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Ancient Watchtowers Ch.01

By: TaLtos6



This has been a long while coming, mostly because I've been busy, got a new laptop - which failed right in the middle the first time through, and assorted other many factors.

The dog ate my homework, ok?

The dates in this - 

You'll notice that the years move A LOT and not in the right order at first. Part of the reason is that the character's POV might not be accurate in either time or place. It has to do with where they are most of the time. That'll straighten itself out as the story goes and I hope that the reader can see why they might be wrong.

The beginning is based on an actual event, but after that bit I take you off into the weeds for the vast majority of it.

The characters move elsewhere later on, most of them and I keep the majority of the ones who are fun to write.

The style of speech shifts a little, and is in no way any attempt at accuracy, since some things, I wrote out of humor.

Later on in subsequent chapters, you'll come across some interesting types and before I spring a weird name on you, I'll post the pronunciation of it in my intro for that chapter.

Hope you like it.

0_o

*****

Wyoming, 1870AD

--------

It was a hot day and Nila was still wandering. 

She wasn't hungry, though she knew that she'd need to give some thought to eating at some point later on. For now though, she was ambling alone just inside the woods side of the line which seemed to demarcate the boundary between those woods and the grassland.

It was better than being consumed by the fire that she felt in her heart.

Nila had once had a family. 

She'd been a relatively content young woman of twenty-two winters, and she had a place in her tribe. It had been a slightly unusual place, but that didn't matter so much to her, though it did sometimes bother her parents when they'd been alive. 

Twenty-two winters was rather far into the time when she ought to have been married. By now, she should have a man and a few little ones of her own. Well, maybe not even so little by now.

If she'd been like a lot of the other girls, she'd have been married at thirteen or fourteen and by now, she'd be getting to the age where her children would begin to have children themselves in another few years or so.

But though she was attractive enough to catch the eye of a brave quite easily if he came from elsewhere and didn't know her, it was often only minutes before he knew from being told by one of the men of the tribe in the area. 

They spoke quietly of the way that her mother had raised her, teaching her what a girl needed to know. They spoke even more quietly of the way that her father had raised her to know of the spirit world, and perhaps more to the point, to know how to be a solitary hunter, gatherer and even warrior, since she was just left alone a lot of the time by the others her age. Most of what she learned wasn't something that was ever taught to girls.

Perhaps most quietly of all, the men would speak to the newcomer of Nila's tragedy along with their own. They'd all suffered, but they still had bands to be a part of. 

Nila was the last of hers.

As many young men prepare to leave the last of the trappings of their time as boys behind and take their spirit-walk, the same time had come for Nila, though it came later, when she was about eighteen. It was a little unusual for a girl to take a spirit-walk, but it was not unheard of among them.

The spirit that she found might have been said to have found her at the same time. 

When asked to tell of it, Nila had known that there was something very different indeed about the one whom she'd met and even communed with. It hadn't only been a time of quiet and spiritual observation and introspection as they'd joined their spirits. 

Oh, there had been the joining of their spirits as they'd come to accept each other just as should have happened.

But really, otters and elk and eagles and the more usual sorts of creatures which helped young braves to become men didn't really do that by actually speaking.

Nila's had.

During the few times that she said much of it at all, Nila told of joining her spirit with that of a female wolf, since it had been the closest thing that anyone might have understood. But in reality, that female was something else entirely.

No matter, to Nila's mind. She'd been taught so much then.

She'd carried on, just a young woman of the Northern Shoshone or 'Snake' Indians. Her band was an off-shoot of the Snakes and were tied to them by familial bonds. She wasn't ostracized or anything like that since there was no reason for it. She was just allowed to go her way and that way was to be alone for most of the time unless someone had a need of her medicines. 

Now and then over the next two and a half to three years, Nila went sometimes to seek out her spirit guide and she usually found her waiting far from anyone, knowing as she did that Nila would come. The last time had marked a change, as several things happened.

The 'wolf' mentioned that she was leaving, since Nila now knew all which could be taught and had been able to demonstrate the knowledge to the other's satisfaction.

She also spoke of dark times which lay before Nila and her people and not being known to them, she was choosing to get out of the way of the coming storm which she foresaw.

Last of all, she bit Nila - since the young woman had asked for it from almost the beginning.

Nila was gone for perhaps a fortnight overall that last time, parting with her guide forever after learning the last secrets of controlling what surged through her. She traveled back to her tribe and others in the dead of winter, 1863.

They were camped at what was then known to the Shoshone as Willow Valley; their winter range and traditional hunting ground at the confluence of Beaver Creek and the Bear River.

If Nila had been there only the night before her arrival, she'd have noticed the presence of United States Army troops not far off.

The past few years had seen rising tensions between the Shoshone of all sorts - and there were many as well as the Northern Pahutes, Utes, and Bannock against the white immigrants and settlers. Willow Valley now had to feed many more people and many kinds of the traditional game on which the Indians relied had disappeared and they were for the most part destitute and starving in the lands which had always fed them.

It led to incidents on both sides, made all the worse as most often happens by the usually-erroneous assumptions of the parties involved. 

There had been livestock thefts attributable to starving Shoshone and a detachment of army troops was sent to recover the cattle. Four men were captured who did not appear to be related to the theft. That didn't matter. The commander ordered that the cattle be delivered by noon the next day or the men would be shot.

So they were shot and their bodies thrown into the Bear River.

And then there had been some very real and documented attacks in retribution afterwards and the rising tensions led up to the flash point.

Over what was likely the coldest night thus far that winter on January 28/29, 1863, the Indians and the Army faced temperatures of -20 Fahrenheit. 

The Indians were armed with whatever firearms that had. 

The army troops had been issued 40 rounds of rifle ammunition, plus 30 rounds of pistol ammunition per man, and there were two hundred rounds of shells available for the two Mountain Howitzers which were along on the trip. 

The artillery pieces never made it, having gotten stuck in snow drifts miles away. Still, there were sixteen thousand rounds of ammunition on the army side alone.

It began about 6:00am, and the part which could be termed the battle lasted until about 8:00am or shortly after. That was when the Indians ran out of ammunition.

That was when the feeble command of some of the army units failed utterly to control them and it became the Bear River Massacre.

With nothing to return fire with anymore, tomahawks and bows came into play on the defender's side, and after that, many of the soldiers lost control completely. What followed was just murder. After killing the men and most of the children, the soldiers turned on the women.

The Army commander reported the death toll at 224 out of 300 braves, leaving 160-odd surviving women and children. He was made a brigadier General for it and received a brevet promotion to Major General.

The residents of the nearby town of Franklin reported far fewer living women and children. A Danish immigrant walked the field and counted 493 dead; both sexes, all ages.

Besides the cold temperatures, there was deep snow which had hampered the combatants and non-combatants alike. It was one of the reasons why Nila didn't arrive until the late during the next night.

Besides a corpse which might have been one of her sisters, Nila never saw or heard from her parents, brother, two other sisters, the small children of one of them - or any of the other members of her particular band ever again.

There were still United States Army troops in the area, a large part of that presence made up by the 2nd Regiment, California Volunteer Cavalry.

It was seen as a little mysterious at the time, but more than a few of those troops never left the area alive either. 

And that was after the battle. 

Pickets and sentries seemed to disappear in the dark, and at first there had been suppositions of desertion, since it was widely known that there were discipline problems in that unit and many of the men wanted a portion of their pay held back to pay for sea passage to the eastern coast so that they might do their duty in the civil war which had begun to rage then.

When that request was denied, there was almost open talk of desertion.

But the missing men - though they were never found or accounted for - hadn't deserted their posts.

They'd been hunted.

By the faint glow of dawn, a few of the Shoshone survivors who still huddled around small fires had seen - or thought that they'd seen - a running and gore-covered creature of vengeance. They said nothing of it to the troops.

By the time that dawn actually arrived, there was some wonder at all of the large wolf tracks, but then some 'wiser' heads prevailed and said that the animals had been attracted to the carnage to eat what they could, fading away before the sky lightened.

If there had been any Shoshone hunters left alive and in a mood to speak to the Army, they'd have likely noticed a few details.

There had been no carrion-eating, other than what could be attributed to a few dogs and, ...

All of the larger tracks had been left by the same single creature.

All of the tracks had been the impressions of only rear feet.

Over the next few years, Nila took an active part in other conflicts, and by then, the addition of a lean and battle-hardened woman warrior hardly even raised any eyebrows while the Snake War raged over four years from 1864 - 68. Nila still looked much the same however; a lovely, though fierce-eyed woman of about twenty-two whom no one knew much of anything about at all. She was left alone for the most part and that suited her.

She found eventually that it was an oversimplified view to hate the immigrants out of principle alone. Besides, it wasn't always easy to determine what sort they were or their intentions by only looking at them and what they wore.

She'd come across families in her travels. It would have been so easy to kill them all, but she didn't, and almost all of them had never known it when she'd been there and gone. The ones who had known it were the ones who wondered about the loss of an animal. It didn't happen often, but when it did, Nila tried to find people whose property told her that they'd likely not feel the loss all that much. None of the losses were attributable to any sort of human activity. 

That much was plain from the remains which were found.

But soldiers, Nila thought as she smiled a little grimly to herself; that was another thing entirely. How convenient that they all dressed alike. 

Whenever she'd found them, what happened then was a different sort of tale. In the annals and archives of the U.S. Army, there are records of platoon-sized elements who'd walked right off the earth it seemed, and were never seen or heard from again.

Nila's thoughts on the matter ended as she stopped in mid-stride and stood stone-still for a moment after her eyes registered a motion some yards ahead. Seeing that the motions of her walking hadn't been seen, she sank down a little to learn what she could.

She saw a horse up ahead, standing in the shade of the woods just out of the sunlight. The animal was large enough for it's size to make an impression on Nila and she'd known horses all of her life. A little thought told her that this wasn't perhaps the largest of the working types that she'd seen, but if it wasn't, then it was as near as dammit to her. The animal stood with it's head raised at a curious angle; one which was not natural for this type of beast when at rest or only standing.

She moved a little closer and was careful in even the way that she made her observations. Something was wrong, but she couldn't really determine what it was. Curious now, she made to get closer still - though she was still well over a hundred feet away by then. That was when most of this became clear to her.

This horse wore a bridle and no saddle. The bridle was tethered with a thick rope - one which was strong enough to withstand the way that the beast stood pulling back on it, snorting and breathing it's fear in and out.

Everything fell into place then. This horse had been elsewhere and for one reason or another had pulled it's stake and run off. Somehow, that stake had gotten wedged into a place among some trees or roots and the animal was trapped unless it moved in the other direction.

Nila noticed the cautious movement not far from the horse then as it whinnied and began to pull on it's tether frantically. Even from this distance, Nila could see those wide, fear-filled eyes.

Another look was all that she needed to see the rest of this drama as the pieces moved into place. Six, ... no, seven wolves, all slowly closing to where they'd soon take up their positions partially ringed around the trapped equine.

She thought about it quickly and decided as she sank a little lower into the cover of the tall grass.

Quite often, life was decided by chance and the opportunities which were presented.

Sometimes you got to eat when you saw the chance of it. She shifted and began to tense as she pressed her large toes into the ground to give herself the best starting traction.

Sometimes, you only got to watch as the chance was taken from you by another.

One against seven could be long odds, perhaps, but not if you were quick about it and they didn't see you coming.

The wolves found their strategy disrupted as two of the outlying members of the pack fell writhing and fighting to get clear of something which had assailed them and was no longer there. The air was filled with the alarmed and painful yelps and cries of the wounded.

The others snapped their heads around at the sounds, which was what Nila wanted in this - since it gave her the chance to come from behind them as well, now that she'd swung around them and was on her way back in.

In only heartbeats, she'd damaged four and the others grew frightened and drew together snarling in all directions, their noses finally getting into the game to tell them that there was more than a terrified horse here. The unconscious reaction of their hackles standing might have been engineered by nature to make them appear to be larger and more formidable in their appearance.

But Nila knew that they saw that their pack structure hadn't saved them and they were all just scared shitless. She rose to stand on her hind legs as her own snarls began at last, since the alpha male looked to be about stupid enough to want to push this. 

His female and the other unharmed one moved to stand with him, but as their warnings to her began, so did she - and the pack was leaderless as the male lay dying seconds later.

The trick, she told herself, was to barrel in and go right on through, never even slowing as she went. They were fast, but as she was, she was much faster, and she'd let the idiot have all of her attention.

The remnants began to withdraw and the seven were down to four with only two of them untouched by her. She allowed it, choosing not to try to harry them. 

She stepped over to the last pack member who was on his side, still struggling and trying to get his hind legs under him. With a severed spine just in front of his hips, that wasn't ever going to happen and she made sure that the rest heard his last yelping screams.

As she stepped back, she saw that they were alone, her and the horse.

Nila looked at the thick tree which stood just a little closer to the animal and with a bit of effort - since the horse wasn't helping things here, Nila wrenched the stake free and clutching the rope tightly, she jumped around to the other side of the trunk to use it as a crude pulley.

She began to speak to the animal in low tones as she pulled. 

Nothing much happened, since the mare was still terrified, having smelled the blood and seen her. But whenever she had the chance of it, every time that the animal eased up just the slightest amount on the rope, Nila took up the slack.

It came to a point where they were almost side by side with the tree in between them and there was an almost palpable tension there and in more than only the rope. She was looking at the horse's wide eyes, deciding that this was close enough. To pull even more now, would only take one of those eyes out of her view, so she stood and only waited.

And then it happened; the moment when the animal regarded her and Nila held the beast's gaze as tightly as she held the rope.

It was a long moment, but at the end of it the animal relaxed rather slowly and cautiously and Nila eased up on her pull accordingly.

"You will still need me, large friend," she crooned softly, "The wolves will seek you again."

She wrapped the rope around the tree trunk twice more and then she dropped the end and held it with her foot. In the physics of this, Nila held the frictional advantage now and she reached over slowly to try to untie the other end of the rope. 

"Have a little trust and wait. I seek to free you."

The horse stood stone-still and the end of the rope fell free two minutes later.

She was cautious about it, but Nila stepped over slowly and reached for the horse, and they stood together as she crooned at her and stroked her head, neck and shoulder for a long while.

In her own way, the horse came to understand things then, and looping the reins over past the ears to lay them on the horse's back, Nila stepped around and jumped up as gently as she could.

There was a bit of nervousness still in the horse, but Nila changed back and it was done.

They moved off together, the large mare and the naked woman riding her.

After half an hour, once she'd led her new friend to a field where there was some sweetgrass to eat, they headed off to the shore of the nearby lake that Nila had seen through the trees. 

She wasn't familiar with the area, but to her mind, a lake was now what she wanted to see, and in only moments, they thundered along it, the animal knowing that she was not the prisoner of her new friend, but happy to have her along as she felt so alive to run and feel joy for it. 

Nila felt joy as well and grinned as she held on with her legs clutching the sides of her large friend and no matter which way that she tried to hold herself, she was usually well-pleased by the pounding motions.

--------

She decided that they needed a home, since living where they were meant trying to survive through a cold winter most years. The answer to that came to her a little later as she rode along the shore of the lake a little slowly. She hadn't been thinking of it directly, but the thought came to her again as she found the opening to a cave.


Ancient Watchtowers Ch.01



Not long after she began to explore it, and wondering why it wasn't filled with bat dung, she found out two things - other than it was the strangest cave that she'd ever seen and there was something to it which she felt as a comfort - a strong sense of natural and very earthy magic. There was a stream right through one cavern and the water tasted good, so that settled it.

The main cave itself was large and seemed strangely unoccupied at first and would only require perhaps a month of solid sweeping to clean all of the loose driftwood and junk out, and ...

She'd never even begin to get that done until she resolved another issue.

There actually was an inhabitant.

Her first clue had been the well picked-over and not very old bones lying here and there.

Her second clue was more direct, coming to her in the snarling challenge much later in the day after she'd been away hunting. 

There was perhaps the very last of the sabre-toothed cats living there. Nila knew nothing of it or it's kind, but she knew in an instant that the animal was in more danger from the tide of newcomers than she was. He put up a good front, but she could see easily that he felt very alone.

Their first meeting had been a very tense one, only minutes after she'd tried to dress out a buck in the dunes outside of her doorway. As the animal had circled to see what had been found, Nila saw that it was a male and almost stared at what she saw there.

She'd always thought that the sac which men kept their stones in was a little funny-looking, almost like a humorous afterthought which the creator had added on a whim.

But his wasn't like that. She saw that he held his large stones in a tight furry pouch close to his body and she had an idle thought wondering what that might feel like in her hand. She went back to dressing out her buck, while keeping one eye on her large visitor. 

He came closer, sniffing, but not in a direct manner. Nila wondered who he thought that he was fooling with it.

That was when she saw the two cubs, hanging back among the dunes, doing what they'd been 'told' she guessed, being good little ones. But it was no stretch to see that they were hungry.

Finally, the cat stepped up with a growl and tried to take the carcass.

Nila yelled and drove the heel of her fist into the thing's nose faster than even he could see it coming. It caused him to step back and wonder why Nila wasn't backing down. 

He roared and Nila screamed angrily back and a while later, Nila was almost done and grinning at the realization of the power of the female human voice when it was used in a scolding manner.

She didn't try to push her luck however, and she heaved the big boy a haunch after she'd skinned it. He carried it off a little way and began to eat the meat off it, but then he did something that Nila would never have been prepared for.

He came back with it, very near to the place where Nila sat cooking a little meat over her beach fire. He laid down and then looked more comfortable and happy. The cubs got the idea and came forward to look at Nila as though she was something unreal, and yet they felt drawn to her anyway.

She pulled out her knife and cut some meat to hold out to them carefully. One after the other, they came as quickly as they dared, looking often at the adult to see if it was alright. 

It made Nila smile. She couldn't help it.

She could see that both of them were males and not large, so she wondered about the whereabouts of the mother who must surely be in the cave as well or at least nearby somewhere. But even after the two little ones had gotten over their uncertainty and were trying to engage her in play like hugely overgrown housecats, no female ever came.

She didn't know the exact way of things here, but she guessed that the cubs were weaned. They'd better be, she thought to herself. She couldn't help them. But the way that they ate what she offered them told her that they were off the teat anyway, though maybe not by that much.

Nila kept up her watchfulness, however, thankful that if she had to defend herself, she wasn't a mere woman anymore.

She looked over at the large one often, and if anything, she was very surprised to get the impression that he seemed pleased that she was there and even approved of her careful play with the kittens.

Kittens, she smiled to herself. These two must already weigh twenty pounds each, though one was a bit larger and appeared to be somewhat dominant. As hard as she watched for it however, she didn't see anything which caused her to believe that the smaller one wasn't happy with the arrangement. 

When their meals were done, the large one surprised her again when she'd stood up, thinking to hang the rest of her meat in a tight little alcove that she'd seen where he'd have a lot of trouble getting to it to steal from her.

To her amazement, he walked next to her as she carried the meat, and even after she'd hung it, watching carefully for any treacherous moves on his part, he'd remained with her and wouldn't leave her, no matter what she tried as discouragement. 

Words and scolding only made him look worried, and when he'd almost pushed her over walking past with his loud and ragged purring, she knew that he wouldn't kill her as she slept. She suddenly didn't want to try to drive him off by throwing anything at him.

Since that time, Nila always gave something, and she always made time to sit with him and talk to him quietly. 

It paid dividends. The monster had been very lonely and was the best housebeast that anyone could want. Better than that, he loved to let her lie on him, so she knew that her cold nights were a thing of the past. 

Well, after she'd gotten through to them all that she expected them to do their business in one cavern and not all over the place.

The soft sand on the floor of the chamber that she set aside for it helped a lot, but really ...

She could have used a shovel.

So she made one and the place was a lot more pleasant to be in after that.

Still, he could be a smelly thing, no matter how well he cleaned himself and the cubs. So one day, Nila changed into her other shape slowly and in plain sight of him before she lured the little ones into the stream to wash them. 

That turned into a game, oh yes.

She'd been trying to get it into their heads that she didn't appreciate them using their claws if she played with them and it was working for the most part. But her washing attempts just turned into a happy free-for-all and Nila had to be careful and try to see their claws coming when they really got into it. 

But she got it done and the brothers scampered off after a while to torment something else.

Nila looked over at the father and stepped out to begin her coaxing to him.

In the end, she almost dragged him into the cold stream by the ear, exhorting him all the way, and praising him like crazy for going along with it. 

She learned as she washed him that he could be carefully playful, though she had to be watchful not to drown during the process. He thought that it was great fun to push her over or flip her with one of his huge paws. The disadvantage lay in her having to resume being a woman, since with them both on four feet, she couldn't wash him very effectively at all.

There was no soap, so it had to be done patiently, relying on the water to do it's part as the universal solvent that it was.

She washed him front to back and top to bottom - especially bottom, wanting more than anything to see if it would improve his scent. It didn't make it go away, but it was much reduced and she found that she liked it then.

She spoke to him the whole time, in a low voice which she knew that he wouldn't understand, asking him what had happened to his female and if he liked her washing him - anything that she could think of to say, really. She wanted to engage him and keep him engaged by putting up a wall of her soft chatter, also hoping to lull him a little more so that she could do this.

From the gentle washing, Nila learned that it felt really good to hold his large, furry balls when she got to that part of things. They just felt really good in her hands, though she had to fight the urge to try to roll them around in there because she didn't know if she'd hurt him by doing it. 

She guessed that she might find out one day, because she was determined by that point not to allow him to go long without another bath ever again - unless there were environmental reasons, not knowing how cold it might get in the cavern during winter.

The last part gave her the most trouble.

She knew a little about cats, and the way that she saw it, what he had inside of his sheath was going to require cleaning as well. What she knew of men was that - if this boy was anything like them, her efforts would need her gentlest touch and depending on what she found, it could well require a bit of time the first time to get clean.

Her people were a clean bunch in her opinion and she often saw boys and men cleaning that bit when she'd seen them washing in a stream or a river, so she thought that it must be something required. She wasn't completely without knowledge on the subject. 

Before their deaths, she'd helped her sister bathe her children and she'd even carefully washed these same parts on her little nephews a few times.

The two cubs hadn't been much trouble at this stage of things, but they were only small and not mature, so there wasn't the issue of the strong musk that the father could put out just by being himself.

The internal discussion over with, Nila reached and began.

It soon became apparent that there was a difference here. There wasn't just a foreskin; there was a whole thick sheath and he didn't seem to be very much in favour of her just hauling it back to wash there.

She shrugged to herself and knelt down next to him, telling him as she began in words which he wouldn't understand what she was trying to do and why it had to be done. She only hoped that her tone might carry a little of it.

She reached back under him and was surprised a moment later to feel the warmth of him there and finding a little resistance, she decided to settle on maybe trying to tease him a bit to see if it might get more of what was hidden there to come out and be cleaned.

She stopped after a few moments, mostly because he'd moved against her and she could no longer see what she was doing since his side was against her face.

She chuckled and asked him if he liked this cleaning and looked.

He was looking back at her with his mouth open and his tongue hanging out between those huge daggers that he had for teeth. His eyes were closed and he was panting a little.

Nila decided that the answer was a resounding yes and got back to work, wanting this over and done before he got any other ideas.

His shaft emerged fully and she knew a couple of things at once.

His kind was very different from the cats that she'd known, since it wasn't exactly a tiny little thing like those ones had. She'd even seen mountain lions mating and for all of the noise of it, she'd never actually seen a thing on the males, other than their balls.

The other thing that she learned was the reason why the females always screamed.

There were stiff little spikes in a wide ring at the very base, once the sheath was fully back. Her eyes opened wide and she had to move over to see, but there they were, as pinkish white in their glory as the rest of that thing. She tested them by seeing if they were rigid by moving her thumb.

They weren't completely rigid and he seemed to like that even more.

She finished up a little hurriedly out of consideration for him, and then she was out of the stream and trying to coax him out after her, not wanting him to lie down inside the cave to ruin the work that she'd done until he was dry.

She wondered at that point about his inertia. It had been work to get him in here and now it looked as though he wanted to remain, since he was there and all. She made a quick change into the wolf and tried to haul him out.

No, he wanted to stay.

She walked out on all fours then and stood up, walking out to make her way out into the sunshine outside the main entrance.

The wind had almost died away somehow and she took it as a good thing that for once, it wasn't even a little cold out here. She smiled as she looked around herself and then dropped back down to walk on four legs out into the dunes, almost expecting to be pounced on by the cubs, but it didn't happen. She shook herself to get most of the water off and she thought to take a drink from the lake.

You had to be a little careful near the shore or you'd get some sand in with your handful from the action of the waves. The answer to that was to walk in and take your handful from further out, but she didn't feel like that with the sun just beginning to work it's magic on her furry back.

She changed her mind and was about to turn around when she felt warm breath and whiskers very near to her back end.

He'd followed her out into the sunshine. 

She told him to stop unless he wanted to learn more about her than she was sure that he really wanted to know, but he didn't stop his now-noisy snuffling.

She was about to snarl at him, but she found that she couldn't. 

It felt so good.

She almost jumped straight into the lake when his rough tongue slid over her in a wide swath from her pubic mound to past her little asshole there under her tail. It had been a rude shock and she dug her paws into the sand in preparation to spin around and let him know about her lack of interest by removing some of his face.

Before she could, however ...

He did it again, the roughness smoothing out to a warm and friendly sensation just after beginning. The next lick paused as he sought, trying to learn about her different geography and Nila groaned, almost helpless.

Even as she thought of it, it seemed a little absurd, yet strangely fitting - the thought of a female werewolf being helpless because a huge male cat was licking her.

She wanted him to stop long enough for her to get clear. She wanted him to stop; she need - ... needed him to do it again.

At least a few hundred times.

She felt the angle change at about the time that she felt and heard him settle onto the sand. One great paw was against the side of her calf, very near to her knee and the other ... 

The other was on her hip, holding her as he pressed in with his face, nuzzling and licking.

Nila found herself pushing back and only stopped when she felt those long teeth against either side of her mound. His tongue was soft now and he was slipping it deep inside of her every time.

It went on for many minutes and Nila shuddered and groaned loudly many times. She just couldn't help it. He was so warm and the feel of his fur and whiskers ...

And then he was gone, quite abruptly.

She lifted her head, thinking that there might be a threat that he'd noticed. She felt extremely foolish if that was the case and wondered how he'd managed to get her to let her guard down so completely.

She only had time to look once in each direction before she tried to look back, wondering where he'd gone. 

She found her answer in his weight on her hips and back.

She tried to move, but he was heavier than she was and ... and ...

And then she felt him seeking her opening and there wasn't really a thing that she could ... 

Well, that she wanted to do, but hold still for him and hope that he found the right place.

He did as it turned out and as he sank himself into her, Nila decided that she wanted it more than anything.

He was heavy certainly, but she found that she could bear it easily and the way that he held her felt so natural, his huge forearms holding her just a little tightly, just enough so that she knew that she was his for this now.

She tried, but she found that she couldn't buck backward against him, more than just a little and she contented herself with that. As a human woman, she'd had larger men, on the very rare occasions when that had happened, but that was only in girth, she supposed. What he had was amazing and she almost felt herself free and flying in whatever happy place that he was taking her to.

She shuddered and then she just bucked as hard as she could, wanting it to go on forever. She'd never imagined anything like it, the way that those little things that he had could drive her yelping in happiness every time that they pushed and nudged against her labia.

She opened her eyes and realized that this was more animal than anything that she'd ever done in this shape. It was wanton and pure and lustful.

And wonderful.

Even if her open mouth was leaving a puddle of drool in the sand under her.

She'd never have even had the thought of doing it with a man when she was in her wilder shape. Somehow she knew that they wouldn't have understood her greater need like this. But her big boy cat sure knew all about it somehow.

This was where he lived after all.

She cried out again in her joy, hearing her own voice telling him that she wanted him like this forever.

She knew that he couldn't understand, but she didn't care. It felt so fine that she had to lower her front a little, wanting him even deeper. It worked and she didn't know if it had been her words or her tone or ... or maybe it had been her changing things, but it spurred him somehow and he was giving it to her hard and very fast now.

Her voice was already raw from her cries and she knew that soon, all that she'd be able to offer him were her rough croaks.

But he shifted then and she felt his paws grip her hips tightly enough to cause her to feel thankful that they were backed up by her hipbones for the tight way that he held her. 

One stroke more ... two ... three... 

Nila's mind reeled in a blinding, searing flash of white pain and intense joy. She screamed and yelled and screamed and screamed again and again as he dug that thing into her cruelly out of his need to give her his seed.

Somewhere in it, she even felt it come to her, hot and pleasant like a glowing ball of heat which stayed and glowed someplace deep within her for a little while.

She knew why female cats always screamed.

That was all that she knew as she collapsed.

------

She heard swishing water and rumbling, the sounds of both coming to her in waves, and something rough against her cheek.

When she opened her eyes, she saw water, but there was something wrong, since it was upside down in her view and she felt it lapping against the top of her head. It felt cold to her.

The rough part on her face turned out to be the 'boys', who'd shown up and seemed worried over her lack of movement, she guessed. She tousled their heads and pushed them away after a moment.

What didn't feel cold were the warm and gentle strokes of a wide tongue in between her legs.

He was licking her very slowly and most of all, very, very, softly.

She looked down - or up as the case may be - and found herself on her back, being seen to properly by her large friend, whose feelings on the matter were quite easy to determine, given the sound that he was making.

It was a bit of a struggle, but she managed to sit up slowly in increments, moving her hands behind her as carefully as she could. She didn't know the full effects of what they'd done to their relationship by their mating. And she didn't want to think about it at the moment.

At the moment, she just wanted to sit up without changing the angle very much.

He was doing something nice for her and she knew it, so she didn't want him to stop. She just wanted to look at him and ... and ruffle the fur on that great head very slowly and affectionately.

She pulled her legs back one after the other and planted her feet in the sand to give him better access to her and she decided that she liked his ears and the way that they tickled her thighs like this.




Ancient Watchtowers Ch.01



It did change things as it turned out, but overall she liked it. He seemed to have some idea that she was particularly bright, and that no matter what, she was in charge and he didn't mind it, since she always helped him.

But there were other things which couldn't be gotten around and Nila had to come to a few realizations after a lot of wondering thought over the next few days as they repeated it often.

He wasn't stupid and he'd learned that her want of him didn't necessarily coincide with her being in season. He liked that because he could see that she was available to him far more often.

But he now considered her to be his and the young ones quite obviously now regarded her as something less of a curiosity and more like somebody that they watched for signs of what they ought to do or how they should act, taking their cues from her body language - as much as they could interpret it, anyway.

From the way that the male now acted in a similar manner, that wasn't a bad thing, necessarily. She just knew that she'd always have to be doubly-vigilant in her travels, because she knew that he'd probably throw his life away to protect her. 

As large and fierce as he was at times, she knew well the damage that firearms could do, whereas he'd have no idea of his peril. The same went without saying for the boys.

Nila knew that between them now, she was his female as well as some type of surrogate mother to the young ones and it caused her to have her own struggles. But over the course of a long day and night, she came to see that as what she was - besides a human woman - she was unlikely to ever take a human man, other than those rare times when she found one that she liked enough for it and if it even happened at all.

It came to her with a sting of sadness that every time with a man, it had to end. She could never let him see her other side. 

She threw her arm around the big cat's neck and wondering about it a little, she began to kiss him, needing to stop and laugh now and then at his comical expression.

This male knew about her and he wanted her anyway. That changed a lot of things for her almost instantly.

Her thoughts allowed her to smile as she laid her leg over her huge new mate. 

She had them. 

Always warm. Always happy with her, and always eager to be with her. And the most amazing thing about them all to her mind, was that she never, ever grew tired of them and they could always make her feel better, just by being their furry selves.

Nila didn't mind it so much when the realization came to her. It wasn't anything that she'd have ever wanted before, but she found herself with a family in a very real way and she even liked it.

He rolled onto his back and she just accepted it, moving to get her leg over a little more so that she could kneel astride him, though it was a stretch.

She didn't change for the moment and she lowered herself so that she could rub her sex against his for a little while. But that didn't last for long.

She wanted him again, so she changed so that they'd fit better and it felt so good to her to lie down on his large chest after getting them together.

She'd loved what they'd done before, now that she'd made her mind up. But this way, she was in more control and she relished it, knowing that she could hold herself away from those little spines.

It didn't matter in the end, and she accepted that too. When the feeling was on her, she'd jammed herself down and howled out her joy all the same.

Afterwards, she looked over and saw that the boys were mimicking them, not that they knew what it had been about at all. The larger one held his brother down and it was obviously a show of his domination between them, and the smaller one didn't seem to mind - not that anything was even going on.

The big male didn't even bother the horse - well after the first and only time. Her cat weighed over five hundred pounds, but one kick from the big mare settled things and they left each other alone after that.

What astounded Nila was the way that he made sounds to his sons, warning them in a stern way to keep away from the horse themselves. Being young, it didn't quite work that well, but his gentle follow-up swats got the message through and there was no trouble after that.

One of Nila's favourite things about where she lived was the complete absence of people. She never saw even one. A lot of the soil in the area was very sandy and other than for growing evergreen trees, it wasn't good for very much in the way of the kind of crops that settlers wanted to grow. 

When she needed to, Nila took the cats out when she hunted. The only trouble was that after bringing down any game, Nila rarely wanted what her hunting partner and his sons left for her, preferring to hunt up another kill and spare some of that for later. 

Besides being her mostly silent and constant companions, Nila always enjoyed the evenings spent leaning against the animal - especially over that first winter, and she loved to hold her two boys when they crawled to her, quite obviously needing to sleep against her. 

It signalled an end of things for the night to her male, though she sometimes allowed him to take her gently while she lay holding her new sons. There were times when she felt him in another place and though the first time had alarmed her, he'd been extremely slow and gentle and she'd moved her tail to allow it, even liking it at the end of the day, since the position prevented those spines from getting near her.

The cubs sought at first to begin to suckle a little, once they'd figured out what was what, and she even allowed that for only short intervals, since their tongues were so often rough. It was just their way to show her their affection and it never lasted long before she pushed them away gently.

But the smaller one seemed to need it more, and she allowed him a little more time at it. She knew that they'd figure out that there was nothing there for them and give up in a little time anyway, but in the meantime she enjoyed the closeness.

--------

Europe, 1186AD

Loriel gaped as she stepped into the largest part of the cavern yet. She was looking for a new home and she was just coming to the notion that she might have found it. As she walked through cautiously, she looked around and was trying to think of reasons which went against the idea.

She was one of the 'lost tribes' of elves. What that meant was that they'd lost most of their connection to the forests and the others. What it also meant was that she and others like her were what was known as 'gutter elves' to the human people of the towns where they lived - most in poverty.

Loriel was a rogue in a sense, taking what she could where she could get it, stealing what she had to in order to get by and listening and watching as she went. It could be a bit of a precarious existence. The magistrate in the area held no love for her kind and whenever he was presented with the task of adjudicating any matter which involved and concerned any elf, he always ruled against them on principle. 

The sheriffs in any of the jurisdictions where he presided over were all in fear of him and acted as though he was their direct superior.

Thus far, she'd avoided getting caught and having to stand before him. She'd lost a few friends to him though, and told herself that is she ever crossed paths with him a little closer to her turf than his, well, she was known to be accomplished in the use of quick steel in the dark.

It was how she'd earned all of her biggest paydays, after all.

But this place, she wondered as she stepped through a little carefully, trying to be silent, this place was like a temple carved out of the living stone by, ...

She found that she had no answer to it.

Looking around, it wasn't difficult to see well, since here or there, there was a fissure in the ceiling - which she guessed couldn't be too thick - since light filtered down to varying degrees. Moving to stand under one of the thin openings, she looked up and was a little surprised to see by the thickness of the stone that she could see by it's edges was many feet thick. Perhaps it wasn't such a precarious place to be.

There seemed to be many openings in the walls around her, looking to her as though they might have been carved by underground rivers at some point. 

She stood still, listening and in a moment, she heard what she'd been listening for - the soft sound of water flowing some ways off. 

She stepped over to a wall to peer at it with her little torch. It confirmed her earlier thoughts that this place had to have been formed by a subterranean river or the meeting of more than one, perhaps.

She wondered about that and also if this place wasn't just a little far from town. 

She shrugged. How much safer was the sewer that she lived in now? At least this place smelled a lot better. She sensed that there was some form of magic here which permeated the walls. She just wasn't familiar with what it was. She wasn't a mage or a sorceress by any means, though she was fairly well acquainted with most sorts and had some small ability in that regard.

She went on then and came to an opening which had been closed off a little with boards, planks, blocks and other junk which looked to have been washed up here by a flood long ago. She saw a little daylight through it and began to pull away the obstructions.

The best sort of opening that she could make without tearing it all away forced her to remove her leather pack from her shoulders and lift it through after her.

Something felt very odd to her as she'd squeezed through and it wasn't until she was on the other side and stepping out on the twisting path through the boulders into a second, smaller chamber that she noticed.

Her clothing was gone.

Well not gone perhaps so much as it appeared to have just fallen away. She looked down at the few scraps of fabric there and picked one of them up. It seemed to disintegrate right there in front of her eyes, looking as though it was hundreds of years old. 

She could see that her return to the town might get a little interesting as she looked at herself. All that she had left on her body was her leather harness, a series of straps and snap rings which lay at the heart of her craft and trade. 

When she wore clothes, the article was worn hidden between layers. There was a collar and at the back, just near her shoulder blades were the sheaths for her daggers. There was an arrangement of leather over her breasts, not to hold them so much, though they did still at least cover her nipples now and that was all. 

Mostly her tits were now officially out there. 

Normally, it allowed for a few thin spaces there for her to hide small articles pinched from pockets or purses, since there was the lining. But the lining was now gone, along with the rest. 

Now the leather strapping just cupped her breasts and only in a stripe over each of her nipples. Below that, some of the harness was missing - since she now remembered that it had been canvas. So all that was left was the strap and buckle which passed between her legs to meet with the rest at the small of her back.

She noticed that at least, she still wore her long and supple boots and still had her long cuffed fine leather gauntlets, cinched as they were up her arms to above her elbows.

She smiled, thinking that she looked like a fine, saucy, thieving whore like this and decided not to worry about her clothing until it was time to leave. After that, well, she'd worry.

A lot.

She put out her small stick-torch and wondered for a moment where she'd put it, since her pockets were missing. She shrugged and slid the little stick in between two of the straps over her right breast. It was a rather magic article which her aunt had left her when she'd died. Unless it was pouring rain, she'd always have enough light and the second after it was out, there was no heat to it at all. She set her pack down next to a wall and looked further.

Hearing some wet, quiet sounds, she went that way. A quick side-trip brought her to another cavern, through which a stream meandered almost silently. The water was cold and tasted good, so she made a mental note on the plus side of her mental ledger, the one which related to finding someplace better to live.

The daylight had been too bright for her eyes just as she'd stepped out into this chamber, but now her eyes were getting used to the outside glare which came to her from the larger opening to the outside world. Without meaning to or noticing it, she'd taken a step forward and looking down again, she saw that she was standing on straw and that there was some hay in here, and even a large trough of water.

She must have stumbled out into somebody's stable. She looked down hurriedly and heaved a sigh of relief, finding that she hadn't stepped in anything.

Until just then, she hadn't noticed the sound of the waves. She walked out a little slowly, looking around and being sure to turn around so that she'd know the way back.

She slowly walked past the rocks and boulders, following a slightly twisting pathway down to the sand.

She looked back again and smiled. Aside from the tracks of at least one horse, the way in and out was hidden from view fairly well. The rogue in her just appreciated these things.

Looking around a little, she saw small sand dunes held in place by the grasses which grew there. She walked down across the beach and crossed the wet sand at the edge to where the waves lapped against the sand.

That was when she noticed a few things about her surroundings.

She turned around and looked back. She could see no way to get to the top of the long and large cliff that the opening was in. The only water that she could see was what crashed against the shore. Yet there had been water in that trough inside. 

Unless somebody went to a lot of trouble every day, the water here must be fresh and not the salted water of an ocean. Even slogging a pair of buckets of it up from the shore a few times to water a horse would be work, walking in soft sand. She thought of the stream then and it made more sense, not being that far at all to carry water.

She looked at the sky and wondered. She guessed that maybe she'd been inside and wandering for maybe three quarters of an hour. When she'd slipped in through the outside opening an hour's hike from the village, it had been - at most - mid-morning. Yet it was looking here as though evening couldn't be that far away to judge by the brightness and color of the light.

It was windy here but it was also warm. There was a rock not far from the shore which stood up about six or seven feet from the waves and those waves crashed around it, driven in by the wind. There was also an uneven and very stiff swirl of breeze which came from where the wind hit the cliff and it often caught against the waves. 

The result was that the waves lifted up a little before they dashed themselves down and with the low sun trying as it was to penetrate the brooding cloud line in the distance, the waves which were high enough for it - some five feet she guessed - well they were turned amber by the light which penetrated them from the back.

The sight was a rare one to Loriel's mind, and she couldn't recall ever seeing anything like it. She looked up and down the strand as far as she could see.

She was alone.

She stepped forward and walked to the water's edge to squat down and dip her hand in. The water was cool, but not cold and as she raised her hand, cupping it to hold a little of the water, she watched as some particles of sand settled out instantly. A moment later, she tasted it and knew that she'd been correct. This was no ocean.

Loriel might not be a sea elf, and she was far enough removed from all the rest, she thought, but she was elf enough and that gave her a little sensitivity.

She felt the approach of a galloping horse and jumped up to step back and hide herself among the dunes higher up.

But she hadn't been careful - not for a rogue of her kind - especially one who was an elf, and she missed the fact that she'd left tracks to the water's edge and back. She could leave no tracks behind her if she wanted that, but she'd been sloppy.

She looked off in the direction that she knew the animal would be coming from, though for a lot of the time that the animal approached, she couldn't see very much, the grasses hiding the view from her just as effectively as they screened her.

She did see it from perhaps the last two hundred yards and even for who she was, she had to stare and gape.

She saw the heavy beast come running flat-out and looking strangely pleased to be doing it. On the animal's back, ...

She saw a woman, absolutely naked and laughing as she rode that creature, her thighs clamped a little, her knees bent, the flesh of her hips quivering with the beat of the mighty hooves there below her and, ...

Her fine breasts almost dancing as they jiggled.

Loriel was spellbound and she stared on, taking in as many details as she could of this vision from her hiding place.

Her skin ...

Her skin was dark when compared to her own. 

Loriel obviously had none of the High Elves in her blood, and by her own skin tone, she'd always guessed - along with her other female relations, that they'd been some sort of Wood Elves at one time.

But this beauty didn't carry any of that slightly brown tone. Loriel thought of an uncle who made furniture in the village, working in a shop owned by a human master. She'd seen wood of this color before and she remembered that he'd called it mahogany.

Her skin was like that; fairly dark to Loriel's and it was a little reddish.

The woman's face was filled with joy and her head was thrown back for a moment as she laughed, and then they flashed past Loriel's hiding spot, the woman's amazingly long and shimmering black hair flying in the wind and the animal throwing up divots of clumped, wet sand in it's wake.

Looking from behind now, Loriel saw that though the horse wore a bridle, the reins were back on the animal's neck and only held in place by the lightest grasp of two of the woman's fingers. She noticed that the rider sat well forward, suspended above the animal's shoulders by the position of her thighs. 

She was leaning forward a little, her hands placed against the back of the animal's neck.

Loriel stared even more for a second as she admired a backside that lovely.

She was actually a little surprised when she'd noticed that she'd let out a sigh.

The light changed a little subtly then and she looked out over the water, noticing the change in the cloud color. The gathering clouds had won. There was no direct sunlight anymore.

Just dark and brooding clouds.

"One,..." Nila counted as she rode on, "Two, ...

Three."

She snapped her head around for a moment and then she looked forward once more. The girl in the dunes hadn't seen her looking back. A little hard to miss the sets of tracks from the water's edge to the dunes in a place where she hadn't walked herself for days. Still, she wondered at the one she'd gotten a glimpse of.

Not large and with mysteriously slim hips, a beautiful, if unfamiliar face to ones she'd ever seen, though topped by oddly-bound reddish-brown hair and pointed ears. 

And those breasts ...

Nila wondered about the feeling which came to her then. She'd never really been drawn to other females, but she did like what she'd glimpsed back there.

Loriel looked back down the beach at the receding pair for a few seconds and then she turned and began to walk back up to find the trail, wondering a little why it suddenly looked a little gloomy. As she stood, she felt the first drops of rain and wondered about how the change could have come about so quickly.

Before she'd even had the thought that she'd better be getting back, the sky opened up and it teemed down.




Ancient Watchtowers Ch.01



By the time that she turned around, all that there was before her was a silver screen of slightly cold rain. Though she tried to put her feet on the path, Loriel almost couldn't see the wall of rock and she wasn't sure about anything as she stumbled along. The darkening sky threatened to bring nightfall even earlier this night.

The hissing of the downpour was such that she didn't even notice the sounds of the horse and rider as they passed her quietly and found their way inside.

As they passed, Nila saw little, intent on finding her own way back home. As well, she was thinking about the girl that she'd seen and even hoped a little that she'd found the cave.

Loriel was astounded only a minute later. 

She was lost.

An elf and she was lost. How could this be? 

She didn't know and worked her way on until she'd found the wall. At least that was something, she thought, and she began to work her way along it, reasoning that if she didn't come to the opening within a minute or two, then she'd go back and work the other way.

In the stable, Nila stood looking at her mare, as soaked as she was herself. But the animal didn't seem put off in the least as she drank some water and turned to eat from a large depression in the stone which Nila had filled with oats, stolen from a very distant farm over half a day away.

It was warm in here anyway, she decided as she walked over to the opening to look out, wondering what had befallen the woman who had been watching her from hiding.

She hadn't gotten a really good look and was a little sorry for that, but she'd been flying along and one had to keep an eye out no matter what.

She wondered where she'd come from and decided that she'd really never seen anyone who looked like that. She felt the beginning of her concern as she thought about a night out here by the shore all alone. She'd been here with her large friends for most of a year now and as she thought about it, she'd never seen another soul on this beach anywhere.

Her eyebrows rose then as she thought of something else. She really couldn't say that she'd ever been out on the beach even once in that time and noticed that the wind wasn't blowing at least some.

She looked through the pack which the cat had called her to and she saw the powdered and dusty remnants of some food and a little clothing. Other than that, she found only a pair of old-looking weapons, curiously curved daggers of some sort.

She shook her head. She didn't know who it had been, but she hadn't looked threatening or anything and no matter what kind; either one of the people and their many tribes or not, no one deserved to drown by standing in a rain such as this.

There was a flare of lighting as she stepped out into the deluge again. Nila only muttered a quiet curse in response and began to search.

------

Loriel was beginning to feel the cold of the rain. Normally, what she was prevented that, but here, with the sky pouring out like this, it was as though the gods were angry over something, and over the time, the cold was slowly getting through to her.

She'd gone back and forth along the wall several times now, never knowing that she'd have found the doorway if she'd only gone a little farther in one direction. But the force and coolness of the torrent caused her to grow disoriented in time as well as distance and she'd missed it more than three times, moving farther away in the other direction each time. She was now more than a quarter of a mile from the opening. 

She looked for shelter and found none.

The one time that she'd seen a small overhang of soil and headed that way, there had been a mudslide from up above and she'd been glad that she hadn't even gotten there.

She squatted down next to the grass of a dune and thought of her torch.

In something like this pouring flood, there wasn't a chance of getting it lit.

That was where Nila found her.

She wondered how she could help, and knew that she needed to.

She'd have shrugged, but as what she was at the moment, needing to be that for the sensitivity of her nose then, she couldn't shrug much at all.

So she took a breath and slunk forward slowly.

Loriel knew that she wasn't alone a minute later. She could see fairly well in the dark, far better than any human could. But as in anything else this horrible night, the rain made even seeing difficult.

So it came as a large shock to feel the heat of another body close to her own. The next flash of lightning removed the cloak from her eyes as she saw the size of the beast next to her, looking over. Her hand began a slow excursion toward the haft of one of her daggers and she held in her groan to remember that they were in her pack.

The animal tensed as though aware of her thoughts and it moved off and disappeared into the darkness. In the next minute or so, Loriel heard a female voice, and as the sky flickered overhead, she saw the woman who had been riding the horse.

"You should follow and get warm," Nila said.

It sounded very nice to Loriel, but she didn't understand any of it. 

She did stand up though, and she tried to warn the woman of the beast which she'd seen.

The woman shrugged out in the darkness.

Loriel called out to the woman once more, but there was no reply and when the sky flickered again she saw that there was now no one there.

Nila suddenly knew what the trouble was. She could understand many of the dialects of the tribes in this area, even some of the speech of the whites. What she'd heard wasn't even close.

She thought about the structure and the strange words and then she smiled as some of her father's teaching came to her just as it was needed and she sifted through her recollection of what had been said to her.

Loriel did feel the something touch her hand then and she looked down to see the inky shape in the darkness and was even more surprised. When the beast was standing on its four feet, it was the largest wolf that Loriel had ever seen. The animal was trying to hold it's tail against the elf's hand.

There was a ripping, tearing sound in the heavens then as chain lightning flew and flickered from one bank of clouds to the next. In that time, Loriel saw the whole animal, the whole beast as it looked back and began to speak to her very slowly using what words she could recall which might apply

"I would lead you as you saw me, but there are places where you might fall."

The elf was astounded to hear the woman's voice from the wolf and could only stand and wonder.

Nila tried again, "Do ... I say ... it ... wrong?"

The elf made no reply out of her shock.

Then the tail was gone, the animal too, and Loriel stood alone again.

She was startled to find the snout and the head of the wolf beginning to emerge from between her knees from behind. Before she could decide whether to try to jump or not, her feet were leaving the ground and like it or not, she found her weight settling onto the animal's neck.

"Move back ..." The animal said, "We will both drown if I leave it up to you. Lift your feet so that they do not hit anything that I pass and hug me a little with your knees."

Loriel got nothing much of it, but she hung on with her knees and her hands and they began to move slowly in the rain. The rest of the wisdom was a self-learned lesson a moment later as Loriel's toes were pressed against a low boulder. 

She bent her legs and held her feet up. She thought that she heard something then and looked to her right, just as the lightning flared and she saw ... the largest cat there could ever be, looking over as it paced them - and clearly annoyed to be out in the downpour.

She leaned down, trying to get the attention of the one carrying her, "There's a - a big - "

"Yes," the creature said, "I know. We have both been trying to find you to get you out of this. You kept moving and it is hard to track anyone in this.

He will not harm you."

Loriel sat back, trying to peer into the rain, not being so sure of what she'd heard.

Almost ten minutes later, Loriel saw the yawning hole in the rock that she'd tried so hard to find almost in front of her face and then they were out of the rain. She got off and watched in a bit of wonder as the wolf shook herself off and stood up to become the woman before the elf's shocked eyes.

She reached and took Loriel by the wrist to move her aside as the huge cat walked in and re-wet them both as he shook the water off himself.

There was an oil lantern there burning very low and she could see the horse there as well; her head buried in her huge stone bowl of oats.

She almost jumped out of her skin to see a young pair of cats come out from another chamber to sniff and stare at her. They were larger than lynxes and had huge front fangs like the big one.

"Who are you?" Loriel asked and the other one almost laughed, understanding it, but thinking that the question had a humorous sound to it.

"Come with me," Nila said with a smile and she reached for Loriel's hand, leading her to an opening that she hadn't seen in her earlier explorations, but by it's slightly hidden location, she wasn't surprised.

A moment later, she stood in another chamber entirely and with a motion of her hand. Nila caused a small flame to sit atop a distant candle. Loriel looked around and she saw several others. She pointed to one with a questioning look and Nila raised her hand, thinking that she'd wanted that particular one lit.

Loriel shook her head and waved her own hand. It caused three candles to light and Nila stared and then laughed.

She pointed to the pack leaning against the wall.

Loriel was initially glad, but upon opening it, she remembered what had happened to her other things when she'd stepped through the opening earlier.

"Ruined," she said in a little disgust, "though the other things might be saved if they aren't too rusty.

I don't understand," she said, "I came from the village where I live, looking for a place to stay - away from the bastard magistrate and his sheriffs. I packed this bag before I left with food, and clothes, and a couple of daggers.

When I walked through an opening, my clothes crumbled - what wasn't good leather, anyway, and now this looks like it went through the same thing. It's mostly ruined," she said as she took out the disused-looking daggers and slid them into their scabbards on her back.

Nila asked about the village, "I have been here almost a year and I have seen no village, and no people ever."

Loriel gaped, "Why, it's no more that a league from here! I could see this rock from there all of my life."

Nila looked perplexed, "Can you take me there? Where you came in?"

Loriel nodded and tried to lead the way with Nila walking beside her and the cats trailing along behind them. 

"Why are they coming?" she asked, "They don't look hungry, but I don't think I'd know what hungry looks like on something like them. Are you sure it's alright?"

Nila looked to be amused by the question, "It's alright," she smiled, "He is my male. I found them when I came here. The boys were smaller then, though they seem to grow slowly. No matter how they might look to you, they are not hungry."

They found the place, stepping through, even the cats, though it was a near thing in the case of the large one. Nila regarded the surroundings and said that she'd never been in here before, "This cave goes off in many ways. I have always wondered, but I have never explored the whole thing. I was always happy with the quiet place that I found in it and always sought to return there.

Where did you come in from?"

"Why right over -"

She stood staring, but all that there was in the direction in which she was still pointing was a pile of rubble. If there had ever been an opening there, it was well closed off now.

They walked back through and made their way back to the main cavern - or what Nila knew by that term.

What they found was darkness.

Loriel reached into her semi non-bodice as it were and produced her little stick-torch. She shrouded the tip of in in the curl of the fingers of one hand and with a soft phase and a gentle puff, there was a small flame at the tip.

She encouraged it with another whispered thought and it flared brightly as she held it up, illuminating the whole of the chamber.

Nila looked with dismay at her favorite bow, for most of the arrows and all but one of the three bows themselves appeared dry and cracked. The bowstring on one fell away as she picked it up and the bow snapped from the release of the last of the small tension.

With a cry, she ran to the stable, urging her companions to come and she stood staring.

The trough was long dry and the hay on the floor was well-past rotten.

The horse was gone. 

She seized Loriel's hand and the elf understood the need to shoo the cat outside with them. 

They stood blinking in the bright light of mid-morning and there were no signs of the storm they'd left behind them only minutes earlier or that it had ever existed, since the sand was a dry as dust. There were no tracks to be seen at all, and other than that, the beach looked just as timeless as ever, with shorebirds nesting among the grasses in the dunes and many gulls wheeling overhead.

Nila walked to the place where she'd often had fires and it took some fair digging to even find a few traces of charcoal. The biggest piece she found was part of a log, burned at the end, but the real charcoal had long since fallen away and disintegrated. 

Nila sank to the sand with a troubled expression. "It looks to me that time goes past when anyone steps through that little space - back where you came from," she said, "I never knew of your village - and I hunted in the meadows there often. I must have, but it was not there - because it was gone long before I came here."

"How can you get there?" Loriel asked, looking over.

Nila shrugged, "By walking all the way around this big thing," she pointed.

"My bows and everything else is old from only our looking into that hole - and my large mare - my friend has been gone for many years and is likely dead herself. She would have waited for me to give her more oats in the morning, and not seeing me for some days, her hunger would have driven her to leave."

They talked about it for some time and then Nila went inside and came back with her only decent bow and the last two arrows which looked as though they might still be sound.

"No matter what has befallen us," she shrugged, "We must still eat. Come, let us hunt."

She looked back at her 'sons' after a moment and told the elf how they'd met. "I have always wondered what happened to the female. After this, I think now that she might not have followed them through quick enough, maybe."

The elf looked over at the cats and then back at the woman, "You said that he's your male ..."

Nila nodded, "You have seen the other way that I can be. Use your imagination."

The elf stared, "You mean you ..."

Nila nodded, with a soft smile.

"You fuck with that thing?"

Nila nodded, "If there is a brain in your head, you might see that finding a mate for myself as I am has always been trouble. I look human. I began as a human, but I am not one. I can only fool a man for so long, and I can never let him see me as I am.

Him? He knew me for what I am from almost the start and we are good for each other - though I would wish for some talk from him at those times. But we are happy and I have a family. The boys are not mine, but they are sons to me anyway. I just wish that they would grow faster. I worry a little for the smaller one."

As they walked to get to the end of the long rock, the elf spoke after a time, "My name is Loriel. You never told me your name."

"Nila," the woman said, "I am Nila, and I was once in a band, one of the Shoshone tribes."

"What's that?" Loriel asked, "I've never heard of them."

Nila gave her the thumbnail sketch, which astounded the elf, "I've never heard of any of it, though I guess that I'll probably find out more now myself."

Nila shook her head, "Maybe not. My people were in decline when last I saw them. And of my own clan, I am the only one left anyway. The others were killed." 

She shook her head as though to clear it, "But who and what are you, Loriel?"

The elf stared, feeling as though it was what she always did now, "You don't know?"

She stopped and Nila did as well as they faced each other, "Smaller than humans, nimble and quick, pointy ears ... this is new to you?"

Nila nodded with a shrug, though it seemed friendly and even hopeful in a way.

Loriel rolled her eyes, "I'm an elf."

Nila's expression didn't change at all and Loriel saw absolutely no recognition at hearing the name.

That took up a little more time as Loriel amazed Nila with things that she'd never heard of.

"How is it that you're a changer?" the elf asked, and that took some explaining until Nila understood what had been meant. Once she had it, however, she told of everything that had happened to her.

"You are not frightened of me, knowing what I am, as you do now?" she asked.

"Naw," Loriel said with a shrug herself, "I figure that you can die by a blade, the same as anybody else, even him," she pointed over her shoulder with her thumb. "It's all just a matter of degree. I'm more nervous about him, though he seems to like you fine."

Nila looked back and motioned and in another moment, the cat walked beside them. Nila picked the elf up bodily and set her down on the cat's back. He didn't even miss a step.

"Whadja do that for?" Loriel asked, trying to determine whether she ought to feel annoyed over it.

"We - all of us - are together, at least for now," Nila smiled, "I did not think of it until you said it, but you have shorter legs, so I think that you should ride and learn that he is neither stupid or hungry - or not deserving of your trust. Most of all, he is dear to me, so do not think to try for his death with your blades."

They went on a good distance in silence, Nila searching for sign of game along with her cats, while Loriel found quiet pleasure in the motions of the beast's shoulders as he walked.

The landscape began to look familiar in terms of the overall topography, though Loriel found that she couldn't place the trees exactly or anything. She turned around, looking back the way that they'd come, generally. There was the fucking huge, long rock, off in the distance. It looked to be about right. She looked around as far as she could see.

"I don't see a single thing here of my village," she said quietly as she got down from the cat's back, "not one thing. But I think that's old farmer Reeve's place there. I recognize the rise of ground. He used to chase us out of his orchards, making all kinds of racket. 

That was why we liked to steal his apples. He made all that noise." 

She shrugged, "I guess he was just too dumb to know that we could have gone in the middle of the night and taken all we wanted without him or his stupid dogs knowing a thing about it.

But we liked to hear him yell."

She left to head that way, trying to ignore Nila's calls to wait, lest they get separated somehow. She ran all the way, needing to know now, needing to see ...

Nothing. 

She stood at the top of the rise and looked all around herself. Where were the fields? The orchards? The great bloody farmhouse? It was as though none of it had ever existed. She couldn't see even a single wizened old apple tree.

She saw Nila and her cats waiting for her and she headed that way, wondering a little why they weren't coming toward her. When she reached them, Nila said nothing. She only looked back with a questioning expression.

There in the weeds and meadow flowers, there wasn't a single stone block, and Loriel knew that this was right at the gates of the walled village - well she thought that it was.




Ancient Watchtowers Ch.01



"Not even anything left of Reeve's place," she said, looking from there to where the gatehouse of the walled village once stood, "Where has it gone?"

Nila shrugged, "Maybe with my horse. 

Are you sure that this is where you came from? Maybe it only looks like what you might remember. Maybe we are in a different place altogether. I only know that this is where I have been before to hunt."

Loriel began to cry then.

Elves don't cry over almost anything. But Loriel did then, knowing that she was truly lost.

They left her, Nila making a soft sound to the cat and they left together to give her some time, since she had to be thinking of friends now long dead and gone. or more likely never even here if this was another place entirely as she had the thought once more.

Better, Nila had seen a movement at the edge of the trees.

-----

Loriel wiped her tears and looked up about twenty minutes later. She found herself alone and sniffled a bit, thinking that they'd left her and wondering what she might have done wrong. With nobody in the world seeming to be at home today, she knew that she needed them somehow - at least a little.

She saw a movement and looked over to see the cat standing there looking at her and she wondered a minute, hoping that Nila had been truthful.

He walked away, though he didn't go far and stopped to look back.

Loriel had nowhere else to go, so she followed. 

He never went very far and he always waited. She wondered about it and then just said, "Stop."

Running up to him, she shrugged and said, "I don't want to follow like a child. If you're going to lead me, then I'd rather walk beside you."

He seemed to be listening to her, but she doubted that he'd understood. All the same, she wondered as she found that he walked next to her now and still seemed to be leading her.

They found Nila on her knees working as she butchered a doe.

"Thank you, Loriel," she smiled, "I did not know if he would have found you nearby. I thought that you might leave us."

The elf shook her head, "Leave you? I thought that you'd left me!"

"No, we need food and I saw that you were upset, so I wanted to give you time and hunt since I saw this deer."

She pointed to another carcass next to a thicket, "That one is already butchered, a small wild pig. But I think that you should see something. Look at her tusks."

Loriel stepped over and looked down. The animal was not large, but would make a good meal or two, "What am I supposed to be looking for?" she asked.

"Her tusks," Nila said, "She is old enough to grow them, yet they have not been removed. Anyone who keeps them knows about removing their tusks. They're quite dangerous otherwise. Since she has hers, she must be wild."

Nila looked up, "I think that no one around here farms anymore, if the pigs run wild. I wonder if anyone has ever been here before at all. Perhaps you came from a different place which this one resembles."

Loriel conceded the point, though she said that she wouldn't know much about it. It did make sense to her however.

"So a long time has passed us while we were looking in that cave."

Nila nodded, "Twice as much for you. We only went through once," she said, indicating her cat and her.

She was finished not long afterward and they walked back, each one of them carrying a carcass over her shoulders. The doe was a good-sized one however, and Nila had to stop to rest once. She walked over to Loriel and cut away a piece of pork and fed it to the cat.

"What do you call him, anyway?" Loriel asked as she worked her stone over one of her rusted blades wanting to have them workable again, "I'd like to get it right, since he did come to get me and he waited for me and I even found that I could walk beside him."

Nila smiled, "I'm not very good at meaningful names, I'm afraid."

"I've heard you always say that long thing to him - doyad-something-something. I never get the whole thing," Loriel said.

"Doyadukubichi'," Nila smiled, "It just means cougar. He really isn't one - I don't think, but as I said ...

The boys are Deheya, for he is smaller and faster, so he is named Deer and the larger one is Weda, the bear. For he thinks to take whatever he wants."

"Thank you for sending the father for me," Loriel said quietly. 

Nila looked up and nodded, seeing that it had been meant.

They went on, back to their cave and Loriel tried to learn things which elves must have known about at one point and then forgotten for some reason, long ago. She did her best, and tried hard to get it right. It ended as they sat on the beach cooking meat on sticks. The big cat had finished the most of the pig, and reclined next to Loriel, licking his chops and cleaning himself.

She was surprised that she wasn't put off or alarmed at all. It was when the cubs launched their surprise attack from out of hiding to bowl her over that she became alarmed.

But that only lasted a moment until the large male rumbled at them and they stopped and pulled back instantly so that Loriel could get up.

Nila thanked her for helping, but Loriel waved it off, "I'm learning what I need to know now, I guess. I'm happy too, Nila. I'm happy that you seem to want me to stay."

She looked off along the beach a ways, "I'd starve on my own, so I know that I need you to teach me."

"I'm really pleased that you're here," Nila grinned, "I've had no one to really talk WITH for a long time. I forgot how good that is. And our large friend is happy with you," she smiled.

Loriel looked over and saw the animal returning her gaze. She carefully reached out to pet him and he pushed back with his head against her hand. 

Nila chuckled, "You look so worried. Don't worry and don't be afraid. I lie all over him in the winter when the wind screams down the beach and neither of us wants to go anywhere - for as long as the food lasts, I guess."

"Really?" the elf asked and Nila nodded, "Sure. He loves it."

After a while, Loriel kept looking at the waves as they rolled in. She was thinking about removing what she wore and just wading in to feel a little cleaner.

"Go ahead," Nila nodded, reading those thoughts easily, "I'll probably join you - if I don't just steal your boots and gloves - even that leather thing that you wear. I think it looks good."

"You do?" Loriel asked and then she laughed, explaining the purpose for it and that she wore it because it was all of the clothing that she now owned, "A little daring, maybe, but it feels better on me this way than the other way - with clothes on. You wouldn't want to try it on."

Nila looked over, "You know that you're talking to a girl who has no clothes at all, right? 

I made clothes before out of hides, but they're all gone now, crumbling in my hand when I tried to pick something up. Your lesson in scraping the hide and staking it out to dry? 

That's my new dress with a wild pig top when it's finished. I'll teach you that too.

Why do you think I wouldn't want to try that on?"

Loriel grinned, "Because it wouldn't fit you? Any of it?"

She pointed to her own ears, "Elf, remember?"

Nila nodded, "I keep forgetting."

"First chance I get to try to make something, I'm going to make something like this for you," Loriel smiled, "I need to learn it, and I want to see you in it, too. I'd love to see it on you. I'd let you put it on right now, but you're too long in the body to do it up. That's the problem. If it wasn't for that ..."

Loriel leaned over, putting her hand on Nila's knee to get her attention, "That's another thing that I think I should thank you for. I just don't really know how to do it."

She looked up for a moment and then back down, looking a little frustrated. "See, humans don't like elves very much. Some elves work for humans and are treated like shit. They see us as less than them and that's why most elves carry a chip on their shoulder for humans.

But you don't, Nila, and it catches me off-guard every time. I hear you speaking to me and inside, I'm getting ready for the insult - because there's always one in there someplace if you're talking to a human.

But you never say it, and it's been a little ... upsetting to me because I don't want to let my guard down - just in case it comes. It never does though."

She petered out then and looked down to feel Nila's hand on hers, squeezing just a little.

"You never will hear one," Nila said, her gaze holding Loriel's in a lock, "Think back to the story I told you of my people. Humans don't even treat each other well a lot of the time. 

My tribe had friends but we also had enemies - other bands who we'd always fought with - forever. That seems to be the way of it. Then the white men came and we all had a new enemy.

I hated them more than anyone once. I don't hate anybody anymore, because ... well because in some ways, I'm not human anymore, I guess. I only look like one sometimes. Maybe that's the cure for being human.

Everybody's just scared shitless of me - once they know what I am."

"I'm not," Loriel said, a little too loudly, "At least, I don't think that I'd be ... I'm pretty sure. I have seen you like that. I was pretty shocked at first - especially when you started talking, but ... " 

She shook her head, "Try me any time."

Nila smirked, though there wasn't anything in it and she pushed Loriel's shoulder gently, "Go for a swim."

Loriel nodded and began to pull her gauntlets and boots off.

"I've just had an idea, "Nila began, "I was thinking that if we had any bear grease, we could put it on your things to keep the leather from cracking - before you end up like me - with no clothes. I'll keep it in mind. I have seen bears around here a time or two - if they're still here."

Loriel nodded as she bent a little to reach down and undo the buckle just over her pubic bone. Nila watched her take the harness off and she tilted her head, "Why don't you have ... well, any hair there? Or is that something else about elves?"

Loriel nodded, "Most kinds, yeah. We never grow any there - or here - or here," she smiled, indicating her underarms.

Nila didn't reply. She was looking at Loriel's bare mound. She looked up after a moment, "I'll bet that feels nice."

Loriel shrugged, "I've only ever known it like this. I'm a little fascinated with what you've got, to tell you the truth."

She decided to take a drink before it got too dark to see the sand that she'd collect with her hand and she got down on her knees as Nila got up to wash the sticks they'd eaten from. She always liked to keep the good ones, since with a small collection, she didn't have to remember most times if she wanted a little cooked meat and if she was careful, each one might last up to three times, four if she was lucky and careful.

She heard Loriel's soft groan and looked over. The cat was right there, and she grinned to herself, turning around to step away a short distance.

Loriel had thought at first that it had been Nila that she'd felt back there. It came as a huge shock to her to find that big cat sniffing around and licking her.

She tried to call out to Nila, but Nila wasn't in her field of view when she looked.

Nila watched from closer to the mouth of the cave. She was ready to help if things got out of hand or it looked as though Loriel might get hurt. She waited only long enough to hear the changes in Loriel's voice.

Not hearing what she'd been listening for and realizing that it really was something that her elf friend didn't want, she trotted down and knelt beside her.

"Are you alright?" she asked with a concerned expression.

"He ... He ... Nila, he - "

"I know," she smiled, "He does that to me all the time. There's nobody here but me, but if you don't think you want all of his gifts, tell me, and we can switch before it's too late."

"I thought it was you," Loriel said, her eyes wide, "Please don't ... let -"

Loriel's eye widened even more as she watched Nila change right there beside her. 

"Get into the water," the wolf said.

The elf didn't need to be told twice. She squirmed out of the feline's grasp and pulled herself away to crawl quickly into the water and by the time that she lifted her head out to look back, they were already fucking, Nila standing in for Loriel and quite obviously enjoying it as she bore his weight with a smiling grin.

Loriel was fascinated and began to stand up, intending to walk out of the water to watch.

Nila saw it and shook her head, "Stay there for now," she moaned, "He - he can get hard again so quickly. Even now, I don't know ... he might try for you, so stay there."

Loriel sagged back down. She thought that watching them was so erotic and she wanted to masturbate along with them since there was no one else there, but ...

She noticed a motion and looked up to the dunes. It wasn't fully visible, but ...

The young ones are - "

Nila shook her head, "It is only ... a way to show who's in charge. They do it often, but nothing ever happens."

She was a little busy for a few moments before she seemed to have some breath to speak, "I worry and always look for cougars. I want them to grow up knowing females. One day that game of theirs will become something else and I want them to know girls more like themselves."

-------

Loriel sat with Nila and the cat inside the cave a few evenings later. She watched as the cubs played and to her mind, it looked as though it could get pretty rough at times.

"They often end the match in the same way, with the big one humping the smaller one for a few seconds."

"I know," Nila sighed as she continued to show Loriel how to pierce holes in a dried hide before stitching pieces together, "Another year and I think they will be gone. They are already old enough to hunt for themselves.

It's hard to do, but I have to let them learn for themselves.

If I don't see any signs of cougars around here soon," she said, "I'll just have to lead them on a long journey to look for some."

Loriel looked over, "That's the second time that you've said that word. What are they?"

"Cats," Nila nodded, "Where I grew up, they weren't hard to find. Whatever my cats are, I never saw any like them growing up. But they'll need mates at some point and cougars are the closest cat - though they're a lot smaller than my Doyadukubichi'," she smiled, "But that's all that I can think of."

-------

Bolga swam wearily downstream, glad at last to be able to just coast a little. She'd been swimming for days, it seemed. The little one on her back struggled weakly to get just a bit higher and her small claws dug into her shoulder a little. She'd have bitched about it, but she knew that this had to end very soon, or the little vixen would drown.

She ducked her head to get under a rock overhang, hoping that this current didn't just pitch downward into an underground chasm now.

But it didn't mercifully and they just floated on.

Some time later, she found that they'd washed up on the low bank of a stream as it ran through a large cave. She looked around very cautiously for a few moments, sniffing and listening. A moment later, she saw the tiny snout beside her cheek as the little one did the same.

Bolga smiled then, reaching up to help the little fox onto the shore. The animal looked around and shook herself off to stand trembling just a bit in her weakness.

"Shhhhh," she admonished with the softest sighed whisper, "Something is here, little love. Something big. Stay close and stay quiet."

The animal seemed to be listening to her but then it walked away just a bit to shake herself off once again while the larger one squeezed water from the pelts that she wore. The little vixen seemed cognizant of the nature of those pelts, for they were all fox skins - or stitched together segments thereof - but she didn't appear to mind, if in fact, she did indeed know.

The larger one stood up on two legs to stretch out muscles which had been too long held in a position to paddle or kick in the cold water and she fought the tendency for them to cramp now, of all times, so she took it very slowly, not bothering to shake herself off at all. She just stood while the water ran down from her thick mane over her back and legs in silent rivulets.

Most of all, she wanted silence now and so she didn't bother much to squeeze what she could from her hair, for it was certainly long enough to reach back for if she'd wanted that. Her tail went unnoticed in it and it leaked it's own volume of water in silence.

Bolga dropped back down again, reaching out to lift her small companion and hold her close. She stroked the top of the little head with her thumb and the animal knew from the pattern of the movements that she was to be still and quiet now. 

And so she was.

The larger one moved along the floor cautiously, limping a little on three legs since she was holding her vixen. She made no noise as she crept to the doorway to look out.

What she saw was a bit of a narrow corridor and she wanted to curse, but she didn't, taking it for what it was- something to duck into and peek out of.

A moment later, she was doing just that, easing into a full crouch as the small fox climbed up to sit on her shoulder and peek as well.

Out there, her nose told her of food - of meat freshly hung, two types maybe, and the smoke of the little fire there and ... her nose twitched as she listened until she was certain. 

She smelled females and some sort of male scent, but her ears told of only the females, until a male sound began.

She paused as that male rolled over and she was confused. Too much sound, she thought. Too heavy shifting. What was there? A man?

She leaned a little, but it only brought the females into her view. She sat back in a way so as to keep them in her view. 

Two females sitting making clothing and talking.

The little vixen on her shoulder began to chitter a little. It was a small sound, but it spoke of her sudden nervousness over something.

She moved her head to the right a little and saw him.

She didn't know what he was, but she knew that she wouldn't be able to work her charms in here on him.

That left only the two women and she sat back, thinking of how she might make this work.

------

Bolga had been thinking.

Once when she saw enough to know that the ones out there were lost in what they were doing, she'd drawn back, fighting the urge to kill, though the moment of surprise would have been absolute and beyond perfect.

But now they'd moved apart, each working on her own garment.

It had been the large one out there sleeping who could so easily have been the spoiler. Because of the angle, she couldn't see his head or face and didn't really know what he was and so she had no way of predicting what his actions might be. What she could see of him looked something like a cat, but cats just didn't get THAT large, did they?

She hadn't wanted to watch what the females were doing, not wanting to be reminded of how she'd met the female she'd intended to kill for food once, who'd instead turned into the best lover that she'd ever known to that time - until the fall began to turn into winter so quickly that she'd suddenly become aware that she'd need to get fattened up in a hurry if she was going to survive it.

She'd eaten her lover then and though she'd gotten through that winter, she'd hated herself for it ever since.

But it had begun when Bolga came to meet the girl who'd been sewing and that was how they'd started to talk.

The little fox had begun to play, pouncing on imaginary little things in the dirt.

"Sh-sh," she said to her and the tiny thing stopped at once and looked up.

She smiled and tapped her index finger on the top of that little nose softly and shook her head, "Be still now," she breathed as she mouthed the words.

The fox shook herself again and hopped up onto her and slithered to be cradled where it was warm against her breasts and she put her head down, but kept her eyes open, blinking.




Ancient Watchtowers Ch.02



***

Just a name thing.

Naïsa = NahYEEsa

The other odd word, never mind it. They have another, easier name and it's about a paragraph farther in. 0_o

***

-----------

A strange cave in Wyoming

------------

Whenever an equation changes, the result just has to change along with it.

With the addition of Bolga and Chicha, things just had to.

Little Chicha got into all sorts of mischief with her new playmates, but on the plus side of things, she now had almost three mothers, well, one mother and a pair of females who just loved her and her host of her misadventures to bits. They really couldn't have helped it anyway.

But other things changed as well, not that any of them really minded all that much - at first.

Nila and Loriel found much more time for each other, but Loriel's own quiet hopes dimmed because it seemed to have more to do with teaching as Nila taught the elf how to live without much of anything and they never again spent any time alone with each other where the things that Loriel hoped for might happen. They often went hunting together and always took the cats along, since they still seemed to want to tag along anyway. 

The elf's frustrations grew, but she didn't think that she ought to say anything. She'd made one hopeful overture, which Nila had rebuffed instantly. 

She could take a hint, though she tried to understand.

Nila was upset and concerned, and she spoke little of it because it bothered her. 

Even just being alone out walking or hunting could cause her to have the insane thought to bite Loriel. 

It didn't matter that Loriel herself would probably have wanted it, Nila had to fight her own urges. 

Having the cats along helped to a degree. Their presence could help her to force the feelings down and if one or the other was tired, they could ride on the large one's back, though never at more than a walking pace, if there was some distance involved. 

He and his sons could be placed in hiding with Loriel as Nila moved into a position which would allow her the best shots, once the elf climbed onto the cat and they noisily started the stampede. 

Gradually, they even developed a wardrobe out of the clothing that they crafted for themselves from the hides, since they had no fabric.

The good thing was that Nila found that she could share the cat's attentions with Bolga freely a lot of the time. She even turned to the wolf to join in with them sometimes.

None of them saw it, but Loriel noticed and drifted away to be alone then.

But that all changed one day a couple of months later.

Nila had seen the odd fish while out swimming and that led to her thoughts of building a canoe. The trouble was, her people knew of the plains mostly, and she had little knowledge of that sort of thing, since she'd never learned much about it. 

She'd known people who'd had canoes, but she'd never seen one being made. So one trial after another, her efforts were slowly getting them to where they could fish farther out. In the meantime, they fished from the shoreline if the fish were a little accommodating.

Of the three of them, Bolga became the one who most often spent time with the cat late at night. Loriel and Nila would often babysit little Chicha and the boys, waiting for them to tire themselves out. 

Not being a real fox kit, Chicha grew much slower than one, so they treasured this time with her, just because she could make them laugh themselves to tears with her antics tussling with the boys, while in another chamber, Bolga was giving her large male friend as good as she got and it often happened that they just wore each other out at the same time.

-----------

On the day in question, Chicha was nosing around in the grasses of the dunes, trying to hunt herself up some shorebird eggs. She hadn't really noticed how far away she'd wandered from the entrance to the cave which they all shared.

But she sure noticed it when the pack of wild dogs found her.

The three females seemed to notice her absence at about the same time, and after worried glances to each other, they set out looking for her. Nila changed to give herself more speed and though she was silent as she rushed around looking, the others weren't and often called to each other as well as to Chicha.

Chicha was sitting, trying to look small, while wanting to appear ferocious at the same time. She was facing four dogs and even to her young mind, she didn't know why they'd taken this long to decide. 

But the dogs had heard the cries of the ones who were searching and it was coming to them that it might be better to just grab the kit and run. The trouble was, which of them was going to make the snatch? 

Wild dogs aren't like a pack of wolves. Each one is greedy, knowing that the rest all see things in the same way - what can I get out of this? 

The little fox would barely make a satisfying meal for one, eating slowly. To have to hang on while another grabbed opportunistically and pulled to tear a piece of the kit off, hoping to get the whole thing just wouldn't work out for somebody. For something like this, there could be no sharing; only fights until the fox was just a wet rag of bloody fur.

Wild dogs do not share meals unless it's big enough for them all to eat at the same time and even then, they eye one another constantly.

In the end, they took too long with it and when the largest two decided - and collided at the same time as they rushed forward, one of them ended pinned down to the sand with a long arrow mostly through him.

His chief competitor didn't make good on his opportunity at that instant, needing to see what had happened and wonder about it for a few seconds.

That used up his own cushion of safety and he was skewered the next instant and struggling feebly. The rest took off and ran straight into the jaws of the pair of young males, who'd sensed that something was wrong and were on their way back.

They were young, but they were far faster and more deadly than a pair of dogs and it was over in seconds. The dogs each died with the long fangs of a cat through their windpipes, held down until they either suffocated or bled out, whichever happened first.

By that time, Nila and Bolga had gotten there, Nila shifting as Bolga scooped up her little one. 

But she turned then as Loriel came running up and they all looked at each other.

None of them held bows.

Nila saw the angle of the arrows and looked back, figuring out the trajectory.

She had to squint into the sunlight, but after a moment, her eyes adjusted a little and she saw a lone figure up there on the top of the long rock outcropping which they lived inside of.

The others looked and saw the figure as well.

A long, dark, heavy cloak fluttered slowly behind and they could see that the cloak there had a hood, but that it was back. As well, it came to them after a strong gust of the shore wind that the figure was female. 

Loriel stared the longest, for she had the best sight out of the three, being an elf, after all.

"Who is it?" Nila asked her and Loriel had to stare a little longer, not believing the details that she thought that she could discern.

"I don't know," she said, "But I know WHAT she is."

She lowered her gaze and took her hand away from her brow, "That's a she-elf or I'm a goat."

The figure remained up there, not moving for a time as if trying to come to her own decision. Finally, she lifted her bow and hung it on a holder over her back next to her quiver.

She nodded once and then put up the hood as she turned away to stride out of their sight.

Loriel began to shout, wanting the figure to return, but she turned back when Nila told her that all she had to do was wait, and whoever it had been would come down.

It just might take a time, that was all, due to the long walk to get down from up there and back over to them on the beach.

"How do you know all that?" Loriel asked.

Nila just pointed down from where she stood. 

"I've used a bow from the time that I was big enough to draw the one my father made for me to learn on. I've always been a strong archer and as what I am besides, I've had to learn not to draw too hard because I can't make a bow that will stand my strength. They always end up too thick to be supple enough and they break whenever I try to make one strong enough. There is a real limit to what I can do.

Look at these arrows. They're longer than mine and I've never seen arrows made this well. I can feel the magic on them from here. These are not ordinary arrows, and I'll bet that whoever she is, they're worth enough to her to want them back.

Look at how far away that is," she pointed, "Even with the fall of them because of the height, I could never have made those shots, not without at least one to test things and even then, it would be a gamble that I wouldn't want to have to depend on."

She looked back up at the top of the rock, "Yet she did it in a breeze with no testing shots - two shots, two kills." 

She looked to where Bolga stood, holding her baby as though there was some unseen threat here which might snatch Chicha out of her arms if she wasn't watchful.

Chicha herself saw the boys not far off and wanted down then to run over to the slightly roughed-up pair who stood a little proudly over what they'd done. Chicha seemed to know it and she rubbed herself against each one, so happy to be alive and to see them again.

They began to play but after a few moments of it, the larger male tried to do his dominance thing to the others. Normally, this annoyed Chicha severely and she'd turn and show him that she didn't agree with his interpretation of things.

But this time she just allowed him his moment, since it was just a sham which pointed to when they'd grow up. It was over in seconds and nothing had happened - just like it never did and Chicha rolled over and stood up to lick the smaller one's face while he held still for his brother as well. Then they ran back to where everyone stood.

Bolga had seen it and yet she knelt on the sand to thank the young cubs in her way, rubbing their heads with a grin. "That may turn into something real one day, "she smiled to the larger one, "I hope you are ready if she decides."

She stood up then and looked off down the beach, "So you are sure that she will come?"

"I want to meet her," Nila said as she nodded, "And I think that all of us need to thank her - whoever she is. None of us could have gotten to Chicha in time."

Nila and Bolga talked of pulling out the arrows to clean them as their way to show a little thanks, but when she reached for one, Nila felt what was there in the magic and drew her hand back.

At the same time, Loriel was quick to gainsay the idea.

"I'm coming to a thought about who she is. I read something about ones like that, though I don't know much about it, really. It was just a reference to ones who'd stood guard over a falling civilization a really long time ago."

She shook her head, "It can't be though. Those ones were sung about over their last sacrifices and they were supposed to have fought on to the very last elf.

And anyway," she said, "That was far away from here. It happened ages ago where I grew up and before the humans came in any numbers."

They waited for a good half-hour before they saw her coming down the beach at a long-gaited, striding walk, looking around as she came.

The cloak was blowing more down here in the real turbulence of the lake breeze. She walked on, wearing long boots which came high up her bare thighs - almost to her hips - but they weren't attached to anything that any of them could see. There was a breastplate there cupping breasts, so they knew that their earlier guess had been correct. She wore gauntlets, but it could be seen that they were supple as well as armoured.

And she wore the hood up, as well as a mask so that only her bright blue eyes could be seen and there was something there ... something about the little bit of her face which could be seen above the mask.

Her midriff was bare from below the breastplate to the top of her very narrow girdle. It looked to be more of a belt, really, but there was nothing there to hold up. It was just something with a few pouches hung on it which dipped a little perilously under her navel, plunging deeply toward her mound, which it still hid from their sight. On the skin which was visible, there were markings, lazy swirls which looked like flames, though the marking themselves were a little faint.

Nila's eyes widened a little and then narrowed as she peered at a detail which most might not have seen. The woman walked on the sand, and as she came on, it could be seen that while she never walked into the surf, her path often took her through where it was wet. As well, she also walked through the dry sand.

In either case, something didn't add up to Nila's eyes. This person wore boots and they had heels, not especially high, but there, nonetheless. Yet this person walked through both wet and worse, dry sand - without any apparent difficulty whatsoever.

Nila noticed that she left no tracks regardless where she walked.

She mentioned it to Loriel who chuckled, "Pshh. I can do that too, you know. Haven't you ever noticed? That's how you can always tell about an elf. I just don't do it very much, unless I've got a reason. 

I'm thinking she's got to be a High Elf. They're direct descendants from the days of the ancient Elven empire which once stretched all over. High Elves don't walk like me. I only hide my tracks when I want to. High Elves always walk like that. It's supposed to be in their blood or something.

Ok, she's got more grace about it than I have, but then, I'm just a gutter elf. I've just got to get a look at her face, Nila.

There's something about her. I need to find out what kind she is for sure. I'd bet that I'm right."

Nila looked over, "What kind?"

Loriel nodded, "Yeah, what kind of elf. 

There ARE different kinds, you know."

She looked at the one approaching, "Like this, I've got no real clue. She's lighter than me, so for sure, she's no Wood Elf. She's not a Night Elf or a Moon Elf, not here in this sunlight. Not even the Sylvans come this far out of the cover of the forest. 

She's tall for an elf too, no matter which kind, that's for certain, and see her hips? They're not wide or anything, but I've never in my life seen an elf with hips like that."

Nila looked for a moment, "She does have longer legs than you do, and now that you've told me what to look for, I see what you mean about her hips."

The woman walked the last ten yards to them and Nila heard Loriel's quiet gasps when the newcomer drew back the hood of her cloak and her ears stood up fully. Nila said nothing, but they were a lot longer than Loriel's.

Nila herself had to stare a little because she'd never seen blonde hair. Well she had, she thought back, but not as light as this one's. In the bright sunshine, it looked very near to being white, though there was still gold to be seen in it, so she knew that it wasn't white, but just a trick of the sun.

The woman reached up and pulled her mask down with a very pleasant-looking smile for them, especially for Bolga and little Chicha as she pulled her arrows from the bodies of the feral animals. A detail caught Nila's eye and she watched but said nothing.

"I see that my shots were well-spent and the small one lives yet."

She turned then and looked at the family of cats, since the huge male had wandered over by then. She grinned and looked over at Nila and astounded her with her compliment over such a handsome family. 

The others blinked in surprise, but Nila was gracious about it, knowing that it had been a way to tell her that this one had the sight of truth, which oftentimes revealed things lying otherwise well-hidden, not that Nila was ashamed of it anyway.

She looked at them all, still smiling and bowing a little, "I am Naïsa."

Loriel gasped out loud, staring openly at the other one's lovely face and the markings that she saw there - smoky shadowlike things which seemed to speak of fire and magic. She looked for a moment to be trying desperately to decide on whether or not she ought to be bowing.

She gasped once more, "A High Elf! And - and a Fell Archer or I'm a cow!"

She did bow then, though it seemed to make the other one a little uncomfortable to see it.

"I thought you said you were a goat," Bolga said in an amused way.

"Please, do not make so much of nothing," Naïsa smiled, "You are more the elf than I, surely."

Loriel looked confused.

Naïsa beamed a little in mirth, seeming to think it a little funny. "Please friend, tell me of your own kind. I am so pleased to see another of us here."

Loriel seemed to be at a loss for words at the moment, something which Nila noticed because it hardly ever happened. It annoyed her a little, that this stranger could make someone she cared for very much seem so ... humbled, in a way.

"I'm only a gutter elf," Loriel began, but Naïsa shook her head at that. 

"I know of all elves - all of the sorts which there are, were, and have been written of. I know all elves, but I also know of no such kind. 

If you mean the ones who lived under the heels of men long ago, then I take it to mean that you are from the Wood Elves who lost their knowledge of their old home, after it was taken from them when they were forced to live as almost slaves.

You look as a Wood Elf to me, and you carry all of the healthy beauty of that kind to my eyes.

Such ones are mostly gone now, and most of the free elves of any sort have gone to the west. Now it is a rare thing for ones like us two to meet, and since you live here still, I think it is I who must bow to you."

"B-but you're a High Elf!" Loriel stammered.

Naïsa shook her head slowly, "Only half - at best, friend. 

And if the High Elves had bothered themselves to bow to others of other kinds a little more, perhaps they'd have had more friends toward the end. When most of our kinds left, those who did not stay behind and mix with the humans, many of the other kinds went along with others that they met and it turned to friendships on the road to the sea.

The High Elves always traveled alone, only their kind together, and likely wondering why there were so few left.

I am no full High Elf. My father was such a one. My mother was human. You are far more elven than I."

Loriel seemed quite shocked to hear it, "But you're a Fell Archer. I can see that. 

I see it on that bow behind you and I see it on the hafts of your blades back there." she pointed.

"It's written there in your armour. 

On your boots and gloves, even on your face!"

"In that," Naïsa nodded, "you are correct. I am such. The last of them all.

Though I did not live through the terror which took all the rest when the Empire fell long ages ago, for I was not born for thousands of years after."

She smiled once more, "But let us not speak of it much. I came to it by chance and it was taught to me in the space of a few moments by the barely surviving spirit of the last one who stood before that nameless terror and lived - in a way.

By her actions, the last of the ones in her charge were able to gather as they could and they became the ones that you call the High Ones.

But for all of their lordly habits, they were fallen even then.

The one I knew, she taught me and lived for a time within my breast as a spirit, guiding me until she saw that my own tests out of my need were done. 

She departed then to seek the peace that she sought and I have wandered since, from then until now, the last of the Fell Ones."

She turned to the others, "But please forgive us," she smiled, "I am happy to have found others, and especially such a sweet little huldra child."

Chicha soaked the attention right up, wanting to be free from her mother's grasp to see the beautiful newcomer. She was in one of her growth spurts now but for a little huldra, it could be a dangerous time of not having complete control over her form.




Ancient Watchtowers Ch.02



The little fox shape was really a protective ruse of her nature but at times of growth, she could have trouble maintaining it so her form and size could shift unexpectedly.

The small fox became a larger small fox girl who was still clawing at the air to get to Naïsa.

"Please tell me your names," Naïsa grinned, "or I fear that I will be lost in watching something rare in this world."

They stood in the sunshine for a while, just a group of women talking about anything. Naïsa saw into them in her way, though she said nothing of it. She was happy to meet them, just as she'd said.

She didn't say anything about it, but she grew a little curious about what had brought them together, and she did her best not to stare at them all, especially Loriel, for it had been a long time since she'd seen any others of the woodland race. And Loriel to her eyes, was the most lovely elf that she was sure she'd ever seen.

Loriel didn't fare as well as the archer. She saw someone like her and yet not and any way that she thought of it, she was a little astounded in her private thoughts to have noticed the attraction between them and she wondered how much of it was out of their meeting as what they were.

Naïsa held out her hands toward Bolga and the huldra saw her good intentions right away and passed her vixen over to grin in surprise at how Chicha liked to be held by Naïsa, who whispered things into her little ear which caused her to chitter happily and try to burrow further into Naïsa's arms.

"She is quick to like you," Bolga said with a little laugh, "I think it is her way to let her charms do the work for her."

Naïsa laughed at that and nodded, "What do you think that she is doing to me? I am helpless before her!"

She stopped then, staring at the furry little bundle there in her arms, "She - she has no human blood!"

She handed Chicha back, though the little fox didn't want that. "You wish to raise her better," Naïsa said, showing a little surprise, "You wish more for her than what you knew - and you wish - " 

Bolga nodded, "I wish to remain what I am in name only. 

Wise you are indeed. Chicha's father was as Loriel, an elf sent by his master out into the forest to cut wood.

Perhaps it shows what they had lost, for an elf to cut trees for pay, I cannot say. I know only that he regretted it, thinking it wrong somehow. That was what he told me of it, anyway."

"You killed an elf?" Loriel asked with a gasp, but Bolga was already shaking her head.

"I thought to, yes," she nodded, "but I learned that the ways of my kind do not work on elves. He knew what I was from his first sight of me.

And yet he liked me still," she smiled as she remembered it. "Fair he was and strong, and as we talked, I think that we both fell somehow. He had to cut wood, he said, else he would be beaten, for his master had many strong men for that.

Every day, he would begin his work after I fed him. Then I would help him with his task for I am strong when I have need to be.

Every night, he loved me and I loved him. Love is something which has only happened twice to me, once with each kind; a human woman and an Elven man."

She smiled sadly, though she was looking downward then, "I learned from the first one, but too late. So when it came time, I gave my all to the one who loved me, not caring a whit what I was.

But one day, his master came with others and wanted Thelas whipped for not cutting more. There were wide spaces with no trees by then. Thelas had taken the very best of the wood for the man, but that greedy boar wanted only more.

I must have made it worse for my man then," she sighed, "for I killed all of them, being especially cruel to the master in my wrath.

Thelas tried to stop me, but I was beyond listening and my blood was up."

Bloga looked up with tears in her eyes, "He told me that we had to leave - leave everything, the forest, all of it, to go far away, and he would do anything to give me a life with him.

I refused out of fear. I could have killed even more men - yet leaving the forest was something that I could not do. If Thelas' life was in danger, I thought to give him the best chance and I went with him to the edge of the forest miles away, and he begged me to come ..."

She was crying then and looked at the others with tears running freely down her cheeks, "But I could not go when I should have!" 

She'd almost howled the words as her grief took her fully once again and could not speak for a few minutes.

"And so," she sniffled finally, "I lost my happiness yet again. I lived from the bodies of the ones that I'd killed and I was fat when I crawled to my hole that winter. I birthed Chicha in that dirt hole and I promised her as she slept at my breast that I would find us a better way."

She wiped her face with her palms and left streaked smudges behind, "And so I left in the spring, as soon as the rains were over."

She began to weep again softly, and to her slight surprise, the elves hugged her and tried to comfort her. Even Nila stood with her arm around Bolga.

"Your bow is like nothing that I've seen before," Nila said a little later to change the subject.

Naïsa nodded, "It is the bow of my long-faded order and belonged to my teacher. I have never found another like it. It will come to my hand if I call in a certain way and if I wish it, the arrows gain in speed for very long shots. It will not allow another to draw it even if I hand it over."

"It's very thick," Nila remarked, "I've wanted to build a bow, not just make one, for a long time. I'm very strong, but I can't find a way to make it thick enough for me without losing all of the flexibility to make it work."

"These ones," Naïsa said, "were crafted from the wood of only one living tree - all of them I was told, and it is not only the wood. In that place where the tree once stood, many of the old empire's finest archers were born. The ground was magic and more than what is usual for an old Elven place.

The tree is gone now, as is the Empire, and perhaps even all of the other bows made from that tree."

"The arrows," Nila began.

"The same wood," Naïsa answered, "I have some made for different uses, but most are tipped with mithril."

She held one up, noticing that Nila took a small half-step backwards. "Mithril is a very rare, exceedingly pure and very hard silver. It is not like most forms, since it can take and hold an edge. Also, it can receive and hold magical thoughts."

The discussion ended as their attention was drawn by a gull who screamed and flapped, trying to drive a predator from her nest.

Chicha did nothing to lessen the gull's upset. She sat busily lapping the fluids from one egg after another.

---------------

They sat before the fire inside the cave, each of them telling of themselves. The others knew what each one thought was all that there was to know about each other, but Naïsa had a way of asking her questions of them, drawing them out a little at a time and so each one learned far more that night of the ones she lived with than they'd known before.

"I want to ask some more things about you, Naïsa," Nila said. as she stirred the coals of the fire with a stick to get a bit more heat up so that she could have another bowl of the stew they'd made together. The archer was a welcome guest only for that, because her pack held an actual pot - something the others would have killed to own, as well as the bowls.

"Ask them then," the strange elf smiled, "I shall tell of what I know, for I have spent my time walking and in ways which sometimes let me skip along the river of time. It was a gift which I learned from my teacher - something given to me to use when I had need of it. I do not wish to use it much anymore, for I find myself farther and farther away from what I was, what my kind was and what I think that we should have been - all of us."

"What do you mean?" Nila asked.

"Well," Naïsa said as she poured herself a little more stew after Nila, "You, for one. I see one who knows ways to live as humans lived far closer to their beginning, yet you do it well and with much grace. All of us here," she said, indicating them with a wave of her hand, "We all are among the last of our kinds."

She pointed to the cat, who now played with Chicha sleepily and was oblivious to them, "His kind was gone from most places before even the elves came to be. I know not why he is still here at all, though I come to think that this is a place that he wandered into for it is a strange one.

My sister elf and I are ones whose kinds have diminished and gone away. I have not seen another of us in a time, but for one place where I was. You yourself from what I have learned of you are of a people who were diminished in the face of something newer.

Ever it happens, no matter the kind - something always comes to push each type off and they fade then in some time.

Though," she smiled, "I see something in you which makes me even gladder to see. You are something else which is rare today. Once long ago - before my time, mind - there were many werebeasts.

Now? Almost all of them gone - excepting the few who live yet, and I have learned one thing about this kind of yours, Nila.

The ones who survive and still go on, those ones which I have come to know a little, all of them had magical ability before they changed for the first time. To have this thing on you, be it a gift or a curse in your eyes, to gain it with no wisdom and power to begin with leads only to madness and death. But that will not be your doom, I think, for I feel your power, my friend, and I know that it keeps you safe."

What year is it now?" Nila asked, "There is a place in these caves where there is a kind of gate in a way. To step through it and back moves you in time somehow. I've been here for less than two years, but I'm sure that time has gone by me while I was here and I fear that gate now."

"What is the year by your reckoning?" Naïsa asked and Nila said, "It was 1870 when I came, but I have a strong feeling that a lot of time has gone by."

Loriel looked over, "1870? When I walked in here to look for a place to live, it was 1186 the way that the humans count the years. So when I walked through that hole ..."

Nila held up two fingers, "You went through it twice, Loriel."

"Yes but -"

Naïsa held up her hand, "I came seeking this gate. They happen in places in this world and they are rare. I know of only two others, though I have not been to either one in an age.

From what I know, and if the way of counting remains unchanged, it is 1993 now."

She looked around at all of the open mouths that she saw.

"From what you say, there is such a gate here, so I was right. I walked in this morning, but I stopped when I saw your large friend sleeping and I went back out and walked on the top of the rock for a time."

She looked around, "I did not walk in this way here. There are many ways into this place, "she smiled as she pointed to the other openings.

"The one which I came through lies over there and to go through it does not change time, but it does change something else. From what I know of this place - this is a part of the world known long ago as the New World. I came from the Old World this very morning and I did not walk far to do it."

She looked at Bolga, "You did the same thing by your tale, friend. You only used a different way in."

Bolga nodded, "It sounds right, what you say. The ground here is different from where we began our journey, my Chicha and me.

But it is the same with us - this thing about time. It must be."

Loriel and Nila looked over sharply and Bolga sighed.

"That first night, before we came to you, I had to leap after Chicha as she went into that dark place. We came back and then we saw you. I do not know what year it was when we left. I do not mark the time. I only mark the coming of winter."

"Where will you go now?" Loriel asked after a time, "We've just met you and I don't think that you want to stay long. I can feel that in you." 

She looked at Nila, "I don't want to lose her, not yet. If she means to go, I think we should go with her. We don't really belong in a place where time passes and we don't know what's going on. I'm - I'm eight hundred and twenty-three years ... eight hundred and forty-four was years old!"

"Calm down," Nila said, "You're not going to go just yet, are you, Naïsa? Loriel is going to pee where she sits if you do. Can you stay?"

"For a time," Naïsa smiled, "but I wish to go to a place where there is another gate, though not for that. I have seen a little of the way that life is lived there and I think that it is where I wish to be now - to stay there, if I can."

She looked at Loriel, "And sister, I have seen elves there of a kind, though very few. Others there are as well, so I do not know if you would want to be there at all, for they live together or near to it, all of them."

"What do you mean?" Loriel asked, "What kinds?"

Naïsa tried to think of a soft way to say it, but gave it up and decided to say the truth of it.

"Some goblins there are there, though not many more than maybe a dozen and not more than two dozen. That kind fare the same as we do and are diminished.

Of the elves, the few I have seen number not less than three and no more than six - and sister, they are Wild Elves, all of them."

Loriel looked shocked and made a bit of a face at that. "That kind, I only know of from reading. I haven't met any," she said, "All that I've heard is that they can be ... hard to get along with, if they're truly Wild Elves."

"They are," Naïsa shrugged, "for certain. Though it can be said that they know of their peril and live accordingly, but they are not the ... I wish to say the worst, but it would be a falsehood to say it like that. 

They live with another kind who number up to perhaps fifty or sixty, all in one place, the most of them and all near a human settlement. The humans know nothing of them all."

"What are the others?" Loriel asked, "I want to know now."

Naïsa smiled a little weakly, "Think, elf-sister. 

If they live with another sort, which sort might that be? 

The Wild Ones can only tolerate - and be tolerated by one other type, for no other of our kinds will abide them. Think of the one sort which they are alike to in their temperament, if not their appearance."

Bolga gasped and reached for her baby, as if the mere mention of that kind would bring a horde of them out of the other cave openings.

"Ilythiirin!" she whispered almost silently, fearful that she might be calling to them to only say it.

"What?" Nila asked. 

Bolga leaned lower to hold Chicha protectively and the little fox then felt a little threatened and worried over the body language, as though there was some threat to her here which she hadn't seen yet.

"Drow!" Bolga hissed fearfully, as though saying it caused her pain.

Naïsa peered at the huldra a little curiously. She could certainly understand a little thrill of cautionary fear in someone who might have a reason for it. But this almost abject terror that she was in was a little out of place to her mind.

"No!" Loriel gasped, "They - they live still?"

"As do we," Naïsa shrugged, "I have met them, and they seem to have lessened in their ways, if it can be said, while not abandoning them completely, of course."

"Oh, of course," Loriel said a little sarcastically, "What's to be afraid of, then?"

She shook her head, as though the newcomer saw moving there as a happy alternative - to slitting one's own throat. Why not go to where the Drow are and let them do it for you?

Nila didn't get it, "What the hell is a -"

"Shh!" Bolga hissed, jumping right over the fire to where Nila sat in shock to see it.

She held Nila tightly, almost frightening Chicha there on her arm and she kissed Nila's cheek, begging in her hissed whispers that Nila not say another word on the subject.

Loriel shrugged in a way that showed that she might have feelings on the subject also, but was not worried excessively over the mere mention of those ones, "They're a race of elves who turned away from the sunlight ages ago. They live underground and seldom if ever come up.

But if they do ..." she said quietly and she preferred to just leave the thought hanging.

"Then what?" Nila asked.

Loriel shrugged, "They usually have a reason to want that, and with that driving them, a raid into a human place turns into the worst sort of near-silent slaughter. They remain hidden until the moment when they strike and then they vanish again even more quickly. But what they leave behind ..."

"They are proud," Naïsa said, "as most of the Elven folk are or can be. They have some abilities which the rest of us do not have, and they shun the sunlight because it makes them ill, not being used to it anymore.

But under everything; my words and those of Loriel there, they are a race of elves. Most of the other races want to forget that fact and to even mention it to most Drow can easily cause them to attack the speaker.

They wish it were not the truth just as much.

Other than the Wild Ones, the rest of us - the Darthiir, as they name us all - and the Drow have ever been the most implacable enemies, though that has changed. I have met them and yet I still live, do I not? 

Wild Elves are the only sort that they will naturally associate with and any meeting between the Drow and other kinds of us has long meant only a very quick and hateful fight. They are no longer quite as hostile."

"What sort of ... abilities?" Nila asked.

"They can disappear into the very air!" Bolga hissed worriedly, "They can see well on the blackest night!"

But Naïsa only shook her head, "They have grown accustomed to living in darkness, so they can see well in it. Some can fade from sight - but not most. Just as a very few can change their appearance. But most cannot do either."

"They can FLY!" Bolga hissed argumentatively, "I have seen this with my own eyes, so do not try to make it into nothing."

Naïsa laid her hand on Bolga's shoulder, "Calm yourself, pretty one. They cannot fly - but they can float. If you have seen one of them running and seem to fly off, it is only the one you saw jumping a little to glide for a distance. But if they do not choose to come down, then they stop after a time and only hang in the air - if it suits them to do it."

Bolga nodded, but she still looked unconvinced.

"I tell you that they know their peril as much as we do. I have met and spoken to many. They seek only to live undisturbed, that is all."

"Why do you want to go there?" Loriel asked.

Naïsa smiled, "Because that is what I wish for as well. They have offered me a place among them, just as they would you.

The line between us is not so clear as it once was. To them - the goblins, Wild Elves and the Drow, they see the need to draw together peacefully. It is strained sometimes, but there are no fights or wars between them all. 

They fear the humans more than anything."

"Why?" Nila asked.

Naïsa shrugged, "Because there are many, many more humans than all of us. They even try to fit, in a way. They have lived among the humans for a goodly time now and are still unnoticed by them. They even earn gold secretly from them now and then.

They live in an old human fortress unnoticed, and some now want to go to another one - even older - but with no humans anywhere near.

"I want neither," she smiled, "It is my hope to live in one of the abandoned human outposts which has outlived it's purpose and yet still stands. Humans are there in the summer months, but only a few who seem to guide others around. Those ones do not stay long and I do not know the reason for it. Why come at all if you will not stay?

Late in the spring, some few come to look after things, and also the same few come in the autumn to set things in place for the winter. They also leave as the day wanes and the dusk comes on."




Ancient Watchtowers Ch.02



She smiled, "I do not know the reason for any of it, but I like that they keep the place up. The few who come are easily avoided."

She turned to Bolga, "We could claim it and Chicha would have a place to grow and play."

Bolga nodded carefully, looking up from her little one, though it appeared that she was still on the fence, even while thinking about it.

"I will go with you sister," Loriel said using the word as Naïsa said it with a nod, "I will come."

"I as well," Bolga announced to the surprise of the others - especially Naïsa.

"Why, if the Drow make you tremble from so far away?" she asked, and Bolga looked a little uncomfortable for a moment.

She looked down, "Not long I have been here, but what I have seen of this place - I must either leave this cave - or go with you to leave this land. 

The land around here does not suit me much, too open and yet the shorter things are weeds, only weeds. The forest is thin and barely grown and it does not speak to me because it fights itself to live, tree against tree. 

The dirt is dry because it is sand. I come from dark forest earth, alive if you smell it, not sand. I cannot get used to sand. Where there is forest here, I thought it looked good, but ..."

She held up her hand as though there was something in it, "Only needles, dry needles, nothing else, and not much good smell. I hunt for us and must eat what I kill. Things here taste bad, what I can catch, or they fight too hard for how small they are. Everything fights everything.

Also ... also, I think there are no others like us here, and it says to me that this is a bad place if no one lives here. I seek a better place for us, not a worse one."

She looked up, "I do not need for you to say that you would protect us, Chicha and me, but I know that you would anyway if there was need. Loriel said you are fell bow elf. I don't know this - but I see that you can fight. I feel that."

She looked from Naïsa to Loriel and back, "I would protect you as I can. I can fight and have magic. I have trust in Loriel and I have trust in you enough to put us in your hands." 

She nodded, "I fear the Ilythiirin. I have seen what they can do. But you live still, and if you are right, there are not so many there.

I came with only my Chicha, and it was a hard way to go, hiding like mice from fear. I am not helpless myself and I think that between three such as we are, we can fare better. You care for my Chicha, so I think that you would care for her mother also.

And we like you both. I am a huldra. I made my way with lies and tricks to live by cheating people's lives from them. But Loriel - she is a good judge." 

She rolled her eyes, "Took me weeks of living honestly to make her trust me. I thought I would die first. But she trusts you, so it is enough for me."

She looked down again, sounding as though she was speaking to herself as she nodded, "That is why I would go with you."

Her face came up then, looking uncertain, "If you would have us with you."

Her eyes widened because Naïsa was bowing to her, "Any mother with a young one speaks to me even if she says nothing. You are Chicha's mother, so you need say nothing - but I wish to hear anything from you. Now I wish to travel with you as well."

Nila looked down but said nothing to any of it.

She knew then that she'd driven the elf off, likely saving her from a lonely life like her own.

She knew that she'd ruined a little of her own chance of greater happiness as well, because she now knew that Bolga would leave with them.

When they asked, Nila declined, telling them that she preferred to remain there with her male.

"This comes at a good time for us all, though in different ways.

From what I know of the cats a little like mine where I am from, my boys will need to mate one day soon as they grow and I am the only female - once you have gone. Before that happens, their father will either drive them off or kill them. And if he fails at it, then they might join together and kill him in time. I will allow none of it.

It will break my heart, but you must take my sons with you when you go." She looked down for a moment and the others could see the pain in her.

A single sob managed to escape her and then she had it in hand once more. She looked up slowly as she wiped her tears, "I can only ask. 

Please finish raising my sons for me."

The elves looked at each other and Loriel knelt down, "But Nila, ... They get bigger and so much stronger every day. I think that I can guide them if they would listen to me as they do to you, but ... I cannot manage two. They fight together. It is play but if they grow only a little more, I will not be able to pull them apart and ..."

"I will take one, if it makes the task easier," Naïsa said, "I will take the bigger one, ... what is he called?"

"Weda," Nila said, "And I have no way to show my thanks for it."

"Then I will have Deheya and try to raise him as you would," Loriel said.

"The Great Spirit bless you," Nila nodded, willing herself not to burst into tears, "Let them come to know your scents and they will seek for you.

The fighting is natural for them and you must know this. Try to get them to learn not to before they grow much larger or one will kill the other in too small a place if Deheya cannot leave to go his way."

It ended the discussion after a time and one by one, they turned in.

But Nila didn't sleep.

She held her sons and watched the elves.

Over the course of that long, strange day when they'd met, months before, Loriel had begun to feel some attraction to Nila. She wrote it off later as her neediness coupled with the fact that here, all that she knew was largely useless and she needed to learn from the lovely, dark-haired woman.

Looking back on it now, she felt quite foolish for the way that Nila had stopped her attentions and spurned her ever since. Loriel thought that she could understand it to a degree, but she felt a little put-out afterwards that she wasn't given the choice. 

It had just been removed from her completely by Nila.

That first evening, before Bolga had shown up, Loriel would have bedded down with or at least near to Nila.

But after what had happened, she said nothing of what she'd hoped for and she just made her bed in another small chamber which dead-ended and had only the single opening to get inside through. She kept it neat and cleaned it often - almost every day - because it was no sewer and she never wanted to live like that again.

With a little thought over some time, Loriel came to admit to herself that she'd been too quick that first night. She saw herself back then as just a little less-mature and self-reliant and it might have influenced her actions.

Teaching Loriel to be self-reliant was the only thing that she felt that she owed Nila for now.

When she saw Naïsa looking around for a place to bed down for the night, Loriel stepped over and asked in a slightly whispered tone - in the words of the Wood Elf dialect whether the blonde really meant what had been said by calling her elf-sister. She only hoped that the wanderer would know enough to understand her.

Naïsa looked a little surprised for a moment and then she smiled that amazing smile of hers and nodded very earnestly, answering in the same tongue. 

"Happy I am to have found you," she grinned, "and yes, Loriel. I meant what I said. 

Why? Do you not see us that way?"

She put her hands on Loriel's shoulders to look into her green eyes, "I see wonders here. The large one who is happy with everyone, the little huldra babe, sweeter than any that I have ever seen. And her mother, Bolga. I feel how she wants better for her little family and how she seeks for love - though she does not say it.

The human - who really is not one such any longer - she causes me much wonder and it is good to see what I do in her."

She tightened her light grip a little then, "But Loriel, to meet a she-elf on the same day - and such a lovely one ... I only wonder at my great fortune. 

Yes, we are elf-sisters. Of course we are that. I seek to know you and well, wanting to see the light of your eyes there like the sunniest meadow, the deepest yet sun-bathed woodland.

In truth, I am over-hopeful, maybe."

She paused for a moment and then she grinned softly, "But I think not. 

My heart sang when you said that you would come with me. To one like I am, who has wandered so long alone - well..." 

She smiled, "It is no little thing, not to me."

Loriel nodded, returning the hopeful smile and led Naïsa to her chamber, "Then we sleep here. This is my little room and now it is yours also ... sister."

They made up their beds next to each other and since elves do not need much sleep at all, they spent most of the night whispering together.

"Forgive me," Loriel began, "but is there something to being what you are?"

Naïsa didn't understand the question and said so. So Loriel looked uncomfortable for a moment and tried again.

"Is there some old law which you need to uphold as you travel?"

Naïsa shook her head, a little relieved that the question wasn't what she'd thought that she'd heard, "No. That law is gone, Loriel. Ever the choice is mine what to do in anything. I do not even act oftentimes, unless I see unfairness which bothers me. 

To see a small huldra near to paying with her life for only being a young babe and to dogs who spawn much quicker than huldras ever can, the choice was one that I took up and made my own. I no sooner saw the way of it than my bow was in my hand. 

I defend mostly - and that is if I even act at all. 

I attack very seldom and I must be roused then."

"Like when a pack of dogs wants to eat someone like Chicha?" Loriel asked, to show that she understood.

Naïsa nodded, but it came with a shrug, "If they were going to attack a gull, or ... if I saw that it was more of a fair thing, I would have walked on.

Some things need protection without thought," she said a little seriously, "Like a Wood Elf who seeks to learn and might make a misstep as she does."

Loriel's eyes opened wide in surprise, "But - but I haven't even worked up my courage to ask you, Naïsa!"

"Nevertheless," the archer said without smiling as she reached over and moved a little nearer, "I know that it comes - because I think that it must. 

From your words tonight, you are one who has never known what her birthright would have brought to her - what it should have given her - and yet she is one who would seek it regardless.

It was taken from her long ere she was born, this beauty whom I now count as an elf-sister, for we are few and to withhold what she seeks would be a crime to my eyes.

You have learned things in order to live - as must we all, sister. But in your heart, you seek the life that none of your kind have known for so long. I know it because I see it in you.

You knew nothing of how to live away from where you were. yet you no sooner found yourself here than you sought to learn from your friend. Having learned all that you could, you would seek to learn from me the rest."

She smiled down into Loriel's eyes, "Sister, I will teach you all that I can for only that - to see the want in you fulfilled."

They were silent for a time, and then Naïsa asked about the way that Loriel dressed.

Loriel explained about what had happened to her clothing. 

"I can make things for myself now," she nodded, "Things that work and look not bad as clothing. Mostly, what I make allows for quick movement. I don't really have any need to look like a fine lady elf. I need things that will hold up and protect my skin and keep me dry underneath in a rain storm and a little warm for when winter comes."

Naïsa said that she liked what she'd seen of the clothing, adding that the functionality was obvious, and yet, that Loriel had managed to craft things which were attractive in their own way.

"You are still very much this rogue sort that you spoke of to me," she smiled, "I see a little challenge always in the glint of your eyes and the small set in the way that you hold your mouth." 

She chuckled, "And I can never truly say whether what I see is a little taunt, or only an elf-girl, hanging just on the edge of soft laughter. This has confounded me all the afternoon and evening, sister.

And yet - it suits. Far from the forest were you born, but you yet have in you to look of the Wood Elves of old.

But I wished to ask of the other things that you wear - that leather thing."

Loriel had to grin at that, "It was the center of what I was," she smiled, "wearing that under my clothes left me many pockets and places to hang things - like a few ells of rope that I might need, or more blades of different sorts and my set of lockpicks.

Where I was, to be caught with them in sight was worth hanging just for that, so I had a flat little pouch that I kept on the harness with a snap. 

But what I always wanted was a little crossbow. I could never find one for sale, other than the big ones and a small hunting crossbow was too big and crude.

I used to have a shortbow." 

She looked over at Naïsa and shrugged, "Well I AM an elf after all, right? 

But it was too big to carry around most nights and the damp hole where I lived attacked the wood and made it full of rot, once the shitworms got at it. I still cried when I threw it away, because my father made it for me when I was growing up - before they hung him for cutting purses in the square. 

My mother left when I was just little. She used to hunt for nobles and from what my father said, she found one for her to take care of her if she'd be his wife on the side. I guess he might have been hurt by it, but he never let on to me. 

Most of what I know, I learned from him. He was hard, and inside, I knew that he was lonely, but he never forgot that he had a daughter, and I never gave a rat's ass that I didn't have a mother at all."

She looked up then ... "But I was talking about crossbows.

I knew that I could never afford to buy one like that, and I couldn't make one - but if I knew where there was one, I'd have stolen it faster than Chicha can get into an egg. 

I heard that the Drow that you were talking about - I heard that they make them, just little one-handed things, that they can pull out of nowhere and kill somebody with and then they made them vanish again.

"I'm not stupid," she said, "I guess those ones do have some kind of magic, the way that you and Bolga were talking. But for things like that, I'd bet that they aren't any more magical than they are quick-fingered. They just have to have places to tuck those things in for when they need them, that's all.

Now, I guess I just wear my harness when I'm feeling a little naughty and want to feel some breeze against my skin, that's all."

"I saw," Naïsa nodded, "You looked fine like that in the sunshine.

To me, anyway. I would wear something like that - in the right place to feel that sort of ... freedom."

"That settles it," Loriel grinned, "I'll make one for you. I've got one half-made anyway. We're not that far apart in size. You're just a tiny bit longer in your body. I'm sure the one I was making for Nila would fit you if I cut it down.

She couldn't wear it anyway, not the way that she shifts back and forth. Both of us forgot about that.

I just don't have any buckles. My pack rotted away months ago so I made one out of buckskin and I used the old buckles for that."

"If the cat can spare me a wide bone or two," Naïsa said, "I can carve rings to use for cinches."

Loriel laughed a little, excited that she could do something for Naïsa. "You make them in pairs," she said, "about this big around, and I can finish it in a couple of days. If the rings work out, I'll just need to put in the double-stitching along the edges. I've got plenty of thin strips that I've cut already."

Does it get cool in here at night?" Naïsa asked, "There will not be much of the little fire's warmth coming to us this night. Not from so small a fire and from so far away."

"It might get a little cool," Loriel said, "but I never mind it much. Why? Do you feel cold?"

Naïsa shook her head, "I have slept in far colder places and with no blanket out of my need, not having one. I can stand a little cold. We are what we are, no?"

Loriel had been growing a little sleepy and now thought of turning in. It came to her that she felt good here like this, so she looked over.

"If you feel even a little cool here sister, then move to me. I won't mind it at all. Why not come now and we'll have your blanket to cover us too? There is only us here, so why not?"

Naïsa didn't know what to say for a moment, but she wasn't about to let her lack of words get in the way, so she moved over and covered them both with her blanket. Loriel was already lying facing away from her, but was looking back with a smile.

"I've known sisters who wouldn't piss on each other if they were on fire," she smiled as she turned away, "Much less offer a little warmth at night."

She heard Naïsa's soft chuckle, "As have I, now that I have the thought. As well, I have seen some who are closer than twins. But I think now that our new sisterhood can stand the test."

She moved her body just very close to Loriel, but without touching her, other than lightly at the back of her knees with her own. Loriel shifted back instantly to press herself against the blonde.

She sighed, "We might as well do it now. As sure as the sun will rise tomorrow, we'll be lying this close anyway and I want to feel something his nice while I'm still awake to know."

She couldn't see it, but Naïsa was smiling - though she was also a little touched that Loriel might want this. She slid her arm over the rogue and drew her the rest of the way against herself.

Both of them sighed at the same time and then chuckled in a little embarrassment.

"We fit together so well," Loriel smiled to the darkness before her.

"Mm," Naïsa groaned pleasantly, "We are the same and like this, the small difference in our heights works for us. You feel good to hold. I hope that you do not mind that I say it."

"Psh," Loriel began, "all my life, I've wanted to feel something like this. I'm not even surprised that we both like it."

"Nor am I," she heard from behind her, "I have wanted this in just the same way."

-------------

The next day, Loriel helped Nila and when she could, she joined Naïsa, just wanting to be near her and to learn anything that she could glean. The cubs went with them wherever they went and the elves wondered about it some. It was almost as though they knew somehow. 

At some points during the day, Loriel would find Naïsa looking at something a little farther out and when she stepped over to look, the blonde would point and the boys would be there, caught in a moment of play or exploration perhaps. The cats would look back, sensing eyes on them and pause and if the elves did not look away, then the cubs would come running and the elves knew that they had to prepare themselves for the grand welcome.

As it grew near to the time to head home, Loriel stepped up again and looked past Naïsa, "What now?"

The blonde slipped her arm around Loriel's waist and smiled, "I never thought much that I might become a mother one day - and like this ... I would never have even imagined it. I think that we will need to give them some time alone with us, if there is some bond which must come from it."

"Nila lies with them and talks quietly," Loriel commented, "I have even seen her let them suckle, but only for a moment each. It happens when she holds them as the beast that she is."

"Then that is a habit that Weda will be broken of," Naïsa said flatly, "They are nearing the size of wolfhounds. I will finish raising him. He may not know it yet, but his time for suckling is long over."




Ancient Watchtowers Ch.02



Loriel nodded her agreement, "I've felt their tongues on my face. I know that they can make them softer but at this age, they only know one way. I agreed to finish the raising. I will not mother Deheya his whole life long."

She saw Naïsa's face pull into a bit of a private smile and she had to ask.

"Nothing, really," the blonde said, "I just had the thought that if they grow to near their father's size, then we might have steeds to ride if we travel. We might go in fine style, no?"

It made Loriel chuckle for a moment as she nodded, "True enough. I only wonder what we'll do when the boys slowly turn to being men, to raise the point."

Naïsa began to laugh and she kissed Loriel on the cheek, "I have my answer to that, sister."

"And what is it?" the shorter one asked.

"Psh, it comes to me like nothing, Loriel. We give them to Bolga for that!"

The two of them laughed themselves almost to tears over it, but then the boys came bounding up to the crest of the rise to them and stole their hearts with a look.

"They look like a pair of princes in how they hold themselves," Loriel remarked and she knelt to fuss over Deheya.

"Oh, and fine warriors too, I see it in them also." Naïsa laughed as she prepared to receive Weda like the returning champion that he seemed to want to show to the world as he came.

The moment ended when the she-elves were bowled over and found themselves lying on the ground with a large happy cub over them and they lost their pretentions at that instant, for the only thing to do seemed to be to pull each one down to fuss over him properly.

------------ 

The elves heard a commotion in the main chamber as they thought to go to bed.

Being that it was a cave, when the large cat had something to say, it got loud. This time, there were painful cries made in answer as well.

The elves looked at each other and shrugged, but then they saw the aftermath in the forlorn faces of the cubs as they stood hanging near the door to the chamber.

There were no boisterous signs of their play lying just below the surface then, not the way that they usually carried it barely hidden in them. Now, their tails hung limp on the floor and their heads were down while they looked in sadly.

"I guess that our leaving comes at the right time," Naïsa said, "Perhaps their father has lost his patience over his sons taking up too much of his female's time."

Loriel nodded, "I think that our boys need us for the moment. I do not like to see that look on them."

They sat up and called softly and the cats came, but there was no want in them to tussle and play now. The elves saw the marks of the father on them, small wounds delivered with a pounding blow. The large one might have been holding back, but it was plain to see that the message had been driven home.

The elves said nothing and made no sounds to indicate that the punishment might have been undeserved. They only watched as the pair walked in like the losers in a brawl, almost dragging themselves in and not much higher than their tails. 

It was a moment and they knew it, so they only eased themselves back down when each cub dropped down to lie with them for a time wanting comfort.

They didn't see it, but Nila stood at the door a moment later, looking in and feeling torn in two, though she could tell herself that it was for the best.

It came as cold comfort to her as she turned to go back to her male. She knew that she'd never forget the sight of each one of her sons lying on his side with an elf reaching over to hold and console him. That wasn't her job any longer, as much as it hurt to think about.

In the chamber, there were only the quiet sounds of elven voices, crooning and singing softly to the suddenly small and diminished young warriors until the young ones were asleep.

They began it that night, what they felt between them and though it was all a little experimental, it was very satisfying to hold each other so tightly and to kiss softly for hours, it seemed. 

They found that trading gentle caresses just heightened things and it led to their kisses becoming hungrier. Loriel pushed Naïsa over and moved to lie on her to share their kisses that way and before long, they were moving together.

It was so good in many ways and they went on and on, each one helping the other's climax when it came in any way that they could.

They lay on their backs with stupid grins at the ceiling of the chamber for a while, just whispering and holding hands.

But that only lasted for so long until Naïsa rolled onto her side and held Loriel for more of her kisses.

"May I fuck you this time?" she asked politely and it caused, Loriel to laugh very sweetly, "How proper, Naïsa. How can I refuse a request like that?"

They got into it again, though Naïsa stopped after a time to move her hair out of the way and ask, "Did I say it wrongly?"

Loriel shook her head with a grin, "No, never. It's just that you were so ... polite with it."

She chuckled, "I would have just growled at you to come here."

Naïsa nodded, thinking about it and then she applied her full weight to Loriel's front as she reached back and lifting her own hips a little, she moved Loriel's legs up and really began to grind into her mound.

Loriel was out of breath in no time, but she wanted only more and cried out often, though as quietly as she could, "Fuck me, Naïsa. Fuck me, sister! Oh ... oh ... o ... "

------------

The third night ...

Loriel was losing her mind.

Or maybe it had just turned to jelly, along with the rest of her. 

For all of her street smarts - which she no longer needed in the absence of any streets - she'd been a totally frustrated virgin up to these past few nights.

In her sewer late at night, she'd come home after a long day and evening to crash out of exhaustion - often the kind which really wears you down - the kind which grows after periods of exertion and bouts of heart-stopping adrenaline-dumping fear followed by more desperate exertion, plus maybe a lot of dead-time lurking in between as she waited for something to either happen or for the jig to be up.

It could be a bitch of a life. 

She'd drag herself home, looking back often to see if she was being tailed, and then have to make a couple of diversionary laps around the sewers before she could shlep on in and bolt herself inside her reeking little den, though she kept it as clean as she could. It was just the neighbourhood ...

She'd count out her change carefully and any gold that she might have gotten along the way and then she'd hide that away in the safest place, before she washed the grime off her tired young body.

After drying off, she'd quite literally crawl up to lie in her rack and try to get to sleep. 

Usually, that entailed a lot of fingerwork in the darkness. 

Her fantasies usually involved sexual liaisons with clients, or people whom she might have seen who'd caught her eye - if she hadn't actually met them.

Male and females both. Loriel didn't care. 

She was a virgin, not an idiot, feeling more desperate by the day. The way that she'd lived her life back then, she'd take what she could get no matter where it came from.

She just never got any.

Who the fuck would want to tussle with a grimy, thieving elf who smelled as though she slept in a sewer?

But what had begun as perhaps a misadventure which had cost her all of her friends - if Nila was right and they were all dead ages ago - was now turning gold. She had a wonderful new friend who was more beautiful than any single person that she'd ever laid eyes one. She had a friend who wanted her often and in any way that either of them could think of and she'd finally been able to get really clean (which was not a little thing to Loriel) and now -

Well now, she was having her salad tossed by somebody beautiful. 

Fuck, she thought, beautiful or not, nobody had ever made it this easy to get laid.

She bucked her hips, wanting to and loving it as the most wonderful lips worked hers over in spades.

She couldn't get enough of that girl.

The first chance she got, she told herself, this was gonna be the night that she grazed in warm pink fields of happiness for once in her life. She couldn't wait to get her face a little wet and buried in real live, honest-to-goodness, naked elf muff.

She paused in her thoughts then to grin at her error. If it didn't grow any fur, could it still be called a muff?

She sighed, not knowing the answer and caring even less.

She opened her eyes and looked down along her belly and the stark 'V' formed by her thighs and she saw one long-fingered hand reach out to stroke her abdomen very softly while another held one of her thighs.

The skin was so much lighter than her own, in the magical glowing light hue that Naïsa carried and which she'd never seen before.

She couldn't see much of Naïsa's face - other than her beautiful eyes as they regarded her. 

Loriel had never known that anything could feel so good as this, so she tried hard to keep her eyes open. Something such as this shouldn't be missed.

She watched as those eyes just told her plainly of her lover's feelings and she noticed as the hand petting her belly seemed to grow darker still as Loriel stared to see it reaching toward her breast with spreading fingers. She didn't know what this was, the strange slight darkening that she saw now and then when they were in bed, but she loved to see it.

A low-down, moaning growl came to her ears as the hand slid over the contour of Loriel's breast and closed over it, squeezing and kneading deliciously.

She looked further again as she felt her chest heaving to draw in air in response to the wickedly incredible thrill which came to her then.

The eyes were closed in their own pleasure for a moment as Naïsa worked her magic against Loriel's most intimate folds.

She held her hand over the one on her breast to feel the soft skin, needing to, since it was proof that she was being eaten in the nicest way by a the loveliest woman alive.

It was finally really happening.

She could feel the teeth as they nipped her so lovingly and the heat in that breath down there. She was losing the fight to keep her eyes open - it just felt so good.

She knew that she was lost even as her ribs heaved again and her back seemed to arch of it's own volition. She cried out, bucking her hips as carefully as she dared in little motions. She heard her own voice, sounding raw and wanton. She couldn't believe how good it sounded to let her feelings out - since they wouldn't be restrained any longer.

She bucked and moaned and even began to yell, not being able to do a thing about it.

That sweet tongue had finally been brought fully into play to begin it's work.

That night, Loriel had been right. It was the night that she found herself needing to hang on to her lover's thighs. It could be challenging - until she thought that her efforts must be good enough in the first place to cause all of these hip gyrations.

They did it until they literally couldn't anymore. Their last attempt was the longest yet as they each lapped and sucked the softest sweetness for a long time, moaning into each other's clefts and feeling honoured to have this privilege for her own. 

The trip to turn around and crawl up to lie with Naïsa seemed a long one because she was so tired and feeling well-loved, but it was worth it and they collapsed into each other's arms to trade such naughty-tasting wet kisses until they couldn't anymore.

They only had a limited time for it anyway, since their noises had awakened the cubs who were now nosing around and rubbing themselves where they could on the way by, while offering quiet purrs in case this was anything bad.

"Do you ..."

There was silence after that for a little while.

Naïsa looked over, "I do not know. You never finished."

"I'm a little nervous," Loriel asked, "I want to ask you something, but I'm afraid to."

Naïsa smiled and pulled Loriel closer, "Then let the matter rest until it has gained the strength to be asked, and I will answer it."

Loriel nodded and returned the hug before she turned over and settled in to sleep.

Each one of them let out a large, sharp groan as she found a large cat almost toss himself down tiredly to get back to sleep. 

The problem was, that even though most of the dropping had been onto the bedding, at least a little in both cases had been against an elf and it came as a rude shock. 

Naïsa felt Loriel shifting a little against her, "We're gonna have to work on this sleeping with mom thing some more, buddy."

The quiet, rattling purr that he returned to her just took the wind from her sails.

"Strange to think that we only begin between us and yet we seem to have a family of a kind," Naïsa said.

"Never mind," Loriel said, "I think we just have to learn to live with it. From what Nila told me about the winters, these two monsters of ours are gonna be worth their considerable weight in gold to us some night soon when the wind screams and the fire's gone out."

"I think now that I might turn over," Naïsa whispered, "I find a want to maybe try to put my leg over Weda and sleep that way for a time."

"Go ahead," Loriel chuckled, "I'm way ahead of you. I tried that last night and I can recommend it. I'm already hanging on to my kitty. If you get tired of yours, just pull some of the blanket over him. He'll get too hot in no time and bugger off to lie down where it's cooler for him.

Since we're done fooling around, I can say that Deheya comes in not far behind you to hang onto, since he's got fur. 

My old friends where I grew up might stare at me for this, but I don't care. They're not here and I've got the best teddy bear anywhere, right here. I loved her back when I needed her when I was little, but lying here with my cat in my arms and you against my back beats the fuck out of my old doll."

--------------

It was the fourth day and Loriel had been busy. She was preparing her few things to leave and trying to decide what she might need. Not being able to foretell the future, she just packed everything, leaving her crafting things at the very bottom; the spare hides which were ready and the pieces that she'd cut for a new set of breeches - long-legged ones for Naïsa, so that she could wear her long boots over them when the weather turned cold or if it rained while they were on the road.

For being dry meant the difference between traveling and walking in misery and she knew it.

When she wasn't doing that, Naïsa's teachings had kept her plenty busy, but she was happier for them, and they were presented to her in more of a pleasant way that challenged her rather than Nila's dry explanations.

Now she'd stepped outside in the afternoon sunshine, just to feel it on her body after taking off her clothes. She stood in the sunshine with her eyes closed and her long reddish brown hair blowing free in the wind.

Naïsa stepped out looking for Loriel after finding that she'd finished the harness that she'd made and left it for the blonde to find on her bed.

Naïsa stopped and stared, taking in the wonder of Loriel's beauty. She couldn't have moved a step if her life had depended on it.

Unaware that she was being observed, Loriel opened her eyes and walked to the water's edge, tying back her hair in a loose knot as she waded in.

Naïsa ducked to hide among the tall grass, still spellbound and not knowing quite what to do about it - other than what she might have wanted to do.

Loriel washed, using the barest amount of the crude soap which Naïsa had said that she could use. It was only some animal fat mixed with finely ground ashes with some ground pine needles blended in. 

A little went a long way if you were careful and Loriel was careful not to waste even a little of this gift, wanting to be truly clean for once when they left and to one like her, the soft, and slightly tangy pine-ish scent was better than the finest perfume because it didn't cover odor - it was for washing with so it left you feeling and smelling clean.

Her bathing done, Loriel untied her hair and ducked her head a little awkwardly as she tried to wet all of her hair with one hand while holding up the other out of the water, for it held the last of the soap that she'd taken and by now, she was down to just what covered her palm as more of a film, really.

Then she stood straight again and threw her head back, sending her wet hair flying up and back in a torrent of spray.

Sending a thrill right through Naïsa, who thanked the gods that she'd been allowed to see it.

Loriel rubbed her palms together and when she thought that she had it divided equally, knowing all the while that it wouldn't be enough, she began to work it into her hair.

She was at it a long time, just doing her best to make what she had go as far as she could make it go, and then she was squatting under the water, to wash it all out as best she could. Five times she did this before she was satisfied that she'd done her best and then she threw her head back once again to throw off the water.

Walking out, she picked up the comb that her friend had given her and began to comb out her hair as patiently as she could.

She stood then, almost back were she'd started, facing away from the shore and looking out to sea - as it were.

She was a little troubled, hoping that her gift to Naïsa would please her.

The sun had begun to dry her skin, though the hair would take hours yet. Loriel didn't want to use anything to towel it with. She loved the long waves and few long curls that she saw in Naïsa's hair and asking about it, she'd learned that her friend loved to have it this way, but really, it came from washing, careful combing while wet, and then just air-drying, since she was always just too impatient to do anything else to it.

She felt Naïsa's arms encircle her and then she was drawn gently back in the blonde's embrace. Loriel was still a little worried, but she sighed anyway, and enjoyed the feeling of Naïsa's chin on her shoulder.

"It is a fine thing that you have made for me, sister," Naïsa whispered, "I would wear it for you this very moment, but ..."

Loriel's stomach fell. 

"But what?"

Naïsa smiled, "It needs to be adjusted, and I have not the brains nor the skill required to do it the first time. Would you help me please? I cannot wait to feel it on me."

Loriel turned around to face a smiling Naïsa who said, "I did not know that only ones who were skilled enough could put such a marvel on themselves. I have already tried and failed. 

And failed. 

And then I fai-"

"I get it," Loriel chuckled, "I'll help you. You sound so forlorn, I can't stand it."

She pulled a little bit here and there, though gently as she fussed a little, "I can't believe this. I've seen you almost split a huge tree in two with an arrow and bring fish to the top of the lake with a glowing bomb that you made using just your mind before you tossed it in.

But you can't get this on?"

"I am hopeless," Naïsa nodded, agreeing completely.

Loriel stepped around Naïsa and moved her hair out of the way so that she could get the collar settled properly at the bottom of that lovely neck and cinched just enough to allow freedom of movement, "This part will loosen by itself over the next little while. I'll need to keep cinching it just a touch each time," she said as she straightened the long strap at the back by feel so that it hung straight and then she pulled the hair back to cover it.

"I tried," Naïsa said, "but it fought me."

"Sh-yeah," Loriel smirked as she stepped back around, "I'll bet it did the first time. It needs time to learn your body. After a few days, you won't have those fights anymore."

She moved the last of Naïsa's hair back over her shoulders and she began to get her breasts well seated in the straps at the front, setting the thicker cross piece in place under them before straightening the strips which now wouldn't quite cover her friend's hard nipples.




Ancient Watchtowers Ch.02



"I am just helpless," Naïsa whispered, looking down a little at Loriel's breasts.

"There," Loriel said as she fussed on and she straightened the strap which hung down under Naïsa's lovely breasts with a ring of bone just allowing her navel to show through, "Now you're ready to do up the bottom straps into one. I hope you were paying a little attention. You can't do up the straps underneath until after you've got the collar on and your tits in properly. I think that's what you were doing wron -"

She looked up, "What did you say?"

Naïsa smiled, "I said that I am helpless. I am ... falling, I ... I think -"

She shook her head a little and drew a breath, "I am - ohh ... I love you, Loriel."

Loriel's mouth drifted open.

"I am sorry, " Naïsa said, "I can't help ... 

Loriel, you asked me at the very first if there was something to being what I am. I was shocked and afraid to lose your friendship even as it was beginning, but then I saw that you asked something else and not what I feared."

She looked down again, and this time she looked right down to the ground. She took a deep breath and just said it.

"There IS something to being what I am. There is no elf-word for it that I know in any of the elf-tongues that I can speak. I only know the human word for it, and there, it is said as an insult. But I know of no other.

I am a tribade."

Loriel paused and she felt that Naïsa was about to turn away, so she reached to take her hips in her hands, "What does that mean?"

Naïsa shrugged a little sadly, "It means that I like other females more than I like males."

She looked up, "I like males too, though I have never lain with one. I just like ... females ... more. 

Much more."

Loriel thought about it for a moment, "And you're saying now that you like me, is that right?"

Naïsa didn't look up. She only nodded again. "Lying with you each night is both bliss and such happy torment to me. You always hold me and then you kiss me so softly to tell me goodnight. You take my hand and hold it to your breast. 

You sleep then, but I do not. I ... cannot. I am sorry if I ruin ..."

Loriel dipped her head and smiled up, seeking Naïsa's sweet mouth. She kissed Naïsa quite purposefully and reached to lift her chin.

Then she did it again, just as purposefully, "There.

I hope that teaches YOU something, Naïsa. You say you love me, and I even believe that you're sure. Have you ever been in love like that before?"

Naïsa was clearly a little shocked and very much surprised, but she nodded, "In the academy, before I became ... a Fell One. I had little loves with a few of the other girls, but Loriel, I have never felt this way before about someone. Not in the way that I feel ... about you."

Loriel nodded, her little roguish smile in full evidence by then. She put her arms around Naïsa and leaned in to kiss her until both of them wanted to sag against the other before she pulled back.

"I still believe you," she grinned, "you wonderful, amazing girl. 

So let's try it. I'm past ready. Why do you think that I kept kissing you like that every night? If it weren't for the way that I'm always so unsure of myself ..."

She shrugged with a little laugh, " Naïsa, I'd have been all over you every night even MORE if I knew how you felt."

Naïsa's jaw fell again, "You ... you are a tribade also? I mean, we have been loving like that, but ... I wish to know."

Loriel laughed then, really laughed. 

When she was done, she leaned in and rested her forehead against Naïsa's, though she had to reach to guide her head a little bit due to the height difference.

"What do you think that I had such trouble with last night? 

What did you think that my question would have been?

My lovely sister, I am an everything. I'm an anything, I suppose. I've never had any kind of thing with anyone and I've been absolutely dying to for as long as I can remember. Now, I have you - or it's my fear and joy to have to struggle with - needing to know how you felt. That was what I wanted to know - if you felt anything for me besides just for fucking.

So alright. You love me. 

Then I'll love you and not be afraid for once, is that alright? 

I'll be a tribade or ... I'll be a -"

"Do not say goat," Naïsa warned with a raised finger.

Loriel laughed a little, "I'll be whatever you want me to be - anything you want, if you'll really try to love me like I want to love you.

We are what we are - you told me that. I think I'm what you are too. I'm sure of it."

Naïsa reached out then and put her arms around Loriel's neck, "Do the elves where you are from pledge themselves, once they know?"

Loriel tilted her head a little, "Pledge? Like you mean, when they pair off?"

Naïsa nodded, "I do not mean now, I mean when we are sure. Sometime, this might be a complete bond. That is what I wish for with you - though it is far early yet."

She watched that little smile widen just a touch as Loriel thought it over.

"Which one of us would be the husband? 

'Cause frankly, I'd be anything that you want me to be at this point. You can even call me that."

"What?" the blonde asked, puzzled by Loriel's chatter.

"Frank," Loriel laughed, "but just when we're playing."

Naïsa's own little smile had begun by that point and she pressed herself against Loriel so that their breasts were crushed together, "I thought that this was the point - that we do not need a husband. 

I knew some girls in the academy were paired from almost the beginning, and between them, I could see which was like the husband to the other. I do not feel this way, but if you want this , I will try to be whichever you want - the wife or the husband. But I think that we need to learn this. We really are alike, Loriel. I thought that I saw this from the first. I just was not sure about ... about this."

"I don't care right now," Loriel grinned, "I just want you - anyway that I can get you.

Look, we've gotten your harness this far. Let's at least tie it up so that I can see if it fits you. After that, I'm yours.

Um ... again."

Naïsa nodded, "What more needs to be done?"

Just one thing," Loriel smiled.

She was about to get to her knees when she noticed something and stepped back in wonder. 

"I've - I've never seen you naked in the daylight," she said. 

"You're ... Oh Naïsa, you're so beautiful like this!" She pointed to the markings which she could now see clearly, the smoky lines which ran over Naïsa's skin.

She stared a little, "They're ... they're moving, I swear it!"

The markings were indeed moving, looking a little like roiling tall, long flames and qualming smoke. As she stared, completely taken by what she saw, they slowed and stopped, beginning to fade from sight a little bit.

Naïsa was looking a little worried again.

"It does not bother you, does it, Loriel? I had no say in this. These came to me from my teacher as she left me and she said that "We could never hide what we are, and so we never should."

They only move much when I feel ... something strongly - rage, hate, love, I must guess and also lust."

Loriel shook her head, looking up briefly, "No, they're you, aren't they? I wish that I had something like that - especially if this works for us. I wouldn't ever be afraid to show the world who I want to belong to, as long as I do ... like I really want to.

I guess that I've just said that I love you in my awkward way," she said, "I guess that I'm also offering just as clumsily."

She shook her head and kissed Naïsa, "I feel like this is gonna work. I just don't have the experience to really know, that's all. But I know that I want it, so I want to wear something on me so you know that I'm yours, Naïsa."

As Naïsa worked her way through it, Loriel saw the movements beginning again after a moment and she sighed, "I'm making you do that, aren't I?"

"How about a ring?" Naïsa suggested.

"Nope," Loriel said, "well maybe. If I can't find a way to get something like you have. You can't do that on me, right?"

She saw the look and the apologetic shrug. "Then I'll get a tattoo."

Before Naïsa could reply, Loriel was gone, almost running around her. "I've just gotta see your ass! They're back here too, aren't they? 

Ah!" she exclaimed, "Ohh, Naïsa, you're the most ... Ah, I don't even have any words for something like this!'

She ran her hands over Naïsa's back, drifting them lower to caress that amazing ass and she leaned in to kiss those cheeks for a moment.

"Move your legs apart a little," she said, taking hold of the leather strap, "I'll need to spread these beauties a bit, so don't mind me. This is gonna chafe a little and maybe pinch just a bit until the leather learns that you're the boss. But I've still got powder for that, and you just say it to me and I'll make it better,"

She moved around to Naïsa's front and was on her knees in a heartbeat, thrilled to see the way that the flames rose and shifted. 

Loriel got on it then and she slid the two ends together, cinching the front just so.

"You know that I'll want us to wear these things together a lot, right?"

Naïsa nodded, but stopped and stared at the way that Loriel knelt enthralled and happy at what the was looking at.

She leaned over more and stared.

As though she'd completed an electrical circuit by connecting the ends, the harness began to glow subtly and in a second, the elven runes began to appear - the things which Loriel had carefully and painstakingly copied from staring at Naïsa' armour. 

There in flowing elven script were the words of the oath that Naïsa had sworn to her teacher long ago. She reached down and took Loriel's face in her hands and when Loriel looked up, she saw the blues eyes that she'd come to love shining down at her, brimming with emotion.

"It is right, what we feel. Loriel, I am yours. I pledge myself to you."

Loriel nodded, "I might as well just say it too, Naïsa. There can't be any hope for me other than this. I pledge all that I am to you."

But she was a rogue after all and she smirked after a second, "I'll even let you be Frank part of the time."

Naïsa laughed, feeling more like herself again, getting over what shame she'd felt at first and then the happy relief that followed it, "I would not want everyone to see it wherever we go, but even so, I would be proud to be seen wearing these things - as you call them - together with you."

Loriel nodded, showing her agreement, though after a moment, she just stared and heaved a little sigh and leaned forward, beginning to undo things once more.

"What are you doing?" Naïsa asked, "I thought that I must wear this for a time."

Loriel looked up, nodding, "Yeah, but if you love me even a little bit as much as the noise that you made about it - you're gonna let me do this now."

She reached up and watched as her finger slid along the cleft before her and then she did it again, fascinated at the moisture which had begun in such a short interval.

Her hands moved so that she reached for Naïsa's hips, and she leaned ever further to let her mouth show how she felt, wanting to put a few more miles on her tongue.

-----------------

There was no one else in the cave, and Naïsa thought of it as she begged for a brief respite.

"Beauty," she gasped, "We are alone. Let's go inside before I cannot stand up. I am yours, truly and I want you too. Come!"

Loriel nodded as she stood up, wiping her lips with the back of her hand, "Alright, sister. But I want to have a lot more of that, just so you know."

Naïsa nodded and reached for Loriel's hand and they ran back to the cave together.

---------------- 

They missed it when everyone else came home, though nobody missed the soft scent in the air. 

They missed the evening meal.

They would have happily gone hungry, but they stopped much later after Chicha was asleep and Bolga had a little freedom. She came to give them food and sat with them to share.

"What is this stew?" Loriel asked, "It's delicious!"

Bolga snorted and looked disgusted, though she ate what was left in the pot just as quickly. 

"I found little animals, so many of them. They live in little holes in the ground and they spend half the day standing up to watch their neighbors - JUST like the people in the village not far from where I come from. 

They looked like squirrels to me, and Nila told me once that humans have sticks that make noise and animals fall down.

She told me about buffalos - BIG cow things, and those sticks can knock one down from far away so you can eat the buffalo things. Then she told me that humans hunt squirrels with the sticks."

She grumbled, "They must be idiots here. Why seek for squirrels if you can knock down big buffalo things? They have no sense.

Anyway I thought the things I saw were squirrels, but I don't have a stick like that, so I tried it the huldra way and changed how I look to get them to come close enough to grab a couple.

Only I don't know what they like to look at. I tried everything, but no, not good enough. The little fuckers were all standing up to watch the crazy huldra turn herself into things.

It took me half the day, and then I tried to look like a sheaf of wheat - I was that hungry.

They came then! Maybe thirty of the dummies. But they ran all over me. I grabbed some and then, I even had four in my hair!

I took them back here and asked how to cook them.

Nila, she says they're prairie DOGS!"

She shook her head and slapped her palms down onto her thighs, "THAT'S why I want to get out of here."

She began to count off her fingers, "Humans shoot squirrels when they could have buffalo. Nila says they like to shoot prairie dogs because they are smart. 

Well they must be smarter than the humans here! Have to be, if they call a squirrel a dog and shoot it if it's smarter than they are."

I asked how you can make them ready, and she tells me you must do all sorts of things to them and throw most of each one away! They only got a little meat on the whole thing! 

Nothing here makes sense to me. You need fifty to fill the pot if you DON"T cut everything off. I only had twenty-two, but I did it her way because I wanted to make you something, since you missed the meal.

That's why it's all carrots and smart prairie dog bits. Nila made me fry them first. I know how to get carrots, I don't have to fool them. Carrots know who they are."

Loriel was laughing but Naïsa said it tasted great and Loriel nodded.

"Oh I'm glad," Bolga sighed, "I liked it, but you know me. I'd eat anything, so it doesn't mean anything if I like it. But if you like it, then I know that I did alright."

She snorted again, "Stupid little prairie dog fuckers. I'd try for a buffalo next time, but I'd starve to death before I guessed what I ought to look like for them. Probably a prairie dog, for all the sense it makes, or maybe a shoe. I dunno."

She chuckled a little as she sat and watched them eat, "I wondered how long that it would take you."

They both looked up from their meals and Bolga's chuckle became a soft laugh, "You think that I missed the way that you looked at each other? You go on," she smiled warmly, "I know how it feels. 

I will try to think," she said, "I must have some magic for you. Tell me what you wish for each other and I will have something, somehow. But I will not do one thing. 

I will not make any magic which holds one to the other - it is not fair and should not be done.

"I know something that I want," Loriel said suddenly as the thought came to her, "Naïsa's marks. Can you do something for me like that? I want to be ... not the same, but like to her as I can. She teaches me now and with that, I can do for myself as much as I can.

But the marks," she said, "I want something like that and you have them too. Who did them for you?"

Bolga nodded, "She cannot give this. She does not know how and I do not know either. But I can do something like it though they will not move like that," she smiled, "I made what I wear myself. There is ... some pain."

Naïsa was a little shocked to hear Loriel's vehemence, "Then I will bear it. What must I do?"

Bolga had Loriel stretched out on her front and she began by sitting on her back, leaning forward, as she traced her fingertips lightly over her skin, beginning at her ankles. The huldra crooned and moaned as she chanted something unintelligible, and it seemed to the others that she was enjoying things a little as she rubbed herself gently along, while often stretched out over Loriel's body.

Loriel wondered, especially as she felt no pain, but rather enjoyed the pleasant sensations.

"What's happening?" she asked Naïsa," Can you see anything on me yet?"

Naïsa nodded, "It begins, a little at a time, and Bolga moved back over what she did before and the lines grow darker."

Loriel seemed satisfied with that and in time, Bolga spent a long time on her bottom. Yet still there was no pain. 

Bolga got up for a short rest and drink some water. The lines on Loriel were faint, but she said that they'd darken some in a little time by themselves.

When she began again, she sat on Loriel's backside again and this time worked the lines of the flames higher up, still rubbing her sex over Loriel.

She had Loriel roll over then and Bolga began in much the same way as she had from the first.

"I like this," Loriel smiled, "But I feel no pain."

Bolga chuckled, "I lied.

For the back, I needed you still and you might be ticklish. I needed you tight, fearing the worst. Now, I want you to feel ease. There is no pain."

She looked down with a grin, "And I like my rubbing, elf. I want this with you, but I think you would not allow it.

So I get what I can, no? I think that the payment is almost fair."

All three of them laughed.

"You are a lusty thing indeed, pretty mother," Naïsa smiled and bowed low in mock respect, "to have your way with the beast and then come wanting us."

Bolga smiled and nodded, taking the compliment, "I do not know the number of the years on me now - from this strange place, but I have only passed twenty-three winters otherwise."

She leaned down and kissed Loriel softly for a moment, "If you think that you want Bolga one night, only ask and I would come. We know each other enough now I hope, and I want friends. I never had friends like you."

Loriel looked up and nodded, reaching for the fox-girl's head with her hands to beg another kiss. "I think that we all need each other, once we're on the road. I do not see you the same way that I did.

You are only like the ones that I've seen before. You are not one like that anymore - and you need all the help we can give to watch your girl, no? 

A little one like that can make a mother grey."

"That would be a crime," Naïsa nodded, "Let us help."

Bolga smiled, actually touched. 

"And we grow grey together?" she asked a little hopefully, pleased to see their nods.

"Where are the boys?" Naïsa asked as she tried to peer out of the doorway.

Bolga sighed, "I left them sleeping with Chicha in between them. It was so nice to see, but I could not decide if I saw them all as little ones or if I was being given a look ahead. They are all three beautiful and to me, it looked for a moment as a view of something which could not happen yet, but might.

I saw them as my Chicha all grown and sleeping with her large lovers. She grows so fast now and she walks on two legs if she thinks that no one sees her."

They nodded, seeing it, and Bolga looked down, "Do not move now," she said, "Tits are almost the worst."

"Then what is the worst?" Naïsa asked.

Bolga shrugged, "The face, for one. I tickle at the worst time, and your love will look mad forever. Moving her fine hips just a little, and ..."

She chuckled, getting up a little to point to Loriel's mound, "She could wear a moustache over the beard which is not there."