intuitive that she was flying through in no time and had to remind herself that Jerrthi had sent her this to keep herself from boredom on a slow day. She saw that there were embedded video segments and there was also a box titled 'security'. Opening that, she found a brief message about setting a temporary password right away. With that done, Jayne opened a document titled 'personal' and after reading for a few moments, she closed it again, her eyebrows nearly up to her hairline. ------------------------------ They were off the coast near a little place called Cayucos before the dawn. When the first of the sun's rays spilled over the hills to the east, they were walking down the main drag together, a young and beautiful pair of humans looking for a place to have breakfast. Jayne felt a little ridiculous in stupidly tight clothing that didn't match, but it was the best that she could do, so ... Both of them were feeling better today, though Jayne caused a few dark clouds for a moment when she expressed her sadness for Bronn and Jerrthi again. "I feel as though I know her now -- at least a little. I want better things for the few people that I know." "I'm still sad, Jayne," he said, "but there is nothing that can be done about it. I cried whenever I went to bed on the way here and my wish is that Jerrthi finds someone else for herself and stops weeping for me as though I was already dead. I have a hope that he be someone who lives outside of the ever-watchful gaze of the government." He looked out to sea at nothing there as he continued, "And I hope that he gives her young. Jerrthi always wanted to have many little ones, since there are so few of us left." He blinked then as though there was something in his eye, "Even one less than before, with me here." "How long will you be able to use your home before it fails?" she asked him, "You said that it will fail after a while, right?" "About two years of this time," he replied, "maybe a little longer. It depends on how cheap we are with things like lights and travel. But it won't fail all at once and there will be signs and warnings beforehand. Why?" "I just wanted to know how long I had to teach you about living here," she said. "What is this beverage?" he asked, "I find that I like it very much." "It's coffee," she grinned, "It doesn't cost much. We only need to buy a small bag of the ground kind, and we'd need a pot and a strainer to make it. Then, a little sugar and some of your powdered milk and you can have that whenever you like. I'd make it for you if you show me how to work the way that you heat food." They'd been sitting very close together so that their conversation stood a better chance at not being overheard. Jayne looked over of a moment and then she kissed his cheek softly. A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 54 "What was that for?" he smiled. "I just felt like doing that, and I also want you to know that I feel for you and Jerrthi." They paid for their meal and left, looking for things for Jayne. As soon as they'd made her first purchases, she dumped everything that she'd been wearing into her 'hoppy sack' as she called the knapsack which she carried with her. She was so pleased to be able to wear some of the things that he'd bought her out of the store. Jayne knew that she wasn't anything to anybody, but really, she felt as though she only wanted to be everything to Bronn, though she doubted that they could be more than friends. She'd felt the earnest compliment from Jerrthi and she was a little proud to have it said about her by such a beautiful creature. But she knew one thing beyond all doubt. As of right now, she was so done with cute. When they'd found another store which was open, Bronn found himself alone as Jayne was off getting the food that they'd decided on so that they could stretch what his ship had in supplies. He was amazed, actually. To him, walking into a place like this was a little overwhelming. There were goods of every description, and he knew that he'd likely never find what he wanted without having to ask someone. Yet Jayne flitted everywhere as though she knew the layout of the store somehow, even though she'd never seen the place before. As he watched, he suddenly noticed that he had three females in front of him. It was a little unnerving, since he wasn't really prepared for it, though he did his best. It was just that his preparations for this had assumed that he'd be moving through throngs of people, not really interacting with them this much. Some of their questions were a little pointed, such as where he was from. He'd asked very politely why the one who had asked him this wanted to know and she told him that she knew everyone in the area and she knew that they were strangers right off. Bronn was a little stuck then, but Jayne saved him as she came back, having heard some of the talk and knowing the way that humans tend to listen in on the conversations of others. "Hi," she said as she walked up with a shopping basket full of the things that they needed to purchase, "I'm Jayne and this is my husband, Bronn." A different woman smiled, "You're new here aren't you? Peggy was just asking where you live and -- " "Oh, we're just passing through on our way back from Oakland, "She smiled brightly, "We're on our honeymoon and heading home to Lozenjellis, but it's such a nice town here. I was just thinking that we ought to look into staying here. Not right away or anything, since we both have jobs in the city. But it's so nice here and all that I was kind of having the thought, you know?" A few more minutes of idle chatter and they were away, headed for the front counter. Bronn was astounded. "How did you do that?" he asked, "I was really stuck there, not wanting to say the truth." "Well, you'll need to learn a little of the art of small talk," she smiled at him, "for now though, you've got the perfect teacher in m-" "My wife?" he smiled down and she smirked, "Well that's a nice thought, I think. I'll just keep that one floating in my little head for a while if it's ok with you, honey." She'd purposely dragged out the last word and Bronn had to grin then. And of course, she had to ask why. He looked away as he answered, "You are not alone in wanting to hold nice thoughts, Jayne." She was mindful of the fact that Bronn didn't have bottomless pockets and so she only bought things that she knew they needed. Like a few forks, and a cheap coffeepot, along with a bag of roasted, ground coffee. Even so, there were a couple of items ... He looked at her when she placed a hair brush, a small and elegant straight razor on the counter as well as a cheap clay mug and a puck of shaving soap along with a shaving brush and one small mirror. She leaned in close to him and whispered, "I happen to know that most people like what you look like aren't as hairy as the average blonde person. Some don't need to shave at all. Even as you were last night, I could see that you don't have any hair on you other than your head and eyebrows. You don't really have to shave, do you?" "No," he said, "so what's this fo-" "Shh," she grinned, "Please allow me this. I promise that we're almost done." She amazed him again when she began to haggle with the clerk over the prices and she was successful in getting the costs of a few things lowered. But then the clerk caught them off guard in the nest instant. "I heard you say that you came from Oakland," she said, "You must have left before the massacre." "Huh?" Jayne asked as she tried to show some ignorance of recent events, "What massacre? Where? We left late yesterday afternoon." "We've been hearing reports from some people who just left that there was a huge killing in the old stadium there. There have been plenty of them all around here in the bigger places. Huge flocks of large demons show up and then they kill everyone, I've heard." "We don't know much about them, and we didn't know about last night. We rode all night, so we must have just been behind the folks you were talking with. I guess it's a good thing that we left when we did then. There have been a couple around Lozenjellis, but I've never seen one," Jayne said , with just the proper look of horror on her pretty face. They walked off down the road and after less than a block, he felt her hand seeking to find his. She hoped that she wouldn't need to explain it to him, but she felt a little pride to be seen with a man like him. As they headed down the hill toward the docks, there was a shout from behind them and as she turned, she saw a large wagon, pulled by two large draft horses. They were galloping in their haste to stay ahead of the wagonload of beer casks on the wagon behind them. The driver was trying manfully to stay with them as they thundered past, though it had been his shout which had warned Bronn and Jayne. Bronn pulled Jayne up off her feet and across in front of him. He sidestepped a little more to keep her out of harm's way and she laughed a little to find herself in his arms again. "I want you to know that I do enjoy this ," she grinned, "but let's not make a habit out of this all the same. Thank you again, Bronn." The wagon finally ran out of hill and the driver got it stopped on the flats farther down to everyone's relief, the bar patrons included, and Bronn and Jayne walked off along the sand of the beach until they were out of sight. Unseen by anyone, he shifted and looked down at her from where he towered over her. "I need to pee again," she said, "How do I do that so that it's not ... you know?" "It wouldn't be," he smiled a little to put her at ease, "Where I am from, the one who must do that finds a place and moves a little dirt. Then they do what they need to and use the dirt to cover what was done to hide the scent of it from any followers who might be searching for a meal by killing them. The other one of the pair stays a little near and keeps watch so that they are not surprised. But it is not what you are thinking, Jayne." "Well good," she smiled as she walked off the beach into the grass, trying to find a suitable bush or shrub. She did find one, and after a moment, he heard her slightly sarcastic comment, "because there's not a lot of feeling comfortable and safe for me right here, you know." They were gone a moment later, flying off to sea and as they neared the place, his ship rose out of the water a little to meet them and they boarded before it sank below the waves once more. -------------------------- They stood side by side with her holding onto his waist as they looked at a feed from one of the satellites. It showed the ruin of the stadium quite clearly, with qualms of thick smoke rising here and there out of it. "Why would the demons start those fires?" she asked. "They didn't unless something was knocked over to start one," he said, "I have seen this kind of thing before now. The fires are started by other humans to burn the bodies. They search through and seek for survivors. They burn the dead to prevent the spread of disease." "But the demons never leave anyone alive," Jayne said, "They even look for survivors themselves just to kill them." "I know, " he replied sadly, "But those humans there do not know this. I worry for what will happen when they have gone through all of the stadiums." -------------------- Jayne found Bronn as he worked to practice the arts that he was claiming for his use in a lot of amazement. She watched what looked to her to be some form of rather deadly gymnastics as he practised, covered in a film of his sweat. The purpose of it and worse, the need that he do it was terrible to her, but she was a little thankful for the chance to see it. His body was amazing to her, she decided. She'd never seen any human with the sort of muscles that moved over him under that perfect skin of his. It had quite an effect on her, really. Well it also helped the effect on her that he did it all while naked, she supposed with a little smile. She watched as he shifted and began to try to expand on what he knew so that it could be applied equally in all three of his shapes. Jayne even knew why it was necessary to him. Well, she supposed that she knew. The three shapes were all different sizes and she guessed that it must affect his balance or weight distribution or something like that. When she'd first seen him and didn't know anything about him, what he'd done was to rely on his weapons from a short distance. She guessed that now he was working to establish his balance and familiarity in the other shapes so that he could do the same things with the others from close-in. He hadn't seen her and he didn't even look, but it was almost in answer to her thoughts when she saw him begin yet another round in the form of the larger demon. She watched his sweat pour from him as he drove himself even harder. Jayne walked away then because she had to. It hit her just how much she did like all three forms of Bronn now. She snorted to herself a little as she walked. Before now, she'd have been deliriously happy to have a male who possessed only one body like any of the ones that he had to choose from. It brought her to a stop right then. What - really -- did she have here? The answer to that was instant. She had made a friend and she looked forward to expanding that as they grew more familiar with each other. Since she didn't really know anyone anymore other than Bronn, she supposed that it might be said in truth that he was her best friend as well as her only one. She knew how this would go if it had to. Jayne was a female and these were at best, uncertain times to be a female. She'd been grabbed and assaulted a couple of times herself when Terry hadn't been around to protect her. She thought about it and remembered that almost every single girl that she knew had similar experiences. It just came out of living in cramped conditions such as in an old stadium. Sure, Terry had settled with the asshole who had grabbed her the first time, killing him, but at what cost? She'd still been roughed up and had her clothing torn and she'd still had to submit and be pumped full of the goo from a walking human asshole. None of that had changed. Terry had come home looking more like the loser in the exchange. She'd even said nothing to him of one attack that she'd lived through. The bastard was huge and he stayed close to a lot of his friends. What would come out of her mentioning it to Terry back then? He'd only have died sooner, that was all. Her thoughts went to Bronn and she smiled. The simple truth was that in the worst case, she'd do as countless generations of females had always done and make her body available to the one male who would protect her. It was about all that she had, and she wouldn't really mind, not with him. A girl like her could do a lot worse in a male. But she found a small hope within herself that the two of them might have something more. She knew that she already cared for him a great deal. She just ... She hated the thought. She just would have wanted for him to not have to have been taken away from what he'd had with Jerrthi. As it was, Jayne felt a little as though she was stealing another girl's man. She'd never done that before in her life and never would, she guessed. But then she smiled a little at what they might have even still. Jayne decided then. It had been her plan to remain cautious and never declare to herself what she knew - that he wasn't hers -- that his heart didn't belong to her. Well, fuck it, she thought, that boy is the best that a girl like me will ever get. He might always pine for Jerrthi and I'm sorry for that, but I'm the one who's here. I'm the one who will take care of him. She decided that she'd make an effort to love him at some point anyway. That was what friendship was in a form. That was what she'd make do with. She sat down then and reached for the glass tablet. In moments she was re-reading what Jerrthi had written for her, only this time, she was slow about it. The message suffered from the occasional error. Jayne had no way to know, but the translational filters weren't absolutely perfect, though it did come to her that when one language was translated to another, then it had to happen that sometimes there might be things lost in that. The heading of the document contained a lot of coding that she knew nothing of, and there were errors in the body of it, though mostly, she could figure out what had been intended by Jerrthi. She read on after a deep breath, still not quite believing what she'd thought that she'd seen earlier in the day. "My distant friend, I have been so crushed by what has happened to Bronn and myself. I am sorry for needing to close the path when we saw each other. It grew to be too much for me then. You are very lovely to my eyes. The hardness of what I must face over this continues to hurt me. But now I rejoice a little to know that my male is not alone where he was sent. I make an assumption here and if I am incorrect, then please forgive me. As I saw it, there could be a possibility that Bronn will not be alone there if you have each other to care for and with a little luck, it might grow into love as well if I have my wish. With this in my mind, I have prepared something so that you might know what a male of our kind is like. He would need to learn of your kind as well, of course, but I have my hope that you meet with success. I first met Bronn while on a recreative journey period from my work. I went to one of the places which are preserved in an area where our dwindling kind were once plentiful. I took part in a transaction to rent a room there in a traveler section which allows pairs of people to go and live as our kind once did there and the facilities are kept for that purpose. I did not go there with anyone. I went alone to feel what it was like there. I had decided long ago that I would either find a male of the correct kind for me, or I would remain unpaired. What happened was the finest fortune to us both. Bronn had made a transaction with the same establishment and for the same chamber. It was an error which surprised us all, even the ones who ran the place. In one moment, I knew that I'd found the one for me in Bronn. We mated only minutes later and this is something which almost never happens for us, our kind, being cautious in everything as we are. But it cannot go on quite clearly, since he is there and I am here, and from what I know, he can never come back to me. If you find that you want someone such as him, then I tell you that you cannot make a better choice, Jayne. You should know that our habits and ways are not like most of the people here and I must assume that they are not like your own to some extent. Rather than try to explain each one, I send pictures of ones like us as they mate and it is my hope that the meaning is a little clear. I also sent picture of Bronn and myself when we mated in the same place the next cycle, since we always returned to where we first met. You and I are both females. I wish that you see and understand. Communications between Bronn and I must be brief, but if there is something -- anything which you need of me, then I want to help you both. Jerrthi" At that point, Jayne had to set the glass board down on the table as she ran for the washing chamber for the towel to wipe her eyes. She felt even worse now. But she did watch the videos intently, seeking to see what had been meant. She saw demons like Bronn as they lived what looked to be simple lives, and in other scenes, she could see that both genders had been something like murderous spies in the ways which they'd been employed far in their past. Other than that aspect, she saw people living and loving the same as humans, pretty much and raising their children. Her eyes opened wider as she began to watch one which had Bronn and Jerrshi in it. They were talking, mostly, but it was the way that they did it which was a little singular. Jayne had been correct in her assumptions about Jerrthi's size. She looked to be very close to her own stature in the scenes where they were walking or doing anything where they stood together. Jayne liked seeing that and thought that they made a really nice couple. She saw them eat together and afterward, Bronn sat down in the little cave and Jerrthi came to him to sit on his thigh while they shared some form of drink. It caused Jayne to smile, wondering if it was the beer that she'd tasted. As she watched, she saw Jerrthi reach for his hand and place it over her mound while they shared a kiss and then she reached for that nice piece of him that she hoped to get better acquainted with herself. Jayne stared a little as the two of them just continued to talk and kiss, all while petting each other. She wondered how it could be done. Anytime that she'd been like that with somebody such as Chan or Terry, it was only the start and they moved on rather quickly after that part. But the two Grotto Dwellers just sat there and enjoyed each other so much. Jayne thought about it again and hoped that she could hold off as long as Jerrthi could. She watched Jerrthi closely, liking her so much and marveling at her beauty. Putting something like this together for somebody else to watch and worse -- knowing that the somebody else might now or soon want to own her male's fine heart must have absolutely killed the girl in this scene. She watched a little farther on as Jerrthi was on her back before Bronn, still working his shaft languidly and still enjoying the way that his hand and fingers worked her as they talked together. Jayne seriously doubted if Terry could have done it. He'd always been a little like a firecracker in bed. It took nothing to get is fuse lit and then there was the bang and he was done. What she saw that Bronn was like made her want to run over to where he was right now and ... Well, it did, she thought to herself. Then she saw it -- or thought that she did. She stopped the stream and got off the chair to move it a little closer to the screen. When she re-started it from where she'd backed it up, she almost stood up to peer at the display which hung there in the room. The display moved then and Jayne looked up to see Bronn smiling at her. "You do not have to do anything difficult to make watching easier," he said, "Here. Is this better?" Jayne nodded, wanting to say something, needing to feel as though she wasn't some kind of pervert, but Bronn just walked to pour himself a drink of water and then he turned to go back to where he'd been. A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 55 ***I hate having to 'splain stuff because it usually means that I didn't make something clear. But I hate having to read it in the comments that I've left a reader in the dust over something that is not clear even more, so hopefully without spoiling this for others, there is a small time shift in this chapter. Small, in that it involves only one character, but it's there, so if you're wondering how this seems to tie in as you read, keep reading and you'll see what I mean. 0_o ---------------- Book of the Forsaken Part 10 While Jerrthi struggled a little over what she felt in Xhan's embrace and whether she wanted it, other little vignettes played themselves out in another system far away. Off the coast of California, under about four hundred feet of cold Pacific Ocean, Jayne lay on her back with her legs drawn up, smiling as Bronn fucked her slowly. In a park in Oakland, Monnie looked up a little helplessly at the powerful demon who was doing the same thing to her, but out of vengeance and the way that he drew from her in it. She wasn't smiling at all, though the large demons who watched it from all around them did. But it was to the south -- a fair distance - that a different scene entirely played itself out. ------------------------------- He raised his head wearily and shook it, partly to see if the action would help in getting clear thoughts to come and partly just to get his hair out of his bleary and tired eyes. He needed sleep and that was apparently what he'd been doing for a while now, but lying in ancient filth was no way to get it- in his book, anyway. All of his limbs ached and every little move seemed to be taken by his appendages as some sort of tacit permission to tell him of each little strain and scrape. He suddenly realized that the unexpected little nap that he'd just awoken from had cost him his hold on the passage of time -- he'd fallen asleep from exhaustion and had no real idea about how long he'd been lying here. The torch lying on the floor in front of him still burned but that was no indicator. He'd seen and used several now in his travels through this ages-old subterranean burial heap and it occurred to him that he hadn't seen one of them sputter out yet. They just seemed to burn on indefinitely. Well they seemed to, as long as you didn't drop them down a shaft accidentally. He looked around with a groan in response to the aches of his body. The rubble and debris of the cave-in was still there behind him. All that there was for him in terms of travel possibilities was to go forward and that was the trouble. He could see down the corridor up ahead. It was clear and even better, it was clean. Well, at least it looked to be cleaner than where he was now. But that was on the other side of the mirror -- or membrane there up ahead. It was like looking at something a little like a vertical puddle. There were ripples visible in that surface sometimes. He told himself that he still didn't know what that meant as he sat back against the wall to take stock. He only knew that it likely wasn't a good thing. Darji. He smirked as the sound of it seemed to echo in his mind. Darji Saladin. That was his name, or it had been once. Now? What good was a name anymore? A name was a set of written or printed words or they could be a series of spoken sounds used to indicate the identity of a single person within a group of people. That was when it came to him. That was what he'd lost in all of this. He was no longer one of a group of individuals. He was one. And being only one and aside from the unholy trinity of 'me-myself-and-I', there was no need to have a name anymore, was there? He pulled out a crust of hardtack bread and began to chew on it a little thoughtfully, trying to make it last, needing to mislead his stomach into thinking that this was a lot of food when it was little more than a crust. He shook his water bottle. Pretty light for what had been a full canteen a few days ago, part of a set of four. He reached for the cargo pocket on his left pant leg. Still one full plastic canteen there, but he didn't want to drink it unless he couldn't find any more good water. He'd filled it up from a stone trough a ways and a few days back. It had looked ok there, though that didn't mean much down here, he supposed. He pulled it out anyway and opened it. Passing it under his nose told him that it couldn't have been too bad after all since it now smelled like the polyethylene of the canteen. That was why he liked the metal ones, he told himself as he fished in his little kit for the tablet pairs which would purify the water. He'd always thought the term 'purifying' sounded just a little hopeful. They were in blister packs in sets of two; the first tablet was tetraglycine hydroperiodide and the second one was a lot tastier -- even though it was just about as bitter to the tongue. He dropped the iodine tablet inside and shook it before setting the water bottle down to allow the required thirty minutes for it to work. He sat back a little as he waited, thinking of little more than how miserable he seemed to be able to get these days. When he'd judged the time to have elapsed, he opened the bottle again and added the second part - ascorbic acid -- good old Vitamin C. The iodine killed most of whatever microscopic bugs might have been swimming around in there and the ascorbic acid forced the iodine to settle out as a precipitate. He followed that with the contents of a pouch of drink flavoring. He didn't like using the stuff but it got rid of both the plastic taste as well as the bitterness of the iodine, plus, it also contained Vitamin C, so he figured that with a bit of luck, he might starve to death lost down here where he was, but at least his teeth wouldn't fall out from scurvy. He screwed the cap back on tightly and shook the thing half-heartedly to mix things up in there before he slid it back into the cargo pocket. He made a silent promise to himself that if he ever got out of this, he'd never touch the 'Goofy Grape' flavor ever again. There had been a time, about a year back now, he guessed, when it had been a good thing to be Darji Saladin. He was the sole and very spoiled offspring of a very successful pair of people and he'd grown up with anything and everything that he'd wanted. He realized now that his life had been very jaded and superficial. Cars, clothes, booze, and of course, the women who had just naturally been attracted to him and the trappings of a wealthy young socialite from a rich family. His father had been a merchant and his lovely mother was a successful and popular author of archeologically-based historical romances. He supposed that his mother was to blame to some extent for the way that he was. Or perhaps he ought to think of what he'd gotten as a gift. He decided that it was a better way to look at it. He knew that back home, he'd been very attractive to the fairer sex. He smirked at that thought. To him back then, the fairer sex was about anyone who interested him sexually. It had been a while, but there had been a time when he'd seemed to go first one way and then the other in his mating selection process, whatever it was. He'd admit nothing to most people, but in his heart, he'd admitted that he was bisexual and he liked that. He'd actually been surprised when he'd found out as an adolescent that there was a name for it. He'd just always either been attracted to someone or not. Mostly, it was 'not' since by his own admission, you can't fuck everybody. Well, not at the same time. As far as mating was concerned, he only sought females when the mood was on him and he was presented with one of uncommon beauty. He rarely went after other guys. Most of his liaisons that way had been with men who had obviously been attracted to him. So for one gender, he'd hunted a little half-heartedly and for the other he'd let the hopefuls come to him. Yessir, he thought with a smile, it had been a good thing to be Darji. Darji had sometimes gone either way, but on the whole, with another man, he was a top. In fact, the only relationship that he'd ever had that he'd admit to being deep at all had been with a friend of his, and they'd known each other since childhood. Once that had begun, they'd spent days just fucking. The two of them had drifted apart a little after a while, but they'd gotten together on and off for two years when they could -- even while one of them or sometimes both had been in relationships with women. He sighed as he remembered the day that Tony had come to him to say that he was getting married and that he and Cindy were moving to the East coast. They'd called each other and texted for a while, but it had finally faded out. He knew Tony so well and wondered how long it would be until the end of that marriage. Then again, he smirked, who was he to say? Maybe they were going strong and had never looked back. As long as they were happy, he thought. He thought back to his mother again. His hair was dark and straight like hers and his even white teeth and his ability to reason in a sort of off-beat way had been gifts from her was well. His education at her hands was still a priceless thing to him even now. Even as a tot, she'd taken him along on her frequent trips to research her novels. Hell, he'd been inside more tombs than most professors working in the field by the time that he'd turned ten. But those days were gone now. Well, other than the oversized tomb that he was presently in, he supposed. All that he could say that he'd gotten from his father was his ability to take a fair bit of punishment and not show the effects of it too much. He sighed as he remembered. There was that other fine quality that he'd been given by his father's DNA donation. He could be a stubborn, tenacious bastard if the mood was on him. When he'd hit his older teens, he'd been more interested in getting pleasantly drunk and laid to want to accompany his mother much for a time and his father didn't really give a rat's ass about anything but the rush of the next huge business deal. After he'd come of age, it all turned around. Darji would have said that he'd just grown up a little. After a very unsuccessful stint at a college, Darji went to work doing something that he was amazingly adept at -- arranging the logistics and travel for his mother's trips. He handled everything from her book tour appearances to her research ventures, making sure that she was where she needed to be along with everything necessary to allow her to do what she'd come for. Her writing output soared as did their income, since they'd formed a company to be able to do it all. But there was still some of the closeness of the bond that he'd shared with his mother and they did go on one research trip to Morocco together that spring not long before his National Guard unit went on its summer exercises . From his present vantage point it was one of his most cherished memories of his beautiful mother. They could and did talk about anything together. He remembered sitting with her on the top of a rocky outcropping to await the sundown together one evening. He had his arm around her, holding a light blanket there against the wind which already carried the warning of the chill that it would hold later on that night and she leaned against him. They were talking about the fact that he didn't seem to be interested in any one girl for very long. "I'm not saying that you ought to find a steady girl yet," she'd said, "it's just that there seems to be a constant stream of young women in and out of your life. From my viewpoint, it all makes me feel a little uncomfortable to tell you the truth. I never know what to say on the rare occasion when I meet one. Do I just try to look interested when I want to tell her that she shouldn't get too comfortable, or what? Do you see what I mean?" He nodded, chuckling a little to give her the point, "I dunno, Mom. It's like they're all the same, though they look different. As soon as I really get to know one of them, I can already tell what she's like and they all seem to be reading from the same script. I almost know what they'll say next after a while." She'd laughed herself then, "Well I do know that you're having a bit of fun and I'm even able to tell myself that you're being careful, at least." Darji had turned his head then, "Oh yeah? How would you know?" "Because the maid always complains to me about emptying the wastebaskets in your rooms and the number of condoms that she finds in them, that's how," she'd laughed, "I just tell her to mind her business and do her job. The stupid thing is that I almost feel a little proud in a slightly naughty way." She reached around to the far side of his face to hold it against her own as they looked out at the sun sliding lower over the horizon, "It's a hell of a thing for a woman like me to realize that the sexiest man that she's ever seen in her life is her own son. If I was more of an alley cat, I'd entertain delicious thoughts of doing something amazing and highly incestuous with you. By the way, is there anyone among the interns who catches your eye or is that a stupid question? Maybe I ought to ask how many out of the six of them you've bedded." "Four," he sighed, looking off into the distance, "but then we've only been here a fortnight so far. And hey, fair's fair. See any of the male ones that you like?" She'd looked at the horizon then and heaved a sigh of her own, "Oh, all of them, but I'm not telling you all of my secrets. We can talk about it when I'm in the retirement home and need some cheering up." There had been a silence between them for a minute or two and then Darji asked something which had been on his mind for a while. "Dad's not my father, is he?" His mother didn't blink. That was the way that she was -- the way that they were, he supposed. "What makes you say that?" she asked him. "Any number of things," he replied, knowing now that he'd been correct, "There isn't one feature in common between us. I'm not built anything like him. I don't sound like him. He hasn't even got fatty remnants of the muscles of his youth in the places where I've got them. You know, just little things. You've both got brown eyes and mine are blue. You and he are Middle Eastern and I look like a coverboy for Caucasian Ladies Home Journal. Inconsequential stuff, mostly." "Whenever we get back," she smiled as she ran her fingertips over the ridges of callouses on his muscular hands, "you ought to look up the Sexy Son Syndrome." He blinked then and turned to her, "They've got a fucking name for it? Holy shit..." "It's an unconscious part of the selection process for most women," she said, "A woman recognizes the features and traits which attracted her to a particular male in the first place. It's natural that she'd want her child to have those same traits -- to be just as successful a male as that one or just as lovely as their genes can make a girl, if that's the case. Can you see that?" "Yeah," he nodded, "Go on." "Well," she smiled, "we live in a complicated time. Traits which would be sure indicators of a desirable man in the long ago past don't work so well today. For example, the man who fathered you was hard and lean, shaped that way by his hard life. It might have worked to choose him as a protector when all that was needed in a man was a willingness to work on the land to keep his family fed. But I didn't want to be that farm wife on a dustbowl farm. I wanted better -- a home where I could raise my little boy and where I could express myself in my writings while living comfortably. So I needed a less masculine male, somebody who would be a good 'dad'. When your father and I began to date, the man who fathered you was already just over the horizon on his way to the next rodeo and looking to make some prize money. As much as I ached to have a man like that, I knew that I'd always be just one of the women that a man like that stops by to see for a place to heal up from his last face-plant in the dust while he fucks me and thinks that it's all that I'd ever need from him. So I chose life with a man who gets his biggest chubby when he's making money and I'd let him think that he was the greatest stud in the world so that I could have the life that you and I would need. Happy now?" Darji just sat for a moment, thinking. Then he turned and smiled, "Yeah. Thanks for settling that for me." "Don't mention it," she said, leaning her head against him, "He got his trophy wife and I got my sexy son and a place to raise him." His thoughts came back to himself and it caused him to wonder if his mother had known about the side of his sexuality that he'd kept from her. Looking back now, he thought that her question about the interns might well have been a test -- a thin baited line tossed in front of him to either take or let alone. If she'd ever asked him about it as a direct question, he'd have admitted to her that yes, he did sometimes feel attracted to other men and if it was mutual, he'd act on it. She'd never asked him directly and so that time, he'd let it go past when he'd made his remark, but now -- afterward, ... By the time that they'd prepared to return to the states, Darji had been to bed with all of the girls and three of the six guys. They'd both laughed themselves to their knees in the kitchen at home one Saturday when it had come up and they'd compared notes. It was almost the same score from the other side of things; Bahira Saladin had made out with all of the men and two of the girls. He didn't mention the men that he'd been to bed with. Again, she hadn't asked. Not long before Darji left for his summer duty, his mother had come home from the post office one day with an artifact -- a little sealed jar that looked more like a fertility charm, carved out of soft stone which seemed to be strangely lightweight if one held it in one's hand. Darji guessed that it had been the huge and garish hips on the thing along with the protruding breasts that had kept him needing to pick it up whenever he saw it. When he'd asked about it his mother had smirked and told him to stop massaging the thing or it would become polished in a rather obscene way. "It was sent to me from Mexico, from a Toltec ruin known as Tula that's mostly a tourist trap these days but once upon a time, it was a serious archeological site," his mother said, "Of course, there's the tourist's entrances for the guided tours, and then there's the ... well, let's call them the secret entrances around the backs of the temples. They're harder to find, but there is still a religious function to the place and so it's still used in this regard. I think I know the woman who sent this, too. She goes by the name Esma and she's one of the local, um, witches, you might say, though I don't know why she'd have sent it to me specifically." Darji had hefted the thing once and noted that it seemed to have something inside it which felt to him as though it was partly filled with water or some liquid. He said nothing as he set it back onto her desk and that had been the end of it to his mind. He'd just gotten home a few weeks later from his summer stint with the state National Guard the day that his world had ended. He was only there because his father had told him that a couple of years of duty would look good on his CV. Darji didn't mind it much; it was usually fun in a way and it offered him a way to challenge his body a little. He knew that the real reason that his father had made the suggestion was so that he'd get off his ass once in a while and have a reason to leave the house for more than the time it took to buy more booze or get blasted over at the houses of his friends. Darji didn't know if it was what his father had intended, but he'd gotten to know other young people there and most of them didn't come from especially affluent homes or lifestyles. In fact, Darji found that his background made it harder to fit in there and be taken seriously. He'd actually found it more difficult to gain the acceptance of those around him. He struggled with it at first until he realized that he was enjoying how it forced him to strive harder. He was taken far more seriously and made friends a lot more easily if he elected to keep his background something of a secret and the friends that he made there seemed to be worth a lot more to him somehow because of it. To him, it felt as though he'd had to earn the respect that he was accorded and that made it more worthwhile. A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 55 He'd taken up fencing a few years before that, and found it too tame for his taste. But with a little research and a lot of asking around, Darji had found a place where he could actually learn to fight with swords in several styles and it wasn't anything much like fencing. He'd liked it far better that way. It gave his shpulders and arms a needed push in their development. He'd liked the men that he'd met there far better as well. He remembered walking into the house that afternoon and noticing right away how strangely quiet it was. As he'd walked through it, he hadn't seen one member of the usual summer staff in evidence. Finally, he'd walked into his mother's office, the sanctum sanctorum from which she'd unleashed so many best-sellers. The place was a mess, with his mother's things, books, and manuscripts, everything looking as though it had been thrown around -- as though someone had been looking for something. When he'd turned around to look at the other side of the room, what he'd seen had stopped his heart. The body of his father was there -- more or less, and beyond that there was the first of the membranes that he'd ever seen, stretched vertically over the entrance to his mother's extensive library. He could see through it to some degree, though that seemed to vary somewhat. On the other side of it he could see his mother. She was nude and she looked to be asleep. He hoped that was what it was and that there was still life there as he looked from her to the remains of his father and back. He supposed that he ought to feel a bit more for his father, but he found it difficult for some reason. He'd been so much closer to his mother all of his life. They'd always been able to talk frankly with each other. That was the way that she'd raised him. She opened her eyes then and he supposed that she saw him, though she also seemed to be almost torpid compared to her usual liveliness. She raised her head and looked around herself carefully before crawling toward him very slowly and beckoning him to come closer. When he did, she began to whisper. "I'm sorry that you had to see this," she said softly, "It's been so long since your father and I have had anything physical between us. He's always had his little flings and ... well I guess I've never minded it so much, since they kept him from pestering me at all. I wanted to have a child so that I could tell myself that I was complete as a woman." Darji shook his head, "What happened here, Mom? Are you alright? You're babbling a little." She sighed tiredly, "For the moment, I guess that I'm ok. They bring me things to eat every now and then. I was trying to read up on the little statuette and as I did, I found that I felt a little more um, ... hornier, I guess. I mean even more than I usually am. I found that there is an incantation on the bottom of the statue. I worked out the translation and practised reading it out loud. One time, as I said the last word, there was a flash and this hazy thing was here, stretched over the doorway. As I got up to look at it, three things came running through. They grabbed me and, ... well, ... you might say that they gave me my wish, though it scared the hell out of me at first. Your father came to try to pull me out and they ... they just killed him and dragged me back in here with them again. They all take turns with me and they come back about twice a day for more. It's been going on for a few days now." "Grab my hand, Mom. I'll get you out of there." Darji had said in a determined way, since that was how he felt, but she shook her head emphatically. "No you won't," she told him, "They'll come back and kill you as well. I want you to get as far away from here as you can and never come back. I won't lose you to them the way that I lost your father. If you did manage to pull me through, they'd just come after you then. They own me now -- or that's the way that they feel about it. If I wasn't so well-screwed, I might be a little angry with that witch Esma. As it is, I suppose that I ought to thank her if I could." She smiled with an expression which was a mixture of both a little shame and a lot of admission. "Besides," she said, "It's not like they're exactly hurting me, is it? And to tell you the truth, each one of them is a lot better in the sack than any man that I've ever had -- and I can say that I've had a good few, so I know what I'm talking about. But still, I think I can even count my blessings here. Now go on and leave, Darji. You can't pull me through without them noticing. That's what your father did and it only made them mad. You can't save me and the truth be told, I like it in here with them. So go now. Maybe we'll meet up again, but I don't want to risk losing you to a foolish male thought. You're no match for one of them and they come in threes, now go, please, before they come back." He hadn't wanted to leave her there, but her pleas just became more emphatic that he leave her there. Darji left then, very reluctant and confused about it all and he came back the next day armed to the teeth and even more determined to pull his mother out of there, but it did neither of them any good. The body of his father was gone by then, dragged back in through the membrane. His mother didn't look so happy now, either. They were eating her dead husband right in front of her, and just as Darji thought that he could stomach it all long enough to start shooting, three more of the things appeared in there and all hell broke loose. Darji couldn't make any sense of it at the time, he'd just watched dumfounded as the three newcomers -- who were all female - began to beat the crap out of the ones who'd been there when he'd come. That done, they all turned on his mother and tore her apart in an instant before beginning to pound on the first three all over again. Darji didn't even have time to react. It all took less than a minute, but the females barked and yelled and drove the males away and then left after them. Not one of them had noticed hin there on his knees. Darji blinked through his tears as he looked at the body of his mother. He was about to run through the membrane, but as he hefted his pump-action shotgun, the membrane quivered and snapped into nothingness. It was gone, pure and simple, and in its wake there stood his mother's library. The office looked like a tornado had been through it, but the library nook was just as it had always been and nothing had been disturbed. Darji picked up the 'fertility statue', grabbed a very few articles of clothing from his rooms and he took his favorite curved fighting blades and he left. Two days later, he bought a Chevy Avalanche with his father's Amex card and headed south, stopping to gather more supplies as he went. It was stupid, he'd thought to himself as he drove. The things on the other side of that pale layer of ether looked as though they were demons or something. Whatever they'd been, he was sure that there was nothing like them on this side which occurred naturally. It took him days of meandering travel, staying off the major routes in case the local cops thought that he'd had anything to do with the mess back at home, but after a time, he figured out what it had been that he'd seen. Whatever those things had been, they all belonged in some way to a female of the same kind. Those females were a little smaller than the males, but once they'd figured out that their males were all off fucking somebody else -- his mother -- they'd come loaded for bear. Well, he thought, he was on his way to Tula now and if nothing else, he was going to settle with this Esma witch, if that was what she was. It had happened just about that way, too. He'd found Esma after she'd led him a merry chase deep inside one of the tombs and after cornering her and hearing that she had no real explanation and shown no remorse when he'd informed her that his mother had died because of her 'gift', he'd pushed her back against a wall and it was then that he'd heard it. Esma was angry about being jilted. Furious that she'd given her heart to the lovely woman who had come to study and research -- and then left, Esma had corked something and sent it on for her vengeance. She railed and Darji had stood with tears in his eyes as he listened to her tortured keening and self-pitying cries. He admitted to himself that he could feel her pain and loss. But he also felt his own. He blew her away then and walked out. But it had led him to find more of whatever sort of witch that she'd been and he almost set up a for-hire witch-slaying business there for a little while. But there was only one of him and there were any number of women there who dabbled at least a little in the flavor of witchcraft which was practised there and had been since the ruins were new. It wasn't long before they began to talk to one another about him and the next thing was to lead him on a chase deep inside of one of the pyramids there. Like a fool, he'd gone after them too and when they'd left him lost and alone down there, he thought about it and after a few days spent making sure that he couldn't find his way out no matter what he did, he retraced as many of his movements as he could in his mind and he found that there had been one direction in which they HADN'T lead him for any distance. So that was the way that he set off. He'd been hopeful that it would lead him out of there, but instead it led to more tunnels which went on and on. A day turned into a week and a week turned into a month where he just went farther and farther, on and on, thinking that just a little after he'd run out of supplies, that would be the end of him. There sure seemed to be no shortage of others down there, though. He ran across corpses every now and then. Judging by what was left of their apparel, a lot of seekers had come down here since forever, give or take a week. After a while he looked at them with a little selfish hope that they still might have been carrying something useful or edible that was packed in hermetically-sealed containers and in most cases, they had been, so it was like finding free food near a dusty dead thing. Two things became apparent after a while. It was amazing to him just how many of these 'explorers' -- if that was what they'd been, had armed themselves with twelve-guage shotguns, not that he minded the free ammunition, but it alarmed him that after passing through three of the membranes, he'd found no more of the bodies. One day -- or he supposed that it had been one day, though he wasn't really sure anymore by then, he discovered a main tunnel. Compared to the others, it was a massive thing like a thoroughfare is when compared to a trail through the woods. It just went forever with the barest changes in direction or elevation for miles. Every so often, he'd find an alcove or two and that was where he'd hole up if he needed to rest for a while. Now and then, he saw creatures running or flying along the great corridor, but each time so far, he'd been near enough to one of the alcoves to hide in time. He wondered about it but they hardly ever bothered to look into the alcoves. The only ones who did seemed to be the cave rats. He had no idea if they were rats or not, but that was the word that their appearance evoked in him. Some of them were closer to the size of large dogs and could be difficult to kill, but on the whole they left him alone unless he surprised them, and when he was low on food, they didn't taste all that bad if you cooked them well over a fire. There were other, much harder to kill creatures down here and given the chance, he tried to leave them alone and slink away undetected if he could. In point of fact, that was how he came to be here in the first place. He'd almost bumped into a herd of some nasty-looking things and as he'd backed away, he'd found an alcove which hadn't just dead-ended a few yards in. He'd followed it for about a mile, he guessed before it fell in behind him. Now, here he was, looking at another one of these membranes. He knew that they had something to do with the statue which he still carried but he had no idea what the relationship might be. He just knew that whenever he'd tried to get through one, the results were never all that pleasant. The one time that he'd tried to set the figurine down and walk away, he'd found his way barred by a membrane. As soon as he'd picked up the statue again and put it in his pack, the membrane had snapped out of existence. He moved his hair out of his eyes as he thought about it. Then his mind came back to his hair. It marked the passage of time in the outside world in a way. The average rate of hair growth for most human beings is about one thirty-second of an inch per day, or about an inch per month. When he'd seen the mess in his mother's room, he'd just gotten a military cut, 'down to the wood', as the saying went. Stupid short everywhere but for the patch on top. Now it hung down his neck a little and got in his eyes. How much time had passed, he wasn't at all sure, but he guessed that it must have been at least eight or maybe ten months since that day. He sighed, maybe it had been a year. He could reach around the back of his head and bring forward hair long enough for him to look at. Darji thought of his mother again and wiped a few tears from his eyes then. He'd once heard it said that a boy's best friend is his mother. Well that had certainly been true. They'd travelled the world together and they'd shared adventures of the sort that he very much doubted could be matched by very many people. She'd been his best friend in so many ways and while she'd been proud of him, she'd never made the important things easy for him. He'd always been just as proud of her too and he wondered if he'd ever get over the lightning-fast way that she'd been taken from him. He doubted that even more. The first time that he'd seen his path blocked by one of the membranes, he'd backed away and taken a different route, but one day there had been no alternative -- just like today. That time, he'd looked at the thing for hours and then sat down to eat. Finally, he'd grown frustrated and put on his pack, grabbed his rifle and slung it over his shoulder. He picked up his shotgun in one hand, a torch in the other and walked toward it. He hadn't seen the little root growing out of the floor, but it tripped him all the same and he pitched forward, holding out his hands to stop himself. But he'd fallen right through and landed on his face. He'd cracked his head against the stone floor and that was all she wrote for a while. When he awoke, the membrane was gone. Looking forward, the hallway looked the same as he'd seen when he'd peered through, but looking back the tunnel looked more like a ruin that was on the verge of collapse. So he'd moved on. Now he was faced with another potentially disastrous passage. "Oh fuck it," he said to himself a little angrily, "there's no other choice, is there?" Stepping forward, he saw the flash as he passed through. He stood stone still for a moment, just checking things out. He seemed to be alright and other than the brilliant surge of the brief pain of his passing through, nothing much seemed to have changed. When he looked back, the membrane was gone and so was the hallway where he'd been only seconds before. What was left now was a root-covered wall of rubble. He asked himself how that could have happened. He'd have noticed the cave-in, wouldn't he? He'd have choked on the dust and debris. And where had the roots come from? He stepped back and saw that this cave-in appeared as though it had happened a very long time ago. What was worse was that there was also no way forward. There was rubble from the floor to the ceiling just ahead of him. Fighting off the urge to panic, he looked around and as the ringing in his ears faded away, he heard voices. At first they seemed to come from everywhere, but after a few seconds, he had the direction and walked cautiously toward one wall. He wanted to call out, since he was certain that he was hearing words of some kind, but then he threw that idea away. Peering carefully, he could see light coming around the edges of a few of the stones and he brought his face forward against the wall to try for a look. As he peered through a few cracks, he wondered if the solitude of his recent life had finally begun to cause his mind to unravel. He saw three ... people of a sort fighting off a half dozen of the demonic-looking creatures who had appeared in his house and killed his parents. Just as he began to wonder if there was some way that he could help and if he ought to try to do that, he saw a shadow growing over his little peephole as one of the beasts backed up against the wall that he was looking through. He heard the thing scream and then it fell backwards against the wall. Darji had just enough time to step back and out of the way as the wall crashed apart and the thing was lying at his feet clutching at an arrow in its chest. In a flash, his knives were in his hands and he severed the carotid arteries, starting a spray of blood from the thing's throat. It twitched twice and lay still. Darji looked up and across a large chamber, straight into the eyes of one of the outnumbered ones in this fight that he now found himself in. He was looking at a horned head with odd-looking ears which hung at a strange angle -- as in, they stuck out sideways. What struck him right away was the broad forehead and the way that the eyes seemed to look out as though from under a bit of an overhang -- shielded a little as they were by edges which came from the structure of the forehead .The nose was long, but it didn't come forward beyond the front edge of -- again, that forehead. He suddenly realized why. The front of that head carried a thick skull -- far thicker he guessed than a human one. The reasons for that were numerous and they came to him in an instant. The creature was bipedal, but there was fur in various lengths, depending on where one was looking at the moment. There were two wide horns stemming out of that slightly wide head and they went out to the sides and back a little before curling around and down. The upper lip was split a little and overall, it made him think of a goat. If this creature was patterned that way, Darji reasoned, then it was no great stretch to see that a thick skull could prove useful. The cheekbones were high and a little pronounced, and then there was the mouth and chin which looked fairly human-like. The mouth dropped open in surprise and then the moment was past and the being swung a bow to point toward another of the large creatures. The arrow was loosed and there was a scream from the other side of the room. Darji stepped through the opening and sheathed his knives largely by feel so that he could reach over his right shoulder for his shotgun. The way that he looked at it, the three in here were talking and shouting warnings to each other while the other, larger things in the room were hulking, slavering beasts. He decided to side with the ones who could talk as a safe bet right out of the gate. He jacked a round in and seeing that his presence had been noted by the others, he waded in and shot all five rounds into two of the things and then he set the pump gun down to reach for his rifle. One of the smaller things -- who looked to have some human features - was almost a blur, armed with a sword and a long knife. That one seemed fearless -- or desperate- and slashed and spun, jumping up to ram a blade deep into one of the beasts and then seeming almost to disappear into the attack on the next foe. One of the other ones -- the ones with the horns and the ears -- was unbelievably quick with a bow in the cramped quarters here. He drew back the cocking handle on his semi-automatic Ruger Mini-14 and got to work. A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 55 By the time that he was done, he'd used most of the thirty round magazine, but between them, the six beasts lay dead -- well, one still twitched. Darji switched his rifle to his other hand and drawing a long-barrelled Colt from the holster on his hip, he pulled back the hammer and added another opening to its head. He could see that there had been eight, but that the three had killed two before he'd arrived. The room was still echoing from the gunfire or so it seemed by the way that his ears rang as he released the half-shot mag and inserted another. Releasing the bolt hold-open, he set the safety and picked up his shotgun to begin reloading it when he noticed that the room had gone still. He looked up. The first thing that he noticed was that two of the others here who he'd helped were females. The third one was male -- he guessed and that one looked quite similar to the one with the bow. He stood in some light leather armor with a long dagger in his left hand looking back at Darji. He was horned as well and about the same height as the one with the bow, and just about as slim. The next thing that he noticed was that he'd never seen anyone like these three in his life and for a moment, he wondered if he was hallucinating or something. But that wasn't the important thing here, he decided. The wet and bloody point of the fast one's sword was near his throat and there wasn't even a little bit of shake to it. The owner stood at the other end of the thing looking at him levelly. Off to the other side, he could see the female horned one looking at him for a moment before she began to walk around the chamber pulling her arrows out of her victims. Darji noticed that at that point, she'd been out of arrows. The next moment was a shock to him as he really looked at her. She was thin and fairly tall, coming, he'd have guessed, up to his own height, including her curled horns. Taking her face as the reference point, her forehead was about at the level of his mouth. Her eyes were a tan color and the irises and pupils were horizontal lines, similar to the eyes of a goat. All of that, and she looked to be at least partly covered in fur, and what he could see did not appear to be clothing of any sort. As his gaze went lower, he was astounded to see that her legs were unlike the one with the swords' legs -- or his own. Her thighs were fur covered and below her knees, they seemed to be bent backward, sort of like the legs of a dog. And then there were her long fetlocks and her uh, hooves. He wondered what had been in the water then. The fur grew longer the lower he looked and he saw again that those legs ended in large hooves, so he rather doubted then that he'd been hallucinating. The male was the same though he wore that armor. She was walking away from him, looking for more of her arrows and it brought her behind into his view. That sight alone seemed to hit him pretty hard. What he saw was a view which stirred something in Darji, deep down. He'd seen quite a few female backsides -- some which might even be termed beyond merely beautiful, and a few had been what might be termed magnificent in their feminine perfection. But nothing that he'd seen in his life could compare to the way that this brief sight could captivate him. Her thighs were lovely and her bottom could mesmerize him by only the movements that she made while looking for her arrows. He looked toward her face to see if she was aware of her effect on him, but if she was, he saw no sign of it in her. She seemed intent on looking down. He guessed that to her, the arrows were hard to come by down here, about as difficult to find as 5.56mm full metal jacket ammunition or twelve-guage shells loaded with double-ought buckshot. Any way he looked at it, there was reason enough for her to be searching to retrieve her arrows. It was her tail which sort of snapped him out of the enchantment. He almost felt his mouth begin to curl into a smile at the thought. To think that the sight of a little tail like that and the way that it flicked involuntarily could rouse him so. His attention was drawn to the male one as he began to look for something as well. Darji assumed that he was looking for her arrows too, and he found himself looking at another pair of legs and a back end which grabbed his eye for a moment. The male's hair was even lighter, though most of his fur was darker. But then something else pulled him from his reverie completely and rather abruptly. The one in front of him with the sword took a half step forward, bringing the point against Darji's throat. He wasn't amused by this and he slowly pushed the hot muzzle of his shotgun against the part of her breastbone that he could see as skin. She stepped back instantly to where she'd been and he regarded her for a moment. From her expression and the way that she rubbed the round burn that he'd left on her, he could see that she'd gotten the message that she ought to keep her distance. She wore a suit of light mail; tough, lightweight and as dull green as tall summer grass and it ran down to just above her knees. Her feet were shod with boots which looked soft yet substantial. They were fur-lined rough suede and bore laces which ran all the way up the front. Though they looked to be serious travelling boots, the actual shoe portions were more like heavy and thick moccasins. There were guards for her kneecaps and an abbreviated cloak of some sort which was tied back at the moment. Looking higher up, Darji could see that her arms were bare for the most part, though there were a few leather thongs and her shoulders were protected by ornamented dark green spaulders. What looked at first glance to be wet leaves stuck to the forearms were really just green bracers of some kind. As far as weaponry, the female carried a cruel-looking sword in one hand, curiously curved in a way that would make no sense to an observer if it were laid down on a flat surface. It was the same with the long dagger. The shape looked to be fairly useless unless they were in her hands. Held as they were now, they looked wicked and formidable. Her long hair was a dull sort of dark brown and it blended into the overall appearance well. Her skin was a little pale and she wore tattoos on her determined-looking face. That face was rather angular and at the moment, he could see no warmth there at all. There was beauty there, he decided, but not while this girl's blood was up. She said something in a tongue that he took to be rough Spanish. Her yellow-green eyes and her long ears told him that there was no mistaking that it wasn't her mother-tongue. He could handle Spanish, but he decided that he wanted to know more by trying to see if she understood anything else. He waited for her to try again. When she did in a different language, trying to do the half-step forward thing again, he jammed the muzzle of his weapon against her a bit harder and growled, "Fuck off." Her eyes opened wide at this and she began to curse in another tongue entirely, coming around to some rather heavily-accented English eventually, "Who are you?" she demanded as he tried to determine just what sort of accent it was. He didn't smile, though he'd wanted to, "Somebody who just wasted a ton of ammunition on your sorry ass, trying to help you. I see now that it was a mistake, but then, I haven't seen anybody else down here in months -- not alive, anyway, so I thought I'd give you a hand. If I ever get another chance, I'll sit down and watch while those things rip you apart after they..." He stopped then and shook his head, "Forget it." Just then, there was a cry and a growl as another of the creatures ran into the chamber. The girl with the swords hadn't even turned before the thing fell dead, a thick feathered rod protruding from the side of its head. Darji looked over and saw the other female looking back. The arrow was obviously not the same as what she'd used earlier. To his mind, she was still wiping off the ones that she'd retrieved. She couldn't have nocked an arrow in time. She indicated the male with a movement of her chin and shrugged. "Theyl's crossbow," she said. Darji looked over and saw that the male stood, still holding up a small hunting crossbow. He smiled a little as he lowered it. "You did not attack that time," the one with the blades said, "You were not prepared?" "I learn quickly," Darji repeated, "I tried to help and you stuck a sword against my neck. I won't waste my time on you again. This mess here was after you, not me. I figured I had a bit of time, you know?" She nodded then and looked at the blood which had sprayed onto her with a grimace. "What's your problem, anyway?" he asked. "I have no problem, human," she said as she began to wipe off her blades, "You smell badly, but with luck, you will leave shortly -- or we will." Darji grunted, "You're no spring flower yourself. I'd say that I'm sorry if I've offended you," he nodded looking seriously pleasant, "but it would be a lie." "We did not need your aid," she said, "so you can be on your way now if it suits you. I can say that it would suit me if you did." Darji nodded to the other ones, "What about you? Can you tell me how to get out of here? I've been stuck down here for a long time now. Or do you want me to just bugger off too?" The male plainly didn't understand and he looked to the female. She regarded Darji for a long moment and then she smiled a little, "You ask me? I think you should stay. And forgive me if I say it wrongly, but my thanks to you for what you did." That made Darji smile a little and it felt so odd to him to feel the expression on his face. It made him realize that he likely hadn't worn the expression in quite a while. "Then you're very welcome." "We did not need you," Swordgirl said, testily, "We were --" There was an exhalation of exasperation from the archer, "We were losing, Shey Lann . They beset us, eight of the largest at once against three and it took an age to kill the first of them. My shot at the one in front of our helper was the luckiest I have had in a long while and I am not too proud to admit that it was luck to hit that well in the middle of a fight. I know that you hold yourself to be invincible, but I am truthful enough to say that I grew tired. We only began to make headway when he came in with his loud weapons there. Without him, they'd have won and we would be --" The other one spun then and glared, "It was not over. You cannot say that we would have lost." The long ears on the archer went backward to lie flat against her blondish hair, "Are we to have one of our fights now, Shey Lann? Shall we waste the rest of the day with it and attract more of them with the noise? Come down from your high stump and admit that he helped us. It would not cost you a thing to say that you are thankful." "I have no need to thank a human," the other one said. "That's fair," Darji said, "Just don't ever look to me for anything again." "I shall not," she threw the words in retort. He lowered his weapon and seeing only that there had been movement, Shey Lann raised her sword again and Darji batted the blade away with his shotgun. The Colt was in his hand in a flash and by the time that the hammer came back with a loud click, the muzzle was underneath her jaw as he glowered. "Don't do that again. I get that you don't like me and you seem to have something against what I am for some reason. You don't like humans? Fine, but this human -- me - I haven't done anything to you -- yet. You keep up this shit, and I'll get you out of my face for the long term. You want to keep the teeth in your pretty head, then you just leave me alone, got it? And just what the fuck ARE you, anyway?" She glared at him, but she was silent. "Shey Lann is an elf, as the word is in your speech," the other female one said, "but her lineage stems from two types, and she is not accepted by either kind." He looked over then, not really believing what he'd just heard, "An elf? Really? What the hell are you doing down here then? From the fairy tales that I was told, elves like to skip along happily in the sunshine." "I see no sunshine," she glared, "Perhaps that it why I am not skipping - happily or not," the elf said," Why do you look so surprised?" He shook his head, more to himself, "It's just that ... "he looked up, "as far as I knew, elves were just some legends and stories. From what I read, elves were supposed to have moved out of the path of man a long time ago, but taking the view of human science -- and I already know, so you don't have to tell me -- elves don't exist and never have." He shrugged, "Obviously incorrect, looking at you." Shey Lann was about to reply in a scathing tone when she just stopped and nodded, accepting what he'd said. "Well, we do. And my friend and companion Bryth there is a faun, as is Theryl there beside her. I guess that they do not exist either." It took Darji a second to register what had been said, mostly because the word had been spoken sounding like 'fown'. But he had heard it pronounced in that manner before, mostly by Europeans from the continent. It was only said as 'fawn' by people from the British Isles or from North America. There was also a strange and subtle issue at play here. They could understand each other in English, but now and then, he saw by their faces that they didn't understand something that he'd said. He was dumbfounded anyway. "A faun ..." He looked over and he saw that for some reason, what had been said had made Bryth uncomfortable and she looked down in a bit of shame, beginning to turn away. The male looked at her questioningly and asked something in another language, to which she shook her head. Darji stepped toward her, "Wait, uh, Bryth. I don't understand why you're looking like that all of a sudden. There's nothing to be ashamed about, is there?" He smiled, "Ok, I can be a bit of an asshole sometimes, but I don't think I've said anything to make you feel badly, have I?" Bryth shook her head silently and she turned back to face him, "I have always been ... nervous around humans. The ones that I have met thought me stupid, and --" "Well, I don't," he said, holding out his hand, "My name is Darji and I really am very pleased to meet you all." He made a very quick surmisal and rather than take her hand, he gently grasped her forearm for a moment, before doing the same with the male, who looked surprised but looked at his face and gave a slight smile again. "Since I can't go back the way that I came, can I come with you?" "Yes," Bryth said quite softy, unnoticed by Shey Lann for the moment as she shook her head, "Thank you, but no," she said, "We have no need of another on the road and -- " She snapped her head around to look at Bryth, "What did you say?" "I said, yes," Bryth smiled a little, "What is the harm if he comes with us? Maybe another voice would help when we must decide things." "What is wrong with the way that we were deciding things?" Shey Lann asked, looking a little annoyed. "Well," Bryth said without reproach, "we always do what you say that we should and there have been times ..." "Have there?" Shey Lann said as she turned, looking actually annoyed now, "Such as when?" Bryth looked a little uncomfortable for an instant, but then she rolled her eyes and imitated the sound and mannerisms of the other, "Oh come on, Bryth. What is the harm of we explore a little of this cave? What could go wrong? Why look, Bryth", she went on, "let's use that rope bridge, it does not look to be too badly worn from here. And my very favorite -- wait a moment, I want to try something." Shey Lann scowled at her own feet for a moment, "I give the point to you. But what about food?" She took a step closer to Darji, "Look at him. He is not as we are. Can you imagine what it would take to keep this fed? "She reached out and her open hand gently slapped against the bare skin of his shoulder, "He must eat more than all of us together." "I'll be sure to keep myself fed," he chuckled, "and if there's not enough for everyone, I'd be happy to share what I have. Come on, give me a chance. You can't know how it feels to be alone down here for this long. Please?" He turned on the charm and for once in his life; he really hoped that the famous Darji Saladin smile didn't fail him. Shey Lann nodded her assent with a grunt, but Bryth and Theyl looked at him, shyly beaming their approval. "Then we are four," Shey Lann said, "elf, fauns and human." "Could we just call me a man?" Darji asked, "When you say 'human' it looks like you just found yourself with a mouthful of something unpleasant." He walked back to the opening in the wall where he'd come from and hefted his other pack. "What is in there, please?" Shey Lann asked. Darji shrugged, "Ammunition, mostly. I've found and picked up a fair bit of it from dead people that I've run across during my time down here." She looked back at him blankly, "Ammun .. " "Arrows," he smiled back, "my kind of arrows." "The loud kind," the elf said, "the ones which tell everyone where you are." He then had to explain what that was and why he needed it. That began the questions over how his weapons killed his foes and from that Darji realized that these three had never seen anything like firearms before. It took a little time because Bryth tried to translate for Theryl, who seemed very interested. Bryth admitted that the first time that he'd fired the shotgun had cost her an arrow that she'd loosed in surprise at the noise. "Can we get back to washing?" she asked, "There is the hot spring there waiting and we all smell. I have just fought and battled those things with nothing on." Darji perked up then, "There's a place to wash here?" Shey Lann nodded, "Through there, the air is wet and heavy with steam. We were just about to wash when those beasts came to beset us. If you do not object, I will go first before any more come so that I might at least be partly ready if they do. Please guard me." She walked through the opening and began to remove her clothing. "Shey Lann," Darji said, "suit yourself, but I think you ought to lay your weapons a little nearby in case more visitors come." She looked at him for a moment and nodded. As she bathed quickly, Bryth nodded to Theryl and he began to bathe as well while she and Darji stood watch looking outward. When Shey Lann and Theryl returned, it was Bryth's turn, and when she returned to them wearing what looked like light leather armor made up of strips of horizontal bands, (as was Theryl's), it was finally Darji's chance to get the grime of his wandering off of his body. He wondered how long it had been since he'd been able to be clean and it came to him that it must have been over a week since he'd found enough icy water for this. The hot water which bubbled up through a fissure from deep below his feet felt incredible. His body told him that it expected him to stay in this heat for at least an hour, but he kept it to about ten minutes of purposeful scrubbing. "Do you need help with your back?" Bryth asked, startling Darji out of his thoughts. He decided that if they traveled together, some rather private things would have to go by the boards. He wasn't completely comfortable with these three yet, but he weighed that against the desire to be clean and her guess had been correct. Without either a backscrubber or a helping hand, the middle of his back wasn't going to get really clean. "Sure," he nodded quietly as she stepped forward and he turned away and backed up toward the edge of the pool. She was quick about it, but she did do what felt like a good job of it. "Thank you," he smiled over his shoulder. Bryth chuckled quietly and grinned, "It is my pleasure to help and I like to see a little." He heard a soft giggle and felt her hand as it quickly grazed his ass once and then he heard her hooves receding. As he put on some cleaner clothing, Darji couldn't help but smile a little. In spite of their rough start, he liked Shey Lann, though he knew that it wouldn't do him a bit of good to tell her. He liked Bryth and Theyl even more, though. A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 55 When he rejoined them, they led him off to a different chamber a distance away from the hot spring. "We will spend the night here, since we know it to be fairly safe," the elf said, "We have slept here before and we can light a fire using some roots to burn. We still must be a little quiet. If you have been here for a long time as you say, you know that it is best to be as still as possible." He nodded and when they got settled in the chamber, they started a small fire in little time and decided on a simple watch rotation. There were several ways into the large cavern, but only one of them was large enough to allow anything near to the size of one of them to pass through, so it was easy enough to guard against the sort of creatures which had attacked them earlier. One of them would always be a little distance off as overwatch while the others either ate and talked in very hushed tones if the third one was not asleep. Darji asked about water and they told him where there was a clean spring not far away. He produced a pot and after filling his bottles, he pulled out some meat and cut it up after washing it as they stared. He threw it in the pot and carefully braised it. He tried not to laugh as they gaped when he added some water and then he took a plastic bag (which amazed them) and removed some dried vegetable pieces to toss them in as well. His companions looked at the pot, at him, and then at each other. Finally, he carefully opened a little cardboard box and withdrew a cube of foil. Opening it with a flourish, since he liked the way that they seemed mesmerized by his actions, he crushed it and added the powder. "What is that?" Bryth asked and he told her to sniff the pot, "It's called beef boullion. It's used for flavoring. The meat is what I have left from one of those lumbering rat things that I killed two days ago. With some time and maybe luck, it'll smell and taste like beef stew -- I hope." They wrinkled their noses at it and Shey Lann announced that she wouldn't eat meat like that. Darji just shrugged, "More for me then." But their noses and their hunger got the best of them in the end and they all pronounced it tasty when they'd tried a little. "I will take a little if you leave us some," Bryth said, "and Theyl says that it smells very good." "I never thought to eat one of those creatures," Shey Lann said quietly. "Well if you get hungry enough, you'll find that you can eat most anything," Darji said. "Since you guys all have some kind of bows, I'd suggest that you shoot them either in the inner corner of their left eye or behind and under either ear. You hit them there and they drop down dead right away without a sound. Hit them anywhere else and they shriek the place down before they die." "But your weapons are so loud," the elf commented and he nodded a little sadly. "I do it the hard way and I have to get really close to stick them with a blade in the ear." When he had the chance of it, Darji paid attention and guessed that he understood Shey Lann's concern over food. He had far more than they did, so he made certain that he was free with it, getting up and walking to where Bryth and Theyl stood watch to give them the warm food that he'd planned to eat himself. They were both appreciative and he saw that they'd gone without a good meal for a while. He was hungry, but he thought that they likely felt it a bit more, but wouldn't have spoken of it to a newcomer. "Have you not eaten?" Bryth asked, "We have not been guarding here long enough for you to have eaten much of anything and no matter what is said, we do not have enough between the three of us to make up a large meal for even one." She looked up at him then, "This was to be yours, was it not? Why give your food to us?" He smiled a little, "Maybe I think that it's better used by you guys. I have some hardtack biscuits left. I'll gnaw on those and a little gravy." She held up the plate that he'd brought her. "Please eat with us if you would. This is no palace. We want to share it with you. Shey Lann was right. You need more than us." She stepped closer and before he could shake his head, she smiled, "I know what you would say. We will eat your magical food Darji, and we are thankful. But let us feel better by sharing at least a little." He looked over at that point, "Magical food?" "Yes," she smiled, "We did not think that you could make something so good to eat here where we are." She backed up carefully then so that her back was to a wall. That was so no one could come at her from that direction. Once there, she beckoned to him and they stood together as she ate and he allowed her to offer him a spoonful now and then. After a couple of minutes, she made a clicking sound with her tongue and switched places with Theyl, who looked friendly but a little uncomfortable right next to Darji. For his part, Darji tried to look as though he was trying to encourage Theyl so that shyness was not an issue. He sensed a little of it in the two fauns and though he liked the way that they looked like that, he didn't want it to get in the way. Theyl ate with him for a little while and then bowed a little before he brought Bryth back with the same sort of sound. "Why doesn't Theyl speak? Can't he speak English?" "He comes from far to the south and has not been here long. Until now, he had no need to learn your speech. You are the first human that he has been close to. He is from another Faun tribe and there are no humans there." "I wanted to ask you something," Darji said, wondering just how to frame the question. When she nodded in encouragement, he was careful about it. "Why are you wearing that leather over the top half of you and yet there's really very little lower down? Are you missing the pieces, or ..." She shook her head with a shy smile, "This is how it is to be worn by us. It covers me, but this piece, this ... " "Strap," he volunteered with a smile and she nodded. "This is narrow and can be opened right at the bottom as you have seen." She shrugged, "I am a female. To wear something like Shey Lann would mean that I would have trouble in a fight. See Theyl there," she pointed at her companion, "His is the same, but the strap is a little rounded to hold him better." Darji didn't get it and she saw it in his face. "Look at our feet," she said, "We can kick, you see?" He got it then and nodded. She thanked him for the thought of the food and he went back to the fire where the elf was muttering to herself a little as she tried to scrub some dried blood from her long knife. When she looked up and saw his face, she shrugged, "I forgot to clean this when I bathed. Now I want the blood off the blade and I want the blade to eat with. I do not usually forget." Darji reached into his pack and produced a couple of items that he'd retrieved from the body of an unfortunate along the way some months before. "Here, "he said, holding one of them up, "Use this." He flipped off the retainer and with a few deft motions and a little clicking, he saw Shey Lann's eyes widen as he flipped open the knife. He handed it to her, "This is clean, except for maybe a bit of dust from being in my pack. You can have it. I found four in the pack of a man a while ago." He handed her another pair of them, "Please give these to Theyl and Bryth for me when you go there." Shey Lann took the things with a little awe and she stared at the articles. Setting two down on her thigh, she swivelled the third open and closed, "What is this for?" "Well if you were up a tree and you needed to cut something, but needed one hand to hold on, you could use this. It's not very long when it's folded and with a little practice, you can get to where you can open that up and use it all with one hand. I know them by three names, but I guess the best one is a balisong. It's also known as a butterfly knife." "What is a butterfly?" She asked. After hearing his explanation, she nodded, "We have them -- outside, but we use another name. My thanks for the gift." "Don't expect too much from it, Shey Lann," he said cautiously, "I'm afraid these aren't of the best quality. I got them from a corpse and I couldn't even argue with him over it." She asked him to show her how to open and close it with one hand, flinging it the way that he did. He showed her several times -- slowly, but she failed at it utterly. He smiled, "You have the motions, but you're too fast. Remember that it was made for a human. I think that at our fastest, we're slower than you." When she thought about it like that, she met with more success, almost getting it down, but it would still take her time to master the technique and be fluid at it. She stood up and went to give the other ones to Bryth and Theyl. The fauns were very pleased and watched carefully as Shey Lann went through the wrist motions with exaggerated slowness. Bryth laughed a little and nodded when she saw how it was to be done. With her own lightning-fast motions, she opened and then closed the knife seemingly without effort. Theyl got it on his very first try and looked at her curiously. The elf stared and then strode away. "Bah!" she muttered. She sat with Darji working the knife slowly, "Why are you here?" He shrugged, "I came to kill someone, because what she did -- and I don't know what it was exactly -- caused the death of my mother. I came for her and she admitted what she'd done, but never said just what it was. She seemed to have a lot of attitude for somebody facing the son of somebody that she'd harmed, so I listened to her and then I killed her. Anyway, I found out that the people all around there were terrified of all of the witches in those parts and they offered me a lot of money to kill the other ones, so I began to do that. But the witches led me down here and left me once I'd gotten lost. Serves me right, I guess. I should have just called it done when I'd killed the one that I'd come for and gone home. Now I don't know where I am or how to get out." "Do you hate these witches?" She asked, "Elves possess at least a little magic and almost all fauns have it as well." Darji shook his head, "No, not really. I was just mad and upset over my mother's death. I don't know why it was done, other than maybe bad feelings over a love affair, I think. I just know what was used. What are you three doing here?" "We are searching for something," Shey Lann said, "It is something that is needed by the Chancellor where we came from. I think that we are only chasing a legend. I do not think that it has been seen by anyone for more than a few hundred years." "My mother was an archeologist, "Darji said, "and I used to help her a lot. Tell me about it. Maybe I know a little." "You must ask Bryth," the elf said, "She knows what it is that we must seek. I am only here so that she did not go alone with her betrothed. They only met a very short time before we were sent. What is an ... archy-?" He grinned, "Archeologists are people who study old things from long ago. My mother would have been in her glory to see this place -- whatever it is." "Whatever this is," Shey Lann said with a bit of distaste, "it is a place of sudden death to most travelers." "So those two are going to be married?" he asked. Shey Lann shrugged, "How to explain something like this to --" she looked at him and then she smiled, "a human man?" Her smile turned into a small grin when she saw Darji's smile. "It is mostly politics," Shey Lann began, "Theyl is the youngest son of a Faun king far away. The match was made not long after Theyl was born and Bryth was only small, being a year or so older. It was done as a pledge of peace and aid, should a time and a need arise. It was also a way for a Faun king to be rid of the expense of having to keep a son fed who would never rule." "What does Bryth have to do with it?" he asked and Shey Lann smiled. "Bryth is the youngest daughter of the king of her tribe of course and as such, will never rule either, it is thought. They are not wed yet and try hard to learn of each other. At first, they did not like each other at all. He was from a less wild place and to the Faun here, he was only a weakling, whereas Bryth needed no guards wherever she went, loving adventure as she does. Theyl came with two guards and he only knew the kind of fighting ability that is taught to princes who will never need to know how to fight. But after his protectors left to return home, he saw the worthlessness of his poor skills in an instant and has sought to learn things of value, so we both teach him. The only thing that he was good at when he came was the use of that small crossbow of his and with that, he is deadly. But he had no real ability beyond genteel sport with a blade, yet that is changing. Just traveling together and facing what we have faced here has made him into a more formidable fighter, though he still learns. Now, I can say that they like each other very much, but it is only the beginning of love for them. Also, there are other issues." She rolled her eyes at the cavern ceiling above, "And those ones, I have no idea how to explain." She looked at Darji and saw that he was clearly fascinated and he said so, explaining that other than stories, there was no knowledge of either elves or fauns to humans where he was from. "I risk my life to tell of this, "she said shaking her head, "but it is clear to me that you are not like most men that I have ever met." She drew a deep breath and let it out. "Fine. Fauns might be said to be somewhat like goats." She looked at him closely for a moment, "There are goats known to humans where you are from, are there not?" When he nodded, she went on, "I say somewhat, but they are also people, being bright and having hearts, after all. But to say that they are just like goats would be wrong. In some ways they are much more like urials or mouflons or, better still, a little like mountain sheep. In fact, their names for males and females are the same as would be used for sheep by them. There are ewes and rams. Their horns are roughly similar to mountain sheep, but there is no real connection between the two, even though fauns oftentimes keep urials and mouflons for their wool and sometimes for a bit of meat. That is another difference," Shey Lann said, "Sheep, goats and urials do not ever eat meat, while fauns can and do, having teeth like you or I and guts which can digest it just as we do. Like elves -- and humans, "she looked over a little uncertainly then, but Darji nodded and gestured for her to continue, saying that she wasn't saying the word with distaste anymore so it didn't bother him now. "Well, like us, fauns are social creatures and prefer to live together in groups, but they do not flock as sheep do. They live in dwellings and they tend to value their families and as one looks from the lowest to the highest among them, one can see that the families among the higher ones are called houses. Bryth comes from the highest house which rules the land around her settlement. She and I are close; both being females of the same house. We met while journeying and it is through her that I came to live among the Faun people." Before Darji could ask, she saw the expression on his face and said only, "I am accepted by them for my skills at scouting and fighting and even better, I am liked -- which is something that I have never had. Bryth and I were almost related by my upcoming marriage into her family. I love her very much and owe her everything. Much of the Faun social order is determined by the seasons of the ewes. Faun ewes come into season twice a year for about fifteen days each; once in the spring and once in the fall, almost all of them at once. They go by their hearts very much. A ewe who has no mate can become rather nasty to be around when she is in season, for she will take no mate at all then. I cannot say why, but if they have no mate by the start of their season, they seem to want to be alone and miserable then." "What happens if a ewe like that is found by a ram who likes her?" Darji asked. "Then he must surely be a fool, for to come near to her would be to ask to have his teeth kicked from his head. I understand your thinking, Darji, but remember that they are not like goats or sheep in this way. To rut with a ewe in season will almost surely produce a kid -- who was conceived in a moment of weakness in a ewe who will then have the burden of raising it alone. Ewes go by their hearts and the kid would be loved - possibly to starve along with its mother who would work herself to death trying to support her little family all alone. A ewe would prefer to be alone and miserable than to go through that. A ewe who has a mate when she comes into season becomes very affectionate -- even more than usual toward her ram. During this time when all of the ewes are in season, there is no other mating going on in the whole settlement other than the rutting between pairs. There are no feasts until the ewes are out of season. A ewe who comes out of her season late will hide herself away until it is past and not attend any feast or High Days at all. A pair who can produce kids must decide if it is wanted then and if not, then the ram does anything to please his ewe but rut into her- if that is what was decided, and as hard as that can be for them to avoid doing anyway. Fauns love to rut. I do not know if this is in your legends and stories at all." He shrugged, wishing now that he'd read more about fauns while he'd had the chance. "Once the rut is past, ewes mate freely and often just as the rams do," the elf said, "but other than at feasts and celebrations, all fauns rut with their mates only. Remember what was said about their hearts." Shey Lann smiled a little then, "I suppose that it is the same with all females of all kinds," she smiled with a shrug, "once we have given our hearts ... During the rest of the year, there are feasts fairly often -- and that is another thing that fauns love to do." She grinned a little sheepishly, "And not only them. Such food and drink! More to eat and more wine to drink than you have ever seen in one place. Fauns might be in love with their mates very deeply, but when it is a High Day and the feasting begins, there is rutting going on for a long time after and they choose their partners on little more than desire and even a whim, though it is acceptable that anyone can refuse the advances of any other. No kids will come of these matings and it is seen as a way to enjoy others while not threatening what one has. Many couples use this to heighten their love, rutting like fiends with many partners until it is time to go home. Then one can appreciate what one has and even if it is not the best, you have had your fun before you went home and it is never long before the next feast. Oh, and I should say that during the High feasts, many fauns can take partners of either sex. Most like or prefer the opposite kind and some prefer the same as they are for the quieter times of the year. During the many feasts, they can enjoy whatever they wish, though some do not take part at all and they are free to do so." She looked at Darji, who appeared to be struggling a little with it. "I don't mean to pry, Shey Lann," Darji said very cautiously, "and it's none of my business, but how does that fit with an elf? I thought that elves found their mates and stayed with them forever." "You must have read of the high elves," she said, "There are many kinds and each is different. Most pair for life and some are a little looser, like some of your kind, I think. For me, I am the child of a male wood elf and a high elf maiden who let her guard down and drank too much. That is where all of my troubles came from, but that was not your question. Elf-girls are like human ones in their seasons. It comes to us often as it does for your women. If a feast falls at a time when I am not very fertile, I may take part. I usually do not." A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 55 He was still struggling a little, "These issues that you spoke of," he suggested. Shey Lann looked down and raised her eyebrows in thought, "Among most of the Faun, a ram takes one ewe for his own and a ewe takes one ram, as it is among most people of any sort. With the lower and poorer ones, it is a simple thing since it can be hard enough to keep each other alive in the world. Better to have the love of another to help with the hardship, I think. Among the higher houses, a ewe can seek to have -- " she smiled then with a little shrug, "it is a ewe's right to have two mates if she wants, just as it is a ram's by the same standard, if they are all wealthy enough for it. That can lead to a long time of ... selection, since it is best to have one's mates able to, or have the want to love each other as well. For example, I know of several ewes who love a ram and also love another ewe, and all three are happy - from what I can tell, though I obviously do not go into their bedrooms to find out. Bryth's pairing with Theyl is a political one and they are both aware of this. I think that it says much of them both that they each see the other as the secondary mate and yet try for each other anyway. Oh, they do try for each other very much and I can see that love is growing there for them, but ... well, ... let us just say that Bryth has not found her ram yet." "And that could be the issue?" Darji asked, so intrigued now. "One of them," Shey Lann replied, "but not the largest. Bryth is not a girl to sit in her hall and brush her hair while she dreams of the next dance. She is like me and loves to be on the road. At her father's hall, she is unimportant, not that she minds the way that she goes unnoticed, since it would be her way to be able to slip in and out unannounced as she is wont to do. But she was never happy just being pretty and waiting for life to provide her a ram who would keep her fat with kid in his hall. She is a harder person than that and loves life in the fresh air. You might imagine the way that a girl like that would react to be told by her father that her mate -- whom she had never met or even known of - was coming to take her hand." Shey Lann laughed a little at that, "He arrived with much ceremony and she almost killed him -- right in front of her parents and the whole court. He was in some sort of fine attire from some army or other and she stood waiting for him just as she is now, in light traveling armor and looking like a rogue while the rest of the court looked on. She brayed that she would never wed a male like this one and her father shouted back that she would or she would be cast out. I still remember his words -- "What is the good of having a daughter and raising her if she cannot be used to keep the peace for the people?" He pointed to the outside and told her that, as who she was, she owed the people this, and to an extent, he was right, I suppose. Bryth looked at her father, who is known to be just as stubborn as his daughter and she looked at her mother, who sat with tears in her eyes, fearing that Bryth was now going to say the words that would see her cast out, never to return. But my dear friend was not as foolish as all that," Shey Lann said with a smile. "I was prepared to go to her side and remain there, going with her wherever she went if need be, but it did not come to that. Bryth trembled in her anger, but she fought it down after some moments. Just as her father bellowed that he would wait no longer for her to state her intent, Bryth turned, grabbed Theyl's fancy tunic and then she pulled him so that he could look nowhere else but into her angry eyes. I will never forget it. She did not say it very directly, but she insulted her father, his father, half of the lords in the hall and all of the lords in his father's hall with her words. 'VERY WELL!' we all heard her shout in They'ls face, 'You are MINE. I do not know what you thought me to be when you set out to come here and claim me, but I will NOT sit and have gowns made while you pretend to be a ram lord. In THIS land, the best ram lords are MADE and not BORN. A real ram lord earns his title. He is not given it by his birth. To be clear to you as a courtesy, I will NOT act shy and demure when it is not in me to do so, holding still for you in the making of one kid after the other. I hold still for no fat rams, so what you wear on your belly under this tunic will need to be worn off and I am the girl to do that for you, you may trust in it. If I must take you as my ram, then you must take me too and so I think that we had better go to a quiet place to learn what we each have won by the politics of two kings who do not care to know the least of their young ones. So, what is it to be, Prince Theyl? Tell me no right here and now and you will die where you stand. I have no fear of what would come from it. Tell me yes, and you have my word that I will try for you if you would have a girl who cannot often sit still and feels more at home with a bow in her hand than the handle of a pot.' She shook him once and said, 'But mark you this: YOU must try for me as well, so that we do this for each other and NOT for a pair of old kings. If we must be wed, then let us see that it is worth something, and if it is not, then let us make it so, since neither of us has a choice at present. So what is it to be? Our deaths, one after the other, or will you have a ewe who is brash and bold and has larger stones than most rams?' Shey Lann chuckled as she paused to sip from her waterskin then, "To say the truth of it, I thought for a moment, by the look on Theyl's face that he might either soil himself or explode. But before anyone could even snicker or laugh, he drew the thin and foppish play-sword that he'd come with and he threw it down. 'If you can but lend me a better blade than this,' he said in a low growl, returning her gaze every bit as hotly, 'then lead me where you will. If we must fight for this, then let it be so, but not here. If you have something to teach me, then I will be your student. I am the son of a king and though I know little of adventuring -- if that is what you crave -- I will try to learn at my ewe's lovely hand of what it takes to make her happy. But I did not come all the way here to be rebuffed, since I had no say in this either. I would make the best of it as would you, I think. So let us begin.' Theyl was already of interest to many faun girls, those who had seen him arrive, since he is a prince and even as he was then, a little fat, he was thought handsome. But what he'd said earned him much in an instant, not the least of it in the heart of the one that he came to wed sight unseen. There are many rams in that court who have been shamed in the field by Bryth, and not one of them would have had the stones to answer as he did that day. He is only eighteen and she twenty, but a pair of adventurers found each other in that hall then and they became a pair at least in spirit at that moment. She drew the second of her own blades and handed it to him then. "Take it, the first gift from your betrothed," she said, "It kills a part of me to say it, but you have won at least a little of my respect with your words." There were sighs and gasps then in that great hall, but there was no word spoken and the two young ones walked out hand in hand, neither looking at the other, but going where Bryth said to go. Of course, I came along after them, since it was given to me to keep them, ... well, at least a little virtuous until they are wed, but I let them be as they sorted things out. Bryth was honest with Theyl and he was just as forthright with her. I found them in a peasant's barn and I couldn't think of a better place for it. The farmer stood outside with his ewe staring at a piece of gold that he'd been given to allow a young couple to use his place so that they might come to terms. I added a little silver and told them to allow me to do the task of keeping watch for them and to go to town to spend their new wealth a little carefully. When I went inside, the two were laughing a little at least. I told them that I admired what had been done by them and that it was certain to be the talk of the hall for many days, but that Bryth's parents were proud of them both and her father told me that he knew that she would make the right choice. But by then Bryth didn't care what her father had said anyway. I watched them roll around on the floor, laughing and fighting a little at the same time and I suggested the hayloft for their struggles and that it might go better for them without clothing. Then I walked out to spend a fine afternoon in the sunshine while I waited, for I knew that they would not couple then. There was too much unfamiliar ground there for them both. But they did emerge as a couple, not really lovers yet, but at least not enemies either. Since that time, Theyl has gone from being an unhappy, soft, and bored prince to a fit and strong adventurer. They both know that much hinges on a successful pairing between them. They are fast friends now and they please each other in many ways, just not in ... well he has not mounted her yet, since she still seeks to find a ram for her. It is forbidden until she takes a first ram, which is why I am here, besides to add another sword to their protection. For most, one finds the first mate and then the second one. It is a bit of poor luck for those two that they have the second one in each other, but not the first." "Then what's the problem?" Darji asked, not clear, even yet. Shey Lann sighed, "Theyl has not found his ram yet, either." While Darji sat with his eyebrows very near to his hairline now, Shey Lann moved to get up, "Fauns mostly want mates of the opposite kind, as I have said. Theyl is a ram who has found a ewe for himself, but he also wants a ram as well. He likes both and his hope is ..." She shook her head a little, "His hope for them is something which happens seldom, but it comes to me as a good thought that Bryth shares his hope and wants the same for them. I will go to guard now. You should try to sleep a little." She looked back after a few steps, "And I am sorry for my words when we met. I do not favor humans mostly, but I am coming to see that you are different." Darji nodded and smiled a little, "No harm done, and I'm sorry too." He stretched out, preparing to sleep, but a moment later, Bryth was there sitting next to him with Theyl. She showed him how she could work the knife that he'd given her and she thanked him. As she chattered a little, Darji thought that he could see a little of the reason for her words regarding humans. He didn't think her stupid at all, but he thought that someone with a dismissive attitude to begin with might come to that erroneous impression. He thought that there also might have been a trust issue at first and he wondered somehow if she might have been cheated by an unscrupulous merchant somewhere. He didn't much like his next thought, but he figured that his father could talk somebody like her out of her life's savings in a minute and not much more. Bryth wanted to know more about him and where he'd come from. Darji did his best but soon ran out of road. Things that he took for granted in his life held no meaning for Bryth -- cell phones, or phones in general, cars, air travel -- the mention of anything like that earned him an open yet uncomprehending look -- as though she didn't understand what he was talking about but was stuck for the moment and could only look at him for fear of laughing at his outlandish remarks. During one of the times when he'd waited for her to translate for Theyl, he stopped and looked at her for a moment. "Have I done something wrong, Darji?" she asked, suddenly looking concerned that she might have offended him somehow. He shook his head, "No. Not at all. I just had the thought that there's something missing here between me telling you about something and the way that you haven't heard a thing about any of it. Let's try this: If we were at your home and you wanted to speak to a relative who lived in another place, how would you do that?" Bryth blinked at him for a moment and then shrugged, "If I could, I would go to where they were and talk. If I could not travel then for some reason, I would tell someone what I wished to ask or say and send them in my place. Why? How would you do that? Is it different where you live?" He nodded, explaining that he'd use a telephone and what that was specifically and how it worked and was used. When he saw Bryth's brilliant and humorous smile at what she took to be a story, Darji knew that something was wrong. "Let's say that you had the time to travel and it was some distance to where your relative was. How would you travel?" She shrugged, "I would walk, of course. And you? What would you do, fly?" As he formulated his reply, Darji thought that it wouldn't make any difference. For what he thought her reaction would be, he may as well tell her that he'd fly. He told her about driving a car on a road instead and she laughed a little and clapped her hands quietly, "I love the way that you tell such tales, Darji." She turned to tell Theyl who also enjoyed the 'tale' while Darji grew a bit uncertain about something. If he could have risen straight up out of the earth onto the surface where he was now, he'd have thought that no matter where he was, it couldn't be all that far to find a road, and finding a road would have led him to a town or a city, something. He asked about roads and heard about cowpaths. He asked how someone would transport something like sacks of grain and he was told about wagons and horses. "That is how I have seen humans do it," she nodded to him and he wanted to groan. He doubted very much if there was any place on Earth today where people used horsedrawn vehicles much anymore, and yet she was telling him that it was so. There was a mistake here, but he didn't know what it might be. He knew that the circumference of the earth was some twenty-odd thousand miles and more than seventy per cent of the surface is covered by water. That leaves a lot less distance, he thought, and he didn't think that there could possibly be very many places where even the poorest person had lived any part of their life without seeing evidence of some form of mechanized travel or communications. He knew that it was possible, of course. He just didn't think it was very likely. And it wasn't just his thoughts out of ignorance, either. He'd been all over the world himself and, though he knew that there had to be places totally devoid of many of the encumbrances of modern life, he couldn't think of one which might be devoid of them all. It was a troubling notion which, if true, concerned him greatly. She reclined then, leaning on Theyl's crossed thighs and she pulled his hand to her mouth to kiss it briefly before she moved it so that he could slip it into the space between her leather vest and her breasts, wanting to feel his hand against her. There wasn't much shyness about it and Darji was convinced that if he wasn't there, they'd be doing the same thing anyway. The spoke for a minute, and Bryth looked up at Theyl and shook her head, saying something else in reply. Theyl blinked at her and then he looked at Darji. What came out of him next was horrible, but it was Theyl's honest attempt to ask a question in English. Darji listened but didn't get it at all until Theyl pointed to the old revolver strapped in a holster on Darji's thigh. "Theyl would like to know about that," Bryth said, "what it is and what it is for. Mostly he wishes to know why it must be tied to your leg." Darji explained a little slowly, to leave Bryth time to translate. "This, ... well, I've been stuck here for a long time. Where I lived before, I never grew attached to things. I come from rich people and if you can have whatever you want, then after a while, nothing matters to you very much, does it?" After Theyl had been made to understand it, he tried again to speak, and this time, Darji got that he was agreeing, since he'd come from the same kind of home. But Theyl looked down at Bryth then and then back at Darji, saying that perhaps the best things to have were the ones which hadn't come easily. It took Darji a few seconds to get it and Bryth pieced it together at the same time and smiled up at Theyl. Darji nodded, "Yeah. So we understand each other then. Anyway, I found this and another one on the body of a human a while back. It's just another loud weapon, and in fact, it's worse than that. This one's and old-fashioned copy of a Colt Army Model 1860. It's not like my other ones. It fires a lead bullet and uses black powder. That means that loading it is a slow thing and to shoot it means having to lose sight of your target in a cloud of bitter smoke, but, ..." he waited while Bryth helped Theyl over the parts that he didn't understand, "I like it a lot. It feels good in my hand, better than the semi-automatic one that I also carry. It's in this holster to carry it and keep it safe where it's strapped in, and the holster is tied to my leg so that it doesn't clap around if I run. I keep the other one in my pack and I guess I'll use it for parts if I need to." Darji reached behind him and dragged out one of his packs. After a brief search, he found the other pistol and handed it to Theyl since it wasn't loaded. Darji checked just to make certain first and then he showed Theyl how it was to be used, drawing back the hammer and then squeezing the trigger. "They made millions of better ones, and they still do, just like this, but they load a different uh, ... arrow and you can shoot them without pulling back the hammer first. You just pull the trigger and that makes everything else happen." Theyl listened and considered, "It," he said pointing to the one on Darji's leg, "can throw?" Bryth said that Theyl was asking if it could shoot, so he nodded, "But it's loud and we would all be choking on the smoke." Theyl handed it back to him and nodded, saying that one day, he'd like to see it shoot." She raised her eyebrows then, "He heard it when you used it but he didn't see when you did. He says it looks better than your other weapons." Darji looked at Bryth and asked about Shey Lann, saying that they were a lot friendlier now, but he wanted to understand why she'd been so distrustful at the outset. "I see that she must have told you at least something about us," Bryth said, "Shey Lann's mother is an elf from a group that tries to hold themselves apart as though they are ... above the other elves. Her mother met a wood elf one night as she was travelling. The two talked and went to an inn, since it began to rain and they were both strangers there. One drink after another -- and elves can drink quite a lot before they feel it -- they got drunk and then one thing led to another. The pair paid for a room and since they were drunk and it had cost them so much to get drunk, they decided to try to stay that way for a little while. They stayed drunk for two days. The girl enjoyed it all, but she was horrified when the bloom of the drink was off on the third day. The wood elf said that he would marry her if she'd have him, but she said no and left, running back home as fast as she could go and wanting to pretend that it hadn't happened. But it did and she was with child from it and Shey Lann was the result. As a young elfling, Shey Lann looked different from the high elves and she was never accepted by them. She never had any friends, since I think that high elflings are just as stupid as the parents who teach them. Her mother was the most foolish of all, not for what she'd done, though anyone can see that she'd made a mistake. Shey Lann's mother hung herself, a victim of the stupid notions that she'd been taught and the culture that she'd grown up in. A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 55 Shey Lann was only an elfling, not far past ten, when she met her father, who had come once he'd gotten news of it all. He took her home to live with him. The trouble was that most wood elves will have nothing to do with the high elves for their foolishness and Shey Lann had few friends there, but she did have some, at least. She grew and learned from her father until he was killed one day by a human. Since that day, Shey Lann is a blade for hire and she takes very little in payment if the mark is a human." Darji could relate, he guessed and asked how Shey Lann had come to live among the Faun. "I met her while we were both far from anywhere," Bryth said, "both of us were lost and looking for a way back home, well, that was what I was doing. Shey Lann was looking for a place to stay and live. She did not feel at home among the wood elves, any more than she was not welcomed by the high elves. So she travelled, looking for work. Sometimes, she would take a male for a bit of pleasure, but she knew that she had to be careful, always worrying that if she were to find herself with child, there was no way to raise it, having little enough to feed herself with and the road is nowhere to have a little one, since they need to have sheltered places and protection. We just fell in together," Bryth smiled, "and it was far better to journey with another than it was to go on alone. I took her to my settlement and though there were some who would not have her there, since she was an outsider, I said that there were other outsiders here and we had welcomed them. There was a warrior there who said that he'd kill her if she did not leave, but Shey Lann only smiled as she stood before my father, the king. She nodded and asked if it would be alright to kill this loud warrior and if she could stay if she won. My father nodded and in seconds the warrior was dead. It was a shock to many, for Faun warriors are a little hard to fight for most kinds of creatures. But Shey Lann had seen the way that I fight and she knew what to expect from him, only more and harder, she supposed. Anyway, she had nowhere else to go. I was happy to see her live and in truth the dead one was a loud brute to begin with and no one mourned when he lost. So Shey Lann was allowed to live with me in my little part of the hall since I was the one who had spoken for her. We had a lot of laughter, sharing everything. In a little time, a feast day was coming and we went out together that night. Shey Lann had her fun, just as I had mine, but somewhere in it, she met two warriors who appealed to her, though not at the same time. They each said that they remembered her from her test and said that it was not an easy thing to have killed the brute as she did and they liked that about her. When we met again later, she told me of them and she also said that she liked the way that they mated with her, each one. They were, ..." she searched for the word for a moment and then she smiled, "very strong and VERY vigorous ," she said to me and she liked that. She was actually sad to part with the first one and when the same thing happened with the second one a time later, she asked me why all of the rams were not like that. I had no answer and said so, but I saw that she really liked them, so I told her that if she could describe them, I would try to learn what I could of them before the next feast so that she might approach her search for one of them with at least a bit of a plan." She grinned then, remembering it, "You must try to imagine my shock to hear her descriptions of a pair that I did indeed know and quite well, too. But I had no way to tell her so that she wouldn't just declare that she didn't want them -- on principle, since I already knew her quite well at that point. Shey Lann is a bit of a different breed. She readily takes what might come to her, but she will refuse most things that are given. That she took the knife you gave to her says something, I think. Regardless, I spoke to the two rams when I met them next, since they were together at a function which related to the town guard and the army. Both of them are leaders there and are very popular and much sought after by many single girls. They both told me about the elf-girl who now haunted their thoughts day and night. I was torn, but after hearing Shey Lann moan about when the next feast would be, since she really wanted to meet at least one of the rams who could please her like no other male that she'd ever been with, I decided to act and try to help things a little. I also hoped that I would not lose a friend out of it all. A few days later, I watched it all happen," she grinned happily. "Shey Lann and I love each other. There have been times when we were alone on the road and both wanting a male very much when we just looked at each other and laughed a little. After several times like that, we found that we liked to lie together sometimes, though what we did for each other wasn't what we really wanted then. It was just a bit of pleasure and comfort, but we liked it and it must be said that it made us closer. That day, Shey Lann was in a fallow field practising with her bow when she saw BOTH of the rams who she liked so much coming to see her. Shey Lann can talk a good game and she really is fearless, but she can have trouble talking to one male sometimes, not wanting to seem too rough and two at the same time made her quail a little. She doubted her ability, so she slung her bow over her shoulder and ran. Now, elves can run like the wind, but then so can fauns and it is a little different to be running away from someone who you might not wish to talk to than it is to be running for your life. Another thing is that faun rams when they have a want for a certain female and think that there might be more there than only lust can run very fast indeed, and it is an old strategy among rams sometimes to work together. The rams split up and she didn't know which way to turn after a while, because just as she thought that she'd evaded one of them, she saw the other one coming from a different direction. It took an hour, with me far up a high tree watching it all for them to run her down. Shey Lann prepared to fight very reluctantly and when the two came for her and there was nowhere else to go, she asked what they wanted from her, fearing that she might be forced. They laughed and said that they wished her no harm at all and had only wanted to talk to the ewe who had come to us as a stranger and seemed to be magical enough to stay in their thoughts for days after the feast. As Shey Lann crawled backward up the hill - still out of breath - one of them threw down a blanket and the other produced a basket of food and a wineskin. Shey Lann stared and asked them if they really only wanted to speak with her that badly that they'd go to these lengths to do it and they both nodded. One of them took off his armor then and sat down, saying that if she really wished to be forced, that they were prepared to do as she wanted and the other one began to disrobe as well. Shey Lann gaped at them and they told her how they felt and hoped that she might search for them during the next feast evening, but that they really hoped that she wouldn't wait that long. Shey Lann looked from one to the other and thought about how many nights she'd been alone and no one had wanted her. Then she thought about the males that she'd had when there was no one else in the middle of the night and she knew that those nights were her lucky ones. She asked the two rams if they only wanted her right then and at the feast and they shook their heads, saying that they'd never had a finer ewe in their lives and hoped to make something a little longer-lived than the odd night sometimes with someone like her." She said something to Theyl then and he handed her a waterskin so that she could sip a little and then she handed it back and smiled at Darji. He looked at her and laughed a little, "Well? What happened? Bryth? I need to know now. How did that end?" Bryth smiled a little mischievously, "Shey Lann is my friend and I know her so well. She is many things, Darji, but Shey Lann is not stupid. She was looking at two of the finest rams out of all of the ones among my clan. Faced with that, she made the only decision that I knew that she could make. She threw off her clothing and after a moment where they looked at each other, I watched as Shey Lann ran to them. I watched it from my tree and then I had to move so that I could rub myself a little. It went on for a long time -- all the afternoon! She rode first one and then the other of them, bucking and calling out their names. She was mounted by one of them while she suckled the other one. Shey Lann surprised even me that day. It grew to be evening and I walked out and brought them all another meal and more wine in another basket. When I reached them, Shey Lann had mounted one ram and then the other one had mounted her from behind. She was a mess, as were the rams, but they were all happy, having enjoyed each other for hours and they had already pledged to each other that they wanted this to go on. I listened to them and I asked if this had been like a private feast evening for them, but all three of them said no. This had gone on far longer than any coupling that one might have on a feast evening and they still wanted to go on. I said that it had gone on long enough to begin to attract the attention of others and so they got up and got dressed. I did the only thing that I could do, really. I took them all to my rooms, where I slept in my bed alone. They went on for four days! Every time that I came home, they were still fucking! When none of them could move anymore, I brought them hot food in the bed and the rams asked if there had been trouble over their duties. I smiled and told them that I had made their excuses for them and stood in for the drilling of the troops, but that the troops would be happier to see them again, since I seem to ask the moon of them, somehow. That was when I asked if this would go on and they told me that it would and that they all agreed that this could be built on and was not only lust after so long at it. The two rams left with Shey Lann in the morning. One of them sold his house and they all moved into the house of the other one and that is where they live now -- when Shey Lann is not burdened with watching over my virtue while I settle things with my ram, Theyl." "She told me that she and you are nearly related by her marriage," Darji said, "Does that mean that one of them is your cousin or something?" Bryth shook her head with a warm smile as she reached over and laid her hand onto Darji's knee, "No. Shey Lann was brought before the king where she pled her troth to both of the males right in front of him and the whole court. My father spoke with my mother then and they asked the rams if all of this was so, and they heard that it was. The following month, my friend Shey Lann left with written permission to be married to two of my brothers at a time of her choosing, neither of them the crown prince, mind you, and from what I know, they are all happy with each other, though right now, I think that she must miss her rams as I am certain that they miss their ewe. They cannot journey as much as she can and when they have had to part before for a time, she tells them not to miss a single High day's feast and to have their fun. But I can say that when we get back home, it is no good going to call on her for several days after. Shey Lann stays abed then and so do her rams. She is holding back, wanting to be sure about it. For an elf to wed a pair of rams, ... well I can see why she would want to be careful." She ran the side of her thumb over a seam of the worn denim of his jeans for a moment in curiosity over the feel of the fabric a little thoughtfully, "Until I brought her to live with me, Shey Lann hardly ever smiled, unless it was at me when we lay together in a dark place on the road. She was always the way that she was to you when we met each other. When she is there, and can lie in the arms of my brothers when she has the want, she laughs and grins very freely, in a way not unlike the way that we saw her here with you earlier, though here, we must all be a little quiet." Bryth asked Theyl to move his hand and then she sat up next to him with her arm around him. As he sat with them and saw the way that they hung onto each other while they ate the little of the dinner that was left, Darji decided that he liked them. He wasn't sure, but he thought that they were a young couple who were just starting out and like anyone would -- even in a culture as vastly different as theirs was to his own, they seemed to have their share of troubles and were trying hard. He liked that, too, he thought as he closed his eyes and tried to sleep. The two fauns sat hugging each other silently; watching him for a long time after they'd heard the change in his breathing. Finally, they just got into their few blankets and caressed each other for a time before they fell asleep. A few hours later, it was Darji's watch and he walked to the place where Shey Lann stood waiting to be relieved. "I am only concerned about the noise when you shoot anything," she said. Darji shrugged, "At least it ought to wake everybody up if I do." The watch passed without incident and then he went back to the cold long-out fire and prepared his things for the day's travel. Shey Lann went on as point when they set off though they switched up now and then. Darji heard them all speaking in the language that Theyl spoke but before he could ask about it, Bryth came back to where he walked and explained that it was better that the three understood each other, since they were out ahead of him. If anything came up, he'd know anyway, she told him. She stayed walking next to him for maybe an hour then and he asked what it was that they were seeking and she surprised the hell out of him when she said that they were to look for a fallen-in temple to a long-forgotten god. "There is a small place there, I was told, where a small figure is kept. I saw a drawing and to me, it looked like a very fat woman with no head, wearing no clothes." Darji held his tongue, wanting to know a bit more, but inside, he was in a bit of turmoil, since what she described sounded a lot like the statuette that he carried. It meant little to nothing to him, but he had concerns all the same. Something to do with that thing had played a role in the brutal death of his mother. Did he really want to give it to these innocents? Not only that, but there was also the way that he didn't seem to be able to be rid of the thing. What was he to do when the only way ahead for him was to go through a membrane -- which had appeared as a direct result of him trying to leave the statue behind? All of the other times, the membranes had been there before he'd gotten there. The one time that he'd wanted to walk away, one of them had just appeared to block his way. For some time now, he'd been wondering what would have happened if he had just chosen to walk on, right through one which appeared as he was trying to leave the statue behind. Would he be outside? Or would he blink out when the thing snapped into nothingness? "Who is this chancellor and what does he want with the figure?" he asked. "What he wants, I do not know,"Bryth said, "I know only that the chancellor must have made such an annoyance of himself to the king over it that it was decided to send me for it -- if it can be found. We have been here over a month and I have seen no temple, let alone a small figure. If it was so important, then the chancellor should have gone himself." At the sound of the title, there was a brief comment from Theyl and Shey Lann laughed along with Bryth who answered quietly that she had no doubt of it. She put her arm around Darji and grinned, "Theyl said that the chancellor is no traveller, and that from his meeting with him, he decided that he might have been a warrior once, but now he seemed to be an older person who has lost his stones and does not know where to begin his search for them." "Who is this guy anyway?" Darji asked and she said that if they were successful, she would take him to her settlement to meet her father and he'd to see the chancellor there. "He is a human, as you are though," she grinned again, "you are much better to look at, Darji." She called something out to Theyl, who turned back and nodded with a smile. "I have just told Theyl that I hold onto you as we walk and if that was alright and he said it was." When he looked at her, Bryth looked just a little bit uncomfortable and said, "Theyl will be my second ram one day. I do not want him to feel left alone. I try to teach him what I can. We did not begin well, but he and I seek to be good for each other. It is a choice that neither of us wanted at first, but it must be, and now we grow to be close friends at least." There was a cry from the front and they ran ahead. Theyl was caught in a thick web of some sort and Shey Lann was looking off into the distance for its owner as she tried to pull him free. "Tell him not to struggle," Darji said, "he'll only get more tangled. We've got to wait until Momma shows up to drag him off. THEN we shoot her or him and then, we get Theyl out. Anything else and we might all get caught up." Bryth translated for Theyl and Darji cautioned Shey Lann not to shoot until the spider was close by. "The closer that the spider gets, the more greed will force it to even defend us against others. If you shoot from far away, you might find yourself facing half a dozen." He looked as far as he could see, and even looked back the way that they'd come, but he saw nothing for the moment, so he slung his shotgun over his shoulder and told the others not to look at him or Theyl, but to look outward and let him know if they saw anything. He was about to wade in with his knives when he had a thought and looked up. What he saw there made him reach for the shotgun again and he pushed Shey Lann aside while he shot the nearest ones. They landed with soft splashes and then he grabbed his rifle and shot the ones farther away and they scuttled off along the vaulted cavern ceiling out of sight. He pulled out his long knives then and set to work, carefully hacking the sticky webbing away from the nervous faun before he pulled him free. "Are you alright, Theyl?" he asked and the faun nodded with wide eyes after Bryth asked him so that he understood. "Come on then, all of you. They'll get over their fear in a minute. I wounded a couple for sure and they'll try to kill those ones first for an easy meal, but they will all remember us in a little while. We'd better be gone when they think of us again." They ran as fast as they could, but they were hampered by the darkness of the cavern and the uncertainty of the evenness of the floor -- even with the torches. All that it would take now would be a badly sprained ankle and they'd be forced to hold up and then have to defend each other against who knew how many huge spiders. While this ran through Darji's mind, he had a thought that surely something had spawned all of the patio table-sized things. "Wait, Shey Lann," he called out, "Stop a second." She stopped and waited for them to catch up, "First you say to run, so I ran, since I can see better in the dark than any of you. Now you say to wait," she smiled, "I am learning to like traveling with you, Darji, but please ..." He looked at the three torches that they carried and then he reached back for one of the pockets of his pack. His hand came back with a pale, thin rod after a moment. He looked ahead and held on to Shey Lann for a moment to lean in, "There must be a fat-assed mother here somewhere." A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 55 He took the rod and bent it sharply. A greenish light sprang into existence and he handed the rod to Shey Lann after straightening it a little, "Here, take this and toss it ahead of you as you run. Not too far, maybe the distance that you can run easily for about five to ten steps. When you get to it, don't look at it. Look around it. If there's nothing there, then pick it up and throw it again for the next sprint. I hope that you don't find anything. And don't get too far ahead that I can't get there to help if you do see her." She was amazed but she nodded and tossed the stick. It landed and rolled a little and then she was there, picking it up. She waited a little, looking around and then she threw it again. They were good for almost ten throws before the rod landed on something somewhat higher than the floor, where it bounced off and rolled away into the darkness. There was something out there and it moved toward them a little and then stopped with a hiss. Darji was beside Shey Lann in an instant. He produced another stick, bending it to bring the light that they needed and then shaking it to mix the chemicals inside. He reloaded his shotgun and, jacking the action once time to load the chamber, he began to walk forward, holding out the glow stick as the fauns came toward Shey Lann. Darji held up the stick and he could see a few highlights or reflections from a few shiny places on the beast. There was a shuddering hiss from out ahead of him. "There she is," Darji said calmly, "Quite the smelly piece of shit too." He looked at her legs, and the way that two of them appeared to be readying to reach for him. He estimated their reach and added six feet, just because he was a little scared. When he got to that distance from her, it occurred to him that some spiders that he'd seen on the surface can jump remarkable distances. He almost stopped and then he realized that this thing was too large and heavy to do much jumping. "Come on, baby," he crooned, "just look at that fat ass. Lemme see you shake it for me one time, honey." The thing seemed to quiver and tremble at the sound of his voice and Darji figured that it must be in anticipation of a meal, since he couldn't think of any other reason, so he held up the shotgun and pointed it right at that face as he pulled the trigger. The shotgun roared and then Darji was backpedalling, trying to dodge the insane dying movements of the spider as it seemed to roll and hop a little. It stopped then and let out a blubbering sigh as the others ran up to him. He handed the glow stick to Shey Lann. "No time to stop now," he said, "If you know where you're going, then lead on, Beautiful." Shey Lann stopped then and looked at him. "You -- you think that I am beautiful?" Darji grinned then and nodded, "All of you are to me. Now come on, Shey Lann. Get going. We can't stay here." She ran on then, tossing the glow stick as she went. It went on for an hour before she slowed to a stop and waited for them to reach her again. "What's wrong?" Darji asked and she stood shaking her head, "I have been leading us back to where we came in." "What's wrong with that?" Darji asked while Bryth groaned, "We have not found the figure. We have not found anything but ways to die here. Spiders ... beasts ... rats. It is hopeless. We have been here over a month and have nothing to return with." "Is there a place nearby that's reasonably safe where we can spend the night and rest?" Darji asked. Shey Lann thought about it for a moment and then she nodded, "There is another hot spring not far from here, if my memory is good. We can stay there in safety. When we were there last, we stayed three days to rest and wash." They walked on for a long while, with Bryth looking back often to see if they were being followed and Shey Lann walking point again, since she seemed to know where they were. Darji walked with Theyl in silence. Theyl was getting better at English very marginally, but at the moment, he seemed to be lost in a little introspection. Darji looked over and nudged Theyl's shoulder. "Hey, are you ok?" Theyl looked at him a little blankly for a moment, "Ok?" Darji put his arm around the faun, "Yeah, Are you ok?" He spoke a little slowly, "Are you alright? Is there anything wrong?" Theyl nodded in understanding then. "Ok." He sighed then, "Bad to talk." He asked Bryth then and she said, "Theyl wishes he could speak in your speech. He wants very much to be able to talk to you." Darji nodded and looked back, "Please tell him that I wish that I could speak whatever fauns speak." Theyl looked at him strangely when he'd heard the translation, "Why, Darji?" Darji grinned and tightened his grip on Theyl's shoulder, "If I knew how to speak that way, then think of how easy it would be to just talk about anything. You wouldn't have to wait for Bryth to say it to you and I wouldn't have to wait and Bryth could have more fun just talking too. English is the problem here. You all can speak ... faun or whatever it's called. I'm the one who holds everyone back." Bryth looked at him as she translated it and Theyl looked at him for a long moment. "Well yeah,"Darji smiled, "Think about it. Really, it's Shey Lann and Bryth who are being nice to me by speaking English so that I understand. It's thoughtful of them, but it means that you feel left out. That's why I wish that I could speak ... ok, what is it called?" "You were right," Bryth said, "it is called Faun." She walked up and put her arms around Theyl, who smiled at her. "Hey, I'll just drift back to keep an eye out behind us. He seemed to be looking a little down, so I wanted him to know that it's really me that's the language drag around here. Do a little of your faun-girl thing and make him feel better, ok?" Bryth stared at him for a moment and then she laughed, nodding, "Ok!" before she threw her arms around Theyl's neck to hug him tightly as they walked. Darji watched them for a minute and he hoped that Theyl wasn't feeling useless or anything for stumbling into the web back there. He'd done it himself many times and even now, it was still sometimes hard to see them until it was too late and you were in them. He'd almost died a couple of times. Thinking it over, he said that to Bryth and she translated to Theyl who seemed surprised. "He asks does this still happen to you?" "You tell him yes. It can happen at any time, so it wasn't just him. It could have been any of us -- even Shey Lann if she was on the other side of the path at the time. I've been here a long time and it still happens to me." She told him and Theyl looked as though he felt better then. Bryth looked back and mouthed the words, "Thank you," and Darji nodded with a smile. He watched them for a little while, being unobtrusive about it and he decided that he liked these three people quite a lot now. As he walked, he had a chance to really enjoy looking at their back ends for a long time. Only Shey Lann knew that he was doing it, checking out their butts. She looked back a few times and her smile told him that she'd figured it out -- even that he was checking out her ass too, right through her cloak, her chainmail, AND her elven travelling trousers. It didn't matter. He just watched the rhythm of her walk and he could see all that he needed to, thanks to good old male X-Ray vision. He knew that Shey Lann knew because she'd sometimes drift over to talk to Bryth for a moment and whenever she did that, Darji just fell in love with the way that she could make her ass jazz a little when she did. After more than an hour of looking back and seeing nothing, Darji found himself staring at Bryth's butt. It took nothing for him to decide that he liked what he saw there quite a bit. But then he asked himself if it was something that he really wanted. From what he'd heard, Theyl was a lot like him and thinking back, Darji thought that he'd seen a few signs, but he couldn't be absolutely certain because there were cultural differences here. Oh yeah, he thought, there were cultural differences here to be sure. But then he'd been there before and it had never presented him with more than a little challenge, back when he'd been 'on safari' with his mother, as they'd called it. He looked from Theyl to Bryth and then to Shey Lann -- who was looking back at him right then -- and he asked himself again, did he really want this? Darji sighed. He wanted a place where he didn't need to keep a loaded shotgun near him as he slept. He wanted a place where he didn't always need to think about looking for food every so often. He wanted a place where he could have a hot bath now and again. He wanted to feel the sun on his face. He wanted ... Fuck, he thought, he wanted a lot. Then he looked at those fine asses there in front of him and Darji Saladin smiled to himself. Oh hell, yeah, he wanted some of that. At that point, he saw a subtle movement up ahead. It was small, but he knew what it was. Cave rats, shuffling slowly along, looking for food the same as everyone else down here. He partially closed his right hand and clicked his thumbnail against the edge of the nail of his middle finger three times fairly quickly. The quiet sound turned all of their heads and he held his fingers up to his mouth signalling silence and then he pointed as he walked up to where they were as quietly as he could. He watched the lumbering shapes for a moment and whispered, "The fat one at the back. He's just coming back from having a shit or something and he's looking to rejoin the herd. We'll take him." He reached for his pocket and shoved two shells into his pump gun silently, since he knew that he was down at least that many in it. "If you can get close from a little beside and behind him," he said to Theyl quietly as he put his arm around the faun's waist, "can you put a bolt into his ear, Theyl?" He watched carefully as Bryth spoke into Theyl's ear. When Theyl nodded, Darji watched as the crossbow was drawn back and a bolt placed to load it. Shey Lann said that she'd distract the herd and then she was gone, stealing silently out to the leaders with Bryth, both of them holding arrows nocked loosely against their bows. It all worked pretty much according to plan. The lead animals stopped to peer for a moment at the two archers who stood a few yards in front of them with bows drawn. Their mark got the word too late but he stopped as well. There was a split-second of silence and then there was the thud of Theyl's bolt hitting home, deep in the creature's skull. It fell on its face as though poleaxed, the stumpy legs spayed out in all directions. The sound of that spooked the ones in front and they charged the girls, who stepped out of the way and were forgotten. Only Theyl was there, looking at what he'd killed with Darji beside him. Darji dropped to his knees, pulling his knives to set to work as they walked up. "Tell him it was the perfect shot," Darji smiled as he looked up at Bryth, "Thanks to our friend Theyl, we'll all eat well tonight and tomorrow." Theyl watched for a moment and then he knelt beside Darji with his own knife out, "How?" Darji pointed to where he needed a cut, "There. Just through the skin and the fat, from there to here." They began it with Darji teaching as he went and in little time, they were rolling the thing onto its back. "Here to there, here to ... here, "Darji said. Two minutes later, Darji wiped his hands and asked Shey Lann to roll up his sleeves for him. As she did, she looked at his face and then at his arms, staring at the tattoos that she saw there. "How did these come to be here?" she asked, "I think I saw all of you in the spring yesterday and -- " "And you weren't seeing," he smiled, "You only saw a man who you didn't like at all. But that was then. Hell, I only saw an elf who kept wanting to hold her sword to my throat." He looked down at his arms, "That's good. Thanks, I always forget to do this before I start, but I'm usually alone, so then I get blood on everything." He walked over to the carcass on the floor and asked Theyl to hold onto the claws or the wrists or something- anything but the head. Theyl understood well enough and held on while Darji cleaned out the innards and left them in a pile on the floor. He asked Shey Lann to get the blue tarpaulins from the side of his other pack. When he had them, he sawed the body in two roughly, hacked off the head, and began to wrap the pieces in the tarps quickly. That done, he grabbed the rope that he kept for the purpose and then he hefted the smaller piece and asked who would carry it. Theyl nodded and in a minute, he stood bent forward a little under the weight as Darji took the other, larger half. He pointed to his two packs and the girls took one each to add to their load and then they were off, walking away as quickly as possible in the direction that Shey Lann took them in. Theyl walked a little quicker so that he could be next to Darji for a moment, "Darji," he said, "Why fast? Work so fast. Why?" Darji pointed back the way that they'd come, "Look. His brothers are already eating what we left behind. We need to be farther than they can think or they'll follow the trail to get more of him. Bryth, honey, watch our backs please and try to see if we're dripping blood at all. I want no drops, so if you see any, please tell me." She nodded and kept a watchful eye on everything. It was half an hour later when they came to the place that Shey Lann had spoken of. Darji found the colder water and he washed the meat carefully, re-wrapping one section. After that, they washed up a little before Darji began to prepare his 'magic food' again. All the way, he'd been wondering about Shey Lann's remark about this place being safe, but now he saw the reason for that. There was a huge stone door and there was no other way in or out. The door was a little hidden and it was counterbalanced so that it swung easily if one pushed it in just the right place. Once inside, it was a small matter to bar the mechanism so that the door was in effect, locked then. "It seems we are home again," Bryth said to Theyl in their speech and he nodded, asking what the word would be in Darji's speech. Darji turned to look at them when she said, 'home' and then he saw Theyl looking at him as he repeated it once. With the small fire heating the stew -- since that was all that Darji wanted to hazard trying to make out of the cave rat meat, they all migrated to the hot springs to get clean again. Darji was trying to get the last of the cave rat blood off him which was left from the butchering when he noticed Theyl next to him working on the same issue. They smiled at each other and kept at it. "I do not know how to begin," Theyl said to Bryth quietly over his shoulder in the Faun language, "I am nervous that he might not have the want to be touched by me." "Show him how you feel and that you seek his friendship," she replied, "I think it is a little clear that since we both like him, we may have found the ram that we have been searching for, and I have seen the way that he looks at us both." "I have no wish to dampen your feelings," Shey Lann said from the other side of the springs in the same language, "but I wonder how an arrangement such as that would be seen back at the court. You and Theyl are allowed two mates each, but the supposition -- I would guess -- would be for the other to be a faun, not a human male." "I have no thought of it,"Bryth said quietly as she washed herself, "Theyl and I were handed off in trade by our parents before we even knew how to speak. It might be the goal, but we have grown close for us and not them. I am ready to mate with my ram Theyl at any time and he knows how I feel about him. All that we wish for is a ram for us both. We have whispered of it since we met this one. He is good in his heart, it is very clear to me that he cares for us - all of us, Shey Lann, you as well. He is fine to look at all the afternoon. All that remains is to find out if he has a want for us which lasts longer than a few pairings each, and he must show me that he can have feelings for Theyl as well. Whether it is as a close male friend or as a lover to Theyl is to be determined by them both. I just know that we like him very much and we have a hope that something is possible. As far as what you spoke of, to me, you are the proof that it need not be only a faun. You are the ewe of two royal rams. I will take my own royal ram in Theyl. Why cannot my other ram be a fine and strong human? There is the life aspect, I grant, but with a little of my juice in him past his sweet-looking lips or with some of Theyl's seed in him anywhere, that is no longer a concern, is it? I do not care a stuff about what the court thinks -- or the queen -- or the king for that matter. Out of duty or out of a need to force things to work for us, we all travel the road which was set out for us -- by two faun kings and not by us. I do not want to hear my father as he quibbles that I did not walk it in the way which he intended. My father can try to fuck his crown for all that I care." "Well that is good," Shey Lann laughed in her way, "but we are not in the hall now and neither you nor I are in our season. Surely we have missed a High Day feast or three by now in our wanderings, and I am free to seek a good rutting, just as my rams are back at home." Her face fell a little then, "though I suppose that they are not my rams anymore by now." Bryth noticed the change right away and grew concerned, "What has happened, Shey Lann? Tell me." Shey Lann looked down and shrugged, "It is my own fault most likely and even of it is not, I accept the blame. I did not want to tell you of it because they are your brothers and I am afraid to cause hard feelings in you." "You cause no such thing," Bryth said as she stepped over in concern, "only tell me what went amiss." "Two things mostly, "the elf said sadly. "First, though they are very vigorous in how they love me, that seemed to be all that there is to them in a bed. Like most rams, they hurry it too much for my taste. Understand that I like that, but not always, Bryth. There are times when I want very lazy loving as long as it is meant. Perhaps my favorite thing is to be in bed when it rains. Even better is to wake either late at night or early in the morning to find that it pours outside. That is when I love a male who is slow and puts much into what he does for me. I tried several times when it rained, but your brothers never knew what I wanted -- even though I told them clearly each time. They jumped onto me as though it was the afternoon and we had little time for it, so it was over -- both of them spent -- before I was really awake. The other thing is political. You know how I feel about the same old ways that your people have which keeps the poor under the heels of the rich. When I mention that it is unfair, the two fools can only see that it is what has kept them in wealth all of their lives and they will brook no argument for change or even try to see what I tell them -- that if things remain as they are, then one day, and I have no idea when that might be -- the people will change things for themselves, and woe betide the wealthy then, for it would be too late to change anything gently then. The change would come marked by many deaths. I understand those two, but they do not understand me and so we have parted over our differences." She smiled over at Theyl and Bryth through the hot fog of the place then, wanting to change both the subject and the mood, "I propose that we use these circumstances to learn what we can of our companion, since we have the makings of a feast day in a sense. I will help in any way that I can so that you both learn what you seek to know about him. If there is any interest in me from him after that, I will try to take what pleasure that I can." A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 56 ***Still moving stuff around but picking up speed now, we return to where Jerrthi has begun a rather late career as a news reporter on Merren. Thanks to the Xer unit that she's been embedded into, she's finding a few things to help her get over the depression of losing her mate to the soulless machinery of the Merren government. A couple of those things are 1) the adventures that her old journalism school chum Ronkahh just seems to fall into and of course, 2) there's the commander of the Xer unit himself. 0_o ------------------ Jerrthi found that in spite of everything, she was having a great time with Xhan. He could manage the dual roles of being the unit's commanding officer - which was a little like being a father figure -- while still being able to enjoy himself and not sound like a father figure. There were things going on that she doubted that he could allow, and yet he passed it all off with a little comment every time. Jerrthi hadn't known where to look as she stood next to him while they spoke for a little while with his counsel, who had loosened up considerably, now that she was taking a break from the attentions of two large Xer gunners, one of which was there with her and nibbling on her neck as they conversed while Jerrthi tried not to stare as his large pawed hands roamed over her very freely. The female Xer didn't even flinch as she laughed and chatted. When she noticed Jerrthi looking at her, she smiled warmly and said, "They're the forty-third. They're famous for this, though there are so few of them here. Even so, it is not something to be missed." She noticed a little blood in the fur over her shoulder and she smiled back, "You didn't say anything to me about a proposal." Her hand came up to hold his head against hers, "Don't tempt me like that. I might just accept." Xhan introduced her to Troxi, one the unit's electronic countermeasures wizards, and the two found a lot of common ground instantly before Jerrthi looked around a few minutes later and found Xhan standing near the bar, trying to order a drink each for them while doing his best to ignore the way that Ronkahh and TWO Xer females were carrying on back on top of the bar now. It amazed Jerrthi so much, that she had to spin around and look back to see that Troxi was gone then, only maybe a minute after they'd been chatting. She spun back and looked at the bar again. Troxi was one of the girls dancing with Ronkahh, her gently striped and light gray fur making her look quite attractive as she danced with a big happy smile, bending down low now and then to blow kisses to the throngs of males and females who were there partying. Whenever she did that, she seemed to hold still for a few seconds while several pawed hands reached to stroke her bottom from the other side of the bar. Their dancing went far past being only suggestive and more than once as Jerrthi watched, Ronkahh ground her way down along the front of one of them, but she didn't come back up for more than a minute while the Xer girl held Ronkahh's head against her furry crotch to the cheers of everyone and it was plain what was going on. Jerrthi didn't know anyone here well enough to even notice it when a single coal-black female came to a decision and stood up to walk a little closer to the center of things. But Jerrthi did see it when the girl bent over a table and began to watch Troxi dance. Her slender hips moved and swayed along with what she was watching and it was only seconds before she was being enjoyed from behind by a male. Jerthi couldn't believe what she was watching. But the second one of Ronkahh's dancing partners saw it and she jumped down and waded through the others to move up and stand second in the line then. Before Xhan could return with their drinks, the male had finished very quickly and the female stepped up. Troxi stood behind the first female and ground her hips into her a little as she spoke, all while holding the dark female down with a hand placed in the center of her upper back. As Jerrthi stared, the standing one slipped her hand between the other one's thighs and began to manipulate her. The result was instant -- the recipient beginning to moan and buck back far more than she had earlier. Jerrthi looked at the expression on the other small female's face as she held her head just a little off the tabletop and faced Jerrthi with her eyes closed in momentary pleasure. Jerrthi was struck by the beauty of them both, but she noted the short spiky mane on the one who stood bent over. Just then, the female opened her eyes and Jerrthi saw that one was the normal golden tone which was predominant among the Xer, but it was the other one which caught her eye now, since it was a bright blue. The moment passed as Xhan returned a few minutes later with their drinks. Jerrthi thanked him and nodded at the goings-on with a smile, "They play very hard, your people. Does this have to do with the risk of death finding them at any time?" "No," he replied, looking a little confused, "They are letting out the tension of the hearing. They were afraid that I would lose this command and they might get a new commander then who might not allow them this as I do. We have not been together that long and we work really well as a team. It surprised them until they found out who I am. I have an uncle who commanded the entire forty-third brigade at one time where I hold only this one small unit. But I am beginning just as my uncle did. I remember all of his lessons to me and I wouldn't change a thing." He looked at her seriously then, "If I must ask it of them, I know that for this enjoyment, they would give me more than their blood. I know it must sound strange to a Merren civilian, but that is the way of it." He smiled then, "Your friend Ronkahh seems to have fallen right in with them." "Well of course," Jerrthi smiled, "She has always prided herself on being the very finest party slut there could ever be." She looked up and said, "And I did not mean it to sound disparaging in any way. It's not something that I could ever do, but if you knew her and went to school with her, you'd know that she comes from a home where there was very little laughter and love. This is how she makes up for what was missing then. I can even admire her for it in a way." The music changed then to something slow and very old-fashioned and Xhan asked Jerrthi if she wanted to dance with him. She nodded and found herself almost swept off her feet in his arms. "Where did you learn to dance to music like this?" she asked him a little dreamily from where her head rested on his shoulder. He smiled, "My mother used to have a dancing school. Do you like it?" "Mm-hmm," she sighed as they glided and twirled. "How did you learn to dance this way, Jerrthi?" he asked and she smiled. "I took dancing lessons once upon a time." --------------------- A little later, they walked for a while outside for a breath of air, looking at the stars. "Do you suppose that we can see the light from the sun of the system where Bronn is from here?" she asked. He shook his head, "It is too far from here and the sun there is a small and unimportant one. To be seen as a star in our sky, it would have to be many times larger than it is. Why do you ask?" "Oh, nothing," she replied, "It was only a thought." It had been only a thought, she told herself. She was a little glad to hear his reply as what it had been. The way that she was beginning to feel, it came as a small relief to her to think that if she couldn't see where Bronn was, then he wouldn't be able to see her as well. As they walked back, there head quiet groaning coming from some low bushes and as they passed by, they couldn't help but see. "Psst, hey, Jerrthi, they told me that we have to be here the day after tomorrow for some tests." Jerrthi rolled her eyes as she chuckled, "How did you get from in there to out here, Ronkahh? We've only been out here a few minutes." "Ya gotta know the flow," her friend said, "and if you follow that, you'll always be where the best part of the party is, and I've got the best nose for that." "Ronk-ahh? "a voice whined a little plaintively as they watched a striped gray and very feminine Xer tail rise up to float across Ronkahh's face for a moment, "C'mon and put your nose back in my party." "I, uh,... I gotta go," Ronkahh smiled a little sheepishly. "We understand," Xhan chuckled as he took Jerrthi's arm to lead her back, "Hello Troxi." "Good evening, Section Officer," the striped Xer said politely before she giggled a little and reached for Ronkahh's horns again. ----------------------- Arrax lifted his bowed head and looked at the goddess who stood before him, "I understand and it will be done." Her soft smile didn't waver as she stepped forward and laid her hand on his shoulder, "Our thanks, valued servant. The time of our need draws near." ----------------------------------- Tirran looked up from his display when he heard the clawed footfalls coming up the rear ramp, so he turned and smiled at Arrax, "Just about there." "Good," the large male nodded, "Any issues?" Tirran smirked a little, "Uhhh no. Hustle off to somewhere that's barely on my charts, pick up some unidentified folks, haul ass off to another speck on a map display and pick up a lot of weight to fly against the headwind that I'll find at any flight level where there's even atmosphere on this mudball and come back. I have no idea who I'm supposed to pick up in either location and I hope nobody has to pee, since this bird doesn't have the facilities for more than like six. Everything else was ripped out for the type conversion. What could go wrong?" Arrax listened and gave it the required amount of consideration. "Nothing out of the ordinary for you then. Let's go," he grinned as he sat in the second-pilot's seat and began to strap in. ----------------------- "You may act in my place as you see fit," Dakhete told Yasmin in a serious tone, "I do not know what might come, so I give you one-half of the army. You may use it all, but if I have need where I go, I may take the other half, so give thought to this before committing the whole force." Yasmin nodded, "I'd much rather go with you. I was a little upset when they changed their plans." "Khyan cannot go," the queen reminded her young protégé, "He must remain to rule his kingdom. Why not pool everything between you and just stay with him?" Yasmin smiled then," Thank you, Dhakete, she said as she bowed, "I owe you much." The Kandake smirked, "You owe me nothing, gazelle, but only try to pretend better for me. Did you not think that I had the thought that it is what you would do anyway?" She turned to go then, "This is not what I would have wanted in how it is to go. Sha-sha and I must journey alone with the others. Saddiq has the same cares as well as a people who need him as Khyan. Farewell." Yasmin watched her friend as she walked off to an uncertain future before she turned and walked in the other direction. As Dakhete walked, she saw Sha-sha waiting for her with several others. Together, they walked until they stood looking over a small plain. They spoke quietly among themselves until a large dark shape appeared over the horizon. It settled down with a quiet rumbling whine and then a large ramp opened before them and they began to walk again. As they neared it, they saw a pair of creatures which bore a resemblance to Maahes and Anubis, as well as his wife Inpewt waiting at the bottom of the ramp. The creatures bowed low to them all -- especially to the gods as they walked aboard. There was no one there to see it as the large craft rose up into the heavens, turning slowly before it slid almost soundlessly over the horizon once more. ----------------------- "What is it which is to come for us?" Makhad asked as he shuffled his feet a little in the dirt out of boredom. "I don't know," Natasha squinted as she looked out over the land with the late afternoon sunlight in her eyes, "I have never seen anything like what was described to me." She reached up to touch the side of his face with a smile, "but I see that there is something that your kind is not good at here. I am just as impatient to have this done as you, but if you look around us, you will see most of my kind standing still, and most of yours looking as though they cannot stand here for much longer. I thought that you were very patient watchers." Before he could answer, Sheel came to them, with Khyan's sisters and their mates, "It is something that we can do, but to stand as though we wait on the kindness of others is hard for us." Natasha put her arm around Sheel and kissed her in the polite manner as she smiled, "it's no easier for us. Most of us don't believe that there is anything coming at all and that it was all a rumor." Twenty miles out from the pick-up point, Tirran stared at his display, set at a little magnification. What he saw out there made him want to step it up a lot more to zoom in better, but he knew that at this distance, the distorting effect of the mirages from the heat of the sun on the earth wouldn't help him at all, so he just flew on, slowing as he did. In another minute, he had a clear view as he swung around to set down and drop the ramp. "What in the nine hells are those?" "Friends, "the goddess Inpewt said, "Large and powerful friends." Tirran pressed a sensor on his panel, "Shaevre, please tell them that it would be a good idea to pee or whatever they do before they get aboard. I have no facilities for them here." Shaevre acknowledged as the large creatures approached and she stepped forward. Tirran sat back in his seat and looked over at the goddess Inpewt, "And I don't even want to think about it anymore." He looked over at Arrax, "This won't work, if we have to carry them AND the ones that Rosa led anywhere. We'll be leaking piss out of every seam. It's just numbers and probability. Somebody always has to go any given moment." Anubis looked on, "Does this servant always have these sorts of cares?" "I was not aware of any," Arrax smiled, "But now I begin to think of it as a sudden obsession of his." Tirran swiveled his seat away as he muttered quietly, "Fine. We'll just lift off and accelerate home; us them and a few tons of transonic pee." Ninety minutes later, he watched as they all plodded off toward the portal doors leading into the mountain. He suddenly had the thought that at least a hundred of them needed to go by now, by the standards of his own off-the-cuff rules of probability and he wanted to bang his head against the control console for a moment. But he felt the touch of the goddess on his shoulder and he looked up into her lovely eyes. "Servant," she smiled, "You have done us a great kindness today and," she smirked at her husband, "I wish to thank you for it and tell you that what you think of is not your concern any longer." Tirran looked at her blankly for a second and then he chuckled, "You're right. Thanks for telling me, but now I have to go." He stood up and walked away as the others prepared to disembark. Walking to door of the nearest 'air-potty', he cursed and laid his head against the wall as the indicator blinked at him that the holding tank was at full capacity. Tirran ground his teeth together and cursed. "Not my problem anymore, huh?" he groaned, "And just where am I supposed to dispose of eleven hundred liters of dirty urine?" He walked to the flight console and looked at the monitors, switching views to look all around him. There was a slope to the land that led away from the portal and Tirran began to smile. ---------------------- Jerrthi and Ronkahh walked out of the training center feeling a little disconnected from reality after the cursory physical examinations and all of the emergency training videos which they'd had to absorb. As well, it felt downright weird to be wearing the Merren flight suits in the bright sunshine and carrying the helmets they had been handed. Ronkahh was fuming quietly at the treatment which her friend had received as well. She was from one of the most common species which occurred in the make-up of the Merren diaspora whereas Jerrthi was from one of the smallest of the minority groups. To her mind, it meant that her friend ought to receive, if not some sort of special consideration for her slightly different body type, then at least a measure of respect since she was a little rare. So it fried her tail a little to hear the way that Jerrthi had been addressed and treated. The staff had made noises to her about returning her gear when their stint with the Xer was completed. When Jerrthi had asked if they wanted hers as well, the female had almost sneered and said, "Well the helmet was a custom job, made to fit your head and horns. I doubt we'd ever have a use for it. We've never had a member from the Grottoids before. You can keep the flight suit as well. We don't really want to see it back." Ronkahh's reaction had been instant. "What did you call her?" "Excuse me?" the low-ranking female asked, nervous suddenly. Ronkahh's eyes glittered a little, "You heard me. What the fuck did you just call my colleague here? You called her a Grottoid. That's what I heard you say." "I ... um, I said no such thing," the female Merren said, beginning to backpedal. "It's alright, Ronkahh," Jerrthi said quietly, not wanting to make a scene. "No it's fucking not," Ronkahh said as she held up her helmet which she'd been attaching the small camera onto, "This was running while I was screwing around trying to find the best place to mount it. I always keep a cam running if I can." She leaned closer to the staff member, "If I find your remark on here when I sit down to edit everything, I'll lodge a formal complaint against you. It won't be a Grotto Dweller's complaint, either. It'll be from somebody just as mainstream as you. I've done it before and I'll see that you cook for it, so learn to watch your mouth." Outside, Jerrthi had tried to calm Ronkahh down, and had been a little successful. "It just grates me, that's all. Sorry if I embarrassed you." "I don't think you know what you just said," Jerrthi smiled, "It's me, remember? All those stupid things that you and I did while we were out recording all of the nutty assignments that they'd given us back at school? I'm still used to you, Ronkahh." They stopped as they saw a large male Xer in a flightsuit walking toward them, a bright and garishly adorned Xer helmet on his hip under one muscled arm. He was on the far side of a group of about seven Merren pilot trainees who stood in a long gaggle and carelessly blocked the walkway between two yellow lines which were there to keep pedestrians orderly. He stood head and shoulders above them all and Jerrthi could just see that bright helmet through the crowd. It became clear in a moment that the Merren were being rude, but the Xer didn't seem to mind. He walked up to them and stopped, wishing them all a pleasant morning. Not one of them even looked over. So he said, "Excuse me, please," in a loud barking growl, but it was still very polite. Jerrthi could have sworn that three of them jumped, and the rest moved aside hurriedly. They glared at him, but he only smiled at the two females which he was there to guide back as he passed through them. "Whoa," Ronkahh said under her breath, "Look at that one. I didn't see him at the party the other night." "Yeah, you did," Jerrthi smirked, "You jumped off the bar into his arms naked several times, once to talk to me when you first saw me. I heard you ask him to, uh, embed you." "I, ... oh fuck, I did?" "Uh-huh," Jerrthi smiled, "I don't know if he did, though. All the other times I saw you, you were under tables or crawling around on your hands and knees. A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 56 Oh, and you were in the hedge with somebody named Troxi. I met her earlier and we had a great chat." Ronkahh groaned as the male came up to them and his brilliant smile shone down on them. "Good morning, Ronkahh," he bowed, "and to you as well, Jerrthi." He continued smiling as he spoke, "I don't know if you remember me. I am Flight Officer Arshan. I have been sent to bring you to the Xer operations center here. You are to go on a familiarization flight with us this morning, now that you appear to be ready for it." Jerrthi exchanged a few pleasantries with Arshan while Ronkahh mostly spent the moments looking uncomfortable and then they were off, walking on either side of the large male. "Are you a pilot?" Jerrthi asked, and he nodded, "I am, though in our tasking here, I am second-pilot for our craft, the one which you are to ride along in, since we have the extra seating for you in it. My role is to fly when Doona, who is the leader of our attack flight needs to rest or in the event of an emergency. The rest of the time, which is mostly, I oversee the operation of the craft and monitor its state while handling the defensive weapons if we are engaged." He stopped and looked over at Ronkahh as his expression became one of concern, "Are you not feeling well today, Ronkahh?" "Huh? Oh, I'm fine, uh, Arshan, fine. It's nothing that a little quiet regret won't fix in time." "What do you regret, if I might ask?" he said, "I enjoyed your laughter very much the other evening and this marks a sudden change. As far as I know, you did nothing to feel badly about if that is your concern. All of us were having a good time. There are no unkind thoughts of you in my mind -- or anyone else's, as far as I know." The Merren female groaned again, "I'm afraid I must have made quite a fool of myself that night." "Your memory of events must be a little foggy from the drink," he said, "You did nothing to regret that night. I would have stopped you beforehand if you were about to engage in anything which might have had lasting effects. It was my task that night to watch over you and that was what I did. We are different, but I watched over you as I would for my own sister. You would have come to no harm." He leaned down a little toward her, "Nothing was done for which you should feel badly. You were only playing and feeling good. There was no harm done by your actions and you did not mate with any male. I would have interceded quietly then, to make certain that it was what you wished for." "You -- you would? Why?" His smile was back full force in an instant, "We are different species, Ronkahh. I was there for your welfare and to make sure that you would not engage in any coital acts with a male, since there is a possibility of being bitten. Such a thing is not to be done with a Merren of any kind while the participants are under the influence, though I believe that Merren do not come to any harm from it -- other than the marks. It would be a shame to wear the mark of a male that you didn't really know." "You were with me the whole time?" she asked nervously and he nodded. "Often from this close, but I was never more than a little away from you regardless. You were in my arms for brief periods several times, for which I thank you. I have never held a Merren female." He looked away then for a moment as he watched a Merren craft whistling past some distance away, "I found it very pleasant, surprisingly so. Thank you for that, Ronkahh, and thank you for your kisses as well." She chuckled then, feeling much better suddenly, "It's a shame that I don't remember. I'd have thought that I'd remember doing something as nice as that sounds. Don't mention it, Arshan. I'd do that for you anytime. Just ask." Arshan grinned then, seeing that she was back to being more like the pretty Merren that'd he'd loved to feel against him that night, and her kisses, though wet and drunkenly sloppy, were memorable to him as well. He suddenly saw a chance for a bit of payback as far as the Merren trainees were concerned. "Oh, I'd almost forgotten. May I see your helmets? I've brought you both a little something for before you begin." He pulled a few stickers from his pocket and began to put them onto their helmets one after the other in a prominent position. "I had these ones here made up for you. After the other evening, it was decided that you be made welcome among us at any time. We rarely accept outsiders -- even other Xer - so it is a little unusual. These others are never seen on a non-Xer's helmet, but we are far from home now and we all decided it." He fumbled for a few moments first with one helmet and then the other, but when he held them up, each one bore its owner's name in bold Xerian script over the dark visor and above that, there was an emblem -- a larger version of what each of the unit wore around their necks. "First of the Forty-third," Jerrthi said in a little awe, and Arshan smiled a little softly as they both bowed a little," It's an honorary thing, but we've all accepted you, so you're stuck with them. I think you must be the only non-Xer who have been accepted by a Death hound unit anywhere." He ignored the others, but he did see the Merren trainees who stood nearby stare at the helmets. As he handed them back, he said, "Big rule about these - never wear them around on the ground if you aren't getting aboard or climbing down. It's considered bad luck, and it's something that Merren aircrew do. Come along and we'll get started." As they passed the group, Jerrthi noticed something and so she decided to give Arshan the opening, "Is wearing your helmet on the ground a sign of something or anything like that, Arshan?" He nodded, "It's the sign of a trainee who needs to show that he thinks he's important. We like to see it since it makes us laugh. The unit sticker is never given until after you've flown a mission where you have killed something, but as I said, you're in with us now. If anyone asks you to return your helmet, come see me, and I'll remove the stickers." As they walked away, the two female Merren pilots groaned and wished that they'd get to fly one time with the famous Xer group, especially if the tall one there was along. Several of the others removed their helmets quietly. "How many are there in a normal crew for the attack craft?" Ronkahh asked. "The normal compliment is three for that type; the first-pilot, the second-pilot, and the countermeasures specialist. You'll meet them all when we get there. If we carry no munitions load, aside from what is always there for emergency use, we can also carry about ten ground fighters, though it is almost never done, because it would mean moving slowly to set down and lift up again in the middle of a fight. Attack craft are too expensive and needed for that. The crews are always kept together," he said, "It makes for a better bond between them. They begin to resemble a sort of family group within themselves, and they do most things together, even off duty." Ronkahh looked over, "What did you mean when you said 'emergency use'?" "We're not like normal units," he said, "We always carry a few things for self-defence. For regular Xer craft to be here, they have to come unarmed. We don't. It's not much, but it means that any Death hound craft is able to fight at any time, in any arena." They walked straight into a hangar when they arrived, and Arshan took them right to their ride, a dull gray thing which sat on the ground looking as though it was annoyed to find itself at rest. There were small markings which identified the craft as a Xer warship on it as well as a few stenciled unit markings, but on each side, the Xer skull was visible though it was muted in the matte paint job. Their pilot Doona was already aboard and she nodded in a cursory manner, apologizing a little as they watched her helmeted head swivel while she prepared for their flight. She seemed to always be doing several dozen things at almost the same time. As Arshan got them seated, a smaller Xer bounded aboard and set a large folder aside for the moment so that she could help him. "Hi," she said cheerily, "It's Jerrthi, right? Great to see you again." When Jerrthi had replied, she turned to the second visitor and smiled warmly. "Hey, Ronkahh. I was so happy to hear that you're with us today instead of crawling along in the air inside of the Command rig. You up for some fun today?" As awkward as Ronkahh seemed to find herself wanting to feel today, it was hard not to share in the girl's infectious mood, so she threw the last of her gloom away and grinned, "I sure am. I'm happy to see you too, Troxi. What do you do in here?" The girl laughed, "Mostly, I'm here to ride along and pester everyone with my sauce so that nobody gets enough peace to doze off." They heard Arshan's quiet chuckle as he nodded before resuming his spoken instructions to Jerrthi and guiding her in getting situated and strapped in. "Other than that," Troxi said, "I'm here to keep nasty things from finding us. There won't be anything like that today, so I'm just here for the ride." A little later, the two friends sat side by side, strapped in to ejection seats as the Xer close-air pilot wrung their ride out fairly hard. There had been no allowances made for much in the way of gentle familiarization flights for the two journalists and so while Xhan's group got in a little air time over a Merren gunnery and bombing range to stay sharp, the girls tried to work out how to report from the air in the middle of things. The buzz of information which flowed through the earpieces of their helmets was like sitting inside a working trash compactor to them, but somehow the pilot heard the call to them and in there somewhere, Jerrthi could make out Xhan's voice sounding clipped and tight in her right ear. " -- two hundred left of the last pass. I want it right in the little hole there where the ground drops a bit." "Copy on the little hole," Jerrthi saw the bottom half of Doona's grinning face when she looked to her right to see where her wingman was. "Inbound in three. " she said as she stood the dark gray attack craft on its ear to bring them around again. Jerrthi's neck muscles felt as though her head weighed a ton as she forced a look over to where Ronkahh sat with a big smile on her pretty face. Jerrthi was struggling with the overflow of information which her senses brought to her brain while Ronkahh just threw her a shit-eating grin. At least the helmet cams were a success, she thought. She just wondered if their viewers would be able to make anything out of the high-speed jumble that they'd be seeing if the unit went into action. The next time that she listened in, she heard some of their pilot's instruction s to her flight, "- and then it's down in the plants on the way in. We're supposed to assume that they'll have rockets during the real thing on Ethens, so it's gonna be in on the down low, pop up for the release point, and then we scoop dirt out of there. Five, you're in first. Everybody else in reverse order. I'll hang back to evaluate." There were sounds of acknowledgement from the rest of the group as they came around and began to sink lower. Jerrthi felt the tickle in her chest and she could have sworn that her internal organs were floating freely inside of her as the craft fell out of the sky. "Mud flight's on station," Doona declared. Jerrthi couldn't see what the objective was so she asked. "I can't make you see it if I just say the third bush from the right," the pilot said a little gently, "Just watch where the others drop their stone eggs and you'll see it then by the dust. They're not explosive, but they make the dirt fly a little anyway. Just watch for it." "Stone eggs?" "Yeah," Doona said, "All we've got today are training bombs. They're just made of cast paving material, the same as you walk on but they're shaped like the regular bombs. They're dumb as uh, rocks. No eyes or ears or guidance. We're doing it the old-fashioned way today." "Mud from Mother, acknowledged," Xhan's voice came over the air, "You're cleared. Go." The pilot echoed the command over the flight's net and Jerrthi watched as the other craft rocketed away from them, still falling before they raced out over the valley floor. The others streaked in very low -- low enough to disturb the dirt on the ground and in a few seconds. Jerrthi saw it as they seemed to jump upward and then they dropped low again before climbing hard to leave the area. There were small explosions of dirt from the ground as the bombs landed, some of them tumbling a little as they bounced, but there was a sudden strident warning ringing in Jerrthi's ears from the compartment behind them. "I've got action," the countermeasures specialist said, urgently, "Ranging signals and .... Height-finder coming up. There's guns out there." Doona got on the communicator to warn her flight, and the five craft scattered, dropping out of the sky again to hide in the ground clutter. "There isn't supposed to be anybody out here!" she yelled as she switched comms to tell Xhan. "I hear a lock on somebody," Troxi said, "and ... they're firing." Jerrthi watched as some glowing orbs seemed to float up from the ground toward one craft for a few moments and then there was nothing. "Gimme a map, Troxi," Doona said, "Come on, a map, a map, a map." Troxi reached for her positional console, needing to pull location information as her systems plotted known positions of what was active out there. "There might be some miscommunication," they heard Xhan say, "Merren range control is trying to identify and they've issued a cease-firing command." "That's shit," they heard Doona snarl over the internal, "They're not controlling anybody out there. Some range control." Back on the flight's net, she called out," Anybody hit? I want status reports." She switched to internal, "Trox, a MAP!" "Got the weapons plotted on an overlay. Control units too. On your Nav screen now," the voice said. One after another, the other craft called in to report that they hadn't been hit until there was only one left to hear from. "This is Three. I have some damage, but it seems to be slight. We heard it hit." "Three, this is One. Meet me at five thousand," their wingman said in a gravelly male voice, "Slow and steady climb so I can assess. Anybody hurt?" "Negative," came the response. They held a low orbit as they waited and the pilot studied the slowly rotating image which Troxi had put onto her display. The orientation of the image turned with the circling of the craft. "Fuck-slits," Doona muttered over the internal, "Nasty Merren fuck-slits. Bet this is a fuck-you over Xhan winning his case." "Our riders are Merren," Arshan said to remind his first-pilot. "Oh, ... I'm sorry Jerrthi. You too, Ronkahh, I didn't mean -- I'm already thinking of you as us." "It's alright," Jerrthi replied, "You mean they fired over something like that?" "It's not big stuff," Doona replied, "I'd bet on it and I'd also bet that there'll be the most insincere apologies when we get back. The Merren military is always a little hostile for the way that their bosses always contract us. If they were any good, we wouldn't get the call, would we?" She looked at her fuel cell state and then she switched off her identification beacon, "Troxi, warm up the stealth suite and the jammers. We're going for a ride and we're going in faded. Arshan, can we mess up their guns with our emergency load?" "Roj, Boss," the girl at the rear said with her smile easily heard over the internal. "Sure, Doona," Arshan smiled, "Converting Troxi's overlay to targeting now." "Hang onto your skirts, ladies," the pilot grinned back, "They'll be floating a little in a bit." Ronkahh almost squealed as they dropped suddenly," I love it!" Jerrthi suddenly remembered that she hadn't eaten breakfast and now she was a little glad of it, "What are you going to do now?" "Gotta make my own run," she heard in her ear, "I'm just gonna do it a little differently. I'm going to play this as though it was intended to be a live-fire training exercise with a mistake made in the middle of it. That's what I expect to hear from the Merren ground people when they lie to me, so this will just be us adapting to the changed rules as we saw them. We've heard of this shit being done to visiting Xer units before. They've even killed somebody and they just smile and nod and mouth their apologies and regrets. I'm just going to play it the other way today. They want to shoot at us, well, we can adapt to that. I've heard no call to tell me to abort yet, and unless I do, I'm going to do what the book says and the unit has always done." Jerrthi saw Doona shrug her shoulders from where she sat, "You give Death hounds a target, that's all we need." "Six, this is One. I'm looking at Three from underneath. The maintenance folks are gonna scream at this, but I don't see any fluids leaking. There's a few rips, small stuff that we'd have avoided if we knew our friends were gonna be shooting at us." Doona's finger keyed her microphone, "One from Six. Walk him home, and I'll meet you on the ground. Everybody else, form up again and hold an oval behind the southern ridge at two thousand. Meet me on the encrypted channel. Six out." Seven minutes later, they flew as though they were on an invisible racetrack stretched out in single file as Doona outlined what she wanted. As the others continued around afterward, Doona broke off and rolled in the other direction. "Now, Troxi," she said over the internal, "Fade us now. If you pick up their scans, I want you to shut them down. No, check that. I want you to burn them down if we have the juice for it before they get a lock. Jam them so hard their threat processors melt." Roj," came the laughing reply and right then, Jerrthi's horizon began to tumble as the craft rolled down to smooth out over the valley floor and the scenery shot past them in a blur as they accelerated so hard that Jerrthi's vision began to go gray. "Mud Six, from Mother. Lost you. Report." "Recycling transponder," Doona lied, "Wait one." Xhan was about to reply with more questions, but he turned when he felt a hand on his arm. He saw the face of his master leader -- an older and very savvy Xer, who looked into his young commander's face and shook his head. Xhan got it and held his tongue. The pilot checked the map which Troxi had provided and she even saw the layout of the command bunkers. She made a minor course adjustment and then she pulled the control stick back and leveled a little higher off the deck as she jammed her throttles forward for the different approach. "Hide us well, Trox. This is gonna hurt them more than it'll hurt us." They were in a long turn around the far side of a ridge and Doona held them at a seventy-five percent turn with the throttles back a bit. It made holding her head up difficult for Jerrthi for as long as it lasted. As they came around, Doona added power and they were dropping again to level off screaming across the flats. "Your turn, Arshan," Doona smiled over and she had just the time to see him grin and nod as he acknowledged. Air to ground missile racks rotated into view on the underwing monitors that Ronkahh and Jerrthi could see. "Get ready to evade," the second-pilot said," We're hidden, but they'll know where we are once these are on the way. They'll be busy though, I'll be holding off almost until we're inside the yard. Surely somebody's gonna have the shits." "I've got searches," Troxi said, quietly, "They're looking for somebody -- us, I guess. No search-to-scan conversions yet." "That's ok, baby," the pilot purred back, "You see any height-finders up, I want you to smoke them. We'll be in and gone before they can blink." A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 56 "My finger's holding down the button, Doona," Troxi replied, "If they're even seeing us at all, they're looking at seventeen ghosts spread out over the whole range and we're not the one in the middle, either." "Arshan," Doona said, "Do it." -------------------- There was no one in the command bunkers as they streaked in, but there were cameras. Their optics wound in and out as the operators sent commands to try for a visual. But nothing came, not even the telltale blur which their own craft would have left. Their method was to try to catch and combine signals from different arrays to make up a workable target picture for the weapons aiming to lock onto, but it wasn't working. The Merren equipment hadn't been purchased from any Merren supplier. It had come as part of a defense deal with the Xer several cycles ago. It was outdated to what the Xer were using even then, or it wouldn't have been offered for sale. Now it was even older, since it was used for training both attackers and defenders. Compared to what it faced in the systems on board the Xer attack craft, it was as effective as swinging a shovel at a swarm of hornets. The Xer craft was coming in on mostly the inertia from its high-speed dash into the area, so there was little to track in terms of particle trail and there was no telltale smoke from hydrocarbon combustion. All that there was here was an eerie hiss which the audio sensors could pick up a little of but not track. And even that faded away when Doona pulled back on the power. There were multiple threat alarms in the next instant as the systems detected the launch and direction of the inbound missiles. The officers in the Merren range control offices were fit to pull their horns out. Missiles from out of nowhere and with no data recorded ... ---------------------- The sensor arrays on the ground noted the release of multiple inbound threats, but even as the guns swung to seek them, the missiles were inside of the circle of defense and of twenty-four missiles, twenty-three found their targets. The last one slammed into a sensor array, destroying it anyway. Arshan retracted the racks and as they flew on, Doona switched comms to the flight's channel. "Mud flight from Six. You're in," she said, and four more cloaked craft shot onto the range, the second-pilot in each one selecting sensor arrays to engage. They all knew of the single surviving gun and it received a little of everyone's considerable attention. They began to call in as each one left the range to head for the rendezvous point and find a space to join the rest of the flock. Doona twitched around to a different heading and they shot ahead, hustling across the plain, nothing clearly visible this low and fast but the straight ahead view. At the perfect moment, her visor display flashed an icon and Doona pulled back. The craft vaulted higher, climbing suddenly while Ronkahh and Jerrthi felt the sudden lift against their backsides like a kick there. "Anything, Trox?" "Nothing, Boss. I think we got it all, but I'm still checking." "Jerrthi, Ronkahh, at the end of this, I'm going to pull up a little hard, so you might want to clench your cheeks a little beforehand and I hope that you're not too prone to hemorrhoids. I'm going to loft my training bombs and you'll feel it as little upward kicks as we get lighter, but we'll be upside down then. Oh, and you might pass out." She was too busy to look back, but she grinned to herself anyway, adding, "Don't worry, it'll only be for a moment or two until the suits can equalize." They climbed a bit more, and then the world turned over from Jerrthi's view as they rolled upside down and Donna pulled the power off abruptly. The almost-silence was so strange as they coasted. As she saw the marker that she'd set on her panels light up, Doona hit a series of switches and her bombing racks swiveled forward and down with a whine. Her speed began to drop due to the increased drag, but that was alright, she thought. That was what her on-board systems were there for -- to figure stuff out for her. She armed her automatic release and pulled up just a little. Jerrthi heard the little thumps and clacks as the bombs left and then the racks whined up and disappeared as Doona pulled hard and Jerrthi saw only the valley floor then. They were pointed straight down and she heard and felt the change as Doona poured on the power once more. "Here it comes,"Arshan said in a grunt as they flattened out just meters above the plain and rocketed away in the opposite direction. Several seconds later, Doona's practice bombs landed, each one throwing up a little cloud of soil. Thrown high as they'd been as they'd been released, they'd arced over in a long curve to impact in the middle of the depression that Xhan had marked as their target, but there was no longer any Merren infrastructure there to record the event. Jerrthi looked over at Ronkahh and she could almost smell her excitement. "Fuck, "the party girl said, "This is so ... I almost want to play, uh, I mean, ... well the suit and the stupid straps won't let me, you know?" The pilot grinned at that, but said nothing for a few more seconds as she checked her fuel cell state. "Rear camera, Troxi," she said, and the specialist acknowledged. "Can't tell from the angle, but it looks to me like they landed right in there." "You mean, in the little hole,..." Doona grinned. "Right in the little hole," Troxi laughed. "Got an overhead, Troxi? I'd at least like to see my score, you know." They heard quiet laughter from the rear for a moment and then it was quiet back there, but Jerrthi spoke then. "Don't do it Troxi, "she said, "Somebody will think of checking the satellite access records. The Xer ID for this craft will be recorded and they'll know which craft accessed it and they'll know it was this craft." Troxi pulled her hand away from the communications console, "You know that, Jerrthi? I mean, for sure?" "Yes, Jerrthi said, "A Watcher will find that if they ask for it. I used to be one." "Thanks, Jerrthi," the pilot said, "I'll be in deep enough for this as it is." She bounced them around a little to be on the safe side so as not to present an easily tracked target to any sensors located on the ridge which now loomed larger in the windscreen. The craft shot upward and then coasted over the ridge in a slow longitudinal roll. Jerrthi's head sagged down with the inertia and she felt the quiet gurgle in her throat as her chin tried to meet her chest for a moment. And there was an odd sound in the cockpit as well. "ooooooooOOOOOOOO-HOOOOOOOOOOOooooooo," they heard. "What was that?" Troxi's voice came over the internal. "That was Ronkahh," Jerrthi smiled. "That was ... " Ronkahh was at a loss for words, something which Jerrthi could testify happened less often than double-sun days, she was sure of it. "I mean, I ... oh, I .... Ahhh, I can't even say it." "You were just about there, weren't you?" Doona chuckled, "It was the same for me my first time. It's a thrill huh?" "A thrill?" Ronkahh gasped a little, "I think I wet myself." Doona laughed then, really laughed for a few seconds, "Ronkahh honey," she said shaking her head, "I think I'm in love." Jerrthi's eyes opened wide at that and then it hit her. She hadn't really gotten a look at the pilot's face before the helmet was on and the visor hid her eyes. This was the other girl who'd been dancing with Ronkahh the other night, she was sure of it now. They were home free on the other side of the low mountain which served as the backdrop for the range. As they slid lower, Doona eased her throttles forward and they were flying again, staying in the shadow of the mountain. "Any threats, Troxi? Any searches, anything?" "Not even a sniff, Boss." "Good. It's too bad about the overhead, though. I doubt the Merren range shits are gonna validate my score, but -- " "If Troxi will help me a little later on," Jerrthi said, "and if Xhan will give his permission, I can access that from his command craft from the base. The ID won't do a Watcher any good, since it couldn't have been Xhan's craft which did the damage. All we have to do is convince him." "Are you joking?" the pilot groaned, "He's going to skin me for this. I doubt he'll even listen long enough for me to ask." "I'll ask for you," Jerrthi smiled, "I don't know if he'd do it, but I don't think he can be mad at me." "I'll get it saved if we get a chance," Troxi crowed, "I'm gonna hang it over the bar, but not tonight, ' kay?" "Good girl, Trox, you're the best, as I've always said." --------------------------- There was a huge three-way dust storm made of the incident with the base commander becoming involved as well. Xhan was instructed by his command chain to remain where he was. It took several weeks to iron things out, but it came to pass that the officer who had been sent to represent Xhan at his original inquiry was back officially with instructions to help him through the unpleasantness of this and act as an informed witness whenever he had to speak to any Merren officer about any matter whatsoever. The range officers as well as the gunners were replaced within a week and after that, relations began to improve again as Merren workmen undertook the repair to the facilities. But before that, on the day of the training flight, not long after the Merren military had lost almost all of the facilities which had been at the range and what was visible there now lay twisted and destroyed, Jerrthi walked into the maintenance hangar where the repairs of the damaged assault craft were being undertaken. She looked around and wondered why there were so many Merren people there and asked Doona, who looked to be standing in a little shock. "Oh them," she smiled, "I don't know how it works, but wrench-twisters everywhere seem to be like this. They find commonality with their opposite numbers right away and want to help. While they get it done and party like crazy afterward, our biggest issue then becomes espionage, since they're in here and crawling all over our stuff." "Why do you look so ... I'm not sure what that expression is that I see on you," Jerrthi said. "I went to see Xhan," the pilot said, "I expected him to tear my ears off over what we did to that range, but he hugged me instead!" "Hugged you?" Doona nodded, "Not in a perv kind of way. We're all like families, kind of concentric families, like a pebble thrown into water. That's why we're all so tight among us. Anyway I got there and stood in front of him to tell him that I was sorry if it caused him any trouble, but he started laughing and then he hugged me. He said that he was prepared to remind higher—higher in the Xer command chain that the Merren had a history of that sort of "sudden accidental engagement" by their facility gunners at this base, but they mentioned it first and commended him for our actions, saying that what we did was right out of the unit's mission statement. 'That's what we do,' he told me, and that it's published publicly in any of ten thousand different places anywhere we've been. So he hugged me again and said that he was commended and he passed that right on down to me and all of the crews. 'The forty-third doesn't take shit from anybody,' he said, 'least of all Merren ground-huggers', and then he asked me if I knew anything about the right way to uh, ... " She looked at her boots for a moment," Well, let's just say um, romance a certain kind of Merren girl." Jerrthi stared for a second then then she laughed, "What did you tell him?" "Xantham, do you really want to hear that?" Doona asked and Jerrthi nodded, "What do you think?" "Well," she smirked, "I told him I didn't know and that he might want to look that kind of thing up someplace first before he puts his foot into anything. I told him that I just know about the regular kind, like Ronkahh and that to romance them is easier than farting when you sneeze." "Why did Xhan, um,..." "Why did he ask me if I knew?" Doona grinned, "Well I have bedded a few, they say, if you listen to the rumor mill around here, though I can't say that I've been successful with your friend yet, but hey, in a few hours, it won't matter and it's as good as done anyway while we're standing here." Jerrthi was confused and her face showed it. "I heard that she didn't remember Arshan keeping her out of trouble at the party the other night," Doona smiled, "She didn't remember kissing him, so she told him to just ask her if he wanted any while she was paying attention, I guess." "I remember her saying something like that to him this morning, that all he had to do was ask her," Jerrthi said. "Uh-huh, see her around anywhere? Arshan asked her like an hour ago, so I'm guessing that she's pretty pleased with him now. He's my wingman, you might say. He and I are tighter than anything and Mud Six crew plays together. I'm thinking I'll get my chance." There was a triumphant laugh through the open door then as Troxi came running in waving a piece of paper, of all things. She jumped up on the bar and waved it around. "It's a satellite shot of the range," she yelled. "Right smack in the middle is the little hole -- the famous little hole -- and this shot proves that Mud Six nailed it! We fucking suppositoried the little hole! Nobody's EVER done it before! Xhan's pleased and he sent it on to higher. Doona won't get credit from the Merren, but Forty-Third HQ sends its regards and will record the perfect score into the unit records for the way that we smoked them right in there- right in their fucking little hole -- or little fucking hole or however you want to say it." There were yells and cheers then as Doona wandered over along with Jerrthi and now stood in a little pleased shock. Troxi saw Doona and jumped off the bar into her arms, "You're the fucking greatest, Boss," she grinned. "I dunno," Doona smiled, "it wasn't all that tough after you jammed them into the ground. We didn't have one threat after that." Troxi kissed Doona in her joy and slid off the pilot. She turned and thanked Jerrthi before she ran off to go and look for Ronkahh, "I gotta find a hammer and a nail, ot a tack or something," she grinned, almost hopping as she ran off. "Did you have anything to do with that picture?" Donna asked and Jerrthi nodded, "I just asked Xhan and told him that I didn't really understand the why of it, but that it seemed important that I get the shot for Troxi. He gave his permission and I pulled it off the satellite memory from the command craft, once they got me in front of the screen and keyboard for that. It seemed to impress Troxi some," she shrugged, "and I was happy to help." "It wasn't exactly all that tough because it was a Merren range and they're pretty dumb, but I guess you can shine up your helmet stickers now," Doona winked, "You were there when the First killed something." Jerrthi walked away as the other crews walked over to see the photo. She headed over to the next building, which was used to house the Xer command while it was there. Wandering around for a while, she came to Xhan's office, the place where he ruled this wild and unlikely bunch of extroverts and she found the door open. He wasn't at his desk, but after peeking around a little, she found the office bathroom and heard the shower running. She'd spent enough time with him over the past few days to be able to recognize that one silhouette that she saw in the shower glass out of a crowd, she smirked to herself. Xer never wear very much unless they're in a hostile atmosphere, she thought. Well some hot water in a closed-in place was about as friendly a place as there could be to a Grotto Dweller like her. She'd just want it a little darker, that was all. Xhan wasn't thinking about anything much as he washed the sweat of the day off his frame. He was puzzling over how to approach what he saw as a delicate problem. He knew and understood what it was that Jerrthi was carrying, but he'd found over the past little while that he had difficulty in getting her out of his thoughts. He didn't care anymore, but at one time, he'd have never had the sort of thoughts that he was having these days. Back then, it was all about finding only one kind of bitch for himself, and that was the furry kind. He smirked to himself. It showed him just what kind of idiot that he was. He was now having difficulty in thinking of her as anything other than the lovely female that he saw her as. Even in the most polite Xer manner, she wasn't a bitch to his mind. He wasn't even sure yet how her kind mated -- well, besides the obvious. He felt a little lost, not knowing the finer points of what might be expected of him if he ever got a chance at that heart. Other than the long hair on her lovely head, Jerrthi didn't have a single hair on her body. He'd suspected as much, but the bit of research that he'd been able to undertake had confirmed it, though he'd felt like a bit of a deviant as he'd looked it up. All that he knew was that she felt so good in his arms. She wasn't big at all, but he was beginning to see that he wanted to be the one to keep that little naked body warm and it came to him that it wasn't only that she was somewhat exotic to him. He just cared that much. He looked up as the lights went out. All that he had was the almost complete darkness and a little light from the little window through the thick curtain that he'd never moved. He was about to shut off the water when the glass door slid aside and Jerrthi stepped in. "May I join you, Section Officer?" she smiled. Xhan had to draw a breath and think for a second before he said anything stupid. "You're heart-stopping in your beauty to me at any time," he smiled, "But I think that I had better warn you, Jerrthi. As much as I want you here, Xer can see very well in the dark." "I was counting on that," she nodded, "I wanted to be with you and so I came looking. I know it's after-hours now and I had a hope that your staff might have gone for the day. Now, I can't believe my luck, Xhan. Here you are, just where I wanted to be. After a day zipped up in a flightsuit, well, it's not normal for someone like me to wear as much as that even in a place like an office. To spend a day sweating in a mobile tent just wilts me. I had thought of using the shower in the empty barracks where Ronkahh and I are quartered, but it's filthy. I'd have cleaned it out myself if I didn't need to get clean this badly." She stepped over to him and put her arms around him, pulling him backward gently so that she was under the stream of hot water. He looked down as she tilted her head back under the shower with her eyes closed. She let go of him to run her fingers through her hair for a moment and then she brought her head forward again. As she did, she looked for something and she saw it just before he shifted his gaze to look into her eyes again. He'd been staring at her little breasts. She turned around and raised her arms. Xhan looked at her back and couldn't imagine anything nicer in a female shape as his eyes drifted down over her body. He suddenly realized that she was speaking to him. "Are you still in here, Xhan?" "Yes," he said a little awkwardly, "I'm sorry, I missed what you said. Could you repeat it for me?" Jerrthi chuckled a little, "I was asking where the soap was. I don't see it. You must have been using something, you smell so nice." "Thank you," he almost stammered as he looked around for it, "Uh, here." It was still in his hand. She took it from him to soap her underarms without turning around, "Please don't leave,Xhan. I want to talk to you, if this isn't too awkward a place for you, that is." A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 56 "No, uh, ... no this is fine," he said. "Well that's good then," she smiled at the wall in front of her. "Here, would you mind, um, washing my back and, you know, any other thing that you think might be in need of a little of your ... attention while I try to figure out what I want to say so that I don't sound like a fool?" He took the soap back and began on her back, telling himself that it was all that he'd have the nerve to do. "How could you ever sound like that?" he asked and she replied, "Oh, trust me, Xhan, I do it all the time." Jerrthi liked the feeling so much that she leaned forward and groaned as she hung her head under the stream again. "That feels so good." This was something that she'd never done with Bronn in all of their time together. Grotto Dwellers are as fastidious in their cleanliness as any other Merren type, but because of their distant past, they tended to be a little private in their bathing habits. They'd had to be, one of any couple standing watch while the other washed. But Jerrthi had come to a decision of sorts and she'd also done a little research on the habits of the Xer, so she was trying to fit this together as best she could. She knew that the Xer quite often washed each other, so now here she was, trying to fit in a little, though she felt very strange doing it this way. At least she felt that she could draw a little comfort from the way that her body seemed to appeal to Xhan as she felt his hands sliding the soap over her bottom now. "It sure doesn't look like it to me," she said, "but I'm not actually trying to seem sluttish in any way. I've been a mess for a few weeks now. As hard as it is to bear, I've slowly come to accept what I've lost, or what was taken from me, I guess. You've been a bright spot for me the last little while, Xhan, and I'm so thankful for you. I think that, if we hadn't met, I'd have carried my sorrow for a lot longer. It's not gone yet. But I've gotten to where I think I'd be a fool if I just ignored the fine person who cares for me the way that you do. I've never had this kind of good fortune. I know how I look, but it gets me more passes from people that I plainly would just rather avoid, to tell you the truth. Would you be a dear and wash my legs please -- if I can ask it of you?" He couched then and she continued as he worked. "So I wanted to come to you to complain a little about the dirty shower in the barracks there, but I also wanted to tell you that I've decided to come out of my shell again. I find that the Xer are such sociable people and Ronkahh and I have been made to feel very welcome here among you all. I see that most of you have some sort of emotional attachment with one or more of the others here, like the way that Doona is with Arshan and Troxi. It's very different to me, but I see that they care about each other very much. Where I'm from, a relationship like that would be ... well, exotic to say the least, but now I just see it as what it is, people in a deadly business who cling to each other to help each other through. I enjoy seeing the little swirls of it as they interact. I like to see it now. Then I thought of you, Xhan. It seems I'm always thinking of you these last days. I wanted to learn of what sort of relationship that the leader of this part of the First surrounds himself with, but I've learned that you don't have anyone, do you?" she asked as she turned around. He was still on his knees and now he looked forward and then he slowly looked up into her eyes. Jerrthi chuckled as she remembered something, "As I was here looking for you, I saw your computer and the notes that you were making about what I am, the kind of place where we come from and all of that." He groaned a little there at her feet, so she reached down to hold his ear gently and touch it with her thumb. "Don't look so nervous, " she laughed softly, "the mating behavior that you were reading about would only apply between myself and another of my kind. I'd never do that in your presence." He watched her roll her eyes and look embarrassed just to be speaking of it with a male who was right there, so to speak. "Why?" he asked as he reached out and ran a finger down the line between her leg and her mound, amazed at her hairlessness. "Because it wouldn't mean anything to you, Xhan. It's just something done for another Grotto Dweller and almost always in the pitch black darkness, though not always, I guess. I'd be afraid to appear crude to someone like you, so I'd never do that. We're different," she smiled, "and I think there's enough to celebrate --and try to learn about in our differences as it is. I've never showered or bathed with anyone else before, as an example, but you're not alone in trying to figure out the one that you're interested in, you know. I'm just as guilty of looking up Xer mating habits as you are of looking up mine. You are interested, aren't you?" He smirked then, "Jerrthi, look at me. I'm not some drunken hound trying to sniff around at a party, though ... I guess I must look like it right now, don't I? "Sort of," she smiled down, "but it's just another thing that goes along with trying to accommodate each other." She ran her fingers through his wet fur for a moment, "I don't know if you'd be doing this with a Xer female if you were in a relationship with one, but I don't think I'd mind very much right now if ... you ..." She sighed then as he moved forward to kiss her. His hands on her hips felt wonderful and she wanted to lean against something right then. "I probably would be doing this right now if I was in that sort of relationship," he said softly as he dragged his lips over her soft skin, "if it had gotten to the point where we were lovers. I've figured out that you're a very unique sort of ... " "Bitch?" she hissed. "No," he said, "I was struggling with that definition just before you stepped in here with me. It doesn't apply. The structure would have to be different, I think, because I'd want to allow you the difference. I'd probably want to be more like a male Grotto Dweller for you, well, except in that one regard. Why? Would you want to be a Xer bitch? I'm not sure that you're built for it, which is why I'd want to make the allowances in the first place." "I don't know, "Jerrthi sighed, "I have nothing to relate it to. Could we try it a little in either way? I mean that I'd never wet on you, of course. But I'm interested, Xhan. That's why I'm in here in the first place, as well as wanting to be clean. I've already learned the joys of having the one that I'm interested in wash me. That's actually a big step for me." She inhaled then as his tongue found her and quickly moved to the core of her. Jerrthi looked down at his closed eyes, thrilling a little to see as well as feel those teeth of his on her body. He opened his eyes and she found herself looking into them and she found that she could see far down into him like this. Her eyes widened then to see the hope in him, so after a good long look, she nodded silently and caressed his head. "I want the same thing," she almost whispered, "Do you want to try and see where we go?" He didn't answer, not wanting to move. He just nodded very slightly and to Jerrthi, he might as well have shouted it. He moved her and she went along until her back was to the wall. Xhan raised his muscular arm and placed his hand dead center on her breastbone, pushing back until she leaned against the wall. Reaching out, she moved the shower nozzle so that the stream cascaded down the front of her and then hoping that he wouldn't drown, she held onto his head as he licked so that she could coo to him over how wonderful it was. Xhan was listening to her. He heard her soft little sounds and he felt a bit of a sting form the way that the position of his body hadn't completely shielded the throbbing tip of what had emerged from his sheath, so he moved a little until he couldn't feel it. Jerrthi bucked against him a little as she moaned, loving this and the comparative wildness that she felt from it. It wasn't what lay in him. She knew that. He was holding back out of consideration for her relative fragility in comparison to what he was, but by the same standard, Bronn wouldn't have done it this way at all. She tried to clear her mind and in the doing of that, she found her bliss at the end of a long Xer tongue. As she hugged him to her belly while she struggled to regain some sort of normal breathing pattern, she thanked him in that small soft voice which now thrilled him to hear. When she had it together, she spun them a little slowly so that he was against the wall now and she crawled a little higher up the front of him. When she got there, she seized his head and kissed him as hard as she dared, loving the way that it felt to feel his teeth against her face and her own against his. They were different, but they reveled in it now. She moved her attention to the side of his neck, wanting to feel and smell his wet fur. She rubbed her face against his shoulder and chest. "I've never seen that," he said as he looked at her looking back up at him. She attacked his face again while they both groaned. "I don't know if I can take the punishment you can give," she hissed needfully into his ear and she licked deep enough inside to make him shudder, "but I'll try -- I swear that I'll try, Xhan. Fumes and spray," she cursed gently in her way, "I need you so fucking much. Xer." "I'll try," he groaned, "Not to hurt you. I never would want to ... but, ... Oh, Jerrthi ...." She was back rubbing her body against his all the way down until she was faced with his version of what he'd been faced with. Jerrthi had seen many of these in the past few day, but they'd all been tucked safely away inside of their sheaths. She took his balls in her hand and opened her mouth to take that shaft in without a backward glance. She'd never felt this way in her life before. Bronn had offered a safe sort of life as a pair and she'd appreciated it at the time. It was what she wanted for them then. Right now, she doubted if it even interested her. She had the leader of a bunch of polite and rather genteel killers here in her mouth. The thought caused her to groan as she had it and she rose on her knees to get more of him in. She sucked and bobbed, she leaned forward, pressing herself against that stone-hard abdomen. She leaned against that hard belly with her ear, listening to him breathe and loving the fur against her skin. She settled down only a little, finding herself dead center in front of him on her knees, reaching for his hard hands to bring them to her horns. She opened her eyes again after a moment spent just enjoying the feel of them there as he curled his fingers around them. He didn't force or even try to guide her. He just held them. Praise The Balance, she thought, he's fucking perfect. She looked up and moved her head back, licking him in a long stroke with some of that thing there against her nose and later her cheek. "Promise not to hurt me," she said. It wasn't a plea, or a question. It was a direct statement. "Promise to be gentle for a Xer and rough for a Grotto girl." "Promise," she said, licking it again, "and I promise to try very very hard to break your back, Xhan." He hung onto her horns and watched her as she watched him while she sucked it in as far as she could to squeeze the thickest part of his root with her lips. "See? I can take all of you in my mouth," she grinned, "I didn't even think I could. Come on, Baby. Come on. Promise." Jerrthi didn't even feel like herself right now and she didn't care if she ever returned to the old Jerrthi again. She'd found a way to move ahead, rather than remain in mourning and she wanted it now. She didn't even know where her words were coming from but she let him go right then and she smiled up at him as she held it against the side of her face. "I don't want to be a Xer," she said, "I can't be a Xer. But I want to be LIKE a Xer bitch to you. Promise me Xhan, and I swear I'll do my very best for you." "Make me your -- " He pulled her up then and almost slammed her back against the wall. "You don't know what you're asking," he growled as he raked her throat with his long teeth. "Yes I do, "she growled right back in Xerian as she grabbed his head to look right into his eyes. What she'd seen earlier was still there. "I want that," she said, "I know it probably can't be, but I want to get as close to that as I can." She twitched her hips up and down against him and he moaned in response. "We might end up there, I dunno, "she said in a tortured voice, "probably not, but I want to try for that. I'm not asking for anything but a shot as us together, you and me as fast or as slow as we go. We've been dancing around it for two weeks. Instead of just a fuck on your couch, I'm saying you can have more. Just ... Just promise me that I have a chance." He pressed her against the wall and she tried to backpedal to get a little higher, "Promise me, Xhan. Make me your bitch. It won't count. I'm not a Xer. I don't have anything anymore. Give me what you are, just a little." She was crying now, and the strain of speaking in Xer to him was making t worse. "I'm tired of feeling dead," she sobbed, "I want to feel alive the way I feel right now, Xhan. I want to live my life with my cunt on fire for you. I doubt it'll last long, but god-FUCKING dammit, I need to feel this!" His hips dipped low then as he pressed against her and then he was into her in one long push. Jerrthi wanted to scream when he hit the end of her and she went to her tiptoes to find a little comfort. "Is this what you want?" he snarled at her from right up close. She whimpered quietly as she nodded, "Yes," she whispered, a little fearful of what she might have just unleashed in him. He reached under her to help lift one of her legs a little. "Wrap your legs around me then, Jerrthi," she smiled softly as he kissed her, and he kept right on as he dragged those sweet lips of his against her again. "I understand, Jerrthi," he said, "and I promise. I'd do anything for you," he said as he thrust in and out of her gently, "I can do what you want, that's easy, and I promise not to hurt you." She felt his teeth against her throat for a long moment as he pressed her head back a little and then his voice went on from there someplace, "I don't even know if we can do this or for how long, to be honest. But it can't be real until it gets to one point. I also promise to let you know how I feel before then." She lowered her head when she had the room for it and looked into his eyes, "Can I be your --" "Girlfriend if we like each other and we get that far," he said, and then he stopped suddenly as he looked into her eyes for a moment. "Alright," he nodded as he began to go at this a lot more forcefully, "I can take you there." "Promise me," she moaned as the feeling came back to her, "as much as you can and I'll accept it. Oh, Xhannnnn," she called , and then she stopped abruptly as she felt his teeth closing around her throat. Her ribs heaved as her hand flew to his head, but she wasn't trying to pull him away. He was amazed to feel her trying to get more of her throat in there, so he tried as her other leg wrapped around him and he began to really nail her to the wall. Jerrthi bucked and moaned and finally she screamed into his ear and he let go of her neck to grab one of her horns and take her ear in his teeth as he came. He thrust into her with every contraction of his and she rode up and down several inches each time. It passed then and they looked at each other. "You're sure ... " he said and she nodded, "I am." "You know what's involved?" She nodded again, "I just want to try. You find somebody Xer that you want and ... "She looked away. "Jerrthi," She didn't look at him. "Hey, Jerrthi," he jiggled her and it tickled her somewhere and she flinched and smiled at him for a second. "I don't know," she said, "I'll try to back away if that happens, alright?" He thrust a little slowly then as he spoke, "You can't know it all. I can't do that if we really get going. I mean I could, but not if it's real. I wouldn't." "Push again," she whispered, "You feel so good in me. I want to be your girlfriend, I guess, I -oh! OHhhh, ah ,ah, ah ,ah, fuck, this is great, ah ohh." It made him chuckle and she finally smiled, "Ok, now I insist on getting a chance at this." "OK." he smiled. "What do you mean, 'ok'?" "I mean, ok. Jerrthi. I'll give it a shot." She looked at the ceiling and bucked her way through the next round, "You said A shot. I'm getting a lot more here." "I'm trying to show that I'm sincere," he shrugged. She would have laughed but she felt the next round then and she rode through them looking into his eyes. She adjusted her grip on him and sighed, "Any more?" "You don't want any more?" he asked. "Fuck, Xhan," she said, "I want all you have. Are you nuts? This is about the best fuck I've ever had. Thank you." She kissed his nose. He smiled, "Well I'm sure this is the best I've ever had, so we're even." "Do you have any more?" She asked and he opened his mouth to speak but the water ran cold then. They got out of the shower then and dried off before they got dressed again and went to dinner in the officer's mess building. Xhan found a section that was kept as more of a dining room instead of a cafeteria, so she asked him to stay back a little around the top of the staircase. She sort of swivelled in wearing her flight suit and asked if she might have a table over in the dining room and the man in charge -- well, he couldn't have been called the maître d', since it wasn't really a restaurant, told her yes. As she looked past him to see Xhan walking toward her the man said that it wasn't allowed to seat a Xer or any kind, officer or not, in the dining room. Jerrthi pulled out her press pass and clipped it on. "Is that so?" she asked, "I've recently done a rather revealing piece on the sheer size and number of Xer forces employed in Merren service. Given the relatively tiny size of the Merren military, I was quite surprised at the amount of mail that I got demanding that our military be disbanded, since they were a waste of money anyway, and that it cost such huge expenditures to keep facilities. " She glared at him, "and here you are telling me that two people can't sit in a huge - and EMPTY -- dining room because my companion here is a Xer, is that it?" The got the table. As they talked about all manner of things, they found that it had just gotten a lot easier and it felt so pleasantly familiar to them that it took no effort at all. They could converse in either Merren or Xerian and they found that their talking between them just did that, switching back and forth without a thought to them. "What are you going to do tonight?" he asked and she shrugged, "Well I was thinking that I ought to go back to barracks and clean out that disgusting shower, but I don't want to." "That shower wouldn't look like that anywhere near a Xer facility. We're not any cleaner than you are , likely, but think about it. Imagine the drains in a facility which houses a lot of what I am. So we stay on top of things like that. In fact, I'd bet that if this base wasn't in decline the way that it is, it would be kept cleaner regardless. You can't house a bunch of any kind of fighting force and ignore things like that. I'll make my complaints to the Merren in the morning. I'm sure that it'll only take them a week to clean." He watched her face and he could almost hear what she'd say, so he held up his hand and chuckled, "It's unusual, but then we're not the usual outfit. Why not stay with me? I've got a little house all to my lonesome." A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 56 "Deal," she smiled. "What about Ronkahh?" he asked and Jerrthi grinned, "Why do you think I'm so eager to accept your offer? I've actually been sleeping alone, the only person in a building made to house eighty people since the night of the party. Ronkahh has been sleeping in a different place every night. She refuses to sleep in that barracks. We spent one night there before she left and we slept together and believe me, it wasn't fun for either of us. We hung onto each other because we didn't feel safe. I think she's going to be sleeping with the crew of Mud Six from now on, since they seem to have accepted her -- and she's been to bed with them all already, I guess." Xhan smiled, "That little pack is shared between Doona and Arshan, with Doona as number one. That's just how it works for them. I ought to put a stop to it, but we're not on a Xer base, so nobody cares. Besides, they're one of the top crews." He looked over at Jerrthi, "You're sleeping with me then," he said, but then he realized what he'd said, "I mean --" "I'm sleeping with you then," she grinned, "and thank you." Xhan actually dropped his fork then, stunned by what he'd heard. His mind raced to try to think of the polite way to address the situation and he did all that he could think to do, being the young officer and well-bred Xer that he was. He lowered his head to Jerrthi and told her that he felt honor from her words, since it was the truth. They took a walk after dinner and went to the barracks, where Xhan agreed that the showers were filthy and decrepit, so they grabbed all of Jerrthi's gear and walked to his quarters. "There is something that you must know," Xhan began a little uncomfortably as they walked to the little house where he was quartered. It was only a single- bedroom sort of affair, but it was the smallest place on a quiet street in the section reserved for married Merren officers. As such, it was a little plain, but at least he didn't have to care for the grounds. He'd found the child of a Merren officer -- a boy of about fifteen who, although he found the Xer to be a little fascinating and stood a little in awe of Xhan, his slight fear and mistrust of the large male didn't get in the way of his want to earn a little gold, so he took care of the lawn and weeded the tiny flower beds fastidiously for Xhan. Xhan sighed a little, "As you said, we might not even get there, Jerrthi but there are issues to, ... well even being the girlfriend of one of us." "I'm aware of several," she smiled, "I know that Xer are often either very free or very possessive of the ones they care for. I was only suggesting that since we like each other and everything, that we give it a try -- within the confines of what you and I would feel comfortable with. I sure don't want your mark on me -- not at this early stage anyway, and for a few good reasons. By the way, thank you for not hurting my ear in the shower. I know that Xer males often want to hang onto something of a female's at that time, so you were very considerate to me." "There's something else," he said. "It might embarrass you to be seen with me as a non-Xer in front of your family?" she asked, "We're not anywhere near that point, are we? I thought we'd just figure that out if and when we got there -- if we do." "No," he said, "it's not that at all, though I suppose that it might be an issue at some point -- if we get there, as you say. But I know the way that I feel right now. It used to be so important to me once, but it's not at all anymore. If I ever meet my famous uncle again, I know that he'd take one look at you and grin at me. I can almost see it in my mind. He'd smile at you and bow very politely and then he'd clap his hand onto my shoulder and say something like -- 'Well, Xhan, I see that you have finally learned what is what, what counts and what is unimportant.' And then he'd want to know how you ever learned to put up with me." "Well that would be an easy thing," Jerrthi said, "You're well-mannered, polite, HANDSOME, and great to be with. There's nothing tough about it. I was thinking more about your parents and how they might feel." "My father died in the service," Xhan replied, "I come from an old and high family. My mother would probably faint from shock, but then she'd recover and get over it in a few moments. She's a stuffy socialite, but it's only because she has to be in some respects. You could win her over more easily than you did me, and if any of her snotty friends made a sound after that, well, she'd probably pin their ears back for them. If she found that she could like you and she could see that we were happy -- " "If we get that far," she reminded him with a little grin and he nodded. "But that's not the thing. It probably won't even happen, but, well, we live by the unit doctrine and in that huge and thick tome somewhere, it states that if a group of Death hounds find themselves in a situation where they're stuck in a place and cannot return to Xer, then there are measures to be taken to maximize the probability of their survival. When the unit is formed, there are assignments made. It's not much more than a cursory look at the traits and characteristics of each member. If there is no known pairing for a person, then one is made. They're only on a list in a database somewhere and don't mean a thing unless it happens that the unit finds itself separated with no means to get home. But if it does happen, then the pairings are to be used as a starting point so that we have our family orders and can begin to um, proliferate wherever we find ourselves then. There are certain skill groupings which lend themselves to this. That's why the crews of the attack craft are the way that they are, for example. Where there is a natural attraction, they do this anyway. "I see," Jerrthi said, "so does the unit commander here have such a pairing as well?" He looked over, wondering a little why she seemed to think that it was a little entertaining, somehow. Nodding, he said, "I do. It was assigned when I arrived. There was a female communications specialist who was drawn into the unit at the same time. Her section suffered losses in its last venture and so it was assigned to a rear area for refit and retraining while it was brought up to strength again. She knew nothing of this assignment or even much about us, but she was assigned to us because she didn't want to spend a long time while all of that was going on, so she put in for re-assignment and could meet the minimum standards for what we are. I think that I'd have done the same thing in her situation. Anyway, she's in my command and we've met a couple of times in the course of our duties, that's all. She's rather pretty and young, much the same to my mind as Troxi, but a lot less, ... uh, .... " "Bubbly?" Jerrthi asked and he nodded, "Close enough, I guess. Her craft was shot down and she was the sole uninjured person. She tended to the injured as she could, but when they were found by enemy units, she defended everyone until they were rescued. She has some issues, such as being prone to being startled if one approaches her that she is not aware of, but she is very good in her role. It's unfortunate, but she's a little hard of hearing in her right ear. She received cursory training in the normal weapons, but she was on board a landing shuttle, taking a section of fighters into the fight when they were hit and crashed. When it came time to act, all that she found around her were guns called megs which belonged to the dead and the wounded. She couldn't find her own weapons. So she fought off the attackers very bravely, using only megs, one after another as she shot through their magazines. She could find no headsets and so the hearing in her right ear suffered from the noise levels. She was wounded several times, but from what I saw, she has recovered and the scarring from the procedures is minimal, the fur having grown back nicely." "Is there an emotional attachment between you?" Jerrthi asked and he shook his head, "None, though we can admire each other, I guess. I hold her in high regard and she thinks that I am a high-born whelp who is privileged and wet behind the ears, though we are the same age. I only mention it so that you know that I am being honest. If we are deployed, there is still nothing changed. Cerrith is a true trooper and goes by the book. She comes from a low background and has a chip on her shoulder from it. In the normal state of affairs, she has few friends and is more of a loner, not having really had the time to fit in yet. As I was saying, if we are deployed, she is still only a crew member to me and I am her commander. It only changes if we are lost or have no way to contact Xer or return to it. Then she becomes my ... well I suppose that we would need to see what might be made of it, but on paper at least, we would be paired." They walked on for a bit until they came to where Xhan was staying. As they went inside, He asked Jerrthi if there wasn't some sort of comment that she had to make. She shrugged, "I don't think it changes anything for me, Xhan. It's only a procedure to be followed in the worst case, from what you've said, though the fact that somebody in Xer high command even thought of something like that shows me yet again that you are a very interesting people." ------------------- As they made love that night, Jerrthi found that Xhan wasn't always a beast in bed and she loved it no matter how he was. She sighed when she looked up at him and she thought that he had to be the finest male anywhere. As she felt him moving in and out inside of her, she raised her legs and reached for his very fine Xer backside, pulling him with every thrust and feeling the muscle groups under his fur along his side with the fingers of her other hand. He was slow and very loving to her and Jerrthi appreciated that aspect from him then, going with his motions and rocking him as far as she could. Her orgasms were so very nice to her this time, and she found a want in herself that this really could work for them because she'd never had a lover like Xhan. When his own release came, Jerrthi begged him to lie on her a little lower. When he did, she wrapped her legs around him tightly and held on to him with her face buried in the thick fur of his neck while he held her ear in his teeth again and once more, she felt his gentle bite there and the way that if felt to her just heightened everything for her. They lay there looking at each other and kissing softly as he moved just enough to assure that Jerrthi would get more from him and she sighed and smiled through every one. "Good?" she smiled up at him and he nodded before he asked her. Jerrthi stretched and sighed, unknowingly giving Xhan a thrill for the way that she looked right then and she told him that she was very happy with what they'd found. "I know that you can have another way to look," she said in a whisper, "but I didn't see any pictures where I was looking. What's it like? I read that your fur becomes harder then and sharp." He nodded, "But I can soften it as well." "Can we do it that way sometime?" she asked, "I think it sounds really ... " "Primitive," he said. "I was gonna say nice," she smiled and she listened as he explained it to her a little doubtfully. "You're not putting me off with that, you know," she said, "I guess that we need to get a lot farther along before we try it, that's all." He looked uncomfortable and she kissed his nose before she whispered, "I know that if it happens, that's when you'll bite me to make me yours and I'll have the scars then. I'm a little nervous about it, Xhan, but I'm not put off. We'll just have to see." "Jerrthi," he said, "I would probably tell you that you are insane to want that." He smiled then and sighed as he felt her tongue slip into his mouth playfully for a moment. "But the more time that I spend with you, I can see that you are more amazing to me every moment, every time that I look at you. Maybe we can do it." Afterward, she thought about it as she looked out of the window from the vantage point of the bed. She'd gotten the video segments that Jayne had sent her and she felt better about Bronn. That had begun her lonely slide, however. Now she had somebody who was totally different, but she knew that she could probably be happy with him. She found herself looking forward and not back, and so with a single tear, she said goodbye to Bronn. When she reached up to wipe her eyes, she found that Xhan had been looking at her. He didn't need to say it. Jerrthi told him and he pulled her to him and held her until she drifted off to sleep in his arms. ------------------------------ The next morning, Xhan woke Jerrthi up early. "Sorry to have to do this to you, but I should have mentioned that there are more exercises on for today. The attack craft will stay here, but we will be landing and offloading fighters and then picking them up again. You can stay here in bed if you wish, or you can come along. It's your choice, Jerrthi." She was out of the bed like a shot and reaching for her flightsuit, "I'm gonna really need to wash this poor thing soon. I just need to pee and find my deodorant and I'll be ready." He smiled at her, "I admire the way that you jump right up, but ... do you have a hairbrush?" She looked at him, "Well, yeah, but ... " He pointed to the mirror on the wall and she was laughing at the way that she looked then. "'Kay, I need to brush my hair a little. It's a little too obvious what I was doing last night, I guess." As it turned out, they had time for a brief shower each and even had time to brush their teeth as well, but as they stepped outside for the ride to the flight line, that was when the looks began, and it started with the Merren neighbors. Jerrthi was checking her camera battery status as they rode, but she did manage to get Xhan's ear to ask him quietly what was wrong. "Hmm? He asked as he looked over, "Nothing. I think that the rumors start now. Will you be alright with that?" Jerrthi didn't much care and she said so. "Where am I going to be for this?" "You're on the command ship with me. You can be anywhere you want for a time, but I don't want you near to the weapons areas once we're in action. The engineering and drive spaces are out too, I'm afraid. You've got a camera. Stay near me if you have any doubt." He smiled and spoke to his master leader, the Xer who was there to advise him and act as the unit's Sergeant Major -- if it was a human unit in the present time. "Isn't that right, Ter'l?" The Xer looked back with the smallest smile as he nodded to Jerrthi, "Correct, Section Officer," To Jerrthi, he growled, "We try to keep Xhan from hurting anything too much." She stared for a moment and then she laughed as his smile widened, "I served under Xhan's uncle, Arrax a time ago. Xhan's alright and he'll do fine. I'm just here to guide him a little if he needs it." When she looked over, she saw Xhan sitting with a curious look on his face. "I met Ter'l when I really was a whelp and my uncle brought me to where the First was housed then. I've known him -- or of him for most of my life." He blinked and then looked at Jerrthi, "This is the first time that I've ever seen him smile." The hard and wizened fighter nodded, "This is the first time that I like your taste in females, sir." ---------------------- Jerrthi found that she really liked Ter'l because he could be many things and play many roles, switching effortlessly between them. To her, he often seemed the perfect older gentleman, or even a little like a friendly uncle as he guided her around and was quick to grab her elbow if he needed to get her away from some hazard that she hadn't seen and couldn't know. He was kind enough to tell her when they were in an area where she shouldn't be filming and she respected that, but she was astounded at the transformation that she watched before her eyes when he gave the briefing to the fighters before they left. He seemed to turn into a dragon then and it was obvious that he was both loved and feared at the same time. But everywhere that Jerrthi looked, she saw the same thing. She had gone from being the journalist and reporter who was along with them and there to report on what she saw to the rumored love interest of the unit's leader. She was in a little shock at the speed that the word had flown. "Don't worry about it," Ter'l said gruffly as he brought her a hot cup of something to drink just as they rode over the outer fence of the Merren base, "It's a natural thing. There'll be some rumors out of it, some bad, most good. You shouldn't give it any more than it's worth -- which is nothing." He sat down in a seat next to her in his section of the command module and listened for a moment to the communications traffic in his earpiece. Satisfied with what he'd heard, he looked at Jerrthi again. "Shut that camera off and I'll spell it out to you," he said with one of those soft smiles that she was sure never saw the light of day very often. "Section Officer Xhan is considered by many to be one to watch in his career. He didn't have much of a start, but when he came back here after a stint with the Diplomatic corps, he was slotted in with the First. Family connections, I guess. Most of the First -- and there are a lot of us -- didn't think much of him, other than he's good-looking to the females, I guess. But he showed his stuff right out of the gate. That's why he was given this command -- to take a small, but strong reactionary force to work a contract to the Merren. It's not lightly done, but he got the nod and we thought we had a soft touch for a leader -- and we were all wrong. He's not only fit the role of the leader here, but he's got a bunch of tough dogs on his side now and believing in him. You're getting the eye today because we're like any other family, I guess. The rumors would fly no matter what -- since it's Xhan. But you and your buddy, whatever-her-name-is, -" "Ronkahh," Jerrthi smiled. "Sure, "he grinned, "You two are in with the bunch now, like it or not. Everybody's mooning over you and ... " "Ronkahh," Jerrthi smiled again, even wider. "Right," Ter'l said, scowling a little, "That girl can almost drink ME under the table, and Arshan's had a hell of a time keeping the lads off of her. I've already had to kick a few tails over it -- which I've got to thank her for, since it was really enjoyable. There were already a couple of 'arteests' here who wanted to paint some nose-art on a couple of the assault craft -- naughty poses of you two, mostly. It just shows that you've got credibility with them over the Merren range thing and the way that you just fit right in with us. A lot of these tough-looking shits here would have been filling puke sacks in the back of Mud Six yesterday. Doona can almost make that thing dance if she's got a mind to. You've earned some respect, and that's bitch--hard to do with us. We even laugh at the Xer press people when they ask to come with us. By the way," he said, looking at the bottom of his cup, "How close are you to the old ways of the Grottos?" She looked over at him, wondering what he was talking about now. He'd lost her and she said so. "Had me a Grotto girl who loved me once," he said, "long time ago now. I wanted to pair with her for the long go, but she had some work to do for her family first. You know what I mean, I guess." Jerrthi nodded, "But there are hardly any of us around anymore. I'm long out of touch, but I'm not aware that there are any of the working families left at all." It was her standard answer whenever anyone asked about the subject of what her kind had earned their fame at -- if one could call it that. A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 57 ***I want to point out something that I missed in the last chapter. Jerrthi isn't quite as young as everyone thinks. She's from an old group alright, but she's got their ability to hide her age remarkably well. Maybe that's why a lot of girls don't like her. Troxi becomes a bit of a central character in this chapter and Jerrthi offers a bit of support as the Xer gets shot down - in a dating sense, I mean. 0_o ------------------- Book of the Forsaken Part 11 (unless I missed one) Bronn grimaced as he looked at the smoking ruins of what had once been a neighborhood. His fears had come to pass and the 'flock' that he and Jayne spent time tailing now and then had grown to the size where a stadium full of humans living in shanty shacks and the surrounding area would not sustain them. They were moving out to decimate whole sections of densely populated areas. As well, he'd gotten both highly magnified satellite images as well as direct shots of the new and revitalized form of the old Merren bureau chief. He guessed that the old bird had no intentions of returning to Merren anytime soon. He looked to be having far too much fun. Those images had been taken ten days ago and Bronn had issued the spoken command to raise the communications raft to the surface at the optimal time for transmission, and so the packets of data had wended their way in several series of data bursts to his home world. When they'd arrived, a copy had been sent back to him so that his system could verify that everything received was correct. Then the small raft deflated and was drawn back down to where they sat on the bottom. He sat on the floor of his sleeping chamber and held Jayne as they talked of what they'd do when the power levels of his craft began to wane, since they knew that it would happen at some point. She'd offered to help if he could convince his employers to get them to Merren so that she could give her testimony at whatever official function was to follow, but the reply from the Merren was that it was not needed. ----------------------- Jerrthi looked up from her reverie as Troxi almost ran up to her, earning her some hard looks from the others there, but the Xer didn't care at all. "Sorry!" she chirped as she came, but anyone who knew her at all knew that it hadn't been sincere in the slightest. Troxi made no bones about her opinion that the people here were in a rear position, unless the command craft itself was in action and when anyone pointed out to her that there was indeed some degree of risk to the occupants then, being positioned in a large and relatively slow-moving craft compared to what she rode into battle in, Troxi would always laugh and reply that it must really bite then. "Hi Jerrthi," she smiled as she leaned over the other side of the table, "Are you ever hard to track down. I've been tromping all over this tub ever since we were all cleared to get out of our seats and everywhere I went, they all just told me that you'd been there and gone. Whatcha doing?" Jerrthi had to smile. She loved Troxi and her infectious mood anytime now that they were getting to know each other. "I was just having a cup of some sort of meat broth with Ter'l, but I had to hit the ground running this morning and I could use something -- " "Me too," the striped Xer grinned," and I know just what. Gimme a shake and I'll wake one of these snails up." She turned and went to ask, but everyone seemed to prefer to pretend that they were preoccupied. "Xantham, "she cursed, "You're not even in action yet. We won't get there for a long while at the crawl that this turd goes. Plenty of time for you to get your nose out of your own butt and stop pretending to be so important long enough to just show me where I can get a couple of mugs and - ." Ter'l appeared then and welcomed Troxi, saying that he'd arrange something when he got a moment, "What are you doing here anyway? I thought you'd like a day off." Jerrthi noted a slight dimming in Troxi's normal effervescent chatter, though she doubted if anyone else saw it. "I wanted to spend some time with Ronkahh, but I couldn't find her, so then I went looking for Arshan or Doona. But Mud Six is squared away and sleeping in the hangar and when I checked, I found them all inside, so I came looking for Jerrthi while there was still time to grab a jump-seat in here." She turned to Jerrthi then, "I was sorta hoping that you could show me more ways to access Merren satellites for stuff." Ter'l thought that he had everything that he needed to know and he looked across the compartment and nodded to somebody, indicating the pair at the table with his chin. "What's the matter, Troxi?" Jerrthi asked. "Huh? Oh, nothing, Jerrthi," But Jerrthi kept looking inquisitively in a polite and slightly concerned way and Troxi shrugged a little then. "Mud flight's got a down day today since we weren't tasked to take part. That means that you can do whatever you want. I'd kind of wanted to spend time with Ronkahh, but ..." Jerrthi reached over to touch the Xer's hand, "Troxi, I've known Ronkahh for a long time. Sometimes, she's a little like a kid who gets a lot of things for her birthday. She might be really happy with everything, but there might be one or two things that hold her attention more than the rest for a while, that's all." Troxi frowned, "That's a really accurate way to put it, I guess. When I used my token to get in through he locked hatch, Ronkahh was having her attention held by two things at the same time, so I backed out and relocked the hatch again." "It doesn't matter," Jerrthi said, "you're here with me now and I'm sure we'll get something interesting out of the ... whatever this is we're in today." Troxi's mood brightened instantly and Jerrthi saw it, so she smiled, "And if I get a chance and a station to work at in here, I'll show you just what you can get off the Merren sats." Their attention was drawn by the communications specialist who'd brought them hot drinks. As she set them down, she drew her fingers back in a hurry and waved them as she spoke in Merren, "Oh, that's hot. I was told that you wished for another beverage," she said, "And Ter'l instructed me to get them for you." She bowed a little perfunctorily to Jerrthi, "I do not know if this is drunk by the Merren at all, um, Jerrthi, so I must point out that it is a stimulant, made of an enzyme from the gut of a food creature. Try it with care, and allow some time for it to hit your system before you drink it all. Ter'l said that it would likely not harm you, but it has been known to cause heart stoppage in some Merren, though he tells me that you are different, somehow." "My thanks for your generous hospitality," Jerrthi looked up to read the lettering on the helmet, "Cerrith, and a pleasant work cycle to you is my wish," she added in letter-perfect Xerian as she lowered her head to the exactly correct bow for such an interchange, "and please allow me to introduce my friend here, Troxi. She's one of the --" The dark Xer's eyebrows rose a little at that as she interjected, ignoring Troxi completely, "Such fine speech in our tongue. I must say that I am a little impressed. I have a break now. May I join you? I have heard that you have knowledge of communications. It is my specialty here." Jerrthi nodded and Cerrith said that she would return with her own drink in a moment. Troxi sat staring at the female in a bit of wonder as she walked away, "I've been looking for that one for like four days now, ever since the night of the party. I just could never find her." She sighed, "It doesn't matter, I guess. She was looking right through me just now." Jerrthi sniffed her drink for a moment, "Well that's a little odd, and maybe even rude, considering the way that you helped her that night." "Yeah," Troxi agreed, "I just think she's so ... " She looked over and then down, "I guess you saw that, huh?" "Don't mind me, Troxi," Jerrthi laughed, "I think she's lovely too, so I can see the attraction. I'm not like that, but I'm not blind either." Cerrith was back then and sat down, "I hope it isn't rude to say it, but I think I overheard you say that you could access the Merren satellites?" "Sure," Jerrthi smiled, "You can too, and so can Troxi here if you can read Merren. You just have to get past the long acceptance garble and set up an access account. There are about a million different and distinct user levels, each with its own access rights. Anyone can at least access the sats. It's just what you can get at the different levels that changes, much like anything else. You're both Xer and the Xer and the Merren share a lot of information. Same goes for the sat images and data. You'd probably get in deeper if you had permission from your commanders for it. That gets you official status, though there are limitations." "Jerrthi got me a sat shot that showed the hits of my ship's bombs yesterday," Troxi said, "I was surprised that she could do that from right here." Cerrith turned to the other Xer, "Right here?" "Yeah, Troxi said, nodding, "From this ship -- that station right over there." "You can do that?" Cerrith asked, "From the fuss over what was done, I noticed that some Merren facilities on their net were closed to me not long afterward when I tried to access them." "Jerrthi's a Merren Watcher," Troxi said, "She can get anything off their stuff." Cerrith bowed her head a lot farther this time and she held it, "I had no idea that they would place a Watcher on our ships." Jerrthi waved her hand, "No no, "she smiled, "You're making the wrong assumption. I used to be a Watcher and I still have full access. I'm on leave right now, so I'm pretending to be a journalist, since the network hired me to be one during Xhan's inquiry. Yesterday, I just used a back door to get the picture that was wanted, that's all." "I don't know how it is with the Merren," Cerrith said, "I hope that I am not making another -- assumption," she smiled, "Did you become a Watcher due to high birth or something?" Jerrthi shook her head, "I worked for it, I would tell you to ask my colleague Ronkahh, who is not here now. She'd tell you in a heated way that I stem from a very small minority group here, one which, though the government makes noise about treating us equally and fairly, it just isn't so. By the time that we got out of the Merren training center yesterday morning, I thought that she wanted to kill somebody in there over the rude way that I was treated because of what I am. I was told not to return this flight suit to them after this, and it was said with a sneer and a wrinkled nose. I am not high born. There is no such thing for my kind, Cerrith. When I was small, my family moved away from our ancestral home so that I might have a better education in the Merren public system, the same as anyone. We only went back for recreation periods so that I could learn what my kind needs to know. They gave us all tests at every turn in school. I didn't know it, but some of the tests -- the ones which I enjoyed the most -- were government aptitude tests. I was an adolescent by the time that I figured that out. Gradually, the tests led me to a narrow range of positions -- all of them in telecommunications, so when it was all over, I was given my job, since the tests by then were for employment -- the same as everyone else, and I had no choice in the choosing. They told me what I would be and I could not refuse. But I never took all of my recreation leaves and now it has caught up to me, since I am not to return for a cycle. It pleases me anyway. The headaches that I would get behind my eyes ..." The other two nodded, each having jobs where the passage of high volumes of data for extended time periods just brought that sort of thing on. "Troxi likely has it the worst, I think," Jerrthi said, "I don't know how she manages it and listens to search for the signals that she does, and at stupid speeds and upside down and sideways. All that I heard were a lot of hissing and a few squeals when she allowed me to listen in." "What do you do, Troxi?" Cerrith asked, "I'm sorry, but all that I know is that you crew on the craft which did something different yesterday and got me locked out of what I wanted to see. It means little to me, I'm afraid." "I'm a ghoster," the other Xer said in a slightly subdued voice which surprised Jerrthi to hear, "Nothing special." Cerrith smiled that thin and perfunctory smile again, "Well it has been very interesting speaking with you, but I must return to my tasking. If you have need of anything, please ask." She was gone in the next moment and Jerrthi looked over at Troxi, who sat with her head on her hand staring into her mug. "She said 'please ask' as though what she wanted to sat was, 'please don't ask me'. Not a lot of sincerity there." "I just ... I just like her," Troxi sighed like a young girl, "I mean, I know that I haven't got a chance there, but ... " "I think it might go better if you just spoke to her alone. I think she was just stuck on me out of her interest. Is there something between the 'field' people and these ones or something? I think I was looking at something like that from her side." "Fucking command pukes," the gray Xer muttered, "They forget that their purpose is to kiss the asses of the ones who make the decisions. They also prefer to forget that if the shit goes bad; they'll be in the dirt along with everybody else, trying to walk home." "There might be something to that," Jerrthi said, "and I can't say everything that I know, but that one, maybe out of everyone in here but Xhan and Ter'l, well she's been there before. How bad have you got it for her? I think if I had nothing to lose in your place, I might give it a shot in private. I'm not suggesting it; I'm only mentioning what I might do." "You would?" Troxi looked over questioningly and Jerrthi nodded. "You want to wait for another chance like now, since you at least know where she is at the moment? You don't try, you can't get." "You're right," Troxi said as she stood up. "I'll be back in a bit." Jerrthi liked Troxi quite a lot by now. She wasn't attracted to other girls at all, but she found that she did think the world of her now. She was a little saddened to see that "a bit" was about as long as it lasted. Jerrthi wanted to slap her forehead as she realized that Troxi was approaching Cerrith from her off-side, the one with poor hearing. If she'd thought of it, she'd have told her not to do that, but it hadn't crossed her mind and she watched with a quiet groan as the gray Xer approached the dark one from there. She guessed that Cerrith hadn't noticed Troxi and when she did, she jumped a little, visibly startled and looking annoyed as she spoke to Troxi. Jerrthi couldn't hear the short conversation, but she could see a lot in the body language. Troxi came back then and sat down to finish her drink. "Did you ask her out or anything? Jerrthi asked, and Troxi said, "I didn't get much of a chance. I asked her if she remembered me from the party or anything and she said that yes; she recognized me from the party. That was all that she said about it. So I told her that I'd really wanted to meet her and I've been looking for her since then. She said that she'd been working a lot, but she said it really coldly, you know? I was a little put off then, losing my nerve, I guess. I was gonna ask her out anyway, but then she asked me if I usually made a habit of hanging out with Merren, because she sure didn't and she didn't look too fondly on anyone of us who did. I told her no, that I'd never really even met one before I met you, but by then she was already shut down to me and taking a call in her ear." Troxi sighed again, "Shot down in flames." Jerrthi thought about it for a second and felt a little of what Ronkahh must have felt in her breast for her at her treatment by the Merren. And here it was - the same thing happening from the other direction. She couldn't care less from a personal standpoint. She was used to it, but it annoyed her to think that just from sitting next to her, Troxi was paying the price somehow. "The fucking self-entitled asshole," she muttered, "Come on, Troxi. I think we've still got a little time before they tell us to sit down and call battle stations." She had a brief conversation with Ter'l who nodded. Then she walked back to the table, "I'm going to get you access to the Merren sats now just to see you cheer up a little. Can you read Merren?" Troxi nodded and they walked over, approaching the female from her off-side again, just because. Jerrthi ignored the surprised and annoyed look as she was purposely pleasant in her request and then she asked Cerrith rather coolly if there was a station which was not in use at the moment, and she was shown an older one off to the side a little. "I haven't looked in a while, but I believe that it is still functional. What do you wish to do?" "I'm going to get my friend access, and then we'll be out of it before we go into action, since I'll want to file a report about it," Jerrthi said. With the terminal up, Jerrthi's fingers flew over the pseudocharacters on the keyboard after setting her preferences for her own type of Merren. As the access screen appeared, she selected her own language as a preference for the first part, since she would log in under her own account and then she switched back to regular Merren as she set up a Xer military account and then a Xer private account in moments, far too fast to follow. Troxi commented on it, and without missing a beat, Jerrthi muttered, "I used to make my living with seven different keypads, watch my display and everything on it, as well as interact with many accessing clients verbally at the same time. That one back there has only one earpiece and three little screens. If I was in her job, I'd have the time to scratch my ass with my free hand too. I've seen you work, Troxi, I know you can follow me on this. I also know that she can't." The next thing that she did was set her preferences for the interaction to be completed after that point in Encrypted Merren, since she could see the icon which indicated that Cerrith was watching from one of her own screens. Her fingers flew over the flat surface in front of her for a moment and then she asked Troxi to stay seated. She stood up and walked over to Cerrith's station noting the terminal number there on the side. Cerrith looked up questioningly. "I cannot get in any further," she said, "You have slaved your terminal to mine. The Merren systems see this as an intrusion attempt. Please disengage it." Cerrith shook her head, "That's not possible. I-" Jerrthi pointed at the number, "That's what that station indicates to be happening from this one. That's what Merren Data Control concurs with and unless you disengage, I will be asked if I am using a secure system. They will detect that it is not secure and block my attempt." "But it is a secure system," Cerrith said. "Not to the Merren," Jerrthi said, "because they also see an open link to Xer 43rd HQ through your terminal and are querying it now. A link goes both ways. I am a Watcher, Cerrith. Following access attempts is how I made my living. This is a Xer war vessel over Merren soil. You'd better believe that it will be looked at. To access Merren data while being linked to Xer is a leak to them. Please just disconnect from my terminal and everything will be fine, I assure you." Cerrith looked over pointedly, "To them? You're one of them." "I'm unimportant," Jerrthi smiled coldly, "I worked for them, whether I liked it or not. I lost a lot to them, family and more. My people have been treated like dirt by them for longer than anyone can know." A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 57 She stepped a little closer then, "If you can't be bothered to learn a little about the place where you are employed by contract, that's fine, Cerrith, but don't make the mistake of thinking that I am one of them. There are three Watchers currently looking at this vessel and they are wondering why it is that they cannot get in past a certain point. All that they see at the moment are hydraulic pressures from a screen that I accessed in the Engineering section. But it will not stop them forever. Their chances improve with each moment that you blink at me. Please disconnect and stop lying to me as well. You're not half as good as you think, and by the way, I've read the erotic story that you have open behind everything there. The ending is a disappointment." Cerrith spun around from the grip of Ter'l's hand on her upper arm. "Disconnect as requested please and now." As Cerrith complied, he growled at her, "Who made you the spy? The correspondent asked for a courtesy from you. She had my clearance for what she requested. Just do as she asks. If you hadn't been tagging her attempt, I wouldn't have gotten my ear blown off by our own HQ just now. Your wanting to ride along from here enabled the Merren to at least look at our data. Not wise, Cerrith. Do you think they were successful, Jerrthi?" She shrugged, "If many rows of hydraulic pressure indications were of value to them, but I doubt that it would mean much to them, which is why I chose that screen. If the link is closed now, there is no risk." He nodded and strode away, wondering how he was going to explain this to Xhan. "Sorry, but I did nothing wrong," she said to Cerrith, "You should not have --" Cerrith smirked bitterly, "Tagged on? Gotten out of my rack today? Accepted the tasking to the First, or ever been born? Take your pick. I'll be amazingly fortunate if this doesn't end up in my file." She fell silent as she closed out of everything, the open page of the erotic story being left there for a moment. Cerrith was going to shut down and recycle just as a precaution. She looked over, "This doesn't end well?" "No,' Jerrthi smirked, "after such a long and promising build-up and the hot scenes in the middle, one of the girls dies. I hated it." "You like to read girl-girl stories?" Cerrith asked, a little surprised as she powered down and then back up. "Sure. A love story is a love story sometimes, and some of those ones are really good; to me, anyway. Look, I'm sorry." "It's alright; I should have known that you'd have been able to see what I was doing. I wanted to know how to do what you were doing." "You could have asked me and I'd have done it for you as well -- if you hadn't been so hard to my friend." Cerrith looked down, "I'm a little embarrassed over what I did at the party. I didn't mind having a male for a little while, and like that, it was easy not to have to see who it was, but I really wasn't there for that. I was there to watch Troxi dance. She's really fine to me and I was sure that she smiled at me a couple of times for an instant. I kind of had a little fantasy then, since I've never been with another girl, but I guess I've ruined that." Jerrthi leaned down so that their helmets touched on Cerrith's left side, "You haven't ruined anything yet that can't be fixed. Troxi really likes you. Why not give her a chance and at least talk to her? You seemed to like what she was doing for you -- even before she started using her fingers. I was there, remember?" Cerrith's eyes flew open at that. "That -- that was her? All I knew was that some bitch was holding me down and I couldn't look. The next thing I knew, she was gone and there was another male in me. I left as soon as he was done." "She said something to you, I think," Jerrthi said quietly. Cerrith nodded, "I only remember barely being able to hear somebody say that I was beautiful." She groaned, "I had her interested enough to ... " She shook her head angrily at herself, "I always wreck everything. It's such a gift that I have." Her systems back up, Cerrith began to take part in the flow of messages again. Jerrthi thought she looked a little grim so she stood in Cerrith's view until she had a few moments of silence. Cerrith looked up, "I'm very sorry for what I said --" Jerrthi smiled and shook her head, "Listen, We're going to go get in our seats, but afterwards, if you like, I'll bring Troxi back if I can. You need me to set you up on the sats, right?" Cerrith nodded with a slightly sad smile then, "Please." But it didn't quite work out just that way at all. Ter'l stepped over to where Troxi sat and looked down. "I was informed of your request. I may be able to do something with it, but, ... do you really want that? I could shuffle the crews. Xhan thinks that it might be a good idea, but I have something else in mind. Want to hear about it?" Jerrthi wandered over and then she realized that she might be intruding when she really hadn't thought of it the second before, "Sorry, Ter'l," she said and began to back away as Ter'l explained to Troxi. No harm done, Jerrthi," he smiled, "At least from my side of it. You may stay if you like, but ... actually, please stay where you are. Would you mind being in here when we go to battle stations? This terminal station has the restraints required. I just need to convince our friend here to stay and show me something." He turned back, "You want a challenge? Think you can handle a real test?" He bent down a little and smiled a little wickedly, "I want to see you handle a slightly different game, that's all. Think you've got it?" Troxi blinked up at him, "You mean, like here? Make this go away? Sure, I can. I just don't know if I'll be able to stay awake for the whole thing. It's not like there'll be any of Doona's gyrations in here, is it? I mean, somebody's liable to lose a writing implement or false eyelash or something. If it's the right person, we'd have to call off the whole exercise while everybody in here crawls around looking for -- " "Can you do it under these conditions or not?" "Sure, Ter'l," Troxi said, "Sorry for the impertinence. I'll need some tie-ins though. A line to the flight deck and one to Engineering and -- " Ter'l pointed, "Cerrith's station is the last one in Comms section. The one next to it is the first one in Countermeasures. Sit there please and strap in. Cerrith will supply any comm tie-ins that you require. How many Countermeasures personnel will you want to assist?" "I was gonna say none, but I'm not familiar with the panel layouts, so maybe one to point stuff out for me if I can't find it," Troxi said, "You really want to try me on this run?" "I've got a measure of faith, Troxi. We hadn't planned on anything like this, but I saw an opportunity and Xhan concurs, so we'll do this faded today. Jerrthi, please strap in here and set your helmet to acquire the station if you want to listen in." He indicated the station across the aisle with his hand, "Troxi?" Troxi stood up and walked over. She sat down at the station which had been provided for her use and frowned. "I can't sit sideways to the travel of the bird. I dunno how they can do it like this." She pulled her display out on its cantilever mount so that it was in front of her as she swiveled the seat to the left. She clamped it in place. "'Kay, this is better." She looked over her shoulder to the nervous-looking young male there, "Are you gonna help me on this run?" He nodded, "Uh, yes, but I don't know what you'll need." "I'm Troxi," she said, "I guess that I'd like you to turn sideways so that you're behind me, ok? That way, if I can't find something, I can ask you." She looked up at Cerrith, "Hey, could you please give me a tie-in to uh, who are you, friend?" "B -- Benrad," the male stuttered momentarily, "Are you the countermeasures spec for Mud Six? The one that wrecked the range yesterday?" "Yeah, but I didn't do that," Troxi replied without looking, her eyes moving over her display to familiarize herself with the layout. "Where are the jammers? I don't see any." "No, but you're the one who got them in so they could do that," Benrad said in a little awe. "That's a victory for the specs in this business." he leaned over Troxi's shoulder and pointed out what she'd asked for and she nodded. "I s'pose," Troxi nodded in a distracted way, "And thanks. Looking at you, well I'm thinking I gotta spend more time with command." She looked up at Cerrith then, "Um, Could you please provide a tie-in to the flight deck for me and I'll need a direct to you, I think. I'd like it in one ear only, either one would be fine. Oh, and one to Engineering and I'll need to be able to access the Assault craft fight channel if you don't mind." "Sure," Cerrith said in a bit of wonder, "But what is all of this for? Or can I even ask that?" Ter'l smiled, "The countermeasures on this craft is normally handled by three specialists as you know. We want to see if it can be done comfortably by Troxi alone." The gray Xer nodded, "I'm used to running the whole rig. For that, I absolutely need good comms and a feel for the bird if I'm gonna fade it effectively." There was speech in her ear then, someone in Engineering acknowledging contact with Troxi and asking what was needed. "I don't have direct control of your wing baffles, the heat decoy on the belly and the nav strobes. Gonna need that, or I'll need you to stand by in case I ask for it. It would be better if you can just give me access so I can do it myself, thanks." "Why do you need that?" the voice asked. "See, that's why I want direct access," Troxi replied, "Somebody like you is too important to be standing around down there waiting to hear what my little old desire might be next. And hey, I'm a girl and I'm liable to change my mind. It happens." "Provide access," Ter'l grumbled onto the line, "She won't have time to explain things to you in a moment." "Yes sir," the voice said and Troxi thanked him when she saw the previously inactive toggles light up on her display. She asked for the functions from left to right and the Engineering dweeb recited them and she threw a paper notepad down on her desktop and made a note. Ter'l watched as Troxi used her new satellite access account to find an overhead view of the exercise area. He smiled, but made no comment. "Is all the noise leaving the craft necessary?" Troxi asked Ter'l. "Something this big and making this much electronic racket is easily traceable. I'm looking at our emissive profile and there are people using the Comm net on this thing to talk about what they had for dinner last night. I don't care, but everything needs to be short and tight. You go to battle stations, and I'd like this thing a lot quieter if you want this to work. I want to hide us. Everybody else seems to want to hang out of the window and yell." Terl got on the line again and called for communications silence from everyone. "I want no active links to even 43rd now. Any communications noise detected will need to be explained to me afterward. Once the shuttles are in the air, I want only tight encrypted traffic, and I'd better not hear any life stories either. Make your request or report and that's it." "Any active elements out on the ground?" Troxi asked Ter'l and he grinned, "It's Merren, Troxi. What do you think?" She nodded, "I'm gonna assume that they're out there then." "That's probably wise," he smiled as he reached past Cerrith and activated the signal that the exercise was on and the craft was now in a state of battle readiness. The overhead lights went out and were replaced with dull red lighting. "I'll never get why you guys like to make it look like a cave in here," Troxi muttered to herself. Cerrith was looking at her own display, but she smiled at the comment. "You don't like caves?" the dark Xer asked, "I prefer to think of them as dens." "I didn't say I didn't like them, "Troxi chuckled, "Just not for this, that's all." "Ter'l," Jerrthi asked quietly, "this craft has situational cameras, doesn't it? Would there be a way to get me feeds?" He nodded, "I'm a little busy, but maybe ask Cerrith." The dark Xer had caught the question anyway since Jerrthi's microphone has been active at the time. In a moment, Jerrthi saw an array of thumbnail images along the top of her screen and she thanked Cerrith as she set her helmet cam to acquire the display so that she could catch what was going on in front of her without having to rely on a camera shot of a screen. This way, whatever image she chose, the camera would get a feed directly. "Pilot," Troxi said, "this is Countermeasures. Are you on this wire?" "Pilot, "a voice acknowledged, "Which countermeasures, defense or ..." "All of it," Troxi said, "I'm ghosting us now," she said, "and my name is Troxi." She looked at her Sat overhead and asked Ter'l for permission to re-access for only a moment at a time to monitor her effectiveness and he nodded. "Not bad, but I can still see some jiggles. This looks like it's never been tuned at all." "Benrad," she said over her shoulder, "here's how you do it." She found the controls which would allow her some finer control and in another moment, she was satisfied. "Pilot, are we gonna float all day and ask to get slapped or can this thing go any faster? My daddy's crop sprayer can fly faster than this and it's seven decades old." "This is the planned-for speed," the voice on the flight deck said in a dry and barely-interested voice, "How fast should I go to please an assault craft ghoster? This is not - " Ter'l almost barked then, "Second-pilot, acknowledge." A female voice answered and he nodded to no one, "You have the craft. First officer, sit away from the controls and assume the second-pilot's duties for the duration of this flight. I've got no use for a Xer pilot who can manage to sound and act amazingly like a Merren. Countermeasures, what speed would you suggest?" He asked Troxi. "This isn't an attack craft," Troxi said, "but I'd want at least three times our current speed. Drop the shuttles when you want and let them go to their desired speed to suit themselves once they're clear, but if this crawler gets hit hard because it's flying slow and fancy, then everybody walks. I'd like to prevent that." Troxi looked at the area map again. "Ter'l? You didn't tell me the objective points." He leaned over and pointed to three places and she nodded, "Where's the shuttle drop point?" When she saw where he pointed, Troxi asked Cerrith for a tie-in to the assault craft crews. "This is Countermeasures, " she said, and she told them their current speed, "There is now no one behind us. When you leave, look for the heat beacon if you need a reference to this craft, but it won't be visible on your heat display in other than short bursts once you've called in and are on the way back up for recovery." When they reached the drop point a little later, the shuttles dropped away and were on their own. Shortly after that, they began to hear complaints that the pilots had no visual on the command craft. Cerrith turned around and looked at Troxi in surprise. Troxi winked at her as she spoke, "Well I thought that was the idea. You only need to see a reference on the way back up. Pilot, if the shuttles are well below us, then come right one-quarter. I want us to be elsewhere now. What was the plan for a station pattern?" "Coming right," the voice said, "We decided on a racetrack left to right at four." Troxi shook her head, "That leaves Defense only able to provide covering fire in the middle stretches. Fly a triangle centered over the drop point behind our present position with the forward apex just behind and overwatching the nearest shuttle. And the rear gunners need to actually be awake and sharp for this." She looked at Cerrith again, "I'll need feeds like what Jerrthi has over there, please. Pilot, if we had the attack craft along on this ride, we could do the racetrack. As it is, we need to be able to provide effective suppression fire all alone. Go left back toward your original objective point and begin the pattern. I've got search signals from the ground, but only on the shuttles. I'm jamming, but it would be better if they hadn't been detected in the first place." She turned to look up at Ter'l,"We need to be able to fade the shuttles." "We can work on that with the Maintenance section later today. Go with what you're doing. Treat the searches as threats, but do not prosecute them as you normally would. I am certain that we have incurred enough hard feelings over the Merran gunnery range incident. How would you handle this in theory, Troxi? I'd like your thoughts." Troxi looked up and answered after a moment, "For that, I'd need whoever's working the offensive and defensive weapons suites in my ear," she began and outlined what she'd likely do under the current circumstances. Jerrthi sat in absolute amazement at a couple of things that she was watching. Troxi was usually such an effervescent personality that most people certainly wouldn't have thought her to exactly be a deep thinker. Well she was all of that and more, quite obviously, working to adapt techniques which she knew were effective in hiding an assault craft to the rather daunting task of concealing the command ship -- and that was obviously working better than hoped, judging by what she saw on the faces around her. One thing that absolutely pleased Jerrthi to see was the way that Cerrith now seemed to be taking her Xer friend seriously. She didn't know what the attraction was from Troxi's side, well, besides Cerrith's looks, she guessed. She was still on the fence over what Ter'l had said to her and leaning toward the possibility that there had been something to what he'd said, though she did find herself leaning away from that view just a little slightly. As well, she thought, ... there was something about Ter'l himself. She thought about that as she watched him while he facilitated this ... whatever it was for Troxi. He was larger than Xhan, not quite as fetching, perhaps and he wore a little gray in his dark brown mane, but there was something attractive about that male in a general sense and she tried to think of what it might be. As far as she was concerned, given where she was and where she lived and all of that, Jerrthi rather doubted that she'd ever even catch sight of the rare Grotto male every once in a while. The randomness of anyone's life and situation factored into that, and she knew that just about everyone that she would ever see -- while there still were any -- would be either too old or taken anyway. She lived relatively well and worked in expensive offices whereas most Grottos lived in near-poverty. Her best chance of finding one might be to go to her ancestral home, but even there, well, any who weren't stuck in the bottle or brain-dead from drugs due to the poverty and lack of work ... She wondered a little about the attraction that she seemed to be developing to the Xer people in general and one male in particular. More to the point, she wondered, why was that seeming to overshadow the Xer male that she had begun a relationship with? That was something that maybe Ronkahh might do. She'd never had an interest in any of the other kinds of Merren males. There was too much baggage in her mind over the teasing and bullying that she'd faced at school and later on, it was the derisive sneers that she faced almost every day. Compared to a Xer... Well, there was no comparison. All that she knew was that she didn't want this assignment to end anytime soon. The scenery alone was worth it. It hit Jerrthi then from out of nowhere. There had been no conscious thought to it. The pieces just fell into place. Ter'l's knowledge of her speech, and of the old ways brought everything back to her from one night long ago. A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 57 To most Merren, the habits of the Grottos were crude and primitive. It was just something which they'd developed in order to survive, and they no longer had a role in their survival in the present age. But many of the dwindling families still practiced what was left of their ways. One of those ways concerned the rites of passage for a girl when she came of age. There wasn't any stigma to it from the view of the families, though the other Merren types liked to use it as proof of their backwardness. When a Grotto Dweller girl came of age, she spent one night with three males during a time when she was least fertile. It had nothing to do with anything other than her learning how it all went and she leaned at the hands of three male relatives over that one night. After that, there was never any more sexual contact between the young woman and those males and they reverted back to their conventional and familial roles. Jerrthi had forgotten about one detail in her case; there hadn't been enough males in her family for it and it was forbidden that her father be one of the three, which was very convenient as far as her father had been concerned. He cursed their coming extinction, but he didn't want to be one of the ones who taught his own daughter. But there had been her aunt and she'd suggested her male as the third. Even from when she'd been little, Jerrthi had always looked up to her mother's sister and learned so much from her of the old ways and the dark trade. She'd learned the art of how to love a female target before she killed her, once she'd grown old enough at the hands of her aunt and though Jerrthi had never been drawn other females, she still cherished the times that she'd spent learning from the beautiful female that she'd looked up to. She supposed that it was one of the reasons that she still practiced. Her aunt had worked the old contacts and took work where she could, though by then, most of what she was given was usually the quiet removal of thorns from the sides of criminals with money who wanted no connection to the murders themselves. Her aunt had a lover. And that young lover was not of the clan, but it was the best that anyone could do and he had agreed to it since it would please the one he loved. It had happened in the blackest cave a few minutes after the effects of the calming infusion had been consumed. Jerrthi never saw more of the third male than the barest outline, but she remembered that he was large and she felt fur and that he'd been the best to her in terms of how it had felt. She looked across the command module once more and wondered just how many Xer there might be who could speak her dialect that well. Not only that, Jerrthi now had a rather certain feeling just whose markings she'd see on the things which he'd given her when she finally got around to looking. If she was right ... She doubted that he'd even remember her, a young woman from the family of his lost lover before she'd perished. She was just someone that he'd helped to teach that night. He made out to be so old, she smirked as she looked at her display, but she knew that the Xer lived long lives, just like her own kind -- if they weren't killed and he was rock hard and tough from his life. She remembered that she'd wept a long time over the loss of her aunt, but now she was wondering if a popular saying carried a little truth to it even still. The third male -- if it was him -- was from another world and had lived a long career in his armed service. If she was looking at who she thought she was, well ... she guessed that it was a small universe after all. As the exercise wound down rather spectacularly, the shuttles made their cautious way back up to 'Mother' and began to call in. Troxi was waiting for them. "Form up line astern at ... " she looked at her situational screen, "four two exactly and await heat pulses on your display, we're coming to a turn, but I'll give you a guide in. Watch for the baffles on this thing. I'll open and close them a few times and you'll have an attitude reference as well." Troxi scanned her displays and as they entered a left bank, she fluttered the baffles, giving a clear heat signature to the landing craft so that they could see the tilt of the bank as they approached. They came aboard without incident. "We can't do this on a hot field," she said to Ter'l, "It's asking to get nailed, but it was all I could think of today. A couple of small rearward-facing strobes at the wingtips would be better." "More for the maintenance people," the large male muttered with a nod, "I'll tell them to mount them inside pipes so you have to be right behind us to even see them. Alright, get us out of here, Troxi." She nodded, "Pilot, I need us at the following heading and altitude. Got your writing implement?" The flight crew looked at each other and they couldn't see the way that Ter'l rolled his eyes at Troxi's laughing face in the command module at that instant. "Troxi," Cerrith voice came to the gray Xer a few minutes later as they flew back to the base, "Look, I'm really sorry that I was such a shit to you. You didn't deserve that." "'Sokay," Troxi said as she kept up her visual scan of her displays, "I can handle it." The flat sound of what she heard put Cerrith off for a moment, but then she was back, "Hey, can I buy you dinner as a re-do? Please?" Troxi would normally have declined, but she thought about it and then looked over at Jerrthi's back as she worked on a little editing of what she'd gotten. "Sure, Cerrith," she said, "When?" "Would tonight be alright?" Troxi's sigh was just barely audible, "Is this so that you can ask me about today? I'd rather not if that's what this is." "No," Cerrith said, "not if you don't want to talk about it. I'm more interested in you. I don't care about anything else. I'm coming to see that I've overlooked somebody really interesting to me out of my shit attitude and I want to try to do it over without that. I promise you'll have my attention and not just over the way that you shook things up in here today. Come on, please? I want to make up for snubbing you." "That sounds good, "Troxi replied, "I'm just not in the mood to talk about today right now. It's not my fault, but I think I had a hand in the first officer losing his ride." "What do you mean?" the dark Xer asked, "Ter'l straightened him out, that's all." "Cerrith," Troxi said, "I can see that you haven't been with us long. If Ter'l saw no use for you after what you did to tag along on Jerrthi's system, you'd already be off-line and sitting quietly elsewhere. That you're even still here means that he needs you and that you made a mistake, that's all, but it's a fixable thing. That pilot -- unless I'm wrong, will be really lucky if he gets to haul trash after today. You might not know it about him, but Ter'l is your best friend if you need anything. The price for that is that you do your job well." Cerrith hesitated then, "Just one thing I'd like to know and you can tell me to shut up if you want to. May I ask what this was here today? They don't usually let somebody in here to run a whole section alone as well as pretty much turning an already planned-out flight into something way different." She swiveled her seat around and looked at Troxi with a smile, "See? I do sometimes manage to get my nose out of my own ass long enough to pay attention." Troxi tried to smile back and it worked -- sort of, "I dunno why they wanted me to do all this today, other than it was some kind of test, but this morning I put in a request to Ter'l." She sighed, "I want off of Mud Six." Cerrith stared for a moment, "But -- you're one of the ones -- I mean, well, why?" Troxi looked up and saw that one blue eye and the shocked face below it, "That might be so, but it doesn't mean that I'm happy. Anyway, it's a long story and not fit for publication. Hey, can you tell me where you got that dirty story that Jerrthi was talking about?" She laughed a little then, "Just kidding. Anyway, thanks for asking me to dinner. Now I've got something to look forward to and it'll get my pea-brain offa thinking that I ought to feel guilty." Before they landed, there was a call from Ter'l requesting that they meet Xhan in his office after disembarking. The three females looked at one another during the approach and landing. "I know, "Troxi said, "better stuff our ears with something. This is probably where we get eaten over the tagging thing." ------------------------------ They walked along the flightline together, each one running the fingers of one hand through her slightly damp mane to try to revive it a little while carrying her helmet in the other. It was a bit of a losing battle but dragging a brush through it then was pointless. Just like any flightline anywhere, there was always a wind here somehow. Troxi turned to the male who had tried to be ready to help her if she needed it, "I almost forgot. Thanks very much, Benrad. It turned out that I didn't need you too much today, but I liked knowing that you were there looking over my shoulder." "You didn't need me at all," he said, "I was just hanging onto the back of your seat in case you did, that's all. You'd have found the jammers in a second anyway." "Why are you coming along?" Cerrith asked and he shrugged, "I dunno. I just got a call in my helmet from Ter'l. The way that Troxi handled everything, I'm thinking that me and the others are gonna get bounced for not being able to do what Troxi did all alone." "I dunno,"Troxi grinned a little, "If that was for real facing somebody who wanted to slap us down, I can see that this busy girl would have been swamped. I can see that I'd need some back-up, buddy. But I've got no use for the other two. They said nothing, didn't shake my hand when I held it out, and just sat there and glared at me the whole time. Anyway, I don't know what that was all for. I put in for a transfer to another attack craft in Mud flight. I wasn't trying for a ride in a big-assed can like that one. I don't know why they wanted to try me in that thing. I ride attack craft. I'd have thought that they knew that I'm good enough for that." It led to the Cerrith and Jerrthi sitting in chairs with wide eyes and being bellowed at for a long time and Benrad and Troxi cooled their heels out in the outer office while it went on. One at a time, a pair of others were dismissed and walked out -- one of them the former first-pilot of Xhan's ship. The other one was one of the three countermeasures specialists from the same craft. "Man, " Benrad said, "I didn't think that Xhan had that much steam in him for how long that's been going on. Holy ... " Troxi fiddled with one of the straps on her helmet and looking up, she noticed that the Merren office help were staring at her. "What the fuck are you looking at?" she demanded in their language and the others looked down and got back to work. The door opened after a time and Ter'l's head appeared, "Could you please come in now?" As they went to be seated in the chairs which Ter'l indicated, they saw that Jerrthi had a few words of her own. "Don't worry, Section Officer," she said coldly, "It won't happen again. I'll just do my job, unless you'd like to ask your command that I be sent away. I can get my story from any of about seventy viewpoints, Xhan, not only the one from next to the commander. I'm sorry this began over my accessing the satellites, but I shut down the Watchers who were looking in. If you think you're finished dragging me over the fire now, I'll go and clean out the drains in the barracks shower." "Why?" he asked. She looked at him in disbelief as she got to her feet and walked out. "I'm changing the flight tasking a little," he said quietly after a moment. "Troxi, you have overall Countermeasure responsibility on the command craft from this point for the group. Benrad will be your second, and I'm changing the tasking of Cerrith." Looking up, he said, "Sorry for the blast, but that was only a little of what your tagging attempt got me. I accept your apology and this won't go onto your record. I was watching quite closely and the longer that you and Troxi interacted, the more of a working relationship that I could see forming. I would like more interaction between Troxi and Benrad, and I think that as you find your roles together, that will happen." "But..." Troxi began, "I just wanted another attack posting." "What do you think this is?" Ter'l asked gently, "There won't be much upside down and hang onto your tail about it, since we can't have anybody dropping a writing implement -- and by the way, that had better not ever happen to you in my presence, but this is the biggest attack countermeasures role there is in the unit. You need to ghost the ship, advise everybody on better ways to do things, and assist the other craft over their own fading. As lead ghoster, it's your job to see that everybody is hidden well." "Did I mention that there's a pay grade increase for all three of you?" Xhan smiled, "it's a huge doctrine change, but after they took my ass out of their mouths, this was all HQ's idea, based on the way that I saw this develop. If this works, it'll lead to a formal doctrine change, so that we lose less people and equipment during landings and assaults." "What's Mud Six gonna do for a ghoster?" Troxi asked. "They're getting specialist Torb," Ter'l said, "the one who always looks like he's eating a chunk of alum. Now he can feel like he's doing something important -- like keeping ground fire and missiles out of his own asshole. I'm sure that Arshan will uh, break him in right if Doona doesn't kill him the first time that he snoozes and they get detection and lock alarms screaming in their helmets. I'm afraid that you've spoiled them. Troxi. And we don't mind it if there are attachments between close-knit crewmembers. But what Mud Six crew was doing was getting stupid. You three worked well together, but that thing was never meant to be a ... well, what it was turning into. The other correspondent will be asked to return to the journalist quarters which were provided for them." "You mean Ronkahh," Troxi said. "Yeah, I do," Ter'l replied. "Are we done, Section Officer Xhan?" Cerrith asked, "I have something to say -- off-record if you'll permit it." He nodded, "I hope that you can be a little brief about it, however. I have a lot of apologizing to do, not that it will help in the least." Cerrith nodded and began, "I have a sort of assignment to you in the event that there is an emergency and things go very badly for us somewhere. I realize that it means little, but it does earn me slightly better quarters and as well, I try to see things from the perspective of what I'd need to think like in that terrible circumstance. I believe that, while I deserved what I received here today, almost all of it was my fault. If I had left well enough alone, Jerrthi would not be walking to her quarters in tears." Xhan looked surprised, "She wasn't crying when she left." "No," Cerrith said, "Not here. But I'd lay you odds that she is walking at this moment and wiping her angry tears away as she does. That's what I'd be doing." She looked at Troxi, who nodded her concurrence. "It's not my role to guide you in any regard, "Cerrith said, "and we are not together. But Xhan, if she had much of any sort of meaning to you ... " Xhan nodded and stood up, "Thank you Cerrith. I must go and do the right thing." "The right thing would have been to temper your words even more than you did, Xhan," Cerrith said, "You held back, thinking that you only had to do so since she is not under your command. What I mean is that you should have given more to me and less to her. She is well-liked among us and I have only learned why today." Xhan excused himself and walked out and the others filed out after him. "Are we dismissed, Master Leader Ter'l?" Cerrith asked. He nodded, "I'm a little surprised at you, Cerrith," he said, "I'd have thought that you might be a little pleased at what happened." She shook her head, "The assignment is nothing more than an emergency procedure. But I think that the way that I look at things, it would be less of a shock to be faced with that outcome, were it to happen than never having given thought to what must be done for the good of others beforehand." She smirked at herself then, "I know I must sound like an idiot, but I found that I like Jerrthi today and I caused all of this. I hope that Xhan can repair it, though I know that they're only beginning." She looked over, "Hey Troxi, are you hungry yet?" "If you can hang on a little," Ter'l smiled, "I think you'll find that there'll likely be another party tonight." "Xantham, "Troxi said, "I don't think I want to go if there is one. Can we go and help Jerrthi first and then maybe go for dinner someplace?" "I think I'd like that," Cerrith replied with a grin, "Let's go. If this works out right, we can get Jerrthi out of the shower that she'll be scrubbing furiously, and that will get her into the same room as Xhan and then I'd say that he's got only a million-to --one shot of getting out alive." Troxi nodded as they set off, "That was a little stupid of him, wasn't it?" Cerrith drew a deep breath and let it out, "Fuck, yeah." ----------------------- When Xhan arrived, he found Jerrthi fuming to herself quietly as she worked to gather cleaning implements from the utility room. She was sometimes very quiet and in the next moment, she was a lot louder before going quiet again. He watched her for a minute and then stepped forward. She didn't even give him time to open his mouth. "Please get out of here and leave me alone," she said as she disappeared into the depths of the room once more, looking for some drain cleaner. "I came to apologize," he began and she threw a toilet plunger at him. He side-stepped out of its path and the article sailed past, spinning in flight to strike the floor with the rubber end and bounce high into the air, almost striking the high ceiling before it fell with a thud and landed on the blanket of a perfectly made , but long-unused bed. "Get lost. These are my quarters. I believe I have a right to my privacy. You said what you had to. Now go. I don't want to hear anything from you ever again." He tried again, "Look, Jerrthi, I --" She walked up to him glaring, "You need me to say it? Are you really this stupid?" "Well yes," he replied, "but what I wanted to say was -- " "Please, Section Officer Xhan, " she said, "for once, listen carefully, alright?" He stood there as she waited. "Are you ready?" she asked, and he nodded. "Good," she nodded, "then try to stay focused. We didn't get that far and we never will. Now for want of a better way to say it, fuck off." She spun and stomped into the showers. What she saw amazed her. The whole long room -- and it had been made to accommodate twenty trainees at the same time -- was spotless and gleaming. She groaned. "I called the Facilities people here from the flightline this morning and insisted that they clean the showers in there today," he said, "I just didn't know that you'd want to come back here then. I can see why, and I'd probably do the same thing in your place. I was upset and I'll grant you that I handled it poorly. I regret that too, more than anything. Good evening, Jerrthi," he said as he turned to go. "Wait," he heard her say from the shower room. When he turned to look back, she was standing there, still in the doorway and facing away from him, her head bent and her long hair hanging around her head. She turned around slowly and began to walk up to him. "I am not a soldier and I'm not under your command. I'm telling you this for the benefit of the next girl who thinks she might like to get to know an asshole like you. I don't work for you, understand?" A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 57 He nodded and opened his mouth to speak, but she held up her hand and he stopped. "Just so you know, you did not one, but two things wrong. She leaned forward a little with her fists clenched and she yelled into his face, "I DON'T WORK FOR YOU! So if you wanted to have a discussion with me about what I did wrong, then you should have done that in as civil a tone as you could. The fact that you failed at it utterly tells me a lot about you. The second mistake that you made -- and it's a big one, so listen, alright? You don't EVER give a female who might be dumb enough to have the insane thought of wanting to know you for a long time - well, you never give her crap IN FRONT OF SOMEBODY ELSE!" She stepped away then, "Now good evening and get the fuck out of my life. I'll try to stay out of your way and file a few more reports, and then I'm going back to my shitty life. I can do no wrong there, though the satisfaction that I get from it makes me want to smile prettily while I slash my wrists. Please don't ever speak to me again unless I'm about to do something that will get you yelled at again. I'd never want to do that, since then you'd pout and need to yell at me AND I'D WANTO KILL YOU FOR IT -- JUST LIKE I DO RIGHT NOW!" She turned and walked away. Xhan walked out of the door feeling just about the way that she wanted him to feel -- though he didn't know that. Jerrthi went back to the Utility room and tried to put everything back inside. But like a lot of those rooms all over the universe, there seemed to be such a quantity of stuff in there that once freed, it seemed determined to never want to go back in. She tried for a while, but then grew frustrated and kicked a bucket, which brought down a stepladder and that fell against a gigantic stack of toilet paper rolls which knocked over the drain cleaner that she'd spent a long time looking for. Jerrthi began to pick everything up and then she was back to muttering and ranting. Xhan walked back up the spotless street until he met Troxi and Cerrith, who already knew that he'd been rebuffed. "I'm really sorry for what I said, but she won't listen to me, "he said, "I want to do something to fix this, but -- " Cerrith shook her head, "Not possible. You can't do anything while she's like what you described -- all females would likely do the same thing. She needs to speak to inanimate objects for a while." "You could send her a gift of some food or candy that she likes,"Troxi suggested, "She'll throw it out, but if you let me know when, I'll come by to get it out of the garbage and we'll split, - "she looked over, "Never mind." "You'd really do that?" Cerrith asked and Troxi shook her head, "Usually, it's me who gets the gift from a guy. I never go back to him, but I enjoy the gift every time. Give her a couple of days, Xhan," Troxi said, "It's all you can do. There's no talking to her when she's like this, and I know that because she's no fool." He nodded and sighed a little, "I just wish I'd have had the brains to have avoided it. She's right. I just wish - " He walked away and they continued until they came to Jerrthi's door and walked in where they spent the next two hours commiserating with her until Ronkahh walked in. "That Ter'l guy told me that I couldn't sleep in the craft anymore," she said in a little disbelief. "They got a new guy to replace --" Troxi walked out, followed by Cerrith. "Let's go to the canteen," Ronkahh said, "There's a party there tonight." Jerrthi shook her head, "You go without me," she said, "I'd rather stay here." Ronkahh looked at Jerrthi and wondered what was wrong with everyone that night before she walked out of the door and headed back to the canteen. ------------------------ Cerrith and Troxi didn't go a restaurant for their meal. They just decided to grab something at the fast food place on the base and sit outside to eat. A lot of their conversation centered on Jerrthi and Xhan. That petered out too after a while and then there was a silence, but it wasn't an awkward one or anything. "There's something that I've been meaning to ask you about," Cerrith said, and then she smiled, "and it hasn't got anything to do with Jerrthi or the flight today." She hesitated for a moment while Troxi looked over, waiting, her ears up. "Ok, this is a little tough, but what the heck did you do to me when you came to my table at the last party? It only lasted a few seconds, but it was ... I've never felt something like that before." Troxi looked uncomfortable for a moment and then she smiled, "I guess I ought to explain why I left, too. Alright, I saw you watching me dance and I just ... I just thought you were wonderful, but then I saw this male behind you and I thought you were smiling because of that and not me, so I kind of felt like I should just stay there on the bar. Then I changed my mind because I decided that I really wanted to at least get closer to you and I got off the bar to come over. But then the guy finished and I was already a little, ... um, excited, I guess -- and also a lot drunk, so I just started humping you, but then I realized that you were leaking right then and I'm not gonna have that in me if I didn't get the full um, benefit like you did, so I just used my hand instead." "Why did you hold me down?" Cerrith asked, "I didn't mind and I liked it too, but -- " "I wanted to improve the angle," Troxi said, "I noticed right away that you've got really puffy lips there. That's my favorite kind, but if you straightened up, I'd have lost you. Then I kind of lost my nerve and I walked away. I saw Ronkahh and after dancing with her a little, we went outside. When I came back in, you were gone." She sat for a time looking at Cerrith as she processed it all. "But how were you humping me?" she asked, "I still don't understand that part. I mean anybody can see that you've got a bump that really sticks out. Was it that?" Troxi nodded, "Well not just that. When I get, uh, going, it sticks out a lot more. I've only seen another one like mine on a cousin of mine. We live out on a farm, my family. My folks never make much at it and it's a ton of work, but it's better than growing up in the city, I think. I mean, it's pretty lonely sometimes because your nearest friend might live a long way away. But at least you feel like you're breathing free air out there. In the city, I always feel like I'm having to steal every breath." "I know," Cerrith said," I'm from the city. The most open countryside that I ever see is when we're flying over it. Sometimes, I sort of daydream about living out there, but I've never been there, not with my claws on the ground." "Hey," Troxi said, "Tell you what, when this job's over, why not take our leaves together? I mean, I don't know your situation, like if you gotta go see your folks or anything, but we can go to my dad's farm and stay there for a while. At least then you can say you've been there and if we get bored, I'll take you up in Dad's crop sprayer. It'll be just like riding in the command ship, well, just about as slow as they seem to want to fly, but you'll feel the wind on your face. Well, if I haven't driven you nuts by then. I've heard that my cheerfulness just drives some people crazy, but that's just the way that I am." "That sounds wonderful, "Cerrith said, "I think I'd like that. I don't have to go see anybody. I left home and I've never been back." "That sounds like my cousin, Shaevre" Troxi said, "I only saw her a few times and she stayed with us one summer to help out and make a little money at it. She was a little older than me. Anyway, I never saw her again, though she'd write when she had some paper. I heard that she came to the 43rd, same as us, and I was kind of hoping that I'd meet her there, only I heard that she left the service after a while and nobody knows anything about her or where she went." They went for a walk then, still talking. "So, you were looking for me?" Cerrith asked, "It sounded pretty nice to me when you said it this morning -- even though I guess I wasn't really prepared to listen then. I was still on my high perch." She looked away, "I am glad that I got knocked off it though. I finally wised up." "What do you mean?" Troxi looked over. Cerrith laughed a little, "Somewhere in the time that I realized that I'd really screwed up, I noticed that you were a lot more than somebody that I loved to see when you danced like that." She looked down at her feet for a moment, "Sometimes I'm just such a jerk. I was staring at how you just took over the whole craft and it just became sort of an extension of you. You weren't flying it or anything, but still ... And then I heard the calls from the assault craft that we'd disappeared. Holy .. " Troxi nodded, "It was just on a bigger scale, today, but that's what I do. A lot of it is doing my best to get in and out, undetected if possible. Those are the best runs to me. And I was looking for you. I kind of like just having a good time, but lately, I just don't really want that anymore. It's a big reason why I wanted off Mud Six. I was just somebody to fuck to them. They never said it, but that's the only way that I could see it after a while. Today, they were doing Ronkahh and I could see it all really clearly. Looking at you, I just kind of knew that I wanted to know you; find somebody who I didn't know and try to make a friend or something to get me out of the rut. I just had no idea where to look to find you after you left the party. I know I didn't exactly impress you this morning, but ..." "I was impressed, Cerrith smiled, "I've never seen anybody like you, Troxi. I was just looking for anything to shoot you down with. Now I feel stupid. I mean, I know that Jerrthi isn't a regular Merren and it's not just that, but there I was, using her to look down at you." She shook her head, chuckling. Troxi laughed a little, "I was actually trying to snub you when you asked me out, but I pretty much suck at that because I can't really keep it up. At the party, I saw you and I just felt better about a lot of things. I'm sure it was the booze to a large degree, but I couldn't help it. Then when I saw the way that you were standing over that table, I had to set that aside and try. I don't know what I thought would happen. There were too many people around and it was just too drunk and crazy. But I did want to know you." "Why?" Cerrith asked, "I'm a miserable bitch a lot of the time -- at least I think I am. I try not to think of the way that some people get a pass because of who they were born as." She snorted, "It's almost like a compulsion sometimes. I'm nobody, Troxi. I come from the gutter in a huge city. I tell myself to shut up but, ... well I even did it to Jerrthi, didn't I? I even flat-out asked her if she was high-born to get her job. I had no idea that she didn't even get a chance to decide what she wanted to be. I'm such an idiot." "I don't think so," Troxi smiled, "The way that I saw you, I couldn't believe my luck. Having you there today made all the difference to me. I didn't know anybody, but I knew that I needed certain functions and you just ... - blink- and there it was -- what I'd asked for on my screen or in my ear. I just had to stay focused. I mean ... forgive me for this, but I could have sat there and looked at you all day." "Thanks, Cerrith smiled, "and I'm taking that at full value, but I'm not perfect. I've got a whole lot of scars. My ship got slapped and went down. I wasn't with the 43rd then. It took a long time and a lot of medical procedures to make me better." "You mean, from the crash? That must have been awful." "No," Cerrith sighed, "I wasn't hurt. I was the only one not hurt or killed, but the other side found us then and I got shot up trying to fight them off alone. I still have nightmares almost every night. You'll find out soon enough, I guess. I'm apologizing now for waking you, alright?" Troxi suddenly realized that she had a problem. What Cerrith said went clean by. "I forgot to find out where I'm supposed to bunk tonight! I shoulda asked Ter'l, but I forgot and it's too late to find him now and I don't wanna sleep in the racks in general. Holy crap." "Hey," Cerrith smiled, "for somebody who catches details the way you do, you do miss some things. You're command craft flight crew now and that gets you a cabin. Not big, but it's bigger than a lot of them." Troxi looked and still looked confused, "How do you know? Have you seen it?" "Yeah, Ter'l told me that you're racking with me. I call bottom rack, since I've been there by myself since I got here and agreed to be Xhan's paper bitch." "I heard you say something like that to him in his office. So, do you like him?" Cerrith laughed, "What does it matter? I'm only his if we dump somewhere and even then, who's to say that I survive the wreck? Who knows if he will? The way I see it, I've already had my good luck getting out of one crash alive. I mean, I could probably do it and have his whelps, but to be happy, I'd want him to grow up a little more, I think. He's a lot better than my first impression of him -- which was as wrong as it was of you and Jerrthi, but I'm a bit annoyed at how he was to Jerrthi today. She didn't deserve that at all." They walked on and their talk got to something that they'd each wanted to mention but felt that they didn't know each other well enough for. Troxi took a stab at it anyway. "Have you ever been with another girl, Cerrith?" They passed under a large tree then and the branches hid the darker one well in the shadow. Almost the only reference point that Troxi had then without looking specifically was Cerrith's bright blue eye as she looked over, "No. Not ever. I've always had the thought to want to try, though -- well that was how I used to feel about it, anyway. I've never really had the chance, the way that I seem to be able to ruin things. That was one of the things that I took away from the party the other night. I decided that I want that. If its half as good as I think it might be, then it's just gotta be better than it is with the males that I've had." She paused then. "I'm actually a little nervous about it. I mean, if it's not, then what I'll have left doesn't thrill me all that much. I've never had all that much tender. As much as I want a good hard fuck a lot of the time, I can't seem to find just a little tenderness." She looked over, "Sorry. I was just --" Cerrith felt Troxi's arm around her waist as she listened to the lovely striped Xer chuckle softly. "Cerrith. Why do you think I wanted to find you so much? I'm a little tired of seeing the room moving because Arshan bangs me so hard. I'da thought that Doona would know better, but she's just like he is a lot of the time with her strap-on. Oh, the two of them have always had a jolly old time handing Troxi back and forth. I kinda had a little hope for Ronkahh, since she can be really nice, but it looks like she's just got a short attention span. It bothered me a little this morning but Jerrthi told me what she's like and I can see it now." She laughed a little, "If you want to try with somebody who also wants gentle sometimes, then I think I'm your girl." Cerrith looked over, her eyes open wide enough that even in the darkness, Troxi could easily see both of her eyes and the look of surprise. She stopped suddenly and they stood looking at each other. "Troxi, that sounds so nice." She stepped forward and they were in each other's arms then. Cerrith rubbed her snout under and along Troxi's jaw as she inhaled her scent. "I knew we'd need to get along to some degree once I knew that we'd be racking in the same cabin. There are another pair of females who sleep in there if we're deployed, but they mostly hang out with their guys and they're on the opposite watch from us. I want to do this now. This could be pretty good, well, I'm hoping." Troxi waited until Cerrith's head began to move back a little and then she slid her own snout along the side of Cerrith's softly until they shared a first long and very slow kiss. "I knew that I wanted you," Troxi said, "Xantham, we fit together so well, too. But we gotta go to the attack hangar to get my stuff." Cerrith felt the hardness of Troxi's mound against her own and began to move her hips against it just a little, "We can get it tomorrow. I'll be lucky if we even make it to our cabin if we stay here another moment or two. You smell so good." "So do you," Troxi groaned a little, "I think it's the shaved meat that we ate. I've always liked the smell of a beautiful female who carries just a hint of scent that she's just eaten. It's always had an effect on me." She pressed herself against Cerrith a little more, not being able to help it. The feeling of Cerrith's breasts against her own was almost their downfall in a literal sense, so they pulled apart. "Come on, "Troxi said a little shakily as she took Cerrith's hand, "I don't want to hear Xhan's voice yelling anymore. If we stay here, the base police will have us in a cell. We can't do this out here in the street." They strode away quickly, hand in hand. Just as they rounded the corner, a military police floater began its trip up the street where they'd been a few seconds before. Not far from the flightline, they passed a few fire pickets who were out on their rounds and walked to the ramp. There were a few moments of confusion until the sentry was able to find Troxi's name on her list. "Here itt ith," she said around the end of the small flashlight which she held in her mouth as she flipped the pages back down on her board. "You're thlotted in one of the Comm cabinth, ..." She took the flashlight from her lips, "... and you're with Cerrith, so that's good. You'll take her there, will you, Cerrith?" She found that she'd been talking to herself as she looked up the ramp and saw only a pair of tails disappearing inside. She shrugged, "What the fuck ... hey, you're missing a really good party over at the ...!" she called up but they were already gone. In their cabin, Troxi pressed Cerrith up against the wall as their hands slid slowly over each other. There were only quiet whimpers and a few low growls between them as their tongues danced behind their kisses. "I don't know ... how you can do it," Cerrith sighed as she raised her head while Troxi slid her teeth to hold onto as much of Cerrith's throat as she could get into her mouth, "But ... ohh.. Troxi, I need .... I need you to fuck me really slowly, baby." They moved to the bed and Cerrith found the lovely striped body on top of her own in an instant. An instant after that, she felt something else as Troxi moved to get her very pronounced and firm lips against Cerrith's plump and fat ones. After that, Troxi pressed inward in a gentle thrust and Cerrith's lips were spread open, Troxi's prow-shaped lips beginning to slip in between Cerrith's. The coal-black Xer raised her legs and began to rock Troxi as they kissed. She knew that she'd never be able to explain to anyone what she'd just found for herself with this new lover. The way that Troxi's long clitoris felt to Cerrith as it lifted hers a little with every stroke as it slid by to penetrate her was far, far past pleasant to her and a little intoxicating as well. There wasn't much inside her, she guessed, not more than the length of her index finger from the tip to the second knuckle or a little beyond that, but she was being penetrated in the most wonderful way. It wasn't like having a male in there, for sure. But Cerrith could feel herself being taken and she knew that the two of them could get there like this. They fucked through several orgasms each, stopping only for the time that each one was caught in it. A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 57 "Kay, this was only a first time," she whispered as she looked over into Troxi's eyes there beside her in the small bunk, "but was I good?" Troxi nodded and snuggled a little tighter, "It's gonna sound like a lie because I'm sure that everybody says this, but I've never felt it that much as I did with you. I've never been able to get as far inside anybody like I did there. It felt like you were pulling me in somehow." "Well I sure can't explain it," Cerrith grinned a little as she kissed Troxi's hand and laid it onto her breast, "But I do know that I've never felt something like that -- other than for about five seconds at a party once. I know that I loved it enough to want a lot more, though." She reached over and ran her fingers over Troxi's long ear and to her, she was sure that she'd never seen a nicer one, "So since we have to work together like we're in each other's heads anyway, I think maybe we ought to ... well, if you like me enough to put up with a snarly bitch --" "You're not snarly," Troxi grinned, "Doona is snarly. You're smoothing out a lot since we've been together today. What are you saying?" "I dunno," Cerrith sighed as she stretched her arm over her head for a moment languidly. During that time, Troxi was certain that she'd always remember the beauty that she saw there so close to her and she knew that she was already sliding down a long and very pleasant slope. "I'm thinking that I'd like to see how far we can go, you know? I've really never felt the way that I do right now. It's kind of like having a bad day and then coming home to get into your bed where you know that everything will be fine. If I'm good for you, then I guess I'm saying partners if you want that with me. It's very different for me, but I want that now and I'm prepared to work at it - which is a huge change for me, by the way." "It's never been anything more to me than something to laugh over, since I don't give a shit what people think, but you ought to know that it'll change the way that a few people see you, just sayin'," Troxi said quietly. "Do I look to you like the kind of person who cares, Troxi?" Cerrith grinned as she stretched to kiss her for a moment, "Uh-uh. I've found somebody and I'll want to keep her close. I guess that's what I need from my girl. And I think that you've just had your girl for the first time. I swear that I'll kill myself if I ruin this." The next several minutes were just more quiet kisses and a lot of caressing before Cerrith freed herself enough to begin to get up a little. She was smiling softly and Troxi swore that she could feel that smile. "Ok," Cerrith grinned, "Let's call it settled for now, since we still have to find ways to always get along and everything. For right now though, I've got a little exploring to do," she said as the held Troxi down while trying for a better position in the cramped bed. "Try to put up with me while I figure out how to do this so it's good for you. I've never done this before and I want to see just what it is that you've got that makes me so happy." Troxi nodded and waited a little, settling into something that she'd never felt before either, though she'd been with a lot of girls in her time. She felt a lot of tentative snuffling and a few kisses down there, but then as Cerrith figured things out for herself, Troxi threw her head back with a groan. Cerrith opened her jaws a good distance and clamped down over something which to her resembled a half of a piece of dark fruit in the fur of Troxi's crotch, something which called to her all by itself; the little tip pointing upwards a little and the seam of the fruit glistening to call to her a lot more. As she licked and sucked, she felt that tip begin to protrude even more than it already was and she reached for the finest hips that she'd ever seen on a girl and hung on as her efforts began to drive her striped lover a little crazy. As Troxi began to buck, Cerrith looked up along the finest body that she was certain that there could ever be, just like her own in its shape and firmness, but not as slim by about a hair and with slightly smaller nipples that she wanted to have in her mouth again already for at least a day or so. ------------------------------ "Hey, where's the washroom on this deck?" Troxi asked as she lifted her lips from Cerrith's nipple, "And by the way, it's no good telling me sadly about your scars. I've felt them and they're just like parts of you, so no more, 'kay?" Cerrith nodded, feeling some relief over some things which she had always thought were worse than unsightly -- even though they were all well-covered in fur. It was a girl thing. They got up and walked together, thinking about a shower. In the overall scheme of things here, a shower at this time of day while on the ground and not deployed might be enjoyed for a few moments longer, since other than the security watch, there wasn't really anybody here at all. Their journey took them past a cabin door which opened right then and they saw Benrad freeze in an awkward moment with a towel over a rather conspicuous place. While he stuttered and stammered in his embarrassment over being interrupted on his way for a shower at a time that he'd been sure that there would be no one in the corridor -- since he'd just looked, Cerrith saw something over his shoulder -- an actual printed magazine in full color and everything. She slipped past him while Troxi smiled in pleasure at seeing the smaller male again. He wasn't a hulking beast by any means, she thought, but she liked his slim shape anyway and he was kind of cute and all. "Sorry for prying," Cerrith smiled as she passed him on his way out. "I uh, I like your magazine there -- and I'm not trying to be nasty. For once, I'm being sincere, Benrad. Kind of a new uh, look for me, I guess. I'm trying it on, anyway." The shy young Xer was trapped as they stood very close to him. "What's the magazine about anyway?" Troxi asked in a very quiet voice, "Anything nice and ... dirty at all? I hope there is." Benrad tried to speak and shake his head, but Cerrith put her hand on his shoulder and told him to relax. She looked at Troxi, "It's open to a layout where there's a girl and a guy and if you turn the page, there's another guy and ... well I think it's really nice." They sort of pushed and guided the nearly apoplectic male back into his cabin and with the door closed, Troxi pulled the towel away and they both smiled at his erection -- still there and needing to be dealt with. "Which one is you?" Cerrith smiled as she held up the book and Troxi began to stroke Benrad a little. He looked as though he was about to want to die where he stood. "I need to change my assignment," Troxi said to them both, "I'm off Mud Six and I'm here now." She looked right into Benrad's eyes then and she smiled, "You didn't answer my new girlfriend," she said, "So which one is you, and honey," she cooed a little as she squeezed him gently while leaning in to lick his lips, "You say the right thing here and you've got yourself a paper bitch who likes you enough for a bit of fun now and then. What do you think, Cerrith? Good enough?" Cerrith smiled, "Oh yeah. I've always had a little thing for him these past months. I kind of like a male who's not all ... in charge and you'll let him on you when HE wants and you have no say. I can tell that this fine boy is not like that at all. But I still need to know and please, Benrad honey, be honest with us, alright? We really do like you." She held up the magazine and he looked over at it and shook his head, "Not that p-page." Cerrith turned the page over and he pointed to a shot where the girl was all over the guy in the center of the shot -- while the other, larger guy was all over him as well. "Correct answer!" Cerrith cooed as they pressed him back against the wall next to the closed door. That's the one that I like very much too." The male gasped as Cerrith's mouth took him in and she wasn't even on her knees yet. Troxi kissed him deeply enough to make him groan and pray that his knees held him up. "Congratulations, sweetie," she cooed into his ear, "You've just won yourself a bitch on paper and two who like you enough for this." She began to slide down along his front on her way to meet Cerrith. "The three of us are gonna need to be about this close -- even when we're working, baby. We want a male who's smart enough to do what he's told and when, if he wants his load hauled by us both." When she sucked in one of his nipples on the way by, he slammed his head back against the wall and almost screamed. "Troxi and I are together, though we're just starting this, "Cerrith whispered as she held his scrotum with her thumb over his shaft to point it to Troxi's mouth as she came to take it in, "We think we want you and we'll try to be like what that picture shows if we can, right, Troxi?" The striped Xer leaned back as she released him for a moment as she nodded, "Don't worry, Benrad baby. Cerrith and me, we'll take good care of you. I've got a strap-on just for you." As she began again, she found that the words seemed to spur him in a way and she reached back to stroke his buns for him. Benrad came in seconds and they switched places for each gush from him. By the time that he'd given it his all, he stood there on trembling knees as he looked down in almost disbelief at them, "Did you really mean that?" he asked, "what you said?" Cerrith leaned forward and nuzzled her face under his sack, "Mm-hmm. I know what I want and other than Troxi, you treat me right and I'll take one of your sweet loads in the same place where I just know that you like it yourself. I'm the same as you. I just don't want to be pounded there - just like you don't." She licked his scrotum and he groaned, but his breath caught in his throat when he felt her long tongue glide a lot farther back. "Right here, is what I'm talking about." There wasn't that much room, but when Troxi knew what Cerrith was doing, she moaned and sought for the last drops of him a little frantically for a moment. Troxi was just letting him out of her mouth to add her assurances when the cabin door opened and Xhan looked at them all. "Oh," he said. "Good evening, Section Officer," Troxi smiled, not missing a beat. Xhan had to smile then over the way that he seemed to keep running into the cute striped Xer in the most surprising places. "Hi Troxi, Cerrith. Hello uh, Benrad. There's an informal briefing in my cabin for a very few individuals in three units. You're three of the individuals, so be there. Uh, carry on, I guess, since that's what you seem to be doing anyway," he said as he rolled his eyes and closed the door to Troxi's soft giggles. They waited a few moments and then Troxi finally got to use the washroom after they'd spent a little time kissing Benrad goodnight and assuring him that they were serious. "You've got a strap-on?" Cerrith smiled once they'd gotten to the washroom. "Yeah," Troxi replied, "I found it in the box and everything in my room when I went to Countermeasures school on a training base back home. It was even still taped shut. It's a little too thin for the front of a girl, but for a sweetheart like that one?" she asked, tilting her head in the direction that they'd come, "It'll be perfect, now that we know his little kink. One thing though, Cerrith, You can't ever even kid him about it, not even a little or he'll shut down. You were talking tenderness, right? It's written all over him. You just can't cause him to regret what he likes. He's kind of a special male. I've never had one like that, but I've always known that I'd want one and he's really good-looking, too I need to talk to Ter'l. Benrad will never say a word, so it's up to me. I want to change my assignment and on paper at least, he'll have me for his bitch. I'd take that one anywhere in me just like you. I want that boy to see that I'm not all back-slapping and aircrew bullshit. If it comes down to mating for us to survive somewhere, he's the one for me. I already know it and if you're not tied to Xhan very happily, I'd share, since I'm sure that the three of us are gonna get along juuuust fine." "Of course," she winked, "you and I are gonna need to buy another strap-on for those times when he's not around and I just don't have what you want." "You've got what I want," Cerrit smiled, "but I'll give you the point." -------------------------- Jerrthi had reviewed a lot of her footage and had gotten at least a little preliminary editing accomplished as she sat alone in the barracks. Afterwards, she looked around and was at a bit of a loss as to what to do with herself for the evening. She'd heard from Ronkahh that there was another party that night but she had no wish to go, since Xhan would likely be there somewhere and she didn't even want to look at him now. Eventually, she remembered what she'd been given by Ter'l and her gaze wandered over to the canvas bag leaning against the bunk where she'd placed it when she'd come in here. Jerrthi got to her feet and walked to where the bank of lighting switches were situated. It took her a few seconds, but she turned off every bank until the found one light on its own circuit. That one was close to one end and so, leaving that one on by itself, she walked to pick up the bag and bring it to the front of the large room not far from where the light shone down. She set it down and opened it, needing only a moment. In that moment, she saw a very few articles, most of the contents under a covering layer of cloth. But as the musty smell of old and slightly mildewed fabric rose up to fill her nostrils, Jerrthi saw the symbols which only one with eyes to see would know. She hung her head and wept. What was in this bag had indeed belonged to her aunt. It took Jerrthi a while spent with her tears washing over her cheeks, but at last, she closed the bag and slid it under the nearest bed. Standing on her feet, she walked to the spotlessly clean and gleaming showers and turned one of them on as hot as only a Grotto could stand and washed herself in the ritualistic method of the old ones. When she was done, she took the top towel from the neat stack which had been provided for her use and she dried herself, feeling her pulse in her temples as it brought her blood nearest to the surface of her skin. She walked out and laid a second towel down on the floor and reaching for the bag again, she removed a candle and set it on the small ceramic plate which was there for that purpose in the bag. She knelt on the towel and looked at the single lamp which was illuminated in the room and after a few moments of concentration, a small flame sprang into existence on the candle. She raised her hands and began the first of the ritual motions and was only vaguely aware of the locks on every door snapping shut. Jerrthi smiled then, because she hadn't heard a single one of them click into the locked position. She'd felt it. She opened the bag fully and drew out what was there. Looking at it all, she knew something more about Ter'l and though she didn't know if it would help him in any regard, she blessed him anyway for the way that it had all been so well cared for in his possession. She hadn't doubted him before, but now she absolutely knew how much that battle-hardened creature had loved her aunt. She began to say the things which had been said by her kind for so long as she knelt with her head bowed and her fingers making the complex and intricate motions which went along with her thoughts. The single light was switched off, though no hand had moved the switch from one position to the other. As she went on, she didn't have to look up. She knew that the smoke and fire detectors in the hall were now inactive, just as she didn't need to look up to see the gray, smoky mist which rose up out of the very ground from underneath the foundations of the building under the simulated and patterned cellulose flooring which had been made many cycles before and laid here to evoke the feeling of the look and feel of a species of tree which was now extinct on Merren. Jerrthi reached out for the articles in the bag and her hand moved to set the throwing stars aside. She grasped a piece of the ancient cloth of her ancestors and she lifted the bundle of throwing spikes and set it down beside her, unrolling it as she did. The roll kept on going until it was unwound completely and nineteen silvery and very sharp objects lay in her sight from where each one was held in a little loop of cloth. Her hand closed over the knife and its connected blade, lifting the silent length of deadly sharp chain which still tied one to the other. That was laid with reverence on her other side, as she went on, still chanting softly to the gods of the Grotto Dwellers; the ones which Jerrthi knew without doubt still existed and looked down on perhaps the very last daughter which they could possess; the one who now began to offer herself to them for whatever purpose they might have for her in exchange for the gifts and protection which they could provide. Finally, Jerrthi reached out for the blades -- the two swords which were the teeth of those gods while in her hands. She set the pieces down before her and looked at them. She had to make a decision now. She'd been to this very point in her religious observations to her gods many times in her life, but she'd never completed her offering. To go on from here was a one-way trip. Jerrthi reflected a moment. What did she really have anymore? Bronn was gone, and she didn't want anything to do with Xhan. She was likely the very best Watcher that there had ever been on Merren, but ... what had that bought her but throbbing headaches behind her eyes? What could she do from this juncture in her life? She wanted to finish the job that she'd been given by the network. That wasn't in question, but what about behind the scenes and more importantly -- what about afterward? She had no answer, but she had a feeling and in opening her mind to that feeling, she heard the voices of her gods and knew their wishes for their servant and instrument. This was a moment which she could remember her beautiful aunt describing to her once and she remembered it clearly and could even recall her aunt's voice in her ear as they knelt together naked in the steaming stone garden of her family's cavern. "You will know it when it comes to you, "the female said quietly, "You will feel their will and their want. Embrace the way, and it will be yours. Fall into their arms and if I am no more by then, you will fall into my arms as well, Jerrthi." At the time, they'd been only two females in a dark, but softly glowing cave, kneeling nude with their tears streaming from their eyes at the emotion of it and the comforting nearness of their gods. That had been the night when Jerrthi - only an adolescent at the time, had heard and felt the acceptance of her gods as they knew that here was another who could be called upon one day at some distant point in time. Jerrthi opened her eyes and nodded to herself -- to her dead aunt - and to all of her dead relatives, since she could see them here with her. Her tears ran once more as she closed her eyes again to feel their gentle touch and hear their welcome to her. Tonight was that point in time. She made no sound outwardly, but her mind screamed out that she was theirs to use as they saw fit. Her eyes opened, but there were no irises to be seen there. Her eyeballs had rolled back into her head and her body shook in the grasp of her murderous gods just as she fell forward in a heap with a sigh. ------------------------ When she awoke, not long afterwards, she held her arm in front of her and saw that her offer had been accepted. Her skin had gone from a light tan color to an almost coal black. A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 57 She reached for one of the pieces of one sword and holding it up to her face, Jerrthi regarded her new visage and she decided that she liked it very much. Her eyes had gone black. Black irises on black eyeballs. She looked down toward her thighs and saw the way that they now mimicked the tone and the pattern of the artificial wood and she smiled before she changed herself back to the way that she'd been before. Her vision changed slightly and she knew that her eyes were once again as they'd been all of her life. She placed her hands on the floor and shifted her position so that she now sat cross-legged for the next part of this. She set the shard of the sword back down and she began to chant slowly and cautiously as she reached for the haft and the tang of the larger one. This was something which she'd had to practise often during her visits when her family had come for her teaching when they went on their vacations. She'd had to demonstrate to her aunt and her trainer that she could say the words, though she'd never performed the acts which went with them. She'd had no sword of her own, after all; only the wooden ones which her father had crafted for her use. She set the tang into the haft and felt the draw there between them as the pieces neared each other. It felt like magnetism, and yet it was only evident whenever the correct pieces were held near to each other and she could hear her aunt's gentle voice in her hear, telling her once more that the purpose was so that she could assemble what she needed in absolute darkness. All the same, it came to Jerrthi that it was the will of the blade itself and she knew at that time -- out of all of the other times that she'd done this with her wooden replicas -- that this one time, it was the god's will for her. There was a quiet snap as the pieces clicked together and Jerrthi saw the soft glow as the seams disappeared. When the glow was gone, she took up the next piece and the next, and when she had the whole of it assembled, she felt the gentle quiver in her fingers as the blade trembled to signal its acceptance of its owner. Jerrthi was a bit surprised at this, but she reasoned that if her aunt was among the spirits, then she'd have given her assent that her beautiful niece take up the ways of the dark trade and become one the warriors who gave their lives over to the gods for it. She was still chanting softly as she carefully laid the blade aside and took up the other one to repeat the process and when she was done, she laid out everything in its order and as her chants reached a point which was like a very quiet crescendo, she watched as the weapons changed, their cruel edges glittering with the reflected light of the candle from the thousands of tiny crystals which now appeared to her, revealing how they'd lain hidden there for all of this time. As she smiled, the glitter disappeared but Jerrthi knew what it was that she had seen. The gods had accepted her, and as their instrument, the weapons had done the same, revealing the tiny crystals which meant that they could carve through the hide of any living creature -- even a four-footed Xer. It wasn't something that she wanted to do in any regard, but if it happened, then it was the will of the gods and she'd accept it then. She rose up, moving from her cross-legged position to stand without moving her feet in any way. After a quiet moment where she regarded her weapons, they disappeared, though she felt it as they came to her, lying hidden against her skin. After a moment where she did nothing but stand still to get used to the feel of them, she launched herself into a series of movements against seven imaginary foes. She hadn't practised this one in a while, but she knew that she wouldn't be feeling the strain and weariness from this tomorrow. This was what she was now; as much a part of it as it was of her. She almost laughed in joy to feel the way that her ages of hard work and struggling practice had prepared her for the real thing. As she spun and leapt impossible distances through the air to engage an enemy who was not there, she extinguished the candle and caused it to fade from sight along with the old cloth bag and the towel. She felt the approach of someone -- a member of the base's security element as he walked over to investigate why it was that this building was in darkness. From what he knew by what was on his clipboard, this barracks was the temporary quarters of a pair of journalists. It was a little early, he thought, but they might be asleep. Even so, he knew that he should have seen the light of at least one lighting fixture from the street. Jerrthi turned to the door that she knew he was outside of and ran at it, gaining speed as she did. He found the door locked at first, but on the second pull. It seemed to unlock itself and as he drew it open, Jerrthi sprang and vaulted out of the building and into the night through the space of the opening between his head and the top of the door frame. The glorified security guard noticed nothing during that instant. He only wondered why all of the building lighting came on then and he stood scratching his head in between his horns as he tried to think of how he was going to call this in. Jerrthi smiled as she landed, looking far off through the barely adequate street lighting at the one who was walking toward them. She thought about the timing against the pace that he was walking at. "Excuse me, what are you doing?" Jerrthi asked the security guard as though she'd just walked up behind him. He turned and looked dumfounded while he tried to come up with anything which might make any sense at that point, but seeing her for what she was, she watched the features of his face turn hard, "This barracks was locked when it should be open. The lights were all out and at least one has to be left on at all times." "Why are you telling me this while the lights are obviously on and the door is open?" She peered for a second at his ID badge and number. "Next you'll tell me that it must be my fault that I happened by while you were trying to gain entry so that you could steal from me. It wouldn't be an issue if they'd given me a fucking key to somewhere that I could lock my personal property up. But they didn't since they wouldn't ever want to make one of MY kind feel very welcome to be here, right?" "I don't know what you're talking about, you crazy Grottoid bit-" He didn't finish, since he found his feet hanging over two feet from the ground just an instant before he was looking into the eyes of a rather annoyed-looking Xer. "Did you know that the Xer have their own name for the most common species of Merren?" Ter'l growled in the Merren language as he held the terrified guard off the ground, "I'm certain that you have nasty names for us, since in my experience, Merren shits like you need to have them for some reason or other, weak and malformed things that you are. Our name for your kind is much simpler, being based on the sounds you make as we crush your throats. We call your kind squeakers." As the guard struggled and tried to threaten the Xer, he found that he was being held up even closer to the intense, golden irises of those eyes. Jerrthi watched fascinated as the Merren seemed to stop struggling and slacken in Ter'l's grip. "Get into your floater," the Xer grumbled quietly," and drive until you see the bridge three blocks over in the distance behind you. You understand what I say?" "Yes." "Good," Ter'l smiled, "When you see it, you are to accelerate and aim for the right abutment, yes, my friend?" "Yes," the distant-sounding voice replied and he found himself on his feet once more. "Now go and do what was told to you, loyal and faithful friend and you will have the reward that you deserve so much." They watched as the guard began to walk away toward the street a little mechanically. "Hurry, my friend, " the Xer said with a smile and the guard almost dove into the vehicle, starting it and then motoring away. Jerrthi was about to say something to Ter'l since he seemed to be a little fixated on the departing floater. But she heard the sudden way that it accelerated and looked to see it slam into the bridge abutment to burst into flames several seconds later. "Stupid Merren shits," Ter'l grinned, "Lucky for you that he was the dim kind and not High Merren. I'd have had to explain why I killed him for insulting you and it just couldn't have gone well." Jerrthi laughed a little, "Thank you, Ter'l. Please come in." As he followed her inside, she seemed to disappear from sight right in front of him. As he was about to say something, the lights all went out -- except for one. Ter'l looked in that direction and saw only the wall behind the illuminated area and the deep shadow in the corner. But he saw it then -- something that he hadn't seen in ... Jerrthi held her changing skin to the way that it had been a second before and she began to step out of that shadow. As she walked to him, she heard him gasp as he watched the way that her skin turned completely black and then he saw her as he'd seen her just minutes before and the way that she'd looked to him that morning as she walked to him. The beauty that he saw took his breath away. Again. She strode up to him and put her arms around his neck, pressing herself against him as she looked up. Her expression changed then and she said, "I'm so sorry that I did not recognise you before today. We have seen each other before this, Uncle," she said, careful to use the particular Grotto inflection meant to signify that she remembered his lessons in love to her so many years before. It was not meant as the way to address her real uncle, who had also been there that night long ago. He nodded, "I knew you the first time that I set my eyes on you." "We have lain together, and though it was not ever meant to be more than a lesson in loving, I want to say that I am thankful for your lesson to me and also for what it causes me to feel rising in my heart." "I saw in your face that you had not ever worked in the trade," Ter'l said low and quietly as he held her gently, "But I see that you have given yourself over now. For who you are, lovely Jerrthi, it does my old heart proud. I am not one of your kind or your clan, but for a time, I held the love of one of you." She looked into his eyes and saw scenes from out of his memories of her aunt and she had to fight off the urge to weep at what she saw there. It wasn't like what the fool guard had seen. For the right kind, there was no bending of one's will when looking into the eyes of a Xer. There was only the truth. It might be a hope, but it would be genuine, or it might be profound sadness as it was in this case. But for one like Jerrthi, it was always and would always be the truth. "I have no need anymore or desire to know your commander, "she said, "as well-meaning and young as he is. But I want to say words to you, Ter'l. That is, if you will listen." "Speak," he said with a nod. She told him of her life -- the abridged version and then she told him of her sadness. "I thought for a short time that I'd found something in Xhan's arms but he dashed that as he showed my error to me this afternoon. Before you tell me again that you are an old fighter, I will remind you of me. "You were a young male when you loved the one which we would both give anything to only see alive and drawing breath once more. It will do you no good to hear it spoken, but as you must know by now, I have given myself over to the ways of my kind, being one of the few left of my generation. Perhaps I will be the last. As I said the words and began my preparations, I saw her once more for the first time since that time long ago and she was here with me, the younger sister of my mother. I do not know if she ever said it to you, but she was very much younger than her sister, being only about nine winters older than me. You were a little younger than she was, by her words to me." She saw what he wanted to tell her as the thought came to him and she held her finger to his lips to stop his objection. "We have both had our loves and lost them, but we are here together now. I know the measure of the lives of the Xer and it is every bit as long as that of my kind. I see only a little of the passage of the time on you, Ter'l and I have a wish. I have found a want in me for a male of your kind. We have not known of each other for so long, but ... if there is no one in your life -- and I have seen no one such as this in your eyes, then I offer myself to you. Be the one for me, Ter'l and I will do as I can for you. I had no chance to ask it of her, but I think that we both know what the one in our hearts would tell us if she were here and could say it. She has some ability to affect things here, my friend. They are hidden on me, but I wear her weapons as my own. To do that needs her knowledge and assent and I had no trouble. If it were not so, then the weapons would not have allowed it. You know this to be true of us, yes?" Ter'l nodded sadly, "I had them for so long -- almost all of my life as an adult. I knew that the weapons could not be put together by anyone but the right person. I tried it anyway once, just wanting to see something which she held once and, ... and I- " Jerrthi reached for him and pulled his huge head down as they both wept for long minutes. "I have no want in me anymore to live here," she said, "Be my male and I will go where you go. We are both still young enough to make little ones and it was said to me by my aunt that it may be done between our two kinds, though it is not easy. If you want that, well I offer it to you. Take me with you where you go and I will not ever forget your kindness." He looked up a little then into her face and she nodded with a soft and hopeful smile. "Your kind needs to be kept warm," he said. Her smile widened at that and she nodded, "And the one I want and hold in my arms has fur for me. Your kind needs to mark the one who gives herself to you and I would be proud to wear your mark on my flesh so that everyone will know that my male is a strong Xer. I have no fear of it and wherever we are; there are none of my kind to look at it in a bad light. A few of the more usual Merren might know it for what it is, but I do not care what they think. They can be as jealous as they like. I will sleep in the bed of a Xer male and be warm and well-loved." She kissed his lips very softly, "Please say yes, Ter'l. If you wish it, I would feel honor to do what no one understands but us. There are the showers. Come with me and I will wet your hand to show you how I feel." She didn't need to go that far, but he understood what she meant and he agreed to her offer. "I accept you, Jerrthi, and I'll do what I can so that we stay together. I'll need to ask Xhan, but he already owes me like crazy. The first time that he fought with us -- the first action, he proved his courage, but even so, I saved his tail twice that day, though I hope that I won't be forced to bring that up." He held her then as they kissed each other, remembering a time long before when they had done it once before, but this time, they were doing it for themselves and each other and there was no doubt or hesitation at all. He leaned down a little and picked Jerrthi up so that they could look at each other at the same height and she laughed and said that it was even better than the first time as she rubbed her face against his throat and laughed. But that was when he remembered what he'd come there for. "We'll have to hurry now, Jerrthi, but we have to be in Xhan's cabin very soon. There's a meeting that he's called and if I know him, he's called it to give you and ... What the fuck is that girl's name again?" "Ronkahh," she laughed and he nodded, "Yeah, her. I think he wants you two there so that you can walk away if that's what you want." "That's not what I want," she said, "I want to be with you." "I know that now," he said, "but you didn't let me finish. We've gotten a warning from 43rd HQ. We have two days to prepare, but unless something changes very soon, we're to prepare to be deployed." "I am yours, correct Ter'l?" "No," he chickled, "you've got it wrong. I'm yours." "I want to be where you are," she said and he nodded, "Then let's go." She grabbed her flightsuit, her helmet and her camera bag and they ran out the door. Both of their kinds could run far and very fast, and neither of them paid much attention to the flashing lights of the base fire crew vehicles as they worked to put out the blaze by the bridge. --------------------- When they got to Xhan's office they watched his eyebrows rise for a moment and then he began juat after the others arrrived. "This evening, I received flash traffic from our headquarters on Xer. I have specific instructions for the Members of the Xer contingent in this room, but first I wanted to offer the correspondents the chance to disembark and not leave with us when we go. I have a little time to prepare the unit -- a matter of days and not much more. But as it stands now and unless I receive an order to stand down again, we'll be leaving for deployment at that time. I strongly caution you both that nothing is to be mentioned to anyone before our departure, and nothing is to be disseminated or transmitted via any means whatsoever, electronic or even verbal. So you can pack up and go, if you wish." Jerrthi looked at Ronkahh who looked back at her and said only, "I'm staying." Jerrthi nodded, "Me too." Xhan looked as though he couldn't decide whether to smile or frown, but he nodded, "Then you may continue to enjoy our hospitality as our honored guests." "Where are we going?" Jerrthi asked and he looked a little uncomfortable, "Well, it seems that I was right about the fine print in the contract. We're not going to Lorthian and we're also not going to Ethens. I've been where we're going and with luck, I think you'll enjoy the place, but likely not the task. We're going to an unimportant blue rock called Earth." A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 58 ***Talon's a lonely guy, but he's used to that. He's just not used to everything else. This happens near the old Colorado Springs airport. Well, it's old in this story since its been hundreds of years since the place had been used for much. Just a word, there is an element of, ... I dunno, horror, maybe in one scene. I'm not big on writing horror scenes, particularly, so I just write what I need for the tale and move on. The one in this isn't long and it's not bad. Just try to remember that there are different species here. Oh, and while there's a bit of conversation on the topic, there is no guy/guy in this. I've learned that readers with allergies don't like to find themselves suddenly in a different category. As for the names, 'Sonja' = 'Sonia' and the same goes for the 'j' in 'Katje'. This will work into the rest of the tale, but for now, just try to believe in young love, ok? 0_o ---------------------- Book of the Forsaken Part 12 Talon awoke in darkness, needing to pee. Well, at least he wasn't dying to piss; he'd just woken up needing to, that was all. The first thing that he noticed was that he was hard, and he supposed that it was just a by-product of a full-ish bladder, but then, he thought, one never knew under these circumstances. Like any guy, he supposed, he was subject to many nocturnal erections, most of them showing up and going by unnoticed while he slept. It seemed that every single time that he woke up – when he did – in the middle of the night, he had a boner. A full bladder just made things worse, and an erection would prevent the relief of that until it was pretty much gone. Yeah well, his lack of a cooperative outlet for his urges probably had a part to play as well. And like probably any guy who awoke this way all alone, he unconsciously reached for that hardness and began to toy with it. Within say, oh, five seconds, the shaft in his hand responded and grew as hard as warm stone, awake now and aware that there was pleasure to be had, as lonely as it was. But then, dicks don't have brains, he thought as he pushed the covers off and worked himself. They don't care about anything other than one thing. Talon sighed. It must be nice to be so single-minded. With all of your energies focused on just gratification, there wasn't much more to think about anyway, was there? But as he wanked along, his mind began to wake up a little more – which was not what he really wanted, since it would force him to think about his current state of affairs. Which was that there weren't any, hadn't been for a long time, and as far as he could tell, if he added only a little pessimism to his outlook, there wouldn't be any forever. --------------------------- What he wasn't aware of was that he wasn't alone in the room. There was another here who watched from the corner just under the ceiling. She'd seen him while searching for someone else, and while that search had been fruitless, she was now wondering a little as she watched in the pitch darkness, having just the sort of night vision which allowed her to see almost perfectly in here. She stared as he masturbated, licking her lips unconsciously every so often. She was something which could rip him to pieces in a heartbeat, but she wasn't hungry in that way at the moment and the truth be told, she wouldn't dream of harming anyone for the most part, and most especially one as beautiful to her as this one. -------------------------- The longer that he masturbated, the more he awoke and the darker his thoughts became. Talon tried to push it all away and concentrate on only the one thing so that he could pee – since with it this hard, that sure wasn't going to happen and worse, he knew that it would take a good long while anyway for it to soften enough to even seek out the comfort of a good long pee. He was screwed no matter what he did and he knew that, his dick had already been too erect for the urinary function by the time that he'd awoken. Talon thought about his situation and felt like just leaving his erection alone to subside by itself. He was that unhappy. Right now and for the last couple of years, he'd felt like the biggest fool. He was only twenty-two and he considered himself a full-blown failure at life. Left at the gates one day by someone who didn't want him, he'd been raised into an old cult and he was all that was left now. The other two youngest had been living alone with him for only a few days after the last priest had perished, telling them just to run and save themselves the day four years before when a small flock of demons had landed on the runway and stood looking at them for a minute. They ran and made it to the old bomb shelter, locking the door to sit weeping with their backs to the wall while outside, their priest walked calmly toward his death. The creatures had spent two days at the blast door, trying to get to them before giving it up and moving on. The boys had waited another day, listening at the door for any sound before they opened up and walked out. All that they found of the older man had been his torn and blood-caked clothing, a few cracked bones, and a little hair. It had happened on the worst day possible, the high day when the idol was to be pulled out into the sunshine and started. The three had tried to go on with the ceremony, but things seemed to have been fated to carry bad luck after that. Thomas was to do the honors of the start and he did get it done, lighting both turbines for the few minutes that it was allowed since there was hardly any fuel anymore. Talon had genuflected and prayed in the propwash as he was supposed to, but Jerry did the unthinkable then. The boy had been talking of the pointlessness of it all but no one had taken him seriously in the days leading up to the high day ceremonies and Talon guessed that the strain of the loss of the old man was the clincher. The talk had gotten worse while they were locked inside the shelter. Talon wasn't the bullying kind but he finally stopped the incessant muttering by threatening to kick the snot out of Jerry again if he didn't think that he could shut his mouth. Things were bad enough without having to listen to his whining. The incident in question had been a surprise to everyone – most especially to Talon himself. It had been Jerry who had needled and picked on Talon for years, being a lot larger and heavier. With his back to the wall, something had happened inside of Talon – and that was the only way that he had of describing it. He'd almost killed the big goof before three priests had pulled him off with difficulty two years earlier. It had happened in front of everyone and Talon had supposed that it was one of the underlying causes that he'd snapped – the way that no one ever stood up for him. Jerry couldn't so much as look at any other boy sideways, but Talon had always been fair game until that day. It brought the desired result in that Jerry shut up then, and it also earned him the hard stares from Thomas. Oddly enough, there was something inside Talon which told him that if the demons were successful somehow in getting in, he'd live through it and the thought just twisted his brain, so he discarded it quickly and tried to think of something else. He still remembered noticing it when Jerry got to his feet and walked forward. Thomas was at the controls and he tried to shut everything off, but that wasn't something which could be done instantly and the prop blades could continue to windmill for many minutes even so. He watched in horror as Jerry walked straight into them and was killed instantly. After that, Thomas just sat in the cockpit and cried. When he got a little past it, he just climbed down and walked away. Talon still couldn't fathom it. He'd walked along with Thomas, trying to talk to him, but Thomas wouldn't reply and just walked toward the town some miles distant. Talon had never seen him since. Talon had buried Jerry alone and he'd spent the rest of the day trying to wash the blood and gore from the holy artifact before he pulled it back inside of the temple with the tractor and closed the doors after seeing that the prop blades were undamaged. He hadn't known what to do then, and he still admitted that he didn't – but over time, he thought about things and realized that the whole thing, the entire religion had been based on foolishness. He could see that now from the vantage point of a man, but at the time, he'd still almost been a kid, brought up from infancy in the temple which worshipped an old flying machine as though it was the extension of a deity's will. Knowing now that the temple had been nothing more than a building used to house flying machines from a greater age of man's distant past, Talon had used his brain and searched a lot more carefully, once he'd divested himself of the 'holy' garbage. From his present viewpoint, the artifact was no more holy than last week's dirty laundry, though it was a whole lot more valuable to him even so. He still needed to eat and it was a hard business until he found a weapons lock-up three years ago. After finding and figuring out how to work an oxy-acetylene torch which still functioned, he'd cut the locking chain, pulled a rifle out of a rack full of them and with some ammunition, he'd taught himself to hunt so that he could eat a little more regularly. He'd moved into this guard shack, since it was easier to keep warm, having a woodstove in it left over from God knows when and more importantly, it could be locked-down tightly at night and no one could see in through the bullet-proof polycarbonate windows after he'd closed the venetian blinds. He lived alone there, not wanting very much to try to live in the town. He supposed that what they'd been taught about the place was likely as steeped in horseshit as anything else that he'd been taught, but what the fuck, you know? It was then that Talon discovered that living alone carried its own curses – like being alone, for one. Now that he'd been removed from the community of living with others, he'd also discovered his own curse and blessing in that he found, after a great deal of introspection, that he wasn't like a lot of the men that he'd lived with. Growing up as he had, his little discoveries about himself – the ones which related to his own sexuality, decided that they didn't necessarily like being as suppressed as they had been until then. He found that, even though he lived out here all by himself, he didn't really fit in with anyone. The year after the demise of the cult, a young woman had shown up one day and tried to live there. They'd just sort of fallen in together. Talon had finally known the love of a woman for a time. But that came with several costs to him as well. For one thing, she wasn't inexperienced and he was. For another, he'd been far too trusting and open with his heart and had just assumed that he could say – or ask for things that he wanted just as she'd done. The trouble with that was that she'd then been able to point out just how 'weird' Talon was whenever she needed ammunition during their not-infrequent squabbles. He didn't know any better at the time, but it was about the last thing that he needed to hear. Well for one thing, he wasn't a big guy, being only about 5'-8" tall. For another thing, Talon only weighed about one-fifty and though he was a little bit muscular and trim, for the most part, he was just thin-looking. Lonnie made a point of telling him that she liked bigger men – and not only in the size of their bodies, either. Talon had never given it much thought before then, but using a steel rule from the maintenance section much later, he'd found that all that he'd been given to um, work with had been about five and a half inches at full erection. According to Lonnie, that left him critically short by about another inch and a half at least in her book and she was quite vocal rather often that she liked them a lot thicker as well. The remark – the first time that he'd heard it – had caused him to look at what he had to think about it, not understanding the way that things can be said hurtfully even by someone that one might care for a lot and he concluded that while Lonnie might have wanted him to be fatter there, he'd have looked a little ludicrous with a dick any fatter than what he had. He wasn't a woman, so he didn't know what one of them would need or want, but on him, ... he couldn't imagine it much thicker somehow. The time that she'd done some things to him in bed after sharing a bottle of wine that she'd been carrying on her travels, they'd both gotten snockered and the things that she'd done after their long bath together had blown his mind and ever since then, it had been what he'd wanted. It just wasn't what she wanted to do, necessarily; a lot of the time, anyway. That had all been well and good until the day that Lonnie had gotten really angry with him. He couldn't remember anymore what it was now that he'd done, or hadn't done, but he remembered all too well the way that she'd just torn into him and belittled him for the things that he'd liked – after she'd shown him that she liked to do them for him, apparently. When he'd awoken the next day, Lonnie was gone and he'd never seen her again. He supposed that part of it wasn't terrible. He'd never been able to get a handle on her moods anyway. But faced with the wants that she'd placed in him just by showing him that some men liked it, ... He wasn't at all familiar with the term, but if it had ever been mentioned to him, he'd have wholeheartedly agreed that self-loathing was a good name for it. He groaned, seeing that this little round of self-depreciation wasn't going to get his little problem taken care of. That caused him to think about a few other things. There had been a couple of times – way back when he'd been a kid, that he'd heard about a couple of members being cast out of the cult for their proclivities, meaning specifically that they liked to have sex with each other. It had kind of cranked his head a little to hear of it, but being one of the younger 'pilots' at the time, and given that to rise to that station had been a hell of a hard uphill struggle, he hadn't really inquired, though he'd really been dying to find out more. To this day, he didn't understand it. They were a bunch of men living in a commune. What the hell did the masters think would happen? All that he knew was that for the most part, the thought of another man making out with him left him cold. But he also knew that it wasn't a completely solid thing to him. He'd never seen one, but he knew enough about himself now to know that with just the right man – and he didn't know himself what that entailed – he might like it. Other than that, he was a guy who liked girls, though his one chance hadn't gone particularly well, on balance. One day, while scrounging around for lack of anything better to do, he'd found a full-length mirror and after looking at his reflection there for a little while, he'd just taken his clothing off and tried very hard to look at himself objectively. Just what the fuck was he, anyway? The answers never came to him in anything that would leave him with the satisfaction of knowing for certain, but he did arrive at a couple of conclusions. Though he looked the same as everyone else, pretty much, he was different somehow in a way that he couldn't fathom. He liked girls, but for the right one-he'd love to have a guy, at least sometimes. Well, he thought that he would. With no experience in that regard, who the hell knew? He'd concluded that because the image had come to him not infrequently while he masturbated; a perfect man wanting him - skinny and small Talon. In those little fantasies, that man never laughed at him or made fun in any way. To that man, Talon was what he wanted and that non-existent man knew his good fortune and would never do anything to screw it up. Those little imaginary scenes didn't come to him all that often, but they were among his very favorites. He thought about it and decided that a man very similar to the way that he looked might be a good place to begin, but he knew that it likely wasn't going to happen anyway. He did like his own body though. He decided that. He also liked the way that he looked – well, almost. Talon had jet black hair and bright blue eyes set in a face which didn't carry a lot of baby fat and was a little angular. He looked at his long hair and decided to do something about it, so he carefully cut most of it off, leaving it well over the collar at the back and he thought that it gave him a very, very slightly effeminate look, which surprised the heck out of him to see it, though he liked it a lot. And he didn't really give a shit about what anyone else might think. He lived here alone, after all, so there was no one else to please other than himself. The next thing that he noticed was that he needed to shave, so he did that, thinking to go back and look at the mirror again afterward. But while he was trying to even up the very short sideburns, he'd gone a little overboard and gone far too high on one side. He'd cursed at first, but then just reached for the hand clippers again and sawed off everything on that side up to about an inch or two from the centerline at the top of his skull. He stared at himself then and grinned, liking it. So, ... he'd lathered up again and shaved that side clean. Looking at the big mirror again, he not only liked it, but it had gotten him horny as well for some reason, so he'd been about to do the same thing that he was doing now. But then he decided to just get rid of his pubic hair too and after that, he just threw himself down on the bed in the room and went to town. Since that time, he'd come to a realization. He still didn't know just what he was, but he really didn't give a fuck anymore either. He let his hair grow back very long for the most part, but every once in a while, he shaved it again the way that he had that day. Very recently, he'd left an overgrown Mohawk stripe and shaved both sides of his head, liking it best of all. He'd also found a few earrings, bracelets and bangles that Lonnie had forgotten about and he liked to wear them as well, since she'd pierced his ears for him the second week after they'd met. He thought of himself as a man, but it was a slightly loose connotation to him in his mind. He didn't think of himself as a female – or the sort of man who liked to be on the bottom, either - not very much, other than in those fantasies where the man came to him. He also knew that wearing female clothing didn't do anything for him. He'd read a little about that and it was just, ... no. He just knew that he didn't fit somehow and he almost stopped caring since it seemed to make his lonely life a little bit easier to bear once he did. He'd never meet anyone who might have an interest in him so what did it matter? ------------------------------ She kept watching the thing in his hand and without really thinking about it, she'd gone from licking her lips now and then to reaching down between her legs to play and tug at her labia a little, trying to imagine what that thing might feel like inside her. She wasn't needy at all; she just liked what she saw so much. But she remembered in time to stop before she got herself really wet and then he'd wonder about the soft scent in the air. It would take little time at all. She knew herself. So as difficult as it was to do – especially since she'd just about really begun, she stopped abruptly. Then the thought came to her that she also knew that once she was wet and had started, she'd likely make a little noise because of her slickness. The thought made her cringe – this beauty suddenly hearing the noises and then seeing her somehow. A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 58 It did a lot to strengthen her resolve not to weaken and begin again and once she was able to get her mind away from what she'd been aching to do, she almost lost her grip and fell when she noticed something else about him. After that moment, other things came to her notice in rapid succession and the final thing was that he didn't know something about himself – she wondered how it was possible, but the proof of it was in the eyes of that beautiful creature lying there on the bed almost below her. ------------------------------- Thinking about everything brought him another thought and remembering that he'd had a bath that evening, he reached for the nightstand. About the only thing that he treasured about his one relationship – other than the memories of having had it, was the dildo that Lonnie had forgotten to take. Well, she likely hadn't forgotten it, Talon thought. It was just that the last place she'd left it was under one of the pillows – the one that he'd had his head on the night that she left. So it was a gift to him in a way, he supposed. He liked to feel it between his thighs as he played with himself. He never imagined that it was attached to anyone. That would have brought thoughts to him of just how that man would have looked. It was much easier just to have it there, since doing that always brought him off a lot quicker. ----------------------- Her eyes widened at the sight of what he had and she wondered if he'd actually do it – insert that thing into himself. It gave her a little thrill – as well as another urge to fight off as she watched what he did with it, wondering if he'd go all of the way. She blinked and stared, wanting to see as well as she could in case he did it. But given the size of it and the fact that it appeared to be a hard thing with no give to its surface by the way that he held it, she had her doubts. She licked her lips again. She was with him, understanding his want clearly, but without one hell of a lot of lubrication, patience, and practice, that thing wasn't going there. She was almost relieved that penetration didn't seem to be his intent as she watched. ---------------------------- 'As advertised', he smirked to himself a little, placing the toy against his perineum and sliding it after taking a little time to wet it with his saliva repeatedly drew a reaction from his willy. It grew even harder and for the next five minutes or so, Talon was in heaven as he lay on his side a little and worked the toy with one hand while working himself with the other. He didn't even have time to reach for anything to catch his semen in, he had to just roll onto his back again and let it go and it was all over his hard belly after that. ----------------------- She almost groaned to see the quantity of semen that he spurted. It was a little sad to see him throw it away this way. She ached a little, wanting to feel it between her thumb and fingers, or the thrill of having had it shot into her open mouth to swallow something so nice and lick her lips afterward to make certain that nothing was missed. The thought of how it would have felt right up there between her thighs or to have it seep out of either of her openings made her need to grip the ceiling a little tighter as she watched. She wouldn't have wanted it once it had cooled but right now, .... Ohhh, she almost wanted to beg him for the honor of licking it off that hard little belly, so like her own. She felt a protrusion sticking up from the top of the structural beam and it came into her hand a moment later once she'd silently broken the bond of old paint which kept it there. She knew that she'd need it in a minute or two. ---------------------------- Finally, he thought. Finally, he could have his pee. He stood up and walked to door, determined to get it done and close the door as quickly as possible afterward. It wasn't really Spring yet and the night air would be cold. He heard a little sound behind him just as he got the door open and he turned to look back, knowing that he'd never see anything in this degree of darkness, even though, from what he'd heard from others and the results of his flight testing, he had extraordinary night vision. The sound must have been made by a mouse or something and he turned to the outside again to pee at last. ------------------------------- In that short time that he'd been distracted by what she'd thrown against the wall, he hadn't even felt or noticed the way that she'd slipped past him out into the night. She spread her wings and was airborne and flying off a second later before he turned back. He saw nothing as he groaned softly when his stream began. She was off and gaining altitude, with one hand already caressing her little mound and a small smile on her face. This was the third night running that she'd watched him play with himself. She knew that she should stop. There was no way that she could go on like this forever. For one thing, it was becoming an obsession to her and she really did know herself. Even if she wasn't caught at it, she knew that very soon, she'd be falling in love with that beautiful boy. Even as she had the thought, she knew that because of the revelations which she'd seen just minutes ago, ... It had already happened. She thought of the others and grew determined. This just had to work. She already had a male and they'd loved each other for as long as they could remember. The thing of it was that they wanted to make babies. She was determined that her mate shouldn't have to go without and once they brought in the idea that it might be best if there was other blood added as well, they just agreed that another female would be a good thing and for reasons which were obvious to them all, it couldn't be little Katje. So, he was the one who brought in the money with his occupation, and it left him little time to look – though he did try. The main weight of finding and recruiting the second female fell to her, since she'd have to be able to get along well with the second wife. So far, the search had been a failure, but these last few nights as she'd watched that one back there, she'd gotten an idea. She just didn't know if it would be something which her male could accept – two males and one female instead of their original plan. From what she felt from that sweet boy back there, she could love him too. She just didn't know if someone like him could love what she was in return, given what she now knew of him. And then there was the little detail of her male's thoughts on the matter. For what they were – well, half of it anyway, no male accepts another male into a mating bond if he already has a female and no male shares his female - ever. Still, she thought, it was worth the asking. ----------------------- He was just drifting off again when it hit him. He suddenly knew what he wanted to do as an end to this. He'd get up in the morning and pick up his rifle, just in case, as he walked the runway looking for things which had seeded themselves in the cracks of its surface. He knew that he'd likely have to clean it up a little no matter what. After that, he'd spend a few days going through the checklists which pertained to starting the idol. He knew that what would have taken four men a couple of hours to do would likely take a solitary man more than a few days to accomplish, but he didn't care anymore. He just needed to see what was left in the fuel bunker. All that he needed was about a hundred gallons. With that, he'd fire up the tractor and haul the idol of his former religion outside and after one last start-up; Talon would close the canopy and begin his final take-off roll. He planned to lift off and keep the thing fire-walled as he retracted the landing gear and the flaps and then he'd just climb away as fast and as high as he could until the fuel ran out. He doubted that it would take more than three or four minutes. After that, it was just a long rush to get his nose pointed at the ground and he likely wouldn't feel a single thing. He thought about it for a minute or so and then Talon closed his eyes with a smile and went back to sleep. He still didn't know what he was, but it wouldn't matter anymore very soon. He had an exit strategy. -------------------------------- They stood in a chamber of their home and he stood thinking about what she'd said. At first blush, he didn't like it at all. But then she said that he was thinking of another male such as he was and that this one was not like that at all. "He is smaller, very near to my size, and he is so sweet-looking. He is not such a strong male as you, but in a very different way, he is very fine to my eyes." She turned and saw that he listened and she was so pleased – once again - in him. She couldn't have made a better choice in a male. A male who listened to his female attentively – and one who could think and not just react, ... he was worth so much and he didn't know it. "I learned this night that I CAN love one like him without losing anything of what I have and feel for you. By itself that was a discovery, Cor. I did not think that it was possible, but it is. I was thinking that instead of two females, I might have two fine males to breed me and the thing that was such a shock to me when I saw it, is that I think that you would still have two females for your pleasure. I think you should consider it and try to see him to think if you might want him. It isn't anything for a lot of our kind to take a lover who is the same as they are. And there is something else – well, two things," she said, "The first is that he does not know himself, and I mean, at all. The second thing is that I think of little Katje." He nodded and was thinking about it and was about ready to decline, when he noticed that it would be out of hand and that she was right about them. His thoughts were interrupted as he watched her begin to cut her hair. "What are you doing, Sonja?" he asked, "I have always loved your hair." She smiled at him, "I will not take it all. I saw something like this today and I liked it. Can I use the blade that you shave with – when you think to?" Now he was really confused, but he grabbed his straight razor and handed it to her, "Yes, of course. Here." He had to help her a little, but he did say that he liked the result. "What will you do now?" he asked her and she smiled at him softly as she toweled off the last of the shaving foam. "If you would allow it, I will go to him again and let him see me. It is to know if he might like me. We need to know this more than anything so that I can be bred by both of you when the time comes. If I am someone that he wants, then you need to meet him and if YOU like him and most of all, if HE likes YOU, then it can be done." She looked up at him a little nervously, "It sounds easy enough, but I know that it is not at all. If it can be done between you is the hardest thing, but we have looked for so long and found no female of any kind who would want to be a second wife." She shrugged, "Females are just not like that. I would never agree to share you with another as the second female, unless I said it so that I could kill the other one quietly in a little time." He smirked a little, "What about Katje?" he asked. His female almost laughed, "Well, if she can keep her dark thoughts from herself for another few days, I would say that if nothing else from this comes to pass, I think that little Katje's life will improve regardless." --------------------------- When he woke up a few hours later, Talon thought things over and with nothing to go against the idea, he began. He didn't know why, really, but he did let one thing slow him up a little. He saw his face in the mirror in passing and for reasons that he couldn't identify, he decided to shave, not liking the thin dark stubble that he saw. Normally, it wouldn't have been worth a thought to him, but for some reason, ... That cost him over half an hour, since he had to wait until the water was a little hot for the shave, but then he was off after stopping in to look at the idol, though it had ceased to be that for him a long time ago now. He just walked to the building where the thing was stored and looked for a few minutes. What he was looking at was an odd thing, though he didn't know it. He lived in what had once been the United States of America. It made no sense to him, and he couldn't now remember the twisted reasoning in the theology, but there was something there which explained in a supreme-deity sort of way just how and why a flying machine which had been made in Great Britain had come to be here and even be worshiped – as opposed to the other ones that he could see the remains of all around him. He'd been brought up teething on all of the bullshit, but he knew from the things that he'd had to recite that it was a little different. Here he was inside of a landlocked state looking at a machine made to find and hunt other aircraft, ships and something called submarines, whatever those had been, on the ocean. It had a name and he knew it, though he sure didn't know what it meant. All that he knew was that it was something called a 'gannet' and that it was the only flying machine that he'd ever heard of which had been made to run on turbine fuel as well as diesel oil. Which was a good thing, he knew. That rare ability was what separated this one craft from all of the others here. Turbine fuel was something which couldn't be gotten anywhere anymore, and what there was of it had degraded so badly in the time since it had been produced that it was all just stiff and smelly jelly now. But there was still diesel fuel, though sadly, there was almost none left around here. Like a lot of other boys before him, Talon had learned about flying, though he'd only ever been less than two dozen times. Since he'd demonstrated such ability with the idol, he was the one most often called upon to start it and back when there had been fuel, he'd been able to fly it as well. Flying that thing made all of the nonsense worthwhile to him. Flying that thing was freedom for as long as it lasted. And like all of the others, he could still recite all of the many checklists by rote, the information having been burned into his head as mantras all through his childhood by the priests. Talon had an ability to learn most anything quickly. It was why he'd been able to absorb and demonstrate sufficient knowledge to be allowed to advance to flying and once there, he'd rapidly shown that given enough airtime, he'd have surpassed all of the priests in short order. It was why they hadn't allowed him to go on much farther. But there were things that they'd encouraged in him. Like his ability to shoot well and he'd been hands down the best shot year after year among the juniors. As a junior, he wasn't allowed to compete against the priests, but he'd seen their scores once. For all of their twisted theology, rites, rituals and groaning, droning prayers, Talon could outshoot them the same way that he could outfly them. And they didn't like it. Another pile of bullshit relating to the religion. He put on an insulated flightsuit that he'd found earlier the previous fall and he picked up his rifle to begin the walk right after his breakfast. He looked around for a minute through the grimy window in the door and stepped outside to walk the runway. As he began, he cocked his rifle and set the safety before he slung it over his shoulder. This job had always been done. The 'clearing of the path', it had been called. He smirked to himself. Well, yeah, you can't fly from a grown-over runway. He saw a few new cracks in the ancient concrete, but there was little that was new. There were a couple of plants that he could see which were trying to grow out of the odd crack and these were what he was after now. As soon as he saw one, he'd step over and cut it down as close to the ground as he could. He was just thankful that it wasn't really Spring yet, because by then, there'd be all sorts of new growth to be dealt with. The trouble was that as soon as he'd taken care of one, he'd look up and see the next one, and the runway was well over a mile in length. He'd be at this for far more than a day. But on he went, keeping a watchful eye on the horizon as well, in case any of the demons were drawing a bead on him. As watchful as he was, Talon didn't notice that he wasn't completely alone out here either. There was another who, it turned out, had enough experience at watching people and knew when to look away before the one being observed felt anything and knew of it. There was a slope not all that far away from where Talon worked. Due to its proximity to what had once been a working airport, it was a low thing without much elevation to it. There would have been even less if it hadn't become clear fairly early on that only inches below the surface, lay one giant slab of bedrock which ran for hundreds of feet in any direction. Back in the day, the grass which covered the thing was kept neatly trimmed and bare of any other growth, but in the many years since the place had fallen into disuse, some rather tall trees had taken root there. On a large and thick evergreen bough about six feet off the ground and well-hidden from direct view, someone was sitting there looking with binoculars, watching and waiting, while down below leaning up against the trunk of the tree, there was a long rifle. 'Slick' Peterson was a Barrett Gunner. The term was coined from the name of the long gun, being known as a Barrett Gun. It was notable because it fired a fifty caliber machine gun bullet and it was legendary for its extreme accuracy over as much as two miles. The name really meant that Slick was a bounty hunter and his weapon of choice allowed him to observe his quarry from a good distance away before firing the usual single shot which would end his quarry's life and allow him to stroll over to get the get the body and sling it over his pack horse so that he could go and collect the reward. Sometimes he didn't have to go all that far afield. He'd gotten his nickname one night in a barroom. He was sitting alone and nursing a beer while he looked through copies of Wanted posters that he'd gotten that afternoon from the law office in a little town just large enough to have one. The subject of having a bounty on one's head came up at the next table and a loud braggart had laughed. After that, it was just the beer braying as he said, "I ain't afraid of no slick-shit shooter, boys. I done killed me a few in my time that was huntin' fer me. Most of them pukes is yeller anyhow. Otherwise they'd have the balls to shoot from ten feet or less if they had any guts." The remark had caused the bounty hunter to leaf through the pile again until he found the poster that matched the man. He stood up a minute later and walked over. "Sweet Jesus!" he exclaimed, "It's really you. Redneck Murphy, right? Christ you're famous, man." The mark had grinned and nodded, right until the muzzle of Peterson's pistol broke off one of his teeth as it was jammed into his mouth. The other men at the table recoiled to see something like that. "Hope this is slick enough for you," Peterson said quietly as he tilted the back of the gun down and pulled the trigger. It brought a little excitement into an otherwise dull evening of drinking for everyone and the bounty hunter with the new nickname had to settle up with the barman for spraying blood and brains onto a small patch of the ceiling. He was a large man as most Barret Gunners tended to be; the rifle weighing in just slightly over thirty pounds empty. They held a ten round magazine which added even more to the weight. And like many others in the 'trade' he was a drifting loner, always seeking for a place to settle down and never really finding one. They tended to move from one area to the next, always looking for the local law office to check in and see about jobs which suited their specialty. A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 58 That usually meant they hunted hard men who weren't stupid and who had no issues with shooting back. Slick was a little different, however. He traveled in a circuit, from town to town, the same ones, completing the loop about twice to three times a year. He wasn't really looking to settle down because he already had. He just kept up the appearance. Standing well over six feet in height and weighing in at a solid and hard 250lbs, Slick was a handsome man who tended to grow a thick dark beard that he kept closely cropped, but his occupation kept him from having much of a personal life at first glance. There weren't a lot of women who wanted to take up with any sort of professional killer. He knew this. Well, it only stood to reason if they knew what his trade was. Somebody like that, if they weren't extremely thorough, could gather a few enemies in his time, and one day might become the hunted himself, to say nothing about his woman or their children. Whenever a Barrett Gunner was shot, nobody said much of anything about it. There was just that sort of aura about them that made most folks want to just leave well enough alone and give them a wide berth. As a result of it all, most Barrett men tended to be extremely self-reliant trackers and observers. And there was no such thing as a Barrett Gunner who was anything less than a superb marksman. What made Slick a little different again was that he had a woman who knew what it was that he did to keep them alive. He just made sure that nobody knew about her. That way, there was a little safety there for her. Even so, he often smirked whenever he thought about it; his woman wasn't exactly defenseless either. She could shoot the ears off a mouse with a pistol – and that was just for starters. When he wasn't looking for a walking paycheck, Slick wasn't above being on the lookout for targets of fortune – as he termed them, people who might have something of value and who lived in a fairly remote manner. Some gunners were little more than killers who shot first and then walked over to see what they could liberate from the corpse. Slick wasn't one of those, necessarily, but he still kept an eye open all the same. One never knew. He wasn't there today out of any untoward intention, specifically. He had just been on his way by when he noticed a lone – and armed- figure out walking the long flat section of concrete for some reason which wasn't immediately clear to him, and being that he was a curious sort, he'd just climbed up to watch for a while. What he saw made him even more curious. There was a person out there who was walking along a little slowly and whenever they saw the stalk of a plant sticking out of the ground, they'd walk over and cut it off with a rough-bladed knife. He watched carefully to see if the plants meant anything or had any value, but the person just gathered a few stalks of several varieties and carried them to the edge of the concrete to toss them. It made little sense. Like almost every other person alive then, Slick had never seen an aircraft fly, so the clearing of a runway where such a thing took off and landed took the appearance of a little lunacy to him, not knowing what the long slab was for. He looked for a long while and then he saw something which caused him to climb down for a minute, before climbing back up with his rifle. The optics on his binoculars were very good, but the scope on his rifle had better ones. What he saw now made him wonder even more. That person out there was dressed in some dark gray coveralls of a sort, but Slick kept seeing a bright flash of yellow every so often and using the rifle scope, he was able to see that it was caused by a, ... bracelet which slid down whenever the person was bent over to cut off one of the plant stalks. As well, whenever they were done with the stalks in one area and were about to walk to the next growth, he'd see the person stand up and lean back a little, as though out of a bit of fatigue from the effort. Whenever that happened, they'd look around a little – to keep an eye out for demons, he guessed as he waited for the next time that it happened. When he saw it, Slick almost dropped his rifle as he stared. The person was a girl and wore small stud earrings. He also noticed that she had blue eyes and that the sides of her head were shaved. It made him smile. She wasn't gorgeous, but he thought she was very pretty from this distance in an offbeat sort of way. His own interest stopped there, knowing there was no point. He'd never met a woman yet whose interest in him lasted longer than it took her to find out what he did for a living and he didn't believe in lying, other than what it might take to get him closer to his prey. The long hair and the shaved sides told him something, however, but it didn't make sense right away. But then he saw a motion a little behind her and refocused his scope so that he could get an accurate reading as to the range. There was a cougar behind her that she hadn't seen because she never looked directly behind her. Cougars aren't known to be especially brave as big cats go, but if they were driven by extreme hunger, ... He saw another slight motion and refocused again, not believing the scene. About thirty yards behind the cat, stood a rather young and small doe. She was looking at the cougar, which was looking at the girl. Slick thought for a second and focused on the cat again, just as it tensed to spring. 425 yards, he read in the reticule. He waited only for the girl to bend over once more, not really liking the narrow target angle. He drew back the heavy-springed cocking handle and let out a long, slow breath as he looked through the scope with the gun braced on his raised knee there on the tree bough. Talon heard a sound from almost above him and it sounded like a whip cracking. He stood up straight and then he noticed the mountain lion coming to rest behind him in an unnatural position. As he looked at it and saw a forelimb twitch he heard the boom of a heavy rifle. Before the sound could even register in his head, there was another crack beside him now and he watched a deer tumble backward. Then there was another boom. Talon dropped to lie prone and unslung his own rifle at the same time, looking from left to right though a narrow quadrant in front of him, since that was where the sound had come from. He didn't move; he only kept his eyeballs sliding back and forth. Nothing happened for over ten minutes. Slick had come down from the tree and begun the hike over to where the girl lay on her front with a rifle up. He wasn't stupid and he came from a different direction which would allow him to get closer without having to walk the whole way while in a frightened person's sight picture. It caused him to think a little more as he walked and he realized something. Unless she had back problems which were not noticeable otherwise, ... That was no girl out there. It was just something that he'd noticed over a long time at this. He'd been at this game now for almost eight years, starting out when he'd been twenty. Men – as a slightly flexible rule – tend to possess more upper body strength than women of the same overall size if one allowed for physical condition. It allows for the way that they can work at tasks which are generally above waist height, but it's also a drawback for some tasks – like working for long periods of time while bent over. Whereas women, due to their wonderful hips, can work that way till the cows come home, feeling tired too after a day of it; but much better able to work like that than any man ever could and not needing to stand up straight anywhere near as often. He suddenly smiled to himself. A man who wore earrings and bracelets and shaved the sides of his head, he thought as he slung his long gun over one shoulder and unslung his lighter one from the other to cock it and set the safety. There just had to be a story in there someplace. ----------------------------- The wait for something to happen was causing Talon to get antsy, but he knew that unless he could manage to jump up and sprint to get to cover behind him someplace, standing up now would be a bad idea. Who the fuck was out there and why? He kept looking, but saw no one. Several more minutes later, he thought that he heard a boot scrape softly once over the concrete and he swung around to his left. He groaned a little to see that there was a man there and that he was now looking at a rifle held at the ready and pointed at him. "Lay that shooter down, son," the man said, "I'm pretty sure I just saved your ass, so I think it would be a mite wasteful from an economic standpoint to have to drill you now." "Why would you have to shoot me?" Talon said, doing his best to force a little beef into his tone. He figured that they were at a little bit of a stalemate here, both pointing weapons at each other. The man smirked, "I don't imagine that being under my gun can be pleasant. It's the same for me. I didn't come here to die, so if you don't put that down, I'll shoot. That's not why I came here, though." The muzzle on the man's rifle didn't move. Talon could see that he wasn't even aiming it – he was just holding it in his hands and yet he could see a fair distance into the darkness of the barrel, meaning that it was pointed unerringly at his face. Talon doubted if his gun was even anywhere close to being pointed that well. So much for the standoff. He held his M-16 up a little and made a bit of a show of setting the safety and then laying it down on its side. "You all right?" the tall one asked, "You CAN stand up, cantcha? I hate seeing people lying on their faces and they're not dead. Makes me nervous." Talon didn't move, "Why?" "People near me on their faces are usually that way because they're dead. Live ones tell me that I haven't done my job well." The man smiled and to Talon's slight annoyance, he liked the smile, which remained as the man stepped over, pointed his weapon away and extended his left hand to help Talon up. Talon took the hand in his and grew more annoyed with himself – because he liked THAT now. If he'd been alone here, he'd already be talking to himself. "Why would it be a waste to shoot me?" The smile was still there and Talon was more annoyed with himself because he still liked it. "I wasn't hunting that cat, and he's of no value to me alive or dead. The doe over there is something I can eat, though I don't need her right now. But I thought that you might and I guess it's my way of saying I'm sorry for all of this. I shot 'em both from a little over 400 yards and fifty cal rounds cost over a gold each. The smaller round that I'd have to kill you with costs less. It would be a big waste for the shots and if I had to kill you anyway, I'd rather that I didn't shoot at all and just let that boy over there tear you up. He must have been starving, 'cause that's what he was fixing to do when I shot him. You were doing ok to look for demons in the air now and then, but you weren't looking directly behind you and that's where he was stalking you from." Why do you keep calling it a he? Might be female," Talon said, feeling a little argumentative. But the man shook his head, "Not with balls like he's got there and anyway, he's too big to be a girl. The whole thing is a little nutty. He might have been hunting the doe but he saw you. I don't know about that exactly, but when I shot him, she was just twenty yards behind him, and she was watching him while he was looking at you. Anyway, the angle was bad and I didn't have time to move and make it better. I had to wait for you to bend over before I could drill him." Talon was still annoyed, but he could see the situation now and he knew that he likely owed this man. "Thanks for saving my ass then," he said. The man reached out his hand, "I'm Slick Peterson." "Talon Caldwell," the smaller one said in reply, "You a Barrett Gunner?" It was a slightly dumb question given that the long barrel and fat muzzle brake at the end of it stood up over Slick's shoulder and there are no other hand-held weapons which look like that. But Slick let it slide and just nodded, "Ain't here to hunt you, though." The remark relieved Talon a little, though he didn't think anyone would know him enough to want him dead and that was what he'd be if Slick were hunting him. He was sure of it. "Well, there's a doe cooling off right over there, Talon," Slick said, "If you want her, I'll help you with it if you like." The way that Talon had it figured, any Barrett Gunner had to be a good hunter and not always from hunting people. As such, he guessed that he stood to gain a little by learning what he could about butchering a doe. All that he knew was that he could manage to keep himself alive by doing it, but there had been times when the meat had tasted off to him and anyway, it had always been a bitch to get done. It didn't surprise Talon that Slick had the art down to some simple mechanics, but all the same, he was surprised that Slick went a little slowly once Talon had asked to be shown the right way. Slick didn't mind and he explained the reason for the taste and it was from Talon's way of doing it and not knowing to stay away from the scent glands. "Once you get to this point here, Talon," the man explained, "it's all about getting the guts out as quick as you can – unless that's what you're after. Ya gotta get the body cavity empty so that the meat can start cooling down. The longer you wait, the worse the taste at dinner time. If there was a lot of snow on the ground, I'd tell you to pack the cavity with that." With Slick showing him, it didn't take all that long and then it was time to carry it off. Since he was giving it to Talon and seeing as it hadn't been a large doe anyway, it fell to Talon to carry the carcass over his shoulders and with a little help from Slick to get it there, Talon was off, walking back with Slick beside him. "Have you got a place to hang her for a few days? She'll need to age a little if there's a cool place." Talon nodded, "Yeah, I got a place, but I don't know how to hang it up right. You're the only person who's ever shown me how to do all this. Anything I know, I just picked up from having to eat." Talon was a little nervous about having a stranger around, but once they had the meat hung up, Slick took his leave. "Gotta go, Talon," he smiled, "I've got a bit of time to make up and I didn't expect to be here at all. I'm glad to meet you, though. Ok if I drop by on my way back?" "Yeah," Talon smiled, "I'd like that and if it's in a few days, maybe I can make something good to eat out of what you helped me with." He was pleased now to meet someone and he found himself liking Slick in a way, but he was also aware that he'd likely be dead of badly injured without what the bounty hunter had done and Talon knew that he'd been kind to have gone to the expense of shooting when he had. He was also a little surprised at himself to feel just a little hope that Slick would come back. ---------------------------- As he walked to his horse and slid his weapons into their scabbards, Slick smiled to himself and mounting up, he made for the lawman's office in the next town. With a little luck, he'd have his next job or jobs and looked forward to getting them over and done, hoping to be able to return here in a few days. Just before he climbed into the saddle, he made a few marks, leaving symbols on the ground in a particular place. ------------------------------- Talon worked at cleaning things up a little, but he didn't plan to go back to the runway clearing that day anymore. He was thinking a little about abandoning his plans or at least, putting them on hold for a time. -------------------------------------- For the first time in a little while, Talon had a good meal that evening. As he sat there afterward, he thought that he heard a few faltering and softly scraping footsteps outside of the door for a moment and then there was silence again. Talon's eyes went straight to the locks and he saw that he'd left them undone. He'd always been careful to make certain that the damn door was locked. For a moment, he was at a loss until he remembered that he must have forgotten to lock up when he'd come with everything – the meat and a few vegetables from his cold storage bin, his rifle and all to cook his supper on the woodstove . He remembered not having enough hands for everything and after getting inside, he must have forgotten to do them up. He felt the beginning of the cold sweats and the prickling scalp which was something that he'd always felt during the onset of fear. He looked over to where his rifle leaned against the next chair and he reached for it, his eyes alternating between the rifle and the door. When he felt his fingers close around it, he lifted it up and seeing that the safety was still on, he moved the selector with his thumb to the three round burst position and he raised it to his shoulder. ---------------------------------- Her eyes went to the door as well, though she had to hang down a bit from the ceiling to see from where she was. She knew what was outside. She'd noted the three demons earlier as they'd passed overhead maybe an hour ago while she took a quick look out of the window as she heard Talon approaching. She saw him and ducked back a little, meaning to turn and hide in the overhead beams again when she'd just seen them pass a fair distance away in the sky and she guessed that they'd noticed him and must have been looking ever since. She moved upside down, passing under a beam to get closer to the door yet still on the other side of the room, up against the top of the wall and the maislin beamwork up there. She did it while barely daring to breathe. Any noise from her drawing a breath was more than covered by the sound of Talon's fearful breathing. She looked up – which was really down because she was inverted where she was and she saw that Talon was settling down in his chair, the rifle in his hands and he was aiming solidly at the middle of the door. It pleased her to see that the muzzle of his rifle wasn't quivering much, just barely moving at all as he waited. She waited too, wondering how this would work out. She knew that he had no other magazines in here for the thing, so assuming that the magazine was full, he had thirty shots. She wanted more than anything to be able to tell him to shoot sparingly if he had to shoot at all, but since he didn't know that she was here ... She knew that she'd be lucky if he didn't shoot her as well. It was up to him now, she decided. So when the doorknob began to turn very slowly, there were two sets of eyes locked on it instead of one. The knob reached the end of its travel and stayed there for a moment. She took a breath and saw that Talon did as well. Then the door swung inward and they had their first look at the now five demons who were out there – one on the doorstep just moving through and the four others behind him. The one on the doorstep looked annoyed at being pushed from behind, but he looked around the room for a second before his eyes fell on Talon. He drew a breath to screech and Talon opened up. The nearest one took two bursts and began to fall, but Tallon kept pulling, firing off burst after burst almost as fast as he could pull, let go, and pull again. The noise in the closed in place was awful and she couldn't see much for the muzzle blast out of the rifle lighting up everything. She knew that he was being really wasteful out of his fear and near-panic. She wasn't a stranger to firearms herself and knew that what he was shooting was designed to kill and pass through to hit the ones behind. But there was no point in offering him any instructions now, ... A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 58 He shot the shit out of the first four, but the last one had ducked back around the doorframe out of sight. As the last of the empty casings flew out of Talon's rifle to ring and tinkle across the floor, the last demon stepped around the doorframe and looked past the heap of bodies right at Talon. The demon tensed and snarled, and Talon pulled the trigger again, groaning when nothing happened because he was dry. Talon's heart felt as though it would stop, but there was suddenly something else in the air between him and that last demon. He didn't get a good look, but whatever it was, it let out a godawful shriek as it launched itself to bowl the demon over. After that, it was all a blur of bodies out there in the mud. While he was trying to figure out just what was going on, and feeling a rather strong need to piss his pants for the noise, he remembered that – A)He was out of ammo for the M-16. He decided that if he got out of this, he'd carry one fuck of a lot more around with him from now on. B)He really had no fucking clue what was going on now, and what was that thing that had blasted from out of nowhere over his shoulder? And finally - C)He still had his sidearm. There were now five dead demons out there in the mud as she finished the last one and tore his throat right out with her teeth since her blood was up now and she made sure to swallow the bit of flesh and the half-mouthful of blood as well. She stopped and got to her feet a little slowly; knowing that her chance was blown to Hell now because of these flying assholes. She looked down for just a second to compose her thoughts and then she looked back through the doorway. What she saw was Talon, just in the act of getting past a bad case of the frightened fumbles to slap a magazine into a Glock pistol, reef back the carriage and let it slap forward to load the first round into the chamber. Then she was looking at him as he wobbled that pistol in the air between them and pointed it at her. His eyes opened wide when she held up her hands. They opened even wider and his mouth fell open when she asked him to please not shoot her. After that, they just stood there looking at each other. She saw the man she'd been watching over as he pleasured himself night after night, still dressed in those coveralls and looking a little pale and a lot nervous. He was looking at, ... he didn't know what, but she was so very erotic-looking to him. Her skin was a warm sand tone with pale stripes running down her sides. She had ears but they were very small and they seemed to flick in different directions to listen to different sounds simultaneously – he guessed, and her hair was a very dark brown, and though it was long, he blinked when he noticed that her head was shaved similar to the way that he had his head shaved. She'd been kneeling with one knee on the chest of the demon who had appeared to Talon after he'd stupidly shot through the magazine of his rifle in record time. There was a little blood on her lips and she raised her head a little proudly as she stood up. Talon gasped. She wasn't wearing a thing and, ... and she had wings and oh my fucking god, she had an honest to goodness tail. The last thing that he noticed was that she was changing. He thought that he was wrong initially, but he was now a little certain that she was shifting before his eyes. Her skin tone was approaching his own and the stripes were already gone. Her ears had moved a little to a more conventional position and were now regular everyday people ears as far as he could tell. Then it hit him. Ok, after her beauty hit him, he thought. She looked something like what she'd just wasted, but, ... There were no horns. Demons were supposed to have horns - all the ones that he'd ever seen had them. His question took a little while to get out, since he was doing an owl impersonation in asking her who – who – who she was. Though she was looking down the barrel of a 9mm pistol whenever he wobbled it at her nervously, she had to smile a little. "A friend," she said, "Didn't you see what I just did? I would have thought that you'd have been watching." He nodded and swallowed hard, "I saw it. You ate a little of that thing and I'm pretty, uh, I'm pretty sure that you drank a little of it's blood too." She nodded, "I did, but not much. They're food, so, ..." "Th- they're, ... food?" She nodded, "Uh-huh. Food. I don't make a big deal out of eating them very often. They just don't taste very good to me anymore for some reason. But once in a while, I eat a little. Right then it was either that or spit and that's not very ladylike, is it?" Talon was incredulous, "Yeah well, neither is gnawing off chunks of people and eating them." She shrugged, "A matter of opinion, depending on the lady, I'd say. Female demons aren't nice in their eating habits. All I see for people here are you and me. These, ... " She looked at the carnage around her. She turned and shrugged again, "Food. Should I have just let him come for you instead?" Talon knew that he was a little screwed here. He thought over recent events in the last two minutes and included the conversation. What could he say? She'd obviously been there in his dwelling with him for at least three hours now. If she'd wanted to, she could have eaten him AND his dinner, but she hadn't. "Am I on your dinner card at all, or am I safe to put this gun away?" He smirked a little helplessly and did his best not to roll his eyes, "Uh, try to look at it from my point of view." It bought him a look at her lovely throat as she raised her head and laughed. There was something in the sound of her laughter that sounded sweet to him and it also raised the hair at the back of his neck a little. It also caused his dick to swell a little as well and he marveled at that, glad that the material would hide the effect of her laughter – um, assuming that she didn't do that again. He just knew that if she did that twice more the table in front of him was going to appear to be possessed or something. She nodded finally, "Yes, you can put it away. I don't know why you can't see it, but I did all that for you. Why would I want to hurt you?" Well, as far as he could tell, she had a point, so he made sure the safety was on and then he slid it into the cargo pocket of his flightsuit and stepped forward. "Gimme a minute, ok? I'm a little slow to work stuff out sometimes. I want to get these bodies off my doorstep. There's a dumpster around the corner and I'll put them in there for now. In the morning, I 'll come by with the tractor and haul the dumpster away. Izzat alright?" "Sure," she said, reaching for the wrist of the one that she'd killed last. She didn't say anything, but she wanted to see it when he came to the part where he'd have to lift them to toss them inside. One after another, he dragged the four others off. She walked along, dragging the last one with her. When she got there, Talon was puffing from the exertion. "Hey, do you think you could give me a hand to lift them so I can toss them in?" She shook her head, though she was smiling. "Listen, I was going to save this little surprise for a lot later on, but I've got a kind of practical reason to show you something right now. Put that guy down and listen to me, ok?" Talon nodded and dropped the arm that he'd been hanging onto, "Ok, what?" She wasn't sure just where to begin, so she just began. "I'm not really sure of the best way to say this, so maybe you'd better hang on to the edge of the dumpster or something and I'll tell you what I know about you from watching you." She held up her hand, seeing as he already had questions. "I've been watching you over the past few nights. I didn't mean to and I wasn't hunting you. I just stumbled across you and stayed to watch. He looked uncomfortable now, "Uh, you were watching me, ..." She nodded and held up her hand with her fingers curled and moved it up and down in a parody of male masturbation. She wasn't laughing or even smiling. Talon looked down, "Oh fuck." "Anyway I got to watch and I saw a lot more than that and you amazed me. I don't know anything about you, but I can figure out a few things. You never knew your parents, did you?" He looked right at her face at that, "No. Go on." "Think you can lift one of these bodies by yourself? I mean up high enough so that you could get it in there?" He smirked for a moment, "Well if I could, I wouldn't have bothered asking you for a little help, would I?" "I'll tell you what," she said, "If you can bear with me for a minute, I'll prove to you that you can lift them, toss them, even fling them without any trouble, You just have to trust me for about a minute and I promise that nothing bad will happen to you. Deal?" He thought about it, knowing that if he refused, she likely wouldn't help him and then he'd have to do all of them alone. What the fuck? He thought, why not? "Ok." "Come over here for just a second," she said. He stepped over cautiously and she held up the corpse that she'd been dragging. He watched as she opened her mouth and then he wondered how she could close her mouth completely with teeth like those ones. She bit into the other side of the thing's throat and tore out another chunk. He watched her lips run with a little blood for a second. He was surprised that there was no spurting mess until he realized that the demon was dead so there wouldn't be. While he had these thoughts, she leaned over to him and, giving him no time to back away, she reached for his head and kissed him hard with her bloody lips, forcing her bloody tongue into his mouth and just as he began a gasp, she pushed the flesh in there too. Talon needed to cough and he did. But he also needed to breathe and her hand clamped over his mouth so fast that he didn't see the movement. With nothing else to do but either swallow or inhale the torn piece of flesh, Talon swallowed with the lining of his mouth and throat tingling and feeling a little as though they were on fire, thinking that if he even survived this, he wanted to kill her. He pulled back his head, but she kept her hand over his face. The glitter that she saw in his eyes almost made her wet. She'd been right and here was the proof! "Breathe!" she said, "Forget the fucking meat. Just breathe through your nose for a second. It won't hurt you. You NEED this!" He inhaled and he smelled the coppery taste of the blood and he felt as though he could hear fire alarms in his head. When he'd been small, he'd gotten a severe shock from a ground power unit and the priests had revived him with some injections. This was similar to that, but holy fuck, ... He felt as though he'd just been given a massive injection of adrenaline and gotten a chestful of epinephrine. Hearing his deep inhalations, she let go of his face. Talon couldn't remember ever being this angry at anyone over anything in his life. "What the FUCK did you do that fo-" She was kissing him again. There was no hope this time. None at all. His pecker was gonna tear itself a brand new hole in his flightsuit any second now. As her bloody tongue teased his into a grand chase and dance, he felt his heart slamming in his chest like a jackhammer and he couldn't help the way that his breathing had become deep and forceful. The blast of it against her cheek took her the rest of the way to 'wet', and he had no conscious control over the way that his vocal chords just dragged along a little with each air movement in or out. She pulled away and looked at him, his eyes glazed over and his facial features moving a little, as though they sought another shape somehow. "I'm Sonja. What's your name?" she groaned to him in her lust. What came out of him was over an octave lower and it showed the way that he was struggling to maintain a little control and wondering why at the same time. "Talon." It came out low, short and heavy-sounding. "So?" she grinned at him lasciviously, "Toss these bags of shit into the dumpster. You sure don't need my help, tiger." He looked at her for a second and then, not really believing her, he reached down and picked up one of the bodies. His first toss was a little too forceful and it clanged off the lid before it fell inside. She smirked, "Play basketball in school, didja?" He grabbed another one's arm and with a long swing around him before he lofted it, the result was the same. He didn't mean to, but he tore one arm clean off the third one and settled down a little to get it right, and so on with the next. When it came time to throw the last one in, she smiled her bloody little smile as she held it up. Talon couldn't help himself and he tore out a large part of a bicep with own suddenly sharp teeth, chewing a little and swallowing before he threw it in and closed the lid. His bloody grin to her was well into feral and seeing it took her right from wet to sopping and leaking a little. "You don't know any different yet, but I can say that they taste a whole lot better while they're alive and struggling." The next thing that he knew, she grabbed his suit zipper and ripped it in a downward motion so that the suit was open to below his navel. She slid her arm around his waist from the inside and pulled him against her for a long moment while they groaned together from the feeling of their bodies touching while she held him tightly and he gave in to the way that she kissed him more hungrily that anything that he'd imagined possible in his life. Then she grabbed his wrist and pulled him toward the gate house, "C'mon Talon. I really need you to fuck me right now." He wanted to stop her and ask what exactly was going on here. He wanted to stop her and give her hell for lying to him about nothing bad happening to him. Then he realized that aside from the shock of it, nothing bad had happened and he liked the taste of demonflesh. He wanted to stop her. He, ... No he didn't . He wanted to fuck her brains out with his own following hers as they exited out of her ears. Talon had only the experience of his time with Lonnie to draw on, but he didn't need any of it, since Sonja wasn't Lonnie. Sonja wasn't more than half-human and right then, what there was of that in her didn't count for shit. Whatever the other side was had taken over and they literally fucked that bed apart in the first twenty minutes. The frame came apart and Talon was suddenly fucking uphill and laughing while Sonja screamed and laughed until, he felt himself sliding down and he grabbed her, taking her along so that when he hit bottom, he hit the end of her. It told him a couple of truths. You don't need to have a twenty-seven inch monster to hurt a woman. You just need to get to where you can hit her cervix somehow and theoretically, anything more than about three and three quarter inches could do it, depending on the couple, the angle, and how much padding they carried. It was a surprise to him and he didn't like it. He liked what it must have felt like to her a lot less. Somewhere in this madness, he realized that Talon was still Talon and not a completely crazed thing. He apologized and she said that she was alright then and to bang her harder, but to be a little careful. You can't expect a broken bed to stay at a stupid angle if you keep fucking like bunnies in it. The rest of the supports gave out and they were on an even playing field again. Sonja wrapped her legs around Talon and cheered. Then she pushed him over and began to really get her hips and her back into riding him and he thought he'd die because she was surely going to fuck that thing right clean off of him. But she didn't so he didn't. He didn't even break something on either of them, though she thought that he was going to chew off at least one nipple, but he didn't do that either. He fucked her everywhere that either of them could think of including between her tits and that had been her idea. When she found that he was slowing a little, she noted that she was as well – which was a good thing, because she really didn't want to go and get them a little more demonflesh out of the dumpster. Shifting gears, she began to lick him all over and she paid a lot of attention to him under his scrotum and even further back there. In time, she had him helpless as she fingered him and then she slowed with it and began to talk to him very quietly. This was all that she'd wanted to do tonight, but the arrival of the demons had changed everything. For the better, she thought, but even so, she knew that what she had to tell him was going to come as a shock despite the things that they'd done together earlier. She kissed him softly and began to whisper to him. "Do you want to know everything yet, Talon?" He nodded, listening, and she moved backward to lie on her back, coaxing him along so that he was on top of her while she ran her fingers between his cheeks again gently. "Do you know how these demons get here?" He shook his head and she kissed him for a minute. "It looks like there are a lot of different kinds of them, but there are really only two kinds of demons. The rest are different species of one kind. There is another kind of them, but I've only ever seen one and I learned a lot from him. We both knew that I could have killed him, but I let him walk for teaching me a little of this. But all of the rest, the big ones, small ones, smooth ones and hairy ones, they're all called Red demons by that one kind. I don't know why, but I know that they come from many worlds and not one of them wants to be here. Most of them are out of their minds when they get here because they can't figure out what happened to them. Anyway, somewhere, ... I dunno, on some world somewhere, there is at least one species of Red demon and on that world, there is an apex predator and that type of Red demon is in that predator's food chain. Red demons get pulled here from all sorts of worlds and we don't know why and neither do they. All that we know is that our mother was pulled here, all alone in with a bunch of crazed demons. But once all of the swirling stopped, she was the only one in the bunch who was alive, since she'd killed the rest just out of the noise that they made. She tried to fit in here, and not liking demons for a few obvious reasons, she chose a human man for a mate. Before she was killed, she bore three young by that man. He didn't know what she was because she changed herself to look human. When he found out, he killed her because he said that he had to. We didn't know it right away, but the oldest of us figured out the strain of things on top of a drinking habit kind of twisted his view a little and Mamma took us away, but he found us. He killed her and we killed him. For what he did to our mother, we tore him apart real slow, the three of us kids," she said, "and we've been alone ever since, but that was years ago now. Cor was almost grown anyway and I was in my middle teens. Little Katje was the baby and we just did whatever we had to so that we could go on." She nuzzled her face against his cheek for a moment, "Are you still awake? Do you want me to go on?" He raised his head and nodded, whispering yes to her, though she could feel that he was hardening again and so she moved her legs a little, knowing that he wanted her again, but only for something slow and gentle, which was just what she wanted then too. Once they'd started, very slowly, she continued. "So we're still alive and together, though we moved away to this part of the world. Cor and I tried to find mates but humans just aren't any good for us. They're not strong enough, and that's not their fault. There have been times when we've had human friends. A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 58 I think that I could even have demon friends as long as they weren't nuts. When they act like that, it just does something to me and I want to kill them before they hurt somebody else. Cor and I, well, ... we just gave up and we've been together for a long time now. Katje is twenty now and she lives with us. But she's the one who's really lonely. She doesn't want to mate with Cor, though she fools around with him a little sometimes just out of love or need. She can't take him anyway. She's too small there. Me, I love my family to bits and I'm the one who really watches over little Katje the most. I've seen her get real close to just wanting it over because she thinks that she can't ever find somebody for herself. That's why I started watching you, Talon. I saw the same thing in you a few days ago. I also saw you while you were playing with yourself and I saw your eyes glitter once. Then I really watched and I knew that you're the same as us – only you probably didn't know. That's what I tried to show you tonight." She kissed him again and then sighed, "See, there is not one normal human who would ever eat demonflesh. I doubt that there are any who ever could for the taste. And demon blood, ... red demon blood while it's hot will just burn their mouths out from the heat of it and there's also something else in there, but I don't know what it is. You felt the heat, didn't you?" Talon nodded, "It felt like it was burning me, but after a second, I just wanted more." Sonja nodded, "Humans can't want more. It would kill them. The only reason that you really noticed the heat is that you're half-human like us. I just don't know how you got here, is all. Either Mama made you and we didn't know, but your age doesn't fit because you're between me an Katje. How old are you?" "Twenty-two," he said and she nodded, "See? So there must be another one of us here someplace." He thought for a moment," Maybe not. I was told that I was a foundling at the gate one day. Somebody dropped me off here. Maybe it was after a murder, I don't know." He sighed as he went on fucking Sonja very slowly as she smiled at him as he said, "I don't know anything." "Well I do," she smiled, "I know that I've found a male that I can bring into our family – that is, if you want to have a family, Talon. Cor would have to share me with you sometimes, but we've already talked about it. And I think that you'd like Katje and she needs somebody, Talon. You should maybe think about it. Cor and I want to have babies and we don't just want them all to be more of the same. That's not healthy in the long run. Katje might want them too." "I'm uh, ... I'm not the biggest guy, you know?" he whispered to her. Sonja laughed that laugh of hers again. "You're a fine fuck. Talon. For me, you're a great fuck. I think I'd always want to have you first, so I can get the full benefit, but there's not a thing wrong with what you've got. You'll have to see. You have to meet Katje, but if that all works out, I think you could make my little sister really happy." "I'm having trouble with the blood, Sonja," he said very quietly, "Now that I've tasted it, am I going to need it, like, am I turning into a vampire now?" She shook her head, "You can try, but I think that if you even could get enough blood out of a demon to really drink it down, you wouldn't like it. It's just the killing rush that makes us do it and we only get a little – what comes with the meat that we eat. Demons could probably be classed as predators themselves, as far as I know and that's what makes their meat taste so strong. I can see that you're gonna have to learn a lot of things. Like demons, we can change our shapes and you almost did out there for a second. I think the only reason that you didn't is because you don't have more than maybe something of an idea from when you were a baby. Your teeth changed right off the bat. I think you'll need to kill on your own eventually, but we can help you with the first few, until you get enough to make the changes you'll need." "Changes like, ..." She kissed his nose and hugged him for a moment, "Not very observant, Talon? I've got wings you know. Want to learn how to fly? The bumps are already on your back. There are wings in there just waiting to be let out. You just need a little more. You just need to kill a few times, and by the way, I was trying to prove something to you with the bodies out at the dumpster. You didn't need the killing rush to have tossed them in. You could have done that anyway. You just needed to believe and without the rush, I could have talked to you all night and you wouldn't have heard a thing. Another thing, gorgeous, "she said as he began to go at her a little more. She knew that she only had a little more time before they were fucking like beasts again, so she said it, "Next time, think a little and don't just blow your whole magazine like it's the fourth of July. Carry more than one, and baby, try to find a demon and kill it. You do that one more time, and you won't even need a rifle to do it. Once your claws grow in, you can do them like they're oven-roasted chicken with your bare hands." They stopped talking then for a little while until Sonja came and Talon didn't. He said nothing about faking it and she apparently was satisfied that he'd come, thinking that he had. She couldn't really tell because he'd come into her more than a couple of times by then. He was hearing things which bothered him a great deal, and even what he wasn't hearing, there was enough of a sense to this to get in the way of having sex. Dicks don't like it when you have to think, he told himself. Sonja apologized but she said that she had to go, so that she could tell Cor and do a little housework in the morning. Talon was apprehensive and asked about Cor and how he might feel about what they'd done. She shook her head and beamed at him, "No, there is nothing wrong here. He knew that I would try to meet you and he knew that at some point, if we mated to see how we were together, well that was to be expected as well." She sat on the edge of the destroyed bed and looked at him. "Talon, I have been looking for a female and I found none. Our plan was to have Cor mate with another female as well as me. I do not think that we could ever find one. I found you instead and we talked then of having me breed with two males instead. It gives the same advantage of young ones, and some with different blood. But Cor is my mate. Try to think of him as the first male. You would be the second male. But," she raised her finger to make a point, "There is also Katje. If it goes well with her, you would be first male to her and no other. We can offer you a place to fit in, Talon. Something to be a part of where you can be a father and a mate to a beautiful girl and a sometime mate to me." She got up and he watched her begin to change back to a more predatorial shape, stripes and all as she walked to the door. She hugged him and they kissed for a long time before she finally took her leave and he watched her fly away into the night. ---------------------------- Talon closed the door then, making sure to lock it this time and then he walked to the table, stepping on a few of the spent casings lying there from before. Sitting down heavily, he reached over to a knapsack of his there on the back of another chair and reaching inside, he withdrew a pouch of tobacco and some papers. He pushed his discarded flightsuit from the center of the table off to one side to make a little room. He was thinking. It made him smirk sometimes that he seemed to think best when he had the time and the place for a cigarette. The humor to him was that if that were so, was he really thinking at all the rest of the time? He raised his eyebrows as he had a thought come to him as he began to roll a smoke. As far as thinking to keep a spare loaded magazine handy for the rifle, apparently he didn't think at all. He finished gluing the paper down and he reached into the stove with a long and thin stick. With it lit, he then lit the cigarette and closing the stove; he went back to the table and sat down. He took a puff and exhaled. To no one other than perhaps himself he spoke his mind then. "Well," he said to no one in particular, "For a kid who showed up here in a basket 'cause nobody loved him, I've had a few really weird and fucked-up days in my time." He chuckled a little, "I can go over a year and see nobody, but today - in one day - I meet a Barrett Gunner who saves my skinny ass and kills me a deer - and who also shows me what I've been doing wrong in butchering all of this time. I'd have thought that was pretty freaking significant, but no, ... Then I find that there's been a woman right in here watching me every night and she shows me that I'm NOT the idiot that I thought I was. Hell no, I've been some OTHER idiot all this time and now I'm supposed to act like I just love to kill demons." He took another drag and laughed a little, "Fuck, all I was ever after with them was to not get noticed and eaten. But wait! It gets even better in this single day of wonders. Apparently, I now have a girlfriend who is awesome and married to her brother and I'm supposed to be fine with sharing her once in a while with him when I'm allowed. He smirked, "Of course she didn't tell me about that little detail until AFTER we broke my bed." Letting out a heavy sigh, he said, "Oh, I'd just bet that it'll be peachy when he finds out that I've fucked his wife. Sure. And he's the same kind of killing machine that she is, only bigger! What's to worry about Talon? He groaned, "I am so dead." He was silent for a minute and then he brightened in a phony and melodramatic way, "But don't let it get to you, Talon, old buddy. Why there's supposed to be a prize for just you. There's the legendary little sister Katje who's made to sound to me as though she's just pining for a man like me." Talon began to laugh a little bitterly. When he had it in hand, he just shook his head. "Sure. She's never even seen me and I'm just that much of a man that I can draw her and make her want me just like that!" He snapped his fingers for emphasis before he puffed on the smoke again darkly, "I'm still the same stupid jerk. Did some planets line up magically? I doubt it. AND I'm apparently superman once I eat a little meat off a demon – preferably torn off and ingested while he's alive." He grew a disgusted expression. "And all in one day. Twenty-two year-old Talon Caldwell - who isn't worth a thought from anybody in the whole fucking world, most especially his mother, and all of this in one day. Females of some sort want me - the guy who couldn't get it right to save his life and now she wants me?" He pulled on the cigarette again in silence for a couple of minutes and then ground it out angrily. "First, I'm gonna get me a new bed. And then, I'm gonna get me a shitload of ammunition and after that, I'm going back to clearing the runway so I can get the fuck out of this bullshit life." He looked at the wreck of his bed and wondered if he ought to just sleep where he was. He felt the hair on the back of his neck rise one more time when he heard a little voice there in the room with him. "Sonja means well," the little voice said, sounding sort of like a sad and lost little girl, "She just wants everyone and everything in its place and she wants to have little ones who have the best chance to survive." Talon's hand shot down along the outside of his flightsuit pantleg there on the table in front of him and ended right inside the pocket. Closing his fingers around the grip of his sidearm, he slapped his other hand down on the suit and drew the Glock out. As he thumbed off the safety, he spun in the chair and raised it in both hands. This time, there was no wobble at all. "What the fuck? This shit just won't stop, will it?" He saw a shadow there just under the ceiling on the opposite wall. The pistol swung a little to correct and then he said, "Who the hell are you?" There was a dark gray shape there that he was already a little familiar with. He watched as it slowly climbed down the wall head-first before standing up and beginning to change before his eyes. By then, the gray was gone and the shape was a sandy tone which was itself fading to become flesh-colored. She was smaller in stature than Sonja and her hair was coal black and it hung long enough behind her to end about half-way down her ass, he guessed. He couldn't tell for certain just how far down it went because she was facing him and her wings looked a little different to him. Her skin was flawless and there seemed to be jewels of some sort stuck to her here and there, but other than that she was naked and she was not shy about it, either. Her breasts were, ... He almost smirked, but he didn't. He was looking at her in his sight picture with the point of impact right there over her heart, right between the perfection of her breasts. He'd have wanted to look lower, but that would have meant moving the muzzle and it would have made him laugh to have to point it at her crotch. The notion was just too far into stupid even for him. He had little experience with women and Talon would have been the first to admit it, growing up and living the way that he had left a lot of things to learn about the fascinating sex. In the poor light of the darkened room he wasn't sure about some aspects of makeup so he couldn't tell if her lips were really black or not. He was sure about the dark makeup around her eyes and he tried not to get caught up in looking at her eyes themselves, because he knew that he would stare if he did. It happened anyway and he found himself admiring eyes with irises of such a light gray that they seemed to not be there at all. He sighed because they were there and they regarded him in much the same way that Sonja had regarded the pile of slain demons on his doorstep earlier. He'd expected nothing less by now. "I'm the legendary little sister Katje," she said without much emotion, "The one who ISN'T pining for a man like you." "Good to know," he grinned in his best 'aw shucks' manner, "I'm the fool Talon, the one who's moving into the bomb shelter with the blast door tomorrow. I don't suppose you've read any Charles Dickens, have you?" She tilted her head and looked at him curiously, "I cannot read well. Why? Is it important?" Talon shook his head, "Not at all. I can fill in a couple of blanks all by myself. Your brother Cor, does he use a working name and is it Slick?" She nodded, "Yes." "Fucking awesome," Talon laughed sarcastically, "I've met all three now. Katje, I know you won't understand this but I'm not saying this at your expense. The only thing that I'm a little hopeful for is that I can somehow fix that angry look there on your face and then I'd just pray that you might be the ghost of Christmas future. I doubt it very much all the same. My life just doesn't run like that, so if you're hungry, I've got a little deer meat that I can warm up for you. If you're not hungry and you're just here to kill me for something, then please do it and be quick – otherwise I'm going to try to get a little sleep." She looked at him as though she was trying to decide about the last choice for a moment and then her expression softened and her shoulders slumped a little as though she found that she just couldn't stay annoyed with him. "Sorry. I should have thought about what you said before you knew that I was in here. If you never knew your mother, it makes me sad for you. Mine was killed when I was little, but at least I can remember her and I know that she loved me. From what you say, it has to have been a strange day for you and I know most of the reasons now. I am a little hungry and if you meant what you said about something to eat, I think I'd like that and I also think that I'd like to start over if we could." Talon looked more than a little surprised and he refocused on the pistol in his hands. He swung it away instantly and he ejected the magazine and caught it to set it down on the table top before he worked the action once so that the round in the chamber would be ejected. He caught it as it flipped out and then he set the weapon down on his flightsuit while he inserted the round back into the top of the magazine. That done, he inserted the mag and set the thing down. He got up then, no longer caring about a lot of the things that he'd have given thought to that morning when he'd gotten out of bed. He was naked, but then so was she – and in his book, she was the most lovely girl that he'd ever seen in his life to that point. Until a few minutes ago, that honor had belonged to her sister. He was about to step over to the stove, wanting to set the pot in the middle of it again to reheat the rest of the meal there. He was a little hungry himself, he decided. But he heard her quiet gasp and he looked over, "What's wrong?" She shook her head and he could see something there in her face which was already beginning to twist his mind a little. "It is as I was told," she almost whispered, "You're very beautiful." He didn't know where to look then. It wasn't something that he'd ever heard said about him in his life, really. Hearing it from the small goddess in the room, .... Well he didn't really know just how to process that. He looked down for a moment and then back at her, "Um, ... look, Katje, I'm not going to lie to you. You're the sweetest-looking girl that I've ever seen in my life. Just you being in here with me is something that I don't even have the brains to imagine ever happening to me. I doubt that I could even think of it as a daydream, to tell you the truth." He smiled at her then and gave a helpless little shrug, "So let's call it a draw. Thank you for saying what you just did and I guess I can say that it made my day a little better. You want to start over? That's fine with me. Maybe I won't sound like quite such a fool this time." She stepped a little closer, "But you don't sound like a fool. Not to me. The more that I think about it, what you said before you knew I was here, ... I think I understand it now." He opened the door to the stove and found that there was life there still, so he tossed in a little wood that was of a size where he'd get some heat to warm her meal with in little time. He looked up at her, trying not to look at her bare pubes. He'd have given half an arm to do that right then, but he was having enough trouble with the sensations which were coming to him from his own genitals. Stupid dick, he thought to himself, I can walk around all freaking day like this and it's fine. But put somebody like her in the room and it fucking imagines the slightest breeze and feels like it's ready to, ... He forced his mind away from the whole subject and stood up carefully. "Could you explain any of this to me so that it doesn't sound like I'm supposed to be something that I don't feel like I am?" She nodded, smiling hopefully and Talon felt better immediately. He indicated a chair and she turned it a little so that she could see him as he worked a little to stir things in the pot. "Are you thirsty?" he asked, "I've got good water here and, ... hey, I don't know much of anything about you, but I think I'd really like to. Forgive me if I sound like an idiot, bec- ... " He sighed to himself, "Because it just comes naturally to me. Do you know what wine is? Like, have you ever had any? I'm not asking to try to get you drunk, but I've got a little here that I swiped from the priest's quarters. They're all dead, so I didn't think they'd mind. I could use some just to get my head around the things that I've learned tonight – as well as to wash the taste of that blood out of my mouth." A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 59 ***Still in Colorado, there are some chance meetings in this and an unusual relationship gets ironed out. Unusual is a key word here, so I'd suggest reading the tags before diving in. 0_0 ------------------ Book of the Forsaken part 13 There was something about Katje that could get to Talon's heart every time and neither of them had much of a say in it. Likewise, Talon had the unconscious ability to stop Katje dead in her tracks to fall hopelessly in love with him all over again. These things usually came out of nowhere. The first time that Katje had agreed to sit on his chest with her knees on either side of his head was a case in point. She sat on him as though she was afraid that either her weight would crush him -- all 94 pounds of her, or as though she was worried about something which Talon couldn't understand. "You don't have to do this," Talon said, "Maybe we shouldn't. You look too uncomfortable to me and I don't like it. I'd rather not do anything that you don't like." She'd looked at him suddenly trying to see if he was angry or disappointed in her, but he wasn't. "I've done this before," she said, "with Cor and with Sonja and now you more than anyone. I don't know what's wrong with me." "I think it's the position," Talon said, "We've already done this like twenty times with you on your back because that little thing you've got is making me its prisoner." She laughed so hard that she had to lean over him to hold herself up on her hands. When she could even speak, she had to know, "It's prisoner?" Talon nodded, "Yeah, I've already spent hours licking you those times before. I could do that forever. You made me stop yesterday after you passed out for a second." She stopped laughing and the way that she looked twisted his heart yet again. "It got to be too much. But I know what you mean. I've already had the same kind of thing happen to me when I suck you and I know it's stupid. You came, my lips were so numb, nothing was going to happen for a long time after that -- and I still wanted to have it in my mouth because it's you. I think I'd love to just lie there and do that all day sometime." He nodded, "But I think that like this, you feel like I can see too much and you're shy." Katje thought about it and she said, "You might be right. So we're gonna do this now just because of that." She moved back a little and smiled down at him, "Take a good look, Talon. I'd never want to hide anything from you." He smiled and coaxed her forward so that he could begin. About a minute into it, he noticed that while Katje was feeling it, she was also watching him, holding her hair and her breasts so that she could see better and she was also playing a little with her nipples. She looked so little and sweet like that and Talon's heart almost broke then so he told her that he loved her because he thought that he might die if he didn't say it right then. They went on and it ended with her trembling in his hands as he held her up. Her head was bent and her throat was raw from pleading out her love to him. Tears fell on his face and neither of them cared. She was clutching his head and holding herself against him as the fluttering inside of her faded. She sniffled a little. There were times when they made love that it could make her cry a little out of love for him and she'd been a little ashamed over it the first few times, but now Katje regarded it as a point of pride. "I'm yours Talon," she smiled and sniffled again, "I can't help myself. I'm so in love with you it makes me cry, but I'm happy." She moved back a few minutes later to ease herself down on him slowly, and he loved the way that her soft voice took just the slightest edge when she finally bottomed out on him carefully. She wiggled herself around for a minute to hear him groan. Then she nodded, "Gonna rock your little world, Talon." She smiled and lifted herself just a little and then she dropped on him gently, maybe an eighth of an inch to make the groan come out a little like a cry. Right at the end, she leaned forward and ground on him. The effect of her voice then, ... "Gonna fuck my sweet baby's brains out now," she sighed. He didn't know why he hadn't come just from that. Once she'd abandoned the pretense and just got on with it, Talon stared at the small goddess who'd chosen his heart to rule as she writhed on him. There were times when she needed to go short and as fast as hell and he watched her looking into nothing in front of her when her eyes opened. Mostly, they were closed and he liked that because of the times when she'd open them and he could look at her light irises for a few seconds. Her breathing then was so shallow and fast and she leaned forward with her hands on his chest or his shoulders. She wouldn't put them anywhere else then and he knew that she needed them to be on him. Her sweet mouth was open and he could look at her wonderful teeth and he didn't give a shit if she drooled a little then. He doubted if she was even aware that she did, thinking that if she knew of it when it happened, she'd feel embarrassed. But there was something about them and they knew it. It was similar to when they ate together and it got messy, ending up with the two of them often holding the same large piece of meat in their teeth at the same time and snarling a little as they looked into each other's eyes. It was just their way. So at times like this, when she was feeling it and working herself so hard and fast, he didn't mind it if she drooled on him a little. He never said a thing. He just reveled in the mating of her. When she'd shift to the long strokes, Katje would often lean back as her hips went on as though they were a part of an exercise machine left on auto-pilot. Her gasps and little sounds were the things then that tugged at his heartstrings. She needed three things at once so often at those times. The constant was the fucking, of course. That was central and had to go on. It was like a holy act between them; the engine that was driving it all. So that went like a machine, each stroke a grinding whipping of her spine, her hips being thrown just the last little bit at the end. It was the only thing that Talon would have ever needed a little pubic hair for. She could keep them pretty wet from her own moisture, but she didn't grow any hair on her mound and she was adamant that Talon keep himself bare for her there so he did, shaving every day. He knew that she could get sore there, but it boggled his mind that long before that, it had happened before that she'd turned the area of skin over his pubic bone pink and sore for a while. The other things that she needed were two-fold and they'd be a conundrum for her, were it not that she was mating with a male who had two hands himself. Katje needed to lean backwards sometimes and to do that, she either had to be held by him or she had to support herself with her own hands for most of it. But at times like that, her wonderful breasts cried out for attention too and had to be looked after. She'd taught him what she liked and he'd been an eager student. Talon didn't mind either way, whether his hands ran over those tits or he held her up so that he could watch her love them. It just made him a little sad that when his Katje was like that, he often couldn't see her face because her head was back so far that her hair was draped over his thighs for a good part of its length. She'd cry out sometimes and it was as though she was someone else, the cry sounding very primal to him and depending on where he was in it, he'd answer her in the same tone. It often brought him a thrill because she'd be bent backwards and he'd be wondering if she'd snap her own neck at this one day and then she'd cry and howl in a wild and sad way as she trembled a bit in his grip for a moment or two. He'd answer her sometimes and then her head would rise over the horizon of her breasts to look down on him. Katje would be in full lust then, but she'd look at him with those light eyes and she'd do it again, but it would sound hopeful to him then and he'd answer. She'd smile and her eyes might close for a few seconds and in that time, she looked happy and moving in almost a dancing, fucking sort of way that he could never categorize to fit into his mind properly. If it was one of those times and it had gone well, this ritual that she seemed to follow unconsciously; she'd come and he'd know it by the barest and quickest build up to him. He didn't know how fast it was for her, but he knew that he had to be paying attention if he didn't want to miss it. The build-up could appear and go by so fast but it was the only warning that he'd get. Then her orgasm would be on her. She'd come and howl out his name sometimes in a way that he could feel inside of him. Her mouth would open and her eyes might be open or not. But it was her wings then, ... Katje's wings would almost explode outward and she'd flap once or twice before he'd get to watch them quiver for him. Those long seconds were when he'd feel her working him inside of her to draw his seed forth. Sometimes he wasn't ready and sometimes she made him ready with it all, but she always told him afterward how she loved to look at him then. He didn't get it until she'd described it for him, but what she saw then were his eyes almost flashing as they glittered and his mouth would open and his head would thrash there under her and the sight of his teeth could push her higher. Every tendon, every artery and every single muscle that he had in her view would be distended then as his semen came to her and Katje wanted it all. His hips would thrust a little then but that wasn't what she waited for. It was the way that the last thrust -- the seminal stroke, as it were, would be done with his hands holding her hips tightly against him as he arched his back and actually lifted her up a good half foot into the air. That was when she'd often grunt to him in a needy way -- right at the moment that she was taking it from him and grinding a bit to make it good. The moment would drag on and when she knew somehow that she'd gotten the seed of her male, she'd lean forward suddenly and work him even harder from inside her as the screeched at him from inches away and he answered for as long as they had the breath for it. This was no language other than what had always been done in caves and grottos and in between a few rocks on a hill by their kind, back when any male tried to impregnate every female that he had the chance at and every female was after any male. After the frenzy each time, there was only a little time for small and quiet little strokes and kindnesses passed between them until they met again the next year to mate again. It was before the pairings which were sought today by the present generations of that unknown predator, but the elements were still the same. If there was anything left for her that she hadn't drawn out in the way of their kind, she'd get it then; a small offering of the last of it, almost a tiny second orgasm to him, but sweet nonetheless. The magic would fade after that and the two of them would look at each other for just a moment before she'd reach for his head and they'd share a long and frantic, though weakening kiss. After that, she was just on top of him with her head next to his, telling him how much she loved and needed him. Talon had absolutely no doubt of it because though it hadn't been planned - just like the way that they'd gotten together that first night -- they'd become something that Cor and Sonja hadn't attained. Whatever they were and only half-breeds at that, ... They were now a mated pair of something. -------------------------------- "I can't believe that I'm letting you do this," she said as she stood looking at him while he knelt a little nervously before her looking right at her cleft. She was showing him where to place his finger so that he could direct her stream. He got it -- or he thought that he did, so he got to his feet and stepped around behind her. "I should have never asked if I could hold yours," she said, feeling him reach around her and loving it even so. "Come on," Talon said, "It might be a smile or two to you to hold mine, but I've hung onto it all my life when I've had to pee. It's like a hose, though it's short like that. There's no subtlety to it like the way that you can control yours. That's what I want to learn." "I get that,"Katje said, "and on the one hand I guess I don't mind because we're just close. I think I even want you to do this for me. There's no risk of me getting my own finger wet if it's yours. But so help me, Talon. I'm trusting you here. If you get my feet wet, there won't be a second time." He slid his hand over her belly and extended his index finger, "Oh, no pressure here, huh Katje? And is this about right?" Katje sighed and reached up to touch his cheek and hold her head against his, "Yeah, that ought to work. I'm sorry. I just never thought that this would ever be such a big deal to us. I have to admit, it's fun. Ok, you have to keep your fingertip there and lift a little, just by the slight pressure against my skin. Don't lift up too much but be sure to lift at least some." She moved her feet apart a little more. "Ready?" He nodded over her shoulder and she drew a breath and began, hoping that she wouldn't have to wash her feet and legs in a minute if he got this wrong. But he didn't and she was a little surprised. "Hey, you're pretty good at this," she smiled, "I might let you do this a lot more -- but I'm gonna want you to do it naked against me, since it feels really good to me then. He was smiling and then he groaned, thinking about the end to this. "Katje, there's nothing to shake. How do you end this?" She kept at it, not done just yet, but she still held his head against hers as she grinned a little wickedly. "Your problem to see to it that it doesn't become my problem. I didn't bring anything to wipe with." Talon was puzzled for only a moment and she was a little disappointed that he seemed to have a solution a few seconds later, since he was smiling, "Don't you even think about picking me up to shake me. That would be bad." He tried to adjust the stream as she slowed and she had to admit that it was plain that he'd been thinking this over beforehand. She said it to him too. "Christ, Katje, I'm a guy. That's what we do. Now step backward at least three steps or turn around or something, ok?" She nodded and he guided her and the next thing that she knew, he was there in front of her again and there was no need to wipe anything. "Talon!" she said, very surprised. He just looked up a little shyly, "The things that we do to each other every night, Katje, how could I mind doing something like this for you now? Like you said the other week, it's a non-sexual thing. I think I'd rather that you bring something to wipe with, but, ... " He shrugged while she looked down at him, wondering just how much she did want to make a sexual thing out of it -- since he was there and all. Katje gave up then and held his head against her with a sigh, "Never mind, Talon. Just lick me some more." ----------------------------------- "I keep thinking about Ellie," she said to the other side of the room as they waited. Katje was on her knees waiting for him to soften and pull out of her slowly so that it wouldn't be such a shock when he left. "Those are the first coherent words that you've said for a while," Talon observed as he hugged her from behind. "It's the first thing that I've been able to say for a while, "she said over her shoulder to him, "I haven't had much of a mind to work with the last twenty minutes or so. No matter where you put that thing in me, speaking can be difficult -- ok, it's right out in one place, but, ... I was just wondering about her and I hope she's ok. I liked her until she started making eyes at you. I sure wasn't ready for that then." "What do you mean ' then'?" he asked. "She was just so lost when we found her," Katje said, "So, ... unequipped to deal with things and way too trusting. I kind of worry a little. I liked her a lot. It was a little weird when I got the bath ready for her. I mean, we were a couple of girls. Girls aren't as nervous as guys are in a situation like that, but she was far more nervous than I ever expected. She wasn't going to even take her hand away from her crotch until I was out of the room. It was a little silly, I mean, she was naked to start with, though I guess that she was upset over everything and all. She did have some clothes, but the demons ripped them off. She looked so thankful when you found her a set of coveralls close to her size." "You're avoiding my question," he whispered as he pulled back and she fell forward with a groan. "Sorry," she groaned with her face in the pillow, "I guess this is the part where I come clean about having little daydreams about her." He collapsed on the other pillow and looked over, "Really?" "Uh-huh," she sighed, "I like girls too, well a very few girls. Most, I'd never have the thought of it, but, ... " She lifted her head then to smile at him, "I don't know why it would surprise me to see it now, but we're still the same -- even like that." She smiled at him softly, "You miss her a lot, don't you? I know that you're mine and you'd be happy to die that way, but even so, you miss Ellie. You don't even look at most females - of ANY sort when we go anywhere. But I know you liked her a lot. I can tell." "I do," he said, "What about you?" She dove at him weakly and he caught her and pulled her to his chest, running his hands over her back and wings as though she weighed nothing and carried no inertia because of it. She kissed his nipple and settled against him happily. "Idiot. I'm the one who's just admitted something to you. Of course I miss her a lot. We were almost friends and I'd still want that." "Would you want to go to bed with her?" he asked, "You know, just in a hypothetical sense." She blew past her lips and almost made it a raspberry, "No. I'd want to go to bed with her in a real sense and make out with her. I thought she was really sweet-looking and so lost, I just wanted to hold onto her. She's really close to my size." "I liked her boobs," Talon grinned and Katje laughed at him. "And I liked her boobs," she smiled as though he hadn't said it, "They're a lot smaller than mine, but I thought they were awesome. Would you want to go to bed with her?" He exhaled and she just cut him off then. "Don't answer, ok? I already know the song." She tried to imitate his voice and she did a fair job at it, "I'm a guy, that's what we do -- want to take a girl to bed." She laughed at his expression and then she settled down and they were silent for a little while. It came out of her as a statement of fact when it did. "My Talon loves me," she said, "But even so; I just know that you'd love to do exactly the same thing to her that you've just made me happy over. It's not your normal way to think like that, but she's got just as nice a little butt to you as me, though in a different way. It's got the same effect on me, Talon. All I'm doing is saying what's there. I know it won't ever happen and that makes me a little sad, because I think she's about the only one that I'd allow it with - in a fantasy sort of way. Mostly, I'm worried for her as a friend." There was a sort silence then until Katje broke it. "I'd probably kill anybody else but her, but, ..." She rolled over to look at him, "I think with her, I'd love to watch it with you. Would you want to see me with her?" "For a girl who's smarter than I am, you say some really silly things when you don't think them over first," he smiled back, "I think it's juat another of those things that keep me helpless for you. I'd love to see that, Katje." A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 59 You know what's really strange?" she asked him and he looked over. "I get the sense -- and I can't say how I know -- that she isn't fitting in with my sister and brother and that's a little odd to me if I'm right. " She lifted her head and kissed Talon for a moment and then she said as she looked down at him, "I had issues because you and I were just starting then, but I think that now, she'd fit with us in some way. She'd need to be protected for sure, but if she likes girls even a little bit, I think she'd fit right here with us. " Her hand slipped down low on him and in a minute, he gasped and she smiled at the way that she'd caused him to raise his knees involuntarily. Katje pulled her hand back and slid her finger into her mouth for a moment to wet it. It made a little side-trip into her for more slickness and then she had him groaning in a few seconds. "What if she was just like us, Talon?" she whispered as she untangled her tail from his and brought the end of it up to his lips. He began to suck it instantly and she kissed his cheek before she lowered her head right beside his ear and her words came out like a soft breeze to him. "Roll over, baby." A few minutes later, it was Talon who had no mind as Katje clenched her thighs together, holding her tail between them as she lay on his back, hanging on while she worked it so slowly into and out of him. He was listening as she fucked him and she was still whispering. "She's a half-demon, Talon. What if she was like us? Half-demons have tails too, honey. I'd give a lot to see her do this to you." ------------------------------- The next day, Talon was just doing odd little jobs and he stopped often to think about a few things. Katje had gone early in the morning, off to her sibling's place to check up on Ellie. To his mind, the little interlude the night before was just something that they often did for each other and her words about Ellie were just that. It was just something that Katje had said as a nice but naughty little thing to spur them both while she made love to him. ----------------------------------- Katje was on her way home, more worried now than the night before. Sonja hadn't said much, other than a very brief statement that Ellie had gone. It was Cor who told her that no matter what had been said, intimated, done -- anything, there was nothing that would get that girl to even think about mating with them and, he said, there was nothing under the sun that would make her lift her hands from her own genitals or take off the coveralls that Talon had given her. Katje had said nothing about it, but she saw something during her morning with them that said so much about Sonja to her. The 'Talon' haircut was starting to grow out and she hadn't shaved the sides again, so that was either because of Cor or, more likely, it was just that Sonja's interest was passing. Now, Katje couldn't even begin to have the slightest idea where she might look for Ellie. It really bothered her. Ellie could probably get herself into something right over her head and not know a thing until it was already far too late. The only thing that she could think to do was to fly home to Talon. He needed to know and then they'd try to figure out a search pattern for her to fly, since he knew the area around where they lived a lot better. But in the end, Katje didn't have to really do much at all. She saw a flock up there ahead of and about a thousand feet below her. What drew her attention was the ragged way that they flew. Demons don't usually fly in organized groups, but they don't fly as though they were trying to claw over the backs of the ones in front of them either. That was when she saw the lone flyer way out in front and fading. She could see it from all the way back to where she was flying. It was the sandy-blonde hair that caused her to want to pour on the coals as she accelerated and shifted to the shadow form and she wasn't after stealth here, either. Katje wanted nothing more than the shape which would allow her to do the most damage in the shortest amount of time. --------------------------- Ellie was frantic after her last look over her shoulder. She couldn't tell for sure, but there must have been twenty of them at least. She didn't know why they were picking on her, or why they'd want to hurt her, but she knew that they weren't flapping that hard just to stop and say hello. She knew that now. She looked ahead and she could see the flat place where Talon and Katje lived and she tried hard to get just a little more speed out of her tired muscles. If she could have just the tiniest bit of luck now, she might make it to the gatehouse. But she had other thoughts which almost took the wind out of her sails. What if they weren't there? What if the door was locked? She almost faltered then, but she had nothing else, so she just went on, trying not to fly too raggedly and wishing that she had better than the weaker wings of a half-breed. She looked behind her and groaned. They were gaining on her so quickly that she'd probably be overtaken before she was over the remains of the rusted-out fence. ----------------------------- Talon hadn't been watching. He hadn't even been looking up. He'd just been walking back from the end of the runway, finished with the task of clearing it finally. He'd walked all the way back to the hangar and then he'd had a drink from his water bottle and then just sat down to roll a smoke. He was halfway through it when he heard the fury in the shrieking cry and he snapped his head up to look, squinting into the bright sunlight above. Ellie heard it too, but she mistook it for the sound of a demon not all that far behind her and it caused her to redouble her failing efforts to get to what safety she prayed might lie there for her on that flat ground, The beginning of her flapping decent allowed her to gain a little more speed at least. But neither of them had been the ones who were supposed to have felt much of anything from that cry. It had come from Katje during her plummeting drop into the front few demons in the ragged flock and she'd timed it just right. She'd left them little if any time for any of them to look and react. The sound had been to make them uncertain. And in that, it had succeeded magnificently. She'd just blasted almost straight down, killing two of the three that she'd collided with and leaving the third crippled as that female fell to earth just barely conscious. As Katje extended her wings to peel around under them, there were seven mid-air collisions in the confusion as the front runners slowed and the ones behind overran them. That resulted in two more fatalities. As she rocketed over the remains of the gaggle from behind, she saw that she had two on her tail trying to catch her and she had to fight off the desire to kill them first. She did it by forcing herself to think of Ellie and she came in lower this time in a slanting attack from left to right. It had the desired effect, but it also caused her to slow. Before she lost all forward motion to the arms which reached to seize her, Katje just pulled her arms and legs together, pulled her wings in tight and dropped away, turning over to point herself head-first at the ground, knowing that she'd be followed down. Talon was onto things now and he'd grabbed his CAR-15 and almost shot Ellie, not recognizing her at first. But then he wondered why that demon was out so far in front of the rest and yet obviously wasn't a better flyer. He recognized her at the same time that he saw the pandemonium in the flock which was pursuing her. He called and waved to Ellie and when she sort of semi-crashed near him, he was there in seconds, helping her up and getting her into the hangar through a man-door. "Hide in that corner, behind those red chests." He told her, wanting to hold her until she'd at least found the strength to stand on her own before he dealt with the weeping. "I've got to go help Katje. Here," he said, handing her his carbine, "Try not to shoot us. If you have a little time, there's a pair of coveralls over there on the bench. I don't think they're too dirty." She gasped and wheezed, her sides feeling like they were in fire as she looked at him, "T-Talon, ... Demons, ... following me." "I know," he said, his shape changing to something hard and gray, his voice along with it. "Hide!" and then he was gone. Talon was out front when Katje sailed in across the edge of the concrete with several demons trying hard to catch her. Katje saw him and she veered off to the side as he began feel his breathing shifting. He was looking forward to this now. The ones who had followed Katje down were already coming for him when she appeared beside him. She asked, and he said that Ellie was in the hangar behind them and she nodded, pointing to the rest of the flock as they approached. --------------------- Talon felt strange -- that is, even more strange, he supposed, as he walked to the hangar man-door a few minutes later. He was thinking about having another mess to clean up. Katje had flown off after the three demons who had finally figured out that they might not be up against someone who was easy to kill. He hadn't walked seven steps when the gunfire erupted and he felt an impact against his shoulder. He dropped to one knee and looked around. A demon was curled in a ball on the floor, wounded and snarling. He jumped up and ran over, tearing the demon's head almost right off while he screeched. There was silence then and he looked up. Ellie was pointing his rifle at his chest. It looked as though if she held it any tighter, she'd either break it or it would squirt out of her hands like a wet bar of soap. "Ellie!" he exclaimed, "Christ, you've already shot me. Relax. Ok? It's me." Ellie looked as though she was about to cry again, and wasn't sure if this were a trick. Talon changed shapes to the one that she'd seen the most and she relaxed visibly. He supposed that he might have faulted her for her lapse in judgement, since she had seen him like that before, but she was obviously at the long end of her tether. He looked at his shoulder and saw only what would likely become a bruise. He looked back at her, "Are we ok now, you and me?" She nodded and then she did begin to cry. He stepped over and took the carbine from her. She just wailed into his chest after throwing her arms around his neck. "Thank you," she sobbed in a voice so much smaller than the one that he'd heard from her before. "Come on," he said quietly, "Let's go wait for Katje. It's her you need to thank more than me. Try to remember that if you see me or Katje and we're gray and have NO horns, that it's us, ok?" She nodded and he asked her what happened. "I didn't want to be with Sonja and Cor anymore and I , ... I just, ... " Talon looked over, "Wanted to come home?" She nodded eagerly, not catching what he'd said, "I wanted to go home, but I haven't really got one anymore so I thought that I'd come here to ask you if I could still have that gatehouse and, -" She looked up a little searchingly, "What did you say?" "Welcome back home," Talon smiled, "but you're not going to the gatehouse until we all have dinner. We can talk then. Whatever we come up with, Katje and I have missed you and we have to come up with some way to keep you safe." He chuckled, "I dunno, you seem to have a knack for getting demons to follow you." She nodded, "I do, somehow. I want to get some kinda start where I don't have them trying to get me every day. I had to hide and dodge like crazy yesterday." "Sounds like you're learning," he smiled. "I don't know why they're after me," Ellie said. "I think it's a couple of things," Talon smiled, "They're after everyone, Ellie, not just you. The ones that you seem to attract are probably interested because they see you when you fly and hair that shade isn't natural for any demon but a half-breed, I don't think. Other than that, it's probably your cute butt or something. Look, there's Katje now." Ellie looked a little nervous again, "Hey, Talon? I wanted to say that I'm sorry if I made you nervous before I left. I don't know why I did that," She looked down, "I don't really know how to act around guys and I tend to make a fool of myself." The statement was only partially true. Ellie didn't really know how to act around anyone. It was what caused her to withdraw and stay there. It took him a second to get what she was talking about, but then he nodded, still smiling, "It's ok, Ellie. The only thing wrong was that I was really nervous, like you said, because Katje and I had just gotten together and I didn't want her to think the wrong thing and we've been talking and we think it was just kind of your way. We've been together for a little while now and we've figured it out. We're both glad that you're here and that you made it. We really did miss you. You kind of grew on us or something." Katje landed and almost ran to them. When she got to them, she threw her arms around them both and looked at them grinning. "Katje," Ellie began quietly, "Thank you. Thank you both for saving me again." She sobbed a little and began to cry again. "Oh no," Katje grinned, "You're just trying to deflect me and keep me off-balance, hoping that I won't ask just what you're doing there in a flightsuit with the zipper most of the way down and you got my boyfriend out here naked. I'm no fool, Ellie." The blonde looked up in a little horror and was already shaking her head when she saw Katje's laughing grin. "Kidding," she chuckled, "just kidding. I'm so happy to see you again!" She hugged them both as much as she could and then she kissed Talon and then Ellie as well. While Ellie stood in a little shock, Katje said, "Thanks, Talon. You wasted about as many as me that time. You're getting better." Her expression changed as she looked at him a lot harder. By that point, Talon was fading out and they eased him onto the concrete in a bit of a heap. "I must have shot him!" Ellie cried, "He said I did." "Where? Was he like this then?" Ellie shook her head, "No. He was like that way that you guys can look, all gray and mean-looking. When he changed, he was looking at this shoulder." Katje reached over, looking," No, Ellie. You might have hit him here, but it's only gonna be a bruise. If he was gray, you can't kill him with a gun. But I see the problem right here," she pointed to his back. "His wings are coming out. We'll need to get him into bed and I can already tell that he's gonna smell pretty bad before it's done. Can you help me? I hope he doesn't make either or both of us barf." They couldn't drag him, so they found one of the flat trailers and laid him out there on his stomach, grabbing the tow bar to pull him along until they got to the shelter. From there, they moved him inside and to the spare bed. Katje was right, though, it took most of the night, even with her making little incisions to help ease things and with them both cleaning away the mess which seeped from the places where the wings sought to emerge now. He smelled awful. Ellie didn't understand, so Katje explained as they worked, why it was that he even had wings. She supposed that if anyone could understand, it helped that Ellie was somebody who had a pair herself. "He was supposed to get them like everybody else, but they stayed inside. Now they're coming out and his body's made fluid as though the wings don't belong. But they do belong. He won't smell at all after they're out and we've washed the junk off them." Talon had found a means of temperature regulation which could be used to turn small amounts of thermal energy into enough mechanical energy to run a smallish generator. Katje knew how to make it all work, but there wouldn't be enough to run much of the ventilation system, so they had to use a small fan to help the odor and the drying of his wings. Ellie was a great help when it came time to ease the wings out slowly so that they could clean everything themselves and dry them a little bit. Talon was out through it all and Ellie was a real trooper. Later that night, they sat drinking a little tea which they'd found there in one of the cupboards. "I don't really know what I'm going to do now," Ellie said at one point, "and I'm very thankful that you said that I could have the gatehouse and all, ... " "Are you still afraid to be there alone?" Katje asked, "And I'm not saying it out of looking down at you. If it was me in your place, I'm sure I'd be shit-scared to live alone." Ellie wanted to protest and shake her head, but she hung it instead, "I'm still afraid, but if you and Talon show me how to keep myself safe, I'd --" This time, Katje was shaking her head, "You can do that if you want to, Ellie, but it's too far away for us to even know if you're in trouble. Look, there's enough room in here for us all. We just have to re-arrange things so you can have your own room. I'm saying that we'd like you to stay here with us -- at least until we can teach you --and even so, we'd like you closer. I'm sure we can get along." Ellie had an objection then, squirming rather uncomfortably and apologizing all over again to Katje about the way that she'd acted. Katje said the same things that Talon had, "We think that we can handle it now. We were too new and shaky before, but we're ok now. They talked a lot more; Ellie feeling a lot better. Eventually, Katje carefully asked Ellie why she was so shy and always seemed to be so nervous and withdrawn. She sipped her tea, "I mean, you can be anyway that you want to be, but I know that I'd feel a lot better -- and I'd feel a lot more like I had a friend if I could see you loosen up a bit. If you can accept a little friendly criticism, Ellie, you've always got a look to you like you're afraid that everybody is trying to get into your pants." She laughed a little, "Hell. It might be so, but if you're going to live here, it would go easier if you could relax. Talon and I tend to joke around a lot and it would be easier for us to include you in it that way." "It's always been my trouble, "Ellie said a little shyly, "But I'll try, Katje." "That'll be good enough," Katje smiled, "I'd take that." Ellie smirked, "I doubt that anyone's trying to get into my pants, though." Katje chuckled, "Why not? You look awesome enough to get heaps of demons to chase you. They can't all be wrong. Talon likes you. Heck, I like you. But let's get off that topic before you feel like you've gotta zip up that flightsuit. It's not going to get any cooler in here before tomorrow." "But you meant that, um, didn't you?" Ellie asked and Katje nodded. "Sure I did," she said, "but that's not something to talk about while my male is lying there like that. I've got too much on my mind. But I can tell you, Ellie, if you ever want an honest opinion, well, neither of us would joke then, ok? I was being honest there." While Katje got up to wash Talon and his wings down again, Ellie tried to think about what she'd heard. But there was only so far that she could go. She'd always been the way that she was for a reason and she kept that to herself. It was lonely, but it was the safest -- and the only way that she knew. "I'll sleep in that big old chair," Ellie volunteered and there was a brief half-hearted and joking argument from Katje over it. And then she put her hand on Ellie's. "I know you're shy. That's ok. I think I'd like it if we could share that big bed, since there's room and you'd be cooler if you slept like me, but I understand about being shy." They tried to get some sleep and after a while, they both drifted off, though not at the same time. Katje was a plenty weary after the struggle and her worry over Talon and she fell asleep first. A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 59 Ellie was tired from her frantic flight and her fear, but she was still awake enough to want to be thinking of things, trying to process everything. She saw that things were different now and she couldn't be completely certain because of what had happened to Talon, but she did feel a lot more welcome with them. She wasn't unwelcome before, but there was an awkwardness that was absent now. She sat slouched in the overstuffed chair, her hand supporting her head and her eyes were closed, but her mind was awake. Ellie liked them. She could admit that to herself. Both of them were so beautiful to her. She thought of herself and her situation and though she was sad -- and she was always a little sad, she thought about Katje's kiss and wondered a little. It was only the fast friendly kiss of the moment, but it was on Ellie's mind all the same. She opened her eyes a little and looked through one of the spaces between her fingers at Katje, who was quite obviously sleeping. But it was already quite warm in here and Katje slept on top of the covers and she was still naked. It was something that Ellie liked about her most of all -- a beautiful woman who was not shy the way that Ellie always had to be. She felt a droplet of sweat begin its long, slow trip down her chest, running right between her small breasts on its way to join the rest of the pool there in her navel. Ellie's hand drifted to the zipper of her flightsuit and she carefully and silently opened it a few inches more, wanting to make the most of any cooling effect that she could get. She wanted to reach inside, but even like this she didn't have the courage. Talon had changed a little from her time here before, she noticed. He was the same as his female now, not shy about his body. She liked that too. Ok, she really liked that too. Talon was such an attractive male. They both were so kind to her, and even before when there had been the awkwardness, it was easy even for Ellie to see that they cared about her. They even seemed worried for her, wanting her to feel safe with them before she tried to be safe on her own. Ellie decided that she'd see what might be made of her stay here if she ever developed a spine. They seemed to want her to stay with them, and though she had her usual misgivings, Ellie was a little thrilled to be asked. It was her last thought for a little while. Despite her position, the chair was comfortable and she was tired. Her eyes closed and she drifted off. ---------------------------- Thirty-nine minutes later, the sound of the groan snapped Ellie's eyes open and she looked across the room. Talon was awake, - No he wasn't. He was thrashing in a dream or some kind of non-aware state, but he was about to non-aware himself right out of bed and onto the floor. Ellie was trying to find a clue in the fog of her mind. It suddenly came to her that she didn't know about his wings. What if he landed on them? She kept thinking of the way that Katje had been so gentle with them. Talon was about to fall. Though it wasn't far, she was suddenly worried. What if he rolled as he fell and landed on them? She groaned as she jumped up. Her head hurt with a bang. Her head felt like there had been a gremlin camped out inside her body near her asshole and he'd had a slingshot and a rock; just waiting for his moment and when she'd jumped up, he'd fired that stone up through her body and her neck to bang against the inside of her skull. She hated waking up after just getting to sleep. Fucking sleep gremlins. She was beside Talon in a second, trying to talk to him and keep him in the bed. A second later, Katje was there helping. Ellie was glad of that. Talon wasn't awake or maybe not asleep either and he was a lot stronger than he looked like this and of course, she knew why that was. "Stop it, Talon," Katje said calmly, "You need to rest." "Stop. Your wings have come in and you'll wreck them if you don't let them dry properly." She bent down and kissed his forehead, "Stop, baby. Just rest." They struggled on for a few minutes. Ellie let Katje do most of the talking while they tried to restrain him as well as calm him. He wasn't frantic, he was just trying to go somewhere in his sleep, the more that they watched him. And then, suddenly it was over and he relaxed as Ellie gasped. His eyes were open and he had a temperature, by the way that his skin felt, but he wasn't struggling anymore. He was smiling, still not really with it and it was obvious that he was just about a quarter of an inch above going back to sleep because he sure wasn't awake. He turned his head a little and he smiled at Katje and Ellie and then he looked at his outstretched hand and arm. It wasn't a death grip or anything, but Talon's arm had gotten away from them as they'd tried to restrain him gently and keep his wings opened. Sometime during its travels, it had gone right into the wide opening of Ellie's unzipped flightsuit. He held her genitals gently in his hand. "Nice," he smiled and then he drifted off. Ellie was horror-stricken, but Katje still had a brain and she stepped over to Ellie and put her arm over her shoulder as she reached down and gently freed a smallish set of male genitalia from Talon's sleeping fingers. Before Ellie could look up or even react, Katje kissed her cheek softly for just an instant. "Thanks so much for getting to him so fast, Ellie. Can you go bring me the pan with the water and the dishcloth please? We need to wipe him down. He's burning up." Ellie looked at Katje with wide eyes, but Katje's face only carried a small smile, "Please?" Ellie nodded and turned to walk away, reaching down to pull the zipper up so that it was over her navel. She poured out most of the water and added a little fresh water to the pan and then she walked back carefully and held it for Katje as she swabbed Talon very gently. Ellie didn't know what to say. "Katje," she whispered, "Katje, I, ..." "Sshh," Katje hissed softly, "Let sleeping boys lie. This won't take long." Elle stared and then she nodded, beginning to turn away again, but Katje asked her to stay. Ellie had no better plan and so she stayed, feeling stupid and mortified. Katje finished up and then she took the pan away with Ellie following, still not knowing what she ought to be doing now. Katje took Ellie's hand and pulled her gently to the bed, "Sit." Ellie sat. "I'm sorry," she blurted, but Katje just shook her head. "For what? You didn't do anything wrong. You got there so fast, Ellie. I can't thank you enough." She smiled a little, "I was more worried that he might have squeezed you without meaning to. He didn't, did he?" Ellie shook her head. Katje looked at Ellie a little seriously, "One thing. Big rule here, ok? I think you might be feeling like you've just wrecked something and now you want to run to the door, open it and just run away. Is that about right?" Ellie stared for a second and then she nodded, looking down, "Something like that." "I think you've been doing that a fair bit in your life lately. I can understand it, but Ellie, I don't really know what Talon might have said to you earlier. If I know him, he was trying to tell you that you have a home here if you want it. We want you to stay. We think you belong with us. My sister and brother were trying to get you into bed, weren't they?" Ellie looked up and Katje could see the tears about to begin, so she shook her head again, "Neither of us need the waterworks, baby. I have my answer." She grabbed the corner of the sheet and handed it over. Ellie nodded her thanks and wiped her eyes. "They have reasons that I'm not sure that I can actually agree with anymore, but I think that the main one is that you're beautiful and desirable. Talon and me, we think so too, but we're not gonna try to get you into bed out of just that." She smirked, "Knowing what I know now, I think you'd about have heart failure then." "Katje, I -- " "You hate yourself," the other one said, "God only knows why, but that's just dripping off you, now that I know. Why is that? You didn't do anything. You're just the way that you are." "But I'm nothing," Ellie began -- I'm --" Katje chuckled, "Near-sighted, is what you are. Stop feeling sorry for yourself. Not all at once, just try to ease out of hating yourself. Try not to read anything into my question, but, ... does everything work?" Ellie's eyes had just gotten a little near to their proper size. Now they were widening again and Katje was shaking her head again too. "What I mean is - and just answer the question, Ellie. It's me, Katje; one of two people who saved your ass again today and would go on doing that even now because I'm your friend. Actually, there is no 'even now'. Nothing's changed in how I feel about you. What I meant to ask was, is there a vagina under those balls? That's all I meant." Ellie looked at Katje's face and nodded very slowly, "Why?" Katje's smile stayed. "Because like a lot of things, it's all in how you look at stuff. You might see yourself as something a little different, but if you think about it, you're the only one here who's complete." Ellie's eyes looked about ready to leave her head, so Katje took Ellie's hand in hers, "When I was growing up, I only had Sonja and Cor, but they're both pretty smart and they've always read like crazy. One of the places we lived must have belonged to a doctor or something and Cor read every one of his books. So when it was time for me to know about things, he told me. When we're made, and we're inside our mothers, things are decided even before that about how we're gonna be. We grow and we're born. But at certain points, things happen to make sure that we're like the plan. At certain places, we develop what we'll have between our legs, our eye and hair color; stuff like that. The cock on every male starts out the same as the little bump at the top of a girl's hole. All kinds of things like that. If you think about it, it makes a lot of sense. That way, there only has to be one set of parts. They just grow the way that the plan says they have to for that one little person inside their mom. We're born and off we go, but either way, we grow up needing a part from the other kind. In your case, things just went a little of both ways, that's all. I remember that I was really curious about that and Cor told me that it just happens every so often -- every couple of hundred thousand births in any kind of animal, but it doesn't usually come out as well as with you. Maybe it was more from the demon side of things. If you think about it like that; you're not put together wrong at all. You're special -- something that doesn't happen every day. You might know what you need, or you might not even be sure, but I think you have a clue. To live your life, everybody's gotta be something -- or they gotta look like something and live that way. Looking at you, I see Ellie, and Ellie is a girl." Ellie looked as though she was about to argue, but Katje held up her finger, "That cunny that you've got, do you get periods?" Ellie nodded and Katje grinned, "See? A girl. If you didn't have periods, I'd say you were a guy even with the vagina. The important thing here; the really, really important thing, Ellie, ... you ready?" Ellie looked as though she was about to hold her breath. "No holding your breath," Katje grinned, "'Cause the answer to that is the same as for the rest. It's not important. What's important is how you see yourself and you'd enjoy the only life you've got a whole lot more if you just live it. I sure don't care, and I still think you're beautiful." She saw Ellie's eyes flick over to where Talon slept and she chuckled quietly, "Ok, at some point, he's gonna get curious and the best thing that you can do is let him in on it, so he won't have to care either. He thinks you're beautiful, the same as I do, and that won't change because you have a dick. It might be a big deal to a lot of males, but not that one. And he's your friend too. How was it that you shot him? You were all freaked out?" Ellie nodded, "I didn't shoot at Talon. There was a demon in the building and right in front of me. I shot him, but he didn't die right away. I guess I must have hit Talon. He ran over and killed the demon." "See? You think that he'd have let that thing hurt you if he knew then what's between your legs?" Katje's smile looked to Ellie like it could survive anything. She wanted one like that. Ellie felt better. More importantly, she felt odd, because she was beginning to really feel a little better overall and it was a feeling that she had never had long enough to get used to. "What was the big rule you mentioned?" "I already told you. It's not important. That's the big rule. What's important is that you're alive and healthy, and you've got a couple of friends. That's what's important. Ok, so you've got everything. And starting right now, you have no more fucking reasons to hate yourself. It's hard enough just to get by. Something we're big on, Talon and me, is that we like our bodies and we like each other's bodies. I know you're probably gonna get a little freaked out, but we don't usually wear a lot of clothes when we're in here. So you'll just have to get used to that. Oh, and we fuck a lot. Hope you're not a light sleeper. Like I said, nothing's a big deal. Think you can handle that, or will you need Talon to build you a little fortress over in the corner to hide yourself away in? I know I'd like it better if we didn't have to tiptoe and worry that we might be disturbing you. We make noises when we screw; that's how it is. Ellie had been smiling through all of that. Now she was laughing a little, "Do I get to watch sometimes?" Katje laughed too, "I don't think you'll have much choice, unless you get earplugs and a good book. But hey, fair's fair. We get to watch if you play with yourself." Ellie's eyes were growing again and Katje hugged her before the thought came to her to jump up and bolt. "What I meant was, you don't have to hide it real hard. I'd probably love to see that, but I'm not gonna leer over the edge of the bed while you do." Ellie nodded and said that she'd think about it. "I might cheer you on, though," Katje said as she got up to make tea. Ellie had to really struggle not to laugh out loud then. She got up and went over to where Katje was trying to see if the kettle still had hot water. The way that her throat felt right now, she'd love a tea even if it was only half-steeped in warm water. "Can I have some?" she asked. "I wasn't going to ask you, I was just gonna make one for you,"Katje said, "You feeling any better now? I hope so." Ellie nodded. "Ok, here's where I try to talk Ellie out of her clothes, but for a totally different reason," Katje smiled. "This place smells like a swamp and there's nothing we can do about it until morning when we open up. There's always a risk that there might be more idiots out there and I don't feel like having to protect two people that I care about at the same time if I can avoid it. But I'm sweating a little right here, just like this and I'm naked. Ellie, you make me sweat even more just to look at you in that flightsuit. A hot cup of tea isn't gonna make it any better. So if you think that you can, I know you'd feel better with that off. Talon won't be in any shape to even have a thought on the subject for a long while yet, the way that he looks to me, so if I swear that I won't look, do you think you can ..." Ellie didn't want to, but she knew that Katje was right. Staying in her suit wasn't going to make sleeping one bit easier and, ... well she had been listening, as uncertain as she'd been through it all. Just like she always had been, she thought. That was what decided things for her and she nodded, "I'm gonna try not to care, but please, just don't stare at me, ok?" "Deal," Katje smiled, so Ellie began to try to get the soaked clothing off her sweaty body. She almost ended up on the floor, so she asked for a little help and half a minute later, she felt better. She also felt as though she was being really daring and it felt good to feel that way. She looked at Katje who was still smiling and looking only at her face. "Thanks, Katje," Ellie said. Katje nodded and spoke through her smiling teeth as though she was facing such a struggle. "I will not look. I will not look. Ellie is lovely and this is killing me, but I will NOT look." Ellie giggled and just said, "Oh fuck, Katje, go ahead. You might as well look and I'll try not to crawl under the bed. I didn't say you couldn't look. I only asked you not to stare." Katje heaved a sigh as though she'd been carrying a heavy weight and had just been told that she could set it down. "Oh thank God." Ellie smiled and wished that she'd known these two all of her life. --------------------------------- It started as just the two of them sitting on the bed and with their mugs of tea, but it became obvious in fairly short order that there wasn't really a comfortable way to do it. They muttered and grumbled as they each spilled a little over the rims of their mugs and burned their hands a little. "This would be easier even if we were sitting side-by-side on one of the long stones outside, "Ellie said, meaning the curbstones which were there for cars which no longer came to park there, "THAT would be the way." Katje nodded, "I want to do that with you now. Tomorrow, that's what we'll do." Ellie nodded and after more looking around for a better way, they just ended up sitting on the bed cross-legged facing each other. It was a huge step for Ellie and Katje noticed it. "Have you always been alone?" she asked, though Ellie's actions to this point told her enough to be certain that she likely had. "Pretty much," Ellie nodded, "I never managed to make many friends growing up and there were always the things that human people do which terrified me. Like if a friend invited me to sleep over at her house. I'd have to say no and once, I could even see it as our friendship changed right there on the spot. But what was I going to do? If they saw me getting into my PJs, I'd have looked like their brothers back then and one of the girls who had been a friend had already tried to get a little touchy-feely the way that kids can get while they're figuring things out before puberty. And what if I changed while I was sleeping? I had enough trouble as it was. My mom knew it and she always said no so I had an out. She was around for most of my childhood and then she caught the fever and died. My dad was the demon, like I told you, and he was a professional hunter. That was how he made the money that we needed to stay alive. He taught me, but he never taught me how to shoot more than once. Said bullets cost too much money to really show me more than that. How was it for you?" "I never really had much in the way of friends," Katje said, "We moved too much for a long time. I never had much of a chance to make any and there was always the other side of me underneath. You must have had it even harder -- well, you did, I can see that, between trying not to let anybody find out about two things instead of one." Ellie looked at Katje for a moment and then she said, "Hey, I think I've just thought of this, but, ... well, can I ask -" "What am I?" Katje asked and Ellie nodded. "What are Talon and I? Ellie, we don't even know. Mamma told Cor once I think, but as to a name for what we are, ..." she shrugged, "Make up what suits you. All we know is that we seem to be something which can hunt and kill demons to eat them, not that we usually do much of that. We'd never do that to you, just saying. A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 59 I guess it just shows how screwed up things can get if you take something out of its natural place and stick it somewhere else. We're like you though, half-human, so I hope that helps." "I wasn't really worried, "Ellie smiled, "Not like I was the first time that I saw it. I could have crapped myself then. Even when Talon came back to see if I was alright, I was afraid. I don't think I'd be now, though." She looked at Katje for a second, "I think you have more shapes than me. I only have two." "We have like three and a half," Katje chuckled, "though you might see it as four. We can look human like this -- no wings or tail. We can look kind of, sort of like that, but with those things, so we think that's our natural way to be, and we can look like something else, but that is really like two things that aren't the same, but feel like they are to us. It's a really small shift from one to the other, and we don't have horns in any of them. Actually, I kind of wish we did. I like the way that horns look on some demons. I love your horns whenever I see them." Ellie was a little surprised, "You do? Really?" Katje nodded, "Change for me? Let me see them, please?" Ellie didn't think it was anything other than a little odd that she'd want to see that, but she switched her shapes in the blink of an eye -- and then cursed for the way that she was sitting on her tail, so she fixed it. "How's this?" Katje grinned as she reached out slowly to touch them lightly, "Yup, I really love them on you. I guess they don't serve much of a purpose to demons here, but to me, they're sexy as anything." She chuckled, "Probably the perfect fashion accessory, other than you can't change them if you don't like what nature gave you or if you want to change your clothes. Something like a pullover must give you fits," she chuckled. Ellie thought it was funny and she nodded, "I never gave them any thought before, but after hearing you, I feel a little proud." "You should," Katje nodded, "between them and your teeth, you're one sex-beast like that. Well, in my opinion. Makes sense why you get all the howlers chasing your ass now." Ellie was surprised, "You like me like this?" Katje nodded, "I like you either way. Like this, you look wilder. Better change back before I get too many dirty thoughts." Ellie tilted her head at that. She couldn't understand it. "But if, ... if you're something that hunts demons -- or , ... you can, ... why would the way that I look affect you? I think that I'd probably look like more of a meal or something. No?" Katje shook her head, "The point is -- at least I think the point is; that we're here, and we're the same inside in a way because we have some of the same blood swirling around in us. I see you and, ... " "Ok," Katje groaned a little, "I can't really sit here and tell you that it doesn't matter and everything's gonna be alright -- all while I've got things about me that I haven't shared. So I'll fess up now, Ellie. I love guys, mostly um, mine. I need Talon just to breathe and be able to think, well, if we're not fucking each other stupid ... er. But I also like girls too. I'm really afraid to make you uncomfortable, but I am being honest. I'm not gonna make a move on you or anything, but if I don't tell you out of a desire to be honest with the friend I want to have in you, then to hide it would just make me feel like I'm being dishonest. Do you get all that?" Ellie thought about it and nodded. "You ok with all that?" Katje asked, looking a little fearful and on her, Ellie didn't like it at all. She nodded. "Good," Katje sighed in a little relief, "My point is -- before I forget it; is that I wasn't kidding you." She pointed, "He likes you and he thinks you're beautiful and he really missed you. I like you and I think you're REALLY beautiful and I'm so glad that you're back. And that was before I knew about that." She pointed a little, "Now, well, the way that I feel hasn't changed at all." She was feeling a little uncomfortable herself. Katje was a person who didn't like feeling that way the same as anyone, and since Talon had come into her life, she'd been far more inclined to challenge her feelings instead of allow them to make her back away from things. But this? She decided to change the subject, "So do you want to see all of my shapes? You never asked me and I really thought that you would." Ellie nodded slowly, "I'd love that, Katje." She'd been curious about it, but didn't have the nerve to ask. Having Katje change her shapes would give her a little time to think about what she'd just been told. Part of Ellie was terrified. The rest wanted to jump on the dark-haired girl in front of her. She had no clue what to do if she did that; she just knew that it was what she had the thought to do right then. Right after that, though, she was amazed as Katje shifted and looked at her hopefully, as though she really hoped that Ellie would like her in these shapes. "That one," Ellie grinned, "No no. Go back one. I like the way that you are like this too, but it takes a lot of getting used to because every time I've seen either of you like this, there's been blood flying all over. That other one, ..." Katje changed back to the shape which was purely for stealth, sneaking through some form of undergrowth which none of them had ever seen and never would. This suited that and a short burst of speed, followed by a quick kill and a meal. Ellie knew nothing of this, but she smiled then. "Oh yeah," she sighed, "I love the way that you can look in any way, but I think this one is my favorite. Love those stripes too. Could you please stay like this for me? I'll stay the way that I am if you do." Katje beamed at Ellie. She knew that no matter what, they'd just become real friends at that instant. The uncertainty was gone. She was still struggling with her feelings in terms of sex, and she still didn't want to screw this up, but she was happy now that she could see that she had a friend in Ellie. She even said it. "I think we've just become serious friends, Ellie -- at least I'm hoping." Ellie looked at her for a second and then she grinned, "Yeah. That's how I feel too." --------------------------------- They talked for a little while after that, but they decided that they needed to get at least some sleep. But Katje was adamant that Ellie not sleep in the chair. "You're sleeping here with me. We don't have to touch and we can sweat side by side. I don't want to sleep any other way, and with you in that chair over there, ... well that's right off the list. I hope I've convinced you that I'm not gonna hurt you and I'd rather forget that I even could, if it's all the same to you. Ok?" Ellie was almost game, but, ... "But what about what you said? You said you think I'm uh, ... " "Beautiful," Katje nodded, "So? Does that mean that we can't sleep in the same bed? I'm not gonna spring a stiffy or anything." She chuckled, hoping that Ellie would agree. She didn't want to have any kind of play between them. She really did want them to get some sleep and she didn't like the chair as an option for either of them. Ellie hesitated for a second and then she nodded, setting her empty mug down and then coming to the bed while Katje tried to keep her heart rate down as she watched someone so lovely lie down near the edge of the bed. The thought crossed her mind about a saying that she'd heard and never understood. The lamb lying down with the lion. She pushed it away, telling herself that the important thing here right now was to cement their friendship. She moved to lie down beside Ellie. "I think we'd still have a safe space between us if we got just a little closer," Katje said softly, but meaning it, "Less chance of either one of us falling out like that." Ellie kept looking at Katje and looked as though she had nothing to say, but then she did move a little closer after she'd nodded, "Try to remember something, Katje," she whispered. "This is all really strange and new and wonderful to me, but, ... well, you made a joke about you not getting a stiffy. You can't 'cause you're a girl. But I might. That's what I'm afraid of." Katje smiled and moved a little closer. She put her arm over Ellie and sighed, "Talon has those all the time. I'm used to them, Ellie. I won't mind, so don't let it bother you. Tell you what, ..." She wore such a soft smile on her lovely face that Ellie would have likely agreed to anything right then and she knew it. That was what she was afraid of -- at least a little. She was confused and even so, she was almost aroused; not that she knew that to do about it in much of any way, but still ... "Put your arm over my shoulders," Katje whispered. Ellie tried not to be terrified. She knew that this friend stuff -- especially under these circumstances -- was going to need some give and take, and in her case specifically, it was going to require a little bit of daring. But she was happy to still be breathing after the way that her day had gone and she was very happy overall. She raised her arm after Katje had removed hers, and she set it very carefully over the girl's shoulders. It didn't feel quite right, and so a second later, she moved even closer and then it felt good. "Like this?" she asked Katje, who nodded and moved very slightly to kiss Ellie goodnight. "I've found lately," she whispered to Ellie, "that the best way -- if I'm feeling uncertain about something -- is to face it and see. I only got that way because of Talon. Just wait and you'll see. He'll give you confidence that you need even while he's being a little goofy. It just comes from him like that. You're worried about getting a little hard and not being able to help it. I don't have one, but I've learned how it is. So I'm going to just get this out of the way, and then we can sleep without your needing to think about it, since I know that you will." She moved her hand and very gently took Ellie's erection and what she could hold of her scrotum in her hand, the shaft of it along the inside of her wrist. She didn't squeeze and she didn't rub or stroke. She just moved it so that it was against Ellie's abdomen and she held it there cupped as much as she could. She kissed Ellie very softly once more and then she smiled, "If it gets worse and it need a little attention, Ellie, just let me know. Good night." "Good night, Katje," Ellie whispered, "and thanks for everything. If there's anything that I can ever -- " Katje sighed then, happy as a well-fed and loved cat and Ellie didn't even mind it as her face came close enough to her own to nuzzle against her cheek before they were almost touching noses when she eased her head back down. "We'll have to see about this new wrinkle," Katje whispered, "since it wasn't something that we thought of as more than a nice little thought when we told each other that we missed you and wanted to see how you were doing. But if you want to do something for me sometime, and you want to tell me yes for what we haven't even talked about, then shave this for me after that - after you decide," she smiled and Ellie felt the smile. She also felt Katje's fingers as they squeezed her so softly only once. "Then I'll know. But no matter what, I'm happy right now. It doesn't feel like it's just Talon and me against the world now." -------------------------------- Ellie was now officially dog-tired, she thought to herself. She still had her erection, as small as it was to her mind. Katje had fallen asleep again after saying things to Ellie which almost guaranteed that she wouldn't sleep after hearing them. Katje probably couldn't have known the effect of her words on someone like Ellie, who'd always felt like more of a different and unwanted species for all of her life. Now she knew that she was and yet she wasn't at the same time. Ellie had always been that - some of one thing, some of another, half human, half-demon, ... 100% fucked-up and unwanted - other than to stare at for a moment and then to ridicule. But the black-haired girl sleeping next to her hadn't seemed to care and from her words, Talon wouldn't either. She'd been accepted. If that were true, it boggled her mind. There hadn't even been any conditions set for her admission. They were just trying to tell her that if she wanted it from them, ... She was already home. Ellie had to blink furiously for a few moments. At least it took her mind off her little erection. It might not be like the big things that she'd seen now and then, but that didn't absolve her of the incessant urging that it sent to her, the same as likely any other in the world, she guessed. Just then, Katje made it worse by moving her hand. the touch was gone and it was a change. Well any change under the right circum - Ellie wanted to groan. She might not have more than a breakfast sausage, she thought, but at the moment and for the next little while at least, it was going to pretend that it was a breakfast sausage-sized piece of steel. Katje opened her eyes a little and realized that her hand had moved away. She looked over and saw Ellie looking back. "Not sleeping?" Ellie shook her head a little and Katje reached over again just because. "You'll never get to sleep with it like this," she whispered, "You can have ten stiffies while you're sleeping and not know, but just one when you need to drop off and it'll never happen. Ok, roll onto your back, Ellie. I'll help." Ellie's eyes opened and Katje smiled and kissed Ellie's nose, "I don't know if you get the feelings of needing it the same way that I do, or if what you feel is like what Talon might feel. So I have to think that it's maybe BOTH - so you just lie on your back, Ellie. I think you need to learn what it's like to have someone do something good for you just because they want to." Ellie was scared to death, but that thing stood up, ready to do its best to be counted, as it were. She didn't even have time to think and grow more unsettled - as if that were possible. Katje just moved her gently and then she took the end into her mouth for a moment while she worked back on the foreskin to expose the glans and then she took it in again with a sound which Ellie was startled to hear as a pleased little sigh. The sensations - once Ellie could settle down - caused her to want to reach for Katje and her hands hovered in the air out of uncertainty for a few moments. But Katje had been watching there in the dark and she lifted one hand at a time and took Ellie's, placing them where she wanted them on her head. It didn't take long at all; Ellie never having had anything like that in her life. She came and her little balls gave their best seminal heave-ho and to Katje's surprise, there was more for her than either one of them would have guessed. She worked it all from Ellie very gently, not wanting it all to be too much for her and then she crawled up and they shared a long and soft kiss. Ellie held Katje and looked up at the ceiling. Wasn't something like this supposed to be a bigger deal? Nobody had even died - especially her. There had been no vengeful hate-filled stroke from Heaven in anger over the mal-formed thing getting to feel a little pleasure. Ellie realized that she was being a little melodramatic, so she just tossed that bullshit right there. What she was left with was a very strong sense of thankfulness and affection for someone who wanted them to be friends so much that even Ellie could sense it. Well alright then. "Thanks - " Katje kissed Ellie's chest right in the middle and then she looked up. "It's ok. You needed it and I wanted it. I got a lot, too. Really nice." "I've never felt something like, ... I never knew it could feel like that for my little um, sausage." Katje snorted a little through her nose and Ellie felt her smile against her chest before she raised her head to look into Ellie's eyes. "Oh shut up, Ellie. At least you have one. The number of times when I've actually WANTED one for Talon when even I could see that he wanted it and didn't even know it himself ... Besides, this is not a breakfast sausage. I told you about honest opinions and that's what you get from us. What you have here is no monster, but that doesn't mean a thing. Talon's is a little bigger, and he's no monster, either. What you have here - and I'm only joking a little bit - is a wiener with only about a small bite off the end - and I like it, Ellie, so no more sausage crap, ok?." She laid her head down and began to suckle one of Ellie's nipples gently as she reached to hold Ellie's genitals again. She stopped suckling after a moment and said, "I hope you can have sweet dreams now, baby. You deserve to have them now. Good night." Ellie said goodnight and she lay there on her back for a little while looking up, but not for long. She laid her arms over Katje and they were both asleep in minutes. ---------------------- It was mid-morning when Talon woke up, still feeling like shit on a stick, but better somehow. The edge of something in his peripheral vision drew his attention and he tried to look at it. He had a little trouble focusing on it, since it was fairly close to his face and so he tried to lift himself up on that side. He was startled to see it move then. Worse, it didn't move away, the way that it might have if he were under it if it were a blanket or a sheet. It confused him, even after he'd figured out that it wasn't something bad, necessarily. He reached for what he could of it and almost jumped when he could feel his own touch there when he did. His being startled caused more movement and then he just felt that and exerted more. He stared as a wing came slowly and uncertainly into view. Well it sure couldn't have been anything else. He sat up cautiously and as he did, he moved that wing a little experimentally. That was when the smell hit him and while he recoiled from that, it jogged his memory a little of the events the previous day and what he could remember of the evening. He remembered Katje saying to him that his wings were coming in. He looked over toward the bed and he saw, ... Well, he wasn't sure, but he did recognize Katje there and a moment later, he saw Ellie in the bed as well, but the odor of what he carried on his back reminded him that he wanted to wash. Ok, just how the fuck does one go about something like that, uh, specifically? He had no idea, but he reasoned that he'd need a little help, so he stood up. His balance was different, he decided, and it came to him that to minimize the effect, he'd have to, ... It was better once he'd figured out how to pull the wings against his back, though the smell still wanted to make him gag. He began to try to think of any place here where there was enough water to jump into. He came up uh, dry for the moment at least. He suddenly remembered a pond on the other side of the place, but that was a good walk away. He did think of the wings on his back, but he decided that he needed a little guidance first, so he put that off. More importantly, he knew that there was no means of opening the blast door from the outside, once it was all the way closed and he wouldn't just walk off and leave it open, not while the others were there asleep and defenseless. Talon wanted to just look up and curse loudly, but that wasn't an option. He had a memory of the two females struggling with him sometime during the night, so he knew that they likely hadn't had as much sleep as he'd had. What to do? He had that decided in three seconds and he smirked to himself as he walked over to there that one backpack hung from a peg on the wall. His journey took him past the bed and he looked down at two of the loveliest people that he'd ever seen. But that was just the start of another brainbuster to him. A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 59 Katje lay on her front and she wore that look that he loved to see on her face when she slept. But she wasn't lying on her front on the bed, at least not completely. She was lying on Ellie with her face on Ellie's chest. Ellie slept on her back and snored very softly. Katje was sandy toned, stripes and all, and Ellie was a demon girl, and still a lovely one, too. The thing of it was, that Katje's hand held something and as he watched, she moved her hand, releasing what she'd been holding and Talon now stood blinking at Ellie the demon girl and her um, ... well, her gear. Talon blinked again and looked one more time, before he made the rest of his little journey and reached into the hanging pack to draw out the pouch. He smiled and shook his head a little. Between waking up with stinking wings and the sight of the two in the bed well, ... If this wasn't a time to have a smoke and think, ... He was outside with his carbine in a minute, leaving the door ajar so that he could get back inside if he had to, and he'd set a rock there that they kept for the purpose so that the door wouldn't close and lock him outside. Because it left them vulnerable, he elected not to go very far from it and after a good look around, he stepped to a corner and looked around that. Certain now, he had his pee and then went back to sit down and roll a smoke -- almost dying to and not from the nicotine either. Having a means of ignition had originally been a problem, matches being expensive and all, but after a time, he'd found these curious metal boxes and opening the first one told him all that he needed to know. After that, he'd looked for them and found more than a few in various states. Swapping parts, he assembled a few which worked and after that, it was a hunt for some sort of readily-ignitable fuel, but at length, he'd found a tall tin of benzene, still full. The first time that he'd tried to use it after filling one of the 'zippo' things, by the name that he read on the bottom of every one, he'd almost burned his nose off, as well as his hand from overfilling it. But it worked and had become a favorite thing of his, just for the pitted picture of the woman on the side. He sat in the sunshine and smoked. And thought. And then he tried doing both at the same time. He put a few things together then and he smiled. Ellie's painful shyness made a lot more sense to him now. It changed nothing for Talon. He just wondered a little if anything had gone on between them the night before, not that it bothered him particularly. A few minutes later, he went back inside and with a little quiet fiddling, he found life in the stove and added a little kindling, enough to get some heat to cook on later, but for now, he got the kettle filled and after that, ... Talon sat out in the sunshine, feeling the heat of it on his wings and appreciating the way that a little sunshine could always kill a bad odor, given time. He smelled just a little better and he had a coffee and a smoke, and then he was just fine. Katje came to the door a little later and ran out to hug him and he felt even better. The thing that made him feel a little like a king -- as though he didn't already feel that way because of Katje's love for him was the shy and slow way that Ellie stepped out into the sunshine. She was still sandy blonde, gorgeous -- as lovely as his female -- and she was just as naked as he was as she walked over so bashfully, yet determined to let him see what she looked like. Katje's eyes were closed as she hugged him and before he knew it, Ellie kissed him softly and hugged him too. Talon wondered if he was in Heaven now. ---------------------------- The talking over the meal settled things and though he was still just a little confused; on non-existent paper at least, Talon now had two females -- kind of. They'd all been very up front about things -- even Ellie, though Katje and Talon did have to wait for her to say what she wanted and they didn't mind at all. Talon still had Katje and he had Ellie. He also had, ... It had taken Katje to explain it -- or more correctly, to define it, when she'd pointed out that she wanted them to live together and the point of it all was to survive and to help and protect Ellie if she needed it. She also said, though everyone wondered how it would go, that Ellie had two, uh, ... well one female in Katje, they thought, and someone else to play with who also needed to learn a lot, so there was that relationship possible. None of them knew just how it would work out, but that didn't matter. There were now three of them. With a carbine of her own in Ellie's hands and two people who grew to love her, it improved the odds for all of them. A large surprise was that Ellie, the shy and uncertain natural-born and complete hermaphrodite, had learned how to hunt from her father, and she was far better at it than Talon, who became a willing pupil to her. The next few nights were bliss as they tried to iron things out between them. The commonality of being part-human helped a lot. They always began in the same way. They'd decided that their wilder sides aside, they each wanted to be equal in the eyes of the others, so to begin, they were all on their knees -- a triumvirate who faced each other, sharing kisses and caresses as three tails whipped back and forth between them. Ellie could have conventional intercourse and she liked the free feeling of offering it to Talon, especially with Katje's blessing. It was even better for them all because of what she was. She loved the feelings, but she couldn't achieve orgasm from it, her clitoris being something which was too far away from the action, as it were. That's when both Talon and Katje did absolutely anything that they could think of to make it good for Ellie. Katje had two lovers to fuck her now, though she had to be a little careful not to go too wild with Ellie -- and it had to be said that once Ellie saw and understood why Talon and Katje were like that, she was a willing participant and loved to make the same noises at the others in it and sharing a large chunk of meat in their messy and meatjuice-soaked way resulted in some kind of sex in only moments after it was consumed. None of them would have ever thought just how close a demon could come to their kind and what they were. But it lay there waiting anyway. Ellie wasn't made to be an effective demon-killer; she just was what she was. She just needed the help of human weapons and she had no desire to harm demons or anyone. But if she was attacked, well ... "Well that was certainly different," Ellie grinned as she stretched to kiss Talon, "Are you ok? I didn't hurt you, did I?" "No," Talon smiled a little shyly, "That was , .... That was as nice as I'd ever imagined that it might be, once you got in. Hurt me again like that anytime." Ellie hugged him again, "It's really nice for me - all of this. I see myself as so lucky. I get to feel what it's like for both of you in many of the things that we do." She kissed Talon softly as she slid her hand over his sweat-soaked muscles, "That was something that I never even dreamed that I'd ever do. And it was so good. I'd fuck you anytime, Talon. I could get to need it from you." Katje giggled a little then, holding out the pillow, "I always use this afterwards, Talon." It brought laughter from all three. But Katje wasn't laughing a little later while she gasped and shuddered between two lovers who penetrated her at the same time and loved to do that for her. And when she was fucking on either of them, lost in it and needing to be held up as she writhed, Katje was so happy that she now had another lover who could kneel behind her, kissing her while they loved her breasts for her. As far as Ellie and Katje could tell, one of the most important things in this was between the two of them, no matter what, Katje had said. Talon never minded and always allowed time for it when Ellie crawled on top of Katje or vice versa and the thing that she'd hated about herself her whole life allowed her to copulate with the woman who loved her as much as Talon did. Katje was also adamant that Talon and Ellie have their moments as well. The bond need to be maintained, was her view, though she did love to lie there and watch, no matter how it went. "Hey, aren't you and I gonna get pregnant from all of this, Katje?" Katje shook her head, "If we were what Mamma was, it wouldn't be possible. We're not the same things. I could get pregnant by Talon, but Mamma said that we're not the way that her kind used to be at first. It's something that a girl can change, if she wants and she has a safe place to have young. I can change it in me and it takes about a month here, Mamma said. Talon can change it in himself too and it only takes a few days and he can make kids. He's been shooting blanks every time until now. But we're all part human too. I think that's what allows us all to be in love with each other. You and I can get pregnant and you don't have to do anything. Talon and I have to change and then I can have his young - and yours too, now that I think about it. We all gotta talk about that, but I already know that I'd want kids by both of you, and if it's possible for you, then - " "My father took me to a special doctor one time when I was about sixteen," Ellie said, "I know it cost him a lot of money, but he said that it was something that I ought to be able to know a little about to see before it might happen. He was afraid that if somebody got to me - as he said it, he wanted to have a little peace of mind to know that it likely wouldn't kill me. What he found out was that in the opinion of that doctor, it was possible. But then that doctor said that I was something to make a medical case out of or something like that. The next appointment that we went to, there were like seven more doctors there and Dad almost had to kill a couple of them so that we could get out of there. We had to move not long after that." She sighed, "I know my father did that for me and I'm grateful to know it. I just wish that it hadn't cost him so much gold. After that, he had to work even harder to feed us and he was killed after that - I guess from working so long and being tired." She looked at Katje, "If you want it from me and it's ok with Talon, I'd love to make a kid with you, and if he wants one with me, well, I'd love that just as much." Talon walked in then and came over to the bed, "Have I missed anything?" Katje laughed, "No, actually. We were just deciding about the way that it's going to be when we want kids." "Yeah," Ellie grinned as she rolled over to look at him, "And you get off easy. Katje and I have to do the hard part." Talon wasn't stupid, but he didn't get it right away. He thought that it would just be Katje bearing their young. He'd already thought about them wanting to her to have Ellie's children too. That hadn't been a thought to him. "He's not thinking about it the right way, Katje smiled, "Talon, Ellie wants to make a kid with you. She wants to have your little ones, just like I do." He looked at Ellie and smiled, thanking her for thinking of him that way. She chuckled, "Talon, that's a no-brainer for me. It's just that you get off easy." He watched as she stroked herself a little. "So you're gonna be busy too. Bring that sweet face here and - " But he'd already gotten it by then and he already had her in his hand, opening his mouth to suck. --------------------------- Things settled down for them a little after that, but more importantly, it remained. They all knew who was who and what could go where; they just stopped thinking in terms of what male and which female. And out of it all, Ellie gained a place where she belonged; people to love and who loved her as well as self-confidence and more than a little pride in all of them. Talon had been surprised and pleased when Ellie's pubic hair had disappeared. He'd been thinking about it the next day as he'd worked, checking the fluid levels of the idol when he'd seen a motion and was about to reach for his rifle. But what he saw made him forget about it and smile a little slowly. They were walking toward him, still a way off, the two most beautiful people that he knew, holding hands and smiling as they talked, their hair cut just like his. He liked it, but he really wondered about it. He finished up and began to walk toward them. "Come on, Talon," Katje said, smiling the way that she knew could make him feel the weight of his own stones, "Enough work for today. You can tell us all about what that thing is tomorrow." He smiled back, but then his eye fell on Ellie's face and the smile that she wore for him. She sure wasn't wearing anything else. "Gonna rock your world, today, Talon," Katje smiled. He sighed, "You always rock my world." "More today," she laughed, "We have food. We've cut each other's hair, Ellie and I even found some more of that wine. Makes us want to play with our boy, you know?" "I never knew that I'd be starting anything that day when I cut my hair," he laughed, "I just had an idea and wanted to try it." "Yeah well, we like it and we're a freaking tribe, aren't we?" He walked to them and he was in their arms the second after that. "Come on, Talon," Ellie said softly as she hugged him. Her voice dropped off to a shy half-whisper in his ear, "I'd just love you even more if you'd do what I did to you yesterday to me today, honey. Could we?" She was only asking in her sometimes shy way, but to the other two, it had a powerful effect and Katje answered her, "Talon needs that, Ellie, and I need to see it." -------------------------------- "So you're telling us that this thing can fly? With hard wings and without flapping?" Ellie was incredulous. So was Katje, but he nodded, "I just wish that I knew where I could get a few tons of diesel fuel. The legend says that whoever had ones like this built; they had ships that they could fly from and land on again on the ocean far from here. They were worried about using the fuel that they had been using because it was too flammable. So they had these made to run on other fuel and diesel is one that's still around. It can carry three people in it -- the pilot who controls it, another person who works some stuff to search for other ships that they can't see because they're too far away to see, and the third person is there to drop stuff on them when they find them." "Why?" Katje asked. "Because back then, they were fighting those other people -- or they were ready to and stayed that way. This has two engines to turn those black things really fast. The two engines are really in the same case -- side by side. Once it's flying, I can turn one engine off and it'll fly for hours before I have to come back. But I only have enough fuel now to start it. It's really noisy." The girls asked questions and Talon answered them to the best of his knowledge. They asked him then if they could see it run. ---------------------------- Copper wanted to know why they'd had to stop and Simmit pointed ahead. It did no good, since Copper couldn't see through several inches of armor plate. She ran back and swiveled her optics around to point at the obstruction and she stared at what she saw. She inhaled and what was about to come out was a long line of imaginative profanity when she noticed Simmit's voice in her helmet reminding her. Simmit had been trying for a time to get Copper to clean up her vocabulary around the twins, and though she strained awfully hard in her efforts, to overcome a lifetime of colorful cursing in the finest Dwarvish traditions was not something easily done and Copper filled in the blanks with words she'd seen on store goods from long ago. "What in the name of Aunt Betty Jemima is that?" she whispered as her jaw fell open. She'd have known exactly what it was -- other than the generality -- if she wasn't looking at it from this close up in optics meant to pick things out of landscapes -- far away landscapes. She slammed in a feed tray for the chain gun and tried to remember if she'd read about any weak spots that she could hammer at repeatedly and as she did, she was muttering to herself. As far as she could recall, the turret on this type was thick armored steel, so that was pretty much all week to get through, since this was the thickest part of all. The short range wouldn't allow for the discarding sabots to fall free. She just couldn't recall about the front plating on the body. She was carrying two TOW missiles, though she hadn't taken the time to run diagnostics on them. She accessed the screens for that and saw that one missile wasn't even responding to queries. The other was in an outboard launcher tube. She'd have to turn the turret to even get a piece of that thing outside so it was too close for the missile to even arm itself. She took another look and groaned. The plating was angled to deflect shells. Of course it was. From this range in her optics, there was way too much slant to it. From this close, she'd never drill one in through there. She looked up a little and saw that mother of a gun; six times the caliber of her chain gun as it moved to point right at her. Copper just barely managed to keep her muttering a little clean now. "Lord twenty-freaking-mule-team Special Cornflakes almighty; there's a tank out there and a freaking whackload of gunners sittin' on their horses laughing at us. I gotta get my head outta my arse right quick now." Little Neath was the more vocal one and he hung in his harness next to his twin brother and toyed with what he'd heard. "Whack-load," he said, parroting Copper. "Whack-LOAD! WHACK WHACK-LOoaad!" Copper raised her head and looked over, "You're not helping, sweetie." He looked at her and decided to shift his little gears a bit. He didn't know just what it all meant, he just liked Copper's tone of voice when she said words that steamed his other mom. He opened his mouth. "AAR -" "No!" Copper glared, "You say that, and even if we don't get blasted, your mom's gonna paddle both of us." Neath smiled. ----------------------------- "Main gun on target," Lindsay called out. Then to Sam, he said "Load up with an anti-tank shot." Sam nodded and ducked her head to step over to the rack. "Lindsay!" Randi called over, "I didn't tell you to lay that gun on anything." "Should I point it away for now?" he asked and she said "No, leave it where it is. Just don't do anything else unless I ask you to." "What's she doing?" Randi asked herself as she saw the Bradley there in her targeting optics. She thought something must be wrong for Copper to be stonewalling like this. She'd have expected that Copper would have taken one look at the Sheridan and known what it was and where it had come from -- as well as have at least a guess about who owned it. Copper had done a lot of the work on this herself. "Loaded," Lindsay called forward, "Can Sam shoot?" Randi snapped her head around, "NO! I know who's in there! Do NOT shoot! Not - like in, don't you freakin' dare, Lindsay." "I think she means not to, uh, ... Ok, I'm gonna unload now," Sam said. "Thanks, Sam," Randi said. Randi strode back and moved to climb up, reaching to pat Ayt'han's thigh gently, "Hey, move a little baby, I gotta go see about something." She climbed out of the hatch and stood on the top of the turret, glaring at the Bradley with her hands on her hips. But there was no visible response from the other machine. Ayt'han only looked at her, not knowing what was going on. But he loved that ass, he thought. "What is wrong?" Rudhi called over from the back of her horse as Randi jumped down and began to stride across the few yards which separated the vehicles.