(This is a story written to and about a good friend Wren Phoenix, both written and posted with her permission.)
Have you ever had one of those shitty fucking days. Yeah you’re right, I guess we’ve all had them. But It seem I’ve had 52 years worth. They say that you can never find true happiness unless you’re true to yourself.
You know there’s a part of it that really wants to believe that. But it’s harder than hell…yeah, harder than hell because there were times I’d have cut a deal to fix myself.
I know everything I’ve said’s confusing isn’t it. Try living it. Try living through being this big, tough, burly guy. A guy who’s kicked more than his share of ass and done some things that were…well those are other stories. Bouncer, Trucker six three and currently about 360lbs I was a lot heavier, I even have lost a foot…no, it was diabetic related even though I have problems with that too. No I lost the foot while trucking. I got stuck on an icy patch of road one winter and had gotten out to check if I could get the rig out and I slipped and fell on black ice. I was knocked out for a few minutes because the next thing I knew I was screaming as the truck’s weight had loosened it. It started to roll back a bit and that leg was being crushed by the weight of the truck.
I screamed so loud and for so long that the snowplow guy actually heard me. Now I’ve got a prosthetic one. It matches my fake life. See, I just knew, knew that deep deep down in my soul I wasn’t myself, I wasn’t the big burly rough guy called Bear by too many for too long. I know it was meant well but it just re-enforced to me what I wasn’t and could never be…The girl I was in my soul.
I had taken it as long as I could before coming out to my family. My mom had passed so I’d never get her acceptance, or support. My Dad just looked at me when I told him. He sighed like I hurt him and he left. The look on his face was that of…Typical, this is your excuse for being a failure this time. My siblings laughed at first thinking I was joking and when they finally clued in that I wasn’t.
There was just one fight, one huge dose of how much of a fuck up I was and the lovely way they took the opportunity to throw everything I ever did wrong in my face. Some of the worst bits were when they said I was lying and just finding a new excuse for everything. And when I really cried and bared my soul, I got contempt like I wasn’t good enough and cruel laughter.
It was the last time I’ve heard from them. They’ve changed phone numbers and e-mails and one had sent their kids to a therapist to see if I ever touched them! Dad moved in with them and sold the house I had grown up in.
Then there was my wife, Yeah a really great girl too. She didn’t get it. She didn’t get why I felt like this and she needed constant reassurance. I’ll say this, she did love me. I loved her but this nearly wrecked us. She died a week after x-mas from a brain aneurism…She was in the kitchen cooking and I was doing laundry when she collapsed. I ran to her and she wasn’t moving but doing a fast dog like pant. She was crying with tears streaming down her face. I looked at her and her eyes went wide when she seen me…A smile, a big smile…Then she said her lasts words to me. “Oh, Wren!” then she was gone.
That’s when I took the sleeping pills. I nearly overdosed, I wanted to overdose and my family had me locked away to save me from myself...and them. It took six months before the shrink let me go. I convinced him that it was the grief and not the depression. My home, my wife’s home as meager as we had it was sold to pay for my clinical stay.
I started trucking again. I needed the money. I was still thinking about killing myself oh about every second day.
I took jobs and routes I never normally would. Like tonight I’m driving through this really bad storm in Alberta heading to a drop near Calgary. The clouds are so low I felt like I could almost touch them. Dark, dark clouds that weren’t the right color. You know when a tornado builds and you’re too close and the air gets this olive oil tint to it? This was like sepia tinted…Then my truck started dying on me…like the electrical was giving out? But it’d flare back on, then dim. I pass a sign saying Brooks It’s a town but I didn’t read the miles oh sorry kilometers to it. It’s getting worse and I pull off the road into a side road. I’m looking for a place that might shelter my rig. I’m getting the feeling of tornado, I’ve been through tornado country a few times back home. I’ve seen a few. I’ve been in one. It picked up my rig and me in it coming out of the blue and me and my truck flew sideways 400+ feet off the road and into a corn field. I still had my wife then so I had something to live for.
Today…I don’t know why, but I don’t want to die today.
I’m lost in thought when I run out of road and it gets rocky and bumpy. I’m cussing and turning the truck around when the power in the rig flickers again and I heard the weirdest damned sounds coming out of the CB. It doesn’t sound human. Then some does but it’s no language I’ve ever heard. The signal must be going screwy from the storm…It starts raining hard and then it changes over to snow…that’s not snow…I roll down my window a little and sand starts to drift in? The closest desert like thing is the Alberta badlands but this couldn’t come from there…I thought it was snow but it’s really a kind of a blue grey.
Oh…wow…
The sky got darker and I swear it’s like being underwater but in the clouds I’m seeing ball lightning like constellations and each ball up there seems to have this aura around it like it own personal northern lights. It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. I reach for my camera and both my gps thing and CB blow shorting out and there’s that not human sound again only louder. Right on top of me…
There’s a lightning flash and I see a sign saying Gordon Freeman mound site? Then it get’s smashed off it’s posts by this lizard? A lizard the size of my rig if not bigger!
It hits me side long? And there’s a rider in a saddle on it’s back and she gets slammed into my windshield. I know it’s a she because of the cry her voice made when they impacted. Us all go rolling side over side three times before stopping and somehow I landed back on my wheels. I see white as a bolt of lightning flashes out from the mouth of the dragon.
Yuh…I said dragon, with a dragon rider…in fantasy armor that clings to her like a second skin. No…not like the really stupid stuff you see where the girl would get gutted because it’s just metal lingerie. No think skin tight, silvery blue metal with something flexible underneath but total coverage, think medieval Iron Man…woman.
The bolt of lightning from the dragon hits another one…Huge, black, with three heads and red glowing eyes. It oozes smoke and I can feel the evil coming from it and it’s rider.
I mean, I’ve felt stuff in my life and seen and been through some evil things our at least what I thought was evil. The wave of this I felt sent my evolution screaming backwards and like a chimp or a monkey or even caveman there was this part of me that wanted to shriek and run up a tree and howl at the thing while throwing excrement and rotting fruit.
The lightning bolt gets intercepted by a disc of darkness. The dark dragon fire back three time with thick red swirling bolts of napalm like missiles and the dragon and rider dodge and bounce around. I’m freaking out, but so much I can just watch…They circle each other and my truck twice. The woman’s yelling something ate me…okay…that’s the funny talk from the CB. The dark dragon, one of it’s heads lowers down and it stares at me. It sees through me…sees the real me…like Sauron’s fucking eye from LOTR and it makes this sound…
The other dragon the silvery one takes the opportunity to jump the evil one and for a second There’s just the snarls, huge Jurassic park huge beastly sounds. Then they grapple rolling and trying to kill each other. And My truck is in the middle of it all.
The clouds are all around us now, like they descended and the ball lightning touching each of these network of stones? Then there’s this flare as the explode? Or rather become, became lines of blue light. Then there was this huge thunderclap and the clouds broke. Like when a tornado breaks up sometimes all dark one minute and blue sky the next.
Only I’m in blue sky country if it suddenly became the Sahara. If the Sahara was the same color as the snowing sands. There’s a brief respite of a few seconds before they’re at it again. And them and me go tumbling down a dune a couple of hundred feet down. I’m hurt by the time we stop. I broke my arm, my false leg came off and there’s a ringing in my ears that won’t go away…The truck’s on it’s side but it’s pinning the girl and the dark dragon has the other one pinned. One of the heads leans over the woman and smiles, baring it’s teeth. Red drool drips onto her burning her armor like acid. It makes that sound again…the one it made when it looked into me…It’s…laughing.
Something snapped and as much as I’m Wren, Bear’s there too I wear him or that part of me like armor. This thing looked at me and saw my inner soul and it laughed at me. I might not have had it in me to lash out at my family or anything like that but this…Bear had a target. I know, me human, crazy as it was, batshit crazy as it was I reached into my sleeper and pulled my shotgun out a double barreled 12 gauge. I was crazy pissed and somehow I got my fake leg back on and climbed out of my truck door and stood on it.
The thing was just about to rear down and eat the girl. I screamed. “Hey! Motherfucker!”
It stopped and one of the eyes on that head turned and looked at me. It sneered. I saw the shadow of one of the other heads coming down over me. I turned at it and fired both barrels into the eye of the head that was going to chomp me. “Eat that asshole.” The eye exploded and I was covered in gore…it burned me like the saliva did her armor.
Only the blood was way more concentrated, and a lot more of it, and I wasn’t wearing armor.
I threw my hands up only to see them burn like I swam in a vat of acid. Then the burning started…I think I screamed. Oh hell I know I screamed…and screamed…and screamed…I saw my body ignite. Too much body fat…it was like someone lit a torch. I should have went unconscious fast but I didn’t…it lasted minutes but it felt like forever. Then finally darkness.
***
~Are you sure you are ready for this Shaya?~
“Yes Bhlaze, this person saved us both.”
~Yes, person but what is it?~
“I’m not sure but they saved us and that’s a debt I’m going to repay.”
~But to bond yourself to it, it’s dangerous Shaya.~
“I have to, He’ll not survive otherwise. I’ll get us to the holy lands to the tree.”
~They might not take him, we do not know what he is.~
“Home then, If I’m bonded to him then mother will have to heal him to save me too.”
~You tempt fate, she will not be pleased with you being so foolhardy, nor your father.~
“Too bad, what do they say? It’s better to beg for forgiveness than ask permission?”
~Aye, and you’re taking us where angels fear to tread.~
***
There’s a burning on my chest, right over my heart. I feel it through the darkness of passing out because in burns too cool, it burns silver.
***
“Can you heal him.”
“You’re sickening Shaya, you shouldn’t have done this.”
“He’s dying mother, he saved our lives and scarred Shai-tan. He’s a hero.”
“He’s not one of us, look at him. He’s not of our people.”
“Both of you just stop, he saved our daughter Aeselanni, he badly hurt a mortal foe of our people…He…No she needs our help.”
“Father?”
“She?”
“Look deeper, look at her spiritual form. She…”
“Ah, I see…I’ve never seen this before Dorian?”
“You wouldn’t I believe this is the first human you’ve ever seen.”
“Human!, Father stop shaking the branches humans are just wondertales to amuse the children and the fae.”
“She’s human, I have see sketches…My great, great, great grand father fought on Tir Tangyrre and Tir Na Nogg against the enemy. They where cave dwelling tribesmen for the most part, They live on Ea as we once did.”
“Mother can you heal her.”
“I have too do I not, if not her death may take you with her.”
“Yes, but even so Shaya her life will drain on yours.”
“Father I know but I have to do this. I feel the good in her.”
“Well Aeselanni? Can you heal her.”
“If my majiks will work on humans yes. The great healing I’ll need to do will make her whole as it begins the healing from the soul outwards. I’ll be worthless for a month afterwards but I’ll try.’
***
My darkness slowly becomes light and I’m in a bed, silken sheets. I smell perfume…I open an eye and yawn and stretch. I become instantly aware. Heavy hair, my D cup chest, two fully healed legs, long, and smooth and I touch in a mad hurry squeezing a boob with the movement. It’s gone. The damned thing is gone and my proper equipment is there…I start crying and I’m getting freaky and hysterical. I died?, I died! And I’m in heaven. Only heave could be like this with me being me! The bedroom too is beautiful beyond words like is Rodin and Michelangelo did wood working. Even my voice is different…a soft contralto…I’m crying and standing in the mirror naked and freaking out. The only part of Bear that’s left is my hair and eye color and my height. I’m still 6ft 3inches but lean, maybe 150lbs, a size 4?…! God my legs have never been so long…my waist is tiny…I’ve got the hint of ab’s.
Several people come in with push tray carts and stuff. They’re all women and I would’ve been jealous of them, all over five and a half feet tall, all under a size3 in dresses. Elegant dresses just spaghetti strapped silk with this low bodice. I don’t…
….They’re speaking the language of the woman, the dragon rider…There’s another voice and they leave bowing to this six foot tall woman in a cotton? Slip and under things standing in an adjoining door way. Lean like them in that too beautiful super model look but if this super model looked feverish, tired with dark circles under her eyes that look reddened by crying. Her hair has waves and body to it and is long and raven black even shiny like that too, and her eyes are huge, and navy? Blue…? I see it as she slowly moves into the room. She’s hurt and weak…She neatly fall into the chair by my bed…her ears…they’re pointed…She’s got her eyes close shut and her head back. “You must be cold Wren…There should be a robe behind the change screen.” I go and find it silk, real silk too. Then I realized she called me Wren…I walk out quickly and catch myself in the mirror. Yes, I’m me, the very real me that’s always been in my head. I turn to her to see her smiling but then her eyes roll backwards in her head… “Wren…?…Help…” she pitches forwards out of the chair into a heap on the floor.
************************************************************************
End of chapter 1
Snakes and Ladders: Chapter 2
Chapter 2
I lower the girl onto the bed I had been sleeping in. I’m not as strong as I was. It’s not that I care but I’m not used to the differences yet. Huge differences. Two of my new huge differences pull my off balance and tumble me onto the bed too. I roll over panting. She’s heavier than I thought. I’m exhausted, and I just got up? I’m shaky I realize.
No I’m not that top heavy. I’m a D at a guess and a single D at that. It’s just I have a completely different center of gravity and a new leg. I’ve got to get up, to get to the service cart. It takes some doing and I see some juice. I’m not sure what it is but it’s familiar and refreshing, reddish. I can taste honey.
There’s a basket with these lily flower shaped croissants. There’s a weird orange colored strawberry in the center and the thing tastes a lot like a sweet very lightly glazed bit of puff pastry. It’s weird I’d normally just pop it in but I can’t do that now. Ha, nobody can say I’ve got a big mouth now.
I look over to the girl, woman elf. She’s stunning and she’s out like a light with this grayness under her eyes. She looks exhausted, she looks beautiful…that dark raven like hair, alabaster skin. Lips that just beg to be kissed…Her hairs slightly mussed and she wears nothing under that slip of hers. Just looking at her I feel…warm, and there’s more warmth in my groin and breasts, they feel heavier…more aware, and…Oh..oh…my. My nipples are getting hard…Oh my first time…I feel this warmth below, this achy tightening inside of myself like…like having a reverse boner? It’s…it has this kind of a focal point inside of me and I’m pretty sure I know what that is…It’s all so alien to me, the feelings are nearly overwhelming me….It would have if it didn’t feel so right to me…if the feelings from feeling sexual to just feeling the way I’m sitting, breathing the weight of my hair, the feel of my skin…The feeling of my brain…Yeah I know weird but I’m totally a woman now and I feel exorcised as well as transformed.
“Huh, I guess I still find girls attractive. But then look at you, I don’t know anyone who wouldn’t think you’re beautiful.”
She doesn’t really respond only just rolls or shimmies into my warm spot with a slight sigh. It’s as arousing a sound as her moving that close that undressed. I have another drink and look through the dishes of food. There’s a lot that looks familiar if in different ways. The weird thing is the foods are covered by a soap bubble? I’m not going to touch those, there’s raw meats in some of those. I grab a wedge of weird crumbly looking green…cheese and nibble it. It’s really odd, like a really light asiago with a strong pistachio flavor…different, not my favorite but It’s cheese, I think it should tide me over for awhile.
I lie down beside her and watch her sleep. It’s not like that. She’s and elf, a real live elf and I’m still debating on which is crazier me being transformed into a girl or that I seen dragons?, I’m lying here next to and elf. I watch her breathe as there are little things I notice, that flawless skin its her pores they’re so tiny, even where you should really see pores easier they are hard to see. Her lashes are so long and lush and full, her lips are finely shaped a perfect little bow. It could make a girl be really self conscious, jealous… God she’s so perfect looking…Then there’s the little snore she makes popping the illusion of perfection. Her face scrunches as she tries to get comfortable again, and again.
I don’t know how I know but I know she doesn’t sleep well and she’s been getting less than normal. I roll her gently over to her side and lie down beside her and gently wrap my arms around her. Her hair smells like lupin flowers and blueberries. Her skin is so smooth to the touch like silk and her body has this lightest of soap scents with a similar scent but with vanilla undertones. My breasts touch her back and it feels so…good I feel so right I cry and fall asleep to happy tears holding this stranger in this strange place.
…I’m not sure how long I’ve been asleep and I’m awake before my eyes are open and I thought for a moment I must have been dreaming. Until my body catches up with my brain or the other way around and I feel myself. I know most people don’t but this is new to me so I still feel the rise and fall of my breasts. It’s not a dream when your hairs in your eyes and your arm’s asleep.
She’s awake and staring at me. Her eyes aren’t human, first they’re this deep navy blue with the littlest hints of grey and it makes her eyes a rich sapphire color. They’re this normal shape with just the slightest almond shape to them like she had an Asian grandparent or something. Her lashes are so thick and long and dark.
“Evening.” her voice has a strange accent to her English. Like a Indian/Hindu person who speaks really perfect UK English that has lived in the like France and the United States for years.
“Hi, It’s evening?”
“I believe so, around the twentieth pearl.”
“Uhm…okay? So that’d be what in earth time?”
“I have no idea.”
“How many hours in a day?”
“What is an hour?”
“Uhm…”
Okay Wren you’re a bright girl, how to figure out how people measure time if they don’t do it like we do? It’s kind of silly to just assume the universe works according to earth values…
“Okay, how many pearls does it take for the world to turn?”
“Thirty six.”
“And how are the pearls broken down time wise like in smaller units?”
“The pearl has four quarters and each quarter has fifteen leaves.”
“Oh..okay..So your pearls are equal to my hours and a leaf is equal to a minute to me.” I’m half talking to myself. Getting lost in the thoughts and implications.
“You have a thirty six hour day?”
“Yes if what you said of your ways is true.”
“My world has only twenty four pearls in it’s day.”
“Oh, you will have some adjusting to do.”
“Yeah, I guess.”
“My name is Shaya.”
“Hi I’m Wren.”
“I know.”
“Yeah, how?”
“You were dying, there was so much in you that deserved the best chance to live that I could give you. You saved my life and that of Bhlaze from Shai-tan and Mohad, you were taken from your home when our fight came to Ea through the leyline storm. To keep you alive I had to make us bonded.”
“Bonded?”
“Yes….” She holds out her right palm and there’s a metallic silvery scar on her palm. Then she moves aside my robe and strokes a matching one on my breast. The finger touching my breast is sending feelings I thought I’d never have making my shiver, my nipple to tighten and my breath to get shaky as tears come to my eyes. I know there is more than this?
“I don’t understand…”
“I gave you part of my soul, a piece of me. To keep you alive until mother healed you.”
“…………..……” A piece…of her…soul…even as I hear it I know it’s true…I can feel something inside me that’s different…and she…No one, never…I never knew something like this was even possible….I start crying all over again and she wipes my tears away…
“Shaya?”
“Yes.”
“How…how am I like this?”
“Ah You mean Erendae and not The Bear.”
“Yeah…Erendae?
“Ah That is the way your name would be said amongst us formally. You have the name of a bird, but are a human, a person, a child of light thus E for Ea or of the Earth and dae for the day because you are a child of light. It translates to Sweet-Morning-Forest-Singer.”
“Uhm, that’s…”
“Very complicated?”
“Welcome to Sylvania.”
“Sylvania?”
“The name of our nation, our mother world.”
“Oh.”
“Yes, oh. How I know these things of you? I had dreamed and lived part of your life, this is how I know your words. I know something’s of you just as you will come to know of me.”
“I think it’s started already. You have trouble sleeping Shaya, I felt that. This Bond thing didn’t help did it?”
She lowers her eyes and shakes a little, her voice is smaller, quieter. “No, I do not sleep well.” she bites her lower lip and I see a deep well of something, I feel a deep dark well inside of her there’s an age of pain there.
“We should eat, I am beyond fasted and you are still recovering and need to eat as well.”
I know when someone is avoiding the issue. I still get up and move over to the trolley as Shaya takes two elegant chairs and puts them on either side of the trolley then sits.
The food is very different and held in those strange bubbles. Shaya pops them with no difficulty or restraint. I try one and it pops and the food these however many hours later smells fresh as when they just brought it out. Some of the raw stuff is cooked by Shaya on these gorgeous metal plates that sit on another metal disc that’s in ceramic and somehow the contact between the two makes heat.
I’m more than impressed with the magic and I’m not trying to sound like I’m blasé about it but I’m still in shock and in this place after everything that’s happened. The bubbles are neat but I guess it’s just scope? Or am I accepting this more through my bond with Shaya?
Part of me wants to ask her what’s wrong, to make things better. To kiss her…I look at her and sort of swallow it all down and she’s deep in thought. Later, I want to help her but later…we need to know each other more…I can tell feel, she’s really reserved. It’s the strongest gut feeling I’ve ever had.
We finish eating and I look at her. “So what now?” I ask.
She looks at me. “Despite the hour, we are an active people. Many of us live for the night. Would you like to come over to my rooms and pick out something to wear we can go out and I can show you around.”
“I’d like that. I think I’ve slept enough. I’d like to get out and see the sights and stuff.”
Shaya leads me through the adjoining door to her rooms. They’re huge to begin with, and have these thirty foot high vaulted ceilings with these carved wooden pillars and rook supports carved as if they were rich dark trees and the ceiling is a mosaic of red maple leaves and this ivy of red roses? Real plants of some kind that go up from the base of the posts into the ceiling. Her bed is a huge four poster deal and has deep brown sheets of some near bronze silk. The room has halls coming off of it and is…it isn’t a room, it’s a palace in it’s own right. There’s a room of mannequins that look like her but instead of clothes it’s armor and weapons, hundreds of weapons like I’ve never see but mostly fantasy blades and knives and stuff like that. There’s several bows and I think I see guns too?
I pass by another room that’s a glass topped open air gazebo with folding huge doors and that blue grey sand. On top of that sand is the dragon. Silvery reptilian plating that looks like mother of pearl with metal in it and this snake fine skin in between this pale blue with pale white grey tiger stripes. He’s a classical dragon like from Dragonlance or D&D he’s so beautiful he takes my breath away. He’s coiled up sleeping on heated sands and just at a guess he’s a hundred or a hundred and twenty feet long. This huge eye cracks open and stares at me, just one eye like a massive cat.
~Good Eve Erendae, Shaya are we going out this night?~
Shaya smiles at him stepping into his enclosure to run her hands up and down the huge muzzle and leans forward to kiss him. “Perhaps later dear heart, if Wren is not afraid of heights.”
“I’m not.” I reply, okay I know that flying like this will be totally different than anything else flight wise than anything I’ve been on before but I’m not going to pass up the chance up to fly on dragon back.
Shaya smiles at me. “Perhaps, now what do we say to getting some clothes and exploring?”
“It sounds good to me, but uhm I’m new to this, new, uhm real me so I might need some help.”
She leads us to her summer wardrobe. Shaya has a room, a very large room per season and a few others as well. “Are all of these just for your clothes? This is kind of a bit much isn’t it?” Shaya nods. “Yes it is but this is a collection of things I’ve bought and been given and gifted over the last seven hundred years.”
“Seven…Hundred…Years…, How old are you?”
“It is considered rude, to ask a person such things.”
“Yeah, I’m a bit rude back home too.”
Shaya laughs and it’s a beautiful sound full of music. “Okay, okay Wren, I’m eight hundred and twenty three years old.”
“Is that old for an elf?”
“Yes, unless they are of my bloodlines.”
“That sounds complicated and stuff.”
“Family often is.”
“Yeah…” I can’t help but remember mine and feel kind of sad about things that had happened.
Shaya picks me out this golden silk camisole and a green cotton hooded tunic and pants with matching leather sandals. It’s simple for the things I see here, but it’s the most elegant thing I’ve ever worn. The cuts are simple yet definitely female as is the incredibly elegant silk and lace panties that send a incredible thrill through my body. I almost start crying all over again.
Watching Shaya change or rather undress was enough to stun me out of crying. Her body for all she’s is over eight hundred years old and everything but Shaya has the most amazing body I’ve ever seen. She’s tall at an even six feet tall and slender but with this great muscle tone under her alabaster flawless skin. Her breasts are a bit small on her frame but very, very nice a 26B if I’m to guess. Her beautiful sex is bare not shaved but just no hair growing there or under her arms either. She’s breathtaking…I watch her almost stripper dance shimmy into her sexy black panties and the fall of that hair of hers like me she goes braless and then pulls this sleeveless black tunic of silk with a black velvet trim and hood that has a blue sheen to it and matches the sheen of her hair and makes those eyes of hers look amazing…Shaya pulls it like a hoody over her head.
I really wanted to just walk over and touch her then. Take a breast into my mouth…Shaya stares at me for a moment, Then pulls on these loose pants that are of the same velvet but are tricked out with rose shapes of lace like jeans that have those worn or fake worn holes in them. The sheen of the velvet draws your eye to those legs that are further shown off by her skins contrast to the lace. Then she belts on this belt of this blue gold? Designed to look like blossoms linked together by what looks like three silver ropes like the rope in that kind of necklace. It sits just off her hip with an almost holster like sheath holding a foot long straight bladed dagger of this lustrous chrome and mother of pearl hilt.
She smiles at me after she’s done belting up and offers me her arm, almost chivalrous like.
“Shall we?”
“Yes, Let’s.” I try to put on an almost English/UK accent but it just goes over her head.
We walk out through several long halls and I’ve going to get so lost in this place. We pass by other elves who kind of sort of glance at us but don’t look at us. I nearly wave when Shaya says. “Don’t.”
“Why, did I do anything wrong?”
“No, if anything you have the palace buzzing with gossip.”
“Gossip?”
“Yes, it is a fine art here. But no one will talk to you unless you speak to them first. With guests we have a tradition of them being here but not being here until they give an indication of they are actually here rather than having arrived.”
“So I’m not here officially until I make it official?”
“Exactly, it’s very important. Especially here in the palace.”
“Palace?, okay I knew this was a huge place for a reason. Lemme guess you’re an Elfin princess?”
“Yes, Crown princess at one time.”
I stop…And stare at her. “Crown Princess…”
“Yes.”
“But, you said one time?”
“Ah, yes…I’m a Dragon Rider, A knight and part of the military, we do not allow any kind of political rankings in our military. One must rise or fall on one’s own merits.”
“So you’re still in service then?”
“Yes but I’m on medical leave, as well as on diplomatic service detail.”
“Oh, so what’s that entail. I get the medical leave but the diplomatic thing?”
“I’m being made responsible for you.”
“Oh, uhm…sorry?”
“There is naught to be sorry for Wren. I’m getting ordered to show you our home and ways and such. I’m being paid to…”Hang out?” with you…I would have requested the duty even if we were not bonded.”
“You would have?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“I do not know, I’m drawn to you.”
“Drawn to me?”
“Yes.”
“What does that mean?”
“I don’t know, I’d have said that it was impossible but…” She looks at me and stares then continues to walk. There’s this look to her, a flush. “I find myself attracted to you Wren and I find that hard. I need to know if what I feel is real or a side effect from our bond.”
“Oh…”
She likes me too.
I can’t help but feel really, really excited by that. It’s not just that she looks like that or anything other than It’s her, It’s Shaya…Oh…I can feel it, she is really confused by this. It’s all a part of those murky private depths of hers.
“I’m interested in you too Shaya.”
She gives me this sideways glance that’s so incredibly shy and vulnerable at the same time. It makes me ache to be there for her. I want to ease that hurt, I feel in her…this loneliness that’s there…
We step into the outside and my breath doesn’t just catch but stops.
I see the scene unfold as we step out onto this terrace that’s almost Spanish in design. It’s hundreds of feet wide and stretches a mile or more in either direction. The palace is huge at least ten stories tall and stretches the length of the terrace. It’s so complex and stunning like nothing I’ve ever seen.
Just off the balcony/terrace there’s this river canyon. Like if the grand canyon was filled to nearly being full with the Danube. It’s full of boats and sailing boats like the most beautiful floating sculptures I’ve ever seen. And then there’s the moons…I can see seven of them all looking breathtaking but around the biggest, hugest moon that I’ve ever seen. The most beautiful...Hugest moon I’ve ever seen. You know when you see the moon on open seas or plains. Bigger two or three times that size it looks so much like earth…. I’m tearing up and crying as I see a few dragons bank over the waters and there are even more graceful ships floating past in the air…
I feel Shaya’s hands on my shoulders and her behind me letting me lean on her. Her head rests lightly on my shoulder from behind me.
“Welcome to Sylvania Wren.”
Snakes and Ladders 3
Chapter 3
The palace is so stunning but the view is so…That huge moon. Shaya feels so good pressed into my back. It’s been too long, so long…and the way I am now…Never? I gesture out at the sky and all the things I see there. “Just how many moons are there?”
“Fifteen but not all are inhabited.”
“Oh, the big one must be the closest.”
“No, we are the closest. That is the Sacred Heart, The Planet of Sylvania we are on it’s closest moon known as Highwood.”
“Oh it sort of looks like home, is it inhabited?”
“Oh yes by many things.”
“Many things?”
“Yes this is where we settled after the wars against the Olde Ones were fought ages on ages ago. We consider it a holy place, our holy lands. Along with our peoples there are The Peoples of Before the Sunrise and The Peoples of After the Sunset.”
“Oh I so just got lost with that.”
“Yes Sylvan culture is very, very confusing. I don’t get all of it.”
“Oh really? I’d think you’d have it all memorized.”
“Did you know all the cultures of Ea intimately?”
“Uhm no…wait, elves don’t have the same culture?”
“No…”
She laughs and it’s that sound, you know the one that girl made in the best dream you’ve ever had. Yeah Shaya has that laugh.
“And you would expect the same of me then?”
“No…Hey!, Wait an minute! You’re like eight hundred bloody years old! You should know every blade of grass!”
Shaya’s really laughing now. I’m trying to a little serious, to be a little miffed but it’s hard to be angry with her. People are staring, they were before because I’m interesting but they’re staring at Shaya. I get the idea that her laughing like this doesn’t happen much.
“Wren, what you think I should know is impossible. Highwood is the same size as Ea.”
“Then that means…There are people living there? But the size of it and the gravity…It should crush people.”
“No it has a very low gravity for it’s size.”
“How?”
“Majik.”
……..I just turn to look at her and kind of realize my knee jerk reaction was to deny it. But with this place, me being transformed and the fact that I’m surrounded by elves.
I reach out and take her hand.
Shaya transforms again into that sweet looking shy girl, damn those lashes and when she peeks at me through them.
“Shaya…Show me more.”
We start walking again and at one point she looks at me and bites her lower lip and then links her arm in mine like we’re on a date.
I notice despite the custom we or rather I am being still stared at. It’s more than a little nerve inducing. These elves are all beautiful or handsome. The women in beautiful dresses and gowns, The men all have long hair and many have braids and tend towards perfectly tailored dress pants and long tunics. At least for the most part.
Who knew that elves came in different ethnics? I didn’t, I mean elves were elves right?
Well apparently not. The most stand out are the Kyu-Nari who she tells me are ruled by their own Empress but are indeed elves. The Kyu are oriental elves, very much a mixture of what you’d see in the earth cultures but with the strongest look to them of being Chinese and Japanese. The men wear the tunics and kilt things like Japanese men do or wear the tunic and pants like the Chinese. The women wear those long sleeved Chinese gowns or kimonos. There’s not a lot of the Kyu-Nari about but they certainly stand out.
The second for me were the Marahaesh, yeah I know a mouthful. If you’re an AD&D fan then think of the drow elves, or dark elves. Lithe, even for those I’ve seen with lightly colored hair and eyes. They eyes are so light that unless you look at them right you’d thing they were blind. The hair is a silvery white and often tinted with hues of all sorts. Shaya tells me the colors are dyes and all of them are born with the near white hair. The kicker is the jet black skin. It throws me because we have black people home but these are literally like living polished ebony. I see they wear heavier clothes with hooded tunics and dresses, a lot of velvet with them and embroidery that looks very eastern European. Shaya says they dress like this because their moon is very, very hot being a volcanic desert.
There’s the Ajania, another elfin type that are black, or negro…Africanized elves? They are a bit more muscular with wavy hair that’s very rich looking. They dress in a style with the robes and such like African royalty, lots of jewelry. The men…when not robed have this dangerous cat likeness to them, and wear togas or nothing on their chests and seem fond of bronzed body paints. Their woman tend to the braided hair and gowns are so tall and lovely they put Naomi Campbell to shame.
Yes even more like the Shaelani, who are Arabic elves and it was the sands of Shaelani that were where I arrived on. The men tend towards these strange hooded tunic robes with the Arabic headbands and then it’s a long sleeved shirt that just extends to being a robe, all bound with a sash. I see more of the men instead of the women. The women I do see tend towards an almost uniform look. Shaya says on Shaelani the women fight all the battles and run all the caravans and breed all the horses. The men own all the property and control all of the resources and are the masters of most of the crafts
The Rymora who are these Nordic elves with very tall, very blonde with blue eyes and are extremely fair. As lovely as they are they tend to wear the finest wools I’ve ever seen. The women here tend to gowns and dresses and corsets and the men tend to wear lots of leathers when they aren’t dressed like the others
There’s the Wildera who are Native American elves with clothes of hides and woven plant fibers like flax made into the finest of denims with incredibly ornate beadworks and such things….I saw one woman in white buckskins that were breathtaking. They tend to the native styles of dress.
Then there’s the L’Honei, there’s not many of them here either but wow they’re Polynesian elves, they look like they’re Hawaiian. They tend towards the very simple but in the floral patterns I’m used to seeing.
Greenwood elves I can only tell by Shaya pointing out their clan emblems and that many of them wear a leaf shaped body paint over their eyes. It’s not a clan/ethnic thing but a druidical fashion. I’ll see it in other places but greenwood follows druidic tenets mostly and this is some kind of ward you versus the outsiders kind of thing.
The ones from Skywood are just like everyone else only there is a sort of Victorian finish on the clothes. It still all very elven and everything but the men nearly are in uniforms or even are in the case of knights and the ladies tend to tighter tops that “lift” and with built in corsets and fuller skirts.
For some reason it’s the more normal ones that I get the stares from.
“Shaya? I know that they want to meet me and have to stay off me until I formally say I’m here but, do they have to stare so much?”
“They stare because they are curious, as well as drawn to your beauty.”
“My beauty?”
“Yes Wren, you’re one of the most beautiful women here.”
“No…I’m not.” I hung my head purely out of instinct self hate is a deeply ingrained part of myself. My face is red and I’m seriously blushing, for someone to tell me that is usually part of a dream or it was someone messing with me. Not this time because it came from Shaya.
“Yes, you are. I am a knight as well as a dragon rider, lying and disrespecting women is against the code. Although I will concede your breasts are drawing very much most of the attention.”
“What?! My breasts?”
“Yes, your breasts.”
“But, but why?”
“There is no elf with breasts as yours.”
“Huh?”
“Their size…”
It takes me a moment to tune into what she’s saying. I’m in a D-cup range, possibly even DD-cup range and as I look around and there’s not even a C-cup in sight. There’s a few perfect upper ranged B-cup girls, but I’m living in the land of the A-cups.
I really don’t want to brag but with this transformed body my breasts have no sag to them and are insanely perfect and full and perky…god just thinking about them makes the nipples go taut and achy, I feel the urge to take them in my hands and…oh, yeah, right…sorry. I’m in public. I look around gauging the responses I’m getting. Oh yeah tones of chest stares as we walk and I feel stares on my ass too. A well rounded elfin girl is rare, and those that are seem very popular. I’ve not only got every woman here outgunned but I’ve more hip and a much better butt. It’s kind of heady all the attention I’m getting. I see not just jealous stares from some of the women but stares of them liking what they see and OMG…I’m…me…I’m giving these gorgeous men wood.
I almost have a giggle fit at the irony of it. Me…Wren Erendae Phoenix…Yeah Phoenix like the bird of legend, like the Hollywood actors too. Me…Wren, wanton sex goddess. I could probably spend years having sex if I took to bed with all the lusty stares. It gives me such a lift inside. I’m nor supposed to be shallow. I fucking hate shallow people. But I’m gorgeous, even here and it’s such a lift, such a buzz on like I’m mainlining femininity.
It doesn’t just feel so, so, right but like I’ve been told by my doctor that my maleness has gone into complete remission.
We walk and she talks to me about different things for several hours, I openly stare and rubberneck. I ask about the flying ships, airships that have keels of levis tone. That led to being shown pieces here on the terrace carves of Levi stone. It’s granite with gleaming crystals in it. It levitates naturally or by natural majik? I ask about the bits of technology I see. Especially when I saw a dark-elven woman writing with a glass quill onto a laptop that uses a touchpad instead of a keyboard. It turns out they do have technology and it’s been evenly mixed into the use of majik in they’re culture. I gave her a curios look. “Majik as power Wren.”
“As power?”
“Yes, you have ways of taking power, lightni…electricity from the sun?”
“Uhm yeah, solar power.”
Shaya forms a ball of light in her palm.
“My god, you have unlimited power…”
“No, nothing is unlimited Wren, there is still a demand for power especially in the fleet.”
“It takes power to run the airships then?”
“Yes and no, but it takes a lot more power to build and run a starship.”
“Starship?”
“Yes, come over here.”
Shaya leads me right over to the railing and points. I look and see this large glass sculpture with a swan like shape that has this elegant neck and body and glide set wings. It looks like a bird, a swan? “A swan?”
“Yes we call them Glass swans, they are shuttles, watch…”
I see one lift off and the wings become a mass of swirling rainbow light lifting them off then it flies leaving a trail or tail of light…“How, this is so…”
“I do not know, I’m not an engineer but they call it a photon drive.”
My nerdy brain is immediately playing with that idea.
“I’ve got so much to learn.”
“Yes, but there is time.”
“There’s not enough time, for me to learn everything I’m seeing Shaya.”
“Why?”
“I’m human, even if I’ve been set back age wise I might have at best a hundred years.”
“No, you will live much longer.”
“What?”
“We have a bond, our lives are souls are bonded Wren. I share my life force with yours. You will not age like you would if you were just human.”
“I won’t?”
“No, I will carry the burden of your years.”
“What!?, Shaya that could kill you!”
“No, not outright but it was the second hardest thing I have ever done.”
“What…?”
“You were very ill as well as everything else Wren.”
“I know, but…”
It hits me hard, really hard Shaya had taken on all of my illnesses. I had a lot wrong with me. Shaya absorbed all of it…took it into herself even as she gave me a piece of herself. I know they have majik but everything has a price. I look at her. Yeah she suffered for me.
I step up and kiss her. Okay I like it still I’m so tall. It feels right…so right. It’s a great kiss and Shaya gives to it. I can feel this lonely aching need. There and it’s such a familiar painful feeling. I get to a point and then feel her pull away inside…scared…
“Come, there is more to show you.” She leads me from the edge and still takes my hand, my arm. I could pursue this but…I don’t want to hurt her, to push it. I let Shaya retreat to safer emotional ground. I’m still new here. I still find myself worried. Why?, Why is she like this? What happened to hurt her? And as much as everything if so different and so stunning there’s the fact these might be elves but they are just as screwed up as we are as people.
She takes me around the place and we see things like these plants that they’ve cultivated that are bioluminescent. Yeah like the freaky things that were on that Avatar movie.
Blue-green ferns that unfold when you get close to them, Glimmer-ferns they call them. These tiny little star shaped flowers with this climbing vines they’re this white and shiny tiny things that they plant to accent things like living Christmas tree lights they call Starflowers. There’s fire flowers that are these versions of red orchids, and Dragonflowers are these glowing red roses and there are others as well as these insects like the most amazing butterflies and dragonflies that I’ve ever seen.
And then these humming birds of hundreds of colors. Each one has several hues and when their wings beat it makes them have this aura, like a ball of rainbow light…I was so agape at everything literally my mouth hanging open. Just stunned and near tears so many times as Shaya’s showing me all these things. Telling me about them, teaching me the words for them, that bond of ours really evident there exciting my mind as Sylvan takes root in me and the language goes viral through my brain. I’m so excited by that, by this huge feeling of success it’s making me bubbly. The way my body feels even breathes feels so right to me and It ….I actually feel more alive right now than any time in my life.
This undivided attention from such a beautiful woman, who is constantly looking in my eyes, touching me, smiling at me, laughing with me…and there’s this connection there…This thing from this bond between us…I can literally feel this coiled up hurt, hurt little child…in her…I can feel it as the night slowly passes like…This is so hard to describe. But I can feel her opening up inside, and I can tell this hasn’t happened before. Not like this, not in all of her eight hundred odd years.
I’m watching her as all these beautiful hummingbirds zoom around this garden like area and it’s like a weird scene out of close encounters of the 3rd kind. Watching Shaya under these effects as she watches and smiles is as amazing as the rest of it.
I think I could so easily fall in love with her.
I think I might have already fallen in love with her.
Shaya stops and looks at me as she leans down to pick some kind of flower from one of the watered planters it’s like a lily but not a lotus flower I think. I love that thing her hair did as she kept her eyes on me as she picked it. You know when the girls bent over and her hair falls in front of her face just right? As she straightens, I use my free hand to brush her hair from her eyes and tuck it a bit behind her ears. I can’t help it but I finger the ear and trace it and its point. Shaya bites her bottom lip a little like…OMG, I kind of…felt that. It’s like touching her ears intimately in like a touch to one’s nipples but mixed with getting your temples rubbed…Holy crap.
Elves are like the Ferangi, I just gave Shaya…Umoks.
I’d be laughing if I hadn’t see the effect that it had on her. The widening of her eyes, the flare of her nostrils in that perfect nose, the fact that it started her nipples to harden. Shaya smiles this warm sweet smile at me and places that lotus in my hands. It’s lovely… “Erendae, do not be afraid, please…” She’s holding my hands with the flower and then she begins to sing.
And then there’s this disembodied force that comes from her…Shaya’s sapphire eyes begin to glow ever so slightly like one of those people from that movie Dune. Her hair moves from the force not because of any wind, it’s moving mine too, makes our dresses ripple from it. Then it happens…the lotus flower glows and opens in a burst of rose tinted pearly light like a flare up from our hands and the air is filled with pollen and this amazing scent like this perfect blend of roses and peaches. That would have been amazing enough but the lotus bloom fills full of liquid and Shaya’s singing shifts like a celtic opera soprano…it’s the most amazing sound. It goes straight to my heart causing it to beat like it never had done.
Then they came to us. The hummingbirds resplendent in the light they make and they swirl around us and then they come down to feed in our hands. Each one this delicate, luminous, beautiful thing. I’m crying because…because she…Shaya did this for me.
No one in my life has ever done anything as romantic or amazing or as sweet for me.
I look at Shaya and there’s this smile and look in her eyes.
I can see that bit in her opening to me.
She sings a little something and let’s go of the lotus flower and so do I, it floats off on the wind like a balloon with the humming birds following it.
She steps up to me.
Stares at me, and looks up that little bit into my eyes. I step to her and she steps to me and we kiss. It’s just a light kiss but our breasts touching…soft female lips and hands touching…I…I think that I’m falling in love with her…
We’re kissing as the sun rises.
“I think I love you Shaya.”
“Thank you, I…I…, I’m not worth it though”
Her head drops and tears start to drop to the ground sliding from her face.
Snakes and Ladders 4
Chapter 4
“Yes, yes you are Shaya. You are beautiful and brave and amazingly sweet….I want to take your pain away, I want to cast it away on the wind and replace your pain with sunshine and love.”
My hands were on her shoulders until that point but I reach a hand out and under her chin and lean over and guide her to my lips. Bear never got the romantic movie moments where I could kiss the girl. I had a few moments, that were really great moments but nothing like this…I slip my arm down to the small of her back to pull her closer and our lips touch. I love kissing her, I love kissing her because…
I’ve fallen in love with her.
There’s a tremble to her as I kiss her and tears keep sliding out of the corners of her eyes.
“Erendae…” she say’s that version of my name it’s this sound that’s half-way to tearful anguish and half way that wistful moan…I’ve never had anyone say my name like that. Her mouth is just a little open as she says that like a…I kiss her again and this time with tongue.
Shaya’s eyes widen which on an elf is an amazing thing to watch, it’s like the blooming of an amethyst. It is a freaky surreal thing to have this woman, girl, elf in my arms. My all female arms now. And I’m holding a woman I probably would have killed to meet as Bear.
I feel stronger now than I ever did in my old life.
“Shaya, I think we need to talk. I want you to tell me it, all of it, the good and the bad…Lets, lets go back to your rooms.” Shaya bites her lower lip then nods and we start to walk back to her rooms.
We are ascending the long stairs when we come to a landing and she is shoved, well struck by this elfin girl in red leathers with red hair….the blow knocked Shaya back and I don’t catch all of the rapid fire elfin stuff she’s spouting off at her but I’m not one for letting some asshole beat on a woman much less one I care about. She looks quite taken aback that I got in the way. “Remove yourself whatever you are and I’ll forgive the fact you’re with the traitor.” She went to slip around me to have another go at Shaya. As my old self I had done some bouncing and security work so it was another quick step in front of her again and I shove her off and away from us. “Back off!” or I hope that’s what I said.
It turns out maybe not. Red…well for lack of something better to call her comes at me and she’s fast. I’m not an expert fighter, I’m no slouch either but she moved in a way I’m never seen. She flows in and the next thing I know she’s hitting me with martial knife hand and spear hand strikes and fore-knuckle punches and palm strikes as well as pelting me with a simultaneous series of snap kicks. I can take a lot of abuse, I’m used to taking a beating and Shaya is yelling something at the both of us. Mostly at Red I hope. Then Red hauls off and with a palm strike blow breaks my nose….My nose…I was hoping not to be one of those vain bitches but…but I just got to be me…and now she’s messing with that and she tries to follow up with a spin kick. I take it to my ribs but latch onto her leg and spin her around and smash her through one of these fancy looking stone fountains they have on each landing with a old me violent throw.
I take advantage of the moments it takes her get her self out of the fountain and move myself between her and Shaya. “Shaya, stay behind me I’ll take care of this…” Red moves really fast, faster than I’m used to. Elfin reflexes and all that I suppose. Here's the thing. I smashed her through a stone fountain and it hurt her, but I was strong enough to do it.
And I know why.
I’m transformed, but I’m still very much myself. I’m as strong as I was in my old …ugh…male body. That’s a huge bonus with my lighter woman’s frame and that makes me faster than I was. I’m also as tough as I used to be too it seems. Fat guys learn to take a beating one way or another usually the hard way. It’s getting to be a slugfest between us and she’s hitting me three or four times to my one with that elfin kung fu she’s using. I switch things up really hard. There’s stuff I know she doesn’t. I really doubt that elves have watched the WWE. I get hit a few times more and I’ll tell you something it hurts like a mother-effer to get hit in the breasts. I fight dirty, and it’s perfectly fair dirty now. I’m a girl…so me kicking her in the crotch is fair. In a dirty pool kind of way. She doubles over just long enough for me to step up and get her head under my arm. Headlock? Hell no, I fall back hard driving Red's forehead into the stone landing…DDT!
I roll off of her and she’s groaning on the ground and I’ve got a shredded top and I’m pulling a Janet Jackson with one boob hanging out.
There are three guys in red just like her around us with swords out circled around me and Shaya. Shaya has a ball of lightning…? In her hand. Then there’s elves in shining gold washed armor like Shaya’s with swords out. Whoa, both groups came out of nowhere I hear above us. “Enough.” it wasn’t yelled but it rang through the air with authority. There on the next landing up from us was this knight in that form fitting armor like Shaya was wearing when I first saw her. This has to be like standard issue or something. The Man is wearing a deep forest shiny green armor with a camouflage cloak. He was somebody that’s for sure…everything stopped around us…everything.
His helmet turned towards us. He looked me up and down, then at Shaya. “Shaya, I think it best of you took our guest back to your chambers and retired until you both are sent for.” Shaya ducks her head. “Yes Father…”
Father…Oh shit that’s the Sylvanian King. He gives me a nod? I’m not sure what that means but I back over to Shaya who slips an arm around me and her slender hand covers my exposed breast.
Oh fucking lovely…I get into a brawl in the palace, destroy a fountain, probably assaulted someone important and I flashed the king.
Heh, heh, heh….Okay it’s kind of funny too. I boob flashed the king. I so feel like Deidre in Maiden by decree in that cat-fight fountain scene.
I like Shaya’s hand right where it is. I wrap my arm around her and the guys in the gold armor, two of them escort us to her rooms. She’s stiffer, tense and I can tell I can feel her falling apart inside.
Shame, deep shame swallowing her up.
Fear, she’s afraid of me?
No, if she was she wouldn’t be touching me.
I can feel these feelings in her.
It’s hard to feel out what is what really how good are we at really recognizing our own feelings. It’s a real hard thing to do really.
Shaya’s really, really afraid of how I’m going to see her, how I’m going to react.
She’s terrified of me rejecting her, or worse.
Oh god how I know those feelings.
Did..?
Did her bonding to me do this to her?
We get to her rooms and I lead her all the way to her bathing room. “Come on Shaya, let's get into a hot, hot bath it’ll help.”
“No, hot water will not change things.”
Dammit she looks so depressed, I hate seeing the pain there in her eyes.
There’s a shifting large sound as Bhlaze has managed to get his head and neck inside the inner halls. ~Shaya, Beloved, what has happened?~
She went over quickly to hug his snout. “I was met by Lady Kyte, while showing Wren…our home.” She’s crying on his snout.
~You have feeling for Wren Phoenix?~
“Yes, I do, I really do.”
She does?…She does!
~This is not surprising to me.~
“It’s not?”
Yeah, it’s not?
~Beloved, we were shown her quality when we were to die by Shai-tan’s hand. You must tell her all of it. Wren Phoenix is your bonded…Tell her.~
Shaya nods and hugs his nose tighter for a few seconds before letting go and stepping backwards I wrap my arms around her and kiss her left ear making her shudder. “C’mon we can have a bath and you can tell me everything.”
~Wren Phoenix?~
I look at him, It’s still surreal to look at a real live dragon much less lock eyes with one.
You look into the eyes of a dragon and you look into the living eyes of majik itself, those eyes…I know most people can’t endure a dragon’s gaze for long.
Knowing this has to be one of those bond things.
I can feel Shaya staring at me with awe..?…I’m not sure, but I think I’m turning her on?
Bhlaze blinks first. ~Take care of our Shaya.~
“I will big guy, I promise.”
He pulls his head out and I can hear the big lug trying to get back to his sand room.
It’s funny the sound and this from what I can tell might be dragon cussing mixed with the shuffling reminds me of him trying to turn himself around like the Snuffleupagus. I can’t help but smile. Y’know I’m going to remember that every time I see him now.
We go to the bath where she has this oriental styled pit bath. It’s steaming hot and waiting ready for us. I think it’s majikal or really good servants or something. We undress and once more I’m breathless by how beautiful she is. Alabaster skin, and thin yet she’s not human so it doesn’t look out of place on her body. She’s bigger and more muscled than many of the elfin women I’ve seen tonight but she might, might be a size 2. But she’s got these absolutely perfect and I mean perfect B cup breasts that have these delicate dark nipples like a dusty rose color. Tiny waist with these great little abs that just kind of show, just a little. And she’s blessed with the best legs…
I’m almost drooling and there is this aching tightness inside of my sex and it kind of feels like I’m literally inverted. Like I’ve got a raging hard on inside with my clit aching as hard as I’ve ever been but has this deeper feeling like I’m…I’m so wet, guys kind of get that way too with pre-come and all but this is more…there’s like this terrible need in me like the worst case of blue-balls…ever…and the sensation isn’t limited to my sex either…my breasts ache, ache to be touched.
I can feel Shaya’s need too, I can smell both of us too. As weird as it is. It’s so right beyond my fantasies about who I’ve always known I am right. I’m right there near tears from how…true I feel.
That’s it exactly I feel True.
To me…honestly feeling like this is like really knowing that Heaven is real. I’m not kidding either I honestly feel more spiritual. Or like my soul can finally see the world.
We slip into the hot water walking down the steps into the hot water. I’ve had baths before, but I’m kind of getting the women’s love of just how much better it feels to us. The heat just soaks into me and all my bruises and hot water kind of get’s inside of me. It lifts and floats my breasts, it starts to soak up into my long hair add this weight.
True.
I almost swim with the water just about deep enough to and I go over to Shaya and kiss her. She breaks…touching me, my bruises. I hold her as she cries. “I’m sorry Wren, I’m sorry this is my fault.” I hold her and gently pull her wet, lithe form onto my lap and against my bosom. I just hold her and kiss the top of her head for awhile then take a silk thread bath poof and add some nice smelling liquid soap and begin to wash her. “Shaya…Bhlaze is right. Tell me…please.”
She turns from me and nods and kind of sits hunched away from my torso but still on my lap looking so vulnerable.
“I was squired to my father’s brother….He’s who we refer to as the enemy, the master of those you and I fought on Shaelani and Ea but this was before he had betrayed us. I was very different then. I was like Bear.”
“You…you were male?”
“Yes, and for me t’was a fate worse than death. Here in my realm you can be a tryst one who sleeps with the same sex and for us being born to the wrong body was unheard of, you are born as nature dictates is the common belief held by many. Especially the traditionalists who wish to keep to the old ways. My brother, My twin brother was not like me and he had already cast enough shame on our family. I could not do the same. I was often told by these people that to be a tryst, or twisted, or a shimmer was and affront to the gods.”
“Yeah, they do that at home too. What’s are the terms you said, I mean what do they mean?”
Shaya nodded a little. “It seems as long as there’s people there is dark thoughts and ways to treat others poorly for their own gains….Trysts are what you would call gays or bisexuals, Twisted is like us those who know we are other than what we were born. And a Shimmer is one who actually lives as the other sex, a reference to illusions and such.”
“My uncle secretly hated my family. He secretly wanted the throne. Before I was born nearly fifteen hundred years ago there was a civil war where the great mages of the guilds had decided they were past the point of listening to the nobility and the temples and they started a bloody civil war. They were lead by mages who turned so dark it blighted their souls and they became something else…They became The Forsaken, and they called on the dark forces to annihilate anyone who stood against them.”
Shaya hugged herself tighter, even shiver not from being cold but from memories.
“Lyam, my uncle had fought in the war with my father and their other brothers Robyn and Justinae and my grandfather King Gainen. They were the only two who had survived the war and on the kings deathbed he had made my father King and made Lyam who was far older and a far stronger knight Clan Prince of the Skywood moon. He hated my family for this in secret and first my twin squired to him and in a few short months had been declared unfit for duty. Jaiden, my twin had fled the noble cities to live amongst the common folk as a thief and a buglar….Then came my turn as squire and he…he made me hate everything about myself. He took me…often, raped me…he said this is what happens when you are twisted, it’s what happens to boys that want to be girls…”
She starts to cry a bit and I rub her back, and turn her to face me and pull her gently into my arms. I hold her as she cries on me. It takes awhile for me to get her calmed down. She looks at me...okay, She’s not perfect, perfect really bad crying red eyes look horrible when you have violet eyes. It actually makes her the much better really, it’s a weird thing to say but it makes her…not perfect but that makes her more perfect…does that make any sense.
“Lyam had me in his service and he made me do things that were to help him with his take over. He used majiks on me to bring out the hurt and pain and the rage in me about myself and what I was…I never thought then that I could be healed…his majiks had all the worse parts of me right on the surface…I was with him for fifty years and I got to…to where this was me…and I was a monster…I attacked with him, I killed my own people, butchered them I was…Wre…Wren…I was a murderer…!”
Shaya stares at me, tears streaming even harder and I can feel it in her…
Please, please, please…?
Don’t hate me…
Please don’t hate me…I still hate myself…
Please don’t leave me…
I pull her into my arms and start to slowly and deeply and sweetly kiss her. Her breasts pushing into mine, my arms around her. My soft lips on her soft lips. I put my forehead against hers and look her deep into her eyes. “I’m Not going anywhere Shaya, I’m not…”
Snakes and Ladders 5
Chapter 5
I couldn’t help but to hold her tightly and to kiss her, to try to do something anything to keep her together. I’ve known people like Shaya, she’s tough and capable and strong and amazing and like a lot of things that are tempered to be strong if you hit them the right way…
They shatter.
Bear was a lot of things but one thing I was very good at being was the professional tough guy. There’s a lot of f-ed up hurt little children in us tough guys. And from what I’m seeing with Shaya there’s a lot of the same pains there.
I hold her and stroke her back, move some of that amazingly gorgeous hair from out of her face as I shower her with these tenderly loving kisses. It’s like that for about ten minutes before she quiets down from the serious crying jag she just had.
“Shaya?”
“Yes Wren.”
“So how did it all change? What happened to turn it all around?”
She stares at me, blinks and bites her lower lip. “My Brother Kailynn….He’s, Kailynn’s sort of the middle child of us and he’s a very strong magician but his talents run mostly towards being a healer. He was betrothed despite the unpopularity of the union to a fellow mage-knight from Marahaesh.”
I blink at her, trying to think….”Oh the dark elves.”
“Uhm, for lack of a better term yes.”
“Okay…go on.”
“Well she’s not of the three inner moons where we live and politically the clan ethnics from the outer moons never have married into the royal bloodlines. But Kailynn didn’t care and was going to marry her anyway. They had just finished their knight’s training and had gone to face their time of testing down in a place we call the Darklands. This is a place on the main planet and was a stronghold at one time of the creature that had conquered our people ages on ages ago then it had become a refuge of the forces of the Forsaken during the war I told you about. They had used the places held by The Beast, that first evil to build their empire and summon through mage gates armies of things that would fight along their side. After the war it these troops scattered into that region and hid and bred and are still a source of constant mayhem. Knights are required to do ten years in the border fortresses battling the evil breeding in there and doing patrols to winnow it down.”
“Uhm what kinds of evil?”
“Trolls, Orcs, Goblins and Hobgoblins, Demons, Black fae, Devils, and more including the followers of the forsaken or those who follow other dark paths.”
“Uhm Wow and you haven’t been able to scrub them out of there?”
“No. it is a vast area.”
“How vast?”
She stared at me and I could feel this tickle at the edges of my mind. “It’s is about the size of your USA?”
“Okay that’s a lot of room to hide.”
“Yes, and there are very dangerous things there. Belline, uhm Belle the one who was Kailynn’s betrothed was killed in an ambush. He nearly died there as well. This had broken him and Kailynn left us all and sequestered himself away to The Holy City for two hundred years. He returned to us a changed man. He had sought me out as soon as he could when I was still…still in Lyam’s service and still suffering and he battled me and he very nearly ended me. He did capture me and this was when the truths of me being twisted began to come out.”
“So what’d he do?”
“Kailynn healed me, like Mother healed you. In fact it was a majik he had taught her. And despite the traditionalists calling for my head for being a traitor and damning me for being twisted who they see as an affront to the gods, He healed me. He did it despite their threats and demands. It was after a year of being at trial over my fate my father ruled stating that since I’ve been healed and was really Shaya not the elf I was I committed none of my crimes.”
I nod and I can see where this was heading. “I get where he’s sort of right about that but I can see where a lot of others would be really pissed about it.”
“Yes father is still paying the price for my sins, as is my brother.” She slides off of me into the deeper water of the bath and sniffles.
Shaya looks so beautiful like that, sad, just touched with hints of her ugly cry just awhile ago and her hair wet and messy but it has the points of her ears just peaking through, it all blends with that ethereal perfection that makes her so real to me. I’ve never like the happy shiny fake people. If life wasn’t hard then you’d never appreciate when things are good.
I follow her sinking into the deeper hot water and am so reminded of how healed I am as the water does the float and swirl around my breasts and turns me on which makes me smile because I’m so reminded of who I am and that’s Wren now.
I make my way over to her and take the puff and soap and begin to wash Shaya, starting with her back and her neck. And then slowly and tentatively her other places. Shaya soaps just her hands and does the same for me. Ooooh, her hands are so delicate and small and they feel so good on my skin and caressing…My…oh…my…I’ve never felt like this. Shaya gasps…whines… “Erendae…!” I kiss her our soapy bodies sliding and slithering…together and…I feel, can tell I made her orgasm. Her hands are fondling my breasts and my nipples, oh…their so hard they hurt…hurt…but so good and my breasts are aching…those elfin hands so…Shaya’s lips touch my right breast and sucking gently on my nipple, squeezing the other one until…until…My body boils inside…I feel so much pleasure it was like pure energy turning my blood into a bubbling cauldron of passion and white hot pleasure that it fills me from within and bursts out of me in the only way it can as I orgasm… “Aiyeeee, Ugh!!!!…Shay…Shaya…!”
Then her fingers are down to my sexy touch me…!, it happens again I’m that wired beyond wired and we’re feeding off of each other because we…we both know this feeling this ache of having lived through the hell of never feeling complete. Of never being True.
I touch her and while I’ve done this before a few times and it’s radically different. I’m kind of in a blur, as we head out of the bathroom wet, still kind of soapy, dripping down our bodies all over her apartments. Until we came crashing down as one onto her bed.
I was quickly on top and suckling on these small perfect breasts of hers as I could sort of feel her boiling in pleasure too our bloods so hot and my mouth is busy and my face as I suck and nuzzle over her chest, her face , kiss her throat as she whines my name through another orgasm. “Wren, wren…oh...Erendae…!” My fingers slide down at first rubbing just with the gentlest touches over her labia, and then slowly spread my fingers so that brushing silk touch is exploring her folds…
Shaya is kissing me back, thrusting her chest up to meet my attentions and then her hands reach up to cup and fondle and caress and even squeeze my hanging breasts. She gets this grip that feels…my weight is pressing them right into her hands and her thumbs are making these circles on my areolas and flick over the nipples until I’m crying out for her to do things to my breasts…her thumbs rest over them and push in on them with a squeeze of her hands too then…then she releases and does that rubbing thing just on the nib of my nipples and the pads of my thumbs and I cant help it as I’m bouncing in one spot not knowing what to do with myself as I’m shaking and just unable to stop or anything other than bounce and scream in joy as the pleasure that’s nearly too much coursing through me makes me start Cumming hard…As I’m shaking and bouncing with the nerves of it one of Shaya’s perfect legs slides between mine and I’m grinding myself to a second orgasm on her perfect knee and that silk smooth elfin skin…I kind of fall on her after the second one rips through me only moments after that one.
After than I slide down her body and lick and kiss my way down into her perfect and juicy bare sex. Shaya cries out as My lips touch her “lips” and I start doing all the things I’ve ever read about or seen in girl on girl porn. I actually have to nearly hold to her in an around the hips wrestling like hold my body melding in with her groin, pelvis, her legs…as she screams my name, whines it, bawlingly sobs it and even chants it some. I…I talk dirty yet romantic to her, tell her how pretty her “Flower” is and how much I love sipping at her nectars and things like that…
I can…I can…
OMG….
The link…the link…our bond…
I can literally feel Shaya falling in love with me…. (I’m bawling now)
I mean…
I mean it one thing to say it and that a wonderful feeling, and to have all the PDA’s too is amazing. And to wake up in a real relationship is one of the greatest things I’ve ever known the few times someone dared to love me as Bear and the few times I’ve ever let anybody in either.
And then there’s the feeling you get when you can look into the eyes of someone you love and you can see love there.
I AM feeling Shaya falling in love with me. It’s not wishful thinking, it’s not a sex dream post orgasm hallucination this is different, this is proof of that real and raw amount of caring….And I’m falling for her too and she can feel if from me too and we fall off this headlong cliff of love and desire and out of the clutches of the darkness that has been feeding off of us and chasing us our entire lives.
I’m not...not…is it possible that the other half of my soul hasn’t been human ever at all?
She returns the favor even though as I’ve never had sex as a woman before I’ve…I’ve read about it…Shaya has no clue….none at all in any regard to that…Elves male or female , boy to girl, boy to boy, girl to girl…They don’t know what oral sexy was….It culturally hasn’t existed here at all.
I just brought oral sex to the elven peoples.
I lost it giggling and laughing for a good half hour and Shaya just didn’t get what was so funny about that concept.
Then I rolled over on top of her and did her again…this time a lot more slowly and lovingly. You ever snuggly with a pillow? That’s what I do with Shaya…I wriggle until I’m comfortable and I slide my left arm over her thigh then under it like it’s a pillow and tuck her other leg over my shoulder and I take my time, I even just rest my head in her inner thigh and partly roll her to my face using the leg over my shoulder to guide and control my hips and I…
Sometimes a guy can find a girl who likes oral sex so much she loves to give him this long sweet leisurely blow job.
I so that for My Shaya…I give her this incredible long slow sweet girl to girl blow job both of us in that completely boneless afterglow comfort as I slowly suck her to another long slowly drawn out two orgasms.
She does me the same way but lying on her side and uses her fingers to bring me off twice too then she has a “replica” that she takes out from a compartment in her bed and she uses it to make love to me as My Shaya takes my virginity…
If you have ever been like me, I’m so sorry for even telling this part of the story to you. Because it’s not fair. But I’m trying to be true to the story of my life here so…Having your…having my hymen broken drives home I’m A Real Girl into your soul in an atomic way. It blows so much of what I thought I wasn’t and might not ever be apart…
And to be in real love with Shaya with knowing it’s real and my lover, my partner being the same as myself was…Shaya could understand me like no ones else ever could or would. And I could do the same for her.
We snuggle closer that close crying to each other and touching and staring for a long time before falling into this exhausted sleep.
***
I wake up still intertwined with this fae gorgeous creature that loves me in my arms and even one of my legs. It’s so beautiful right now with the sunlight streaming through the windows and mingling with the flowers and the vines and stuff in her room. It’s like waking up into a dream.
I hurt. I really hurt and it’s the bruises from the fight with Lady Kite? /Kyte? And the broken nose she gave me and the sex…I’m sore down there and inside of there and it’s still trying to feel awesome with what I’ve always sort of read to be afterglow. Oddly but not oddly the soreness deep in me feels great to my soul. It’s more confirmation that I’m now the she, the me I always, always knew I was inside.
I kind of just lay there and just soak into everything. I’m not even sure how long I’m enjoying real inner peace in how long? Ever? Then there is a knock at the door to the main hall way entrance. Shaya stirs and looks at me with these amazingly sexy eyes sleepily. That sapphire almost navy blue is picking up some of the light from the sun on the sheets making them sparkle and shimmer from under those thick full sultry midnight black lashes…with elfin bed head that looks like her hair was professionally tumbled/styled and those perfect sexy bow shaped lips.
Yeah, my heart skipped a few dozen beats we she looked at me sleepily then as the fog lifted there was this ~I love you.~ there in them. Shaya sat up the sheets falling away to reveal her slender perfect body. “Enter” She calls to the doors and then kisses me and starts playing with my hair to I assume to make me look more presentable.
I went to bed with wet hair and had wild sex last night I imagine I have a slight case of bed head. I am human and don’t have perfect silky elfin hair. But I like that she’s doing this.
I see a push cart like before but bigger come in with servant and two male elves. I “eep” a bit and quickly cover myself.
There’s two guys and one comes over with a satchel over one arm. He’s elfin, but he’s really drop dead handsome. I mean I’m in love with Shaya right but this guy. He’s six foot four but elf slender so it’s thin and graceful but he’s got more muscle…more meat on his bones than some of the other male elves I’ve seen. He’s got great shoulders and arms but long legs that don’t give him the stork walk that tall skinny guys have. No, this guy glides.
Not like a dancer but like a fighter, like a stalking cat or something. He’s got sun bleached/washed light brown hair and these pale oddly colored green eyes like they’re the color of wintergreen or spearmint or something…pale pale jade?
He comes over and hugs Shaya who’s not even bothering to cover herself. It’s really warm and closer and loving…but platonic but more than…is flowing through our connection. There’s this recognition thing too I’m getting through the link, She knows him so well I feel like I do…I feel like I’ve known him all my life but this is out first meeting. She breaks the hug and looks at me. “Wren?, This is my brother Kailynn, Kailynn this is my Erendae…my Phoenix…” She’s beaming at me with this huge smile, eyes full of love.
Kailynn sits beside me on the side of the bed and offers me his hand. I take his and we do that warriors arm clasp thing in stead of a handshake. “It’s nice to meet you Wren.” He speaks English!, American English even!
“You speak my language?”
“Translation majiks, a few of use learned from the laser discs of music and the reading materials in your transport.”
“My trucks here?”
“Uhm, yes although it’s really trashed from the battle, but we’ve got in hidden away in the palace warehouses.”
“Oh, cool I’ll have to go see her sometime.”
“I’ll see what we can do.”
“Thank you.”
“It’s fine Wren now sit up…I’m going to work on your injuries.”
I sit up but give him my huh? look.
He touches my bruises with a gentle hand that shines into me with this golden light.
Like an angel.
It feels so good, they fade as do the cuts and scratches on my knuckles just fading under the light of his with this warmth not unlike strong desert sunshine.
It’s a stunning thing to watch them vanish.
To see healing that home people would worship or try to destroy him for if they seen it.
He’s so beautiful in that light too.
His eyes are so exotic…and sad…there’s something in those eyes of Kailynn’s that I recognize, that I know only too well and that’s the loss of someone you loved.
Honestly a guy like him would have effected me before I changed, but seeing what he’s doing to me, for me and how really gentle he is, especially when his powers mend my nose and heal the break like it was never there…I see in his eyes that mix of this caring and really sweet guy and the sad hurt and the compassion of the healer there…in his eyes and in his face…I nearly get lost in…him.
Oh…being a girl…my body has it’s own ideas…I’m very…very but it’s restrained by the hurt there, and for just how much I can feel from Shaya that he’s her hero and a really decent guy…and my love for her.
He’s one in a million like his sister and can see us becoming friends. It already feels like we’re heading that way. We end up smiling at each other
Shaya is looking over the food and the other one smiles at me looking me over intently. He really resembles Kailynn but thinner, less worked. His hair is dark chestnut brown and he has grey eyes. I’m a little uhm put off by him blatantly staring.
“Uhm excuse me uhm sir, guy dude? What are you staring at?”
“You.”
“Why, what’d I do?”
“You’re human.”
“Yeah, and?”
“Fascinating.”
My god he sounds like Mr. Spock. “Really?”
“Oh yes, you see I’ve only ever read about humans in story books and to meet a real live one.”
Shaya smiles and ruffles his hair. “Don’t mind him Wren, He’s one of my other brothers. This is Brennan and he’s going to study you because he’ll want to write about you and he’ll want to interrogate you so he can write a book about you.”
Brennan stares at me the her then me. “I would dearly love a chance to interview you. You’re entire existence proves tons of stories true.”
“Uhm sure?”
Kailynn is up and pouring tea? “That’s less important than Wren’s current troubles.”
Shaya and I both ask in stereo. “What troubles?”
He sips his tea. “Lady Kyte has issued a challenge to Wren to meet her on the court of blades.”
I look at him. “Blades…”
“Sword fighting Erendae.”
Oh shit…
Snakes and Ladders 6
Chapter 6
I stare at the three of them my head going from one to the other to the other.
“Sword fighting?! I don’t know how to sword fight!”
Brennan just nodded as he made what looked like a tea. “Yes, this is exactly why they have asked for this.”
Shaya frowned as she was sliding into this dark blue silky dressing gown. “It is dishonest is what it is, they want to hurt her and embarrass us. Wren cannot be expected to perform well in a duel when does not have the training nor the years of experience that Kyte has.”
Kailynn get’s off the bed and gives me a smile. “Well then we’ll just have to figure something out.”
I pull the covers up around myself tucking them around my breasts. I’ve always wanted to do this but I’d thought I’d never be able to and I’m a bit clumsy at it.
Y’know. Clumsy in front of elves is a little embarrassing.
When I’m done I slide out of the bed and make my way to the food. Brennan passes me the cup of tea and I take a drink. He gives me an odd look, Shaya winces…Oh...I just took a drink of it, I do the pinkie tea cup thing.
They all look confused.
Kailynn and Brennan seat the pair of us. I feel like a lummox next to Shaya who seems to float into the seat. Brennan passes her a tea and she slides on finger through the handle and cradles the curve of the cup in her hand and she drinks from it in this even slow sip, no I can feel it you take a long slow suck on the cups contents without slurping and just enough that you coat the entirety of your tongue so you get the full effect of the tea.
I try it and they smile at me.
Kailynn is really handsome. He’s got this neat yet almost roguish cut to his long hair a bit almost like a rock star, his face is softened from that boy, model, peter pan elfiness by the fact he’s both a warrior and a healer. Hazel eyes, and a warm smile and he’s got this really laid back kind of way about him. When he looks at me or smiles at me it just kind of feels like this really hot boy next door thing where he’s just this really easy going good guy.
Brennan on the other hand is this contrast to Kailynn. His hair is this beautiful chestnut color with these highlights I it that give you that sort of feeling like you’re looking at something beautiful but at the same time he looks like he rarely runs a comb or a brush through it or that he runs his fingers through it too often out of habit. He’s got the same eyes as his brother but these really long lashes almost as long and as lovely as Shaya’s he has these glasses on his face too that are these really cute pair that sort of have these small rounded lenses and gold wire frames. He’s got some ink splotches on his hands and his sleeves and what looks like several fountain pens in this very pocket protector thing in his shirt and he’s got several books with him and what looks as if it they were notebooks and sketch pads and a few thin books with titles I can’t really read. He’s even got this kind, sweet, a little spacey look to his features.
He’s kinda like James Spader from when he played Daniel Jackson in the Stargate movie.
Kind of really geeky cute. He smells like a mixture of leather bound books and a hint of cologne.
And yeah it’s a little strange and kind of whoa… why…but yeah I noticed that much about both of them in this weird moment of hyper senses. I mean I…yeah… (Blush.)
It tastes strange unlike any tea I’ve ever had like refined toasted almonds and oak like in whiskey and something else.
I don’t hate it but it’s definitely something new.
“So if I’m the one being challenged then why can’t I choose the weapons and the conditions?”
Brennan sits and starts to uncover a few dishes. “You can, it is your right but they will use this to force you into a situation.”
“A situation?”
“Yes, if you admit to not being able to duel like a knight than you’re just some brute which they will use to classify all humans as. If you accept and you don’t know what you are doing you’ll seem a fool and not wise enough to limit your actions. If you refuse you’ll look like you are wise to some groups that are mostly non —violent in court but you’ll seem to the others to not have any teeth and will lose any possible respect for you.”
“So I’m screwed.”
Shaya rips apart an innocent pastry with a vengeance. “They seek to use you as a weapon against me. And to use me against my family. They won’t stop until they and those like them tear our kingdom apart.”
She’s broody and sulking a bit. She’s kinda cute and a little hot when she does that.
“Why?”
Kailynn sipped his…ooooh he’s got coffee. I drain my tea making them all wince and eagerly hold out my cup to him. He pours me this stream of beautiful black coffee from a pot on the table. I cradle it like its precious, it tastes divine.
He says as he’s plating food in a very deliberate manner and actually showing me how he’s doing what, holding what, how he’s holding a certain thing as he talks. I pay attention to what he’s saying as much as the table manners he’s teaching me.
“This like a lot of things with our people Wren goes back a long, long time even for us. Nearly a hundred thousand years ago our world was under the rule of this enslaving demonic force, this alien creature called the Dominator, we do not know that much about the creature in these days but the elves that dwelt here before my family came weren’t able to best it or it’s troops. Then my family’s ancestors came here through a gateway and we crashed here in this system. We were elves of a different past and as a result we had technology and majik and knew how to use both. The dominator and his troops sought to take us slaves as well and in the conflict we led the elves of these moons and the planet itself into independence and thus our line were made royalty.”
Brennan picked up the lecture from there. “In the ages that have passed we had kept much of what our family had brought here secret because much of is too dangerous to be known to just anyone. This has led to others from the realm to be jealous and want to overthrow us so that they can rule and many claim that we are simply keeping ourselves in power by the secrets we hold.”
“There was another war nearly twenty thousand years ago that nearly destroyed to entire kingdom. There were those of the ones we called the Forsaken who used the darkest of majiks that they had gleaned from the Dominators remnants to create an army that would take us over and they would rule in our place. This was a long and bloody war that we just had gotten over only a short while ago for us and was where Father became King as the war had drawn to a close.”
Shaya added. “My Uncle Lyam was so power hungry that he wanted the throne and he has used this sentiment to incite these houses to hate if not distrust those who are of or loyal to the royal family and had incited a civil war. We’re just recovering from this still now and there are many who still follow him and others now of the dissatisfied camp that use what he did and what I did as my former self as examples of why we should not be ruling anymore.”
I nod, “So Lyam is still out there, and he’s still got his supporters and then there’s others who think like him but aren’t’t willing to kneel to him right?”
They all nod.
I sip my coffee.
To me there’s an obvious answer to this but it’ll be far from easy. “So where is Lyam now?”
Shaya shrugs, “This we do not know but there are many holes where a being could hide in our worlds and he has been gathering his forces and using the majiks left over from the war with the forsaken to create pain and misery and havoc in the realms.”
Brennan leans back in his chair. “He uses the conflict he’s creating to stir the pots as it were between the houses and he instigates things from the shadows and because it’s him doing this it has fostered distrust of the royal line.”
I look at him. “Yeah I get that but if say he does win won’t this turn around to bite him in the ass?”
Kailynn shakes his head. “If Lyam gains the throne and gets control of the royal secrets then he’ll use the forces he’ll gain control of to rule us all with an iron fist. He already knows from his instigating who’ll be trouble for him and he’ll have them killed as example to the rest. Just ask the poorer peoples on Skywood what living under the rule of Lyam was like, just look what he did to Shaya and all of that was before he was found out.”
I’m thinking again.
Lyam must have been the rider on that three headed dragon called Shai-tan.
He’ll not like me very much.
Maybe I can use that, from what he said to Shaya he doesn’t’t like them at al and not just because he’s his brothers kid. He’s an assrag, a molester and a homophobe like some of the ones from back home.
He’s not going to like me being with Shaya just on his twisted principles, if I can do more? Make her happy he really won’t like seeing or hearing of that.
Yeah…
Yeah…
Somehow, someway Shaya is going to have to defeat him and/or bring him to justice.
But first thing is Red.
“So what am I going to do about this duel, I can’t exactly leave it alone now can I?”
Kailynn looked thoughtful; Brennan pondered for a moment then looked at me and Shaya. “It’d be best to really speak of this to father and mother about this. I’ll ask him and we can speak of this over breakfast tomorrow with him and mother.”
Kailynn nodded. “That’d be best and with that I’m off to make sure of my other duties. Shayanara…Erendae…Have a good day, find some time to relax before life gets too interesting all over again.” He kissed us almost French like on both cheeks and coughed pointedly at Brennan who was already leaving and stared at him like huh?, then he clued in and he too came over and kissed us in the same fashion. Its funny Shaya can be naked in front of them and not be body shy but she blushed when her brothers kissed her cheeks.
I can get that. Suddenly getting treated like a sister a girl instead of what people…Lyam had wanted her to be. Heck I know I blushed when Kailynn and Brennan kissed me. Like I’m a girl which I guess I really am now.
Shaya was the same as me all her life until recently and now we’re together…happy doesn’t’ really describe it. I watch her as she walks them to her doors and I can’t help but smile the more than as what we did last night kinda dances through my memories as I watch her move in just that thin silk dressing robe of hers.
I get up and move over to her and take her tiny waist into my hands. I love the feel of her. I feel so good, safe, wanted…as Shaya wraps her arms around my neck as I lean down to kiss her. Oh lord, I love kissing her. My lips touching hers in a way that is so, so erotic for me I feel like I’m getting to be a well shook up bottle of pop. She pulls off my blankets and her tiny yet not tiny hands touch my chest weakening my knees, making me gasp and whine at the cascade of pleasure running through my chest…right through it, like this radiating tear inducing pleasure is tied so symbiotically with my heart and my lungs. My hands open her dressing gown and I return the favor and we must have spend five, ten minutes doing just that until I shake as I just can’t keep myself from having an orgasm…Shaya’s right behind me too.
We don’t head back to the bed after that instead we kiss more, hold each other. I’m crying a little still adjusting to jut how lucky I’ve been. I hold her and I start slow dancing with her without any music. Shaya hugs to me a little tighter for awhile and when she looks up at me. A bit teary and giving me this shy girl barely there smile. “Oh…Wren, I’ve…I’ve never.., I never though I’d ever do this with anyone. Thank you, thank you so much.”
I kiss her again, and another longer but slower one for good measure. “Shaya, you…you are so special and you don’t see it do you? If there was one power, one majik I’d wish for and that’d be to let you see yourself through my eyes.” I’m looking in her eyes and I see them overflow with emotion and love. I can feel it through our link, our bond. It’s the first time that anyone’s ever said that kind of thing to her. Just feeling it coming back to me as her love, her happiness. I kiss her again, Oh I can so get used to this. Before…the old me really wanted to do these kind of things, say these things but too often I couldn’t. I tear up a little. Shaya looks up at me as I sniffled. “Wren? What is it? What’s troubling you?”
“Dancing Shay…I just realized I’m dancing again.”
We kiss a few more times before she breaks the kisses. “We should bathe, while I’m very tempted to do nothing but make love to you Wren there are things that I must do because I am a working knight and dragon rider.” I nod. “Is the anything that I could be doing? I’m not comfortable just sitting around.”
“You could come with me and help out?”
“Are you sure that wouldn’t just be humoring me?”
“Yes, yes it would but there are things I could do to have a spare set of hands for and you can get to know things in my world, some more. We will be busy love.” Shaya drags me by my hand back to the bathing room and despite her talk and me agreeing once we were wet and warmed by the hot water and soapy…hands wandered, lips touched over and over and then wandered, fingers danced and touched and breathy songs of our mutual pleasure filled the bathing chamber.
I was teary again afterwards as we went to get dressed. This feeling of love and afterglow and well being mixed with not just walking but moving finally with that I’m not thinking about it feminine glide that’s mixed with my new body’s joyfully perfect feelings, the swivel of my hips, the feel of my bottom just having this different shape and weight that adds to the sway and the delicious bounce of my large fully breasts.
I’m emotional because it’s so perfect.
And You know as much as I’m worried about the other stuff going on here right now I’m not because I’m more myself than I ever have in my life.
I feel like I’m wearing my soul on the outside.
Shaya leads me into that small personal mall she calls her “Dressing Chambers.” Yeah I’ve literally seen stores back home with less inventory. It’s a great bit of girly fun going through some things here that might fit me. It’s really two girls getting to play dress up that really had never gotten to play dress up before. We are getting ready for working still but there’s still this fun we both get to have that we’ve never really gotten to before. I’m a giggler and so is Shaya which is bad because for awhile we were making each other laugh just by laughing.
Okay, there was some faces being made and some tickling thrown in too but…I’m allowed to, I’m a girl now.
I’ve got no bra; Shaya did admit that I’m going to need a lot of custom clothes. I love wearing the panties though, sweet silk touching my girlhood in this way that I’ve literally dreamed of to the point of driving myself to pain as Bear. Then to now slide that silk and stretchy lace right up and sexily and so perfectly snug made me just…complete? Right? I giggle, sniffle and can’t help but dance a little dance of joy that Shaya completely gets. The fact that she gets it and that I get her and we’re together…If I’m in a ditch somewhere because of that storm on earth then please, please I don’t want to wake up.
I’m dressed by the time I’m done I’m in a fawn brown cotton long sweater that on me shows lots of midriff but really shows my breasts off to good effect. Over that I’ve got a large lace up vest styled corset and over that this woolen hooded long coat that’s like a really big sweater with a zipper and a bunch of snaps. I’m wearing a pair of heavy green denim pants that are like a mix of Levi jeans and combat pants. I’m wearing these stocking like soaks and these really heavy flat soled leather boots that are made of oilskin. Those I looked at Shaya as I tugged them on. “Oilskin?”
“They clean easier.”
“Oh.”
From there it’s to her armory, where I’m fitted with leather gauntlets and a sword belt and a sword on my hip along with a field pouch with various things like telescope and survival gear. It’s bloody heavier than I thought it was. I get helped into a buckskin tabard to go under my woolen longcoat, and finally chaps and a ceramic helmet that looks like a Spartan helmet with an amber glass tinted visor and no crest on it. She has to tightly braid my hair to get it on my head.
Why?
She leads me down the hall and into the room where Bhlaze is risen and up and awake and moving around his enclosure. We’re going Dragon riding! OMG! Okay I’m super excited and both Shaya and Bhlaze are finding me very amazing.
~Erendae, have you flown before? ~
“Uhm yeah but never like this, it was in an airplane.”
~Airplane? ~
“It’s a flying machine.”
~Oh, like the shuttles or the starships or is it like an airship? ~
“It’s probably closer to an airship but not nearly as cool.”
~Cool? ~
“Uhn, it’s like this expression, it means excellent or very good.”
~Oh...indeed, I hope you will find this cooler? ~
“I’m going dragon riding!, of course it’s more cool!”
Yeah that got him and Shaya laughing and she passes me a rake as Bhlaze walks out onto this dock/veranda like thing.
“What’s this?” I look at her.
“He sheds, and we clean the sands out to keep it clean and to unpack the sands.”
“Does he…?”
“Does he what?”
“Is it like a cat box?”
“Cat box?”
I follow her lead as she uses this large rack like a harrow with blades that cut into the sands and she walks back and forth cutting up the sand. The whole time I’m trying to explain the concept of a litter box to her. There’s this look on her face.
“Wren, why?…why do not you’re people just train your house cats to do they’re business outside.”
“Uhm because most of us can’t. Most people on earth can’t or don’t train their cats.”
“But why, if you don’t you have a box of…stuff in your house?” she shudders at the thought.
I laugh at her when she does.
She gives me this kinda frowny look. “It’s just not logical.”
It’s just too tempting with her saying that and the pointed ears. I’m laughing some more.
When she raises just one eyebrow that sets me off again in a fit of giggles.
Shaya digs into the ground a bit more tugging the thing and dredging the sands up.
It actually smells good there’s this cool almost metallic, citrus like I’ve never smelled, menthol scent to the sand and there’s these almost sparkles and bits of scales in it.
“Shaya, what’s the smell?”
“Dragon essence it’s a mixture of the dead skin cells and the oils from Bhlaze’s hide soaking into the sands as he relaxes in the hot sands.”
Oh yeah did I mention that the sands are heated, yeah my feet are getting really hot, I’m getting really hot but it’s oddly not bothering me that bad, It’s actually kind of pleasant I look at her, “So what do I do?”
Shaya takes from a wall closet a shaker box like you’d use to separate stuff from the dirt and a pair of shovels and a bucket. Then she puts the harrow away. “We separate the scales from the sands because the scales he sheds will attract mites and such but there is a healing ointment that I make for him that speeds the healing of his wounds.”
It sounds like a lot of work but it isn’t really its pretty easy and it’s like I’m doing stable work for a dragon.
We’re done in about an hour. She does before we’re done takes a sand sample and tests it for the oil concentrations.
“Why are you doing that?”
“Once there is enough oil I’ll replace his sand and I’ll make dragonfury out of it.”
“Dragonfury?”
“It’s a mana reactive explosive substance, in Bhlaze’s case the fury will be an electrical storm.”
“Whoa…”
“Indeed, it is a very powerful weapon that we use very carefully.”
“So are there any other things you make from it?”
“There are those who play with the lore but few successes.”
“I just thought…”
“What?”
“No, it’s nothing really”
“No, Erendae you had a thought, perhaps it is something we have not yet attempted.”
“Uhm…okay, well if it makes lightning right then couldn’t you use it for like medicines. Back home when a damaged heart stops they shock the person back using electricity.”
“Aah, that would be wonderful but testing it would be hazardous…still…”
She leaned over and kissed me.
“Come Beloved let’s get Bhlaze ready to fly.”
She took me into that closet room and I helped her get out the saddle and the gear for riding that I’d need. Shaya didn’t often take a second rider with her. It’s pretty heavy stuff really. She makes me lug all the stuff out to where Bhlaze is and we go over suiting him up in the double saddle rig. Its hard work really, I’m just as strong as I was before but I’m lacking the mass to actually have all that easy leverage that I’m used to. See before it was often a matter of me shifting my weight to do a lot of things. A lot of us overweight people learned to do that actually. It’s using your body weight to inflict extra momentum on something heavy you’re trying to move. It’s throwing your weight into it as it were.
I can’t do that anymore, heck if anything I might might need to put on some weight. I can see my ribs a little. I’m six foot plus with umm, a rather well developed chest and strong shoulders even for a girl so my weight don’t fit me not really. I’d guess myself between one hundred and forty five to one hundred and fifty five pounds which would be ideal if I was around five foot six or so.
Then there’s all the stuff I’m wearing and the bloody sword and sword belt. I’m not used to wearing these things and it’s heavy on my hips and waist. I’m constantly fiddling with it trying to adjust it to fit or feel just right but I can’t just because I’m not used to it. Then there’s the fact I keep banging into things with it and it keeps whacking me in my thigh.
Shaya helps me mount and there’s straps to do around my legs sort of using the bend at my knees to sort of lock these into place. Then Bhlaze shifts position turning to face the length of the dock and it only takes him four strides before he springs off of it like a cat jumping off a fence and we fall. Or rather we dive heading in an arc down towards the water and all the ships that we had seen in the giant river/canal and kind of like an roller coaster I see his head and neck rear up ahead of us ash his body curves upward and there’s the leathery snap of his wings.
We skim the water and with swishes of his tail we weave through about a dozen ships before pulling up and into the sky. I’m half way to scared and thrilled at the same time and I can’t help but, can’t contain that bungee jump like scream of fear and joy.
It only gets better and better as we climb and we pass by birds and then loop under and then bank up and over an airship, then pass another two or three of them and we soar gaining height, a mixture of these powerful wing beat that’s close to feeling what a sybian machine feels like as his muscle move and massage me through the saddle mixing in with the adrenaline and the sheer beauty of the moment.
I grip the saddle as the waves of my pleasure whip through me like the wind does. I gasp with that and amazement as we bank higher and the world opens up beneath us. I’ve never felt so free in all my life.
Snakes and Ladders 7
Chapter 7
The air is so beautiful up here in the sky above Highwood. We bank and we soar and over the massive canal like sea. We pass by air-ships and over regular boats and ships and fly out of that canal over this cliff-side down to beach like city only about seven our eight miles from the palace and the whole canal opens up into this wide open sea.
We bank as Bhlaze catches the thermals that come with the sun hitting the water and we shoot up so fast it’s like the ground just falls away and as not being in the world as I’m living lately this, this was so open, so freeing.
I think I kept thinking that this being a moon it’d be small that I’d see something that would kind of say small, but the scene below just keeps expanding below me. I could go on about this for a long time but it’s all like this. Riding a dragon is like skydiving a riding a race horse all mixed in with the maneuverability of a stunt plane. I’ve been in a two seater crop duster a few times. Dragon riding’s like that only about ten times more intense. I can feel the living being under me thing with every wing beat, I love that feeling, the rub of the saddle, the feeling of my breasts pressed into Shaya’s back.
We’re riding thermals and gliding and Shaya’s pointing out things as we fly. A set of islands connected together with bridges and glittering glasslike domes and hundreds of piers and landing platforms. Dozens of those glass swan shuttles are moving in and out of the area. “That’s Star-Dock! It’s home to the Royal Stellar Navy ship yards and command!” It reminds me of an airport, but better and yeah fascinating. It’s something I’m going to have to learn, have to. If there’s ships like this here I’m so going into space.
“I want to learn how to fly one of those!” I yell into the wind.
Shaya laughs. “Me too! I’ll have to ask my sister Galadriel, she’s a Wing-Captain, maybe she’ll pull some strings.” I lean over. “What’s a wing captain?”
“It’s a naval rank; it means she commands a group of fifteen ships.”
“That’s a big deal, or it is back home.”
Shaya’s trying to process what I just said. Then she nods. “Yes, even here it is. A big deal.”
Shaya points out Celestine the city below us as the capitol city of the Sylvan realm. It’s beautiful even from here built along the cliffs that are part of the canal sea and the ocean side of the northern shore. There are huge beautiful buildings built in tiers amongst these great stands of trees all designed to blend together. It does strike me as so different that the capitol city of Shaya’s people is maybe at the most about 70-80 thousand people at the most. Compare to home it’s a lovely but a small city. God, Washington could swallow this city whole and not even notice. Well they’d notice. It’s too nice. The biggest set of slums in DC is not even ten miles away from the White House.
She’s showing me the mountain of kings where the kings and royals of old are buried when we hear this tone. It’s this clear pure singular note and I can feel it go through Shaya and Bhlaze. It came from the palace. “What was that?”
“Dragon call, we’re being summoned back to the palace.”
Oh….
We do a little bank and Shaya yells out. “Hang on!” and that’s about all the warning I get as Bhlaze tucks in his wings as he does a roll over and we plummet from 25 thousand feet heading down at a slant to cover the ten plus miles we were away from the palace at hundreds of miles per hour. I’m sure it was faster than a diving bird of prey, far faster…I know why as we come at the palace roof where there is an almost Greek roofed and pillared structure like the Acropolis? Actually most of the roof is covered with those and small gardens and two huge domes on each end of the palace.
….There’s this ripple from Shaya that touches through me and it’s coming from Bhlaze as his wings open up like a parachute and I feel this wave of something and we slow down like the matrix stuff like we’re shedding the actual physics and we land like gently like a feather…after the headlong dive and to stop and land so…magically. There’s tears running down my face partly from the wind sheer and just partly from the experience.
Shaya slides off then I follow suit and almost go flat on my butt from the whole difference in the whole feeling on my legs. It’s kind of like readjusting to getting off a horse. No problem if you’re used to it. Me, I’m not used to it.
My Shaya catches me from falling though and holds me steady for awhile with her hands around my waist. I could get used to being treated like this. I smile at her. And she smiles back and then kisses me. I really like getting kissed by a beautiful woman. I kiss her back and get lost in that feeling for a while of her soft lips on mine. She stops thankfully? Before she gets me going to the point of me not wanting to stop. Hell who am I kidding I didn’t want to stop as soon as she gave me that first kiss.
Shaya takes my hand and walks me inside with Bhlaze following. There are more dragon riders inside doing things to get ready for various things but there’s a large table with this stunning elfin woman there behind it and with the table is stacks of scrolls and papers and golden leaf or foil large envelopes and other really official stuff. There are other elves around her doing all sorts of stuff the looks very secretarial but like in a military way. The link, bond thing kind of brings up the feeling/knowledge of these being both Pages and squire to the crown.
We stand and wait, Shaya’s at parade rest and in that skin-tight plated armor of hers and stuff she looks….handsome and dashing in this lady knight sort of way. Y’know like if all those knight in shining armor fantasies most girls might have were all of a sapphic bent. Gosh, she just looks amazing. Achingly so actually.
Me, I’ve no idea how to stand so I actually just kind of drift back and sort of stand against Bhlaze. A lot of people didn’t really get the fact that I can be actually quite shy when I’m not putting on that show that I had to all of my life.
The Elfin lady behind the desk running the show is all sorts of intimidating. First off she’s really tall, like six foot seven or so and she’s really thin in that elfin size zero kind of way but also she has these curves that a lot of her elfin sisters do not. She’s probably not all that skinny it just she’s got that long perfect neck and these long, long legs and these long and slender graceful arms. Add that in with that delicate model bone structure and the perfect complexion. Her eyes are perfectly shaped and very grey almost a fine steel color.
Her hair is this white-silver kissed platinum blonde and regally braided with two braids going back from the top of her head and a long braid in front and behind her ears as well as another starting from over the top of her ears. Those over her ears actually are tied backwards like a regal circlet and hold her hair back all the while tying together with the two braids on the top of her head to make this intricate celtic styled knot design but leaves the four ends to dangle down from it each of the end on them and all of her braids are capped with somekind of hair clamps made of platinum and set with diamonds, and to set it all off is this really fine platinum chain that goes from the start of the braids on top of her ears and draped just perfectly over her forehead completing that circlet look and another perfectly cut, perfectly sized diamond rests in the very center of a tiny knot medallion that matches the way her hair is tied in the back.
Add in the perfect touch of make up and this very stunning very simply cut almost Greek or roman dress that’s really low cut and the fact that she moves and speaks and does everything I see her do with this soft spoken grace mixed with that kind of aura that only comes from having real authority.
Yeah, I’ve no idea who the hell she is but given who I am and my background I’m more than intimidated. She’s got to be the Queen.
~No, She is not the Queen.~
“Who is she?” I’m whispering up to Bhlaze.
~She is the King’s Advisor, The Royal Chancellor.~
“Oh…so, really important.”
~She is. She has been the second of the kings since King Dorian’s Grandfather.~
“That’s old right?”
~She is said to have been to Ea.~
“Where?”
~You’re world before they had left it.~
“Whoa.”
~Indeed…Whoa.~
Eventually she catches Shaya’s eyes and Shaya steps forward and I kind of stay put but got a glace from the woman. I don’t hear all of it and don’t get most of it with it being comments on stuff she’s getting Shaya to read. Once read She inks her thumb and presses it to the document she was reading as well as what from what as far as I can tell is a receipt that proves that she read that document. Then the document goes into one of those shiny golden envelopes and the woman runs a finger over the flap and it melds together like it never was a flap and I can see symbols almost hiding in the shiny reflection of the gold but actually not in the gold.
It takes actually about an hour because there’s like fifty some documents all put into this black leather satchel. She accompanies Shaya over moving in this sexily slinky slithery super model walking the runway style. “Wren, this is Issabella A`Tir Tangir. The Royal Chancellor and family.”
“I’m uhm honored to meet you Ma’am.”
“Please Issabelle is just fine Wren.” She takes my hand and shakes it like a fine lady but a fine lady from home. Like an European type she gives me a polite kiss on each cheek. There’s a warmth in her face that I didn’t expect. “Okay then Issabelle it is.”
Shaya smiles a warm real smile. “Issabella or Issabelle’s been with my family for a long time. She knew my great, great grandfather. She’s sort of a cross between an aunt and grandmother to most of the family.” The love and admiration for this woman is obvious and written all over her face and her beautiful smile. Issabella looks a bit… “I’m sorry Erendae to interrupt your introduction to life here and at court but there is a mission of vital dispatches that Shaya must take to the defense fortresses that enclose The Darklands. You of course do not have to go and you can stay and be welcome in the palace for as long as you wish.”
“How long will Shaya be gone?”
“I do not know, the situation in that region is violent and fluidic.”
“Then I’m going.”
“It will be potentially dangerous.”
“So is Lady Kite.”
“This is true, you untended at court could be problematic perhaps, She and those she serves and is allied to would seek to press their advantage.”
“So this gets me out of sight and out of mind?”
“Yes, and Shaya is a blade mistress one of the very best period. This can be a good way for you to train away from prying eyes.”
“Then it’s settled, I’m definitely going. Plus I love her, I’m not sure how long I could be without her right now.”
Issabella smiles at me warmly, like I just said that I loved one of her own family. “Thank you Wren, I worry about her. Shaya needs someone, sometimes like with your run in with Lady Kite she needs somebody to stand up for her because my little Shaya will not do this enough for herself.” As she said it she looked at Shaya like a mom would or a grandmother. Shaya even in her knights armor tucks her head and blushes. We hug her again and she rubbed Bhlaze’s snout and then Shaya leads us away from the area and we mount up again. “Are we going to need, supplies?”
“No, not here. Well resupply at the Holy City.”
“The Holy city?”
“It’s better that we just show you.”
Bhlaze does that little run off thing and this time I’m ready for the run off the roof and dive we do down and over the canal. It’s fun this time, It was fun last time but I’m ready for it even wanting it a little. Down we go and up again but catch other thermals and head away from the palace and up over this beautiful hardwood forest. It’s a huge amount of forest too like the size of New York State, uncut, unbroken and untouched or at least untouched by human hands.
I know, that’s kind of a downer statement but I’ve driven over so much of home and seen so much of how we messed up our planet. This is beautiful.
Of course this is when it kind of comes to me. “Shaya isn’t where we’re heading on the planet?” I’m kind of excited. Space, I’m going to get to fly into space!
“Yes love, The Holy City and The Darklands are both on Sylvania.”
“So we’re taking a ship?, A shuttle?”
“No…Why’d you think…oh…”
“What? Oh?”
“The planet is the holy lands, we do not take the ships to the planet.”
“Then how?”
Shaya points over the palace as Bhlaze banks us over turning us towards it, we’re picking up speed and not soaring either, he’s beating his massive wings hard and just pulling air. I look to where she’s pointing and I see two other dragon riders and their dragons then there’s this compressed flash. It’s like they turned into blue-white light and that light compresses into a line the that line folds into itself…”Whoa..”
If anyone’s ever seen the new Battlestar Galactica? Those two dragons vanished, they jumped like the ships did on that show…Yeah, I think I was justified on the Whoa.
I feel the change, Bhlaze does something and the wind sheer is gone but I can kind of feel this space around us like just force, but this force is like this streamlining thing, and we pick up a lot of speed. It’s fascinating, scary, thrilling. I’m or I was a trucker amongst other things I kind of like speed. But this, this was so…cool. Then I feel this thing like the hair rising on my body or static then it happens.
The world lurches into a stop or a near stop and there’s a crack of light, this hole in the air filled with somewhere else. The world is lit up in this blue white light that washes everything out, and is silent, the only sounds are ours. The wing beats and the creaks of our leathers and our gear. We head flying through the hole of light and as we pass the edges of one place into another it becomes this streak of everything in between here and there. It all took less than a minute I figure but it’s burned into my brain.
The first time I’d dimensionally shifted.
My mind was trying to just adjust to the relocation. The physics of it, the implications. We just traveled so far in no time at all and….
Then I saw the Tree.
The Holy City sits around a lake but inside and rising up out of the lake is…the tree. Sorry no… The Tree, is huge and we circle the thing and it literally a wooden mountain. It has to be a single solid mile across at the trunk. It’s into the clouds like a mountain top and the lake is close to twenty five miles or so wide and the roots are all over the place being used by them as roads. There are boles and knurls in The Tree that have been made into living spaces with balconies and everything and up in the higher places of The Tree has villages built in these nooks that are hundreds of feet wide sometimes. Some of these places are temples by the look of them. The canopy of the city covers the entire city and then some.
There is plains to the north and west of the city and there’s hills and Laurencin like mountains to the south and there’s forests instead of the hill before the mountains to the east. We soar and sail around the city, the lake and the tree.
I don’t say anything because what could I really say?
I cry for the sheer wonder and beauty of the place.
We settle into a glide and I look at the city. It’s really old, ancient and made out of white gray stones like you’d seen in Rome or Greece, light colored marbles and granites and sandstone are the most common, the rest is done in what looks like matching color schemed brickwork and tiles. It’s about ten or twelve blocks wide from the docks to the city walls. The walls remind me of the great wall of china twenty feet wide or thick and sixty feet high. Think of that stone look but thousands of years old but maintained it’s like the entire place is like an antique. We come into a glide to this place on the eastern side of the city and it’s an estate amongst other estates about four acres by six and walled and built of this white stone mixed with pale grays and blue grays. It’s walled with a fifteen foot brick wall and has a carriage house and a brick lane that’s more of a road and a roundabout that stops in front of this large house that’s like an old manor house that you’ve crossed with a southern plantation house. The yard is full of great big trees…lilacs…lilacs so large they’re tree sized and cover in some of those Sylvan bio-luminant flowers and regular mosses and ivy, both on the tree and on the house. This place here with that city view and The Tree…We land in the roundabout and I’m just breathing to take it all it. I think…I thought. I thought I was done being shocked, but all of this.
Shaya smiles and does a deep inhale. “This is Sylvania, the holy lands of my people…This is The Holy City, This is Lilac House, My father built this house with his own hands and planted everything here for my mother. Every child in my family was born here Wren, all of us.”
Shaya turns in the saddle and looks at me and kisses me…There’s a lot more passion to the kiss and so much feeling in it and I ache for her. We come up for air as servants come out waiting for us and grooms for taking Bhlaze’s harness and stuff. “It’s beautiful Shaya.” It is but, I’m just still in shock to really drink it in. She nuzzles me and we slide out of the saddle and down to the bricks. We kiss some more as we stand away while the grooms take care of Bhlaze. ~Go, both of you my bondeds refresh yourselves as I myself will before we alight anew.~
Shay leads me up to the steps nearly skipping. “Welcome to the real family home Wren, we might work at the palace and live there. But this, this is our heart Wren…I love you, Wren, I love you and I want this to be your home too.”
She pulls me into the front doors and she’s passionately kissing me…pushing me against the wall and frenching with me and trying to play with my breasts through all the stuff I’m wearing. She breaks the kiss and hauls me up the stairs by my hand.
“We’ve two hours maybe three if we hurry…”
Snakes and Ladders-8
Chapter 8
It was really faster paced than I wanted or Shaya wanted but at the same time oh my gods this was good. It was running up the stairs of this beautiful wood paneled mansion that I’m sure was all really intricate and everything. But Shaya’s and my lips are locked and we’re bouncing off some of the walls shedding armor and clothes well it’s easier for me but getting Shaya out of her armor’s like trying to get a three year old out of a ski suit.
It’s enough to set me to giggling.
“Erendae? What’s so funny?” She manages to get out between kisses and …oh…Ffff…running her silky smooth hands over my breasts and nipples. I really had a time trying to think with this ripple of intense pleasure running through my breasts and trying to turn my brains to jello.
Some how the reference at that moment was a little too hard to explain, but another though had me giggling. “I’m a woman…now…finally…and I’m still having a hard time getting a woman’s clothes off!”
Shaya descended down into my sex and soon had me crying out. The marvelous thing about being a girl…woman…is that first orgasm isn’t like the end of things for awhile but really…it’s just the start.
First gear just shifted into second.
Third gear finally got Shaya shucked out of her armored body suit.
We enter, spin kind of passionately into a bedroom then crash down on a bed. Oh…yeah…oh god there’s this kind of blanket on the bed it’s like this inch deep plush quilt like somekind of terrycloth that looks like that deep moss on the forest floors of Oregon and…smells like it too but with a sweet underlying scent of pear instead of the earth scent…but there’s just a kiss of that too. And it feels, it feels like somekind of plush fur against my way too hot naked skin….My body face first sort of sliding into that blanket on the bed drives me over the edge as the sensitivity of my breasts goes like sexual lightning into my brain and there’s fireworks as I moan and cry out.
I know this sounds weird and stuff but the sound of my voice my female, really feels…so right to me it does something to me…the feelings rippling, rushing, shining through my body as Shaya’s tongue is inside of me gives answer to this deepest part of myself I’ve always hidden, that was never let out, then as far as all those years and years of hell I lived as Bear…is finally over…and my soul my real soul is singing.
I’m free, I…finally free!
I feel it resonating with Shaya…she’d been through the same hell too for so long and to finally be free, and to finally have somebody to be the real her with…it takes us to heights that neither one of had ever dreamt of. Well we had dreamt of them but the actual reality of us doing what we are doing makes those dreams pale by comparison.
Shaya slides her tongue into my sex and I’m face down, breast down moaning into the bed as she licks then she suckles and then she grabs one of my legs and moves it. She grinds her slit over and back and over and back of the heel of my foot, like some peopled use somebody’s knee to do the same…pleasuring herself…moaning literally into me. I swear I can feel the vibrations of her voice inside of me…then she hugs herself to me grabbing me by my hips and does that thing where you fold your tongue into a tube or…well you know what I mean and in the position I’m in…my hard little love nub rests in that channel and she starts to run her tongue and all…those …tiny…bumpy...taste buds over that oh too sensitive area and pushing me back and forth over her tongue groove like we’re having bump and grind sex….I lose track of the shooting crashing waves of ecstasy…I actually end out crying out…”Stop….” Because I was just spent, exhausted and was panting like a racehorse. She does after I hear her own pleasured cries and we fall into a heap with her on top of me.
It takes a few minutes before she slides up to spoon with me and wrap her arms under mine and play with my breasts. I get my wind back and quickly roll over and pin her by her arms to the bed while kissing her.
My turn.
This is where I have the advantage if those things count here. Yeah Shaya’s older than me but I’ve been married, I’ve been with women before and I know what to do. My girl is inventive but I’m experienced. And her silken sylvan skin is much more sensitive than mine. Shaya is very easy to get panting and squirming as I slowly and very, thoroughly perform French kisses to her nipples and gently squeeze her perfect little breasts and kissed her, long and slow and sweet lingering kisses.
Then I move a hand down to her sex and rub gently but insistently as my fingers slide over her labia and drive her deeper and deeper into this moaning whimpering heat. I love hearing her calling out. “Yes, yes, oh, please Wren yes. Oh please, Erendae yes…”
My palm facing upwards I sink my middle two fingers into Shaya…my sweet Shaya and I let the space between my fingers mirror what she did to me with her tongue. The skin of my knuckles rubbing into her and the pads of my fingers caressing the top of her depths in a come hither gesture…she rides my hand…my outer two fingers can’t help but to keep rubbing her labia as I keep it up and as my middle two fingers are pulling back it makes me press my palm into her.
Shaya is loud and responsive and there is such a rush, a thrill to making her this ancient beauty writhe for me….Andin her like before and she through me I feel he reach that point of being flooded by ecstasy until it reaches this communion with actually and really being the girls, the women we knew we were deep down in our souls.
Her knee has been rubbing into me and I’ve been riding it as I still had been using my free hand and my mouth to make mad, frantic love to her…her peaking like I did pushes me over the edge with her and then I collapse on top of her sweaty lithe yet heaving body.
And after we stop gasping for our breathe we cuddle close just touching each other and we’re both crying a little at the fusion of us…and our feelings and our love and just finally, finally us being really happy, and just being us for awhile.
…………….Shaya is waking me the next thing that I know way too soon. She looks so beautiful though I just had to kiss her for a few minutes. “Bhlaze will be rested enough soon; we should get ready to leave again. You take a few more minutes beloved and I’ll get ready first so I can help you and get us some food.”
“Hmmm, Okay.”
Shaya showers first and comes out getting dried off and kisses me. I’ll admit I fell back asleep in that lazy just being boneless after having sex kind of way. I honestly don’t want to move…but…I’ve worked a lot of jobs where I didn’t want to get up and go back to work or go to work at all kinds of shitty hours and in all kinds of shitty places. It’s with a groan that I slide out of the bed and kiss her. My hair falls messily into my face and as soon as I’m upright I have to go to the bathroom anyway.
Okay as different and as awkward as sitting to pee can be the fact that I’m actually do it makes me smile. Yeah it’s a strange thing to talk about but it’s kind of important to me. It’s a very real thing to feel. It kind of grounds this being real to me and not some dream.
I love showering too, I’m very aware of my body and the feel of the water as it and the suds running off of my body. I’m too thin, I like being thin but I can feel my ribs slightly and my hip bones seem just a little too bony for me. But Kailynn had told me that I’m still replacing what was lost between the dragon’s blood burning me nearly to death and the rest was eaten up by the healing of my body. The only thing I really have that is kind of annoying is my hair. I’ve got a lot of it right now, and it gets really thick and does it ever weigh a lot and it’s hard to dry. I still can’t help but keep in a good mood as the weight of it pulls at me and I can’t help but smile at the way my breasts move and sway as I carefully dry myself off. I will say this; I’m noticing the weight in my back too.
“So, this is what a human female looks like.”
It’s a mans voice in the bathroom with me and it startles me. “Eeee…Mmmrmp!”
I nearly screamed except he cut my scream off as he shot acrossed the bathroom from the open window and pushed me into the wall his hand over my mouth. “Shhush.”
I was glaring at him. He smiled at me. It’s Shaya’s smile but it isn’t, he’s got her raven dark hair and her same sapphire eyes that sparkled with this mixture of mischief and sharpness. He puts his index finger to my lips. “I’m not here.” His eyes run over my naked body, there’s this look in them… “I wasn’t sure what to expect about hearing My Shaya has a bonded. And really not what to expect when I heard you were a human…Kind of like a children’s story given life.” I can’t help but notice how he’s so much like his sister but not. The hair, the eyes the nose they’re the same so much you can tell they’re twins. But he’s got broad male elfin shoulders even more than his other brothers because he looks like he does a lot of hard work. Slender, like a tall male model crossed with an Olympic gymnast…in a sleeveless really fine black leather tunic and black cotton pants that…Oh god he’s…If this was what Shaya looked like before there are thousands of heartbroken sylvan women out there.
“Waddayou doing here?”
“I had to see you, check you out with my own eyes.”
“But you’re wanted, a criminal?”
“Wren…we both know that sometimes the laws and customs mean shit if you need to protect those you love.”
“Yeah, I get that.”
He looks at me. “You’ve gotten to a good start with Lady Kyte.”
“She started it, I don’t start things.”
“You finish them?”
“Usually ends up that way…”
There’s a moment of connection between us that we both just have that in common. “I might be changed but there’s something’s that won’t ever change Jaiden, I’ll die for those I love, no hesitation.”
He stares at me and walks closer and closer until he’s pressed right up to me. I can feel him search my heart as he looks me in the eyes…I can feel it just coming off of him how much he loves his family.
I reach out to him and pull him in and put my forehead to his, stare him deeply into his eyes. “I’ll die before they get to OUR family Jaiden.” He closes his eyes and there’s a slight shaky breath and…he for a second looks so tired lonely and it clutches at my heart, he’s Shaya’s twin. And I see Jaiden do what I’ve done all my life, grab hold of it and shove it down deep just to function.
“I have to go Wren. Keep her safe?, listen to your link, your bond Shaya’s got her hands tied about doing things sometimes with her past, they will watch her like a cat on a mouse hole. Use her feelings to guide what you’re going to do. You’ll be able to act sometimes where she won’t dare. I have to get going, It’s not safe for me to be out and about in the daylight, not here at least.”
He hugs me and gives me this tender kiss on the cheek. “Tell Shay I love her?” and with that he dives out the window. I can’t help but run to the window-sill and watch this very large raven winging away from Lilac house.
I’m watching what I’m sure is Jaiden winging away out of sight when Shaya bursts in through the door armor on and sword in her hand. “Wren!…” She’s beside me so quickly and pulling me from the window and wrapping her sword arm around me protectively. “Are you okay? I felt you get scared…and you yelled.”
“I’m okay, Jaiden snuck in here to see me.’
“What!, Jaiden…” She rushes to the window herself but I know he’s already gone.
There’s a moment of silence then she turns around, there’s tears there. I step over and pull her to me by her wrist then reach up with both hands and wipe the tears away with my thumbs.
“Why…Why was he here?”
“He wanted to check me out.”
“Why?”
“He heard things I suppose, he wanted to make sure you’d be okay with me. He wanted to make sure his sister was safe.”
“But…but why? I mean why doesn’t he come back to us. We could fight all the charges pressed on him.”
“He knows he can do more good where he is Shay.”
“I don’t understand, Why? He’s a good man and to be surrounded by those kinds of people…”
“Shaya.” My voice gets a little serious, yeah she’s done bad things but they’re still a noble, a rich girl once rich boy and she doesn’t get… “Listen, Shaya…You’re the black sheep of the family far more than he is. To those kinds of people Jaiden left the land of milk and honey to be with them rather than compromise his honor. You’re still under the eye of the courts.” Shaya starts to say something but I put my fingers to her lips. “Jaiden knows that people like Lyam use the darker parts of society to do the things that he’d done and what he might do in the future. He’s walking in those places, a rebel, a criminal and a turncoat. He’s undercover (Shaya looks confused.) he’s living and working behind enemy lines Shaya.”
“But why hasn’t he told us this?, Father this?”
“Because he can’t, not yet. It’s too dangerous for him, for you, for anyone who aids him.”
Shaya hugs me and settles her head into my breasts. “I’m scared for him, I love him.”
“He loves you too, Shaya. Trust me Jaiden loves his family very, very much.”
I hold her for a few minutes before pushing her back and kissing her.
“We’ll get through this…But I need to get dressed I’m getting cold now.”
Shaya looks up at me. “I’ll help you get geared up.”
We’re getting dressed when she looks at me. “Wren?”
“Yeah Shay.”
“Thank you.”
I pull her into a kiss and smile at her. “I love you; You don’t have to thank me for that.”
“Yes I do Erendae, I really do.”
We kiss for awhile before heading down the stairs and out to where Bhlaze and the grooms were getting ready to depart I noticed there were several other bags attached to the sky-saddle. One of the older? It’s not a look but something I can sense comes with a tray and sets it on the edge of the fountain in the middle of what I’m calling the driveway.
The food is a little more normal to me with fries and gravy with ground meat in it so it’s kind of like a hot hamburger with the bread on the side. The bread is funny looking it’s like it’s pastry but textured more like a biscuit. I scarf down the food like Shaya is mostly because I’m actually starving. I’m a little leery of eating so much I mean I was quite the size before and…and…Shaya rubs my back and smiles at me mouth full of food, she swallows it in a very unlady like gulp that makes her all kinds of cute.
“Don’t…Wren, don’t go there. You need the weight first of all because you’re not elfin and you need more of you on you. And secondly honey? (She’s got an odd look on her face as she just tried on one of my/our/human phrases. Then nods.) You’re going to work it off. Trust me.”
She leans over and kisses me and rubs my back still. It feels nice, not just the rubbing but her knowing I was going through something and making me feel better just by feeling it. It feels really, really good to be cared about like this. And the kissing is really, really nice too. I think why we seem to be so all over each other in love is partly that new relationship buzz but also just because it feels so good to have somebody to be like this with. It’s been a long lonely life for both of us. There’s been loves in my life before but they never knew about Wren. I was never the real me with them. I was going to give her another kiss but Shaya steals a three fingered pinch of the fries off of my plate. I love that innocent yet impish girl look she gives me. You know the one where the girl steals your fries just like back home. There’s this something sparked up alive in her eyes because it’s such a “Girl” thing to do and she’s never done it before.
I can’t really tickle her in that armored bodysuit of hers so I scoop a hand down onto the fountain pond and splash her. She squeals and tries to duck it but I got her and then she’s splashing at me and soon we’re running around the fountain pond laughing and squealing and giggling like two teenaged girls. It’s…like there this bright shiny happy thing right in my heart.
Bhlaze breaks up our teenager moment with a cough. Oh yeah that claw made into a fist. And just like a person does he’s loudly and pointed coughing.
~Arrrg-Hem!~
We stopped and he does this whole regal neck rise and looking at us both kind of dripping and panting but all smiles. “Yes?” We both ask him in innocent blinking stereo.
~My Beloved’s I’m so sorry to interrupt you’re mating game but I do believe that we do have a job to do.~
Shaya sighs but she’s still smiling as are some of the staff. “I know, and He’s right Love we should get going if we wish to make good time.”
I smile and use a bit of my jacket to dry…ooooh a servant with towels for both of us. I take it and smile. “Thank you, this was very thoughtful of you.” The man nodded and smiled at me. Shaya thanks him too and calls him Ambrose. I give him back the used towel and tell him. “Again thank you Ambrose, I’ll get Shaya to teach me everyone’s names as soon as I can.” He nods lightly. “That is very kind of you to Lady Erendae.” He bows to both of us and leaves taking our food tray and our dishes at the same time.
I’m not sure if I’m ever going to get used to the whole servant thing.
It’s not too long before we’re mounted back up and strapped in. Bhlaze does that strange thing he did to shed the physics around him as he coils and springs several hundred feet into the air like he just decided he was going to not follow any rules about his mass or little things like gravity. It’s a rush, all that sudden upwards rush. His wings snap out and we sail out over the city and catch a thermal and like a kite we get a whole lot of air really fast and sort of side slip up and over the city, we bank around the huge mass of the great tree and almost skim it using the way the air rushes over it’s sort of surface to catch an air current headed east.
***
Something like six hours later and we’re still in the air. I love flying on dragon back but the romance is wearing really thin. One, it’s cold, or it is for me, it’s cold up here. Two The dragon moves…it’s muscles still move under you, and my legs hurt from hanging on even if it’s for short spans when we bank and stuff, my entire waist hurts from my back to my sides to my ab’s because I’m not used to moving like this. A dragon is serpentine in the air so its not so much like trying to stay on a horse as it is trying to stay on a whale with everything moving and twisting and flexing under you. Then try adding thirty five pounds of gear, leathers and chainmail on top of all of that. I don’t whine or bitch or complain. It’s just not in me to do that but it’s not what I expected.
And why so slow? Well we’re probably actually going close to 70mph but both Bhlaze and Shaya are scanning the ground, we’re not just taking these messages around we’re patrolling as we do it. It’s just Highwood is at least 30% bigger than earths moon and Sylvania is about three times the size of earth but has a lighter gravity than a planet it’s size should have but with the longer days and stuff here I’ve got no idea of the science behind that but then again it could also be majik. I mean look where I’m at.
Yeah where I’m ….at.
It first looms up like this dark oil patch on the land and as we get closer I see it. It’s huge; it goes on nearly as far as my eyes can see. It’s sunken in all the way around but these cliffs that surround the entire place for several hundred feet. The dark color is the forest with the size of the trees matching the ones I’ve seen elsewhere in the realm but they are these black, gray or red maples and elms making about half or so of this place and a smattering of other trees and a lot of these black needled pines and spruces making up the other half of the trees they are all covering the land in a canopy but even from here the trees are twisted and freaky looking there are mountains jutting out here or there and you can’t see the ground for the fog and the mist.
The Darklands, former home to the thing that had enslaved the elves and then the armies of The Forsaken. “That’s huge.” And Shaya nods. “The Darklands are nearly what you’d say to be 1300 miles in length and that again at its widest points.”
“That’s like four or fives the size of Texas!”
“What’s a Texas?”
“Texas it’s a place on Earth, it’s a state in my home nation.”
“Is this Texas nice?”
“Sometimes, but it was ruled by a despot.”
“Why did you people allow it?”
“Politics.”
“Oh…Sorry.”
“He even ruled my home nation for a time.”
“A time?”
“Eight years.”
“Oh, A revolution then?”
“I wish, but no we limit the terms of service.”
“It sounds like he was not a service to anyone.”
“Oh, I think he serviced a lot of people.”
“I don’t understand?”
“He sucked a lot of figurative cock to get his way.”
Bhlaze huffed.
~He sounds thoroughly horrid, someone should have eaten him. ~
Did I mention I love dragons?
“Agreed!”
Shaya yells “Hang on!”
We bank in this downward tilt and curve in flight. This is what I love about the flying. It’s such an amazing thing. As we turn we come into view of this really large castle fortress. It’s a quarter mile long facing the bad place and for about a hundred feet in the middle there’s a tower that goes down to the bottom and then rises all the way up to about a hundred feet over the height of the cliff-top, the rest of the fortress is a wall that’s about fifty feet thick, and forty feet high with towers and parapets that rise up twenty more feet over the height of the wall they’re space about a hundred feet apart each.
The rest of the fortress in facing The Holy City and looks like a regular castle with a whole bunch of regular castle type buildings all about two city blocks worth behind a thirty foot wall that’s only about ten feet thick. Beyond that is a small town that is protected by a twenty foot high flagstone wall.
It’s really impressive in a military way with elves in fancy armors of different makes like Shaya wears or in really body hugging chainmail or leathers. There’s these big crossbow things in places on the walls here and there and there…gryphon’s flying in and out of that big main tower. Gryphon’s, real live gryphon’s…of course there’s dragons so why not gryphon’s?
Shaya smiles looking back at me as we slow “Welcome to Rampart Fortress, Wren. This is the main fortress for the defense from the Darkland hordes.” Bhlaze lets out a song like note kind of like a horn, but not unlike a long single whale like note. There’s a lot of eyes on us as we fly and circle over things and we head for one of the roofs of the castles buildings. I can see what looks like several young elves running to the building we’re landing at. It’s roof has a top on it like one of those Greek Parthenon places but with no pillars in the front or the back. We land doing that matrix like kind of slow motion thing and kind of trot inside.
We’re met by elfin youths of both genders dressed in uniforms who all stand at attention with these soft grey pants and tunics with silvery green embroidered vines stuff on the sleeves and military shield patches with the symbol of the great tree on it with a longsword imposed over the tree. It’s on their left shoulder and a round patch that’s different on each, I’m feeling these are the symbols of their houses…Yeah, I’m feeling the ages..? Through Shaya I’m feeling things more, yeah I’m kinda pulling on it from her like Jaiden said and it’s like just sort of knowing something for sure but technically you don’t know. It’s so strange, cool but it’s really the oddest feeling.
Yeah these are elfin kids…between 20 something and 50 years of age, there’s a feeling of teen coming off about them. With the ten kids are two older ones in navy blue in silver embroidery there’s a girl and a boy each and they feel in charge of the others.
I’m not sensing it but it’s hanging in the air the fascination with the dragon and then there’s them finally noticing me.
There’s the fact I’m human because there’s them first staring at my ears and then there’s the staring at my chest. Especially the boys and Oh wow…I can actually see the boys stiffening and trying not to, and trying to stand there at attention and…well they’re definitely at attention. Shaya shoots me this look that’s full of mischief but leans over to my ear. “We can’t…It…would just make us look bad and we need all the standing right now…(I feel her almost lose it when she said standing.)…please?”
All I can do is nod and bite my lip to keep from giggling.
Getting off of Bhlaze takes a lot of that away as my legs and hips protest the abuse of dragon riding. That and I’ve got to shift from foot to foot…I really need to pee.
“Excuse me where can I use the facilities?”
It’s funny because, Me needing to is bleeding over to Shaya and she’s nodding. “Yes, please it’s been a long flight.”
We’re led away to the bathrooms by the senior girl and once we’re out of earshot we explode into giggles and it’s like I’m a teenager, a teenaged girl and It feels good, deep down into my soul good….But I’m really getting the gripe about the clothes and stuff with the layers I’m wearing. Shaya…(Frown) just flips a few catches on her waist and her armor’s crotch/ panty area unhooks! “That’s so unfair.”
Shaya sticks her tongue out at me and that gets me laughing, just seeing her in her armor having a pee and sticking her tongue out at me. She laughs and I can’t help it, I love that sound.
We sneak a few minutes making out after cleaning up. I can’t help it…we were there and getting pretty together and presentable, you know that just in the bathroom in front of the mirror thing that real girls have gotten to do for all their lives. I’m enjoying it, basking in it until I just looked at her a second or two and saw how beautiful she is.
Our girl squire escorts eyes widen as we make out…yeah, to some people here we’re not the norm. We straighten up after that and head back to Bhlaze and our gear which is being uploaded. Shaya takes her message bag and turns. “We need to be taken to Commander Falcon if you please.”
The boy squire looks at the girl one and they’re doing that friends trying to talk without talking thing you see on TV and not doing to well. She really wants to escort us. I catch, her whisper… “They’re like me…”
The look of boy thinking about that flickers over his face and he’s staring at my chest again. I know someone’s gonna think I should be offended but I’m not, I’m still going to get a kick out of it for awhile. I can’t help but flash him a flirty smile. As we leave and follow his friend.
The girl leads us all over the place, it’s kind of a maze but it’s beautiful too at the same time. I’ve got those feelings still running through me with Shaya knowing the place and remembering it I’m getting deja -vu. I’m drawing stares the entire time just like at the palace, more than a few are checking me out. It’s polite like but I’m not at the palace, this is a military place. There’s more stares at my body, and I’m getting embarrassed a little.
I never thought I’d feel sexy.
About thirty minutes later we arrive in a practice court and I recognize the commander through Shaya. He’s sparring off with swords against six knights with live steel. I’ve never seen anything like it…It’s so fast and loud and elegant, like they’re dancing with swords. I’d be intimidated if Shaya wasn’t getting turned on. It’s the swords and the half naked men and the blades and the action and…I feel it starting in myself a little…They are beautiful guys…men…and there is this elegance to the fight. I’ve always just wanted to be me, but…I never thought hard about being attracted to them. I’m not sure if it’s just me or me picking up off of Shaya. She’s a school of passive military stance though, I think it’s called parade rest.
The fight ends ten minutes later. Lord Commander Sendar Falcon, looks at us and at me. He beckons Shaya over with one hand while a squire takes his sword and passes him a towel. Shaya passes him the packet that he opens by touching a signet ring to the sealed seam and he starts to read while wiping himself down.
Shaya and I can’t help but notice.
Falcon or The Falcon is handsome like all elfin men but this is the first time I’ve seen a guy like this since. Light brown hair to his shoulders, nicely tanned, perfect gymnast like build or more like one of those ripped kung-fu guys. Ab’s really perfect ab’s and he’s shining in sweat….and the scent, the smell of stone, metal, and oils mixed with the scent of sweating healthy males….Wow, guys have never smelled like that before.
“You’re the human are you not?”
He’s staring at me now.
“Yes sir.”
“You’re going to be dueling Lady Kyte correct?”
“I’m afraid so sir.”
He nods and there’s a squire there with a dark walnut like blade of wood. “Well then, I’d like to see what you have in you.”
“Uhm.”
Shaya looks at me. “Wren you don’t have to do this.”
“I have to learn sometime Shaya.” I take the wooden blade and look at him. “I’ve never done this before, so bear with me.”
…..the spar or the fight went fast. I had stripped off down to just my armor and there was a chime. He came at me and he hit me a half dozen times. Before I started to get my sword in front of his. Then old instincts started to take over, and I could feel Shaya’s unconscious feeling there as she watched. How I should move if she was doing it and I let go…went with the flow of things and rode the sword feeling like I’d ride the road, there’s a way of being when you drive where things are just about feel, I’ve fought a lot in my past and that feeling that flow is returning to but No Bear…Well there but not? I’m a lot calmer…and I’m thinking clearly two and I’m starting to really get my balance, get used to my being lighter and faster….It goes on nearly fifty minutes before I get a hit on him. It’s a grazing hit to his upper arm, then the chime rings. He backs off. I stop and get dizzy and fall my lungs burning, my muscles are screaming. I’m sweat soaked. Shaya catches me but I can feel her emotions all over the place. Turned on, mad at him, proud of me…(God that feels good.)
He comes over and squats down and leans on his practice sword. “You’ve never used a blade before?”
“No…” I’m panting and manage a weak headshake.
“You’ve fought before?”
“Some, not like this though.”
“You my dear woman have acquitted yourself well.” He gestured at the others he had been sparring with. “I might have been taking it easy on you at first, but not at the end of this. These are my junior squires and I’ve been working them for the last four years, they have yet to lay a blade wooden or not on me.”
He offers me his arm in the warriors arm clasp thing. And I lock my arm with his and we shake. “It was an honor.”
He stood up and looked at us both. “You’ll guest with us? I’ll have things for your father Princess.”
Shaya nods. “It’d be our honor to be allowed at your table Commander.”
He smiles. “Good, and I’ll send my seamstress to your quarters, Erendae has well earned herself a fine dress for the occasion.” He bowed at the waist. “My treat.” Then gave nods to his entourage. They left giving us looks and nods of respect…it feels good, almost as good as how proud of me that I’m getting off of Shaya…I’m not really able to hold in the happy tears…and neither is she.
I can feel her tears on my face and mine running down my own face as she has her fingers wound up in my hair and is holding me on her lap and passionately kisses me.
“I never thought I’d find love like you Erendae…”
“My Wren…My Beautiful one.”
“I love you.”
Snakes and Ladders-9
Chapter 9
We weren’t all that far away from our rooms to the practice courts but by the time that I walked back with Shaya helping me, I was limping and my arms burned, my wrists were killing me and my shoulders were screaming at me.
I hate to say it but even here in this place I was just too tired to enjoy all the new stuff. I was hurting, achingly tired and getting really yucky and sweaty. This wasn’t y’know girly perspiration this was me sweating really badly.
“I am so out of shape…” I puff out as we get to a set of double doors that are being opened by some of these Pages. I’m not with it enough to notice the stares I was getting.
Shaya smiles and helps me into the suite we’ve been given. “Beloved you are amazing. You are still recovering from a entire body altering healing and being near death, then spent hours on your first real dragon-flight in armor and gear no less…also your first time then fight a sparring match against a knight commander while drawing on our link…and you’re complaining that you’re out of shape?” She smiles and then gives me a kiss with a little laugh. “When you do get in shape let me know, I’ll tell the garrison they can go on vacation.” She guides me, sets me on the bed and kisses me.
Shaya loves me. I can tell. You are in a different kind of relationship when the person you’re with has just had as long a day or harder and she’s pulling off your sweaty boots for you. She actually helps me take off my things and she makes us a fire in the fireplace, and then gets undressed herself and helps me into the bathroom.
Here’s an interesting bit that makes a lot of sense to me. The elves have steam rooms for unwinding after battle or training. The officers have them in their suites and almost all elfin warriors are taught massage, with all the training to go through and to keep sharp it’s something logical. Shaya gets us lovely and steamed and she rubs me down soothingly, it’s kind of erotic but actually more loving and more personal and I feel stuff unwinding that I hadn’t known was wound up. I fell asleep there in her arms her naked body pressed to my back.
She woke me for our bath though, and that feels good in a different way with the salts in it and the oils. It burns my hand though, I’ve got blisters that tore and popped from that one spar at sword work. I love the fact that they seem to have tubs big enough for two. The heat and sting of the water, god I can feel the salts just stinging my inner thighs too. Well it’s keeping from falling asleep in the tub. Shaya kisses my shoulder sweetly then moves over kissing along until she gets to my neck.
“Wren…Wren baby, lean back a bit beloved.”
“Mmmn...Hhm, s’okay.”
I lean back and she kind of scoots her feet under my bum and I lean back against her shins. Shaya tilts my head back into the hot water right to my hairline and I feel the pull and weight of my hair, it’s that weight of having the right hair, this feeling of rightness settling on me as I’m more aware of the water between my legs, and the difference in the feelings…right as opposed to being cursed at being born totally wrong. The bobbing sort of buoyancy of my breasts.
It’s a good feeling to be myself, to have all this right with the world. I’ve gone through a life of hell by not being the real me. All this stuff going on now. I’m me, really me. I can deal.
Then there’s this feeling of this cooler thicker liquid being poured over my hair and Shaya’s fingers slide into my hair and start to wash my hair and massage my scalp. Her delicate fingers are just delightful as they wiggle through my hair. I love this; this is an intimacy that I’ve scarcely ever had. I mean I like to think Bear had his sweet and decent moments but this; this is Shaya being so sweet to me. It feels so good but I can’t help but have those happy tears fall.
“Wren? Is everything alright?”
“Better than love, it’s just that I’m really not used to this.”
“Getting your hair washed?”
“Well actually it’s not something I’m used to, but it’s more than that. I’m happy Shay, I’m happier than I’ve ever been before and it’s because of you.”
“So am I Erendae, I…I’d never thought to be with anyone. I never had someone like you in my life who’s stood by me as fast as heartfelt as you. I thought I’d be alone…forever.”
She leans ahead and actually sort of around her legs with that sylvan flexibility and kisses me on my neck, sucks on my earlobe until I turn my head back and we kiss, it’s awkward in that nice way that makes it more special. But it’s long and slow and it’s repeated over and over again.
I am so deeply in love with this woman.
“I love you Shaya Highwood.”
Then we’re kissing again and I’m rolling over in the water to face her and sort of kneel and our lower bodies intertwine as we’re kissing and the oils in the water making this sexy slipperiness between our bodies as we slide together in this erotic sapphic mating dance. My hand descends into her, her hand dips into the water then into me. It’s great sex, or sexually just…I’m still trying to really wrap my mind around of this being real and the intense sensations that are just coupled with the rightness. But y’know it’s not that, that’s the best part of this. It’s the kissing, the face to face looking into her beautiful eyes and seeing the smile, the actual happiness on her face. Oh Shaya looks so sexy, almost so alienly exotically hot that she makes me ache when she is overcome by her orgasms but it’s the look of love and that sunrise of love smile she gives me in between that makes everything for me.
You ever have one of those times where you can actually feel yourself falling deeper in love with the person you’re with.
And I’m crying again and Shaya gets it because she’s feeling it too. I feel it through our connection and there’s this stereo like effect. Picture that falling in love deeper feeling but being able to feel your partner feel you doing that and to her it’s the most beautiful thing in the world. You get so deeper down into each other than you ever thought was possible…home, Oh god I’m finally home in a way that I never thought I’d know. It’s literally the connection of two souls becoming one.
I know I’ve told this part of us before but it’s just still so…holy…to me its proof of miracles and something bigger than us that’s saying to me that see, this…this is what I really meant.
There’s even this really fun, sexy, sweet moment where we’re finishing washing each others hair but face to face, and kissing, and even getting some soap in our eyes is a good thing.
There’s something so good too in a sensual way about drying each other off and then rubbing lotion into each other learning, we’re both green as being women, the nature of sensuality as part of who we are is something new and something we’re both still learning.
I love the bathrobes, literally the softest terrycloth like material I’ve ever felt. I lay down for a nap, with Shaya going to the doors and asking for the lady of threads to attend us in what passes for two hours here. I’m falling asleep musing on the whole time difference here compared to home. Sylvan’s live in a thirty six hour day…whatever this equivalent of jet lag is with changing worlds is dropping me.
Two hours fly by quickly, I’d have loved Shaya to have lain down with me but she stayed close and went over our gear, it’s more to that list of things for me to learn. But its two hours of really good sleep with Shaya tinkering away at what she’s doing and singing to herself as she does. I drifted off with this vocal Celtic melody in this very Dahmnait Doyle sounding voice…I love that kind of music…sigh.
I’m woken up by a kiss and the wonderful smell of coffee. I’ve drank a lot of coffee as a trucker and while some people get hooked I wasn’t. See when you put in those trucking hours you get coffee logged pretty much in a few months. It stops being something you need to stay awake and becomes something you drink because you like it. But right now trying to adjust and it being really, really good coffee my brain is really grateful.
This is really good. Big café bowl cup with dolce de leche instead of sugar and cream in it. Have you ever had that? That caramel made of milk put into black coffee, it doesn’t lighten it at all but makes it go from liquid to a light broth and the coffee gets the caramel flavors and is sweetened only enough to take off the most bitter of the bite of the coffee. Piping hot it’s really good. Kinda like a malted coffee. “Hey, Mmmn this is great thanks baby.” I give her a grateful kiss.
“You’re welcome beautiful, You should wake now the lady of threads is here.”
“The Lady of threads?”
“The castles head seamstress.”
“Oh…oh, we have a dinner tonight don’t we and the commander said that he’d send someone right?”
She nods and we kiss again then she takes my coffee still in my hand and steals, guides my hand to feed her a drink of my coffee. It’s something just nice. I’ve had a life time that was short of just nice before now.
Shaya goes to the door and lets her and her entourage of twenty girls in along with various young men portering the equipment in. Shaya makes more coffee, I feel that tingle-zip of magic as she roasts and grinds the beans in some kind of sylvan tech-magik device and serves French press styled coffee to our guests. I can see it, there’s got to be this etiquette thing with the knights and everything. I get myself quietly and quickly off the bed and pull the comforter into shape and slip into the bathroom and straighten…I feel this…pull on something inside as I look in the mirror and my hair literally shifts it’s shape into this tumbly salon look. I reach up staring and touching the mirror, my hair…I look wow…
Shaya’s in the doorway with another cup that she’s sipping. “Wren? I felt…Gods and Goddesses…I felt it but…”
“But what? did you do this Shay?”
“No…You did. You just did magic Erendae.”
“I what?”
“Magic, you did sorcery actually.”
“Sorcery?”
“Passion magic, charms, love spells cosmetic magic…” She’s staring at me, not badly but fascinated like. “I can feel it there, in you, your magic.”
“My magic? Are you sure it’s not yours?”
“Yes, totally. You’re power is of a different source than mine.”
“So what does that mean?”
“Honestly love, I have no idea. We have to hope nothing tricky emerges until we can sit you down with a real mage like Kailynn.”
“Tricky?”
“Yes, uncontrolled power comes out in unpredictable patterns based off your minds ability to shape the energies and your subconscious.” That sounded and felt like she was quoting right out of a text.
“Could I hurt someone?”
“Maybe, but we’re linked I think I can feel it and pull back on your reins as it were in case something happens.”
I sigh… “Well that’s a relief.”
She nods thoughtfully for a few moments then. “Come love, let’s get you dressed.”
Shaya leads me out for another coffee and there’s a ten minute or so pleasant round of introductions before we all finish our coffee. It’s strange to me, in fantasy books you don’t read of elves liking coffee, but all sorts of teas. But then I’ve never heard of elves having ethnics like the sylvan elves do.
Before long the lady of threads has us naked and she’s taking scans of us with a wand. I can feel this heat on my skin like it’s a warm flashlight. She get’s us to move, and walk and bend and do all sorts of things as she scans in all into this I-pad like thing.
Then we go through fabrics…cottons and silks and wools and denims and others of such a quality. I’m no seamstress but my god to just touch the raw goods was just…it gave me shivers. They make me under things first, I get this lace elastic trimmed underpants and a brazier that molds to my breasts like a perfect fit, it is a perfect fit it’s custom made. I get them in pretty colors, light blue, pearl, pink, a very elfin pale moss green and basic black and white and my favorite that I’m wearing tonight these soft but bright citrine yellow silk panties trimmed with white lace that had this pattern in the lace of lilies and blossoming roses.
The feeling of putting those on was just…so…fulfilling, and seeing myself in the mirror brought happy tears to my eyes. This was like they tore the image right form my soul and gave it to me in real life.
Then there’s the dress they made for me. It literally matches my under things and is of this the same shade of yellow with mother of pearl added into it. The dress is low cut to deeply hint at my bra and to show off my cleavage but the bust is sculpted just for me, it tapers to under my breasts and slithers tantalizingly against my skin and my sides with just enough room to move with freedom.
The design is just plainly perfect no frills and just this tight embroidery of gold threads at the hems and in a lovely brocaded design on my right shoulder of an eagle like designed phoenix my personal device. Phoenix is actually my real last name like the actors; River and Joachim. I look at it and there’s this light this shimmer to the hem and the embroidery it’s the gold threads are something called shimmersilk and they pull in light to kind of glow in the dark. They tell me sleeves are often worn here in the fortresses because the sleeves are where the devices of your house and such are displayed. The rest is simple with leg slits about six inches above my knees. And there’s these soft buckskin ankle boots for my feet.
I feel like a princess…and Shaya ties it all together for me with this shimmersilk thread lace headband that matches the dress and when she’s done arranging my hair to fall over it just right I shimmer in the mirror like a dream, there’s this faint halo of light shimmering through my hair.
And I’m crying again, happy tears still but I’m crying again…damned crazy wonderful hormones. I look at Shaya to ask if this was OTT but she tip toes and wraps her arms around my neck and gives me this smile like I gave her the world. “My Gods and Goddesses you’re beautiful Wren.” Then she kisses me really passionately, and long until we get a polite cough from the Lady of threads. We’re getting stared at though, there’s a mixture of responses all carefully hidden from dislike of us together, to amusement, to a couple sets of perked nipples at the show we put on.
The rest of it passes quite fast and before long I’ve got some new clothes and the requirement of a couple of new bags to carry it all in. I look at Shaya as we’re hanging things up and putting things away. “This must cost, a lot of money Shaya, How am I going to pay this off.?”
“You don’t have to pay for this Wren; it’s an honor gift to you from the commander under the rules of hospitality.”
“So then he’s paying for this? What do I have to do?”
“This is going to be you’re coming out?”
“Here? Why?”
“One, it’s more secure politically. These are military fortresses; there’ll be less likely to be as bad a bunch of nobles to try to play intrigue games here. Secondly this will give you exposure to the troops and their commanders. Thirdly he gets to have the honor of hosting you who are the first human we’ve ever seen thus bringing honor to his clan, house and family. He fed us, got to know us first and that’s worth a lot.”
“It sounds like a very complicated bunch of stuff.”
“It is, my father is trading on the honor of hosting you to the commander here.”
“So he’s trading on me being here? I’m not sure how I feel about that.”
“Wren, look it’s a good thing it shows them he see’s them as valid nobles and not just thugs and attack dogs. You get to see and learn about us and get some training that won’t be easily spied on by the courtly types and it shows that you chose The Holy Planet a generally non-political zone for your coming out. The commanders also know the dangers at court for the untrained and see the hidden mission to get you more prepared for everything when you return to Highwood with me.”
I just sort of stand there staring at her and close my eyes, I’m not that complicated a girl. This really isn’t my deal. It’s why I liked trucking, for most of the time I was my own boss, no office politics, no smoozshing people or butt kissing. But this, this is a bigger game. And I get most of it, so I’m going to have to get all of it and soon.
Because if this is a taste of what things are like now, just what kind of things is Lyam doing in the background…against Shaya and her family.
I nod and smile at her as I go over and take her arm. “Well then I’m thinking I’d best learn to be a good guest and everything.” She smiles at me again kinda sheepishly and back to being that shy girl I feel in love with on the palace canal terraces. “Sorry Wren, I hope it’s not too much at once.”
“No, it’s not Shay it’s alright, besides I think it was meant to be that we met and I’m here. You need me.” I smile at her and kiss her. Shaya gives me one of those… I Love You… light up the world smiles.
“Yes, yes I do.”
We leave our suite and head out through a small maze of hall ways. I’m a bit more with it now so I can appreciate the décor. I’m in an honest to god or gods fortress castle, it’s like one of those from Europe that’s been redone with hardwood floors and nice decorations but it has heat and windows as well as electric lights and all the modern amenities but it’s also made of flag stones, there’s armor in places and tapestries, ancient paintings and pennants and banners and all those wonderful things that you dream of when you dream those dreams of being a princess for all those long years.
Shaya’s leading the way having been here before and I’m just drinking in the surroundings and the mood. We meet others in the hall on their way to the commanders feast hall. I’m stared at a lot as we go, I’m a little self-conscious but then again I’m showing a lot of breast and a lot of leg, plus I’m also sort of doing that golden shimmering thing. That alone has me nervous and excited and scared all at the same time. Shaya holds my hand as we wait in line to be announced and seated. This feels very much like a debutante style coming out party like I used to see on TV or read about.
I notice the shoulder thing like on my dress, other women have it either on long or short sleeves and it’s on the jackets of the men. The right shoulder is decorated in a personal crest, on the left is the symbols of Clan or House or Family and sometimes all three unless they’re a military person then it’s the heraldic patch of the place they are stationed, then another of the unit or company that they are a part of. A knight’s shield like a police badge determines rank by the designs and is quite common.
There’s a armed factor that has people tend to wear sashes with their sword belts to conceal them it looks nice in this old school Euro way and the women that carry swords even in their dresses have decorated scabbards to match their dress and the sword belts are plated metal to almost be jewelry, some actually match the jewelry of some of the females here.
Everyone here looks stunning. There’s a lot of people here too. I lean over to Shaya. “The commander’s sold tickets hasn’t he?” Shaya looks at me trying to figure out what I meant. It’s like dating an exchange student only I’m the exchange student. I love that look on her face when she “gets it” She nods.
“In a way, there is always dangers here by The Darklands, there is a very frontier aspect to things here even though this is the master fortress. Real like high court functions here rarely occur here and are a treat for those that have missed it or the ones that wouldn’t normally be here. There’s a lot of those that do the other works here at Steadfast invited to come. Another reason that this is important.”
I nod. “Then he get’s the extra special occasion of having me here and you as princess and can trade off of that. Right?”
Shaya nods. “It’s very complicated.”
I watch the moving lines, smile openly even as I’m talking. “I don’t envy your father Shay, he must have headaches just from trying to keep track of all of this.”
She get’s this deep, brooding touched thoughtful look. “He does, there’s so much that goes on that it get’s to him despite us working to help…He say’s only an idiot would really want to be king.”
I give her hand a squeeze. “Sometimes it really sucks to be in charge. Listen Shay, I’m gonna help as best I can.”
I smile at her and drink in the sight that is her.
Shaya is absolutely lovely in deep navy blue silk underpants with silvery lace and a sleeved gown like mine with Bhlaze’s image embroidered on it’s right sleeve with him rearing up rampant I think they call it, he’s displayed on a knights shield styled panel of embroidery. And on her other sleeve is another with a Christmas star shining over a tree and in front or embroidered in from of the tree’s image is that of a sword, the symbol is the royal crest.
She has this black velvet sash around her waist that has cut outs of roses that are filled in with black lace that doubles as a sword belt with a series of hidden wires and a clasp make it functional. She’s wearing her sword and it’s in a simple black velvet covered sheath, the rest of the sword is the jewelry of her outfit. Her dress is a little more low cut than mine and stops just at the middle of her bra and her hair’s in this tumbly looking pony tail that looks amazing with the rest of her hairstyle and that black hair just look so good because her dress is backless…I want to press my face, my lips into the small of her back.
And Shaya’s wearing heels…yummy four inch heels.
We finally get Heralded into the main room. The music stops and the herald announces in clear voice.
“Miss Erendae Phoenix, of The World of Earth, and Dragon-Knight Shayaira Highwood of the House of Highwood, and Mistress of Darkwood holding and Iron-Skye Fortress.”
I’m not used to this and I start my walk with her down the stairs and he continues with “Couple-Consorts.” I look at Shaya and she blushes with that shy girl look again, but tightens her fingers in mine. “I love you Wren…I want everyone to know it.” I keep looking at her and once down into the halls main floor area and where we won’t be in the way of other incoming guest I step to her and give her this long, slow, really romantic kiss. Heck I channel the kissing scene from the movie the notebook. I can tell Shaya is nearly crying at this really public display or how much I love her. We both pull out of it before we end up in that love loop from our link. We’d have been bawling together otherwise.
The Hall is huge with an almost rink like shape. Instead of stands there’s three tiers all with tables but a separate balcony for the commander’s table, under that balcony is an area where musicians are playing. The food is on tables that line the dance floor edge and have staff there to serve. The place is entirely done in woods with tree styled pillars and stained glass huge windows depicting knights, dragons, winged horses, faeries, gryphons and all sorts of fantastical things. The glass shows scenes of things I don’t know enough to have reference too but are beautiful. The place is only lit by the small candles on the tables and these tiny bioluminescent lilies in bowls of water. My shimmersilk lights up and I’m not the only one wearing something like what I’m wearing. It sounds strange but here amongst the elves it’s something magical.
The people are much more friendly now that I’m officially here and I’m hugely busy talking to people and shaking hands and telling people how wonderful everything is and how great they look. I’m enthusiastic because like I was raised, you look the right way you can find something nice or interesting about nearly anyone.
Shaya makes introductions but she’s actually charmingly shy. Me, I tell the tale of how I had got here and the battle between Shaya and Bhlaze against Lyam and Shai-tan. Even how I was hurt and I’m even open with who and what I used to be. That takes people back a bit but actually being transgendered is so rare here that most of the ones that haven’t been offended actually listen. Some of the Wildera those native american looking elves bring up the whole two spirited thing. The Shaelani refer to their trans-people as mirages and are considered special as well and the Kyu-nari that are there have the Buddhist like belief of being reborn and see it as a sign of being more enlightened that a trans-person is connected so strongly to one of their past lives.
I see some people, truly angry and offender but they all seem to be white elves, and mostly from the other societies. But the ethnics have other customs, and the one’s that don’t seem to have an opinion are more impressed at Shaya battling Lyam, and my involvement.
But there are those who I can tell are giving Shaya a second chance knowing this about her. She’s shyly talking to some of them, and there’s these I’m not sure if this is really happening handshakes from some of them.
There’s a social disconnect here I think, like the fact Kailynn being with the dark elfin girl was shunned by the nobility, I see the touch of racism here in the social classes. Shaya’s finding a wider degree of acceptance here with these people.
The upset ones are in the minority here, like a lot of military places there’s a lot of ethnics here, as well as mixed couples and I’m sure there’s quite a few blended families here, I’m met several people that look like racial mutts, especially amongst the commoners.
It’s funny because I actually get into shipping conversations with several members of the merchant community. They’re amused that a trucker, or essentially a teamster has gotten so involved in something so strange and adventurous. They take it as a matter of pride that I shot the dragon. Kinda like they can point to me doing that and say that it’s not all about the guys in the armor.
I also think that I started something when I asked a merchant for his card. He hadn’t a clue as to what I had meant and by the time I had explained the idea to them I had a small group of people around me listening to me describe the practice and custom of the business card. Then I explained as several scribes and artists drifted into the idea of potential new work the concept of greeting cards and occasion cards. I think that I score major points with some of the merchant and trade folks here.
It’s actually a good party and then a really fine meal of numerous courses with the food being served with a huge variety. There’s three salad courses one was a mushroom salad that was served with shredded rabbit, There was a cheese course with matching fruits and wines. I’m not a wine drinker but I drink only a few sips of each one to go with the plates of food. There was pasta which was served with just butter and this hazelnut/almond silky butter. It was very good nutty and not to rich but went really well with the slices of grilled pheasant paired with it. I think I liked it the best, except for the bread, there are these bread-rolls to die for here.
There is dancing and I publicly dance with my Shaya, and you know this is where I have a lot of fun. Missing my leg had really emptied out my dance card and to move like this. It’s a lot of ballroom dancing and pattern dancing, that’s were it’s groups of people doing dances that remind me of square dancing.
I try and dance with my Shaya as much as I can, but we are both asked to dance a few dozen times by knights and other gentlemen here. I’ve never danced so much in my life. My legs are hurting and shaky and sore by the time the fete and dinner is at an end. I ask a Page for a note pad and something to write with and ask a lot of those people I met here tonight to jot down their information until I can get their cards from them.
I’m beat and so is Shaya by the time we get back to our suite. She’s quiet too, still mulling everything over and we end up kissing and just gently undressing each other and touching and kissing until our eyelids get heavy and we fall asleep in each others arms.
“I love you Wren…my Erendae.” She says nuzzling into me, as I wrap my arms around her she wraps her around me. Her head rests on my shoulder with this sigh…that…I’m…I’m her home, here in my arms is home to her now.
There’s tears in my eyes as I kiss her on top of her head. “I love you to, Shaya…this had to be meant to be…I found the other half of my soul in you.”
She’s already asleep, but I had to say it anyway.
Snakes and Ladders 10
Chapter 10
I wake up to my heart singing. See I just sort of became dimly aware of myself and walking up feeling everything, the sheer elfin cloth of the sheets the soft yet firm of the bed, the slinky sexy amazing feel of my body. I wriggle a little bit and rub my legs together reveling in the fact that is actually gone.
I start to rub my hands over myself, just enjoying and at the same time I have to almost make sure that it’s real. Shaya is smiling and looking at me. “I used to do the same thing.”
“You did?”
“Yes, it was so much a dream to me that I was the me that I had always felt to have been, it was like being in prison. Like I had been set into this ugly, hideous suit of armor or suit of flesh and I was sealed in.”
“I know what you mean Shay, it’s like you’re drowning, or suffocating inside and you can scream and scream and try to fight out of it but you can’t, you can’t and the longer you’re stuck in that prison, the more that you start to become like it and it just rips…”
Shaya looks at me and says. “It just rips the fight right out of you. It just starts killing your hope and dreams.”
I nod actually unable to keep from crying. And she slides over the bed and takes both sides of my face in her hands and kissing me and moves over to straddle my waist and the feeling on her pelvis just sitting flush to my abdomen is just so right and we’re crying harder, both of us now but still passionately kissing. Honestly I think feeling it through the link we share and the experience too…takes it to another level than most, we get it more than another lover would and I’m just so relieved to be here where we are now.
I lose track of time in our kissing but there’s this strange flicker on the edge of her consciousness that I feel through our bond. I give her this curious look. “What…what was that?”
Shaya sighs. “It was an alarm cantrip.”
“Come again?”
“Yes please.” And with a silly grin she kisses me again. But instead of fooling around she gets up and heads to the bathing chamber. “It’s like a mini-spell this one sets a time in my mind and chimes an alarm that I’ve chosen for a task or a time I need to be ready for.”
“That has to be handy.” and a little bit anal I think to myself. Shaya turns and stares at me and purses her lips in that girl/girlfriend/wife I heard that look. D’oh! The link, she feels things just like I feel them in her. Man this is going to take some getting used to.
“Come on Erendae…we have much to do today unless you Want me to shower all alone?”
“Nay Princess not on your life.” I can’t help but grin as I roll out of bed and head after her in the shower with a bit of a skip. I haven’t skipped since I was like five or six and it causes a lot of bouncing a jiggling that makes me smile and giggle with Shaya as we shower together.
Getting soapy and sudsy with your girl when you’re a girl is lots of fun. I’m still pretty sure the erotic slip ‘n slide of our breast together in my favorite part.
We get out and get dressed or at least into our underthings and Shaya calls for the Pages outside to come in. They’ve got rolling tables with piles of clothes on them. There’s under wear in both the most delicate of black lace and some in citron silk edged in white lace and some that are stretchy cloth in a yellow ochre shade with a thick band of padding that’s decorated with a print of white and yellow daisy’s they look like sports underwear and yet are really girly and in my favorite color, yellow as you might have guessed.
There’s ten sets of all three and socks plus ten of these almost shift/chemise like shirts in pale citron with spaghetti straps plus a zip front hoody and yoga pants in this dusky buttercup yellow and three pairs of stretchy shoes that look like a sneaker mated with a moccasin.
I look at Shaya who’s pouring us teas and serving up these thick slices of bacon and toast with some kind of hot cereal. “What’s all this?”
“It’s the commander’s honor to help outfit you while you’re his guest. You needed underthings and training clothes and the Lady of threads was undertaken to make them.”
“I’m not used to being give things.”
“I told you Wren it’s paid for just by him doing it and saying that he did. It’s also something that you’re going to have to publicly thank him for.”
“Okay so when are we going to do that?”
“Soon, wear your training clothes today though and wear your sword.”
We eat and she shows me once I’m dressed how to belt on a sword belt when you don’t have belt loops. Silly me I didn’t really think that a sword belt doesn’t use belt loops most often. It’s like a holster belt for guns really. The clothes are really comfortable and light and soft. The Bra is amazing. There is this spelled triangle of weight that actually proportionately counters the weight of my breast’s forward tendencies. There was a note from the lady of threads to let me know that the Maiden’s Bracing has only been used for sixty six women in her experience until now. And not in the lifetimes of any of her apprentices and she thanks me for the opportunity to teach the spells.
I look at the note. “I’m going to have to respond to this aren’t I?”
Shaya looks at it then nods. “Yes it would be considered good manners.”
We eat and I’m a bit puckish with the food. I’ve been quite the size before this and don’t want to re-experience the situation. Shaya looks at me. “Eat, you’re too thin for your build, I want you healthy.”
“I don’t want to get fat.”
She gives me the oddest look like she has no idea what I’m talking about. Sylvan’s of course they don’t have any overweight or obese people. I bite my lip and hang my head and show her, I try and push her to be where I used to be. To let her feel what it’s like, what it was like for me. I couldn’t deal with who I needed to really be for the longest time and even when I was seeing it and feeling it there was this gloom of never being that is there sometimes just never letting go. So I went overboard, especially on the pop and soda. You can fool yourself about the stuff that’s in there really easily. It was my way of trying to kill myself and force the issue out of my grasp. Why the fuck should I ever dream of the impossible?
She’s got tears in her eyes as she comes over and kisses me. “Gods Wren, I didn’t know, I just didn’t know.”
She holds me and I cry on her and she comforts me for awhile. Then she holds my face in her hands and looks me in the eyes with her bond wide open. And shows me, working and training and wearing armor and the weight that it is for her and the fact the using majik, even this bond will always eat up calories from my body. Even innate majiks burn little bits of energy even passive ones. Like the clock on your VCR drawing power even if you’re not using it. More doing this actively using our link. I learn that Sylvan’s are innately majikal beings so they are always burning energy. It’s also why they are so slight; a lot of food energy doesn’t get put into growth by genetics which is why they live for so long.
I rest my forehead against hers and breathe. I let a few tears lip down of love and relief and everything but it’s better. One of the most powerful things in my life, one of the most hurtful things in my life and Shaya just opened herself up to me and just loved me, just showed me that everything was going to be alright and that she still loved me…still loved me after feeling Bear.
Just how much more deeply can one person fall in love with another? There’s more of our bond just looping our love and us falling in love more and more. Each one of us has been starved of this for so long that as much as we’re looping in on ourselves we’re drinking it up inside too. Shaya kisses me while she’s holding me like that and I kiss her back and slip her some tongue and very playfully tease and suck on her tongue. I love the way that Shaya melts when I kiss her like that and I love the warm, yet achy feelings that it brings out of both of us.
She pushes me away panting from both lack of air and arousal. “Wren…no, we can’t, I want to but we can’t there’s things that we have to do as much as I wish to just spend days making love to you.”
I grin at her. “Okay Shay it’s better if we wait anyway right?” I flutter my lashes at her and bite my lower lip all sexy starlet like. She actually whines, and dips her legs and holds her sides I turned her on that much with that. She grabs her coat and heads out ahead of me to get some distance and some air.
It’s another fast walk/light jog down to the practice courts where we see a lot more people here and there are students that are getting organized into what their duties are and what they’ll be doing or learning and I watch and listen trying to get the gist of things then we’re all spread out at a chime in the training yards and we begin oh my sweet faerie Jesus…we’re doing mass calisthenics.
I’m in the army… (Giggle) Private Erendae, I mean Benjamin, I mean Erendae… (Giggle)
I’m laughing at my inside joke about the whole situation and Shaya’s looking at me as we’re doing jumping jacks or whatever the call them here and she rolls her eyes while others nearby are giving me odd looks. It’s hard stuff very military stuff with the running on the spot, knee bends, crunches, side crunches, push ups and sit ups and toe touches and cross toe touches and it’s really hard to keep up but I do…barely…discouraged? Not in the least! It’s been so long that I’m thrilled at just being able to do these things and when that wears off I go through stuff from home in my head.
Watching elves doing calisthenics while I’ve got the tune from YMCA plating in my head is really, really funny. Shay’s picking it up through the bond and she’s giving me these you’re so strange looks. She doesn’t really have any of the contexts of anything from home so she really doesn’t get why this is funny to me. This last for about forty five minutes then cool down with these exercises that they call willow dancing which is what I’d picture that Tai- chi stuff is like but with Yoga poses, and there are eight breaths? There are four kinds of inhales and four kinds of exhaling and we do twenty minutes of that which is just mostly Shaya instructing me and it’s…I don’t know. I feel good and it’s not just the endorphins either.
We’re called over to the commander and he invites us on his morning rounds of Steadfast. He’s one of those commanders that goes to each of his departments and checks things for himself so he really knows what’s going on. We jog the route, we jog for four hours! Counting the stops and the talking and the chores…But it’s still early here, still not even mid-day with the length of the Sylvan day. There’s places that we stop at that he’ll talk to people and if that person is doing something he’ll just say “Wren, Shaya…” and gesture to whatever it is and we’re expected to do it while he talks to the person there. I’ve shovel out the stable stalls, carried bags of grain off a wagon to a conveyor belt and worked the bellows at one of the ferriers forges.
Then by the time we get back to our rooms it’s a quick shower and into more training clothes and off Breakfast with the commander in the main hall. It’s so much different looking than last night. In the very center of the dance floor are buffet styled offerings of food and stations where there are several cooks making things fresh. People go and get their food and then they find a seat amongst the tables in the tiers except for the commander who is eating at his personal table with his heads of staff. I got to looking around and kind of mimicked Shaya with some of her food choices. I get a fruit salad and a bowl of what looks like granola and some pancakes, Shaya has what looks like herbs and sprouts and cottage cheese and nearly raw paper thin sliced meats on her tray.
I’ve still go to get used to that near red meat sushi thing that they’ve got going on here. Shaya makes these wraps with the stuff and I try one…I’m not sure I like it or not, it’s like meat sushi if they tried to make it a Philly cheese-steak. And I’m not used to the greens in it so much. But it’s the pancake that throws me. It’s a pancake and not a fajita.
I like the granola though, tons of big crunchy bits and whole almonds and hazel nuts and walnuts and pecans plus it’s got this not too sweet molasses coating keeping it all together. With the morning that I’ve had I’m actually hungry and getting stiff and sore.
It’ right after that I’m taken by Shaya to the armory. I’m to be outfitted in real armor that’s made for me and it’s very, very personal…First thing I’m told to strip to my bra and panties and I’m incredibly self conscious, it’s another hold over from being Bear but also a new development too I’ve got rather stare-worthy assets now and I’m still not used to being stared at clothed much less in my undies.
I’m really glad that I showered though.
Getting real Sylvan armor was no piece of cake. I’m in my underwear and they end up getting me to lay down in this rough mold of clay where they put a layer of it on top of me kind of close to being spread eagle and begin to shape it to my body in a very, very personal manner. Oh yes much blushing going on there, and then they tweak it and adjust it and then comes the “Chicken skin.” It’s actually some kind of silicone that they inject around me and it’s supposed to breathe like those running shoes on TV that let the sweat and stuff out. It feels really, really icky as it slimes over my body not to mention the forty minutes or so that I can’t move.
Then I’m let up and to stand then they add the leather. You want to know how they get form fitting leather on you? The elves Spray it on you! It’s some kind of stuff that’s like spray on skin only they sprat it on you and it goes on like reverse snake skin. Seventeen coasts before they stop and lay down these pads of armored mesh over my body and use some kind of glue to keep it there and another twenty three coats of it before its thick enough. I feel like a car getting painted in the shop only the stuff kinda smells like a perm gone way wrong.
I’m there all afternoon pretty much or what feels like it with the damned endless days here. They cut me out of it from behind and peel me out of it and then it’s a mad dash for me to get to the bathroom and my first experience with that crossing you legs to keep from peeing yourself all too female rite of passage. The relief was again so the same but different from everything I knew as my old self. And it was more than a little embarrassing considering I ran to do it in my undies in front of everyone.
They say that I can come back to finish this the rest of the way tomorrow. I’m more than grateful to get dressed and I’m tired, hungry and sore from the day’s abuses. God I feel like I’ve just done a half dozen stop freight run back home.
Shaya takes mercy on me and takes me out into the township for our mid-day meal. We go to this place called The Cackle and Caw and have a nice meal together in this cozy corner booth that has these stained glass windows behind us and the sun’s coming through warming us both and easing my aches a bit and we have a nice meal of very crispy roasted small goose on a spit with some potato wedges that are also roasted and a fairly large salad. It’s all good except there’s this green in the salad called crow’s foot that is way too salty for my tastes. I’m still not used to the food here though as good as it can be. There’s a lot of greenery eaten by the people here I notice and wild game type of meats and fish and fowl. It all tastes different but there’s nothing left but the memory of it by the time we’re done.
That’s when she gets cruel to me. I’m just nice and relaxed and so ready for a nap when she takes me to the practice courts. Where she leaves me in the hands of Aiden Oakland and she starts to leave.
“Shaya? Where are you going?”
“I have to go and tend to Bhlaze Wren.”
“Okay and I’m here…?”
“To learn beloved. Last time you were drawing on the bond and I was there watching the sparring session so in part you were reacting to me analyzing the sparring session. With me gone you’ll have unbiased reactions to everything that Lt. Oakland will be teaching you.”
“Okay Shay…I really need to do this don’t I?”
“Unfortunately yes Wren. Ever if there wasn’t the challenge to face me and my family don’t live safe lives. This isn’t Earth.”
“Earth wasn’t safe either Shaya.”
“Exactly, but on Earth you were in familiar surroundings and knew the dangers. If I was to go to Earth there would be much I’d have to learn too…yes?”
“Yes, it’s just we’ve just…”
“Always been together since we met.”
“Yeah…”
“You’re a big girl Wren, you’ll be okay.”
“Yeah…” Shaya gives me another long sweet perfect kiss. Then that sweet smile of hers and says. “Yeah.” Back.
I watch her leave and the Lt. looks at me with some amusement and he takes me to a private hall/gym. And passes me a set of calf high metal covered boots and full forearm gloves made the same way. Then a practice blade that’s really heavy.
“First we work at the basics and we’ll work on your resistance training as well. I’ll need to see exactly where you’re at physically.”
The lesson started right after that. There’s no smart thoughts or comments from me because this guy just really didn’t come across as the type of D.I. that’d put up with that kind of thing. He was all business and so was I.
Sword lessons…The way the elves teach the ways of the sword is like this. You have three lines of guard and attack, high, mid-height and low. Now each one of these has a pose at 36 differing areas or one for every ten degrees of the circle you’re in the center of. Then there’s a name of rather a sound for each one of those plus an adjective for right tilt or left tilt of the wrist and whether or not you’re attacking and defending.
Yeah it’s super complicated and it’s like another language. But it’s also formulaic as he explains to me like knowing chess moves and all the names of them and counters and follow ups. I’d be lost if I tried to learn it all. Mercifully he drills me for two hours on the four main points for each height.
I’m trembling and sweating and fighting the need to barf when I finish and Shaya’s there clapping. The sweet proud smile she gives me is so more than worth it. My old life wasn’t horrible not like some peoples were but still I’m really not used to having someone proud of me….And with the bond I can feel it.
Shaya slides and slither walks to me just letting me marvel at how sensual she is as she comes and embraces me and kisses me again deeply. She leads me back to our rooms and is kissing me most of the way helping to keep my mind off of just how tired and sore I am.
We get to our rooms and she’s walking backwards still kissing me but more passionately and we start to strip off each others clothes letting them fall where they may and my hands race over her slender taut body and run through her hair and cup and caress those lovely breast of hers. There is a sigh of relief from me as she rids me of the “Sports” bra I’ve been wearing all day and her hands feel so good running over them just afterwards lightly caressing and touching then she lowers her mouth to my nipples one by one and as the bath tub is filling her hand snakes down and her hand starts to rub me just…oh god, oh god, oh god…I so needed this…but it’s the sensations that are heightened in my breasts after being freed that carries me over the edge of my much needed orgasm.
My legs are giving out on me from the combination of being tired and the force of “getting there.” I go with it and kneel down and seat Shaya on the edge of the tub and go down on her. I work her up first, really slowly pulling her panties down, kissing and nibbling with tiny love bites as I go.
I love the sounds that she makes. I love the way she moans almost softly sings my name all huskily like Jessica Rabbit soft, sultry, so f-ing sexy. I rub a little with my fingers, I slip a few inside slowly, exploring but feeling the achy needy spots inside of her and then once she’s well on her way to her orgasm I kiss her sex, slip her some tongue, I French her beautiful love nub and I’m rewarded by her slender fingers winding through my hair, pulling me to her as she rides my face and I get a taste of her sweet and strongly flowing nectar. I love the way that she tastes.
Shay pulls me up into a kiss which is good because my legs were starting to cramp up on me and we slip into the bath tub together. We kind of keep at it for another good two, three, four move orgasms each until we’re sweating from the sex as much as the hot water and we go boneless in each others arms as we just soak for awhile.
We finally climb out of the tub together and pat each other dry and just gently touching each other and moving together hip to hip and stuff we slip into bed together. We snuggle close and cuddle together just gently kissing for awhile before we drift off into sleep together.
I barely dream and just completely conk out boneless as satisfied. I’m not sure how long we slept but I woke to the most amazing sensations and Shay’s head and face buried into my sex. God she has a talented mouth, lips, tongue…she kissed her way after my second cum to my breasts where she played, caressed and made love to them, worshipped them making me so glad to be a woman. Then she entered me with her/our toy in the harness. It was right on that fine line to making love to me and giving me this hard f-ing that my body just couldn’t say no too. I wrapped my legs around her tiny waist and almost rested them on her hips as she moved in this rhythm that only a female pelvis really gives, it’s this erotic exotic movement like being made love to by a belly dancer.
The entire time she’s kissing me passionately and deeply her long tumbly jet black silken locks teasing my skin, her breast grazing mine the nipples touching in these exquisite little touches when she isn’t using hers hands to drive me to new heights of orgasm with them. Shaya is in such phenomenal shape she makes this hard passionate love to me for a solid hour. My brain’s half melted, I’m seeing stars, my pussy aches from it all and there’s this deeper ache from cumming and all those muscles clenching so hard and it’s all blended together in this wash of super intense bliss.
We rest for maybe ten…twenty minutes before I feel her alarm cantrip trigger.
“Mmm? Shay what’s up?”
“We have supper to attend to.”
“Wha..What..?” I’m still dozy and kind of after-glowey sex stupid.
“We’re expected every night at the Commander’s table Wren, remember it’s paying him in social coin while we accept his hospitality.”
“It’s not tomorrow?”
“No love, remember our days are longer than yours.”
“Yeah, I’m so remembering that now.” Slight sigh and I slightly whine. “I just want to stay here with you.”
“I know Love but Duty calls. We go and we eat, dance a little wear some pretty things and as soon as we can leave without insulting anyone we’ll come back here and snuggle in all night long.”
“Mmm…Okay.” I kiss her and give her a smile. I mean I still feel really good and like all yay after sex happy and stuff but I’d still rather sleep. But Shaya kisses me all delicious and stuff. “Okay…I like getting pretty and I could eat.” She smiles and helps to pull me out of bed.
Going to the feast/Supper was the same as the last time. Only we’re dressed different this time. I’m wearing an ankle length dress with little shoulder straps but it has a bra built into the bodice that does wonders for my cleavage. It’s made of this really fine cotton and is a nice deep rich forest green with wintergreen lace trim that looks like some kind of pretty ivy. Matching shoes in a three inch heel that are spelled for comfort and balance?
I love the spell thing it’s hugely cheating from the counter weight thing in my bra’s and even the dress that equalizes the weight from my chest to these shoes. The idea is that the majik takes all the force and spreads it out even though you’re wearing a delicate heel. You don’t get hammertoes or any of that and the force of your body weight is so distributed that it stabilizes the balance of the shoe and the pressure.
Sylvan heels feel like sneakers or really comfy shoes and they look great. The thing is Spelled shoes are expensive but the ones I have my Shaya has bought me. I’m not even sure exactly how expensive they actually are. And I’m not going to ask, I’m just happy that it’s something that she wanted to buy me. But the Commander did buy/pay for my dress.
Shaya looks great too but tonight she’s in this long flowing cream colored dress with undertones of pink like oyster shells or mother of pearl can get that makes her hair stand out and yet goes so well with her paleness it has a deep v shaped bodice and it’s edged in an almost wavy flower petal like way and has those long artist styled sleeves.
Wow, she looks pretty. I feel beautiful and the combination of the sex glow and the getting dressed and all pretty has me riding this feminine high again. We’ve both got our hair down but I felt things out with my majik? Again with Shaya to kind of help guide me and I change/do my hair. I made it glossy and straight in that almost Crystal Gayle kind of way. Without the waves and curls in it my hair reaches to the small of my back. Oh and another cool thing, if I concentrate on it my hair will condition itself perfectly with my majik and even heal split ends. And once I get it just right and styled I can put more mana? Into the thought of its shape and it’ll settle back into that style perfectly.
That actually made Shaya pout a little bit because I can do more with my hair using power than she can. She still kind of guides me in using my power to do all of that but she still can’t do it unless she spent time doing that but studying the different stuff/spell things to make it do that. Apparently I have a strange talent for it. But being human with awakened energies she has no idea where my majik is going to go.
Even I have to admit that I’m going to need someone to teach me to do this and other things before I try and do stuff on my own and muss it up and make myself bald or something.
The food was excellent as always. I’m actually hungry as we get to the main hall and I smell the offerings. We get seated by a couple of Pages and set to the food before us. I’m trying bits of stuff but I stick to some really good rice dishes, they make a really good mushroom and truffle risotto, or it’s like risotto but without the parmesan cheese, they have pasta too but it’s really more weird because they fold it into like origami shapes. They have herbs and stuff but they don’t really have anything like Italian food. It’s too bad, I like Italian food. This pasta has a pesto like dressing/sauce on it and it’s not bad. Plus there’s the small wild game hens that are the main dish of the meal and there’s two salad courses plus a hot vegetable course and greens course. There’s a lot of legends and stuff that claim elves are vegetarians or vegans or something but the main course is venison and it’s served really, really rare. They seem to like their red meats really red.
There’s conversation much of which is centered on the food and me and what I like or dislike and what we eat at home. I tell them about some things but kind of lead them away from some of that because honestly I’d like to surprise people sometime with things that I know I can make here or at least try to make here.
The other conversations are talking about various people and their performances and the of course there politics.
This I really pat attention to. The mix of things is this. The elves were slaves by the big bad evil thing that created the Darklands and experimented of them to create the different ethnic types and terraformed and seeded the moons. Each has its own distinct culture as well. Most of them want greater control over things even independence from the crown.
Now the Highwood’s came from some other place in a small space fleet, they had the majikal technology and on crashing here they immediately fought back against the ancient evil thing and won independence from it for all of Sylvania and were voted as the life long rulers by the clans but also the temples who had been the leadership and the head of the defenders before the Highwood’s came.
Now the Highwood’s have kept a lot of the fleet secrets to themselves so that there was a power to the throne. Okay that started a debate because some here are convinced of that but others say they’re keeping dangerous things from being misused by people who only think they understand them.
Now the Highwood’s and their followers and intermarried families had settled and developed the first three moons and there was/is a vast amount of the nobility from these areas and no Highwood has married outside of the big three moons. The exception being Kailynn who married a knight-mage from Marahaesh and she died in action on a mission deep in the darklands. He’s admired and reviled from doing so.
Now there’s Lyam, the traitor who joined the mages who turned all evil and dealt with dark powers and forbidden majiks during the summoning wars. He fought on the good side until the end of the war. But it turns out he was using the war to further his own ends by looting the people under the cover of the war on both sides but he also fed information to the enemy to make his own victories look better and to weaken the forces of his brothers and other nobles. He was named outlaw and tried to kill Dorian and Aeselanni the current rulers when on hid deathbed their father named Dorian heir instead of Lyam who it the oldest surviving son.
Since then it’s been found out that Lyam was tied to the first evil and was working with it and has gone to ground in the darklands or other places working on bring together the survivors of the forces of the forsaken and to gain favor with the disgruntled houses in the Royal Sylvan Republic.
Some hardcore old school nobles say that all this could have been avoided if Lyam hadn’t been cheated. They hate the changes that Dorian and Aeselanni have made since coming to the throne because they aren’t the old nobility. Dorian was a student of the druids and a green mage; he was the youngest son and chosen because he could help heal the hurts of their peoples. Aeselanni was chosen to be his wife by his father because she had noble blood but lived in the holy city all her life because her family was cash poor and had just their title, she grew up in the temples as a hired out scullery main, washer woman and even worked in a tavern in the lower market.
There’s people who derisively call them the farmer and the tavern whore. They didn’t do that at the table but it was mentioned in passing that that’s what they were called by those who oppose them.
Shaya who was Illian people treat with a mixture of indescion and other emotions. Illian was so much a dark knight in Lyam’s service because of the way that he was sexually and emotionally abused he became an attack dog. He was out there for over a hundred years in Lyam’s terror group before he was stopped. Since She’s become who she really was though I’m told that there’s almost no one that doesn’t respect Shaya here on the edge of the darklands. She’s spent so much time here trying to repair the damage that Illian had done.
My heart aches when something comes up about a certain place or some one who died and the soldier stuff that does get batted around just because we are at a fortress. She gets this deep haunted look in her eyes and I can feel her fighting back the tears.
The commander thankfully changes topics three times before I get up and lead Shaya by the hand down to the dance floor as soon as the music was ready. I’m still learning the ins and outs of the dancing but I love to dance and to have that given back to me with two whole legs I kind of really just throw myself into the music. I and Shaya both take turns dancing with everyone that asks us to dance and there is a bit of mild flirting going on but really tame stuff compared to home. It lightens the mood though.
I do try and leak through the bond of just how amazing and fun and even romantic when slow songs are played through our bond to cheer Shaya up. It takes a little while but it works.
Seeing here smile was just so…it felt so good inside to make her really smile, that I did that for her. We slow dance together to just some soft music and my arms are over her shoulders and her hands are on my hips just so and it’s so romantic and when she looks at me with those eyes of hers and beams at me I really can’t help but to kiss her softly, slowly and passionately then just press my forehead to hers and while I’m not really sure of my voice I softly whisper sing to her.
“Sometimes I wonder.”
“How I’d ever make it through,”
“Through this world without having you…”
“I just wouldn’t have a clue.”
“’Cause sometimes it seems…”
“Like this world’s closing in on me.”
“And there’s no way of breaking free…”
“And then I see you reach for me.”
“Sometimes I wanna give up.”
“I wanna give in.”
“I wanna quit the fight…”
“And then I see you, baby…”
“And everything’s all right…”
“Everything’s all right.”
“When I see you smile…”
“You know I can face the world…oh..oh..”
“You know I can do anything.”
“When I see you smile…”
“I see a ray of light…oh..oh..”
“I see it shining right through the rain…”
“When I see you smile.”
“Oh yeah, baby when I see you smile at me.”
“Baby there’s nothing in this world…”
“That could ever do…”
“What a touch of your hand can do…”
“It’s like nothing that I ever knew.”
“And when the rain is falling…”
“I don’t feel.”
“’Cause you’re here with me now.”
“And one look at you baby.”
“Is all I’ll ever need…”
“You’re all I ever need.”
“When I see you smile…”
“You know I can face the world…Oh Shay..
“You know I can do anything…”
“When I see you smile…”
“I see a ray of light…Oh Shay…”
“I see you shining right through the rain…”
“When I see you smile…”
“Oh beloved when I see you smile at me.”
“Sometimes I wanna give up, wanna give in…”
“Wanna quit the fight…”
“But then I see you Shaya…”
“And everything’s alright…”
“Oh everything’s alright…”
“Oh…Shaya...when...I…see…you smile at me…”
Yes I took artistic license with some of the words but that song just screams US, me and Shaya and what she really does for me and how much that I love her. And I couldn’t hold back the flow of the feelings about this song, about her and just everything as I sing to her right there that intimately there on the dance floor. There’s big huge happy tears rolling down our cheeks and I’ve never seen or felt her so alive or so in love and I’ve never been this deeply in love with somebody like this either.
I lean down and kiss her again, long and slow and soul-deep and take my time, hell I’d take forever with this kiss if I could. There’s something, there’s something unlike anything we’ve ever felt before as everyone seems to go away, all the music fades, time seems to slow down and even for a few seconds our hearts stop beating…
Only to restart together on the exact same beat….
I know my eyes widened at that, I seen her eyes widen at that and I swear there is this feeling that I can only describe as we’re so bonded now, so intertwined and in love and linked it’s like when you love someone you literally want to give them your heart forever…I think we did.
We break the kiss and stare at each other for what feels like an eternity before we move off the dance floor and make a few apologies and retire to our rooms. I slowly make love to her well each other slowly and gently just stripping each delicate bit off of each other…I’ve see the fall of a dress off of a woman’s body before lovemaking and it can be one of the sexiest things a woman can do…to do that and feel the drop and swish sweep of the fabrics over me as my own dress gently pools to the ground is so…god it’s just so hard to explain how much a little but huge thing it was…
This time I take the lead and make passionate love to Shaya for hours…the sex wasn’t as important as the intimacy, touching her like this, being touched like this is so far beyond sex it like our orgasms were just happy accidents.
We cuddle up together and kiss until we’re drowsing off again and Shaya looks ay me face to face our noses almost touching. “Erendae? Please don’t take this the wrong way?”
“What? Did I do something wrong?”
“No, no it’s just something that I’ve felt but I have no other way to say it.”
“Is it a good thing?”
“I hope you find it so, I mean it with love.”
“Okay, Tell me.”
“Wren Phoenix…You are the best man that I’ve ever met.”
I can’t help but cry, on her and pull Shaya tight into this hug, this huge hug. It wasn’t meant in a bad way, she meant it like the part of me that was the old me, the part that I wanted to mean so much more than I ever thought that I did. That she though and feels that way about that part of me…
Oh yeah I fell asleep in her arms crying and being loved.
***
Time flies I guess.
Six weeks, I’ve been here at Steadfast with Shaya. It’s been amazing and it’s been hell. The day after our life bond got so much stronger I had my armor finished and the rest was the same. The morning exercises, the morning patrol and run with the commander, my lessons with Lt. Oakland and so on.
After that those four hours of getting my armor made became lessons, reading, writing like learning calligraphy and how to word things in a diplomatic way. Geography, and learning the lay of the land politically. Lady Kyte is a Starling and she’s from one of the noble houses on Skywood that has lords and knights and such in Lyam’s unit/army from that summoning war. He family is a very conservative one and is part of this coalition of houses that see Skywood getting cheated out of becoming the capitol of the realm if Lyam was made king. This same group of houses has also been known to have been fighting to earn the right to rule Skywood and they really are these Nobles, Nobles with serfdom being practiced and really looking down on the common folk.
Kyte’s an anomaly being a female knight from those houses where women should be seen and not heard. But her red hair seems to excuse her culturally Or so I’ve found out, it’s like a weird rule, like a pass for her to be a bitch really. Also she’s got a brother Shaene who’s shamed his family by being a tryst. (Gay) and was banished from his families lands and she’s taken to her knighthood to try and win honors for herself and her house to make up for the shame that he’s caused them. She going after Shaya and me is part of her trying to score points with her kin and the nobles at home on Skywood. The thing is she’s just playing attack dog for the nobles that she’s trying to impress. It’s kinda sad to see her falling for their shifty little game.
I also found out she’s dangerous, She’s just a bit over three hundred years old and has been a fully blooded knight for over two hundred years. She’s fought all over the place and has five twenty year tours here in the Darklands under her belt.
Yeah I got more and more into training. And you can get a lot of stuff done in a world where they have thirty six hour days.
Part of my training is horsemanship that was more than fun, I haven’t been around horses in ages. And Sylvan horses are very different, smarter like a really smart dog and some are even smarter than that. There is something so soothing about working it a quiet relaxed stable in the evening. Sometimes I’d just sit on the fences and breathe. Sometimes Shaya is with me and she plays her panpipes. Just sitting with her like that in the setting sun is something I’ve come to love, moments that I treasure. Just like the night we spent making love in the haylofts.
Another and now exciting part is on dragon back. Shaya and Bhlaze put me through my paces up there as we take a four hour patrol every day. They both put me through the equivalent of the vomit-commit effect. Bhlaze can twist and turn so tightly as he does all these moves through all these complex flight exercises I lost my lunch three times at first and since I’ve gotten used to the G’s and the strain on my muscles. I love the thrill of it now and the crazy roller coaster in mid-air feelings.
There’s training too with that, target practice with my blaster and my bow. I get a lot of bow practice as we will take advantage of something worth hunting for the commanders table. I learn their ways to skin and clean and salvage an animal. They use everything, even the intestines and stuff. I’m no expert but Shaya insists that I learn enough to do it. It’s filthy and dirty and hard work but not wasting anything just sings right to me. Sorry, Elfin slang “singing right” means you feel this little note in your heart, get moved by something. If something impresses you. “singing” just that word is like whoa…I help the furrier, the tanners, the butchers and even the bone carvers and stuff like taking little workshops.
The more I’m learning the more I want to. Plus the respect to the animal…Shaya shows me to prick a finger at the kill and to thank brother or sister (said animal) for the offering of it’s life. We let a drop of our blood fall into theirs and then we attend to the kill. The people who work with the animal afterwards are so tied to animals they’ll have shrines the can set up with figurines of what they’re working on and will light little candles in respect.
The furrier is Wilderan (Amerindian elf) and when I worked with him he sang to them. It gave me gooseflesh the respect and the love he showed them. His voice was shades of Robbie Robertson to me.
Then there’s just the few times we’ll land someplace and gather berries together or wild mushrooms and twice we had a picnic together.
There’s a few trips where it’s Just me and Bhlaze, this is our time as bond mates to Shaya. It’s also where Bhlaze starts to teach me the basics of using majik. I can recognize the feelings after being with him and Shaya for so long. It’s learning to mold the power, to grab it and shape it and make it do things. Doing things by majik is to completely know something so well that when you picture it and pour your mana into it, it literally becomes a reality. This is why majik, big majik takes so long to learn. It’s a matter of knowing these things so well. Incantations, real spells use words like swordplay that you have to know represent a certain force in majik or the world.
There’s not much but I’m good with hairstyles but I also learn to see in the darkness by pulling more light to me and the same with my hearing, even seeing far by pulling the incoming light to me in a different way. I’ve learned to create a ball of light, to light a fire like a magnifying glass and to snuff flames out by smothering them with a denial in the air around them of the oxygen getting to the fire. I can sharpen things because I know the feeling of grinders from home well enough to fuse power to that feeling, I can drive a nail in completely with a slap of my hand by mimicking a nail gun…I’m just getting started but both Shaya and Bhlaze both think that I won’t lose control of my power.
Bhlaze says I’ve affinities for Romance, Light and Fire majiks and I can do more with these easier than other forces that I’ll work with.
I’m getting better at the sword and now I know all the positions now and can get into them most of the time. I’ve been sparing with some of the Pages and Squires for the last two weeks. What a good way to be bruised. I’m also learning hand to hand as well as using the blaster flintlock/wheelock looking blasters they have here. It’s majik technology and most fire a discharge of charged particles or a laser like beam or a taser like bolt of energy. Me, I’ve been issued one that fires a golden like laser beam. It’s another gift from the commander.
My combat training is done in secret with the Lt. It’s swordplay but mixed with close quarters combat style that’s a lot back home with some of my own brawler and bouncer style from home just refined actually under the experienced eyes and hands of the Lt. I show him or explain to him some TV wrassling moves that we puzzle out and incorporate as some surprises. I even pick up how to use a shield and a dagger as well as a hand axe and quarterstaff. I’m no expert but I at least won’t hurt myself using these things either. I’m good with the sword or so I’m told but I’ve a talent or love for the staff and the bow. It so takes me back to all the Robin hood stuff I’ve ever known.
Shaya teaches me the sword too. She shows me how each position that we use and how the words/syllables used in the sword training are different to her. Shaya has this secret way of training that she assigns a specific note of music to each one. From majors to minors to sharps to flats, then I watched fascinated as she sang and danced her way through this absolutely stunning Kata like thing. She’s started to teach me this too. She’s so graceful, and beautiful and one of the best swordswomen in the entire republic. You know how flowing and graceful a Jedi-knight looks in the movies. That’s what watching Shaya is like.
Which is why Kyte challenged me instead of her.
I’ve been eating more and have been putting on weight, there’s a lot of muscle with wearing my armor all the time all thirty one pounds of it and the working out and the training band other parts have filled out nicely too. I figure I’m a firm busted 46DD and I’m close to a hundred and seventy pounds with muscles starting to show, even the hint of ab’s starting. I’m not bragging but I’ve got this very Wonder-Woman Amazon look to me.
You’d think my life’s be just about perfect right.
Nope.
I still have bout’s of self esteem issues and sometimes food issues and Shaya and I fought once about me not having a moment to myself and got really freaked out and EMO as my first period hit me like a freight train of hormones and pain.
Oh yeah pain, as much as you hear those people like me say they’d rather have it than not, or how bad it’d be. Well I’m not sure about that anymore. It hurt, it hit me hard with stuff not really wanting to stay down sometimes and the cramps that felt like there was something trying to roll my intestines into being a rolled up sock. Add in bloating, and the blood, apparently I’m a heavy flow girl and you really don’t feel good. And the mood swings, and then there’s the bond as Shaya and I resonate with each other and we freaked out.
Oh and apparently elves only go through this once a year, it’s really light but theirs lasts a month. But it’s also the month that they were born.
Once we realized just what happened in that first fight and it was a screaming fight with her. Shay kept me from losing it with all the blood and the pain and I was convinced that none of what I was going through was normal. She got me through it and pampered me. I’ve been since told by one of the fortress healers that I’ll be prone to this being more normal than not. She made me fall deeper in love with her as she’d curl around me and use majik to heat her hand up and rub my tummy. She’d ply me with chocolate and soup and make me hot baths during the two days it’s the worst. The rest of the time it’s still awful but manageable. I guess there has to be a balance for everything I’ve been given.
For about three days after it’s done though I’m achingly horny, I notice men a whole lot more than I usually do and they smell and look so good. The women don’t do that for me except for Shaya and she get’s swept up in the ride, we have a lot of sex those three days and she bought us a larger “replica” even still we do a lot of boy watching and kinda get really girly together too it’s like I’m taking a upper hormone trip and taking Shaya with me.
We put in a computer video call to Kailynn about all of it and it was he who says that it’s a blending with our powers and the link. My biology tying in with hers and her majik. Elven women go through about two weeks of this enhanced arousal after their periods, as a breeding mechanism. I’ve inherited this from Shaya, it’s not mind controlling or anything but my inhibitions are definitely lowered.
He actually congratulated us with a cute wry smile on his face.
***
Well we’re packing Bhlaze up and he’s bitching about the amount of things that I’ve managed to collect while I’ve been here and Shaya too, there’s four more trunks of things and yes it’s mostly clothes…we are girls and he actually almost sulks about being surrounded by women in his existence.
We rub him and scratch him in the right places and compliment him on his good taste.
We leave without much fanfare with more messages from the commander and leave Steadfast and head around the northern edge of the Darklands heading towards the fortress of Rowan-Oak.
The Darklands are so huge that it’s three days flying and camping before we get close.
But then we get close….
Shaya get’s the mayday call over the comlinks in her helmet and we bank heading in over the dark forest and there is just a sinister dark vibe to the place. There’s this series of flares going up about seventy miles from the cliff walls and the fortress of Rowan-oak.
There’s a band of knights that were hitting a place where the dark races were building an airship dock to attack places outside of the natural barrier holding these things in. They had won the day and were returning fast vas they could with the remains of what they had recovered and their wounded when they were ambushed by a war-party.
I can see the fighting as we get close. There’s about thirty five warriors and soldiers caught out in the open, using their dead horses for cover and using blasters and bows to fight foes in the tree line. We can see arrows from the enemy coming out in flights and the ground and horse are getting chewed up by automatic weapons fire and a few deep dark red beams too. I see a few elves go down.
Bhlaze snarls and we do a wing over and dive and do this strafing run and I feel the build of energy in him and he cuts loose with a beam of lighting that is long and sustained as the energy lashes out and hit’s the ground and the power arcs out to the nearby area and electrocutes things six feet of either side of the seventy foot long swath of power and it’s so hot that it actually ignites the air after we pass in a rush.
We bank again with Bhlaze striking a second time and then a third and then we land. The enemy actually charges us coming out of the trees. Goblins and Orcs and I’ll say this that Peter Jackson wasn’t too far off of the mark with regards to the way they look. The goblins are smaller and hunchbacked with about a five foot height and filed teeth, the orcs are well orcs and much bigger…meaner. The goblins have crossbows and nasty looking curved swords and the orcs all have these nasty sub-machine gun things that look like bastardized version of elfin tech majiks and fire these bullet sized shards of obsidian just like a gun.
Shaya uses her majiks to raise a shield using Bhlaze’s energy to create a force field and we both bail off his sides and I’m firing my blaster, going for whatever clear shot I can get while running to the soldiers and grabbing the wounded and dragging them back. Shaya’s yelling orders for the ones least hurt to get the ones still alive tethered and tied together and I’m soon helping. There’s the boom of explosives as the enemy hit the shield with a bunch of grenade like something’s and it goes down just not able to take the abuse.
Then they’re on us.
I’ve got my sword in one hand my blaster in another and I’m cutting things and blocking as best that I can and shooting things until my blaster runs dry. I’m getting hit by sword blows and while my armor takes the hits they still hurt, goblins are stronger than they look and fast and nasty and vicious. It’s like fighting a mob of psycho-serial killers, and shooting things are one thing there’s a disconnect but to swing a blade into flesh and bone and have that blade just ruin what you hit or cut through things and the soft almost crunch of bones, the spray of blood, the stink unlike any other of spilled innards.
It’s minutes maybe, but it’s hours too. I’m getting shot at and my armor still takes it or most of it. I think I’ve caught shards in my right thigh, there’s one of those red beams from a bigger rifle hitting my shoulder and the plates heat in seconds and burn me before the beam pushed through me…
I nearly faint from the pain…
I barely get my helmet off before I’m puking, from it…I can still feel my shoulder cooking…Three orcs rush me dumping their empty guns for their own swords. Things just kind of gel for me then. If I get killed it’ll throw off Shaya and Bhlaze, we’re the best chance to save these men and get out of here…I spit and get up, exploding off my feet at them in a football tackle I drive one two the ground and drive my sword like it was a lance in the guy beside him in the same gesture/tackle. The orc I’m on throws me off of him and I do a light spell but different, I use a series of camera flashes from home something that isn’t here. I pull my sword out of the dead orcs chest and baseball slide in behind the two flash stunned ones and hamstring them with a two handed swing, they drop to hands and knees and I jump up and lop off their heads.
I look up to see Shaya finish this dance of hers covered in blood and gore a dozen foes around her and when she stops she ignores them staring intently at the trees…the foes slowly drop all around her falling dead, or in chunks blood kind of bursting out of them…
“Sing…ing.”
She turns on her heal and runs at the rest of us. “Go!, Go!, Go!, everyone grab a ropeline!” She’s shoving me at Bhlaze and she looks scared…after what she just did and she’s scared?
I feel the build up of Bhlaze’s dragon powers and I can hear the snapping of trees being broken off like popsicle sticks…then the tree line explodes.
Snakes and Ladders-11
Chapter 11
Raw naked fear and heart thumping adrenaline.
I guess kind of is a good grasp of just the feeling that seeing the three hundred or so yards of ancient or twisted forest just exploding into chunks, splinters, sawdust and fire. I stare at it like seeing a terrorist bomb going off.
Then they came bursting through the explosion just like two twin freight trains. They were these snakes but not snakes the ribs came out all along their bodies like spines or horns adding grip to their movements. Huge heads like a cross between a snakes and a frilled lizards but the ribbing of the fines coming out into long wicked horns and then there was the sized the head was the size of a small car and the body an easy twelve feet wide and each was several hundred feet long.
I nearly pooed myself right there…
These things weren’t dragons, they were snakes. I’m not a fan of snakes…
Shaya yelled something that sounded like “Naga!” or “Nagas?” and they came at us really fast just like a snake would but much faster because of all the muscle and what not they had. They circled us fast then with this tweak of majik I feel Bhlaze alter his and our mass as he leapt up into the sky…
I was close enough to see their mouth open and this spray of black stuff start out from their mouths and it ignited a second later and it smelled like charred meat along with the smell of a semi-wreck, there was an almost diesel like tincture to the smell. We rise up as the twin blast hit and combine and the force creates this cloud of fire like a firestorm really and their heads seem to follow us up into the air and so does the cloud of flames.
We get lift from both Bhlaze’s majiks and the thermal updrafts we rise hundreds of feet in minutes and for a few of those long minutes the flames are just about twenty feet under us and the heat is so intense that we’re getting slightly cooked by the radiant heat and it’s really hard to breathe….Then we’re clear and these Naga things are keening and racing in a circle under us and then they kick out more fire aiming outside of their circle and there are more flames and the blaze gets bigger and more widespread. The bodies from the fighting of the goblins and the orcs and the Sylvan warriors are all consumed by the fires. The stuff their spewing seems almost like napalm.
We’re still climbing straight up and I feel it. Bhlaze mixing his energy with Shaya’s and something gathering inside of him like this massive charge and he breathes, spits downwards…
It was like the twisting of physics from him doing a jump but only I can feel through the bond them twisting the laws of physics and pulling all the free electrical energy into his body and he directs it out his mouth in a beam…more twisting of natural laws as he molds the electro- magnetic field into a stream of pure energy…white light sheathed with bits of lightning clinging down it from the field reacting to the air and when it hits it reacts with the magnetic field of the planet creating a massive explosion of electrical energy like a super strength electrical storm turned into an instant bomb like attack it literally blows them to shreds as this magnetic wave of force like wind-sheer rushes out from the impact…the fire as huge as it was got snuffed instantly out by the wave.
My mind is reeling as I see a crater left there nearly a half mile wide…The sheer firepower of what I just saw Shaya and Bhlaze do was terrible to see. Nothing I knew of short of something big and military could do something like that.
That’s instantly balanced by feeling both of them sagging and nearly passing out from the power that it took for them to do this…but they had to, those things left unchecked. Who knows what they could’ve done.
I dig deep into myself and try and envision my power pouring from me into them, Bhlaze does a sharp inhale of relief and Shaya too when I put my good arm on her shoulder and Bhlaze banks towards this structure I can see in the distance.
~Thank you Erendae…I was unsure if my strength would hold until safety. ~
“It’s okay…I think…this...this is hard…”
Shaya’s swaying in the dragon saddle, I can feel her trying to fight to being awake but she’s in that daze like her blood sugar’s bottomed out or something. It’s a damned scary thing to feel through the bond. I’m holding onto her but I can feel how tired and how sick she’s feeling and fueling Bhlaze I can almost feel this bone weary pain in my arms and shoulders as he is trying to fly us to the fortress.
Soldiers are pointing at us and orders are being issued as we just barely clear the walls by twenty feet and come down pretty hard in the courtyard of this place. The warriors with us all more or less go down where we came down at and fall with varying degrees of pain and some serious wounds.
Things get hazy as there’s people helping me get down off Bhlaze’s back. They’re dressed in this blue colored material with a wreath of silver embroidered oak leaves with berries?
“Shaya, The Princess there’s something wrong with her…Please help her.” I whine, please be alright beloved, please I can’t lose you.
They take her off Bhlaze’s back and they are looking her over, one passes her a canteen which she takes with fumbling hands and drinks at greedily. One of them turns to me. “She’ll be fine, she just exhausted herself with too much majik and fighting.” I try to see more. “Are you sure, is she hurt?” he looks at me. “Nay Milady your hurts are much more than hers.”
“Really? She’ll be alright?”
“Aye, for true lady. I’d not lie to you about something like the care of a patient but she pushed herself beyond the limits of her power and her body and you’d not be in much better shape lass now lie back and let us do our jobs.”
“Oh and you guys are?”
“Knight-healers Lady, now ease you and don’t fight me.”
“Fight…?...oh.” I feel his hand on my forehead and there’s the feeling like something swirling against my skin like water? Then it sort of slips and pours into my from under my forehead and this cool soothing feeling ripples through me and it washes away some of the fatigue and the pain too. Oh…this is majik; literally his majik and I can feel his power sliding in and through my body and start to do strange medical kinds of things to/for me as Shaya and I are being litter carried with the others into the fortress.
It’s all kinds of chaos as I’m taken into this long barracks like room with a whole bunch of these Knight-healers and they’re stripping me out of my armor. I feel tired, really tired and numb too which is good when they take off the torso stuff and there’s that hole there burned right through my shoulder. It looks bad, really gross and stuff and burned not like a little bit burned but like really grossly burned.
Gross/Nice fact the movies are not entirely accurate.Y’know burnt human does not smell like cooking pork. I mean it sort of does but the fat and skin burned smell is very different. So kinda mix the smell of crisping fish skin in a skillet with a piece of pork and add in the burnt scent and yeah it’s bad.
I’m starting to freak out the more I think about getting such a freaky bad scar. I’m sorry, I am but I’ve lived as Bear for so long that being me is something that I treasure so much now and to get a scar like this is just…it’s shallow and small of me considering I could be dead right now…They get the legging/boot part off my wounded leg and as the blood pours from the boot and shoots from the place I was shot… I faint.
Sorry correct that, I think I barfed then fainted.
I don’t remember them working on me and healing me and all of that but I remember the dreams that I had about being in combat. The fear hitting me now, the panic, the feeling of shooting the things that were trying to kill us and shooting them was grossly too easy a way of killing them. Yes I own guns and there are times on the road where you kind of need it for back up even if I really hated having them. But until this I’d never actually shot anyone except for the dragon.
I killed a lot of those things. I fought and used my sword and killed with it. I relive the weight of the blade in my hand, the shocks of the impacts where there was actually an enemy trying to kill me. The feel through the metal as flesh and bone parted too easily. The nightmares are really intense, scary and they replay over and over and then there’s the images of those two giant serpent like creatures and the flames that they made trying to cook us. I wake from being out of it in this really bad nightmare of how it would have went if we had been caught in the flames.
I wake up thrashing and screaming not for myself but for…”Shaya!” I think I was thrashing and stuff but there’s hands holding me, helping me ride through it until I wake coming out the other side of my nightmare.
Her eyes, her eyes are right there in front of me as Shaya’s staring me in the face and holding me. Her hands slide up to hold my face and wipe those tears away and she kisses me. She kisses me over and over again and she knows. Through our bond she knows what happened in the nightmare in my head and she’s there. Using those kisses to slide in and to wrap her soul around mine and just…not letting me know that she’s okay or that we’re okay but making it a truth.
I bawl my eyes out. There’s so much of this that’s upsetting to me and was ugly then and it’s her being there being one with me that is so…God I’m so lucky, I’ve got this freaking me out and going on inside and she’s able to be there inside of me and curling up inside of me making things better like this part of her is holding my heart literally with so much love.
Who really ever gets to experience that, gets to have this?
I’m sobbing as she holds me and rocks me and makes me feel like It’s all going to be alright until I’m calmed down and there’s all these feelings of how much she loves me cascading into me I can’t help but to blossom inside. Slowly I start to kiss her back and my hands touch her and slide over her warm, silky smooth body. I can’t help but to feel and see her giving those orders to the men when we got there. Then to how simply breathtaking she was in action. And her getting us up and out of there and even striking with that super powerful blast with Bhlaze against the Nagas even knowing just how dangerous it was to use that kind of power.
She’s a real hero, a real knight out of what’d be a fairy tale novel and there’s that little girl in me that falls in love with her all the more because of that. I notice no bandage on my shoulder or where I was shot in the leg as her hands run over those areas. I dip my fingers down and run them back and forth over the slit, the lips pushing in and letting the creases of my fingers drag over them until she shivers with lust and lets out this breathy little whine of “Wren…”
I kiss her and love every second of her lips on mine and I push her down into the bed and straddle her, I take a breast in hand and a nipple in mouth and slowly lavish the attention on her as my fingers dip inside of her and I feel her squirm and moan and she cries out. I’m the aggressor this time, so turned on by her being my lady knight in shining armor that I make love to her, I worship her, my devotions running from the tips of my fingers to her breasts and the alter that in her sex as I lower my face down to kiss her and to suckle her with as sacred intent of drinking from her like she’s the finest of communion wines.
“Wren…Wrenn…nn…Oh Gods…Erendae…!”
Shaya cries out as I make love to her and I’m rewarded by this little spurts of girly essence along with the heavy syrupy flow of her nectar. I lap it up, suck it up clean her over and over with her hands woven into my hair and her fingers holding me tightly to her as they massage my scalp in involuntary reflex.
I lose track of the moments as her third carried me over the edge through our bond and her pleasure becomes mine. There’s a point where our positions change and Shaya not only return my love and my tenderness but Has strapped into our little friend. It becomes something else, almost better in a sense as I’m being made love too by my hero, my knight, my beloved beautiful Shaya.
It scores another hit inside of my soul somewhere. Part of me, part of that little girl me has just had this fairy tale moment of where her hero, heroine pulls her to her and takes her in her arms and makes passionate love to her.
I can feel Shaya’s reaction too. When she was a knight, before her change this thought of being something like this, a hero, a knight, a champion….even if it ever was for just one person. This little grain of hope kept them from going completely insane, kept that tiny hope alive until the day that everything changed.
There is no feeling to describe the emotions coming through our bond. I get to feel so loved and treasured…treasured beyond all measure because I gave that spark of being that knight, that person new life and hope…when she never thought that she’d ever get the chance.
We finish and cuddle and hold each other as sleep retakes us, both sated, satisfied and spent. “I love you Erendae Phoenix. I love you more than anything else.”
“I love you too Shaya, I’ve never been happier, I’ve never been this loved before.”
“Thank you Wren, thank you for being my miracle.”
Snakes and Ladders-12
Chapter 12
*Harrow…
He stared at the battlefield anger simmered through his veins. The minions of Dorian The Pretender had been saved by the turn coat Shaya. Illian had been a knight of great skill under the rightful King Lyam and to do this…it angered him beyond measure. The fact that they were transformed into the stupid bitch that she was now was just more proof that Dorian The Pretender was dragging all that was pure and good of their race into the levels of the beasts that he was forced to work with.
He watched them leave, flying away and using more power than they should’ve been able to fly away with. It was the stranger, he felt her use power. He felt her buoy Shaya and because of her things had gone from bad to worse.
Tall with long hair and built like no female could be that he knew of she had joined the battle with his forces to slay this group of The Pretenders forces. They had found relics of power from the last war that his master had commanded him to take from them and to bring to him. But Shaya was not expected he had heard she had quit the field after a battle with King Lyam.
With her was this newcomer, this tall big titted whore. He watched as they were turning the tide of the battle. They forced his hand and he summoned forth two Nagas to slay them all and to burn things to the ground. Nagas were dragon-kyth and as such they were very dangerous, heavy armored scales and a hateful disposition they were more than happy to try and feast on anything they could but raced to confront the much hated Bhlaze and his bonded knight-whore Shaya. Even in death they should’ve won the day, the dragon and knight were too spent, too tired to lift them out of there and that busty whore had kept them aloft?
He stared at them vanishing past his view on the tree line towards to nearest fortress. He wanted revenge, he did not want to fail but failure was what he’d have to report to his master, his king.
He turned his head unless he could give do some thing more and deliver and even greater prize he’d be punished. He turned his nightmare steed around facing his troops and the goblins and hobgoblins and his orc troops…he hated to beasts, they hated him but they feared him like he was a god. He gave the signal to move off into the dangerous and shadowy depths of the forest that blanketed the Darklands.
*Dorian…
The silver doored archway in the hidden druids cavern sparkled and then opened revealing an opening full of fog. An elfin man walked his horse through and the smaller pack pony, his hair hung loose in his face as much as down his back save for two long braids that were done down in front of his ears. A simple green tunic and a buckskin jacket and pants he looked the typical elfin ranger, right down to the few hunting knives and the hand axe and his bow.
He carried several heavy bags and panniers on the horse and the pack horse. He was a bit dusty and sandy from his return from his secret trip to Shaelanni the desert moon of great sand oceans, obelisks and pyramids and lost gods.
He took the long way around to home. Out through the north pass and out of the King’s forest foraging along the way, hunting too. Time was something he had; no one knew he was away, because he wasn’t. He could move the armor of golden elm with his green majik. The same majik he used to find and gather berries, fruits and nuts calling them to where they’d grow to be as big and as ripe as the nature of the plant would bear.
He rode through the remoter farms and villages on the other side of the mountains. The lands here were those of other nobles and lords and knights. He was king when he wasn’t disguised and if he came through these lands things would be made to look healthy and happy. I truth there was perhaps one in four lords who took his vows seriously to provide for his people. The rest lived for themselves just thinking their lifestyles came out of no where and then there was the other nobles who kept taking away from the people in greft and taxes and because it was their right.
It was these places he rode through taking the long way back to the capitol. He was trying to change the laws and old customs. But there were many in power that didn’t want change. Many who hated the changes he had made already. He’d stop at a home, leave a brace of squirrels or a duck or a rabbit with bags of berries and nuts, in these bags he’d leave a handful of copper or silver small coins. He’d green majik the gardens to grow lusher and more bountiful over the times ahead.
He rode for five days until he hit the coast of the sea of stars and then he made his way into the city from the beach edge trails to the poor quarters. You see even in the grandest city of the elves there was poor. Not all were gifted with money or title or majik and like all creatures they had their vanities and flaws. They were just people. And like all high end cities there were those who didn’t fit the roles of the upper crust, but were the ones who did the everyday, the vital, the menial.
It was this area of town he moved through, Gryphon paladin to the Highfather met him there in his own beat up leathers and here in the wee early morning hours he wove his way through the houses of the poor. A list of those in need made way to his hands once every so often by his son Jaiden, Shaya’s twin brother.
There were things one can do with the right training with the green gift. He could spell a seed to by pass the plant stage and go directly to the yield. One date would yield the full crop of a palm, the same for oranges, and apricots and the other seeds and such he had brought back from Shaelanni, one seed’s majik per household dates, and nut’s and fruits all being passed out to those families in need. The energy drain was very hard and he used keystones majik batteries of power to help him feed his people. To spin cloth from cotton seeds and to make their lives as better as he could. He did this all at random, in stealth for his brother’s enemies and the assassin’s and older foes would love to catch him out without a full guard. Many of the nobles hated him for his charity, and some respected him for it. But every once in a while, King Dorian Highwood would walk among his peoples poorest and he’d bring with him the charity of his majik and feed and clothe those in need until his powers would drive down low and he’d have limbs like lead.
Dorian was one of the only kings truly loved by the common man of his people. This morning would be talked about by noon, the strengthening of several poor harvest areas in poor and remote Soaks on Shaelanni would come to be known.
He rode out of there with a bag of fresh baker’s breads in exchange for a few green charms on yeast and some spells to prevent mold and rot. It was mid-morning and Gryphon’s men met them at an assigned area and he was leaving the city on way to the palace before anyone who could profit by it knew he was in the city.
It was a good two weeks away. It was good to be coming home. This was just topped off with them sharing out all but one loaf of the fresh bread among the knights still steaming hot and thanks to a green cantrip just like right out of the oven and just like the gods ever intended good bread to taste like.
He reached the stables and was greeted by Kailynn his 4th eldest child who was with a few knights of his own plus squires and pages headed out to do his rounds. Kailynn was a skilled knight but more so took after his mother in majik. A powerful and talented mage-healer he was going into the poorer sections of the city and the realms to bring free medical care to the people instead of them not being able to pay the fees of the guild of healers or that of the surgeons and such. Kailynn broke as many rules of society as he did. He had married outside his station to a mage-knight from Marahaesh the dark elven peoples. He took in the children of mid-wives and hedge witches as pages the squires to train them as knight healers and since these mid-wives and hedge-witches were the legal guardians of the estates of the pages and such they were granted higher legal status as minor nobility making what they did much harder to be taken interest with the guilds and courts of law. He was very proud of him. He was proud of all his children really.
Jaiden who had discovered Lucas’s plot and fled polite society under the guise of being an outlaw. Choosing to live as a thief and smuggler over a knight and crown prince. Still at large but a steady source of Intel from the darker sides of society.
Brennan who was the second oldest and a more arcane mage than any in the family. He was also responsible for the building and slow filling of the Republic Library and bringing the past and histories back to their people. He was also a builder of the few public schools that all could attend regardless of station. Most Sylvan education was based on the master and apprentice systems or learning in the guild ran houses for the trades. Public education and teaching of the trades to those not sanctioned by the guild was another hot button thing he had signed off on. Brennan was doing the work but as his father and King he was taking the blame.
It was one of the many reasons he had the problems they had. The conservatives were all high money noble, merchant, and guild families who wished for the status quo to remain the same. But it was this the rich having all the power that had sparked The Summoning War, the civil war that saw them nearly torn apart by his brother’s machinations. It was why his father had chosen him over Lyam. Lyam wouldn’t have changed anything for the better, Lyam wanted money and power and the prestige of the title of high king to do untold harm to their peoples. A true snob and an abuser. Dorian had suspected that their father had seen this side of Lyam during the war.
He was the youngest son. A green mage and a musician studying at The Holy City and even at The Great Tree with the druids, barely a knight really. His father had asked him to rebuild their kingdom and to mend their people.
He swore he would.
There was his youngest his daughter, well his youngest daughter Galadriel, A trysting girl she couldn’t stand palace and courtly life after her sexuality had come out and she had been left by several of her closeted women she had been amorous with and she went career navy. She was a ship commander in the royal space fleet. She defended Sylvan Space against intrusion and invasion by several of the hostile forces out there.
Then there was Shaya. Born to the wrong form and having lived centuries in that hell before the truth was found out and they had brought her home and healed her. As Illian she had committed vile acts her life twisted out of control or sanity by his brother’s abuses. After such a life you’d think that she’d have chosen to live a recluse. To hide herself away from the world and think she shamed her family. But no, Shaya once she had recovered a few years and had gotten back from the edges of madness and depression she came back with a vengeance and so much heart and not only did she come back to public life she traveled out to the remote mountains of the Stars on Skywood and returned ten years later a dragon-rider, the pinnacle of being a true knight. Bonded to a silver dragon she had proven herself above reproach.
People still talked and the conservatives and his brother’s terrorist Circle of Thorns hated her too. But to some she was a hero, to some she never hid what she did nor what was done to her and stood out now as someone for the different children to look up too.
He was glad that he had seen her find Wren. Wren was going to be good for her for so much and he’d already seen a huge change in her and in her convictions. He worried that she’d be alone for the rest of her days not finding the one she loved for fear she’d never be good enough or worthy to find love. But she found Wren and already he could see that Wren had fallen for his oldest daughter.
He wondered just how deeply that he’d see them fall in love with one and other. He smiled and wondered if Wren would accept him as family in time, marry Shaya and perhaps even in time call him dad…
He took one of the secret ways he used to go from the stables to his private living quarters and slipped in through the rooms and the hallways until he came upon his wife in the kitchen. They maintained their own apartments where they could live as close to a normal life as they could. High Queen Aeselani his wife was of old noble blood but like a lot of noble families fortunes faded and changed with various rulers and she was of noble rank but penniless. Aeselani or to those closest to her ‘Lani was a tavern waitress in a mercenary bar down in the low market of The Holy City. She wasn’t some little rich high house waif. True she was waif like, tiny and small but he was drunk with his father when he had met her. Pinched her bottom and she had belted him with her ale tray prince or not.
He didn’t know that she was the woman that his father had arranged him to marry until the next day.
He smiled at those memories as he slid in and wrapped him arms around her. Moved her hair and kissed and suckled on her ear. “Mmmm, I’m glad you’re home safe. How was things on Shaelanni?”
“Busy, and needed. Lyam’s monsters have made appearances, There’s been several oasis’s destroyed, wells poisoned, and the Salt-Landers are raising their prices to exorbant levels.”
“They still support him?”
“Not openly. But their attitudes march with his and they’re strict conservatives.”
“I’ve good news.”
“That’d be welcome love.” she turned round and he hoisted her up to the kitchen counter and they kisses some more.
“Shaya and Erendae have made a good impression at Steadfast fortress they’ve conducted themselves with dignity and honor. Wren was pushed hard by the commander and others and showed herself to be a woman who doesn’t give up.”
“Good, good she had strength in her when Shaya brought her to us. The way she faced down Shai-tan even if it was to cost her their life.”
“She’s a good girl D. I saw that in her when I worked her healing.”
“How are you feeling after that?”
“Still tired, it was harder to changed her to who she should have always been because she was human. Her age as a human was like trying to shift stone. There was so much damage she had done to herself because of never being able to be who she really was. Gods Dorian the toxins in her from her environment…It’s a miracle there’s life at all in her.”
“You care about her?”
“How can I not? She’s bonded to Shaya, they’ve become public lovers and she makes Shaya happy…I’ve been so scared of Shaya ending herself in battle doing something foolish to redeem herself. Wren’s part of my daughter and there’s so much power I’ve given up to change her it like I gave birth to her in my own way…”
“That much power?” He kissed her concerned.
“It took close to two hundred years off my final tally…” She kissed him again.
“You should’ve told me. Something like that we should have talked about.” He kissed her back. Nuzzled her face.
“Dorian…I couldn’t say no, not looking into their soul and seeing that girl there who never had anyone, never got her chance.”
“You’re a soft touch love, I thought healers were supposed to hardened their hearts?”
“That’s on the battlefield Dorian, this was different, it wasn’t triage. This was me as a mother seeing that little girl in there screaming in silence. I couldn’t turn her need away, not even if Shaya hadn’t bonded herself to her.”
“That’s what I love so much about you…”
“What’s that?”
“Your heart.”
***
It takes me some time before I wake after falling asleep in Shaya’s arms, and legs…(grin) I can smell us and still taste her. It’s an odd thing to wake up to. What is awesome though is the feeling of her snuggled into me. Shaya’s cooler skin just so right against mine, the scent of her body, her hair all blending with the scent’s of outside. Pines and spruce trees from the forests, dry hay but fresh cut as well, wood smoke and the lingering scents of horses and wood and stone.
I just lay there trying to sort out everything in my head a bit like being in combat, and how much different that was to the fight’s I’ve been in. Getting out from those dragon snake things. Arriving here after that hard flight and burning off all that power to get use here. Even being with the healers and my wounds. I keep remembering the bloody boot, the blood pouring out of it and squirting out from my wound.
I rub my leg and look at it. Long, smooth, shapely like I’ve always dreamed and not a scar, just this paleness where the skin is new. I run my hands over it and then over the rest of me gently. It’s soothing like I can say to myself, yes, I’m okay this is really me and I’m really like this. It clicked something in my head again and I yawn and very carefully roll over onto my belly and enjoying the feel of my Large breasts pushing into the mattress and the sheets. I pull my pillow into my arms hug like and actually let myself drift back into sleep. What makes it perfect is Shaya moved just right and her arm slides over my back and her pert breasts pressed to my sides.
It was beyond bliss falling back asleep like that.
It was really nice to feel Shaya slip from where she was onto the small of my back and settle there. I was woken up to feeling her starting to massage my back working her way up from the small of my back to my shoulder blades and then my shoulders. There’s the lightest of her breasts brushing my skin, her hair too and she hums. I almost fall asleep again when her fingers snake through my tangled mess of hair and she massages my scalp.
“We should make out appearance known shouldn’t we Wren?”
“Mmmm, Y’huh…we should get to our gear, clean it and that stuff and check on our boy.”
“Yes, and deliver the messages to the commander as well. But first we take care of ourselves and get cleaned up, have something to eat?”
My stomach sounded like there was a pack of hungry wolves in it. I was good, really relaxed until that point then her mentioning it made my body sit up and pay attention. I blush and hide my face in the pillow. Bear was a really big guy, that was something I wanted to not see about myself again.
Shaya grips my shoulders. “Hey…It’s not that, it’s a side effect of using your majik, and fighting and getting healed it all comes from your body, it’s natural…” It’s like on cue her own stomach starts to growl and I can’t help but to laugh at the small sort of cute sounds coming from her. I roll over underneath her and smile, sit up and kiss with her. My hands holding myself up by the grip on her waist as she straddles me. I love this….the sight of her naked body, the feel of her alive astride me, that sleep and sex mussed hair of her ravens wing black against alabaster skin, the way the points of her ears peak through her tresses. I kiss her and kiss her and then take her nipples into my mouth and suckle her until she gives up this little… “Uhgn..ooohh…” of pleasure and I kiss her on the lips again.
Shaya smiles as we kiss and slides off of me. “No, no…later Wren, food, bath, duties…” I slip out of bed padding after her as she walks backwards. She turns and runs for the door laughing and I chase her. I hold her and kiss and tickle her as she tries to open the door and laughing ask for some food and a bath from a very wide eyed squire who I think got and eyeful of both of us. He stammers out a reply and I pin Shaya to the door and keep tickling her before settling, sliding down between her legs and put my mouth to her sweetness. “Food isn’t the only thing I’m hungry for Shaya.” I say as I take that first taste of her this morning. Her knees end up getting weak and I shove up into her taking her legs on my shoulders, her back riding the door and me.
We’re making love on the floor no blankets or anything just us, mouths and lips kissing each other and other things, fingers touching and stroking places that feel so good, so right and I could go one but, what can’t be explained about our link and the loop we slide into so much making up for so much loneliness.
We stop only for the knocking on the door. We grab a few sheets and cover ourselves as men at arms carry in two tubs for us and a table on which Pages are setting food down for us. The tubs are interesting, I’ve never seen leather bathtubs before and they’re big too. I smell something odd in the water and another set of people come in with a smaller table with stuff to get cleaned up with. They leave and through the door we can hear one of the young voices. “Sir? Are they trysting?”
“Aye lad, they’d be a coupling I’d say.”
“But sir, what of the way that a man’s to set to a woman, it’s this wrong? My fatha he says such things are wrong.”
“Wrong’s got little to do with anything on the battlefield youngling. Beside’s with the way they saved the men they saved and put themselves in harms way. I’ve no problem with them if their tastes run to women.”
Another voice says. “Aye, all good smelling and soft and sweet it’s just good sense to me lads.”
And another voice accented this time. “Truth in that, hells if they’d take it as thanks I’d give them the hand of my sister for what they did and what they faced.”
It’s interesting and a bit embarrassing and Shaya and I look at each other a bit blushing at the same time. We drop the blankets around us and both take trays for the food like breakfast in bed. Shaya’s staring at the food. “I’ve heard things about Rymoran food but…” she honestly looks lost about some of it. I look the food over and I see rye bread, herring in three different ways, sausages and kielbasa and sauerkraut as well as other fixings, it’s all very Northern European food, a little German but mostly Polish, and stuff like that. I’m a Detroit girl…I can remember eating at Sabina’s over in Oakwood a good cheap diner, and pretty much everything is here even a dish of perogies. It’s a nice change to actually show something of one of her cultures to her.
It’s strange that they even have cultures and ethnics but really when I think on it there’s been stories of elves or something like them in most cultures in the world. I think that my people might have known Shaya’s a long time ago.
We’re tempted to bathe together but that’s be a waste of the hot water. I’m having hot tea while Shaya’s drinking all the beer. I’m nor much of a drinker and not a fan of beers, even most wines. I’ve never been a drinker really, but if I had a choice something hot and yummy or cool and lemony, or citrusy.
It’s nice to soak but I also find out that hot water right after making love stings a little, there’s also just a bit of honey in the water to scent it and soda crystals. It’s strange with the honey though, but I’ve heard of baking soda in the bath. I does smell divine though. It mixes with the soft, soaps that are made of beeswax and I enjoy the time to just soak in the tub and relax in a way that I never really got to. I mean I’ve thought about how good it just would feel to be soaking in the tub from as a girl. I wasn’t even close as there’s water that sort of invades me, moreso when I let it which stung at first. But it’s my breasts and my body fat, that subcutaneous layer that women have and the water sort of enfolds you, cradles you in a different way. I get to do something I love to do, to feel and even before my change this tied right into all my being a girl aches and wishes.
I just lean back a dip my head into the hot water until the hot water touches the top of my forehead then sit awhile before sitting up. There’s that pull of the weight of the water going down my back and even back then it lights something female in my brain, the image of a girls wet long hair either from the shower or the pool or ocean. Back then I’d just close my eyes and for an instant…I’m almost crying happy tears of relief of this being real as I ease into the water and feel my breasts lift from the buoyancy.
I look over at Shaya who’s looking at me then does the same with thing look of Oh…I get it on her face. I get seriously cleaned up and wash my hair and run majik through it and my fingertips conditioning it and styling it while either clipping off or healing the split ends. We dress and I’m in my dusty yellow rose training clothes after slipping into my pink lacey bra and panties. Shaya in blue and she and I belt on our swords and slip into our boots and head out into the halls.
Ironspire is a real fortress, not at all like Steadfast that’s almost a city. No Ironspire is a really big octagon fortress and has huge walls but not just that but three distinct sections/or levels the first is a octagonal building that’s the base level, this is 50 feet high and holds four floors of all the stuff you’d expect to find in an knights base. Then there’s a wall five feet tall on top of that and a space forty feet from the edge of that to the next section this is used for archers, and siege weapons. The next section of the building is another four floors and is where we are staying. The roof of that is for archers where there’s also spaces for airships to dock. The scheme repeats itself twice more with the command levels and the final being for a burning mage light and the message centers. The end results a fortress with a spire rising two hundred and fifty feet in the air made of metal framing in that Islandic/Nordic way of decoration and stone and mortar so well done and worn their as smooth as any click flooring.
I’m enthralled actually, I’m getting more and more open to this world and I can get a feel of the age of the place. There’s a plaque over the doors to the main hall if I read in right this fortress has been a working military base for over two thousand years their time. I’m noticing women dipping to us and men touching right fists to chests at her and I in this gesture of respect? It’s serious too. Like actually getting respect from real fighting men back home.
We make our way through towards the stable hall they’ve cleared and readied for Bhlaze. On the way the soldiers on duty that see us knock weapons on shields, some are faces that we’ve rescued. It’s one of those lump in your throat kind of moments. I can feel Shaya’s sort of stunned disbelief. No…no…she…this couldn’t be for her? I slide up and lace my fingers of her right hand into my left. I whisper into her ear.
“Yes you. We air lifted out over a dozen and a half guys in heavy shit and took those things out. If we didn’t then they’d have hit here love. Even back home getting people out of that situation, fighting for them like you did would be a big deal home, it’s a big deal here.”
“But…But…”
“Yes Honey, you have a nice butt.” Shaya blushes and gives me this that’s not funny kind of panicky look. I feel her want her armor, to hide behind, to protect her from being respected like this.
“Wren..! This isn’t some joke, I did some very bad things, I was a horrible person…I…”
I kiss her, long and deep and holding her face in my free hand I kiss her, the weapon on shield banging get’s louder and I raise our joined hands together into the air. The sound becomes noise.
“Shaya, it’s you they see not Illian, it’s you they respect and love for this. Just like I do.”
Snakes and Ladders 13.
Chapter 13
I lower Shaya’s hand and I smile and pull her into a kiss. I really love kissing this woman. So I make it long and slow and sweet just kind of pouring all that lover, and that whole soft sexy girl on girl thing into it. I’ve had a long time with the fantasies that have been in my head most of my life and while Shaya’s had them too there’s a lot of her buried under the hammering that being Illian had done to her soul.
“Come on let’s go find Bhlaze.”
We don’t head to the usual quartering place they’d keep an incoming dragon and rider but where he was so exhausted he was taken to one of the stone barns after they had made it comfortable for him. I’m instantly concerned when I see him because he looks tarnished. There this layer of almost a tarnish like color over his scales and his plates and he’s still covered in soot. He was sleeping until we came in on this huge pile of straw they put out as a make do mattress.
Shaya looks at him. “Ooooh, Gods I’m sorry I should have bee down here sooner, you look terrible.”
~Oh well thank you so much beloved for appealing to my vanity, and yes you should have been down here sooner. They’ve been good enough to bring me some food but they’ve kept clear by custom. ~
I can’t help myself; I wade through the Straw and hug him. “I’m glad that you’re okay. You are okay aren’t you?”
~I’m alright Erendae, I’m very strained though and very tired, I’m not used to channeling that much energy in battle.~
I look him over. “Well you could use a good scrubbing for one, there’s nothing like a good bath I find to help fix me up.”
Shaya’s nodding. “Do you thing that you can walk to the rider’s hearth?”
~It will be a trial but I shall persevere.~
He looks at me with these big almost pleading eyes. ~Carry me oh great Titaness? ~
“Oh no, bucko not on my best day could I budge you. C’mon you big sook let’s go.”
He droops his head and there’s this heavy weary very played up sigh that comes out of him as he stands. We head out and head up the levels to where the dragons get quartered with their riders. Only part of it is him pretending to malinger. I see a real drag to his tail and that all too familiar look in his eyes that I knew so well at each landing of the stairs we take. It’s that making yourself move and do something when your bones just hurt.
There’s a change after a moment and he cough/barks at Shaya, it’s oddly like one of the calls like the raptor made on Jurassic park it’s a very reptilian sound. ~Shaya….!, do not I am fine enough to do this as I am.~
He’s ticked, his mental voice is gruffer and he’s…oh…I feel it now, she’s taking some of his pain into herself and he’s objecting to it. I turn to both of them and he’s got her pinned to the stone railing with his snout and he’s glaring at her with the eye on that side turning his head so the eye is looming closer to her.
“Oh for fucksakes.” I throw my arms in the air then walk over to both of them her I pinch her ear and him I grab that eyelid.
~OW!!!~ emanates from both of them through the bound we share. Here I have the advantage. I had kids. Grown and out on their own but I had kids. I know how to hit them both with the parental scorn and you’re being stupid bit.
They both look at me like I’m the one that’s lost my mind and then they start to clue in as to how this whole thing looked to the people and troops around us. “Shaya, baby you should have asked if he needed help, he’s not too thick headed to take help when it’s offered are you Bhlaze?”
~No…~
“Sorry, Bhlaze I should have asked, I was just so worried.” She’s almost pouting and looks genuinely chastised.
It’s got to be an elf thing that they can seem so young all of a sudden. He looks like he’s a puppy that made a mess the way his neck is arched and the droop of his head.
I hug both of them. “We’re all bonded here, let’s just let it all flow together and share in all of it and we’ll get there together, okay loves…?”
They both nuzzle and snuggle into me and then there’s the feeling of the weight of his pain and exhaustion filling out and being shared between the three of us. I tighten the hug and I push back on the tired hurting aching feeling like my arms and legs and my back are aching so much.
I just set it aside.
Just…? Yeah. See I spent most of my adult life kind of like this. In a body that wasn’t supposed to be the real one of mine and getting to the point of where things hurt. Inside and out I guess living that life, being as big as I was even though I had kept trying to shed it there was a shitload of emotional pain and issues that drug me down because of my never really being able just to be me. Now add that into a life of just human life and all the bullshit back home and bad health issues that Shaya and Bhlaze would never know and y’know what?
I still didn’t let it crush me. Oh there were times I was face down in the emotional much with an elephant on my back but I still carried on, got back up, still fought. It’s who I am; it’s part of my soul.
I just, just can’t give up.
I’m a Detroit girl there’s Motor City steel in this heart of mine.
So yeah, Just…is just that. I’m still so used to living with all of that pain I set it aside and I carry on, but not just me…in my heart I put a shoulder under Shaya and Bhlaze too and we start moving together. It’s a powerful moment because this in them finally feeling me.
I’m Wren Phoenix, and I’ll pick you up and carry you if I have to. I’m strong as I ever need to be for the one’s I love.
I even smile as we walk. “It’s just two more flights the a few dozen yards and there’ll be all that piping hot heated sand.”
I get an almost shiver as does Shaya at the longing feelings from Bhlaze. It’s that deep longing ache for a hot bath when everything hurts and you feel like you’re sick.
It’s not that far but it sure does feel that way and there’s such a relief from him Shaya and I both lean on him as he sort of crawls into the sands like we would a quilt. We’re pulling out of the bond and he’s snout nuzzling both of us. And that’s when my heart almost falls to pieces… When he thinks/link speaks… his heart so full of feeling like he’s not just being our bonded but a person we love… he’s so flooded with those feelings that there’s and almost whine almost whale sound as he thinks ~Thank You.~ at us and there’s two big tears that spilled from his eyes….
I didn’t know that dragons could cry.
Okay…Yeah I started bawling.
And Shaya’s bawling.
And we’re both hanging onto the big lug’s head and hugging him for all we’re worth and I can literally feel something change in the three of us and get just a little stronger?
And then of course he’s got to be a guy and ruin it, make us laugh as he thinks to us.
~Dammit…I’m a dragon, and here I am stuck bonded to two overly emotional women, not one but two of you…no wonder I’m a crying wreck. ~
~Damned hormones…~
It was absurdly funny. Him saying that.
And then I pictured him in the look and the make up that the dragon is done up in for the Shrek movies and I can’t help it the giggles started and O lost it I laughed until I had to run around almost cross legged looking for the bathroom because I had to pee.
Which made him and Shaya laugh at me. Actually my need to go potty king of amuses them because apparently elves have the bladder of a freaking camel. It’s like water conservation or something….they find it funny because no one they know of goes to the bathroom as much as I do.
……………………………… Well I get taken care of and he falls asleep and Shaya and I get the things from the supply room set aside for the dragon riders and start scrubbing him down as he sleeps. There is a weird kind of residue that was left on him like you’d see in electrical systems open to the air. And the soot and everything it’s a heck of a lot of work but it’s so worth it every once in a while feeling him knowing he’s loved and cared for and that…that the three of us are family. It’s still a lot of work though kind of like scrubbing down a leer jet by hand he’s about the same size give or take.
The Rymora bring us more food during the few hours that we’re taking care of him and that Shaya’s mixing things to balm some of his wounds from the fighting.
It’s still that kind of polish food and the rye bread kind of stuff and I eat a bit more sparingly but don’t starve myself either. Shaya really doesn’t care for this kind of food except for the perogies. She likes anything with potatoes in it. I’ll have to make her French fries sometime.
……………………………….The rest of the day we spend getting the grand tour and getting acquainted with their dialect of Sylvan and the place itself. There some things I really love here. One the dogs, there’s a lot of dogs here and they’re all those lovely sled dog breeds. There’s no snow and they use them actually on wagons here during the summer months and pulling on other things including having commands for them to run tethered to a milling wheel or trained to run solo as messengers for the scouts.
Shaya has a huge love of these dogs. It was just worth so much to see her just completely girl out and lose it around the puppies they had in the kennels. It was like feeling just some of the hurt and bullshit inside her just get washed away. I got a little misty watching her and I’ll have to ask if they make anything like a camcorder with this majik-tech of theirs. I would have loved to get this recorded.
The horses too, I love the look of those great big draft horses that they have here but these are just beautiful looking animals and there’s so many just stunning horses her and their huge. So much like those heavy Nordic, German, Icelandic breeds all except for the horses for the knights….oh my…they’re the Sylvan version of the Lipizzaner horses. And not like the shows they put on I got to watch them in their gear and barding with their knights and doing this full on combat dressage while their riders sparred and fought.
One of the knights waiting talked as Shaya and I looked on. His name’s Evander. “The Sleipniri are raised to do this since they are very young, we teach them dressage ways as we teach our pages and squires and each horse knows the rhythms and movements of their riders they are one of the great breeds. The Shaelani have their wonderful horses but we are truly blessed with our Sleipniri brothers and sisters.”
I’m curious. “Given how long it takes to train a proper knight how long do these Sleipniri live?”
“Ah you do not know of the great breeds?”
“No, I’m still really very much the new student here.”
“Yes, this is good that you ask. It’s much better to learn about each of us from our own words.” He smiles and he’s sort of cute in that built but not elf way with the Dutch/Swede fair hair and blue eyes. I love his accent though. We’re speaking common sylvan but to me he’s got this sort of northern European kind of an accent or the elfin equivalent of a Rymoran speaking common as his second language. Y’know what I mean.
It’s actually very much like all those regions here mashed together? The amount of blondes though. For awhile I was really amusing myself in the boring parts of the tour by mentally overlapping some of what was being said with the Swedish chef from the Muppets or singing along to ABBA tunes in my head.
I still can’t get “Take a chance on me.” Out of my head.
I look at Evander and smile. “I think that might be the idea the king had when he sent me on this tour with Shaya, that and to get some seasoning in before my duel.”
“Duel? Whom are you challenged by?”
“She calls herself Lady Kyte.”
*** Lady Kyte………………
She dodged and danced and moved and parried and performed move after move beating back the three men she’d been sparring with. Lord Bael Kyte watched his niece with a frown on his face that marred his fine Sylvan aristocratic features. His knight Roan looked on impassively as she fought well, really well they supposed…for a woman.
He walked into the walled yard and paced a bit as she fought and reached up and played with one of the roses growing out of the hedge.
“Wren Phoenix has won herself great honors by meeting the enemy in the Darklands and has been called hero by some. According to my contacts.”
“What!” she turned and took a graze from one of the swords.
There was sneers that just said… of course and pathetic from her Uncle and Roan. Jesslynn’s cheeks burned with anger and shame. She hated her red hair and the fact her feeling flowed too strongly.
She hated Wren Phoenix, she had been taken unawares by the woman’s …no…she was no more a woman from the rumors than Illian was. It burned at her that she and others struggled so hard to be equal to make a mark and this fake just struts in and…
Bael watched as she went crazed like any other jealous wench and took her anger out on the men of the house guard until she’d bested them handily. He watched her sweat like some disgusting street whore or Shaelani slut the one thing he’d admit that it made her training clothes stick to her body in interesting ways. He smiled at her and smelled the rose. “I said that she had won honors in a fierce battle against a terrible foe in the Darklands and that the court is buzzing about her and Illian…or Shaya as they’re being called now.”
He watched her change the grip on her blades. “It seems that the courtiers are starting to talk, they’re saying that you’re going to lose the duel, that you’re the one who was being disrespectful and dishonorable to the princess and her consort.”
He smiled at her. “Oh yes, there are those calling Shaya princess, they are even being tolerant of their trysting with the woman who beat you…she beat you so easily Jesslynn. Yes even a transformed male is better than you. The one thing you’ve ever done for this house was win your shield, It’s your fathers one good choice allowing you that before he died. It at least mitigates the failure you are as a real woman…barren as you are.”
She hung her head cheeks burning with rage. No one thought she was worthy of the honors, not amongst her own kind. The barbarians and the colored elves allowed their women freedoms that she yearned for all her life. But while not forbidden by law on Highwood, Skywood and Greenwood it was by custom. Women had their place.
Except for her. She had been born cursed and fallow, unable to secure heirs no good and right man would want her except as some common whore. So breaking custom she became a knight, her father’s heir once she was titled with her shield. But she had no children nor would she ever to pass that too.
She let her uncle Bael run the family estates to save face and let him do the job he’d have when she died. He’d inherit. She was fine with that, if she died in battle it might help restore her good name, dying for the crown. It’s why she took it to the traitor…to Lyam’s black right hand Illian. If she defeated the traitor then people would see her maybe as not such a blemish. Now this…them gaining support.
She fought back the tears that so often came with her anger. Through clenched teeth she asked her Uncles council. “What would you have me do? The King has sent them on Dragonrider business, I cannot challenge Wren until she returns.”
He walked around her. “Take an airship and some men, these here will do and follow her. Make sure her claims and Princess Shaya’s are true and not some plot of manufactured lies. They could be swaying many by bedding them, you need to be there to make sure that they don’t sway too many against you and our house…plus what if Shaya tries to make contact with her master? Who will be there to know?”
“No one uncle…but we have no airship.”
“Our house must make the sacrifice of the cost to support you.”
“You’d support me?”
“Of course, you achieved your knighthood, a feat none of your brothers lived to do and I myself had failed. We hold great hopes for you.”
“I…I…I have no words for the honor you do me uncle. I’ll get cleaned up and pack for the field immediately.”
“And I my dear will arrange the ship.”
He watched her leave with almost a happy gait to her step. Women utterly predictable. He glared at the useless house guards. “Leave, go pack this mission with her will be the end of your service with us.” He watched them leave and played idly with the rose. Roan walked up. “Shall I leave?”
“Yes, and take enough funds to hire the right people.”
“But of course My Lord, The Darklands are a dangerous place.”
Snakes and Ladders-14
Chapter 14
Evander nods. “She is one I have heard of, fire haired and very angry, a lot of temper in that one.”
“Is she any good?”
“Oh Yes, she has to be. They very much frown on women having too many uses on Skywood.”
“I’ve been hearing it’s something like that. It’s not that way with the Rymora?”
“No, no, we have very little good farming lands and fishing and hunting is needed to survive, we have few trees so we must be careful with the native woods, so there are many mines and much work. There is enough work that the jobs done best are done by those who can do them best and not what in one’s trousers. I’ve yet to see a fish who cares who carves him up ya?”
“That makes perfect sense to me.” I smile at him. I was sort of getting a bit of a picture of the differences in the people and where they come from around here. I know there’s a lot that I don’t know but it’s getting like being on a haul.
Maybe that’s how I should look at all of this. I mean people are people and you’re going to have a mixed bag wherever you go but there’s a big difference between being in say North Carolina and say New Jersey. Culture and attitudes are really different.
But get my head in that place I’ve lived for so long working should help, you actually got to be a pretty good people person doing long haul trucking, adaptable too. I’m actually a pretty good people person really, despite how much of a hell it was not being me I’ll have to admit that “Bear” got along with most people. Not just trucking but being a bouncer too, it’s a lot easier to talk a guy out of things before they got out of hand.
Thankfully I’m actually pretty good at out of hand too.
I lean on the fence and watch Shaya. She’s a dragon rider and before that she was a knight and the enjoyment on her face as she watches those white warhorses go through their routines with their riders is nice.
She’s open more with me than anyone else and she’s actually painfully shy when she’s not hiding behind the military façade of hers. I love her to bits but there’s been a few times where we’ve been a bit too clingy with each other like we’re using each other to hide from things.
Sweeping some of my hair back (it’s turned a sort of caramel brown with sheens of red and just a bit of blonde notes there) I look at Evander. “So, I’m recovering pretty well thanks to the healers what around here needs doing?”
“Doing? Oh, there are many things worth doing if you wish to do some work.”
“I’d like that?” I go over to Shaya and move the hair away from the side of her neck and kiss…nibble…bite…kiss. She squirms in my grip and it’s that good kind of squirm. I end up hugging her and pressing my breasts into her back. You know it feels good doing that, and I know from being married how good it feels to have the breast of your S.O. pressed into your back. It’s kind of fun doing it from this end of things.
“Hey, I’m going to go and help Evander with a few things okay babe?”
“Babe…” she looks over her shoulder at me with that bit of cultural confusion and that raised single eyebrow. I kiss her this long and slow sultry kiss and through the link just try to convey my feelings and the way Babe is when you say it as a term of endearment rather than a word from the English to Neanderthal dictionary.
I love this feeling of just being able to kind of push those thoughts and feelings at her and see and feel it when she sorts through it all and I can really tell that she gets it. It’s something priceless when you literally have that with someone.
Shaya returns the kiss and deepens it before breaking it with a smile. “Okay babe…” she drew that out in that sexy little lilt of hers. She has this voice that even in her own language has this sexy lilt to it. Shaya sounds like one of those Indian actresses that speaks perfect UK English but has been living for years in someplace like France for a long time.
She’s so hot too. I’m walking backwards from her to join Evander and Y’know she’s got this look, I guess the best sort of way to describe her is Kate Beckensale like but from Van Helsing that vampire movie when she had all the hair…only paler, and Shaya’s hair is that sexy shimmery black so black there’s blue in it… with smaller but perfect for her boobs and pointed ears but not that retarded world of warcraft or bad anime antennae ears but the real understated yet elegant and hot version like you see in the lord of the rings movies.
Yeah…She’s the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen, those exotic eyes, and the lashes…just like her hair and long and perfect and every time she stares at you and blinks you just can’t help but to feel something.
I’m feeling it now.
It’s a good thing I’m going off with Evander to help out with things here. Otherwise I’d just get caught up in Shaya. There’s still getting turned on to get used to. I’m still not used to getting so…damp. I mean as a guy there’s some prep-liquids but this by just being a girl has to be different. You’d think it’s be that whole eeew, I’m wet thing but it’s not that bad, I like it but probably because I’ve never had this before and it’s part of being the real me.
I like the sexy sort of warmth that start in my lower abdomen, kind of like butterflies but in a good way, kind of like getting a semi-boner but it’s in reverse. No, not kidding as cliché as it is as much as a guy want to push against….now in this pull this sort of want to be opened, and explored.
It’s kind of like that but not really describable either. I love it because it’s this unmistakable feeling of girl to me I guess as much as a boner screams guy to a guy? Then there the slick that makes me glide against myself and the hard nipples and slight swell of my aroused breasts with all those nerves and the way it just wakes me to my own shimmy shake. It just all….
It’s when I’m like that I feel like every cell of me is right, fixed correct and really if I get into it too much I’ll cry because just feeling it moves me so much. There is nothing about feeling like this I think I’ll ever take for granted not after my lifetime of hell.
Oh I so got to get something done…
***
Its hours later and I’m tired in a good way and heading to our rooms. I could feel Shaya in little spots all day where I’d reach out to her or she to me. It’s so like two girls in love texting but only this sort of psychic version of it. She’d been invited to spar and train with the knights and the archers and as shy as she is this is part of that military her.
Me, I did some stuff just to help out. It’s a lot of lugging supplies from the incoming carts. Funny how that hasn’t changed and lugging some stuff up to different places in the citadel. Its hard work but I’ve never shied from that in my life. And I don’t mind the stairs either. Go ahead lose a leg and then get it back after a good while of not having it…you’ll love little things like stairs too.
I do anything that I can do to help out, even if it’s just a helping hand to carry or move something or holding open a door. Evander was right about the people here, they’re very gender equal and everyone does everything they can to help out here.
Even just chopping wood…. There’s something meditative about chopping firewood. I get looks but I get smiles to because in whispers I catch that the lady’s consort (Me) isn’t to big headed to just do everyday work.
That feels really good.
I go down to help unload some hunted game being brought in working with Evander actually learning two of his favorite spells.
I know, that’s so strange to say really, me…me doing majik but it’s not that complicated.
Sounds like I’m nuts but no matter how they explain how majik is the energy of though and feeling and that it’s part of everything, it still basically sounds like I have the force.
Take a rock, it’s a rock, everything that has ever perceived the definition of rock has committed energy into it being a rock.
Confused? So was I. But basically, energy radiates, even in ways so small we’d never get them measured but everything that lives does it, defines it by that energy. Everything that can have a spark of life energy that interacts with the concept of the rock makes it. Creates the why that nature formed rock into rock.
That energy is majik, manipulating that energy is doing majik.
So hope I got that right.
The first spell is making ice cubes. Ya first got to grab a bunch of mana and fill the water you’ve got with it. Then you picture it getting colder, either pushing heat away of pulling it out but you go until you feel because your mana’s there ice crystals and you do stuff to them. Me I kinda stack the crystals like Lego.
Which was weird trying to explain Lego to a Scandinavian elf.
The second spell was really neat; it was making bubbles in liquid, carbonating it. It’s ice making but gathering carbon gas from the air and using mana to pull it through the water. Being a good mage is like knowing recipes so much you just make something, or like dancing you know the exact feeling of what you’re doing so well you just do it. That’s spell casting.
It’s a whole lot more complicated than that by about a thousand times. The thing is most elves can do majik of some kind, Humans? I don’t know why we don’t have it home but the biggest guess we all have is my link to Shaya links me to majik because in her heart and soul and entire experience majik is real.
It’s that rock thing, you can only do majik if you know and really believe in it. Here’s it’s so culturally ingrained it’s almost biology.
Now from what I gather some people are better at it than others like some one dancing and someone being a dancer.
It’s still so fun and amazing….that I can take a mug of lemonade into a kind of sprite with ice in it.
Oh…yeah, anyways the loading docks, well the loading yard.
We were doing that and there was a bunch of noise and commotion down the road to us, yelling. I ran with the others off the dock to where we see wagons coming in looking tore up and there’s people hanging off the wagons…bleeding and burned, slashed and cut up.
I’m still not sure why I’m not more bothered by it. I suppose all the wrecks I’ve seen over the years.
Evander’s asking. “What happened?”
People start talking at once and in faster sylvan than I’m processing but I’m picking out Goblin’s and War…bats?
Then there’s soon the sound of hooves thundering over the ground, that’s something I’ve only felt with cattle. I’ve been to a few stockyards where the ground shakes. This was…this was Shaya on horseback in her armor and her helmet on and eyes just ablaze through the visor of the armor.
She blows by us on the horse she had borrowed and I’m torn between helping these people here and now or trying to take off after Shaya and the knights that rode out to face what had happened.
It turns out I really didn’t have too long to wait for both to be an issue.
We must have been a quarter mile from the gates when we had gotten to the wounded on the wagons. From everything I had gathered they came on Warbats, some kind of big assed bat that goblins are light enough to ride. They hit the homes with fire first and then as the people came out to defend their homes dropped the other goblin fighters they had been carrying. The ones with us are the one’s who were able to get out and that there were people there still fighting under siege in the town square they had barricaded off.
I really wanted to go but Shaya and the knights with her are already on their way there. So like helping out in a bad wreck I’m tying off bandages and putting pressure on wounds while others bind them and start to try and heal them. All while we’re moving and getting close to the fortress and then there’s this sound, these screams coming down on us like really bad feedback, it makes me grit my teeth and turn to see what the heck’s going on. The elves around me are staggered, like they’re in pain, and drunk both. Two fall to the ground throwing up and I turn when this whooshing…lots of the goes past.
Evander pushes me down and there’s a spear right where I was standing. I look around and see them banking for another attack run. There’s about twenty of them I’d guess Warbats with riders come to finish the job.
I’m not happy and I’m a bit freaked out too. Okay this is another one of those this is going to get bad and bloody fights and I know that. I’m certain of it. Then there’s the fact they’re goblins and whoever did the effects for LOTR was really close, like super close to the way these bastards look. And then there’s the Warbat’s…Warg-bats would be more like it. Really big wings, claws like a bat might have on its feet if they were more designed to hunt and kill game, like a cross between a bat and a bird of prey, but the rest might as well be a Warg really, the bat’s head is almost a cross between itself and a canine of some kind. We’re taking about six foot long bodies and each weighing in at between two hundred and three hundred pounds.
Each one has a goblin on it with a thing of spears or javelins or a bow. The bats come in with a scream too using their sonics to seriously mess with the elves. Sometimes all those heightened senses aren’t a good thing.
I dodge a spear and duck a few arrows on this pass and yank another elf villager out of the way of being skewered. We’d be getting back up from the fortress but they’re getting hit too from them as the Warbats loop around it to hit us again from that side.
I feel Bhlaze rousing himself forcing himself out of that healing sleep he’d been in. I’m not as affected from the screams of the bats so I grab some of the spears and start to throw them back. I go for the bats thinking that I can take it down then I can take the goblin too. I’m not that good with a spear it turns out and I left my blaster back at the castle.
We’re fighting back it’s just we’re sucking at it.
And the injured are getting worse.
Then it just comes out of nowhere really. Me doing this spell. I focus on about four of them and then there’s this image in my head of all the times I’ve been in a car accident, been hit by something and the biggest part of majik is really, really knowing something.
I’ve hit things and I’ve been hit by things and like some messed up only could be me thing there’s this ripple like wave of force that explodes from both my hands and into four of the with the force of them hitting my Rig at about sixty five!
There was even this huge sound with the blast like four freightliner horns got leaned on hard.
Each one of the four look like what’d happen to a goblin and a warg got hit by my truck at sixty five but with them doing about fifty as well into the head on.
There’s the sound and this whump-scream combo sound and suddenly there’s four nasty really nasty mid air smears that fall to the ground like I fed the through a wood chipper or something.
I feel this pull on me that would suck me under as the mana/power is being leeched out of me. I can feel it settling into my bones and it hurts, breathing hurts and I feel like I’ve been bruised in my muscles and bones. “Oh….oh…shit this sucks.” The other Warbats bank to come back and I force myself to my feet and stand tall. I go into bouncer mode that whole thing where you stand off some jack ass when he hits you and even if it does hurt you stare him down in that is that all you got punk kind of way.
I stand like this thing I just did didn’t really pull that much energy from me. Feet planted chest pushed out proud and tough like, my feet in a good stance and my hands clenched into fists.
I try and get ready to do that again.
~Erendae! Open yourself to me! ~
Bhlaze…the other part of my bonding, with a breath I pull in and I feel him through my link with Shaya…
I see her clearly now through his link and mine in that form fitting armor and fighting so gracefully she’s dancing a sword in each hand and it’s like a bloody ballet. There’s more than just the dropped off goblins but land troop, goblins on Wargs and such there too. Shaya shoves us from her thought stream neither her nor I can afford to be distracted.
I feel it…the raw power running through me of dragon bond. Of a being that can bend physics, generate lightning and fire off whatever it was the other day that made that big honking hole where the Nagas were.
It’s like getting an electric shock combined with the biggest surge of adrenaline you’ve every had and I hold my hands up in font of me at them shaking not from being tired any more but from the power in me….I can see spider lightning crawling over my skin and dancing between my fingers and I let out a war scream that get’s drowned out by the heavy truck horns and there’s five more smears and chunky rain as they come at me. They loosed a few spears at me at the same time but they shatter in the blast as it came at them.
They pass overhead and go to loop the fortress again and Bhlaze climbs out onto a section of the wall and rears up onto his hind legs and he snaps his wings forward in this arc as he blasts out a bolt of lightning and there that twist of physics thing he does at the same time and in the arc of space between his wings that bolt becomes a cone? Like a focused wave of electricity effectively tasering the dozen or so remaining and they fall, some hitting the walls at about fifty miles per hour from a couple of hundred feet, some about five miss the walls and over shoot the cliff and fall into the Darklands which is like falling into The Grand Canyon back home. The rest hit the ground and are soon taken care of by the recovering archers.
I stagger and everything starts to grey out on me there for a few seconds. Oh tired, really tired and it takes me a few really long drifty moments before I find my strength and my inner footing as it were. Like I said before, I…me…Wren carried Bear’s big butt around for way too long. I know tired, I know hurting and aching and drained and with people hurt and bleeding and them needing me I do what I always do, what’s always just come naturally to me and that’s set my own stuff aside and get up, push on.
It’s the smell of blood and the sounds of the crying that do it. I’m no knight, I’m just me and there’s just some stuff that just you got to do.
I shove up off the ground where I guess Evander’s looking at me and I go to one of the wagons and I pull my sword and cut it free of the dead horse that the goblins took out on one of their passes.
“You should not be doing this Erendae!” He’s shouting so his hearing must still be a bit off…I see some trickles of blood from some of their ears. The bat things hit us with sonics at every pass they made.
“I know, send a runner for another team, but we have to get these people out of here and into cover because there’s a big ground force out there attacking the village and likely anything else.”
“How’d you know this?”
“I’m bonded to Shaya, Bhlaze and I both saw it.”
He nods and him and several other join my pulling the thing and pushing it in for close to a thousand feet before someone came at a fast trot with another team. I’m running to out quarters as soon as they’re inside and I’m pulling on my armor. Normally it takes a lot more time to get into it and fastened but I slip into the body suit. And use majik to fasten it shut because I know what it feels like all sealed up. Another bit of majik and my hair braids itself as I get into the armored boots and gauntlets and I grab my helmet and weapons and run.
Bhlaze is saddled and harnessed already with him apparently snarling demands to the pages and squires so we can get ready. We’re running on adrenaline and before long we’re taking the run off and winging it to back Shaya up as best we can.
There’s dead goblins and wargs everywhere around the hill based village. We’re flying overhead and we can see some movement getting away from the village and heading into the deeper forest.
~Good they are in retreat.~
~How the hell did they get up here all the way?~
~Likely a built stair, or they dug a tunnels, it’s something that they missed between patrols.~
~The men we saved were scouting for this when we saved them.~ I’m all Smiles, it’s so nice hearing Shaya’s soul voice inside of me.
~I love you sweet sexy shining knight.~
~I Love you too, My Phoenix, My Firebird.~
~Oh Scales, would you to please save that for the fortress…after I’m asleep.~ Bhlaze’s irritation is matched with him giving off an audible huff as we’re winging in. I’m doing pretty good with the flying. It was about thirty miles from the fortress to here and I’m way more used to it than my first flight.
I unhook and jump off of him and run to Shaya and sweep her up off her feet a few inches as I pull us into this armor on armor clanking embrace both of us ditching our helmets to kiss.
There was worry that we didn’t let each other or even ourselves feel as we deeply kiss and probe each other with our tongues and my armor’s suddenly way too hot and way too tight and there’s this little dance thing where we kiss and she’s got her armored knee into my groin plating and I’m doing the same for a few minutes before we break it up because of our audience.
Then it’s some three hours of more hard work and flying as we transport the wounded and we get people out of there.
I look at Shaya as we get the last of them out of there. “Why would people live so close to such a dangerous place honey?”
She looks at me. “This village was an ancient settlement and it rests on a fae-well and as such it’s used by many for the working of majiks. Elder-hill is a town known for it’s potions and such with the many potent and rare herbs in the area.”
“So even here it’s about money.”
“Yes but these bat creatures, these are new.”
“New?”
“Yes new, I’ve fought here a long time in my youth and there’s never been such creatures used against us before.”
“Oh well that makes sense.”
“What does?”
“You’re people are vulnerable to their sonar and you didn’t have some kind of majik ready as a defense.”
“No, you’re right and that is not a good thing by any means. It leaves us very vulnerable and they now have means of flight.”
“So what were they after?”
“I’m not sure, but I think that this could be Lyam….it’s a weapons test. If they took the Fae-well then got one of his mages here or witches we’d literally have to fight a long and bloody fight to get it back.”
“And a Fae-well is?”
“It’s an abandoned faerie mound, but there’s enough ambient faerie majik in it that it soaks up free energy around it like a well does with ground water. It’s a powerful battery of mana.”
“Oh that wouldn’t have been good.”
“No, and that’s only a bonus prize as you’d say. He’d be very ready to attack….Oh…”
“Oh? What oh…”
“We got very, very lucky.”
“Huh?”
“The naga’s were summoned creatures. I’ll bet a hundred gold that the mage that summoned them was going to be in the attack here. We took away a very big weapon, he’d have used those to take the citadel.”
“And he’s not going to attack here now that things are weakened?”
“No, I wouldn’t, not that we now know about him and there’s reinforcements coming most likely on their way here. No he was likely even ordered to send the attack in and we’re going to very bust trying to anticipate where the next attack by air is going to happen.”
“Oh so?”
“We might stay here awhile longer just in case love. I want to be sure things are secure and I have to talk to father about this.”
“We should get back to the castle then.”
***
We fly back to the castle and it seems like hours and hours when once there I’m taking care of our boy Bhlaze while Shaya’s off to the command talking to the commander and her father I presume.
Once he’s brushed, fed, oiled and soaking in the hot sands I make my way to our quarters carrying the armor and most of the clothes I stripped out of because of the heated dragon sands.
Shaya’s already there and getting out of her armor.
I just can’t help myself and I walk over just dropping my things on the floor and I take her face again in both of my hands and I kiss her. Long and slowly and as deep as I can get sliding into her and our bond and I’m kissing that girl that was hiding in there like she was always dreaming she’d be kissed.
I kiss with that heat I used to have and that guyish determination but more me even, because I have been there where she hasn’t I’ve been the big guy kissing his girl with everything he’s got. But Me, I’ve got More…It’s that experience with the perfect reality of me being complete and as much as there’s a lot of my old style in it there’s emotionally so much more of me this me, the woman I am in this one.
Yeah…that’s probably a better way to describe it. Before, up until now I’ve been the girl kissing the girl that she loves. But here now after the last while and everything that’s happened…It’s me, the Woman I am Kissing the Woman I love.
Way more serious and way more sexy.
It goes from that to me helping Shaya out of her armor and she’s peeling off the few clothes I have on and there’s this point where she’s making maddening perfect exquisite love to my breasts and I’m running my fingers through her hair, playing with her ears. Sucking on them and I’m straddling her knee and riding and rubbing my slick sex over that fine smooth rounded bit of Shaya until I’m shaking.
I recover and pick her up and carry her into the bathing room and run us a bath with her on the edge of the tub and it’d bubbles and a slow feed of water as I sink to my knees and sink my face into her heaven. It doesn’t take long before I’m sliding fingers in too and she’s riding and rolling her hips and her fingers are all through my hair making a mess out of it but going from massaging my head to gripping handfuls of hair as she screams…cries out my name and says dirty little things to me as her essence runs down my chin and slowly drenches my chest.
There’s something so…hot…maybe kinky as she rubs my ample and sensitive breasts trying to rub her slick juices into my skin like lotion. I might have the odd moment when I might wish I wasn’t as ample but not now, this is one of the times I revel in having my DD’s.
We make love in the tub, a bit of washing and papering each other and from there too our bed. There’s this little heartfelt surge from both of us because these are our sheets, the stuff we brought from her bedroom at Lilac house in the Holy City. It just makes everything better that it’s our stuff, that no matter where we’re at we’re sort of sleeping and making love in our bed.
I know we should be knock down drag out tired but it’s been that overtired as we make love for what seems like forever.
I fall asleep dropping and nodding off spooning front to front, breast to breast staring into those eyes and we drift off finally. It’s part physical, part link but we also drift off as out heart rates go into sync and it’s like we can feel our two hearts kissing each other even when we’re not.
I’m never going to give this up.
I’m not going to lose this.
Shaya I will protect you.
I will make it better.
I Promise….
Snakes and Ladders-15 & 16
Chapter 15
If you told me at anytime is my old life that women wake up just as horny as a man does I honestly would’ve doubted it. But it’s worse, it the first time for me but its worse…or…it could be who I’m sleeping with. My smooth female skin on Shaya’s and she’s not just a girl she’s Sylvan. The tiny pores in her skin make her so smooth, and she’s a warrior so as silky and soft and sensual I feel the muscle underneath.
We’re breast to breast and her are draped over my hips and her heads tucked under my chin and I’m smelling her hair, her, the light soaps and I’m so aware of her lips pressed to my neck.
Our legs are intertwines and it’s just this whole Sapphic experience waking up and feeling like this so hyper aware and my breasts are aching and my pussy hurts. God the feels so weird to say, I think almost like I should self edit. I think I even blushed in bed. I must of moved or something but I woke Shaya who does this “Mmmm…” an this head lift toss her hair back out of her face thing like out of the movies and she smiles this kinda of crooked smile at me. “Oh…Morning beloved.” She leans down and kisses me deeply and slips me her tongue and keeps kissing me and her hands cups my breasts as much as she can handle and squeezes me perfectly…that almost sort of hurting squeezing and her knee slides between my legs rubbing my labia and the little pixie sticking her head out of my faerie mound.
“Ooooaah, Shaya, Shaya…Ughnnn!”
She rolls my breasts and I know this is the link, our bond I woke needing this and She’s so…responding to my needs. I can’t help but to lose myself in her doing this to me, making love to me. I implode in waves of pleasure after she rolls my breasts in her hands again and squeezes again and broke the kissing to take one of my nipples into her mouth.
It was one of those back arching, stop breathing, seeing spots orgasms. I fall back to the bed only to have her left arm slip under my back and hold me up. She’s so much stronger than she looks and she takes me sort of…
God she pulls me to her and kisses me, my legs are spread and over hers and her hand slips into my sex. I cry out in pleasure, her middle two fingers slide over my clitty and the rest of her fingers rubbing the other too…too…sensitive parts inside of me….
It like in the movie where the guy’s making love to the girl and they’re both sitting up on their knees and she’s absolutely losing herself in being taken. Oh I’m so being taken, I can’t even put into words how good this feels and it’s even better than I even thought, there’d been so many fantasies I had every time a watched a love scene in the movies or on TV. I was that girl, in that guys arms or really really wanted to be.
Now…
Now I’m in the arms of the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen and ever known. And It’s better than any fantasy I’ve ever had as she…it not making love, it more than that it’s f-wording while being in love.
I honestly had no idea about lesbian sex. I mean as a guy or maybe even a straight girl you’d think you know but…as we go from my third, fourth, fifth screaming orgasm I fell back and pulled her down with me as we descended into pleasure and moans and giggles, there’s so much more you can do with every little curve of each other and we make love over and over ending with me and our toy and taking her and making love to her over and over before we kiss each other back to sleep.
…………………………….I was not expecting this life to be like this, I never thought I’d spend most of the day in bed and making love.
Oh yeah, the day’s a lot longer here. Thirty six hours long and I’m so not used to that even now. I wake up and take a long stretch and smile, There’s this perfection in this, right now even with the other stuff going on. You know how you sort of feel everything tense and stuff in a good way when you stretch? Well mine is afterglow and long legs and that post sex feeling between them and the feeling of the weight and jiggle of my breasts.
I roll over to kiss Shaya but she’s gone and a note left in her place.
-Beloved;
Our time was the best recovery healing that the gods could have given me but duty has called and I had to slip away to see the commander and to use the com-array to make emergency contact with The king over the latest attack and the new creatures that we faced. I’ll return as soon as I’m done my duties if not seek me out please.
All the Love in the Universe, Your Shaya.-
I smile and smell the note somehow infused in with her scent, this mixture that smells like not just her perfume bur her skin and her sex but just ever so. I have a big smile on my face because it’s really been a long time since I’ve gotten anything remotely like this and I’ve never really got something exactly like this.
I take the letter/love note and after holding it awhile I get out one of the books I’m using as a sort of a log and sort of a journal and I slip it inside and pad my way into the shower.
I love showering. And yes it’s the feeling of the soap and the water running off and over me and my body. Right now it’s too new still and too good not to love it and I honestly think my hair is as big a femme thing for me as the feeling of soapy water running down my body.
It’s the weight of it really. Once it’s wet it just hangs heavy down my back and there’s no feeling like it.
It’s still so really five star here compared to what I’m used to. The elves have such long lives they take everything to this new level if you’re going to do something right. Unless you’re in the barracks the rooms are huge and everything to me is very high end. Human craftsmanship hardly compares really, how can it when the artisans here have centuries of experience compare to us.
I air dry and only take the time to wring out my hair. I cheat and close my eyes and touch my mana. It’s this sort of warm light inside of me that responds to my mind like a malleable force that can touch forces that aren’t physical. Like right now I’m gathering ambient heat and wrapping it around my body like a warmed up set of flannel Pj’s and then I use my power to push the moisture through my hair until it’s dry and I get dressed.
Okay I love that too. It’ll be a long time before you ever hear me complain about me getting into a bra, and I do love how pretty my things are even if I’m just getting into my training clothes.
Yellow, I really love the way that it set’s off my hair and makes my eyes pop. But then again the exact shade and cut was designed to show me off best. If it hadn’t the master seamstress that made them would have been insulted.
I start re-cleaning my gear and the weapons I own and them my armor, it’s been repaired but there’s this salve to rub into it that kills bad smells and my armor doesn’t end up smelling like a old bag of hockey gear.
I pull my sword and go through some of the patterns to keep in shape and I replay some of the fighting I’ve just done in my head and feed it some mana. It’s a self imposed illusion now. Only I can see these foes from my memory and at first I use then to shadow fight. But they’re just images of things that were. I add more power to them actually trying to make them a bit like fighting a video game opponent and I want to feel a cramp in where they hit me.
I know crazy right?
I have to be a little crazy, getting involved in all of this and everything plus there’s Kyte who want’s to pound my butt into the floor of the courts if not worse. She’s an actual knight, and that means she served here on the darklands border for a while at least.
I kind of feel like I’ve been set up to pick a knife fight back home with a captain out of the special forces or something.
I need to get better and I need to get creative in home I’m going to do that. My illusions are pretty real to me know and I get hit a lot and the cramps aren’t mild, in fact the pain gets pretty harsh and I have to fight better to get through it.
At one point I’m getting really beat on by three illusionary orcs when I feel.
~Beloved! What’s happening are you all right!?~
~Hush, Bonded Erendae is training. ~ comes from Bhlaze.
~Training, I can feel her in pain!? What are you doing Wren? ~
~Training, like Bhlaze said. ~
~But, you’re hurting? ~
~Incentive not to get hit honey, I’m okay…….~ I was trying to block this out and to keep concentrating and it’s a mixture of brawling and sword work and on of the orc’s I’d downed was quite lethally down and he planted a fist between my legs.
I cut them down all three of them in a pain boosted fury and stagger back and lean on my sword sinking to the floor on my knees my sex twitching in a really bring tears to my eyes cramp.
~What happened! ~ She’s almost shouting through the link. Almost ready to take off from where she is in this meeting with all these maps and stuff.
~You distracted me love. ~ I send he a flash of me getting straight punched in the crotch.
~Oh…sorry…~
~Uhn-huh, I’m just recovering from that one. I’m fine what’s going on? ~
~We’re trying to see where in the darklands these things were at and where they might have come from and to see where they might come from next. There’s troops supposed to be here sometime tomorrow and there will be Rangers here too and other help. ~
~Other help is good. ~
~Lady Kyte is said to be coming here and to be part of an observation party in the interests of Crown security. ~
~Oh, so what is she going to be observing? ~
~You, the conservatives are making waves that they don’t trust the reports coming out of The Darklands about Us and You and they say we cannot be certain that sorcery isn’t involved in coloring the sentiments about you.~
~Oh that’s just…..~ My brain wants to say so Effing Republican of them but she wouldn’t get the reference and I reach up and run my fingers through my hair.
~Yes Love they are being massive arserags.~ I can feel Shaya’s angry, angsty little pout and I love her for that and send to her this forehead to her’s touch and kissing her feeling which she returns and then I break it.
~I love you for caring about me so Shaya; I love you so much you know that right? ~
~I know Erendae, I know it and I can feel it right to the bottom of my soul, there was just darkness there Wren, until we found each other and my Phoenix had lit up the gloom in there.~
Dammit, I was all feeling good and kind of girly-gung ho with the training and the practice and everything and now There’s these happy tears pouring out of my eyes and I’m alone but I’m not alone because we’re bonded and I’ll never be alone again and that adds into things and make more happy tears…
Glomping. It’s the only way to describe what I’m doing and feeling at the same time is Glomping.
~Love You Wren. ~
I feel her pull away and it’s all I can do to get to the bed and cry. It’s no where near a bad cry but this is that grabbing the pillows and crying because the happy giddy so deeply in love I’m drowning in it squeeze the pillows to death thing.
Y’know I dreamt and yearned until it hurt that I could just get close to these kind of feelings.
I don’t even cry myself to sleep but instead to deep breaths and love filled sighs. I get back up and make sure my hair and my face are okay and go looking for food. I strap on my weapons belt and bandolier my sword and head down towards the barracks and the general mess hall getting those nods and salute things of respect here and there as I go.
I’m totally being stared at until I realize the strap for my bandolier crosses between my breasts and pushes my shirt a bit flat but totally is advertising my chest. Even here amongst the busty Rymora elves I’m standing out proudly. And of course the attention’s doing this whole psycho-somatic thing with me and I’m noticing my boobs more which means I feel them more.
End result my nipples are rock hard and very noticeable even through the bra and my top.
At first it’s a little embarrassing then it’s kind of fun. I mean this whole being cute, well beautiful by standards back home thing is part of who I am and I did used to dream about even just the chance of being passable, of being pretty.
So I go with it. I don’t flaunt it but I don’t hide it after awhile either. It’s kind of a real trip and a real rush to my ego and self esteem. And it’s a little scary too at the same time that there are men here that’d grace any male model shoot home looking at me with male appreciation…I’m not sure elves can do Public lust…but there is wood, and that’s like I said.
Scary and thrilling and empowering. Is it just me that feels that way when I’m doing this whole sexy thing or is this just me?
I also notice the Rymoran women look at me differently, they seem like this different breed of woman here and the women soldiers sit with the women workers buy choice I’m pretty sure a lot like the fact that being Rymoran women makes then all equal despite their stations.
I get a plate of food. I’m starved and help myself to a full board, no plates they eat on the trays in this very rustic way only the soupy stuff has bowls but they too are simple wood. I pile it on. I’d normally be a bit twitchy about this with my past but with being healed and the majik I used in the last battle and all my training I’ve already done plus the lovemaking we’d done. I have to eat or else I’d start getting down to that too thin me I was when I first got here.
So its perogies, and sauerkraut, kielbasa and really well done schnitzel’s of different kinds and potatoes done in herbs. The Rymoran food is almost this mixture of things that you’d see on home on earth from the Northern European countries all the way down to places like even Austria and Germany. I get some of this lemonade they have made there as I’m not much of a drinker and never really liked the taste of beer.
I end up taking a hit or two of something called aquavit that tastes a lot like caraway and apple schnapps. I just keep it to a few tries to say that I did but I’m not a fan of drinking in general. I never got a taste for it and I did too much bouncing and dealing with drunks that it kind of sours you on the whole drinking thing.
That and its breakfast.
Oh yeah that’s right middle ages like them drinking for breakfast. But I think they used to do that back in the olden days and stuff. There were a lot of things they did back then we don’t do now for the most part.
I smile seeing Shaya coming in and she’s dressed in a chemise and a zip up tunic/hoody and these tight hug her like a second skin canvas pants like someone poured her into something between a jean and combat fatigues. She get’s het own board and walks over to the other side of the table and leans across it and she kisses me and I kiss her back and there’s some tongue and a lot of banging and thumping on the tables around us in that whole army kind of catcalls and teasing kind of way.
She breaks the kiss and she gets this impish grin and she hops up on top of the table and walks/ climbs over it to sir down beside me on the bench to some applause at which she stands and she bows to. I love her like this, full of fun and life. She should always feel like this. This is her being sort of that rogue like her twin brother is.
We kiss a lot really not holding back on the PDA’s at all and I think Shaya wants the rumor mill to get going and we feed each other too. Shaya has a thing for potatoes and cheese and butter she eats three bowls of perogies and yet she’s not too keen on the sausages. (Giggles) I think we’ve both had enough of those.
We hear in our minds. ~The Airships are here from the Holy City, She’s with them. ~ from Bhlaze.
Shaya looks at me and I look at her and we both take our boards to the wash station and quickly wash them clean. And place them in the drying racks and head outside.
Chapter 16
I’m still really not used to the idea of a flying ship. Even though they have space travel apparently they also have flying sailboats. There’s three of them and two look pretty basic I guess. I’m from the mid-west so you’ll have to for give my lack of knowledge about the subject but the third is her’s without a doubt fancy black lacquer on it and very white sails made from silk I think emblazoned with a red bird of prey with it’s wings outstretched in a circle of some kind like a design and Sylvan writing around it saying.
“Before us will the enemy fall like game birds.”
I look at Shaya. “Nice logo, her family seems like a friendly bunch now don’t they?”
“Indeed, her family hasn’t used that “logo” in a long time. They haven’t had many knights of the renown to make that more a fact than a statement.”
We watch as she comes to the airship docks and she takes a long…long…majik done step? They’re just pulling up and she walks from the open railing to the dock a good twelve feet in a single step, riding an air flow or something. It’s actually kind of impressive and that also tells me that she’s not to shabby doing majik either.
“She’s a mage?”
“No, she’s a majik user but no mage.”
“What’s the difference?”
“Mages use majik as their primary craft; if she was a mage then she’d not have the issue with us.”
“Why?”
“Her family barely allowed her to try for her shield, to allow her to become a mage would be putting way too much power in the hands of a woman.”
“Fucking assholes.”
“Yes, they are abusive sodomites…same cut and cloth as my Uncle Lyam.”
I hug her and then there’s this feeling and she’s staring at us. She looks quite formidable actually. Her lithe body is sheathed in this red leather and around her small bust there’s what looks like chainmail peeking from under the leathers and she had knives strapped to her thighs and two swords on her back as well as two of those blasters like I have that resemble wheel lock pistols. Her face has a touch of make-up enough to make her green eyes look fiercer and her hair has a braid hanging down in front of her ears and the red of her tumbly red locks are held back by a pony tail.
There is no mistaking the sneer on her face as she stares at us. She has an entourage of warriors in her family colors with her and she walks down the stairs and trying to go past us like we’re supposed to move out of her way.
I stare at her and she stares at me.
“Move.”
“Say please.”
Shaya bristles and glares at her. “Curb you rudeness.”
“Oh I’m sorry my Prince.”
It’s a reflex, I don’t know where it shorted out my rule about hitting a woman but I slapped her in the face before I knew I had done it.
She pulls her swords, Shaya pulls her sword there’s a fast clash, Kyte’s men pull their swords, I pull my sword and it’s about to get interesting when there’s men and women in green cloaks with knives to all of us and this elfin woman in grey leathers and a grey cloak and a leather breast plate/cuirass with a decent push up effect. She had her sword in between Kyte and Shaya’s blades and she had light brown hair head back only by a braided leather headband and steely grey eyes.
“Ladies, please we’re all here on urgent business so can we skip the drama and all do our jobs.”
She’s even got this smirking wry half smile on her face like she finds this all a little funny.
“She insulted my lover, and the princess.” I say evenly.
“Oh?”
“She called her, “Her Prince.” It was a little rude so I tuned her up a little bit.”
“Tuned? You slapped her; I suppose you mistook her for a piano?”
“It’s just slang from my homeland.”
“Still Miss Phoenix the slap wasn’t necessary. The Princess is a dragon rider and she should be made of tougher stuff….I mean considering what you’ve been through Lady Shaya.”
“She drew steel on Wren.” Shaya says looking the woman over.
“And that was uncalled for as well.”
“The big titted bitch deserves to be taught a lesson!” Kyte spit at me.
“Fine….Here and now, no blades, no blasters and just fists and feet.”
“Fine by me, I’m a little sick of her attitude!” Dammit! She and I said it at the same time.
The woman pushes us apart and her Rangers take our weapons away from us and escort us over to the horse coral. It starts to rain and Shaya’s looking at the woman in greys. “Just on whose authority are you doing this?”
“My own?”
“And you are Lady?”
“I’m No Lady. I’m a Paladin.”
“This is a noble matter.”
“No it’s not Wren has no title, she’s as common born as I am.”
“That still doesn’t give you the right. Who are you?”
“I’m Sage-Commander Illisia Truewood, of the Temple of Deneir.”
“Oh……”
~Honey? Who is she? ~
~Paladin and one of Father’s hand picked generals. She’s the Sage-Commander. ~
~Sounds like she’s a Librarian. ~
~She is, but picture someone who never forgets a single thing she’s seen or read and apply that to fighting and warfare. ~
~Oh…she’s SONTBFW then. ~
~Sont…biff? you have lost me beloved.~
~Oh sorry it means Some-one-not-to-be-fucked-with. ~
~Oh…uhm…indeed….Wren!~
~Yeah…~
I’m taking that as it was meant to be a warning as Kyte stepped in and she hits me while I was talking to Shaya through the link just as fast as fast gets I guess. The first hit is a punch to my mid-section and it drives the wind out of me and then several more hits in rapid fire almost martial speed to my torso and she steps back as I double over and she still has enough speed to punch me in the kidneys.
I hit the mud now becoming muck in the bottom of the coral.
“Had enough wench? I’ll give you the beating of your short life.” She yells at me.
I do a slow push up out of the muck looking at her and smiled. “Girlie, you haven’t even gotten me warmed up yet. You want to do this, let’s do this.”
Snakes and Ladders-17
Chapter 17
She’s yelling at me and I was getting up but I stop partway and move my feet through the muck until my feet dig into something that gives me a grip.
“Come Erendae! you think you can just show up and slight me!, My family! Women, Real women! And I wouldn’t take you to task!”
“I am a real Woman.” It just comes out of me and there’s something in me that honestly claims that. I actually think it’s the first time that I’ve ever said it out loud with absolute truth.
I shoot out at her in as close to a classic three point stance as I could get. They don’t have football here so she has no idea that it was coming. I hit her totally different than I would’ve before. I’m lighter but actually stronger than I’ve ever been before. I have these really long powerful legs too and proportionally strong shoulders.
I hit her hard enough we keep going eight feet after I hit her before we wetly smack into the much and I hear the wuffle of wind getting knocked out of her.
Bitch is tougher than I thought; I’d have thought that I’d have broken something. “Stay down Kid.” I emphasize the word Kid. She might be hundreds of years older than me but she acts like some spoiled rich kid.
She’s fighting to catch a breath and I don’t fight fair so I hit her while she’s down and I hit her again and again. I’m hitting different areas on her head. I’m strong like I said she’s going to get a beating and if I can knock her out so much the better but I’m trying not to hit her in the same place in case that’d do too much damage.
She’s a tough little so and so.
She takes two really good thumps to the face on purpose and she gets a breath and she goes all squirmy on me. She’s skinny and strong as shit and covered in mud. She uses that to her advantage by being as slippery as and eel and she gets out from under me and up enough to grab me by the hair and throw me/pull me backwards by my hair with the back of my head getting slammed by her knee.
I try to get free and get a half body turn before she hauls me into a knee in the face. That really hurt like hell but I grab her by both of her legs easy enough with her trying to knee me again and I lift her up into the air and swing her down.
They call that move a power-bomb back home in wrassling. The good thing about that while most of it’s all fake it really shows you how to mess someone up pretty damned good.
Okay enough of this crap between the tackle and this; her torso if nothing is broken has to be massively hurting right now.
She kicks me in the head; well sort of a stomp really the flat of her boot meets my face snapping my head back.
Another one this time to my right breast.
Another one and I grab her leg and slid one hand up fast to her knee to get a grip…she seems to sense what I’m going to do and sits up straight and punches me in the side of the head and I reel back but keep her foot and we both surge sitting up and she hit’s he again but I don’t grab her knee this time.
I thought this’d work considering on Shaya it’s one of her erogenous zones. I take the smash to the face and taste blood but this time I punch her in the ear.
Of fuck did she scream.
I’m ending this because as she’s trying to roll around in pain I put my hand on the inside of her knee and push suddenly and hard sideways breaking it and taking it right out of the socket.
Part of me hates having to do this. I hate that sound of her screaming but I’m not doing this every couple of days or whatever. I let her roll around a few minutes then sit up onto my knees and grab her good leg.
She screams in panic and tries to get away clawing at the mud and I get ready to do the other one. Then I yell at her. “This is it! We don’t do this anymore until we get back to the palace!”
“No! I can’t let you keep deceiving every one! I’ll expose you for the beast and liar you are!”
Oh I should’ve, I could’ve broke that other leg.
Instead I shift my grip and yank her all the way up to standing only I catch her and hold her with one fist twisted into her tunic and I’m holding he off the ground. I lean in and stare her in the face and say loud enough maybe to get through that thick skull of hers.
“I swear by my God and all of your Gods and Goddesses that every word I’ve ever spoken here has been nothing but the truth!”
She going to say something but I cut her off. “I swear it… So Mote It Be!” I put essence into those words each and every one of them and here from what the ones who had been teaching me how to use my majik at Steadfast Said when you swear by the gods and the cast a “So Mote It Be.” With real power if you’ve broken that oath or were speaking falsely then the gods would claim you and cast you into the darkness.
Kyte’s eyes went wide and the place went silent. There was nothing that happened…actually not nothing. It chose that moment to stop raining and the sunlight came out.
I stare her in the eyes and hold her gaze until she drops her eyes from mine and she has tears running down her face.
I’m quieter now and while I’m talking I lower her to her good leg and say. “We’re done here; Kyte there’s no more fighting between the three of us. I godswore and you know what that means.”
She nods but she’s quiet.
“It means when I said that Shaya is Shaya that means that it’s true. She was trapped in Illian, as Illian and tortured by that as sure as any evil majik and the same holds true for me. We are women, real women and we’ve always have been. What Kailynn and The Queen had done wasn’t transformation majik but it was soul deep healing majik.”
“But…but…They say…” she stutters and sniffles.
“They say a whole lot of shit don’t they and while you’re here they’re likely saying in about you too. It’s funny that you tried to do right by your family as much and as hard as you could and they treat you like they’re doing you a favor even talking to you and you’re the one doing all of the work.”
“How’d you know?”
“People tell me things Kyte. I wanted to know about you since you seemed to be so keen on hurting me or Shaya. I’m going to protect her no matter if she’s a dragon rider or not. She’s been hurt enough; you know she still hates herself more than any of you could? That she still cries herself to sleep sometimes?”
“No…just that the royals used their majiks to try for a legal scapegoat…”
“Well, you can’t fake a godsoath. Illian Andreyas Highwood hasn’t been around for a long time now and Shaya is Shaya…trying to make up for the hell she’s been through and trying not to drown in all the blood that was spilled.”
“I…I’ve been very wrong haven’t I?”
“You’ve been under the thumb of a family and a part of your culture that doesn’t want you to stand up for yourself or else they’ll look like the small and petty people they are. It’s only your fault to a point. It’s damn hard to break out of the way things just are where you’re raised. I know, there’s a lot of people who don’t want you to challenge the way things are. They don’t want to se anyone try and do it where they didn’t it’s a bad reminder.”
“You sound like you grew up a girl on Skywood?”
“Part of me would have loved that just to be a real girl instead of the life I was trapped in then. But close…I wasn’t what they call blue collar, a sort of slang from low to mid-low income families, the working poor. And home there were those in that same boat that wouldn’t want someone to get ahead because it reminded them of where they were at so they made damned sure nothing changed or tried but it was the money types that really didn’t want someone who had to claw their way to equal footing to them to do that. Because they’re way of life or seeing the world might have to change.”
“But what does that have to do with me?”
“Kyte you served down here right?”
“Yes.”
“In a Skywood fortress or on tour.”
“Steadfast mostly but I did long patrols too…Why?”
“That means that you are a knight of Skywood by granted title, they had to acknowledge you getting your shield here right?”
“Yes….”
“Then you’re first and foremost a Knight of the Realm. The entire Sylvan realm and not just to Skywood and your Family.”
“I don’t understand.”
“You’re supposed to protect people, innocents those in need and facing injustice. Too make the world a better place both in the field and at home right?”
“Yes!” she’s looking kind of excited, like I’m getting through to that part of her that stepped into training despite the attitudes.
“Then why are you listening to nobles who aren’t sworn to the crown itself? You’re a Sylvan knight girl, you out rank then at the royal courts and they know it. And the last thing they want you to do is know it.”
“What…but…they…”
The Sage Commander is opening the coral gate for us. “What it means as both the daughter of a noble and a Kingdom knight you by right of service to the crown could claim the full rulership of you house and your lands.”
“But Uncle and the others…”
I look at her and hug Shaya then lean on her so I don’t fall down. “It means that they likely told you it wasn’t any concern of yours and it was men talk or something.”
She nods. “I’ll…”
Shaya reaches out and grips her shoulder. “You’ll do nothing yet. They set you against us to see if we’d do something horrible. Instead stay, help us there’s been more than enough trouble here I think that we can all use a good fighter and another blade.”
Kyte looks at me. “I’m not so sure about being a good fighter, this is twice you’re beloved’s bested me princess.”
“It’s Shaya or Lady if you can’t use my name. I’m a dragon rider remember? I’ve no court rank. And Wren well she doesn’t fight fair.” She says that about me with a smile and I love that she’s smiling about me like that.
“There’s no such thing as a fair fight.” I say snuggling Shaya’s face. I might be plenty beat up but this turned out way better than I ever dreamed it would and it’s making me snuggley.
The Sage commander gives a nod to her men who are returning our things to us and taking Kyte with them.
“I’ll see you both in the morning, by that time I’ll have a good idea of our next steps to take. Lady Shaya get your girl to the healers then …well, I’ll just wish the both of you a good time.” She saunters off with a bit of this wink? And a bit of a cocky swagger to her that seems like she knew what she was doing by ordering me and her to bash things out.”
Shaya pulls my face to her lips and kisses me. “Come with me lover we have orders.”
“Yes Ma’am.”
Snakes and Ladders-18
Chapter 18
I let Shaya lead me away and I’ve been here, that right after a really good scrap feeling only it’s different too. I talked her out of that toxic hole they shoved her into…but more than that or at least to me I didn’t lose my shit as Bear. I mean it’s not like I used to be nuts or a psycho and even when I had to fight like this I tried to keep it calm but once Bear got his claws out that’s when I was this person I didn’t like.
That part of me scared and made the girl hiding in me cry alone and often in the dark once things were said and done.
But today, as bad vas this got this was me. The real me. Wren Phoenix. And the fight ended the way that I wished all the fights I’ve been in could’ve been done. With honor and understanding and truth.
The stuff I’m really about.
I almost don’t feel the pain though as I can feel through our bond how proud she is of me. It’s such a heady and amazing feeling because there’s meaning and context behind those feelings and Shaya is proud of me for being such a strong woman, and honest and for trying to do things the honorable way.
To get that kind of real validation is really powerful and it’s one of those things that sink into you. Proud…of me…and Woman…and all those feelings and things that I’ve always attributed to women that I’d met in the past who were great stand up girls that I respected the hell out of suddenly, well not suddenly but….it’s still new enough that these feelings being me it still means so much.
It changes the way that I see my reflection.
Its way more Wren walking in that reflection the window than Wren who used to be Bear.
I’m in that rush still when I’m taken to the healers at the infirmary. I don’t know a whole lot about sylvan healing but it is medicine. They check me out just like any other doctor only different. The healer introduces himself as Gabriel takes out a talisman thing that I’m going to call for lack of a better term a remote from a dome on the wall that looks about the size of a small wok with majik writing on it a few gems wired into it like modern electronics too.
I feel him cast a spell and there’s this strange feeling washing through me a few times like ripples in a pond only it feels like when you step under a soft shower. That feeling on your skin? It’s sinking through me in pulses.
Then it’s in the remote somehow and like some science fictiony thing I and all my medical stuff comes up on this hologram of my body and he’s able to look at everything. My mind goes to just this stuff and home. I mean this is every part of me there in layer after layer there and that scan spell…he might have touched me for an entire minute. He asks me a few questions and I tell him the stuff I do know and see it going into a file there in the holo-med me’s notes.
“Gods this would save so much time home.” I say it more to myself but end up explaining human health care to him and Shaya. She’s rubbing my back and stuff but he’s looking like a cross between mortified and upset.
Then he’s telling me they can re-grow lost limbs.
That gets my crying.
Turns out limbs and organs ever can be healed and replaced because the information is there in our cells. It’s there and the various bits of majik in healing spells tell the cells to remake or regrow the damaged part. The guidance and the reproductive cost for doing this varies in the amount of energy used and how much the body uses food energy and stuff to make the cells.
Sure the new limb if weak and is literally brand new but unless battle curse majik happens sylvan healing leaves no scars, and replaces limbs and organs…
My mind goes to the huge number of …
Just…
Shaya’s crying with me as I try to get it out, I reach out and with a trickle of my own mana I show him home, the just sheer suffering there that’s…
He weeps too but that noble healer, sworn oath knight thing and he grips my shoulder.
“Lady Erendae that your heart cries for you people for all those in that kind of need tells me so much about you and should you ever find a means to return to your home and here then you have but call for my service and I will come home to this “earth” and use what powers I have to help all I can.”
I hug him how the hell can’t I? “Thank you gods thank you so much Gabriel, that’s a huge gesture.”
“Tis not a gesture lady, it’s a promise.”
I hug him again and this time Shaya does too.
That all happening and all I’m going to say that they don’t rely on it all to be done by majik. They set bones, sew wounds and apply all these general medical stuff just like home then apply the healing as needed.
As needed. While talking I kind of get that. Healing takes energy and they have to triage that energy, you go into for a normal head cold and a Sylvan healer is most likely going to treat you just like if you went to the hospital home.
And apparently elves do get sick just like everyone else only by the time they get to a certain age they’ve got a huge amount of anti-bodies. Built up plus they have booster shot spells? Tiny spells like flu shots with some other stuff in it but basically they boost their resistances.
Shaya’s as intrigued as me and because of me and she knows almost no healing majiks having been a knight and Gabriel teaches us a few small cantrips that tell the body things to feel better. Breath well…that’s like a decongestant/inhaler majik and an anti-allergen spell that might be very useful and a throat balm spell that reduced the swelling that causes sore throats.
We’re both really kind of happy and buzzed by the learning how to do this stuff and there little flashes of home and just how these few things could help… and the money I could save the people home that can’t afford it…and Shaya shows me little flashes of there being places very poor and like that here in the sylvan realms too.
I’ve had this image in me of this place being so fantasy and not with some of the problems at home but there’s what looks like those cheap work camps and there’s some slums and things in places that I never thought to see here.
Makes sense unfortunately, with there being people here like Kyte’s family in the realms and Lyam then there will be those that they treat like garbage.
Getting back to our quarter we kiss and end up in the shower together making love touching and washing and caressing each other and being tender, so tender and fingers going to places where I’m loving fingers to go and…and while on our bed making love new majik bubbles up from somewhere in the back of my brain and using my power and her’s I tap out link and there’s this telekinetic tether between my clitty and hers and when I’m getting myself closer and closer to orgasm by rub-humping her thigh she’s feeling what I’m feeling and intertwined I’m feeling her rubbing herself into my thing and the combined feeling and effect for both of us is amazing…
It’s like were frenching each other with our clitties…
But better because we’re face to face and kissing and touching each other’s breasts and fall into these great heaving orgasms.
Shaya screaming in pleasure face in my cleavage was so effing amazing…and me…I’ve…I bit her shoulder and actually sort of scratched her back or I would have if I actually had nails.
One of the best things though was our cuddling together into our sheets and talking together for like…it was hours about healing and these things in our heads and our hearts that we really want to do to help her people and mine.
I said we didn’t really sleep right and talked?
Fourteen hours we talked then made love again and talked some more and there’s stuff that I learned that even with the bond that is making me fall more and more in love with her.
She loves bacon…that’s funny but she’s never had the traditional bacon and eggs, and no clue what hash browns are.
I tell her about home and my sister…and how much I loved the orchards and how good a person she was.
She tells me that she loves flowers but her favorite flowers are actually dandelions. I love that and it’s so cute really.
We both like lemonade, we both like popcorn.
We both like good BBQ and I’m surprised that they actually do BBQ or have the different styles of it from different place just like we do. And apparently there’s a twenty one sylvan generation place back in The Holy City.
It was like back in the day when it was an armed camp and under the protection of The Great Tree. Apparently the place started was a grilling pit place to feed the gathered army that defeated the great evil.
She’s never had waffles, they don’t have waffles here. She loves pancakes.
She loves furs, she has lots of them but her people only hunt for need and to control the populations. I’m not really used to furs or as much leather as I’ve been expose to here but I’ve always liked leathers.
She likes girly clothes and she’s been making up for so much lost time filling her closets with everything she can afford. I haven’t had the chance to go shopping and really fall into that part of things even as cliché as it might seem.
Shaya didn’t get the whole cliché part but she loved the thought of us shopping together and trying things on and sexily and lovingly modeling for each other. I love the fact her eyes light up when she talks about being a girl and then get’s all embarrassed about it.
Her skin is so fair it really makes he seem so beautiful so girl next door in a way and I’ve always had a thing for the girl next door.
……………..fourteen hours we talked and made love all night right through until the morning watch. We were just snuggled together ourselves sort of in this blissed out bonded afterglow together when the knock came.
“The Sage commander would have you to meet with her for the breaking of the fast.”
I look at Shaya and she at me then we both look out the window at the light beginning to filter in. I call out. “We’ll be there as soon as we’re able, where should we go?”
“I’m to escort you to her quarters m’ladies.”
I kiss her a long and deep kiss that soon has us using tongues and there’s this desperate but giggly need for us to have a quickie together. God I love her so much the feel of her silky skin and that cascade of her hair over my body and the taste of every part of her that just drives me wild and we’re all fingers and tongues and them she slips down and it’s her fingers and her tongue.
Then some more fingers…then some more…then oh...oh...
“Oh Shaya!!!” I cry out forgetting about our attendant outside and she slipped her entire small slender delicate elfin hand into me…
She’s smaller that me in that slender little china doll kind of way and while she’d never been able to do this to a sylvan girl I’m a lot bigger…
But I’m losing my mind in the sheer feeling of being so filled by her touch and she moves in and out of me slowly and first but she’s able to touch and feel and put pressure on parts of my sex that have never been touched and I’m writhing of the bed and bucking my hips because it’s good, too good, so good…I’m whining and both of my hands are on my breasts and when I cum it’s hard…like gushing and squirting into her hand hard and I bite my lip hard and my eyes rolled back in my head as I have the worlds first grand-mal-seizuregasm.
Followed by three more little cums as she cleans me out…drinks me like a sacrificial cup.
She helps me up afterwards and I’m in a dozy haze of sex stupid until I get with her under that water of the fountain shower. Even then I’m so floaty in my body and loose and relaxed that I’m just drunk on love.
I dress for breakfast with the Sage Commander in just the sexiest black lacy under things that I have and wear a sheer white silk shirt with a pair of dusty yellow training pants like a kind of yoga pant but I leave my shirt untucked and like those artist girls I put a belt around it. Sure it’s my sword belt but that just adds to the effect of my lacy bra and leaving the top two buttons undone and I use a touch of power and style and dry and set my hair so that I have that sultry sexy hair style like some of the movie stars home all this sexy mass of small tumbly wavy curls just some in my face just as a tease and the rest falling over my shoulders and down my back.
Another few cantrips and my lips are the perfect shade of soft kiss me f-me red hinted but glistening and there the eyeliner and shadow and mascara look too complete with long long lashes.
I smile at Shaya who is staring at me.
“I’m starved Shaya, shall we go?”
“Erendae, we’ll go and I’ll be the proudest person in the castle to walk in with the most beautiful woman in the galaxy on my arm.”
It so wasn’t just one of those things either, I can feel the truth of her saying that through the bond and there is this feeling for me too that is sinking into like a cure for my heart and soul that she’s seeing me, the real me…
And she thinks that I’m beautiful…
Snakes and Ladders-19
Chapter 19
We head to the breakfast together arms linked and I’m feeling just awash with wonder at her. Hell with the whole thing, this world and all of it but mostly because Shaya loves me and thinks I’m beautiful.
Feeling beautiful has done huge things for my soul.
We get escorted not to the food hall but to the dragon’s quarters and both Shaya and I look at each other as we enter. There’s several tables set up and it’s low on servants but high on the Sage-Commander’s troops and while everyone’s dressed as comfortable as we are there’s tables set up that are being covered in gear?
“Welcome I hope you two are well rested.” She smiles at us. I grin but I’m blushing too, Shaya too and she’s got the cutest blush.
“Yes I’m…we’re much better thank you.”
“Good, we’ll be eating soon and then we’ll go over the mission briefing.”
“Mission Briefing?”
“We can’t allow these attacks here to go unanswered and those bat creatures are far too dangerous to leave in the hands of the enemy.”
“Okay…I agree, we can’t leave this alone. If this was just a test attack how many more are there and how bad is it going to get?”
~I am eager for this, I do nor like sharing my skies with such creatures.~ Bhlaze thinks out to us. It’s strange there’s this feeling you can tell when he’s talking to all of us.
“First we eat while things are being readied, please help yourselves.”
It’s literally that. There’s a few things made like condiments and sauces and something like a pesto? But the rest is these little hibachi like pots and platters of raw meats and organs as well as vegetables. And fruit.
I’m not used to this part of the way that some of the Sylvan’s eat. I watch Shays pile this bloody raw super thin sliced red venison and strips of liver…then she adds this chili paste and coffee powder and then smoked salt and eats it with tomatoes in these lettuce wraps.
The others do something like it too and me…I’ve gotta cook mine a bit at least but the other stuff’s great like the stuff to go with it. Actually it’s a lot like Mongolian or Korean food while Shaya’s got this whole almost Ethiopian thing going on with hers. It is fun to watch her tidbiting Bhlaze with some of her food.
I’m also glad not to be alone in my not going for the raw stuff there’s a few others and Kyte’s there too. We actually drift together as we sort of graze. I look at her as I’m putting rabbit? On the grill. “You look better, how’s the leg?”
“Healed thankfully Erendae…my other hurts though.”
“They’ve had no right to treat you like that Kyte. You’re a credit to your people for working as hard as you have.”
“I was just trying to make up for my shame of barreness.”
I set the meat on my plate but set my plate down. “Kyte, there’s no shame in that. None. Look at me.”
She looks at me and there’s still so much hurt there. “How many children are without homes? How much goodwill could you make from adopting out of your station, or clan or even your ethnic…”
“I…I…”
“You have to give it some though honey. It’s one way to have the family you want.”
“But my family home…”
“Lied and pushed you and don’t want you to show them your stuff.”
“My stuff?” She looks down at herself…slender, thin, waif like but what’s there isn’t really body fat but muscle. She is not curvy… “I don’t have stuff.”
“No, not that silly but you are a role-model to young women all over Skywood and likely a few other places. But they don’t want you to shine because you might give them ideas.”
“I would?”
“If you were back to a young noble girl wouldn’t you hang off the words and deeds of someone like you coming along on Skywood?”
She’s quietly fixing her plate…there’s a few tears. Then she nods. “I have to do better, Be better.”
“Kyte, just be yourself. I’ve a feeling that it’ll be more than enough.”
“Erendae…?”
She moves and hesitates. I cross the gap and hug her. God she hugs me really tight and shakes a bit.
It takes me back to mine…I’ve been trying not to think about them even if mine are all moved out and have lives of their own. I cry and sniffle a bit too. Homesick really for the first time in my life. But I’m able to deal…being on the road I’m used to missing them and missing out.
I can feel Shaya and Bhlaze there in me. In my mind and heart. Sharing themselves with me against the hurt. It helps and it’s so sweet too. Shaya’s spiritual hug and that feeling on Bhlaze’s muzzle up against me propping me up.
But there’s something else giving me strength, Kyte….
Yeah…
Okay she might be hundreds of years old and all sorts of other stuff but right now…right now it feels like I’ve got this hurt and confused Sylvan teenager here in my arms and more than ever it touches that place inside of me. My parts are finally matching my maternal self that honestly I’ve always had.
She’s there sniffling and then turning red from crying on me all embarrassed. “I’m sorry it’s just…It’s just…you’ve been better to me than my own blood.”
“Hey, blood doesn’t mean family Kyte.”
“Yes…I guess…you kicked my butt like a big…….”
“Big sister?”
She nods, sniffling more.
“Done and done.”
She hugs me really tightly and I hold her close. It’s so strange feeling what I did through Shaya and Bhlaze’s eyes and picking up that the others approve of this through them.
“Better?” I ask her.
She nods into my chest. “Erendae…”
“Yes?”
“By the gods your boobs are huge.”
It get’s us laughing until I realize the whole room is laughing and then I’m really suddenly self conscious about them.
Sometimes having the biggest breasts in a thousand miles has it’s trials.
~Actually Erendae, you have the biggest breasts most likely in the star system…certainly the realm.~ Bhlaze chimes in and…oh…that was public telepathy.
“Bhlaze!”
That get’s them all laughing and I’m turning red. But Kyte’s smiling too, getting close to where she might laugh sometime….the smile changes the girl. I mean utterly…faeish cool and cold before just got outshone by this shy peak at this Irish beaming-smiling girl.
Hard noble to girl next door.
Shaya comes over swaying all sexy like and kisses me long and deeply in front of everyone…even lifts and cups a breast. “I love you breasts dear heart.” She whisper to me. I kiss her back right there in front of them all and love every second of it.
……………………………….........It’s not long after that the servants come in and remove the food and replace it with this table of sands and colored sands and a box that’s rattling and snarling.
The Sage-Commander waves a hand and there’s magic used and the sands become a 3-D rendered map then she walks to the box and leans down and chants and whispers to what’s inside. She opens it and this two foot tall thing jumps out from the box to land on the table and gibber-jabbers at us. It looks like someone made a gremlin and an ewok have sex…both scales and fur and fangs and claws.
It jabbers at us and give all of us the middle of it’s three fingers and jabbers some more and shapes it’s sac at us then it’s you know… pops out and it takes pee on the floor then cackles.
The Sage-Commander says something at it squeals and covers it’s sac.
I can’t help it. “What the hell is that?!” Oh god the pee reeks…like liquid crawled of of somethings butt and died like.
“It’s a Boggart, a creature of the dark fae and native to the Darklands. He’s going to tell us where we can find our enemies.”
“How?”
“Sparrow, the sample.”
One of her escorts comes over holding what looks like…a stomach.
“Is that?”
“Yes it’s one of the stomach from the bat creatures.”
Before I can ask she takes it from the ranger and tosses it to the Boggart. It holds it cradles it hisses at us then coos to it again then it takes this huge bite of the bat-haggis and starts to eat the gooey, slimy thing…
I’m really fighting the urges to barf. I’m not the only one.
The Sage-Commander starts asking it questions in a funny sounding language. It bites chews points with a claw at places on the map that form into symbols as she points a palm to the sand.
At one point they’re arguing and it’s screaming at her and grabs the bat stomach in both hands and humps it…shudders…resumes eating…someone or two behind me were retching.
~Snerk.~
Bhlaze is trying really hard not to lose it laughing. Apparently Dragons have a really messed up sense of humor.
~Yes, it comes from being more twisted as one gets older.~
~Oh shut up.~
~Snerk.~
I look at the thing and the Sage-commander takes out a chunk of shimmering? Honey comb and it freaks out reaching and saying the only think I understand.
“Gimmey-gimmie-gimmie-gimmie-gimmie-gimmie!!!”
She tosses the honey comb to it and jabbers at her screaming. She ignores most of it nodding absently at it then calls out over her shoulder. “Break the circle of salt!”
There’s a shudder the goes through it and it giggles and gives us the finger again.
“Fuuuuuuckk you-and you-and-you-and-you!!!” It grabs the honey to it’s chest and spins like a top or rather more like the Tasmanian devil and explodes in a cloud of smoke that smells…
Oh god you don’t wanna know.
We’re all gagging but the Sage-Commander and Bhlaze.
~I take it she’s old too Bhlaze?~
~No, she’s just strange. A moment please.~ He raises up in a few wing-beats the funk is gone.
Shaya’s still coughing. “Please tell me this was worthwhile?”
The Sage commander nods. “According to the Boggart the bats last prey was a veranti, and a small one so that’d put them here if their carrying goblin riders.”
“What’s a veranti?”
“A small mountain dwelling antelope.” Shaya says the asks. “Those hills could be riddled with goblin caves.”
She nods. “I know, but that’s why we needed the Boggart. These things are made and raised black arts to be sure but these are the acts of Lyam’s kind. Any mage or life-twister will have a laboratory, stables or barns for these things and that needs a certain kind of stone and the closest thing that the Boggart said had stone for building was…here.”
~Certainly in range if they had good winds.~ Bhlaze offers up.
“Exactly, and these hills around this one are crawling with goblins.”
Shaya nods. “And either they are hired on or scared into submitting to whoever’s doing this.”
“Glory too, to be a bat rider and to strike out at their enemies would be high honors with the goblins, he’d be almost a minor chieftain.” Kyte add into the conversation.
Me…I ask the big one. “So, what’s the plan?”
She looks at all of us. “Lady Shaya and Bhlaze will be our air support over the region and will hit these three goblin encampment locations with Lady Kyte and her men plus some of the soldiers here. This’ll drawn the attention of whoever’s running this place while Lady Erendae and I plus several warriors and rangers will find the real base of all of this and take him out.”
“Why me?”
“Your air ram spell will be very useful in locked doors and barred gates.”
“So how are we going to find this place exactly?”
She has this sneaky grin. “We won’t he’ll show us.”
“Show us?”
“He’s a mage of some kind guaranteed, we start hammering nearby he’ll use scrying to watch. He does and I’ll be able to track him.”
“Oh.”
“We should start getting ready, it’d be best to do this with lots of daylight left.”
“We’re doing this now?”
“As soon as possible yes. But prepared.”
Shaya nods. “We’ll return with our gear and we can make preparations.” She tugs me along with her. “C’mon Wren we don’t have a lot of time.”
I’m almost out of there when it hits and I ask Shaya. “So what’s keeping him from feeling you feeling him?”
She’s walking to her own gear and turns her head with this impish grin and a wink. “I wouldn’t be much of a thief if I let that happen right?”
Huh…wuh?
Snakes and Ladder-20...part one.
Chapter 20
She’s well ahead of me as I’m trying to wrap my head around that last part. Thief? Shaya?
“Hey! Waitaminute!” I head up the stairs after her and she’s laughing and she does that elfin light-footed thing up the stairs like they’re not really there. Me I’m in better shape and with having two legs now it’s still a luxury to me but I can’t keep up. “Shaya!”
I catch her at the door to our rooms bent over and laughing at me as I’m panting. “Okay, okay first you were a thief? You’re a princess how and why would you be a thief…. (pant) and what in the falling leaves is so funny?”
She actually has tears in her eyes from laughing. “You…boobs…bouncing, oh gods alive so much bouncing!”
And I get to do the angry girlfriend and cock my hip and slowly cross my arms under my chest with that “Ahem” look.
Actually ley her feel it through the link.
Kinda embarrassing, added to her feeling me up like it was….okay I’m fifty fifty on that bit just because she loves me so much but still the bouncing is not funny. Kinda funny, no, not funny.
And they’re kinda sore.
She stops and sits up and slide/glides over to me and kisses me. “I’m sorry beloved, I love your breasts it’s just that I have never seen such a sight in my entire life.”
I kiss her back, actually a few more times or she’s kissing me it’s all good….
“Sigh…so you…you were a thief?”
She looks at me and pulls me with her as she walks backwards to our rooms and our gear.
“It was after Kailynn had defeated Illian and brought me home and mother had healed me making me whole and who I always should have been. The people hated Illian and because that was who I had used to be they hated me and the political branches of the noble houses used it everyday as a way to attack my family.
By that time I had told my family everything that had happened and even what had happened with Jaiden and yet they wouldn’t bring him home because father couldn’t pardon him for the crimes he had already done and he was far too useful placed as he was in the underground. Me I chaffed under all of the pressure and the guilt of him and I breaking apart so I ran away from home seeking him out so I could apologize to him and make things right between us so….how do you really find a thief?”
“You become a thief.” I smile. “Okay so how does that happen princess?”
“I’ll tell you as we get ready.”
** Shaya…….
Well it had all sort of stared around three hundred and fifty years ago. I didn’t have you nor did I have Bhlaze so my recovery from both the wounds of the battle between Kailynn and myself so I didn’t really recover from things the way that I do now. Now add in the fact that at the end of our battle was when he used the spell to cure me and I was in bad shape. My wounds and the fact that my body was now matching my soul recovery from that was a long time in happening.
There was all of those years I lived as the fake me that years added up on me in layers of my smothering clay or something self hardened into all my walls and my hurts and even my majik at the time. It was all ripped away and scoured clean and in doing that it stripped away a lot of my essence.
When all of that was stripped away, and I was damned near cast back into Sylvan adolescence. As much as that was something that I had always wanted to have the chance to live and grow as the real me I wasn’t ready for it.
Needless to say after hiding away and trying to recover and not to cause my family any more troubles by the time I was recovered I was more than needing to get out into the world. Stir crazy I think you call it honey.
So one night when there was one of the large royal fáªtes going on and the palace was busy I snuck out through the servants service tunnels out of the palace with a few things I might need and some spare coin that I could take with me without having to go to the bursar and I headed out into the night to try and find out just who I was and to find and reconnect with Jaiden.
I really needed to find my twin brother and to try to explain things and put things to rights between us.
Things were very different outside of the palace. I was a knight and yes I’d fought in many places and had seen life in the field but it’s not the same thing as walking in the world where you’re not royalty and you’re not known.
I hadn’t even walked on my own that far in my life as from the palace to the capitol city. It’s the first time in my life that I ever really had blisters on my feet. I was tired too like I never really knew by the time I hit the streets of the capitol and everything was just starting for me then. I had no idea of how the common people lived and what they had to do and all I knew was that I couldn’t find lodging in anyplace that was likely to be looked at by the watch. So I went from the highside homes and manors and walked down the hills to the seaside where the city expanded out into the commons.
It was actually as scary as it was thrilling because I was a young waif out in the world and people looked at me and all they saw was me the girl that I was and not Illian.
I also found out though just how many people hated and mistrusted me or rather him.
That was all kinds of heartbreaking as you would say love.
I ran out of money pretty fast as well it was pretty soon between getting my own pockets picked and just the cost of things out in the real world when I didn’t have access to the royal coffers that things got hard.
I stayed in Celestine for close to a month getting odd jobs and learning the art of being a scullery maid and being a fishwife down at the wharves until Kailynn would show up far more often that I realized…it was the first time I really had seen some of what he does…and that’s going down into the poor quarters, into the thieves markets and he plied his powers and his majik as a free healer to the poor.
It was really the first time outside of noble pride that I felt any sort of real pride for my family as the people that they are.
But…as much as I loved seeing that I was pretty sure that Kailynn was using his charity works to look for me. He has his own information network in his own right because of what he does…just about everyone in the realms that wasn’t born of privilege talks to my brother.
So I had to leave Highwood and I needed a place to go. And as scary as it was I had no other choice but to return to Skywood. Back to the moon that had been the place where my Uncle Lyam had ruled for so long and where I had been twisted and trained and raised into being the monster that I was when I was Illian.
Back to my old stomping grounds as it were I think that’d you say….Gods I love that you get this…that coming back to that place that you grew up even if they might not recognize you…but you really get it don’t you Wren?
That bad homecoming where people you knew might know you and just dredge up all that painful uhm…bullshit that you need to be left behind…
Sigh
Okay…going back hadn’t the terrible fanfare that I had thought that it did and there wasn’t people there waiting for me trying to spot the “changed Princess Shaya” and tear me limb from limb.
Actually no one really saw me as anything but another poor person coming to Skywood looking for work. And that was exactly what I did…maids work to get me a place to stay and then to get my slipper into the doors of several noble houses.
I knew the nobles there, I knew the rich lords that courted Uncle Lyam in hopes that in supporting him and his attempted coup of the throne they’d be rewarded with even more titles and property. If he’d been High King then he’d have control over all of the lands of the Moons and they could own things, lands and rule over other places that just their holdings there on Skywood.
I’d been an honoured and feared guest in their mansions and castles. I was feared enough to come and go as I had pleased and I used that to ferret out secrets for Uncle Lyam to use against them.
So I knew my way around these places. I had a good idea of just who owned what and what they had under serious guard or lock and key and I started to steal from these places trying to make my way earn my name.
And it was only a matter of time before the guild came looking for me.
You don’t steal without being part of the thieves’ guild. It endangers them. There’s all these things to consider that I had no clue of and it didn’t take long before I was woken up in my flat in the middle of the night by a dagger to my throat.
Oh…I’m glad that there’s stuff like that where you are from beloved. And yes, I was stealing and running my own game on someone else’s turf.
Specifically The Red Raven guild.
I was tied…bound by my hands and my feet and hooded and take to Bandit…
Yes that was actually his name…
No…he didn’t have a fast airship…or a moustache…or and no…he wasn’t being pursued by a fat guardsman with an idiot for a son.
Yes…okay…if we ever return to your realm I shall watch this “Smokey and the bandit with you….It sounds interesting…is this Smokey a dragon?
Wren…
Are you done giggling?
Sigh…
Alright?
His name was Bandit and he was a legend amongst the thieves. He was an ex-knight and from Marahaesh…Yes honey Darkelven…In fact I had chased him many times as Illian for the things he had stolen from my uncle. There were several close chases and I had burned him three different times with a magefire pistol and had even put a clothyard arrow into him.
I had caught, tortured then killed more than a few of his fellow thieves trying to get to him.
I was even more scared when I hadn’t been untied and he had taken off my hood and was kneeling on the carpet beside me a straight razor in his hands.
His first words to me were.
“Hello Princess.”
Snakes and Ladders-20…part two.
I take a deep breath. This is strange for us, me not being able to see or feel something though the bond between us and I can tell its bothering Shaya too. I look over at her as she’s slipping into her armor and she has this sort of turning things over in her head expression.
“You can’t show me these things?”
“No, I swore a spell oath a form of secrecy magic.”
“Because….”
“Well…” she sort of smiles as she’s sliding some of her knives into her sheathes.
***
I looked up at him and it was really not the things that I had been expecting from all of the rumors and the stories of the thieves and such that I’d been raised on as a page and a squire. Even as a night there were sort of bandits mostly those too poor to do anything other than be desperate to try to take and to steal and rob.
But they were very much different that the actual thieves.
See there’s always been this rumor of thieves real thieves being from those sylvan children that were born with this streak of the dark fae in their blood, that they were different than regular people.
But here, I was seeing different as this leader of the thieves was pulling a Marahaesh made blade of pulled obsidian.
I had definitely been despite all my time and training as Illian scared. This man was a Marahaesh, or as you would say a dark elf and that was something was dangerous. See there are some of the different clans that are not treated well by any means. And if you do not have magical talents on Marahaesh then you are placed in the life of being a serf. Which is a polite way of saying slave. Those who do not wish to be serfs flee the moon of Marahaesh to the other moons and they are citizens of the crown and are given most of the very basest of protections.
The Marahaesh had become a third class of people in these other lands even lower that the peasants.
Yes, I suppose Wren they would be immigrant workers.
Okay…
So let’s just say that these people came with a very nasty reputation when it came to being thieves.
I had been raised on stories about how the “Inkies” being nasty and evil and willing to slit your throat for a copper.
Being recently female I had a whole new set of worries too.
I lashed out with a kick as soon as he cut me free. I’d be damned it he was going to do those things to me! Besides I had to get a weapon and deal with him…he knew who I was.
He took the first one to the chest and the next one there too and then his face and shoulder and he wasn’t striking me back or stabbing me…I groin kicked him and he caught that and his eyes flashed this moonlight blue…I’d not been expecting them to be so intense or so striking. I hadn’t really looked at the lesser people in my time as prince and knight enforcer to my uncle.
So…shimmering blue eyes on a man with jet black skin and jet black hair that was messy now and hanging in front of his face. I was so shocked by the contradiction of the things I knew versus the reality of the man that was there I stopped.
(Blushing at this point in RL.)
That’s when he took that foot I was going to strike him below the belt with and he did some Kyu-nari fighting trick and spun me from sitting up to face down and I felt the knife part my skirts and him move them aside exposing me to him.
Of course I started to scream and keep screaming right up until the first bare hand slapped across by buttocks.
Wren…
Wren it’s not that funny.
“Princess…I was going to be kind and cordial but if you’re not going to behave yourself…and act like a streetflower then I’ll show you what I do with unruly wenches that try to break a fellows stones without so much as a how do you do.”
I screamed and I’ll admit I wept and part of me raged at being unable to break him holds on me. I can fight but he was actually much better. From scared woman to wrathful princess to enraged but helpless prince to cowed and sniffling little girl who was suddenly realizing that I was the one that started this round of things.
I actually tried honesty. “I… (sniffle)…I thought you were going to rape and murder me.”
“Why in the name of the honnorless gods would I do that?”
“You’re a thief, and a darky.”
“Your parents would be shamed to hear you say that word.”
“I’m sorry it’s just…”
“It’s just you were raised out in the ivory tiled towers of Lyam the bastard. You’re a sniffer.”
“Sniffer?”
“Nose in the air…”
“I’m not….” I lowered my gaze and rubbed at my bottom, he didn’t pull those slaps.
“Yes you are but as much as you’ve changed girl you haven’t. You’re still relying a lot on the things the other sniffers told you and that was a pack of half truths and lies and some craftful coloring of things.”
I didn’t really have much to say… “I’ve been poaching you territory so what are you going to do with me?”
He got up and he took my hands and pulled me to my feet. “I’m going to have a coffee first, then I’ll figure out just what I’m going to do with the crown princess in my guild house. Come with me.”
I was nervous but I followed him through a few halls before coming out on this underside parlor…underside parlors were rare because the floating islands of Skywood can crumble, and the noble houses very rarely cut below a certain point and live higher in the tops while in some places the poor will carve their homes and such into the undersides.
I felt very nervous because under the floor here was nothing but a long, long fall but at the say time he had this almost ship captain’s quarters style of windows only longer like twenty feet of windows and the view was one that took my breath away…it was like flying.
The rest of the place was well kept and valuable, Shaelani finely woven carpets, fine porcelain from Kyu-nari and other treasures that were stolen and others that had been proscribed goods of course.
He made us coffee from Marahaesh which in the zones that things grow one of their major crops and trade items. The rest of the moon is a volcanic desert. He uses a spelled set of glassware to brew the coffee which is so deep and dark it looks like oil. Ground so fine it’s like powdered coffee then something that you’d brew like a tea and like the Ajani he left the grounds in the porcelain cups and mixed our coffees with a whisk.
I’ve never had a coffee like that before.
He rang a chime by pressing something I suppose or some other signal and he sat and stared at me while several people came in and made me even more nervous by taking seats and some bringing foods in.
I needn’t had worried about him raping me. There were several women there that were far more beautiful that me.
Yes wren there are women far more beautiful than me.
Yes I know that not to you there aren’t but how would you compare yourself to other women?
Sigh… I love you too beloved.
Anyway…
They were discussing me I think while they were eating it was bizarre all this talk about weights and measure and prices of tea in Kyu-nari and the air speed of swallows?
Wren…why are you laughing?
Sigh…
Then one of them says. “Oy, I’m thinking it might be best if we send her by ransom back to her family, she’s bound to be trouble.”
“No don’t do that, I need to be away from that place.”
He leans forward and looks at me. “There’s many here that would want you dead.”
“I know, but there just as many there that’ll want me just as dead for the wrongs that I’ve done but I need to be here I need to be one of you.”
A Shaelani woman spits on the floor. “You’ll never be one of us abomination, you are an affront to the gods. I f I had my way we’d be crossing blades now and your guts would be cooling in the air.”
I stared at her and the dark elf leader was staring at her too. “This is my court Priscilla you swore oaths to me.”
“I know that milord but they are an affront to the goddess using sorcery to take that form.”
“It’s my true form.”
“Liar!”
Well I’m not sure that she thought that I wouldn’t do anything but she ate the back of my hand pretty quick and before I knew what was happening the thieves leader was tossing my his obsidian dagger and Pricilla was coming at me with one of those long Shaelani daggers determined to use my like a round of spiced shwarma and cut strips off of me.
I won, and they were surprised and so was I. Thieves fight very differently that knights do.
I had literally to get on top of her and wrestle her down to the point of where I was going to break her arm very badly before she gave. I looked at all of them from where I was on top of her. “How much is my ransom? I’ll pay it.”
“And how will you get the money.”
“I’ll…I’ll steal it…I’ll thieve for you and you can keep the lion’s share of it until I’m paid off.”
“You’ll have to be a member of the guild for that and member of my court.”
“I can life with that.”
“You’d side with me over your family?”
“No, neither for if I swore to you as I am sworn to them I would have to find a balance between my two families….it’s why I’m doing this…family is everything.”
“Yes it is…you’re looking for your twin.”
“Yes before I can do anything I need to med things with him, he’s my twin.”
“Are you sure of this, our oaths are binding…for life.”
“Yes, I’m sure.”
“Very well princess, I’m Bandit…”
After that it was a long while before he had me doing house jobs again. The rich had begun to hire magicians and mercenaries and there was a lot more security and paranoia over the robberies that I had done.
It was to the lower isles for me and working part time actually as a sword for Bandit against rivals that wanted to poach our realm and there where a lot of days and nights of training. I learned majik from some of the mage thieves and other skills as well.
***
“But there is a lot that I can’t go into from the oath spells Wren.”
I look at her and I wanted more but there’s so much I know she can’t tell anyone because of the promises that she made and yet that’s still sort of okay. Actually it’s sort of better than okay to me because honestly I know sort of about the Illian days but that wasn’t Shaya.
And Shaya is a princess even though she doesn’t have access to the title being a dragon rider. There was a bit of that I’m me and she’s a princess thing still there but knowing that she’s not so princessy squeaky clean makes her sort of more real to me and less of well OMG I’m with and Elfin princess thing.
I’ve always been good with the legally creative people even if I didn’t live in the life.
She smiles at me and we kiss.
“We should go.” She says.
“Okay.” We leave with all of our gear and head to meat the others. I’m not just nervous but I’m scared because this is very much like going on my first real combat mission. I look at her as we’re headed inside. “So did you ever get a chance to meet up and talk with Jaiden?”
“Yes but it was years and years later but we had ended up meeting on Ajania while doing a job.”
“So what was it like?”
“Loud and angry and dangerous…he drew steel on me and we fought like we hadn’t done since our squiring days.”
“He attacked you?”
“Oh yes, I was still his twin and despite being his sister that didn’t matter in settling the damage that I did to his honor.”
“Oh for fuck’s sakes that’s just like a guy to be hung up on honor.” I roll my eyes but she’s sort of looking ahead and the spells keep me from seeing the things that she’s seeing and the feelings are muted but she’s definitely remembering that and there’s a smile on her face.
“He was crying Wren, the whole thing had broken his heart and he was very upset that I couldn’t come out to him my twin of all people…the fighting was to show me too just how bad and how deeply that I had cut his soul and in a way it was him showing me how much that he loved me.”
I think about it and I get it. There’s been a few people that bear had to literally knock some sense into back home and this was kind of it…the swords and stuff was like him admitting to her that she was still his sister and his equal.
Yeah it’s a little screwed up but their elves, and they’re twins and twins are all sorts of messed up in their own little ways everywhere I guess.
“So now he’s sort of you fathers undercover agent in the guilds?”
“Yes sort of but Jaiden has his own oaths to keep with his own guild. He has people counting on him in a lot of ways and Father’s good with that, he’ll take any information that he can because…well like father told me.”
“Every thief and beggar and person in the realm deserves for me to try to make their world a better place…The King serves all of his people not a select few.”
I look at her and smile because I can see him in her a lot even though I really don’t know the man at all. “Too bad the politicians back home wouldn’t aspire to that kind of thinking.”
The Loremistress looks at us as we come in and smiles the sort of crooked impish kind of smile herself. “It’s too bad the same would not happen here as well Lady Erendae. We would not be here reading to go into battle when we should be living our lives and doing other things.”
I nod. “I can’t argue with that either I’d really rather not be doing this but I don’t thing the guy who wrecked my truck and rides a big assed three headed dragon’s going to back off and play nice or fair. So we just have to do what we have to do because if we don’t then he’s already won.”
She smiles and nods but some of the ones going with us are nodding too and there’s some clapping. I can’t help but to blush.
The Loremistress looks at all of us.
“Now let’s go over things one more time….”
***
I kissed Shaya and told her to be careful and kissed the big guys snout too and told him the same. They flew off and went to the village where the power place was and they were doing something majical.
I felt after a half and hour the wind shift towards the Darklands and there was the thump?
This sound in there buried of wing beats somewhere in the breaths of air.
The fog started in from the village think and low and it moved and flowed over the ground in strange ways I watched it keep going and fall over the edge of the cliff face and sink like it was alive? It fills the area as the hours pass up and over the tops of the trees…oh…you’d never see a flyer from the ground.
“Wow, weather control?”
“Skywood thieves majik, conjuring fog through temperature manipulation. Mind you Shaya’s in a power spot and she’s dragon boosted and Bhlaze is a Thunder dragon and weather majiks are part of his nature.”
“Oh cool, so Shaya herself could make?”
“Maybe a city block and some extra fog up, more if the conditions are right for fog anyway. Easy majik on Skywood.”
“Oh fog and clouds.”
“Yes indeed.”
The Loremistress and the rangers are using magic to look long ways off and she gets this look on her face like a sort of sneer like she smelled something bad.
“What?”
“He’s felt this and he’s working majik to counter it.”
“Shit, that’s not good can you stop him trying to stop Shaya?”
“Why would I want to do that? He’s too busy with that to feel us gating into that ridge we scouted.”
“Oh…but won’t he think we might do that?”
“Yes and he’ll likely tighten his defenses but he doesn’t dare take his senses off the dragon and rider.”
“So…”
“So, I’m going to make several gates in and he’ll have to spread things out to cover those flanks and then we have our secret weapon.”
“Secret Weapon?”
“Yes you.”
She get’s up and when she does there must have bee a signal and then she’s doing stuff with her hands and then she’s making gates…
They look like those little wormhole things from that show Sliders.
I see several different groups heading through them and then there’s just the one that I’m part of.
She smiles at me but doesn’t say anything as she draws her rapier and people are jumping through as quiet as they can…she gives me that Spock eyebrow thing the elves use a lot her, it’s gotta be a pointy eared thing.
I’m not sure why I’m taking a deep breath before jumping through but I do.
Whoa…
Snakes and Ladders-21
Chapter 21
I’m a little freaked by jumping into this sucking hole in the air but I steel my nerves and jump into the thing and sort of try to prepare myself for the whole thing.
There’s this pause barely there but enough that you know that it happened then you’re sucked through to the other side with this fastest roller coaster ride ever and you see everything you pass by or through too fast to track but like the pause something in your head tells you yes…this happened.
I actually focus my sight on what’s right just ahead and the image is less screwy, and I see the fog, the trees and the slope I’m coming out on and I manage to land on my feet. It sort of feels like that moment of nothingness when you jump off a swing at the playground.
Kind of fun.
In that same sort of way soldiers must get when Para diving into a war zone. Okay I know not “Fun” but there’s this sheer sense of thrill and almost messing one’s panties. Adrenaline…I’m actually used to adrenaline and pretty good at dealing with being calm under the effects of it.
Lot’s of fights and you spend any real amount of time doing long haul you can get familiar with those adrenaline filled “Oh crap.” moments. And that’s just with the weather in mind. Just think about ten plus tons that you’re trying to control when it’s raining and you hit that spot where the tar’s been brought to the surface of the pavement by way too many cars and too much heat…and that’s not counting the other people on the road.
Then being a bouncer, and just life in general being as big as I was sometimes trouble could just find me whether I wanted it to or not.
But I have a feeling I’m going to need the edge it’ll give me on this.
I still sort of stumble as I land in a mini trot and I have to stop myself from hitting some trees. It’s thick in here, like a needle leaf forest up in these rocky steep hills but like overgrown if while it had been overgrowing nature didn’t put on the brakes.
The pines and spruces and stuff are really thick and twisted up and still blotting out lots of the light what they’re not doing the fog Shaya’s conjured is doing the rest…I can sort of feel her in the fog and the mist…everywhere. I get it instead of hiding her and Bhlaze in it when they come they’re sort of everywhere and that’ll distract them from sensing us.
I look at the others and join them and wait feeling the sweat starting to form under my armor. The forward rangers are out scouting the way that we need to go according to the word of that nasty faerie thing.
I see some weapons out mostly axes and short blades and a few guns well blasters but not the one’s I’m used to seeing. Yes there’s bows but their not being used right now, it’s just too thick in here.
I’m really glad for all the training and all the working out that I’ve been doing even with the fact that my female form has all of the raw power that my old frame had. I’m in armor, with weapons and some other gear. I never realized that soldiers carry water and food with them into a combat zone, and I didn’t get that those ten extra pounds weight a lot more than you think after awhile.
Miles and miles we move from one spot to another fast and into these best places to hide and advance from under the guide of our forward rangers. There’s a lot of rough ground that would’ve broken me in the first mile years ago. The forest is so thick and overgrown it’s a huge obstacle and the terrain is really hard to with a series of up and down hills that are full of ravines almost rather than valleys.
There is a learning curve, use the vegetation to move over the terrain.
The forest as dark and twisted as it is does have this sort of beauty to it. Thorn bearing trees and bushes, thistles are common and there’s even a thistle ivy stuff that’s pretty common here. There are flowers and the nicer looking plants too but are all sorts of really deeper earthy toned variations of things. Lot’s of Venus flytraps around or things like it, and there’s lots of insects but there’s also lots of spiders.
I get a heebie geebie moment when I seen a web just aways from us thirty feet wide and a big fuzzy black spider watching us go passed the size of a dog…like a German Sheppard kind of dog.
I really didn’t like the way that the thing was looking at us and the way it moved to look at us but the others didn’t seen that phased by the thing. Okay…well they live and fight and guard this area and maybe they’re used to these things but I’m having flashbacks to LOTR and Harry Potter and stuff.
I’m so glad that I’m wearing armor.
I’m not even sure how far we’ve gotten when we have the first encounter. Goblins on a patrol about a dozen of them and they were definitely looking for us or someone and It’s not what I thought the first encounter would be like. Fast and quiet the rangers came in first from the sides and axe strikes to the heads, knives and daggers slitting jugulars in a passing stroke to be shoved through an eye socket and then yanked free to be thrown into the head of another.
A dozen patrolling goblins and four rangers and it was over before sounds could be made or the goblins could scream and it was scary. But it was like seeing Special Forces work from home really these guys just fading in from the forest and taking them like the shadows of death.
How long have they been doing this? It was almost scary in how ballet like it was and fast, did I mention fast? I’m also going to remember that these are the rangers that came in with the Loremistress.
I’m half scared and curious as to what she can do herself.
They’re searching the bodies and holding things up to each other and us as silent clues that I’m not getting but the others are. They are taking the coins that they were carrying too…that’s just very…mercenary?
I’ll have to ask Shaya about that.
We press on but I think we’re back tracking the goblins for awhile and it’s a bit easier going as they seem to have trails and such through here and the rangers are at it several more times with what looks like blinds in the trees and areas where they disarmed booby traps.
Like spiked log kill you hard and fast traps.
The fog is beginning to darken more and more off to one side when I slowly start to realize that it’s not the fog but the large mass of those mountains they had called The Hammer and we’re right up to them.
We stop.
~Everyone stop take a breather and rest eat and drink something because we’re walking into the pit very, very soon. ~
The Loremistress speaking in my head.
Oh…that’s why I didn’t get the stuff that they were showing us with the things on the goblins, they were using telepathy. Beats using a radio I guess.
I stop and eat chewing on that wheybread they have. Yeah it’s real but not some magic bread but nut and other flour and into that there’s like soy and whey from cheese and other things made into it and made into a sort of a dense cracker sheet with a lot of stuff in it. Basically an old school elfin energy bar. It goes down okay with the bit of honey in a tube and some of the cheese…kind of Greek actually with the cheese being really salty to help us retain moisture.
I have time to use the little girls bush and thankfully I also have like this paper wipe in a tube that is supposed to serve as tissue here in the wild. I was pretty danged fast too not wanting to get jumped during the whole thing. I’m done and so are the others when we hear the pulse of wingbeats over us. It’s funny even without the link I know its Bhlaze because I recognize the sound like knowing who’s pulling into your yard by the sound of the engine.
I can sort of see the shape of him coming down over the mountain area where we think the place might be and hovering. The plan or part of it is that he’ll be dropping off troops and the troops will cover the fact that we’re coming, that they’re the assault force.
I see stars? No… ball lightning coming from Bhlaze and I can sort of feel and sense that they’re under fire.
~Wren? ~ The Loremistress… ~You’re linked are they engaged? ~
I concentrate; this is still a long ways off for us.
I see, a small winding valley very rocky and there’s what looks like caves dotting the area and there’s dozens of goblins out on the valley floor in cover and the fighting has started….I see orcs with bigger weapons firing at Bhlaze and Shaya and there are about twenty elfin soldiers there in a firefight with the goblins.
Shaya has an energy shield of some kind up taking the brunt of the damage from the orcs weapons and Bhlaze is spitting ball lightning at them only they explode like some kind of electrical grenade when they hit an area where there’s orcs.
~Yes they’re getting into it pretty heavy over there and they might need help. ~
~There’s another ranger group with soldiers that’s not too far off from them that I gated in. They should be there in less than an hour. ~
~It might be over before then. ~
~Not if Shaya holds, the goblins they’re facing are cannon fodder at this point they’ll just send up more to deal with Shaya.~
~Up? ~
~Yes, Up even here the best way to move unseen is on the ground, the way in that we’re looking for is around the edge of that ridge hidden away, the upper levels are where those bat things are roosting or stabled and that’s Shaya’s mission. They’ll assume it’s her mission and will try and take the chance to kill her if they can but they’ll seal off the real operation. The summoner…the bio-alchemist and Lyam’s allied are down lower where the real work is being done. ~
~Oh…~
~They’ll be readying to escape in case it looks like Shaya will break through and take the place. We’re going in before it gets to that point. ~
~Gotcha….~ I feel Bhlaze and Shaya lift off into the mists again and from the few bursts of ball lightning she’s circling the area… but keeping from being seen or felt and I feel Shaya do something and the wingbeats are echoing all over the place.
I grin and so does the Loremistress. ~You have an interesting beloved Erendae; remind me to keep on her good side. ~
We head off and I’m keeping my head on the task at hand and there’s another bunch of goblins camped at the edge of the forest and where it get’s close to the ridge and it’s sort of hidden behind the rocks.
I’m running into help as soon as we get that first sound of weapons on weapons and there’s more goblins here than just a dozen with them having dug in a cave of sorts as a hidden shelter or a dug out.
But even this you’d sort of think would be the fighting and the war cries instead it’s this fast running up into the fighting with weapons drawn trying not to be seen until the last minute then trying not to get shot while you’re shooting into them and in just seconds you’re in this fight weapon to weapon and trying to take them out as fast as you can.
I think I shot three of them and cut down a fourth and was in a two on one sword fight with five and six when I see Kyte and people she’s been leading making a charge for the ridge and a fire fight starts there.
“They’re pushing trying to get through.” The Loremistress yells at us. “C’mon let the rangers take care of these we need to keep them from breaking through!”
I run in with her and several of the soldiers and there’s a wedge of goblins backed by orcs in a much more organized way trying to get through and in the distance I can see what looks like a large cleft in the rocks that seems to have a huge set of doors in the very end of that.
“We have to make them head back inside their hole, they’ll box themselves in and be too busy trying to get fortified they won’t see you coming Wren.”
“Since when is all of this riding on me?!” I’m yelling and fighting. My blaster goes dark and is out of power. Great hand to hand now…
“Since the gods seen fit to send you to us and you to the Dragon rider!”
She points up and Bhlaze and Shaya come gliding in out of the mist and fog with Bhlaze’s eyes glowing electric blue white and Shaya shooting her blaster with one hand and hurling something bag shaped with the other as hard as she can with strength magic behind the throw.
Bhlaze spits those ball of lightning that are like ovals of white and blue and they hit with this explosion that’s like a….. well I guess it’s like an EMP that you could see going off that has a concussive thing to it like the edge of the blast wave was like solid? Like a force field or something and what wasn’t fried was stunned like a taser and knocked down as well.
Zap-boom.
Zap-boom.
The third one hit’s the satchel Shaya threw. I yell. “Fire in the hole!”
No one get’s it and I tackle Kyte down as the satchel has that stuff Shaya makes from the Dragon stuff of Bhlaze and it explodes like one of his ball lightning’s only it’s ten times the size.
Some of our side got stunned in the blast and a whole lot of the enemy and their in full retreat heading back inside except for a dozen huge shapes that pass by even over the retreating forces.
Ten to twelve feet tall in heavy, half plated armor with red eyes, flat noses, fanged and tusked mouths and grey green skin hulking with muscles with huge bladed swords and axes and hammers.
They’re running at us full force and the big doors are closing…suicide mission?
Kyte looks up as she’s getting her senses back as she’s getting to her feet only to stop and stare turning white or paler than she is.
“Oh dear sweet gods…” Her voice is faint and frightened.
I hear one of the Rymoran soldiers with us scream something I never thought I’d hear before.
“TROLLS!”
Snakes and Ladders-22
Chapter 22
“TROLLS!”
I look to where they are coming from and really these things are scary as hell especially when you think about the sheer size of something ten feet tall yeah like another two feet over the ceilings in most houses then add it the bulk…add huge muscles, fangs and tusks and armor and huge weapons and make them pretty damned fast and it’s a really scary sight.
There’s people opening fire on them and most of the spell weapon attacks are barely slowing them down.
There’s the Fizz-boom of Bhlaze’s ball lightning attacks popping of near them and the electrical stuff isn’t really stopping them either. One goes down from a direct hit to the chest of a ball lightning and he’s still twitching.
I look to the Loremistress and she gives me a nod and I take a deep breath…yeah…yeah feel the power…energy…it’s the same thing as me pressing the pedal down…hard…I feel it responding to me and it’s as hard channelling this as it is to steer when the wheel locks up on you…I might get two maybe three with this unless…
Yeah…
Oh shit this might hurt.
“Get ready I might not be good for a few after this!” I’m sort of not yelling but crying it out through clenched teeth.
I cut loose the spell and there’s that rush of the truck like it’s running through me and I’m like intangible and The air horn blasts and the trolls aren’t stopping there’s no fear and the sound wave isn’t doing it and the impact…
I yank back on the energies….I’m smell my nose hairs burning…taste a bit of blood too from the strain and I scream in the effort but I yank the wheel around…jack-knife the spell…I roll the truck.
Yeah I hit them sideways and I let it pull power from me like the way that a crash goes haywire…I feel Shaya and Bhlaze above me and the link and power pouring through me into them and it’s somewhere between having an orgasm and touching a lice industrial plug in.
So…weird this little effect of seeing micro-bits of lightning arcing back and forth from my eyes and not feeling it…it sort of turned everything this over exposed blue white without messing with my vision.
And the trolls…
The first ones in the wedge got not just hit but hit like getting hit by the truck and they get caught up in the force roll of the spell and sort of look like what happened if you put chopped up week dead cow in an industrial washing machine.
Only no industrial washing machine…
Then the others got bashed super hard crushed into the ground and even some spun over once or twice and there were dropped weapons and the very loud crunch of bones and screaming. The troll that got stunned…he was up on all fours when it hit him and the spell doesn’t look like anything really except to me and his head was right at impact levels and popped like a grape. Well actually like six M-80 firecrackers shoved into a watermelon.
I drop aching…I sort of feel like I was in the cab of that even though it’s fading and I’m sort of gagging too.
And it’s actually not the trolls it’s the smell of my fried nose hairs and cooked blood that I can’t get out and I’m actually coughing out a bit of smoke which is bad because exhaling even if coughing through my mouth has the smell of and now the taste of burn’t hair and burnt pork now on my tongue.
The elves attack and two stay with me I killed four outright I think and I knocked down and I stunned the rest as well as hurt them. It’s fast with some serious point blank shots going on and sword strikes except for a few with the bows are using them now and I’m not exactly clueless about modern types of bows from home and stuff but these look sort of normal but I can see in the bowstring grooves spell tech fittings and in the handles too and I’m wondering just what the deal is when the arrows go through the plate they’re wearing and the trolls as big as they are moving like a human would when getting shot with a nine millimetre.
One get’s up and breaks and makes a run for it and another is charging me…
Oh shit he get’s past the two Rymoran that were babysitting me swatting them aside really hard with blows from his warhammer and they went flying and sort of crunched when he hit them.
The Loremistress has two blasters in her hands and she’s rapid firing into the trolls back and I’m pulling my sword and there’s a roar…above and loud, really loud and angry and Bhlaze and Shaya land hard and shake the ground.
The troll swings and Shaya tackles me out of the way of the massive warhammer strike to the ground and we roll and keep rolling a good dozen feet or more out of the way.
Bhlaze does this super fast lizard on the ground slide between the troll and us and hiss’s at the thing.
~C’MON! Bring IT! ~
The Troll roars back in fury and swings hard and hits Bhlaze right up along side of his head. The thud…I felt the thud from the force of the hit from where Shaya and I were laying.
Mentally there’s this rage that comes up from Bhlaze that made my worst moments as bear seem small and weak in the anger and rage department. It was like the troll just reached out and slapped a pit-bull that was used for dog-fights.
I look up to see Bhlaze whip his head around and at the same time unhinge his jaws sort of and snap up the troll in one bite and shake it like a rag doll and then there’s this surge of power as Bhlaze does one of those ball-lightning things not just point blank but…right there in him mouth and there’s a screaming-roar combo as the troll is incinerated by the sheer amount of power run through it and he goes poof.
Like you see happen to vampires on Buffy.
Bhlaze shakes his head and re-locks his jaw and he huffs out a blast of the ashy remnants and smoke. There’s this angry smug feeling coming off of him as he broadcasts out.
~And they say that thunder dragons can breathe fire. ~
There’s a short cheer and he raised his head in this I am the shit almost cat like way and Shaya and I are getting to our feet. She looks at me. “You okay?”
“Yeah just tried something off the hip and well y’know.”
“Yes, next time save experimenting for when we have the time and such to get it down.”
“Yes honey.”
We kiss again and the Loremistress looks at us and she turns to give a bunch of orders. Then she get’s that telepathy look going on. “Shaya they need you top-side the enemy is starting to rally up there you need to keep them from thinking that’s a way out!”
I quick kiss her and slap her bottom. “Go, we’ll handle things down here.”
I watch her leave running to Bhlaze who lowers his head and she runs up his snout and grabbing his horns does and jumping slide around throwing herself into the harness and he’s already jumping into the air and there’s this strange feeling as he zooms up like some kind of updraft. Lifting off faster than any chopper I’m seen and a whole lot faster than when I’m on board.
“Whoa…”
The Loremistress looks at me. “Thunder dragons can alter their electricity in a lot of ways he just pushed him EM field off of the planets.”
“Oh that’s cool like anti-gravity.”
“Human’s have such?”
“No but we have science fiction.”
“Oh science based fictional stories…we don’t have those.”
“I’ll catch you up on some stuff later. Now what?”
“No we advance and we break through those doors. You think you can do that with your spell?”
We’re walking, sort of jogging and our unit’s melding with Kyte’s and there’s more knights and men at arms with her. I see her looking at the smears and gore over the ground and she’s giving me this look like she had no idea that I was capable of doing that.
Honestly I had no idea that I was either and right now I’m trying not to think about the actual sheet damage that I unleashed here.
I get a look at the doors in the side of the mountain that they closed up on us. Big and made of stone or metal or more that likely since they look like the mountain I’m thinking something like reinforced concrete like a huge set of bunker doors.
“I’m not sure I might not have the energy for it…”
“I’ll be your power sink; don’t worry about the amount of power.”
I’m staring at the doors and there’s this thing bubbling up in my brain…magic is focus, intent, desire in short it’s a mental and emotional thing.
“Yeah I can do it just give me a few minutes to get ready and get everyone read for this but out of our way.”
“Consider it done.”
She’s talking to Kyte and I start building the drive and the focus for my spell to break through this barrier.
I have just the thing in mind and I clear my mind and start to recite it mostly in my head but as I’m starting to build the spell I’m talking to myself then out loud when the Loremistress touches my hips with her hands and there’s this magical burst through me like NOS going through me…
“There's armoured cars and tanks and jeeps
And rigs of every size
Yeah them chicken coops was full of bears
And choppers filled the skies
Well we shot the line
We went for broke
With a thousand screaming trucks
And eleven longhaired friends of Jesus
In a chartreuse microbus
(Ah, Rubber Duck, this is Sodbuster. C'mon here?)
(Yeah, ten-four Sodbuster.
Listen, ya wanna put that microbus in behind that suicide jockey?)
(Yeah he's haulin' dynamite and he needs all the help he can get)
Well we laid a strip for the Jersey shore
Prepared to cross the line
I could see the bridge was lined with bears
But I didn't have a doggone dime
I says Pigpen this here's the Rubber Duck
We just aint gonna pay no toll
So we crashed the gate doin' ninety-eight
I says Let them truckers roll, ten-four
Coz we got a mighty convoy rockin' thru the night
Yeah we got a mighty convoy aint she a beautiful sight
Come on and join our convoy aint nothin' gonna get in our way…….”
I know there’s not a soul here that has any idea of what I’m saying to myself but this…this song, story is like a thing of power to me and I’m reliving the whole thing in my head and seeing the trucks and the emotional wave the very first time I heard this and I pour that all into my magic and the power of all of that energy running through the two of us was just…Yeah like a Suicide Jockey running a trailer of dynamite.
It hits like a full on barrage of trucks four lanes wide and just no give at all truck after truck nose bumper to bumper hitting that wall with a hammering crash and that knowledge in my head that that wall that door would stand up as much as any silly damned barricade.
And for a second I’m there not bear but me in my rig and I’m still wren but I’m shifting gears and getting as much speed on my rig as I can as I hit the doors with the others foot flat to the floor, no more gears left to shift up into and grinning like…
Well shit I always grin like this when I’m going to do something crazy.
Smashing the doors was so three-d as I ride in with the spell and the doors explode inward and the spell keeps going in at least forty or fifty feet smashing through wagons and gear and goblins and orcs and there’s a barrage of energy lights from above as they fire on something that isn’t there…
Then I’m inside of myself and on my knees with the Loremistress and her eyes are shimmering with power and there’s a second where there’s this semi-visible hooded robed figure touching her and I get this sensation of…not human, not elfin, not even dragon but something else…
He matches this image on one of her pendants but the image is peacefully holding an open book.
I blink and he’s gone and her eyes are normal but filled with tears and yet she’s not crying her expression’s too her…too curious…
“Convoy?....you’ll have to tell this tale to me…”
I look up to where the doors are smashed and the troops are running in with the knights first shields raised over their heads and some in the front and blasters at the ready running in with Kyte and the others.
“Okay…that’d be nice…over a meal…”
She get’s up somehow just pushing herself and she grins at me. “C’mon we’re missing the fun.”
She pulls both her blasters and takes off to the breached mountain and I shake my head and pull my sword.
“Oh we can’t miss out on the fun now can we? Alright, Coming Tink!”
Snakes and Ladders-23
Chapter 23
I push myself up to my feet and it takes a dozen staggering steps before I’m picking up speed and the soreness is going away from my muscles warming up. Dammit I’m just getting started I think and I know already that I’m going to be sore when this is over.
I snag a blaster from one of the fallen elves it’s bigger than the one that I had but I think I can use it. It’s this sort of a ceramic wheel lock looking weapon with a rectangular barrel instead of a round one and there’s a large red crystal set into the tech-magic circuits where a clip would get put in with a gun from home and it’s about six inches shorted than a pistol gripped style shotgun.
I go with that, I know shotguns pretty well.
It’s a firefight as soon as I get in there with people and I’m shooting back. The cavern is actually pretty big and has several levels carved into it and stairs and ramps it actually reminds me of a mine back home but the ones that takes a cave and turns it into a sort of useful central chamber kind of place.
There is things here too, like they have been using this for storage of some kind for this war that’s going on and there’s rubble all around mostly I think that I made with my blast and there’s lots of bodies here too.
We’re taking cover as the orcs are above us trying to use the heights as a sort of shooting gallery and farther down inside the mountain there’s a rush of goblins and hobgoblins coming to close into hand to hand.
The knights and soldiers in the front form a vanguard and they meet the rush with a clash of body and bones and steel. Me I’m shooting at the orcs and trying to make my way to the landings they’re on.
My weapon has a very shot gun like kick but it fire a ball of concentrated flame that’s almost like solid energy about the size of a pool ball into the person that I’m shooting at.
I’m really trying not to think about how when it hit’s it spreads through the insides of the orcs and the cook…a lot…from the insides.
Unfortunately it runs out after close to thirty shots.
I rush this group of five orcs closest to me and I pull my sword off my back and take three shots to my armor before I’m dropping the edge of my blade through a shoulder severing an arm.
They pull weapons and still are trying to shoot me too.
One arm makes a dandy living shield and I shove him at them and that throws two of them off balance. I don’t go for those guys I use my blade on the two others that thought I’d go for the two that were expecting me to go after the two I knocked off balance and run one through then pull the blade out and golf swing the other one with my blade to its crotch.
I kick him off of my sword and cut down the one struggling with the body I narrowly twist my body out of the way of the last orc as he swings down on me with an axe.
You’d think that he’d be slower using an axe but not apparently when they know what they’re doing.
He’s really fast and he’s really good at using the flat edge of it and the handle of the thing as well and I’m getting into a really deep and drawn out fight with this thing. It’s way more used to this style of fighting than I am and even though I’ve been in some pretty heavy training and stuff I’ve used some heavy majik today and I’m using a pretty big sword and I’m in full armor.
I’ve never sweated this much home loading my truck down in Atlanta in the middle of summer.
No time to think about it either as he’s really trying to make another kill and a permanent end to me.
No effing way I like being alive now, I like being the real me and I’m deeply and madly in love with Shaya. And it’s more than enough to fight for.
These things are not like fighting back home where it’s people being stupid and fighting people no this is a real fight against real monsters that are actually bent on the destruction of all that is right and good in this world.
There’s this little voice that is saying that if the Sylvan’s lose this war and everything goes to darkness here that somehow and someway they will make their way to Earth. It’s like when you’re driving in the rain and things are sort of okay but you hit this section of road that’s not really covered with water but there’s all the oils that are on the road there from traffic and the tar and…you know that I’m in shit feeling that sinks into you just before your tires and the weight of the truck or sometimes the lack of in a cross wind hits.
It’s like that I just know…I just know it won’t be over here.
I have family home, there are people that I love home still and I can’t let that happen.
And those feelings are the ones I use to get my second wind and make me strong enough to really get into a knock down drag out fight with this orc. I use every dirty trick I ever picked up here or when I was bouncing and I think I surprised it...him.
“Yek dunno fight laik a grrl.”
It’s able to speak sylvan.
Oh…well sorry buddy, in my heart this is the me that I’ve always been.”
“Actually I do!”
I’m locked up with him again blade to axe and I haul off and I headbutt him. There’s a crunchy crack as I break his nose and he staggers back blinded from the tears that seem most species get when that happens and he’d still be expecting me to swing so instead I grab the haft of his axe and shove the spike on the back of his axe in through his eye.
He drops and I really don’t have a minute until there’s more but then as I’m blocking Illisia…The Loremistress is there with me rapier in one hand and her firebolt blaster in the other.
She’s so small and lithe she slips right into the fight and jabs her blaster in and puts a hole into one of the orcs and then follows up with this really fancy sword work. I don’t know all the moves but think of the whole three musketeers movies and add it the reflexes of Jet Lee and you’re somehow got the idea right?
Hack, slash, punch and kick and elbows of mine mixing with her and her thrusts and shots and swerves and spins and more than once she’s the distracting factor for my big blade.
It’s a messed up thing when you’re in a battle and you sort of fall into a rhythm
But I guess that’s what fighting styles are right rhythms of how to fight and respond to situations right?
And honestly…I can sort of feel this sensation through the link with Shaya and there’s this sort of calm settling in with me as this is going on. No one likes to fight but to fight and to fight well and with skill for a good and noble cause like saving so many lives is a beautiful thing in its own right.
It feels oddly uplifting thinking of instead of homes burning and the violence I’m facing being turned on the innocents…becoming scenes of peaceful living because of what we are doing right now.
It’s the feeling I think that soldiers get to feel sometimes when they know in their hearts what they’re doing makes a difference.
And I do know it is.
I’ve seen gnawed on bones of people here since we’ve started fighting on the inside of this place.
And some of those bones were small sets of bones…I’m not going to question why someone would do something like this. Not with humanity’s record with itself. But all at the same time…children? Children? They’ve never really had the chance to do things wrong…not wrong enough to deserve such things happen to them.
I’m a parent and even when I old had one leg…
You mess with my kids and it would NEVER end well for whoever did that. I’ve always been a sucker for kids…I’ve always had a houseful and pets too. I have a lot of love to give and now…
Now I’m going to do what I always do with my love…
I’m going to defend people with it.
It’s over before I even know it’s over and there’s yells and sounds of the enemy being in retreat on the level below us and Illisia is even panting and taking a few moments to catch her breath before taking out a vial and passing it to me and one for herself.
“Are you wounded?”
“Hurting and bruised all over I think but nothing major.”
“Good.” She downs her vial and she seems to shimmer? But not shimmer?
“What’s this?”
“Water potion.”
“Water potion?”
“Yes, it supplies you with all the water you need in the span of a full average day.”
“Huh…cool, this’d be good for people suffering under blood loss.”
“Yes and for combat where hydration’s an issue too.”
I drink mine; I’m still… yes still getting used to the whole idea of magic and potions and all of that stuff. It’s the best water that I’ve ever tasted and this feeling of the good chill like that first dip in summer water washes over me.
“Wow, good stuff so will I have to pee a lot with this?”
“No not really much at all for most of the day really, the magic in it helps you recycle water in your cells.”
“Cool beans.”
“Cool……beans?”
As smart and on the ball as she is she has that look the Shaya gets on her face when I use a human expression that makes no sense to them.
I can’t help it, even here in a place like this I giggle.
She shakes her head and calls to the others giving orders for them to split into teams and to check the tunnels and side rooms. Kyte joins us with some of her people and some of the rangers and other knights. Illisia looks at the stairs leading to the next terraced level of this cavern.
“There’s a passage up there and there were better troops her than down below. I’d say that’s our best bet to move on and find out just what’s been going on here and just who might be involved in this treason.”
I take a breath and look at the others and they nod doing sort of the same things too no one’s badly hurt so far but our gear’s far from bright and shiny anymore and potions and such aside…there’s that tired ugh…as we start getting to our feet and moving.
This is different and I think she might be right as there was just sort of a graded ramp up here to this point and now there’s stairs carved from stone but with railings and some actual design to them. It looks old, like Greek ruins kind of old and stuff the tier itself is shaped or carve like a balcony and this has a really good view of the cavern below.
“They had time to make all of this?”
Kyte’s looking around carefully. “No….these are older ruins from the first war with the Forsaken see that pillar there.”
I nod and it’s oddly shaped. “Yeah, it’s a mushroom?”
“Mooring post, odds are this was where they built airships at the tiers would be like scaffolding.”
“Uh-huh…okay I can see that just no water so.”
She looks at me oddly.
I shrug. “Water docks only on Earth, we don’t have airships.”
“Ooooh, Well I’m from Skywood and we don’t have land that isn’t in the air so airships is something that I’ve grown up around.”
“I so want to see this place, There’s no land on the surface?”
“There’s land in the sky and there’s land under the ocean but no Skywood’s surface is entirely covered by water.”
“Like I said I so want to see it.”
“Well perhaps Shaya could take you to The Isle of Dragons.”
“Isle of Dragon’s”
“It’s a large skyland that is also a huge fortress and home to The Dragon riders.”
“Would I be allowed?”
“You’re he bonded they wouldn’t have a choice. I’d love to see it myself.”
“Why can’t you?”
“Because only the riders and the High King knows where the island is at.”
“Why?”
“Dragon eggs.”
“Oh….okay enough said.”
We make it through the corridor that came off this tier and we come to another large room not a cave that has several sets of passages and stairs going all over at least nine ways out of here. The Rangers are looking around and the Loremistress gestures. “We’ll split up into groups of three and start checking things out keep your coms on okay.”
Oh yeah I keep forgetting we have those…I mean there’s blasters and swords but it still just isn’t what I thought of with everything.
I have a ranger slide up to Kyte and myself and he nods at us talking point as we take the first set of stairs closest to us and they head down into the darkness.
I can feel my eyes sort of adjusting through the link and I’m gripping my blade pretty hard and trying not to freak out and have a Blair witch moment.
Kyte’s breathing hard too as nervous and freaked out as I am I think.
Then my feet go from steps to thumping into soft sand.
This is definitely a cave and I see boxes and barrels of things but I can hear shuffling in deeper and there’s the smell of goblin in the air and blood.
Snakes and Ladder-24
Chapter 24
My nose crinkles with the smell and I feel sweat trickling down in places. The whole situation has my senses just throbbing going from that all out fight to us moving through the halls and sort of calming down to this. My adrenaline is pumping pretty nuts and I feel like I mixed some of those wake up tablets they used to sell at some of the truck stops with Redbull.
Oh by the way Redbull is kinda ick.
Like they took Mountain dew and added medicine tasting stuff and then a bit of battery acid.
Deep breath Erendae.
There’s a creak to my left but up above me and I know one of the buggers is there. I cough and Kyte looks at me and I motion with my eyes and she nods getting it. Hey that was kind of neat…
Instead of swinging at the thing I slam myself into the row of boxes that’s beside me and where I figure the goblin is at. There’s a surprised curse sound from a couple of different voices and three of them fall off the crates onto the floor amongst us.
I never got that, I’d see the same set up home of TV all the time and no one ever hit the boxes the bad guys were on. I’ve been in lots of warehouses it’s really easy to fall off the top of a pile of crates.
I don’t waste time and I drive my blade down into a head and Kyte has these two daggers out cutting the other two up and there’s a scuffle as a four is running towards the exit behind us and the ranger with us does the whole nasty thrown hatchet into the back of the head thing. Sorry a throwing axe, it’s a lot different really and there must be a good amount of force those things build up because the goblin flew a good four feet after getting wacked.
We do a quick scout of the roof and the ranger is reporting in over the com and Kyte is prying open barrels and crates. The crates are full of crossbow bolts with nasty heads on them and the barrels have these things that look like a mushroom mated with a horse turd and smelled about the same.
“Ick, what the heck are those?”
Kyte shrugged. “Poison grenades?”
The ranger looked over her shoulder. “Blight apples.”
“Blight apples?” We both ask.
“It’s a goblin and orc food, they use them for rations it’s some kind of puff ball fungus they eat.”
Kyte’s sort of coughing at the smell. Me…well it’s actually slightly reminiscent of really funky blue cheese that someone is trying to serve you over top of a pickled egg.
“Oh yeah that could explain the way these things smell actually.”
Kyte’s nodding. “Let’s give it one more look before we rejoin the others.”
We give it another quick look over and we find a black wooden box with wax sealing it and some kind of mage sign on the top of it. The thing is gouged with knife marks that looks like the goblins were trying to open it.
I’m looking it over and from the wear marks on the wood it looks like it’s stored in a rack or was. Like one out of a set of somethings. We’re careful with it and it’s kind of heavy…and it clinks inside.
“I think these for were absconding with some of their masters money.” I rattle it again. Kyte’s frowning. “Why would the money be sealed like this why not in a larger chest?”
I’m looking at the box it actually reminds me like one of the boxes that poker chips come in from the casinos.
“It’s a payment or a payroll box. Food and ammo plus the large spot belong this is the ware house area, like shipping and receiving. This was likely to go out to whoever was coming in with the next delivery like a pay envelope.”
The ranger’s looking at me. “You think that the orcs and the goblins are that organized?”
“No, not likely because they’re hired muscle but even the hired muscle usually ends up knowing where the cash is hidden.”
I stuff the box into my pack. “There might be some clues to who else might be involved in here.”
“And if there isn’t?”
I grin. “I’m not opening that. I might know a few bits of magic but this stuff I’m going to leave to Shaya besides aren’t the spoils here property of the crown anyways?”
They both shake their heads no. Kyte says. “Not in the Darklands, there’s a certain set of laws about found relics but treasures are for those who found them by right of recovery.”
“Finders keepers?”
They both blink at me with that whole lost look.
“I’m not familiar with that one Lady Erendae.” The ranger says to me.
I smile because it feels nice to be called a lady even if he’s using the whole title aspect of it and not the common earth way of it.”
“It’s just Wren okay, I’m not of noble blood.”
“Oh, it’s just the company you keep…Wren…”
“Better, no normally being around the rich and powerful is not my usual place…uhm…what’s your name I never caught it.”
“Ryann.”
“Ryan, huh that’s a name from home.”
“No, Ryann stretch the ending.”
“Oh okay not so much from home then.”
He smiles and it’s nice actually. Not like the schooled faces I’m used to seeing he’s if an elf can have such a thing…he has a country boy face complete with sun bleached hair and a tan.
I’ve seen ethic colors but no real tans here. I wonder how long it would take a sylvan to sunburn?
“We should get moving and join the others.” I say getting things settled in place again. Ryann nods and slips past us taking the lead again. As we’re backtracking Kyte still looks over at me as we move through the tunnels.
“Finders keepers?”
“Oh yeah it’s a saying from home, pretty old though. I’m not even sure where it comes from but it’s Finders Keepers, Losers Weepers.”
“That’s so odd…”
She has this look on her face that actually makes her nose look cuter, not like hot cute but the whole kid like cute. If Kyte was human she’d be the red headed nice cute girl just down the road.
“No that’s not odd it’s just the tip of the iceberg with my people.”
“Tip of…Wren what’s an Ice-berg?”
We catch up to the others and there’s sort of the same stuff. Rooms being used in the way that they’d be used for a military fort or base but with the horrible living habits of the creatures that live here.
This place is a maze though or rather like a warren because there’s passages and tunnels her made for Goblins and I’m told Kobolds and we can’t leave these things not investigated even if they are mostly short cuts between other tunnels trust me going through tunnels that are only five feet high and three feet wide isn’t fun.
It’s creepy. And I’m so getting the whole concept of claustrophobia right now.
And I’m seriously having the size of the place really wearing on me. It doesn’t sound small but it’s pretty small when you’re laid down with weapons and armor and gear.
We come out to another larger tunnel and more storerooms and bunkhouses but the place is not as dirty but theirs is this really bad funky smell like a full outhouse that never got ashes or lime and lots of body odor and these other smells rancid grease, oily coal like scents and this smell that’s meat?
And in a few places there’s cooking areas and bones. There is nothing right about seeing bones that are from things that moved upright being gnawed on.
I’m not feeling good. The whole idea makes me feel ill.
We do a search and there’s the signs of this place clearing out in a hurry from us and we are able to make head counts or rough ones. D’oh-oh I should’ve thought of that.
Then we come up to a large set of metal double doors. And I mean a large set like twenty feet high and there’s a huge lock of some kind on them and they also meet together to form some sort of circle that’s a seal.
They’re trying the door and a few people got burned doing it and Illisia is looking things over and she orders everyone back. She takes a few steps back herself and points her rapier at the doors and she changes her stance and she shimmers but her sword glows and she moves her blade through the air and it draws out a circle of her own and she’s writing all these symbols with the tip of the blade that are shining blue and white in the darkness then she pushes at the circle she made with both hands and sends it floating into the doors and overlapping the engraved one there.
There’s a loud hiss and a scream of metal and a flash of energies as her magic broke whatever was on the door. The knights and other come ahead looking at her and her nods but sort of sags too. That was some pretty big magic I think it took a lot out of her.
They’re trying and trying to force the doors and they seem to still not be budging. I look them over and I’m not sure if my “Freightliner” spell will be enough to break through.
~I have you’re back love. ~
Shaya’s voice in my mind.
For a second or two I just bask in the contact and just let her and her love shore me up inside. There’s no words right now just us and the flickers of intimate times we’ve had and the deep feelings of promised intimate times together soon…soon to wash away all of this crap here together.
I can see her sort of or rather through her as she and Bhlaze dip down out of this heavy cloud cover that’s shrouding the top of this place and can feel her and his hearing focusing on the sounds of fighting. There’s a flicker of this link between her and him and she calls back for a fast retreat of the troopers down on the ground.
They come in at a silent glide like a hunting owl and then from like maybe forty feet away and above the goblins and the orcs there they fire. Bhlaze spitting out beach ball sized ball lightning bursts.
Kind of sort of picture a bomb that goes off but it’s like unleashing an electrical storm burst. I don’t see the effect past the flashes as she and he pull up and away. But she orders the troopers with her back in and to take the upper doors.
I feel them both climbing and banking and building power and sending it my way.
I look at the doors.
~Okay, I’m ready. ~ I think to her.
I’m still pretty sure the blast won’t bust down the doors but instead I put my hands on the doors and concentrate. The same spell minus the horn and the speed of impact. Instead I’m the truck and I’m running a heavy load in the back with lots of traction and there’s nothing like a rig other than maybe a dozer for pushing either.
I drop my spell into low gear and it’s like I planted my rig right up against the doors and start pushing my way ahead.
I get into it and I’m pouring sweat and I can feel the strain and the tires spinning every now and then but inch by inch it gives…metal creaking and then louder and louder and the lock starts to give inside of itself.
Then I plant a foot in a step forward and another and another until there’s a crack and I push the doors open like Aragorn shoving those doors open in the LOTR movies only I’m a busty girl in elvish plate armor instead of Viggo Mortensen.
I see orcs and some other nasties waiting for us with weapons at the ready and blaster and gun types of weapons being pulled and aimed at us.
I hear. “Wren Down!” from Illisia and she this swirling mass of flames pouring from her hands turning into a sphere that looks like a sun with it even having these micro flares coming off of it, the damned thing looks real.
There’s a boom from her as she lets it go and it knocks her off her feet with the kick and the thing sails past me as I drop and roll away. I’m ten feet from it as it passes me and I feel the heat from her fireball.
Then there’s this strange, strange sound like a whale might make it it’s being tortured and it gets snuffed out. And I see Illisia look of suddenly and something I can’t see hit’s her and blasts her back all the way to the far wall.
I turn to see what did it and there’s this thing, literally this thing in robes with odd symbols all over them and holding a freaky looking staff and it’s deep wet looking purple skinned with this head that looks like one of those things from the Aliens movies crossed with like a demonic squid.
It points the staff at us and the orcs come charging at us.
~Beloved…do it, they’ll not know it. ~
~Right! ~ I mean I hope we’re right and I sit up and I cut loose with my “Freightliner” spell head on into their charge.
Bodies go flying and there’s crunching and squishing sounds as you can well imagine a semi truck hitting a crowd. Then it hits the evil squid thing and he/it levels its staff and…
I get hit like I just drove my truck into a head on with another truck or a brick wall.
The backlash snaps me back on my back.
Oh this isn’t good.
Snakes and Ladders-25
Chapter 25
Ow…
Ow…
I’m getting my thoughts together or trying to after getting whacked by the thingy. I’m a little punch drunk I think and I feel this…
I open my eyes and The tips of it’s tentacles around this nasty looking mouth are glowing purple and I feel it hit me hard…this sensation of all these spikes being driven into my head, into my brain!
I scream and roll around as I’m having the worst migraine attack ever!
I can feel it drilling, pushing and prying into me…
Drilling and trying to get into my mind.
Okay you want what’s in here; you want to use pain to keep me down!?
I let it inside and I trap it in a huge body that I hated, the pain of being so wrong and the feelings those soul crushing feelings of being trapped like thins of never having a hope in hell of ever being the person that my soul was screaming out to be.
There’s no pain like being stuck in that whole overweight zone. Yeah people can say all they want about weight loss and all that other shit but it hurts, it hurts and it sucks. Add in being transgendered and the sheer hell that is when you really, really know that’s who you are and there’s nothing you can do but die to get out of that?
Pain, I know pain asshole.
It’s recoiling out of my mind and still pain drunk a little I grab at its mind.
It wasn’t expecting that.
Losing a limb, the sick hurt and tiredness of being so huge. The sheer ughh of a diabetic crash…and all the hurt and hate and the sneers of those that I had tried to let know and they just won’t give you the chance to explain or you just can feel that this would never be accepted no matter what.
I’m trying to drown it in it.
And I’m getting to my feet the whole time. I’m used to pain. I think I’m used to pain so much that I can likely just laugh off stuff that might seem crazy.
And maybe I am crazy because I just can’t help myself as I push myself off the floor and I wipe the spit off my mouth and stalk towards it.
“Who…..”
“Lives in a pineapple under the sea?”
“La, la, la, la…”
Its strange eyes widen at me and it does something and levels the staff at me again. It fires and I can see it, barely but it’s this ripple that you almost can’t see in the air. I pull my sword and swing straight down actually pulling from Bhlaze and using the whole energy feelings to boost the cut and I slice the force wave in two.
I feel it grazing my armor on either side of me.
“Surprise Squidsworth.”
It tries it again.
I take a step still drawing on Bhlaze and I spin my body but use his feelings of a wing over and put some of my energy into it and rotate/dance almost even around the path of the shot.
I see a several flashes of light as there’s Illisia up and blood running from her mouth and there’s this bubble of green light around one of her hands and she’s got her fingers all in one of those witchy point at you thingies and in that bubble there’s these little faeries made of light shooting bows at the squid.
Seven bright arrows hit it dodging around things and even me like little guided energy arrow missiles and they thunk and sizzle into Squidsworth.
It lets out this screamy squealing sound of pain that reminds me of the things from the Aliens movies.
I close in and swing my sword at the thing.
It blocks with the staff. The reverberations along my blade are really heavy duty and I’d have instant blisters if not for the leather on my hilt and my armors gloves.
And again and again and again we’re trading off blows and it’s a pretty even match because this thing is not as skilled a fighter as it is at doing the magic stuff it’s trying to do and I’m holding my own.
But there are sparks flying with each blow we have and it’s damaging my sword. There’s also the fact that I’m gaining a slow advantage as the thing seems to be running out of just raw stamina.
I haven’t been in better shape that someone in awhile. It’s a damned good thing that it’s in a fight too. There’s another big swing and I block it and the stress is just too much and my blade ends up shattering on me. It gurgles a hissy like chortle at me and when it does that I grab the tentacles around its mouth with both hands and I pull its head down hard and fast into my knee.
I used to bounce; I know how to fight dirty.
More of those fae arrow energy bolts hit it too. That’s some spell because as close as I am they zip around me. I knee it again and it touches me with its staff and there’s a flash and a thump to my chest and I hurt. It’s like a baseball bat to my boobs right through my armor.
Oh that’s like getting hit in the stones in a whole other way….
I get blasted back and it screams and there’s glowing purple goop-blood flying out of it because I hung on really tight and it ripped off all but two of its tentacles. Its snaps its head down at me fully enraged and it points the staff at me point blank.
I grab the bottom like grabbing a hockey stick from someone when you’re on the ground and use my weight to pull that end towards me really fast and sending the tip right in front of its face.
There’s a hum for a second and this split second of me being totally able to read the expression in its features.
Sometimes…oh shit is universal I guess.
There’s this pop right after that of its head exploding in a burst of goop-blood.
I sag in relief and exhaustion and that almost gets me as the fighting is still going on and Kyte and Ryann are suddenly there with their blades cutting and blocking around me and I pull my daggers.
I shove my tiredness back to where I used to put the long haul tiredness and I get back into the fighting. Thankfully the ones that were hit by my first “Freightliner” are all down for the count and that’s certainly helped us a hell of a lot.
It’s the three of us in a tight circle and there’s orcs all around us and they’re really pressing in trying to overwhelm us and that’s also to our advantage as there’s a fair number of those tech-majik firearms going off in the battle here so while they want to tear us to shreds they’re also making fairly decent cover from the blasters and the guns.
I’m using my knives to cover the flanks of Kyte and Ryann who are the more skilled fighters. There’s always a chance of a blade slipping through one’s guard and that’s what I’m watching out for. When I see an opening usually when one of them locks up an orcs weapon in a parry I drive a dagger in.
There’s so much blood on my daggers they first get slick and then tacky as the blood is drying on my blades and my gloves. I’m sure it’s actually sunk in through and has soaked to my hands.
Then we’re moving ahead as the line break with the orcs and we’re fighting these short things with sharp teeth, yellow eyes and ears with jagged points and waxy whitish looking skin and they have firearms that make up for them being around four feet high. They have hand held weapons too and their bloody strong for their size and where the orcs fought to the last man these are trying to escape through side doors.
We take down about half of them before the rest take off being routed. The doors they used are sealed shut tightly from the other side and I feel this huge thump on the other side when I try to force one open.
Ryann clasps me on the shoulder. “No point they dropped blocked it.”
“Drop blocked it?”
“Kobolds, they rig their exits so they drop a section of the tunnels they use behind them.”
“Kobolds?”
“Yes that’s what these things are; they’re the smiths and builders for the dark powers.”
“Oh…” I blink and look around and he’s right this, this whole chamber is like a smithy or a factory floor full of weaponry and racks of weapons and forging equipment in a mixture of old school and tech-magic machinery.
I find a spot to sit and take a break and breathe, trying to rest. I really have a new respect for the guys back home that are soldiers and have to run missions like this. I never thought in my wildest dreams though that I’d be here the way that I am and that I’d be right smack in the middle of a mission like this.
I think I zoned out of it and come too it only when Kyte leans up against me and nudges me with her shoulder. Okay she’s all angry and tightly wound ever since I’ve known her but right now she seems oddly calm and at peace.
She hands me a blue foil? packet and a spoon. I look at her. “What’s this?”
“Rice with duck and vegetables.”
I look at it. Oh it’s a Sylvan MRE. I see a circle of symbols on it but it’s like a sticker? I watch the others pull these stickers off and do the same and feel it trigger some power laid onto it and it fills? And heats up and pops open like microwave popcorn at the top and I can smell roasted duck and wild rice with this rick nice steam coming off of it and I dig in.
I inhale it actually as it’s really good and as close to fresh as one of those microwave meals you get in the grocery store. I’m not used to the veggies though as there’s water chestnuts and those little bits of asian baby corn in it along with mushrooms and other things.
Ryann sits with us and does the same and even has these plain sealed up bars that turn out to be brownies that he shares with us. Kind of good and different with this thick layer of icing in the middle that tastes like hazelnuts.
People are taking turns eating and keeping watch as we’re dealing with injuries, refuelling and searching the place which is what Illisia is doing while she’s eating and if she comes across some of the troops with us that need healing as she does that she does some healing magic on them as well.
I head over to her and pick up the remains of my sword and frown at it. I know it’s a weapon and it’s used to kill but it was my first sword and it feels like I lost a friend in a way. Considering that it’s been used so much in this fight alone so many times to save my butt I think it’s okay to feel this way about it.
Illisia looks at me. “Sorry it was a good blade.”
“It was a gift from the commander at Steadfast.”
“Keep the hilt and the guard and bring it to him and the smiths and tell them just how much that blade meant and did. They’ll like that. And you should keep it as a trophy too of besting one of the Mind Eaters.”
“Mind Eaters?”
“The squiddy thing, it’s called a K’rakken and it’s is a minion race of the Chthul.”
“The Chthul?”
“The dark evil that had enslaved everyone in this system ages ago.”
“Oh…right you were slaves right?”
“Yes, gathered here in this planet and the moons were transformed using its powers and technology to become slave farms for all the different beings here and the different races that make up the Sylvan Republic.”
“So this thing being here means this thing’s back?”
“Not back but like we’ve feared and known for awhile it still has a hand in trying to destabilize us.”
“So this Chthul wasn’t killed?”
“No we defeated it and in the Great War we forced it to leave the system and it hasn’t returned.”
“But this thing is here now.”
“The Darklands were the home base of the Chthul while it ruled here and we think that it left many troops behind here this is why the goblins and orcs and kobolds are here they’re descendants of the troops left behind. We think the K’rakken is either descended from that too or they’re powerful enough to survive the passage of time or that the Chthul is some how sending agents here by something it left behind to spy on us to see when we’ve become weaker.”
“So if that’s the case…”
“Lyam may be getting support from the Chthul in his war in another attempt to weaken us like the last civil war.”
“The last civil war?”
“The Summoning War, it was actually a civil war between the nobles that believed they solely had the rights over everything and many of the mage folk that were treated like they were just workers fit to do as the nobles had commanded. It began actually pretty small with protests but the very vain and the very wealthy old nobility had responded with crushing force.”
“I’ve seen that home.”
“Likely, we might be “Elves” but we’re still people and we’re still very flawed at that.”
“So the nobles went too far and pushed the mages and then things got violent.”
“Yes at some point the mages went darker and dabbled in powers that they shouldn’t and they decided that they were the new nobility and they recruited for the darker sides of our cultures and allied with the Chthul’s creatures and they opened gates to places that gates never should have been opened to and we were suddenly in a very deadly war almost as bad as the war where we became free.”
“And you think the Chthul engineered this?”
“Pretty sure, there were incursions in space that kept the stellar navy in steady conflict with the Chthul’s war fleet.”
“And without the navy there was even more violence here.”
“Yes, and we honestly would have lost that war if it hadn’t been for Shaya’s parents being made High King and Queen in the middle of it.”
“But Lyam was a traitor even then?”
“Likely but no one knew it and he was a brutal warrior and noble he was the ruler of Skywood and his court raise people way more aristocratic than Kyte. The Old King Justane was a blunt man and hadn’t much use or ability with magic but had married into Greenwood royalty and Prince Dorian the current king had his magic from that side of the family. When the eldest son and the king were killed in an ambush he had left Dorian to be king because he would be best suited to actually mend over the hurts of the war with our people instead of Lyam who would have done the gods only knows what to ensure that this never happen again.”
“So Lyam’s less than happy that Dorian was made king.”
“As we know now and he’s been hiding and recruiting those that want to see the old ways when we were a kingdom only.”
“So the Shaya’s parents…”
“Took us from a monarchy to a republic with politics that have let people and such have a say in everything and the king is more like the tie breaker when it comes to the laws and he is the head of the royal army and navy charged with the defense of the realm.”
“So the noble houses have their own troops?”
“Yes but the nobility that become knights and such will not have their titles recognized at court unless the serve in the forces of the kingdom.”
“Okay but what’s stopping the king from being an asshole and taking everything over if he wants to.”
“Honor mostly but also the dragons and their riders and the temples.”
“The temples?”
“The temples to the gods have political power but they also have real magical power and resources but during the war with the Chthul they were saved and granted sanctuary in The Holy City in exchange for their oaths to maintain the balance between all Sylvan peoples. The last king’s grandfather was a lot more of a prudent man and granted royal lands in perpetuity in exchange for them building temples off of the main planet and decreed that all temples on all of the moons were embassies of The Holy City. For that he asked the temples be a buffer between the rich and the poor.”
“So do the temples affect politics?”
“Of course they cannot be part of the voting block with the people but the temples all are awarded a court representative that acts as the people’s critic to ensure that any laws passed are as fair as can be. Unified votes of the temple representatives also can over turn any laws and send them back to be argued by the courts.”
“And the temples have this on the federal level only?”
“Federal?”
“The uhm High courts with the king.”
“No they have this on each of the moons as well, with the understanding that their representatives at the High court will act as their voices there.”
“Okay, and the King can he make laws?”
“Not since the republic was formed by the current king. He can craft a law and it still has to be presented to the courts.”
“So he hasn’t have absolute power.”
“No, he wished to avoid that temptation.”
“But is there any time when he can just do as he pleases?”
“Only in times of war. But that takes a majority of three quarters of the votes of the court to be officially at war.”
I look at her. “So Lyam…?”
“Lyam wants the throne and his supporters want the days when the king’s word and those in the personal court of the king was law.”
“So he can do as he pleases.”
“So they all can do as they please, abuse whoever they want and to tax people into poverty and control and divvy up the entire kingdom amongst themselves and firmly be in power.”
“But that’d just lead to another civil war wouldn’t it? People wouldn’t stand for it.”
“Which is why they’re doing this now to gather support and outright kill those that stand in their way.”
“But that won’t last.”
“No but he would use dark majiks to really control things. It’d would be extremely hard to forment a rebellion even generations later when the temples are gone and anyone with majik that might have opposed him are gone and the royal mages can read thoughts of those held suspect and try the summarily or just have them killed.”
“That’s insane!” I mean I’ve heard of dictatorships but this seems like a total take over.
“And it is but the power mad aren’t really sane and Lyam has allied himself with all of these dark powers to win and he like so many others before him think that he can be the one to be able to control these powers and be able to out smart the Chthul.”
I’m shaking my head. This is so much more than I had thought. It’s wheels within wheels and just.
“We can’t let him win.”
“No we can’t or those in his camp either since I can well imagine even in that ensemble there are those that think they can take Lyam’s place.”
“So not just him but a whole movement of these people that see the old ways as the good old days.”
“Exactly.”
She’s been looking through things the entire time and most of it she’s getting checked and written down but I did notice her taking some things for herself and letting others do the same with a head nod. Sometimes she’ll shake her head no to some things. A lot of the weapons here made by these kobolds are nasty looking but in that popular gothic kind of way back home. Some are pretty nice but no one is taking them.
They are taking things though that look like they might be Sylvan made though. She tosses me a ring. I catch it and its very nice gold with makings for magic and a ruby stone in the center.
‘What’s this?”
“Laser ring.”
“Laser ring?”
“Yes it’s older magic more of a tool that a weapon really it used light spells specially enchanted and turns it into a short range welding or cutting beam.”
“Mine?”
“Yes, you can use majik and it might come in handy.”
“Cool, this is kind of neat.”
“Neat is good?”
“Yeah neat is good.”
We look through some things some more and she gets away from me as I’m looking for a sword to replace my wrecked one. She calls me over and she has one in front of her sitting in this long spelled rectangular box. It looks like a very expensive weapon.
Picture a scimitar like the Arabs use but melded in style with one of those samurai swords. It has flames following a bird in flight all along the blade set in the metal in shining gold.
“Oh…shiny.”
“It’s a phoenix blade.”
“A phoenix blade?”
“It was a knightly order of magic capable knights back in the Chthul war; they used fire magic pretty exclusively. This was heading to someone very special and important most likely.”
“Why?”
“It’s a magic sword, enhanced sharpness and strength but more that those things it can emit a focused plasma aura.”
“Huh a what?”
“You pour power into it and the blade creates an aura around it that gets so hot that it’ll cut through most things.”
“Wouldn’t that fry the person holding it?”
“No, you’ll be protected.” She passes me the sword in that knightly over her wrist way.
“Me?”
“Wren, you are Erendae, Wren Phoenix yes and I’m here able to unspell this warded box on this mission and theirs is a blade form and you think that this wasn’t something the gods set into motion? This blade was meant to be your sword Wren.”
I take it and stare at it and step back and charge it up and there’s this red-gold light that shines out of the bird decoration with raptors scree and its glowing red…and there’s little tufts of flames coming off of it.
I’m not even hot holding it.
I’m not sure about the whole gods thing since I’m kind of a Christian but this…this looks a whole lot like one of those flaming swords that an angel might have had.
I’m kind of scared of this and yet…
Was this meant for me? Is this a sign?
I have good people here looking at me and nodding like this is.
I cut the power. And look up? “I’ll try; I’ll do my best to keep them safe.”
Snakes and Ladders-26
This was hard to come back to. I started this as a present to Wren who had very quickly found herself a place as a dear friend in my heart. I’m sorry it’s taken me this long to put another one out and they’ll be coming out probably infrequently so I hope everyone is patient and understanding.
Wren…. We love you, we miss you.
Chapter 26
*Before……
“No, you’ll be protected.” She passes me the sword in that knightly over her wrist way.
“Me?”
“Wren, you are Erendae, Wren Phoenix yes and I’m here able to unspell this warded box on this mission and theirs is a blade form and you think that this wasn’t something the gods set into motion? This blade was meant to be your sword Wren.”
I take it and stare at it and step back and charge it up and there’s this red-gold light that shines out of the bird decoration with raptors scree and its glowing red…and there’s little tufts of flames coming off of it.
I’m not even hot holding it.
I’m not sure about the whole gods thing since I’m kind of a Christian but this…this looks a whole lot like one of those flaming swords that an angel might have had.
I’m kind of scared of this and yet…
Was this meant for me? Is this a sign?
I have good people here looking at me and nodding like this is.
I cut the power. And look up? “I’ll try; I’ll do my best to keep them safe.”
*And Now……..
While I’ve been talking to Illisia everyone else has been gathering the things that were here and the rangers have already left sweeping out with a few of the others that I’m going to consider likely to be able to spot some of those magical things that we might have to watch out for…stumbling across some of those could be bad.
My whole body is telling me that I’ve pushed things way too far. But I’m used to pushing things too hard. The fact back home that things weren’t the best for me health wise and the fact it never seemed to stop the bills from coming in well.
A person…
A mom even if she’s never ever been seen as a mom well she’ll do everything she can to provide for her family.
Or like now to defend it.
Illisia passes me a vial and she’s taking out this bottle with a lime colored glowing liquid in it and she takes a drink. Before passing it to me as we walk to catch up with the others. “Here, potion first.”
“Potion?”
“Healing magic.”
“Shouldn’t we save this for the wounded?”
“I’m a cleric; I came well prepped this’ll help.”
“Okay…” I down it.
It tastes like medicine, not bad, bad stuff but have you ever had like ginseng extract? Yeah like that and some other things. It’s funny because the feeling starts in my mouth.
It’s this tingle like you’d get from a small electric touch like from a battery or something and I can feel my mouth feel…better? Clean too?
“My mouth?”
She’s laughing. “You likely bit a cheek and whatever else happened in the fighting. Its magic also prevents infections so it’s gotten rid of the nasty stuff in your mouth too.”
It’s working and while I’m not badly hurt those things are mending but not just the wounds, the chaffing from my bra and armor, the few blisters I have and muscle strains too are all vanishing.
“Whoa….that’s…”
“A good idea, I keep a stock of lightly powered healing potions like this just so we can actually stay fresher while doing something like this.”
“Yeah…well that is a good idea.” Wow…what the military guys could do back home with…no…no…no…Not a good thought Wren.
Don’t get me wrong I love our troops but as far as what some people order them to do and some of the crap going on…The United States does not need magic, the thought of it is really scary.
And with this traitor usurper Lyam exactly what we’re here fighting if he’s trying to use stuff better left untouched.
I take the radioactive looking stuff from her next and take a sip. “Hey lemonade!”
“Yes, it’s one of my favorites.”
“Why is it glowing lime green?”
“Starhoney.”
“Huh?”
Okay I take it elves don’t go huh? Because she’s laughing.
“Starhoney, it’s honey that’s collected from certain hives that bees have made on leylines and have fed from the flowers along those lines. It’s filled with spare mystical energy.”
“Okay….”
“It glows blue Wren.”
“Okay…”
“Yellow and blue make?”
“But lemon juice isn’t yellow?”
Illisia snickers. “No? Well maybe I drank the juice and something else was yellow?”
“Eeeew!”
She’s giggling and we’re both getting looks from the others and Kyte’s rolling her eyes at us but she says. “Erendae, sylvan lemons have yellow juice.”
“Oh well phew.” I tip the bottle back a have a good long drink.
It’s kind of like having an instant sugar buzz for a second but its magical energy coming into my system. Not a lot mind you but right now I can feel it.
“Wow…yay.” I offer some to Kyte.
“No thank you I’m not gifted.”
“Gifted?”
“I cannot do magic so I’m not really in need of it.”
“Thirsty then?”
She takes a sip. “I thought that all elves did magic.”
She has a sour look on her face. “Many do, most of the noble houses do actually and I…I do not.”
I step up and give her a hug around the shoulders. “You okay?”
“No…yes…I’m used to it, used to being different.”
“We’re all different Kyte.”
“I know that people have been telling me that my whole life trying to make me feel better.”
I look at her. “No...I really mean it Kyte, we’re all different even the so called normal people no matter were you go are different you just get under the surface and they…everyone is a completely different person that what they show the world.”
“Even you?”
“Especially me! Look on my world I was me.” I gesture at myself. “On my world what was on my outside was a close to four hundred pound very large man that tried with all of my heart to fight off what my heart and soul really was. Here…I was reborn, raised from the dead pretty much and because of that majik I’m the actual me because the majik healed me and not the shell I was wearing.”
“But the gods? I mean how could you be a man and yet inside be a woman?”
“Well first with great difficulty. But second it’s not gods or the gods fault that I was born that way I just was. Look I don’t know how the faiths work around here but after a certain point didn’t they let your people have control over their own fates.”
“Yes.”
“Well take that a step further and say that they started something and are seeing how things go? Leaving it the hands of fate and our own selves to create our destinies.”
“But why are people like that…trysts and twysts?”
“I don’t know to test us? I’m just down here with the rest of us looking for answers too.”
“I suppose…” She’s frowning and there’s some signals from ahead and we hit several more blocks of rooms carved out from likely natural caves.
We go from room to room with some of them empty cot rooms but in better shape than some of the other ones and wild herbs gathered and in corner vases to freshen the place and the blankets are definitely sylvan and not something else.
Guest quarters? A place for the elves that are part of this to bed down?
And we find more supplies just general stuff like bedding and rations and food the food room have three locks on it and inside are definitely not stuff the nasties down below were eating.
Kyte’s sheathed her sword and she’s looking things over frowning.
“Problem?”
“There are some nice things here; they have more money than what I thought.”
I….
I have an idea.
“Illisia do you have a spare notebook?”
“Of course?” She takes one from her satchel and passes me a pen. “What are you doing?”
I’m going through things and writing them down, everything and how much I can count at a glance and the labels and the dates.
“This stuff had to be bough someplace or stolen now we have a list and labels of what and where it’s made and I assume that merchants carry records right? So we can either track the sales or we can try and to track the thefts.”
“Tracking sales? Who would have thought of such a thing?” Kyte asks but the others are looking at me too.
“Uhm we do that at home a lot of the time when it comes to stuff that’s evidence or the proceeds of crime.”
Illisia nods. “This makes a lot of sense.”
Kyte’s frowning. “Work for the clerks.”
I look at her. “Home this is part of……of the work of the watch. Not just that but we can get the help of the thieves on this too.”
Kyte’s really looking at me now.
“Look, people steal, either in taxes and fees or they do it the old fashioned ways but it’s part of life and if you grew up dirt poor and the rich only seem to get richer you do what you have to do. Now…we can get them to help us by offering them deals.”
“Deals with thieves and brigands?” A couple of them say.
“Yes, because they know this world. They know the ones stealing and the ones smuggling and they know who is fencing the goods. And some of them don’t want to be in this life and we can help them with that.”
Oh now I’m hitting the whole nobility thing because some just look put off by the idea and me for suggesting it. The soldiers and men at arms aren’t saying anything but Illisia is nodding and Kyte looks thoughtful.
~Beloved?~
Shaya…her mental touch makes things feel better.
~Yes, is everything alright topside? ~
~Yes we’ve taken the surface troops out in the valley and we’re trying to work though the doors. ~
~Bhlaze? ~
~Yes mostly him. ~
She touches me deeper and I sort of see through her eyes Bhlaze in front of this huge drop down steel gate, like one that looks a couple of feet thick just by the look of it and there’s no way that he could budge it or anyone here in the whole force.
Instead he’s blasting it with lighting but with this really short range stream of lightning that’s actually too bright to look at directly like he’s using his lightning as a cutting torch.
I know cool right?
~Oh that’s very cool. ~
~And cool is good right? ~
~Yes, yes it is. ~
~Wren? ~
~Yes Love? ~
~Your idea with the thieves, it has merit we need to talk to father about this…this is why Jaiden took to the streets in part I think or why he stays there still after Lyam was found out.~
~Good…maybe even we can talk to him and use him to get things arranged. ~
~It’d be nice to see him since everything…~
I can feel it she’s missing her twin.
~We will love and hopefully this time he won’t sneak up on my like last time I nearly flattened him. ~
She giggles at the thought and the look she imagines on his face and we share a mental embrace and a kiss.
I look at the others.
“Shaya and the others have the top taken and they’re cutting through the blast door.”
The other’s nod.
Illisia’s calling out. “With most care everyone they’ve taken the top anything or anyone left is now trapped between them and us it might get desperate.”
We finish up there and we find only one large hall that leads from here, now by hall I mean big and like the main promenade of a shopping mall from home and we’re going slowly since this might get ugly all over again.
I can hear voices and sounds of movement as the rangers signal for quiet and we all spread out and move up quietly.
There’s…?
Well it looks like a boat only sort of really thin like it doesn’t have a keel? I’m not sure but the bottom of it’s just slightly rounded and it had two other boats part of it like one of those trimarin boats I think it’s called and I see guns or well turrets of some kind on the thing and there’s people there in armor and sylvan looking clothes loading things and there is a lot of weapons in this crowd.
We’re about the same numbers…
I look at Illisia and whisper. “What’s the plan?’
She’s looking, and looking and looking. “Okay….I’ll cut the mooring power.” She points to what looks like one of those things that you tie a boat to the dock with I don’t see rope so I’m thinking majik.
“Shaya’s almost though I can smell the door cooking. They’ll try and pop the door and let loose with all the guns on the airship to get out of there…so…when I cut the mooring power it’ll drift that when you…”
“Gotcha that’s when I freightline it.”
“Yes but just on the right wing unmoored it’ll send it spinning and create the chaos that we need to launch our attack.”
“Okay…”
She moves a little getting clear and she’s chanting under her breath and holding her holy symbol.
Okay…I take a breath and built up my own power.
I hear then freak out and panic when those mooring things sizzle and pop and the boat starts to bob and move just floating on it’s own and I concentrate and let loose and slam my spell semi into the right side boat-wing thingy and the ship goes spinning in a fast circle in the hall hitting people, cargo falling off, people falling off before it gets wedged nose to tail sideways in the hall.
Then I’m in Final Fantasy meets Star Wars as spells are going up and off and arrows are flying and blasters are opening fire in the dark here from both sides.
Illisia casts some thing and this knights buckler made of energy and golden light with all these glyphs and symbols hit my arm and latches to it.
I pull my sword and fire it up and it does this energy whine as it does like a hawk cry at its prey and I run into the fight taking hits to the mage shield.
I’m not sure why but I yell. “Drop your arms in the name of the King!”
Snakes and Ladders-27
Previously on………
Okay…I take a breath and built up my own power.
I hear them freak out and panic when those mooring things sizzle and pop and the boat starts to bob and move just floating on it’s own and I concentrate and let loose and slam my spell semi into the right side boat-wing thingy and the ship goes spinning in a fast circle in the hall hitting people, cargo falling off, people falling off before it gets wedged nose to tail sideways in the hall.
Then I’m in Final Fantasy meets Star Wars as spells are going up and off and arrows are flying and blasters are opening fire in the dark here from both sides.
Illisia casts some thing and this knights buckler made of energy and golden light with all these glyphs and symbols hit my arm and latches to it.
I pull my sword and fire it up and it does this energy whine as it does like a hawk cry at its prey and I run into the fight taking hits to the mage shield.
I’m not sure why but I yell. “Drop your arms in the name of the king!”
And Now……………
Chapter 27
All that got me was about five blasters pointed at me and fired on I duck and crouch behind my shield and I’m trying not to scream and it’s hard. I’ve been through some stuff but I’ve never been a cop or a soldier and having all that firepower leveled on you is terrifying.
There’s some chanting and another shield springs to life in front of me just as the one protecting me gives shattering into shards of light.
I can’t stay a sitting duck like this so I let out a yell and charge into them.
Seven or ten more hits to the new shield and three or four to my armor and I can feel the heat with those radiating through to my skin and then I’m up close and personal and I try and shield bash one of them and I miss since he’s so quick and I get sneaky enough that while they’re watching me do that I cut through two of the blasters…
Holey cheese…it cuts right through them like a lightsaber…wow that’s.
Scary but kind of awesome.
I’m brought back to reality by the “Shing.” Of drawn steel and they come at me with sword that look like mine in like the design of blade at least actually both sides have blades that look like a Japanese sword had been crossed with a long thin scimitar.
Definitely a lot like those swords used by the elves in the LOTR movies ironically. There are more weapons than that too like a lot of those sorts of fancy renaissance styled swords and some of the bigger knights blades too and other weapons.
It all gets really dangerous really fast and I’d have been in a lot more trouble if I wasn’t using the plasma sword. The guys that I’m facing aren’t hobs or orcs but these guys are real sylvan fighters and men-at-arms and knights even and they’re faster than me and they’re a heck of a lot better than me and if it wasn’t that I’m burning they’re blades even with defensive parries not counting my attacks I’d be a goner by now.
I am getting my ass kicked pretty good when you add in all the other stuff getting through like the punches and the kicks as they’re using this sylvan fighting style that reminds me of dancing with armor and blades and I’m not getting all that many hits or rather attempts to hit them back really.
Mostly I’m just trying to survive…and get myself close to that big heavy blast door.
~Shaya…beloved anytime now! ~
~We’re almost through, do not twist your underpants!~
~Twist my…did you just tell me to not get my panties in a bunch?~
~Uhm…yes.~
~(Dragon-snerk.)~
I think I just gave the one’s that I’m facing a pause because I just giggled a little. It’s the first time that I’ve ever heard a dragon do a snerk. In case you want to know what that is well a snerk is this little cute snort that happen it place of a laugh.
I do that a lot especially when I giggle and the thing is I’ve actually always giggled even as Bear.
What’s so funny is Bhlaze has no idea what he just did…I think he caught that from me.
I duck a sword and block another with mine and actually press back wriggling my blade edge along his and it’s working it burning and scoring and pitting the heck out of his blade completely wrecking it and he looks pissed but scared too…he’s very scared this blade will burn him.
And that’s when he’s watching me sword too much and I pull a Captain America and punch him in the face with my shield.
That sends him arse over teakettle and I turn to face the next one and there’s a spark coming through now even more through the blast door from Bhlaze cutting through and its arc welder bright so I move as best I can to put it at my back and make this guy hampered by looking at it.
Sylvan better than human eyesight that’s got to hurt.
It’s definitely an advantage though one that I need as much of a bad guy that these guys are they’re still elves, still way older than me and a lot more experienced that I am or might ever be…I’m using my flame blade and the spell shield and he’s using a curved knife like those Nepalese ones from home and a sword and even with the welding light we’re dancing as they put it blade to blade knife to shield and I’m just trying to stay alive.
Sweat, my muscles hurt and I can feel my body burning from all of this again despite the potions and the breather. No one tells people just how much energy you burn in a fight? Add armor and swords and…
My shield flickers as his dagger scrapes a cut through the energy tip coming through it an inch and breaking the spell and cutting into my armor and the bracer and into me…sharp, beyond sharp because it was like cutting through butter.
Move girl!
I’m ducking and bobbing and weaving as much as I can to avoid getting sliced by that dagger of his and his sword isn’t anywhere near as dangerous as the dagger that dagger doesn’t scorch or pit with my blade hitting it either and it doesn’t help he’s adjusting to the light, and me.
We clash again and again and he stares at me.
“What are you?”
“Tired…” I shove him off me only to have his step in with a series of swings and cuts and we lock up again.
“You’re not of us, what thing have they summoned?”
“News for you bub, I was brought here by Shai-tan and Mohad…too bad for you lot and that traitor Lyam.”
“King Lyam’s the rightful ruler! We will fight the usurper and his witch forever.”
“Dorian’s the Peace King, he was chosen by their father. And the queen’s a good woman!”
I’m a bit defensive even though I don’t really know her but she saved me, she healed me soul out and transformed me…I’ll always be in her debt for that.
“A deluded man driven insane by the war!” We clash again as he get’s pretty mad at the stuff I’m saying. Blade to blade over and over and I jump back rolling in a reverse tumble from that nasty dagger taking a chunk out of me and I resettle with my sword in a two handed stance.
“Chosen on their fathers deathbed, to save the realm.”
“Witched by Dorian’s whore, just like you.”
“I’ve witched no one idiot.”
We clash again and two handed’s working better with me using the firebrand to block all of his incoming attacks over and over. It’s a lot easier to concentrate just using one weapon instead of too.
I’m looking for an opening.
“You whores all think that you can be here, that you can just walk into the world of men and play by your own rules and not ours and not suffer for it. Just like the queen of whores…she should’ve stayed a temple drudge cleaning up at her betters.”
It figures, another so called man threatened by someone coming along and giving others equal rights to those that’ve been put on.
“Oh well then you’ll really hate me bucko, I did really care for being a man the first time I lived and this is a whole lot better but I’m still not going to be chained down by someone just because he takes a pee standing up.”
He looks really freaked, and yep mad too.
“Abomination! Creature! Evil! You’re the Spawn of the witch queen just like Illian!”
I’m defending myself and there it is an opening…my chest, he seems intent on cutting me there and it’s leaving me an opening, an angle of attack sort of.
I don’t even know it it’ll work but I take his sword hit onto my armor…not letting him hit me but using my armor to parry his swing and I roll into his body as he’s bringing in the dagger and I reverse my hold on my sword driving and burning a hole through his stomach.
“Un…natural…whore…” He gasps out before falling over and I step away and I pant.
I…oh…I see something that looks like a control booth? I stagger over to it and it’s kinda like a toll booth but the window in ir see’s outside the blast doors.
~Shaya?~
~Yes Love?~
~I think I’ve got the door controls.~
~Look for a scale.~
~Scale?~
~Yes, most likely.~
I takes a few minutes but I find a slide looking control and there’s a medallion looking button that looks like it belongs on a sound panel in a studio. I push it up to the top.
~Nope, that the lights.~ It’s gone bright in here and as such some of the terrorist/separatist fighters turn their weapons on me and start riddling the thing full of holes.
~Shit!~
~Wren!?~
~I’m fine but it’s cutting it close!~
I try a few more things…there’s movement above with cranes in the roof and then there’s a pop of massive sparks and there’s a hole in the blast door and Shaya’s through with her swords busy as she’s dancing her way through the enemy fighters.
Two swords she moves like a martial arts master as well as any knight, tumbles, rolls and she turns all the time.
There’s others rushing in too and someone’s headed my way and he passes me his blaster rifle and he takes the controls over and I’m firing…whoa…five starbursts at a time into the enemy.
Like little stars of white light and sort of that mixed with a Star Trek teensy photon torpedo kind of things. They burn though…holes in people and armor and leave marks in the dirt of the cave like a shotgun slug might.
Dragons, swords, elves, energy weapons and alien technology.
I’ve lived this in my head one detail or another for most of my book reading life.
Flash Gordon, John Carter, Wren Phoenix.
Is it wrong that as messed up and bad and scary as this all is that part of me.
Part of me is home.
The doors come up and there’s this huge roar from Bhlaze and then there’s streaks of more of these weapons that I’m firing and arrows from the rangers and there’s a big final push by the enemy and our sides melee fighters pull back letting them get hammered by the firepower we’re packing.
There’s a scream of shock and pain as I see Illisia get blown off her feet from the deck of the wedged airship. She hit’s the ground with a hard bounce and she coughs up blood and we’re all running to her and I’m no healer, I’m running for the airship and a few others are with me.
Up the rope nets and then the deck and I can feel this wave of majik sort of explode out of there and pull back?
I have Kyte with me all of a sudden as I do a cop-movie shoulder roll into the hold.
There’s several elves there and two are wearing leathers and robes and one looks like a knight but he’s wearing black shiny form fitting armor and he’s a very pretty blonde elf.
Not pretty like girly but like elf movie star handsome. He turns as we come in and I fire and he snaps a hand out forming a grey energy shield like the one that I was using earlier taking my shots and Kyte runs sideways along the wall trying to flank him as I pull my sword and fire it up.
Then there an hole in the air like the vortex from the old show Sliders and the others are getting away through it and Kyte and I come at him at the same time and she’s snarling at him calling him. “Jere!”
He pulls a sword with scribbles and mage symbols of it and I didn’t see the swing just sort of knew block!
Sparks fly like a welders shop and he rolls, spins like Shaya off my parry so fast it’s amazing and his shield blocks Kyte’s twin swords and pushes off her with using that to add to the wheel kick he lands in my chest and I hit the hull of the boat.
He fire a couple of energy bolts into me from some wrist top derringer on his sword arm. Spins from me as the pain’s hitting me and there’s a fast exchange between him and Kyte and he’s not just a blur of sword and shield but he’s tossing in snap kicks on her and they clash with a thud and he fires the wrist gun again and she gets her head out of the way pulling back from him and he drops and sweeps her legs like a Jedi break-dancer and he’s already turned and up before she’s down falling and he’s saying something at the same time and…it’s like a movie…and a bad…scene at that…because he kicks her in the bed before she falls totally too fast not to be magic and he swings on her.
She get’s her blades up in mid-air after being kicked but the force he hits her with slams her into the hull again. She screams and spits blood as she hits one of the framing ribs.
The others with us jump him and they can’t touch him any more than the orcs could with Shaya…he’s too fast and too strong and too skilled…he’s too…
It’s barely enough time for me to get my breath and who was with us is either dead, dying or maimed.
I swing on him two handed good and fast…as fast as I can attacks. I’m going for his side to other side shoulders, arm, head…he blocks each time a shower of sparks and him trying to shoot me again and taking kicks…He’s nowhere near as strong as what’s normal I can feet the hard powerful kicks through my armor and they make me wobble inside…He swings his shield and the spell hums and I duck but he catches my helmet and there’s a power tool sound and I feel something at my forehead and I drop to a knee he goes for a kick to my head and I fire my sword with as much magic as I can feed into it to block and…
I look…sorta did that instinctive wince blink thing anticipating impact.
He gives me this nasty look with a smile too before he jumps backwards into the gate getting sucked away.
Or he was looking at Shaya who’s glaring at him and I can feel it in my bones…she want’s him…she want’s to tear him a new one.
There’s this flavor of psychopath in her thoughts about him.
But she got here too late.
She’s pissed as the gate closes with a “Shuuup” sound.
No, we don’t follow.
“Shay?”
“Jere… His name’s Jerek Thistle, Captain of Lyam’s guard and one of….one of my old friends so to speak as Illian.”
“Oh…”
I stay on my knee’s but head over to Kyte. She’s still breathing but it’s bad.
“We shouldn’t move her without a professional healer or something Shay.”
She nods and drops to check the others getting Bhlaze to send in healers and then I’m with her and we’re…I’m using my sword…I’m cauterizing wounds, limbs that he severed and it’s minutes I know but it seems to stretch out and then there’s people in here with us and none are Illisia…
“Illisia?” I ask Shaya.
“Alive but in worse shape than Kyte.”
“What’s next?”
She shakes her head. “Nothing, everything…we won, we routed them and took out a major weapon with the war-bats and the troops and resources here.”
“So were done?”
“No…I can’t…I need to see this through.”
I sigh…and fall from my knees to my butt. “So…we don’t leave this to the others?”
“I can’t afford it Wren…frankly I need the win here for the crown and this new me and to show people where my loyalties are.”
I look around and they’re allies but they’re people and people talk. They’ll say things that went down here.
“We need help Shaya.”
“We do, I need to get some manpower here.”
“You need to be here, to be seen doing things and handling this.”
“Wren?”
“Bhlaze and I’ll go. We’ll go to Rampart and get troops.”
“Wren you’re exhausted…”
I cut her off with a long sweet kiss and she kisses me back and we sort of stand up onto our knees and keep it going and falling into the refuge of US and our link our love and feeling that, being able to shut out the bad shit even for a few moments is so perfect…so amazing and strengthening.
We break the kiss and sigh at each other and stare into each other eyes and she nods.
“I’ll be quick.”
“You’d better.” She smiles at me in the way that I’ve always wanted to be smiled at.
I kiss her again and we both help each other up and she walks me out of the hold entrance and Bhlaze is waiting for me.
“Ready Big guy?”
~Not remotely but nevertheless we need this done and this far in I’d not wager a message spell would get through.~
“Well let’s get going the faster there, the faster we’re back.”
~Aye.~
I mount up and Shaya helps with going over the main straps and I kiss her one more time before we’re out the blast doors at a trot then a fast gallop run across the little valley here before launching off of it.
It’s surprising to find out that we’re up near the top of these mountainous hills. When we went in from the bottom of the place. It’s a little like waking up when someone else is driving and you self orient to where you’re at now.
But it sort of falls away with the world as Bhlaze catches a current and banks us higher over the dark thick and dangerous wilderness here and we’re up in the sky heading Eastwards towards Rampart fortress.
I feel him drawing on his reserves and I see the world sort of stretch out…literally as his powers seem to reach and reach and reach until I can see the fortress at Rampart and then we snap there in The world lurches into a stop or a near stop and there’s a crack of light, this fissure of light like a cut in the world in front of us then the air filled with somewhere else.
The world is lit up in this blue white light that washes everything out, and is silent, the only sounds are ours. The wing beats and the creaks of the leathers and the saddle. We head flying through the fissure of light and as we pass the edges of one place into another it becomes this streak of everything in between here and there. It all took less than a minute I figure but it’s burned into my heart it takes my breath away with just how amazing this is.
Rampart is just ahead this elfin built city on the edge of the cliffs that lead to the Darklands below and it’s a wonderful and welcome sight.
“We call in big guy?”
~Aye.~
He does this sound as he does this sort of deep whistle sound that’s like an above water whale note.
It’s kind of beautiful and surprising since I didn’t know that dragon’s…
~Aye Erendae we sing too.~
“Oh…that’s awesome.”
~Indeed I am.~
That gets me laughing and then sitting up as the elf horns are calling us to safety.
Snakes and Ladders-28
Chapter 28
It’s like out of LOTR when Boromir was talking about the horns of Gondor calling them home. Rampart has that sort of feeling right now a little as this is the place that I’ve spent the most here and there is something that tugs at me as I fly over to the castle section itself and see streets I know and shops I’ve been to while training here.
I bite my lip at some of those kinda sort of home feelings.
I had a few towns like this when I was trucking. Those places you’ve been to so many times that you know them well. It’s actually a good thing y’know.
Home away from home can be good because it’s not home.
I loved my house, my kids and wife and family in my old life but honestly I was a bit less than happy a lot of the time in Grand Rapids and before that South-Side Detroit. There were a few regular stops that just felt like so much less crap than home.
Rampart has that appeal to me right now.
We’re signaled in to land near our quarters and I let Bhlaze do all the stuff since I don’t know the flag signals and stuff.
I’ve been on airplanes before but there is nothing like the effect and feel of a dragon’s living mass under you and part of you as wings flare out and catch air and scoop us to a halt and then this almost elegant landing.
~Of course it’s elegant I’m a dragon not some prancing flying pony. ~
~Flying ponies ooh where!?~
~Well here on the Planet in a few places that are fairly out of the way like The Endless Mountains or The Great Eastern Grasslands but they can be found on Skywood as well as rare breeds of them on Rymora, Wildera and Shaelani.~
~Ohhh that’s so cool…I mean that they exist. ~
He cranes his head around so he can look at me with one eye at least. ~Of course they exist, winged horses as well and all manner of things exist Erendae. ~
~Well home all of this is things of legend, they’re not considered real. ~
~It’s human’s that way here. ~
~I heard we’re wondertales? ~
~More like horror stories. ~
I think about that a bit and honestly even in my own culture mankind can be pretty realistic about how crappy we are as a people.
~Well from what I’ve seen we’re no more evil that people here. ~
~T’iss true there are unsavory beings in all manners of form. That is because Evil and Good have no sole form and can be apart of all beings. ~
I get off and I start to unhook his gear while stamping my feet and giving myself a shake to get things sort of settled. I’m not going to be here and be seen trying to pull my panties out of my butt through my armor.
I see the pages and squires for the fortress arrive along with one of the soldier corporal’s and he looks to me and I give him a salute. (Thumb folded in over the palm so the hand is a leaf then placed over the heart.) “I have report to give to the commander and requests to be made for Dragonryder Shaya.”
He blinks actually surprised that I’m actually being all that official and stuff because I’m not exactly know for it and he nods. “I’ve been sent to fetch you for the commander just for that Lady. Lad’s treat our winged friend with respect and get him watered.”
~Ale.~
I grin. “He says ale.”
“Aye well then get our winged friend his casks and some supper and give him a scrub down too now.”
There’s a carousal of “Yes Corporal’s” from the youths except one that looks pissy about it and has that sort of spoiled rich look like an elfin version of the Malfoy family.
I can see it too, Pages and Squires are to be knights and therefore nobles and in any other place other than a Crown fortress he be this soldiers “Better” and he resents some commoner giving him orders.
It’s just the one but yeah I can see Lyam’s crowd has deep roots in these old ways.
I follow my escort and its right to the commander’s offices and I’m greeted by the heady smells of coffee.
Now I’m a trucker and I’ve drank so much coffee I stopped a long time ago. It’s not that I hated it but I hated it…it had to be really excellent coffee for me to even consider it.
The commander is there and he’s making coffee but he’s got an ornate bowl and hot water and he’s whisking it like Japanese green tea.
“Kaffet?”
“Not usually sir but this smells wonderful.”
“It’s L’honei volcanic pearlette kaffet.”
“I…okay we have something like it back home but I’ve never seen it made this way.”
“This is the Shaelani way of making kaffet; they borrowed from the Kyu-nari way of frothing tea.”
“Oh…that makes sense I guess.”
“Please sit.”
I get a seat and he pours the coffee and he has a thing for the cream which is foamy and basically he makes me a cappuccino and being sylvan elegant he even did this design in the foam on a sword on the surface.
“Thank you sir this will help.”
“Good we’ve both bust days though your’s looks to have been in a far more dangerous way. I’ve sent for food as well.”
I try the kaffet it’s good, it’s really good not too bitter but strong with closer to a chocolate finish to it but not a dark chocolate finish and the milk adds a sweetness to it that is nice but you can tell there’s not any sugar in the cup. It’s got a super-duper zing to it.
“Powerful stuff.”
“Indeed but I like it. So what happened out there?”
I start from the start and not just at the enemy fortress but all of the events at the Rymora fortress and the War- bats and the things he had gotten word of but might sound better from me and once I’m through that I’m going into things at the fortress and the food arrives and we’re soon both talking and eating.
The food is grand. It’s not fancy by far but it’s really good. Venison in a stew with savory veggies and dumplings that have herbs in them and a cup of these small like baked biscuits that are a bit bigger than oyster crackers but still biscuits.
There is stewed forest greens and they sort of remind me a bit of like a cross between collards and creamed steakhouse spinach…not runny but very creamy tasting and there’s some fried mushrooms in batter and fried beets.
Beets…I’ve never been a huge fan of those either but these are roasted or something first and rolled in spices and then battered. They are also a yellow/orange color instead of the other so they do look like veggie-liver and they sort of taste something like…pumpkin pie but with heat in the spices too.
I have to go over the fights several times and I get an idea.
~Shaya love?~
~Wren? You are alright?~
~I’m fine I’m with the commander at Steadfast. I was going to get you to give report too and stuff but I was thinking?~
~Oh…?”~
~Can you speak through me literally?~
~I don’t know the bond we share is extremely rare but I could try.~
I take a deep breath and I close my eyes and I exhale and then I feel…oh…I can feel her inside of me…rising up to the surface and there is so much light and power there…I can feel her magic even as low as it is I can feel her inside of me.
I almost want to cry and scream in pleasure…and fear…I can feel our dark edges too touching and flaring with each other like a power cable jumping around after an accident near a pool of gasoline.
Then we both can feel Bhlaze there between us as both a buffer and a connector.
I’m just sort of there for the ride and at the same time Shaya can’t really do much other than some simple movements and talk but it’s her gestures and it’s her voice not mine coming from me.
It’s so surreal and at the same time so very, very hard to not just shove me into what’s her and just blend with her as two hearts and two souls.
I can feel her wanting it too and Bhlaze is really helping. I mean the pull of being totally one with your heart’s true love is a great thought but in real life situations it’s scary as all get out.
Because there is such a draw to it.
Shaya finishes her report and there’s a few eternal seconds where we touch each other so deeply it almost like we died and we’ve met in heaven.
Almost…but I know it’s not and it’s so…odd.
I’m a good Christian girl, always have been and yet Shaya isn’t. She’s not even close she believes in magic and she believes in spirits and things that I don’t but sorta did and she believes in her own gods.
Which is enough of a shock that we separate.
She saw/felt Christianity or the way that I feel about being Christian and I felt her belief in her other gods.
What shocked me was the fact she’s seen clerical magic work…and it feels…felt like seeing…some of the things that would move me when I was living home. You know that stuff where you can just know he’s there and real…she felt the same about her gods.
It’s really mind-blowing.
It’s like this…her people’s gods are based off real people that lived here as elves like Jesus did. Only the generations of those that knew them are far less removed.
It’s a shock really.
The best thing though from the meld even with the things that I’d seen and felt…was when we touched each other I saw her soul and she saw mine and…
I really was me, like I am now and she really was Shaya.
I mean I knew but still there’s always that part of stuff from home that would drag me down being like I was…Bear and being transgendered….it’s so strange to see your own soul through the eyes of another and to get to see you really are the you that you feel you’ve always been.
I feel the connection slip away and I’m bereft a few long seconds and then I’m really tired and soaked in sweat…again.
My armor feels really icky right now.
I look at Commander Falcon who is pouring me a drink. I’m no a big drinker but there sometimes is some virtue in taking a shot to calm the nerves. I’m actually a little shaky taking it and I’m not sure what it is, it’s on the strong side though but smells vaguely wine like.
It tastes like strong booze but with this flavor of mild raisins and a cream finish.
I don’t mind raisins but for drinking? But this would be good in like a butter tart. It reminds me actually of rum and raisin ice cream.
But I can feel the warmth spreading through my stomach…very strong in content I think.
“Thanks…that helped.”
“Another?”
“Oh…no…definitely not, actually I think by the time this hits me I’ll be ready to pass out.”
“Well then we had best get you taken care of lady. You’ve done a service to all of us Erendae, gathering the men and supplies is the least I can do.”
“I’m not about to let someone like Lyam destroy all of this. You people have fought for freedom, you’ve been through slavery…how can I just sit by and let some one like that wage a war that’s going to threaten everything that people have hoped for, fought for and died for.”
I get up with more than a little effort. “I’ll help with the things we’ll need, Shaya can tell me what we’ll need through the link but we will need a few scribes and if they can be knights that would likely be good and we need a fence.”
“A fence? I’m not familiar lady?”
“A person that sells thieved wares and the like.”
“Why would you require such a person?”
“The things we had found in the fortress.”
“Ah yes this idea of yours about the goods.”
“Yes, if we can trace back these goods then we can find out the supply chain for there and likely others in Lyam’s terrorist organization.”
He get’s this wry look on his face. “This is an interesting idea, I think we might have just the person.”
“You might have just the person?”
“Well you might change you’re opinion when you meet him. He’s in lock up.”
I nod and smile. “Well then let’s go see this person and the faster that I meet him the faster we can get things organized.”
Commander Falcon helps me up and I’m feeling pretty creaky now with the tiredness settling into me but the shot is sort of keeping me sort of loose. Seriously I have a small lift off the stuff. Though I’ve never really been a drinker so I am a light weight.
He escorts me to a different section of the fortress closer to the inner walls that are edging the township part of thins here and it’s linked up to the guard houses too.
This is actually semi familiar; I’ve been in a lock up once or twice from bouncing when things would get to the point where the cops just would take everyone.
I know him as soon as I see him. Not know him know him but I mean he’s in a artists shirt and a vest and he’s brown haired and it’s braided on the sides but rakishly pony-tailed and he’s the one that’s playing three card Monty with two of the guards.
I mean who else could it be?
Commander Falcon coughs and the two guards scramble up but he stays where he is lounging on the stones of the cell.
“Lady Erendae this is Ryann Skydancing, Ryann this is Lady Erendae she would like to have words with you.”
He actually get’s up and he dusts himself off and he looks at me and he grins this kind of roguish grin and he produces a key chain and he unlocks his cell with a flourish and opens the door with a gentlemanly flourish. And a very purposeful stare at my chest. Oh it’s way more intense and at the same time…god…he’s that kind of guy that you want to stare at your chest.
I can’t believe I’m thinking that either.
I mean I can and I sort of want that…I mean women want to feel attractive.
And he’s doing that and then some.
“Welcome to my humble abode Lady; can I offer you a seat?”
One of the guards is gaping and patting himself down before he gets angry. “Lookit you!”
I step between them and into his cell. He’s having too much fun to be a bad guy. He’s…just a little tarnished and bent I think. Actually I like him already.
“Thank you Ryann that’s kind of you.” I actually sit on his wall cot and look at him.
“My mother raised me not to be a complete hooligan lady.”
“Wren, you can just call me Wren.”
“Oy, well that’s an honor considering we just met. What can I do for you then?”
I smile at him and look him up and down. “I’m finding myself in need of a burglar.”
Snakes and Ladders-29
Chapter 29
*Before…
I step between them and into his cell. He’s having too much fun to be a bad guy. He’s…just a little tarnished and bent I think. Actually I like him already.
“Thank you Ryann that’s kind of you.” I actually sit on his wall cot and look at him.
“My mother raised me not to be a complete hooligan lady.”
“Wren, you can just call me Wren.”
“Oy, well that’s an honor considering we just met. What can I do for you then?”
I smile at him and look him up and down. “I’m finding myself in need of a burglar.”
*And Now….
“Well Wren, I would not actually call myself something that I’m not. I mean I’m really not a burglar.”
“Oh so what are you then?”
“Oh I am just a humble treasure hunter lady and occasional free merchant of oddities and bobbities.”
I can’t help it I laugh out loud. I’ve heard of odds and bobs but I’ve never ever heard of it said that way before.
I do like his grin too, there’s a whole lot of handsome scamp there.
Handsome?
Actually yes…I won’t lie there’s times that I look, actually likely more times now since I’ve changed because it’s semi natural? But before in the old days I sort of did too…I mean I wasn’t gay and by no means was I going to go looking for that kind of a relationship it’s just my real self; did notice if certain men were nice enough to get past my defenses and had me take a look.
Though what exactly makes a guy attractive I’m still trying to nail down.
Ryann’s a bit easier he’s good looking but well…he’s sylvan and I’ve yet to see an elf that wouldn’t pass for a human model or better.
It’s the attitude and the charm he has…you can’t help not to smile around him and then there’s the smile. And this is something that I think is universal because I’ve seen it here and I’ve seen it home there are people who smile just to smile and then there are the ones that fake smile while being nasty inside then there’s people like Ryann who has that smile that goes all the way to his eyes.
“So you’ve never burgled in pursuit of treasure?”
His eyes dance. “That would depend on what or who I was attempting to steal?”
And I’m suddenly really aware of my femaleness and that he’s being flirty.
Swallow…
“I’m trying to be serious.”
“So am I.”
Blush…
“Ryann…this…this is more…it’s Dragon Ryder business.”
“Indeed…” He moves and sit’s sort of sideways getting more comfortable. “So what would a ryder need with the likes of a scoundrel like me?”
“I thought you said your mother tried not to raise a scoundrel?”
“Oh I said Hooligan I’m definitely a scoundrel.”
Yup that’s for sure all he needs is a ship and a wookie.
I smile and I look for a minute at my side where my new sword is at. Well I am sort of carrying a lightsaber of sorts.
“Well I need a scoundrel that is willing to work on Ryder business and has no problem being a friend to the crown.”
“There’s friends and there’s friends as you can see right now our friendship is in dispute.”
I nod. “Well there’s earning a shadow wage and then there’s that are into sedition and treason.”
Ryann’s eyes tighten and his expression changes. “Lyam and his lot then…?”
“No friends of mine.” I look him in the eyes.”
“Nor mine, what aid I can render I will give.”
“Just like that?”
“Oh nay, look here Wren…Lyam and his lot and those that support him do so on the backs of the poor and they intend to keep them poor and bound to service. It’s no way for any man or a woman to live.”
“I agree, cabin, hovel, hut or fine house a person’s home should be their castle and everyone should have certain unbreachable rights under the law that no amount of shiny gold resting on noble shoulders will change.”
He looks at me and his eyes soften a lot. “That’s dangerous thinking these days Wren.”
“I was born to it Ryann, I come from a funny place with funny ways and that includes the notions that a person should be judged as equals in the eyes of the law and that we should all be judged on the content of our character and not the colors of our skins or to which family or moon or planet that we hail from.”
Yes I’m taking some stuff from home but really I did and still do believe in the good parts of home. I mean home has its problems but really too it has so much soul going for it too.
The good stuff I am definitely willing to share.
Ryann looks at me and he nods. “I’m yours lady.”
“I’m not a lady Ryann.”
“I’d wager right now lady that even man on this block behind bars or no would say different…” He looks me right in the eyes and he takes my fingers and he kisses my hand.
I mean it’s my hand…it’s not like it’s erotic or anything but I feel the flush, I feel my face get hot and my chest as well as I really, really blush and it’s like there’s this silly little part of me that is the really girly part and that having a boy…a man do that it’s really kind of yay…
The commander looks at me and I blush a little more since I’m kind of surrounded by men and that’s sort of hitting me at the moment too.
“I think we can release the prisoner now guards.”
They nods and they’re giving me looks too and they’re these looks of respect that I’m not used to getting.
Oh sure I had that before and stuff sort of in my old life but getting respect as a man is a whole different thing than getting respect as a woman.
They open the cell and Ryann straightens himself up from sitting and dusts off his clothes and he offers me his hand and helps me up even if I don’t need it and that kind of chivalry is…
Well it’s one of those off in the back of my dreams kind of things. They all even wait until I’m the first to leave the cell. Okay, I love the fact that chivalry isn’t dead here and that sort of feels pretty good.
In that whole being a woman kind of way.
We leave and we head out of the cells to the offices of the guardsmen or the watch and there are papers to be drawn up.
Then there’s this…as we pass some cells with others in there there’s several men there that stand up and they doff hats and or they put a hand to their chests and do a little forward dip to me as I pass by.
Oh…
I look over to the commander. “Why..?”
“Lady it’s as this scruffy looking fellow you just enlisted said. People still don’t openly talk about things the way that you just did.”
Ryann says. “While there might be a lot of nobles that aren’t openly on Lyam’s side wren that kind of talk makes a lot of those of noble blood nervous.”
I look at the commander again. “Why? Aren’t equal rights a good thing?”
“Some of the highborn see that not being ruler absolute over their lands and all that live on them as losing their rights.”
Ryann coughs. “Serfdom they call it.”
I frown and keep walking. “Serfdom…I read about that home…dressing slavery up in a pretty dress is still slavery.”
Ryan looks at me. “Aye that’s true lady.” And he looks at the commander. “And who’s scruffy looking?”
Okay that’s so bizarre that that was even said it makes me smile and laugh a little.
I head up the stairs to the office area and there’s this feeling…I can only describe it as this sort of female sixth sense that I have all of them watching my backside as I go up the stairs.
Wow…just wow I’m so not used to the whole being a woman around a bunch of men and getting this kind of attention.
We get to the office and I sign his release papers and the ones that state that Ryann is to be pardoned for the crimes of resisting arrest, flight from law and the charges of smuggling.
He’s a smuggler!
I look at him as we’re heading up and to the fortress itself. “So…I have no idea if this is polite to ask or not but what were you smuggling?”
“Salt.”
“Salt…”
“There’s no salt here in the waters of The Holy Planet Wren. It’s all mined and that’s far away enough that it’s expensive. I was bringing salt in from off planet for a much undercutted price.”
“And that’s illegal?”
“There’s taxes, taxes that are pushed for and kept high by the salt sellers guilds.”
“Oh, but I thought that the planet was neutral ground?”
“Oh it is but going through the Waygates to get here isn’t protected on the lunar sides of the gates.
Huh that sort of sounds like bootlegging across county or state lines to me.
“That’s actually kind of perfect really.”
“It is?”
“Yes, it is.”
“Do tell.”
“Not here, we’ll talk more in my quarters. I just want to be careful.”
“Hmm…I rather like the idea of going to see your quarters.”
“Uhm…Ryann I’m with someone…I’m bonded to her.”
“That’s okay I’m good with ropes.”
I stop and turn and stare at him. “I said bonded not bondage!”
I’m blushing and he’s grinning and I slap at his arms. And he starts to laugh as he sort of defends himself.
~Shaya…help…~
~What! Wren? Are you alright!?~
~No…he’s flirting with me…! ~
Snakes and Ladders-30
Chapter 30
*Before…
“Do tell.”
“Not here, we’ll talk more in my quarters. I just want to be careful.”
“Hmm…I rather like the idea of going to see your quarters.”
“Uhm…Ryann I’m with someone…I’m bonded to her.”
“That’s okay I’m good with ropes.”
I stop and turn and stare at him. “I said bonded not bondage!”
I’m blushing and he’s grinning and I slap at his arms. And he starts to laugh as he sort of defends himself.
~Shaya…help…~
~What! Wren? Are you alright!?~
~No…he’s flirting with me…! ~
*And now…
It’s the girlfriend laugh.
It’s in my head but it’s still the girlfriend laugh, the spouse laugh.
You know the one, that one that you don’t get until you really know someone and then they can and do wholeheartedly laugh at stuff you say or do.
That I love you so much I can laugh at you laugh.
I have always loved that laugh no matter who I was in love with at the time.
Shaya is no exception.
Only this time there is a kind of exception because I’m a girl now and she’s a girl now and we’re very much in deep love with each other and now there’s this Ryann who is flirting with me and I’m…
I’m scared in a way because I’m attracted.
I wasn’t planning on being attracted and as much as I have always wanted to be a woman all of my other life I kind of mentally dodged around the thing about me with men because well.
It wasn’t really a transitionable thing for me…I wasn’t going to be the pretty thing that men do the fall over thing for and then there was the actually being transgender back home with put me in another whole different category.
Fat, old, and being transgender is not the thing that guys look for.
Hell what most relationships look for.
Honestly I think that the one thing that we have in general as transwomen that can really set us apart from Genetic women is our experiences and our empathy.
~It’s not funny Shaya. ~
~Yes love it kind of is. ~
~No, it’s not I don’t know what to do!?~
I feel her touching me inside and feeling me out and then there’s that soothing touch…like her soul over all of this distance is floating behind me and she’s hugging me through my body and down into my important parts.
~Ask him to stop if this really wrongs you love. ~
~It’s not wronging me but I just never went there before…~
~Went where? ~
I smile inside because there will always be these little cross cultural moments that we’ll have.
~I mean I never thought about me and men much even in my dreams of myself. ~
~I have. ~
~You have? ~
~Yes…even with all the things that had happened. ~
~Happened? ~
I feel some of her walls there and darkness beyond them…parts of her old self, her old life.
~Later Wren, there’s too much distance for this…if I’m going to “go-there” I will need alcohol and you there to hold me through the telling. ~
~I will, I promise. ~
I feel her take a pause and shore herself up and then her mental embrace again. ~Wren, if you wish to be with him it’s fine with me. ~
~What no! ~
~Beloved we live a long, long time compared to humans. There is a difference between lovers and those that we share our hearts and souls with. ~
Oh… and her feelings are so…there isn’t the feelings there that I thought were there about me with say him…
~Oh…I…I don’t know it still feels like cheating. ~
~It’s only cheating if you never truly loved someone you bonded with to begin with. ~
~Wait…can you even do that? ~
~Somewhat…Bonding here is…it’s like anything with magic involved you have to want it for it to really work…if you don’t love someone then the bonds are hollow and fake. Some people do not even go through the bonding ceremonies when they marry, good bonds are so rare that many just consider them…uhm…”urban legend”…? ~
I smile at her trying to put things my way.
~So I can sleep with him? ~
~Do you want to? ~
~No…but the option and knowing this kind of changes things a lot for me. ~
~Then just enjoy it if you can…this is part of being us as women, he feels friendly enough in his flirting not a “Scum-bag.” so take it as it comes, be the girl that gets flirted with…flirt back or jest if you want.~
~Well…I’m good at fun flirting. ~
Actually I was, when it was just in fun I was actually a pretty good flirt. And sometimes even not in fun. Like I said it’s not like I won too many people over with my looks back home it was all just pretty much me.
Am I going to sleep with Ryann?
Well…likely not but I feel sort of more comfortable now that I know that being with him and stuff and being able to cut loose and just be me with him will be okay.
I mentally send her kiss contact as I feel her pulling away her attention on something else and I blink and I look over to him.
“Are you quite done?”
He grins at me. “I could be or just getting started.”
I cross my arms under my breasts and he’s staring.
Oh I did that on purpose because I do like have these and I know that they draw the eye but it lets me look at him and raise my eyebrow and pointedly cough.
“Are you really going to act like this all the time Ryann or did I judge the kind of man you were wrongly?”
He goes from his grin to a more wry smile. “No lady you did not and it’s nice to be seen as someone that’s not what all the others in the high places think of a fellow.”
“I know so can we do this without too much of this, I mean you’re handsome and you’re a sweet guy but there are people doing some really bad things to a lot of other people and I’d like to stop them as much as I can and for that I really do need you.”
He looks a bit more serious now. “Aye…alright I’ll cut it back, it’s just sort of default nature as a rogue y’know.”
“I know and it’s still fun but y’know…”
He nods. “I know.”
He does the after you gesture and I head to my quarters and he comes with me and yes he might have stopped for now but he’s still looking.
I can sort of just tell he’s watching me move and with that being like genuine interest it’s still kind of nice…flattering even.
Do I move a little more sexy, sexily? No and mostly because I don’t really know how to and stuff but it does have me doing the bite my lip a little and sort of do that smile to myself thing.
It’s just nice.
There some squires and pages waiting outside my quarters and I nod to them and I go inside and I take stock of the room and Ryann’s doing that checking the place out with that kind of curiosity of someone that doesn’t see a place like this too much.
“You can use the bathroom if you want.”
He looks at me raising his eyebrow.
“You kind smell from the cells.”
“Oh, well yes that would be true, you wouldn’t mind if I got cleaned up here then?”
“Nope you can do that while I get ready too.”
“Get ready?”
“I’m going to need some things for use to get started on this.”
“This plan of yours that you need me for.”
“Definitely.”
“Well then no time like the present.” He peeks around until he finds the bathroom and he goes inside and I head to the door and I look at the Squires and pages outside.
“Good, you’re here to help?”
One of them nods. “Aye lady we’re here to serve as much as you need the Commander said it was crown business and to give you whatever help we could.”
“Great, I’ll need some food and coffee.”
“Coffee?”
I think for a minute. “Kaffet, the dark bitter drink.”
There’s some nods. Hey I’m getting better at this.
“I’ll need papers for writing and a fair amount of it as well as envelopes and file folders.”
They give me some blank looks.
“Uhm…like a cover that you use to sort like sets of document into?”
“Aah, we call them jackets lady.”
“Okay, I’ll need a supply of those and pens and inks for now.”
They sketch some bows and they’re off all except for two that stay and are acting as spares as well as likely guards.
I head back inside and I go and I get changed into something more comfortable. Nothing like “comfortable” like in the saying home but a tunic that’s like a sweater and I skirt that’s just comfortable to wear and slippers that are kind of like ballet flats.
Once that’s done I head into the bathroom and there’s steam from the shower area and I carefully pick up his clothes.
“Ryann? I’m going to send these out to be cleaned and for a change of clothes for you.”
“Thank you that would be nice actually Wren.”
He sounded normal, he sounds nice sounding normal.
I take them and I check the pockets and he doesn’t have anything there but its habit so I did it anyway and I pass them off to a page who makes a bit of a face.
“I know, but can you have these washed and returned and maybe some spare clothes that will fit him in the meantime?”
He nods and takes off leaving his friend here to guard and I slip back inside and…
Oh…
Ryann’s out of the shower and he’s wearing a towel around his waist and he’s drying his hair with another towel and he’s very…
He’s an elf…and these sylvan’s they’re all fitting the fantasy trope of good looking. I mean he’s thin and he’s slender compared to a human but at the same time.
Six foot two about an hundred and sixty but it’s a tanned and lean and finely muscled one sixty. He’d pass for a model home even with that sort of elven androgyny thing that they have but they don’t. Model meet’s a gymnast or swimmer? Long distance runner? Dancer…since a good bit of his height is legs he looks like a dancer.
And there is this part of me taking all of that in.
I mean…wouldn’t you if you had a this sort of cross between Legolas and Brad Pit in front of you in nothing but a towel and drying his hair which has him just not really knowing I’m there so he’s just being himself.
There’s a knock and I go to the door and let them in with the food and the kaffet on those push serving carts and I go and I get a cup and pour one for him.
“Kaffet?”
“Please.”
“How do you take it?”
“Plainly with a dozen honey wafers.”
“I’m…okay what are those.”
And here’s another bit of just things here that I’m still lost about. I’m looking and he comes over and he takes the porcelain cup and a saucer and there’s these fine looking wafer in a dish that sort of look like thick yellow snowflakes.
I don’t…he takes one and puts it in his mouth slowly and purposefully for me to see and he then takes a sip of his kaffet.
“Oh…some people do that sort of with sugar and stuff or used to back home.”
There’s a part of me that went oh my though when he did that.
He nods. “I prefer the honey to sugar since the honey wafer thing is what you’ll find the Shaelani and the Ajani doing.”
“Shaelani…they’re the desert ones? And the Ajani are the Afri...the…” again I’m lost as how to describe an African looking elf to an elf when he’s got no clue to what that would be.
He smiles. “The ones with the black fleece hair.”
I…
Okay this is a shitty thing but home I’ve heard some people actually use Wooly-head to describe black folks but I’ve never ever thought that you could use something as poetic as black fleece hair….
Just…wow…
And he is giving me this look that I’ve never seen either his eyes sort of are doing this happy dancing thing but they’re warm too.
I’m blushing. “What…?”
“It’s just you had this smile on your face just now Wren and I’ve never seen a smile like that before.”
I really blush then because that’s an awesome thing to say but the way he said it was open and honest and not a flirt.
Oh dear I think at least in part that men might not be entirely off the menu…
“I’ve never heard of people that look like them called that, home we have people like that and well…we’re sometimes more than disrespectful to them.”
He nods and he clinks his coffee…Kaffet cup to mine. “Well here’s to crossing cultures.”
I smile some more just because it felt like something good just happened for me.
There’s definitely a mini-moment thing and he slips back and gives me or us both space. “You should try it.”
“I’m not one for sweet or I try not to be but okay.”
It doesn’t taste like honey that I know this is biting, it’s strong and sweet but in this…in this way that dark chocolate is in the mouth but not because it’s still honey it’s just not the goldenrod or orchard honey that I’m used to.
It’s from what I’m guessing African honey tasting? It isn’t my thing alone but as it very easily melts on my tongue and I take a taste of the coffee…kaffet it’s so strong too and bitter that they complement each other.
It’s that black chicory coffee with pecan pie thing.
“Mmm…good, not something that’s my taste but it really isn’t bad.”
“You don’t like honey?”
“No I do I’m just sort of no a fan of Kaffet.”
“Then why drink it?”
“Because we’re going to be bust and I need the boost.”
“Aah...Kaffet is a soldier’s friend.”
“And a trucker’s.”
“What’s a trucker?”
“A hauler of goods, a truck is what we drive.”
“Oh, this is what you do?”
“Did.”
“Interesting.”
“Sometimes actually I saw a lot of travel and a lot of places.”
“Always a good thing, it lends to a better perspective on people.”
“And skills.”
“Skills?”
“Well for one we tally things, and that’s what you and I are going to be doing.”
“Pardon?”
“These terrorist, Lyam’s own and the turncoats that want to do all of this they have things. Gear and equipment and booze and stuff. Well all of that gets to them how?”
“The guilds.”
“Right, they are either smuggling thing in or they’re buying them from the thieves either way you know the markets.”
“Aye…?”
“Well as we go through things we’ll make a likely map, who and where these things would come from and that will lead to where these goods are flowing to and who might be getting what in what quantities elsewhere.”
“You’re expecting the guilds to co-operate?”
“Yes and no, we get the information in secret, we offer good clean coin for it and we don’t charge them or even get in the way of them doing business.”
“You won’t, why?”
“Because the guilds are part of the kingdom too, because we need an underground economy as much as the real one and the people will not do better if Lyam takes the throne and imposes his laws on everyone.”
Ryann gives me the look he did in the cells.
“Right, then you have me with you.”
“Good, because this will become a whole lot larger than it sounds before we’re done.”
I move to the door when I hear the knock and let them in with his clothes and the writing equipment and he’s changing as I’m laying stuff out.
“We should get started…”
I turned and he dropped the towel at his waist and is getting into the clothes they brought.
Apparently he’s not bashful.
Snakes and Ladders-31
Chapter 31
*Before…
“You’re expecting the guilds to co-operate?”
“Yes and no, we get the information in secret, we offer good clean coin for it and we don’t charge them or even get in the way of them doing business.”
“You won’t, why?”
“Because the guilds are part of the kingdom too, because we need an underground economy as much as the real one and the people will not do better if Lyam takes the throne and imposes his laws on everyone.”
Ryann gives me the look he did in the cells.
“Right, then you have me with you.”
“Good, because this will become a whole lot larger than it sounds before we’re done.”
I move to the door when I hear the knock and let them in with his clothes and the writing equipment and he’s changing as I’m laying stuff out.
“We should get started…”
I turned and he dropped the towel at his waist and is getting into the clothes they brought.
Apparently he’s not bashful.
*And Now…
That gave me a few dry mouth moments and after another cup of coffee I link up with Shaya and she persuades me to try I think what is a scone of an elfin version of it.
Okay it’s like a bread/flour biscuit had a fling with puff pastry and it’s barely sweet but in a good way? Clotted cream…I’ve never had it but seen it before back home and this doesn’t seem too different and them the “Shavar”
She loves Shavar.
It’s this caviar made from the candied juice of blackberries with no sweetening to it but it’s mixed or folded with real fish caviar so there’s this…it’s salty and sweet and funky. All at the same time.
I’m not a huge fan of it though the thought of tiny berry caviars is cool instead of plain jelly to me.
There’s that and me sort of sharing with her Ryann getting dressed.
And we both share an ~Oh My~ moment between each other.
It’s odd and yet not when we’re both actually having female feelings over the memory image.
Not that we’re going to do anything yet but it’s part of being a girl…or was for both of us. It’s that ink and us as lovers and friends and more and at the same time it’s like we’re bi but at the same time in our first committed relationship as women…with another woman.
We actually have different tastes and Shaya has a thing for the chest and shoulders and I like arms. Tall is good for both of us and through her eyes he’s actually semi-rugged for an elf.
We sit and settle or I settle and we sort of fall together in the ink as she and I start going through the lists of the things the fortress had in inventory.
Ryann sits too and he’s taking notes of his own from things as I’m talking and scribing things and there’s goods catching his ear as it were that are “Gold items”
Nobles have luxuries and some of these things are fairly specific…food, drink, smoke and some spices and salts.
I also have a list for the drinks separately.
“Why are you keeping such records for the drink?”
“Home most brewers and vintners keep very, very good records and the older the drink the rarer it is and the more that some real experts would know of it.”
“There is that.”
“There is that and we can offer said rare bottles we have to these experts if they quietly do out footwork for us.”
He sits back or rather up. “And since it is their trade it wouldn’t look odd if they were looking for these things….very good…or bad…I mean I don’t think that the smugglers I know will be very happy about said skills coming to play.”
“Sorry but we need this though I really do want to speak to Shaya’s father about this. It’s one thing to track villains this way but it’s really not needed to hunt down those who make their livings doing these things.”
He’s looking at me. “For true?”
“Every culture needs an underground economy and it’d actually be in the king’s advantage to have friends out there.”
“How so?”
“Market control.”
“That sounds ominous.”
“No, not from a good ruler, a good ruler knows he will make up his tax monies on bulk of sale and not the raised prices for the few. But the nobility try to raise prices on certain goods for their own use to exclude people in the market other than themselves so they create a monopoly.”
“Like the factor houses for nobles?’
“Factor houses?” I’ve never heard the term before.
“An outside buyer for a noble so that their name doesn’t drive the prices up.”
“Oh…” I nod. “Very much like that.”
I’m thinking a tapping my cheek with the feather top of my pen. “The King needs a factor.”
“I’m sure he has several.”
“He needs one for the black market.”
I’m looking at him.
Ryann’s looking back at me…. “What?”
“You know what’s needed for this.”
“You know from the lists some of the things that we need to find and trace.”
Ryann… “No…Wren I’m a smuggler not a guild master.”
“Exactly…you can get the things that we need, the things that the terrorists need and you’re a smuggler so you can control the situation.”
“No…”
“And there’s more that you can do too.”
“No…”
“Like make sure that less of your people get hurt in this war.” I look right at him in his eyes.
“Ryann, you said that I’d have you on my side if I needed you but there’s more people that need you in their side that will get caught up into all of this…I’ve seen the forces they’re willing to use, the creatures they’re cutting deals with…what do you think that they’ll send in as a way of showing people a lesson while they’re in their towers.”
He’s really staring at me hard.
Working his jaw too.
“Ryann…the king needs more at his side then nobles in silks and lace and knights in gilded armor he needs real men…The Republic needs real men and not even as a nation of nations but in the…”
“Goddamn you Wren…” He says as he picks me up and sets my down hard on the desk.
His hands are cupping my face and they’re rough, with scars and calluses of work and fighting…softer than a humans I think but still.
Every romantic novel where a guy has kissed a girl and I was putting myself in her place comes rushing through my head.
And there’s sheets and papers falling off the desk and his hands cup and grab my breasts in this…hard but oh so good hard way…that way that a man does…that I had done and now I’m the one with the shiver down her spine right to her sex.
I ache, I ache and swoon as I push into Ryann’s touch and I want this, I want this so bad because I might look like some twenty something now and I might have the feeling about Shaya and the nervousness of being with a man but I also have decades inside me of dreams and this whole life of phantom desires and dreams.
I can feel Shaya riding these waves with me and she’s finding herself some alone spot and…
I want to…I want to but I just can’t.
I push back with my hands moving Ryann off of me.
(Pant.) “I…I can’t…I can’t not like this Ryann.”
(Pant.) “Why…? Gods Wren…no one’s talked to me this way….”
(Swallow.) “No one…?”
“No…no one…I’ve been called a nice person before but…but you…you think I’m a good man.”
I knead my fingers into his shirt…the urge to rip cloth is really strong.
“That’s because I think that you are a good man…I…I just can’t…”
Shaya’s moaning in my head. ~Why Not!~
~Not without you love…I just can’t not without it being both of us…~
I feel her thump her head against the wall and I think she’s pulling her hand from her pants.
“No one’s believed like that Wren…I’m just a commoner from less that sunny streets.”
“I know…that doesn’t mean you’re not a good man.”
He is giving me this look like he wants me and that he’s gotten to that lump in his throat kind of feelings running through him.
“Is it her?”
“No…she wants me to…we’re bonded…and…I just can’t, I can’t do this without her with me…I…I have to have anyone in our lives like that be…be known like that to both of us…”
He’s really looking at me and he does that ragged inhale and then holds the breath a second or two before exhaling it in a long sigh.
“I’m sorry Ryann…I really am…”
He actually grins. “So…then if I have you with her in the same place a threesome then?”
“Ryann!” I giggle and I smack him again a few times.
~Yes!~
~What!?~
~Yes! Damn it all tell him yes!~
I look at him after I stopped hitting him.
“She just said yes.”
He blinks.
And then the hugest grin slips over his face and I know what he’s thinking because while I pushed him back from me it was more of a torso thing and we’re…well I’m on the desk and he’s between my legs pressed close and I can feel him…god…him pressed to me in that way and desiring me and the feelings…so intensely erotic.
I am suddenly blushing so deeply right now.
I take a deep breath and cough. “We need to get back to work.”
“Aye so what’s next?”
“Well I have a few ideas.”
He does that almost dirty eyebrow stare at me. “Oh I’m sure that you do.”
***............ (Late, Late that night.)
Alarms are sounding in Steadfast as part of the jail is burning and there chaos as people rush to douse the flames and the spell casters that deal with such things are being roused from their beds.
Several guards were surprised jumped and knocked out as one of the prisoners escaped.
Interrogated by the foreigner and the base commander it’s going around that he had lifted a pen and affected his escape with that; stolen from the woman.
Blasters were being fired along with bows as the smuggler was seen rising out of the far eastern courtyard on a cloud boat…his cloud boat a modest airship much like a fisherman’s long boat only with a single center mast and two folding ones that acted like wings.
And with a burst of magic the wing sails snapped out and filled with a pale glow shedding motes of spell-light and he was off streaking away from Steadfast and into the wilderness.
***………… (Wren)
I watch him go and escape with his boat which is kind of cool…dull grey wood and ceramic railings and these sails that actually do look like two birds wings on either side when folded out…an square sail in the middle and the thing moves like some kind of thing right out of science fiction like the sails are drives of some kind and for all that I know that they really are.
I swear I hear the entire fight to the heroic theme from Indiana Jones but there’s also this whole Sylvan Han Solo and the Millennium Falcon escaping Mos Eisely scene but wit Ryann and his airship.
Sigh…
He did have to rough up the guards after we sent him back to the cells so that the healers would know it was real and the gossip would be real.
He did pick the locks with my pen…and yeah I’ll be taking the blame for that bit of “incompetence.” but that’ll help sell the whole thing along with the fact that he kind of struck out even more at the crown to Lyam’s allies in a way since I’m being shipped with Shaya…it’s true but that doesn’t mean that we can’t use it as a selling point.
He made off with some of the funds from the guards and a ring that I actually didn’t own but we thought was something he could pass off as something he lifted from me. The commander supplied it and we’ve made plans for him to get more funds through the temple of the temple or we will once I have a talk back at the enemy fortress to our priestess mage friend.
I ache in a good and bad way as I see him quickly vanish off in the distance and part of me is wondering…just wondering that whole what if thing.
Or just if when it might come to Ryann and Shaya and Myself.
I wrap myself in my cloak against the cool air of the night and head back inside to meet up with the commander and to go with him to speak to The King.
I’ll be heading with Bhlaze back to The Holy City and to Lilac House.
Snakes & Ladders -32
Chapter 32
*Before…
I ache in a good and bad way as I see him quickly vanish off in the distance and part of me is wondering…just wondering that whole what if thing.
Or just if when it might come to Ryann and Shaya and Myself.
I wrap myself in my cloak against the cool air of the night and head back inside to meet up with the commander and to go with him to speak to The King.
I’ll be heading with Bhlaze back to The Holy City and to Lilac House.
*And Now…
I meet up with Commander Falcon in the halls on the way to my rooms and he’s dressed in dark leathers with this amazing brocade designs in it without looking like it was showy instead it’s a kind of muted elegant look and he has a cloak with him and several…like half a dozen weapons or more.
I look at him. “Trouble?”
“No I actually always dress like this when I travel.”
I look him over and he has two of those swords on his back and daggers on his thighs and a blaster in a shoulder harness like they wear for guns home and two knives in the small of his back and two boot knives and who knows what else in in the various pouches he has.
He’s wearing a falconers glove but one with metal plates and it’s all engraved looking and everything.
The only thing I can do is to raise an eyebrow and to smile a little. “Not like I’m one to talk with all of the things that I am lugging around.”
“Lugging?”
“Uhm…slang from home, it means to carry something around but like not so graceful like.”
“Odd.”
“There’s a lot about me that is odd commander.”
“Indeed but not unwelcomely so.”
I smile as we get to my quarters. “Nice to know.”
I invite him in and I’m getting my things together as he waits and it doesn’t take too long I hope to get it all done. But then again…he’s an elf and they live a long time so it’s not like he’s an impatient kind of person really.
I can see though Lyam’s frustration on not being made king when he had waited that long and had plotted that long to be the king from this civil war that they had before I got here. That’s the one where the current king was named instead of Lyam.
I get it all sorted and take my bags and head to Bhlaze’s sand room and the commander follows me. “I really should see if I can get some books on history here soon so I can get a better feel for things that are going on.”
“The Holy City is the place to find them there are dozens of private libraries and collections but there are also a great many book shops.”
“That would be interesting I’d love to see what passes for reading pleasures here.”
“Reading pleasures?”
“Fiction, Science fiction, Fantasy, Romance stories you do have all of those here?”
“Oh yes I was just wondering what your people would see as those…you said pleasures so I thought of…”
“Commander you have a dirty mind.”
“No I have heard of such things that is all.”
I give him the eyebrow and he looks at me blandly. Okay…he doesn’t know or he just doesn’t take the bait that easily. “So elves have porn…”
“Porn?”
“Pornography.”
He’s looking at me lost like. “Uhm…erotica?”
“Oh…much.”
That raises my eyebrows. “Much?”
“We live a long time; erotic things are just a part of society. It’s practically art in some places as well as there being a lot of exotica stories.”
“Exotica?”
“Interracial, sometimes interspecies stories.”
“Really?”
He nods and he gives me this wicked smile. “Now that you’re here and the fact that humans exist I can guarantee you that there has been something penned or tapped out about you in an exotica sense.”
I blush and cover my face some. “Great that’s all that I need.”
“Actually some of those things are useful as things with a person’s image.”
“Really? I didn’t think that Sylvan’s had media sources.”
“Media?”
“The press.”
“The press? No press ganging people hasn’t happened since the civil war.”
Okay that makes me laugh, he has a very dry sense of humor but I got it.
“No…like com channels to watch broadcast entertainment and papers that tell stories about what is happening in places for the news.”
“We still have some of those things but we got rid of the bulk of them socially before the war.”
“Why?”
“People were wasting time and not doing anything but staring at screens for far too long and it became a tool of too many special interests and it caused a lot of infighting.”
“Huh…maybe humanity could follow suit.”
“Ah it was like us and it was pervasive/”
“Yes and it still is so how does it work here?”
“Magical coms only here on the holy planet by custom but on the moons there is a military channel and a royal channel and then it’s generally the laws that each major city has to have its own private signals.”
“Private signals?”
“If there is a city that wants to have such things then they start a broadcasting guild for it all and we limit the use of those broadcasts to the cities involved.”
“Why limit it?”
“The variety both produces local jobs and it promotes the local cultures as well.”
“What about the internet?”
“Internet?”
“Online…like with computers.”
“Oh…well it’s all the same way but the royal com channel links all things together.”
“Oh that would so not fly at home.”
“Fly?”
Bhlaze huffs at us. ~Well I am ready to do so, I’m sure this is all very fascinating but it’s not getting us to the holy city. ~
~Yes, yes we’re leaving.~
I climb on and so does Commander Falcon and apparently he knows how to do the riding on a dragon saddle and stuff though this is my first time in the front of the saddle instead of behind.
It takes a few minutes to get out the doors and down the hallway to the perch part of the fortress and we lift off by diving off the cliffs and over The Darklands.
And everyone sees us doing so and we catch a few thermals and we soon wing off out of sight and then Bhlaze changes what he’s doing and he rises up more catching updraft after updraft until we are really, really high up…I feel magic kicking in from Shaya.
~Better? ~
~Much, it was getting a little thinner than I’m used to up here. ~
~You’re welcome. ~
I know she’s busy doing things there but I’m still feeling her sort of with Bhlaze and I as we soar and then bank and change directions heading towards The Holy City but a very high altitude.
Commander Falcon seems fine; he’s even just sort of doing the same as me and taking it all in as we’re traveling.
And there’s a lot to take in too… I mean at about two miles up everything opens up beneath us and I’m seeing the sheer scope of the place…of The Holy Planet a planet big enough to be earth a whole mess of times over…livable because of a much lower gravity than a planet of its size should have and stunning in just how much of it is actually so unspoiled compared to home.
Most tech has been banned here or downplayed by customs and stuff so there’s very, very few roads and there’s no air traffic like home, no freeways and endless trucks and cars it’s just this…raw natural beauty.
Soaring that high up I can still see so much because the planet is so vast.
From Rampart and Steadfast there’s hills that lead away from the cliffs and they mellow down to these scrub plains and smaller hills that remind me of the Dakotas in a lot of ways and a hundred or so miles after that it becomes this expanse of grass lands and these are these very slight hilly knolls and but it’s all this varying and vivid shades of green dotted with these tiny lakes and ponds and a few marshes and tiny little roads and leading to villages that come off the one large trade road between there and The Holy City.
And those villages… Bhlaze lets me see through some kind of spell that magnifies what I’m seeing or trying to look at and these are small villages with maybe a hundred buildings at most but these are buildings that are older that America…like maybe even a thousand years old or more and they are polished not weathered with age and are like these delicate but functional little castles and stuff…I mean it’s wood and stone and stuff but they are so built like sculpture that…one house I saw had a garden in the center and some fruit trees but it was made like a four story spiral staircase with one of those lovely turret rooms at the top of it and all these doors for like the out buildings or sheds in the outside of the stairs and off the roofs of the outbuilding parts…the actual other parts of the home.
And the little hamlet of a hillock with the houses made to look like mushrooms and laid out like a faerie ring… or the village with the lake and marsh that had boat shaped homes and docks coming from most of them and windmills instead of sails.
I could spend so much time here just looking and staring and traveling…it’s so rustic and it’s so beautiful but it really pales to what I’m getting to see as the horizon breaks with this green far off mass.
The Great Tree…
Every fantasy tale doesn’t do this sight justice. First this just isn’t just some giant tree it “The” as in very much the “The” meaning Great Tree…it’s more than just that it is a forest of one. I mean even as we get closer and closer the starting green branches are at a height with us.
Nearly two miles up…the start of the branches and the leaves…and it spreads out and out like some cross between an oak and a bonsai with these huge branches that come off at different levels with a small forest of green for each one of them.
The upper most heights have clouds around them…words just cannot express what this is like except the tree is higher than the mountains that are behind it only fifty miles or so away from the tree itself.
It’s…we’re flying in from the west and looking at it from this there is these plains to the south of the tree this is where the mountains start and they go from south to north in a semi-circle or a crescent and on the North side of the great tree and under the bulk of its branch forests is this huge lake but the lake has a wall around it…it’s not a big wall height wise but it’s around the entire thing and there’s fog on the lake too…there was fog last time and no swimmers or fishermen or boats of any kind there….just gates in the wall and beaches and people bathing and praying?
From the north-north-west position all the way south is the city itself…and even it’s…it’s mostly stone actually as far as the eyes can see accented by wood for decoration or utility like doors and the like but the entire city is made of this sort of white grey to light grey to pale blue-grey stone and it’s ancient and carved and polished and…The architecture is It’s like that house I mentioned before with the stairs but add in really almost Roman arches and Spanish style roofs with the carved shingles and times and add it this quiet beauty from up here that just sort of says old south and French Quarter New Orleans…with the lattices as alley and street walls and those big old trees with the moss and ivy everywhere and gardens and flowers that break up the pallet of the city.
And there must be a million people here.
We circle and start getting lower and lower and I’m still looking just taking everything in with this city that is so hauntingly beautiful in makes me heart hurt.
“I was too new here and too sort of in culture shock to see most of this before. It’s amazing.”
Commander Falcon says. “It’s the home of our gods and The Great Tree.”
“So the center of the temples…and The Great Tree.”
“No…” He points at the tree. “The tree is the last remnant of our ancient home world.”
“You’re not from here?”
“No…we come from a realm that was elsewhere so long ago it’s just the story now…and the tree.”
“That long?”
“So far back we don’t have records for it.”
“Wow…okay so it’s the last remnant of your old world that I guess makes it really important.”
“It’s the soul of our people Wren…it’s alive and it’s aware.”
“Aware?”
“Yes…when The C’thull came and conquered our space and out people it was here…her that only place that its power and the technology of its fleets could not break through at.”
“Huh?”
“The Tree shielded the last of the free sylvan people for close to three hundred years at siege…it fed us and it clothed us and it kept us safe.”
“And the baddies didn’t burn it down or any of that stuff?” I’m having visions of Avatar in my head. And I sense Shaya recoil in dislike until she figures out that it’s a drama in my mind.
~I’ll explain it later love.~
~You better.~
She intrigued even if she’s squicked out.
Commander Falcon’s shaking his head. “No…wren I’m not being figurative I’m being literal it created a spell force shield as far out as all the buildings in the city to the mountains.”
“Oh…oh wow…it’s like that sentient?”
“Yes and no…see this was when our gods came to be.”
“Huh?” Oh yes I’m really on the ball.
~You were in a performer’s fair?~
I get this image of the circus from Shaya and me on a big ball.
~No…it’s another figure of speech.~
She mentally snerks in my mind. ~You humans are very strange.~
~You have no idea love.~
~Some, I am your bonded.~
~Not even close babe.~
~You’re still funny Wren.~
~Good, you need that.~
I sort of turn to look at him and he’s pointing at The Tree. “You know how mages and magic spinners and singers and such can channel power from other sources yes?”
“That much I’ve got even though I’m no expert in it but sure.”
“Well those that became our gods were the most powerful we had in what they knew and did while fighting the enemy and as much as we fought we were losing the war and there was only so much the combined powers of the free peoples could do then.”
“Alright…”
“Well those that would come to be our gods gave their lives over to The Great Tree and they melded with it. All of their willpower and their knowledge and their everything merged with it and they had all that power to do with what they willed and it became like a giant power sink…like an amplifier and we held.”
“Oh…wow…and they stayed like that?”
“The only way that the magic could be done was permanently.”
“So they became martyrs?”
“Yes and more.”
“More?”
“They still retained their souls…and they had enough power that they did things for people as they could in spirit forms like astral projections and they became revered for that…talked to and over time prayed to.”
“Okay I get it now…”
Actually it’s kind of staggering really since there are temples and Illisia’s a mage and a cleric so their power is very real and stuff too but still…still they were like real people…real people who gave all for their people and are still sort of doing that but having become kind of more.
As a Christian…I actually believe it…I mean take Jesus…what he did for us…and they sort of did the same thing but because of their race it’s still very real and very tangible history here.
“Falcon?”
“Yes Wren.” Okay…he’s okay with me saying his name like that…good to know.
“Do your people believe in a creator?”
“Like one supreme being?”
“Yes.”
“Those that are faithful do yes, but given all of the races and all of the wonder and all of the things in the universe it’s seen more like a force than an individual.”
“But no grand plan?”
“That depends on the faith, some think so some don’t some think that we’re dreams of the creator.”
“And you?”
“I think so…I think that there is something that was creation…and that like life itself it grew into more and more and more as it expended and aged.”
“But a grand plan?”
“Here yes but I’m a planarist.”
“A what?”
“In this reality we have that creator and it is a benign being but we know that there are creatures that are not from this universe, from this plane that are anathema to everything that is light and that is good in the world…I think that those places, that those universes or planes are because of another creator that became sick and twisted and that sickness tries to spread to others.”
“Oh…where I come from some of us see everything as part of a greater plan that we cannot see for ourselves.”
He looks at me. “That’s where our gods come in more than the creator. Wren?”
“Yes?”
“Do you believe in evil?”
I think for a minute. “Yes, I think that things can be evil.”
“No…I mean real evil, real demons…flesh and blood and brimstone things that wreak, wreck and devastate for no other worldly purpose than to do so…I’ve seen them…I’ve fought then toes to toe in the last war.”
“I…I don’t know…I haven’t but you have and I believe you…” I do…I’ve met Vet’s home and when they tell you things they seen there’s this look. Falcon has that look and more.
“Then think of it like this…the creator, they are the sum of all things for this universe.”
“But we’re taught that the creator created all things.”
“More like is all things…benign like I said…it’s why there are worlds with just life and not sentients…there the creator is just nature…”
“Okay…”
“But if creation gets sick itself in one spot, one universe it becomes twisted and dark or something like that.”
“Okay…”
“So like a disease it spreads once the damage is done and it tries to do the same to others.”
“Okay…”
He takes a breath. “I’m not good at explaining these things but to us, it’s like the creator…they are a benign force, mostly for good things, life, existence, peaceful…when real evil happens it’s not the will of the creator because they wouldn’t wish it on us.”
“But what about good people dying for bad reasons…disease or someone killing some one…we have free will.”
“Disease is biology, a natural event and occurrence usually, but free will…you’ve telepathy wit Bhlaze, with Shaya…well so does evil.”
“What like they touch people and make them?”
“No…not without crossing over and beings like that can only do that when called…otherwise they’re bad spirit like beings…limited by what they can do because the creator resists all of them.”
“But they get through.”
“Yes, like an infection but infections can get better, healed, cast out…that’s why there is real good in the universe.”
“Not good for goods sake.”
“Of course good for goods sake but more than that…good that steps into the darkness, into the firefight, that goes against it’s natural fears of fleeing and steps into the fray.”
“So…what about simple acts of love and kindness?”
“Food for our souls, food for the gods, food for the soul of the creator…for a benign being dealing with sentients…good done just for good, for no reason other than free will and because it’s right…it’s like sunshine to the forest.”
I look at him. “For someone that’s not very good at this you explained that pretty well.”
He smiles and it’s I think one of the first real smiles I think I’ve seen since my arrival dance. “Thank you, a long time ago I was training to be a cleric but I just never got far enough.”
“Oh…why?”
“The war…The Forsaken they obliterated my home city.”
“I’m sorry…”
“Thank you…I…I picked up the blade and followed King Justane to battle against The Forsaken.”
I nod. “And these were the serious baddies.”
“More than…the most powerful mages we had…not all were bad but The Forsaken gave part of themselves over to the dark powers, these other things and instead of a simple rebellion or a civil war it became the attempt by those dark powers to destroy all of Sylvandom and come into this universe.”
“But not the C’Thull.”
“No…The C’thull was horrible, it was horrible beyond words and yet it’s only from this universe too…but it was something deeply in tune, deeply rooted in that darkness from the other side that it was a nightmare.”
“Like those Forsaken but alien.”
“Yes, Alien and old and powerful enough that it considers itself a god.”
“But touching something else.”
“We’re not sure but I’d say yes…but it never stopped The Forsaken from turning to the remnants of it’s empire here for weapons.”
“No I suppose not.”
“The biggest weapon of course being Shai-tan.”
“Really?”
“Yes…we think that it was created by the C’thull as a weapon…there are no three headed dragons…but dragons being dragons…”
~Shai-tan was touched by the Demon realms.~ Bhlaze says it to both of us.
~But no the C’thull?~
~No….His evil was there before the C’Thull…he went to them in service…this is why he is as he is.~
Falcon feels surprised. ~I did not know this.~
~It’s is generally Ryder and dragon business.~
~Does the King know?~ I’m not asking but Falcon is…I have a good guess.
~Of course he does, but we have our own laws and conditions.~
~So what happened?~ I ask.
~There was more than we know on the line, the forces from we think the elder worlds that had fallen by those called The Old Ones pursued us from the ancient home…these have pursued us from world to world to world…Shai-tan made his pact with them.~
~Why would a dragon turn?~
~The same reasons that Sylvan’s did, the same reason whatever the C’thull might have been ages beyond ages ago. No one does not fall Erendae.~
Falcon’s nodding… ~The dark dragons that fought in The Summoning war?~
~Not from here…none of ours, Shai-tan knew how to call them from wherever.~
I swallow… ~So we have even dragons that are coming at us.~
~One thing that we have in our favor from that at least.~
~Oh?~ That’s me.
~Dragon’s cannot be summoned by magic, not without their ryder.~
~So they’re summoning the ryders first?~
~No, from what we’ve sensed fighting them they couldn’t. We of the dragons believe they must forge a link through the summoning circles. And dark dragons are like any other when a link is offered…highly picky even more so with the dark ones.~
~They would want to be the strongest of the pairing.~ Falcon says.
~Yes…we are lucky for dark self interest.~
~So…the recap is that. Lyam’s looking to be king and he’s raising up all the badness from the Forsaken who in turn had dug up stuff from the C’thull and now Lyam has a real live dark dragon that knows all the badness or at least some of the badness that the C’thull had done.~
~Fuck!~ That’s Falcon.
~Yes and this is why Lyam is in The Darklands more than in the shadows of aristocracy.~
~Doesn’t he know that Shai-tan can’t be trusted?~ Falcon again.
I go ahead and say it… ~Unless Lyam is Forsaken himself giving up whatever to the thing that Shai-tan is part of…~
~Double fuck!~ That’s Falcon.
I’m smiling actually. ~Well now we know.~
We come gliding in and yes we’re getting some looks and some stares and once more we’re back here at Lilac House.
I can’t help but be impressed with this place…I mean from what I know it’s the only place like this, that no king has ever done…building this place, this home for his wife who’s from here. A really large rectangular plot of land with a large old wall that matches the stone of the city and these huge trees…willows and they are draped with this bio-luminescent ivy that has tiny little flowers like baby’s breath that shimmer at night and then there’s these giant red maples that match the brownstone of the house/mansion but it has another ivy that looks like climbing red ivy but has flowers like lilacs and in reds and pinks and purples.
Wrought iron and stained glass and wonderous gardens…but then again he’s a green mage…plants and stuff…and oh sigh…this is just, this is one of those huge romantic gestures.
I feel Shaya getting that same girly this is yay feeling about the place and I swear I can feel her doing this biting her lower lip in this happy up to something way that makes her feelings sort of spike.
~Shaya?~
~Nope, you don’t get to know.~
~Know what?~
~Exactly…say hi to daddy.~
~Wha…daddy?…I thought it was Father and King and…~
There’s this sort of swirl in my brain of love-kissing-happy-giggles before she pulls away.
Oh…Ow…she just made me feel ow…but a good ow…
I see The King waiting for me…in plain brown pants and a tunic that’s sort of like a sweatshirt. He looks like Kailynn quite a bit especially downplayed like this…I see Shaya there too…in the dark hair and the posture sort of…too.
I still can’t help but to swallow as I get closer and slide off Bhlaze’s back.
“Easy Wren, I’ve got you…”
I…He’s there and he’s caught me sort of in that my legs went wobbly from too much saddle kind of way.
“Th..Thank you your Highness.”
“Dorian, please…you’re family.”
My mouth goes dry…my heart does this roll over and ….
The way he said it was like he said call me dad.
I haven’t had that in ages…and never like this…never as me…
I should have been cooler but just that…him…and there’s this little sob that comes out.
He hugs me….
(Sniffle!) I wasn’t expecting this!
Snakes and Ladders-33
Chapter 33
I take a ragged breath as I’m sniffing and I’m just honestly so surprised really that he’s acting this way towards me and everything. I was expecting stern and commanding and all sorts of things I guess really I was not expecting an elf, a Sylvan man with hazel eyes and thick long brown hair with really dark brown deeper in and the outside of it lightened by being out in the sun.
I was not expecting him to smell like red clover and the best parts of a sawmill.
I was not expecting the hug like he’s a dad.
You know the type? That guy that’s a dad before he’s a father? That guy that’s way past being just a donor?
Part of me always wanted and wished to be a guy like him when my dysphoria was chilled out enough that I had an idea of the kind of guy that I should really try to be.
And yeah sometimes being like this there was this measure of wanting to somehow be a better man and if I was a better man or person then maybe the way that I feel wouldn’t be as strong, that maybe it wouldn’t hurt so badly and stuff.
Especially for me and where unless there was a medical miracle or something my hopes of transitioning to look even average were kind of nil.
It’s a special kind of hell to feel those things, things that seem like such a huge mountain of hopelessness.
And it’s getting to me now, the release of this pain and stuff that I habitually hold in, have held in and likely still will. I mean it’s this whole getting hugged by a man, Shaya’s father and just…just one of those guys and part of me that never got to be a little girl or even just a woman getting that kind of affection and acceptance from a parent.
It’s cracking my self-control and my barely there composure to me feeling like I’m just a teen again…only in like completely different boots.
I wipe at my eyes and I swear that I feel like a little kid doing it with the bent wrists and everything and I’m trying to wipe them clear with Bhlaze and Falcon there and all and okay well Bhlaze is walking himself to some of those old plantation styled trees that fill the yard here and he settles in under the boughs that are covered in this sort of vine that is covered with lilac like flowers.
I just sort of watch just for a second a blue tinted silvery grey dragon under a grey barked really old wide tree that has these almost lavender colored lilac vines draping everything.
How can I not drink that sight in? It’s not a movie, it’s not art from D&D it’s right there less than thirty feet from where I’m standing and it’s real.
This is my life, this is what it’s become and I’m still amazed and I’m still falling in love with it all.
The commander looks at me until him looking catches my attention and I look to him and I look to the King who smiles and he extends his arm in a sweep-invite towards the house.
And that house is just…
Well it’s not really a house but named that I guess sort of like The White House is named a house back home though really this has more of a Camp David feel to it.
I follow and I look around and I can see people here doing like workmen things and there’s a few guards at posts in a sort of dressed down armor that is light looking fine chain armor under an almost duster long coat and hood and I can see swords and a blaster as well as knives but there doesn’t seem to be that many guards here.
The house itself is huge and a rectangular build from the front at least with that almost light green stone that’s been kissed brownish red by the iron content in the stones and it’s cut block bricks in the style of those old buildings from home like a brownstone before all the regular bricks took everything over.
The windows are warehouse sized old archway windows and some are just windows and some of them are stained glass with pictures of what looks like nature scenes or gods maybe and then we’re headed inside.
I told you that the king’s supposed to be a green mage right? I mean that’s what he’s known for from the things that I’ve sort of heard.
I knew that was plant magic but inside.
It’s all wood.
Okay not all but nearly all of it and that’s ranging from the hardwood floors to the wall paneling and all of the carved and decorative mouldings and I’m not carpenter never really have been for much other than a bit of handiwork and some wood shop but I know what amazing wood grains should look like and what expensive wood work looks like….
This place would just make all the staff from Antiques roadshow fall over in a heart attack or something.
I’ve never seen the details or the finishes or the smells…it smells like somehow there’s still a scent from each of the woods here and then there’s the scent of the plants. The house is filled with plants of all shapes and sizes and they all seem just as purposeful in their own space as anything in a masterful oriental home.
This house and even the scents here and the feel are like so elfin feng-shui.
I mean this is a culture with thousands and thousands of years of experience in things including aesthetics.
And it’s four stories high with an attic and a basement to boot and it’s got to be a couple of hundred feet wide and who knows how long and it’s just.
“This is amazing sire; this is nothing like I’ve known?”
“It’s been a work in progress for a long time Wren; it’s taken me a long time to get it this way.”
“Why here though I mean the palace is on Highwood is it a neutrality thing?”
He’s leading us up stairs and he turns and he walks backwards once we’re on the second floor and he’s still just talking while he’s doing it effortlessly.
“There is that which is always a good thing since the Holylands are a neutral place and the home to all of those that sought to opt out of the republic but more than that Aeselani is actually from this city and she grew up here.”
“Aeselani?”
“Shaya’s mother, The High Queen.”
“Oh…Really?”
He leads us into this kitchen area that’s so intensely lovely with this huge counter that runs along the wall and it’s all framed to look like trees with the under counter doors looking like doors for a house and there’s these wall cabinets that are carved to look like little miniature river dell shaped homes but with the faces of them like the doors all of stained glass and there’s a sink of what looks like brown marble and then a thin bar like island that has all those things and on the opposite to the kitchen side itself there’s chair backed stools.
I have a pang of fantasy ow’s and want’s just seeing it.
And it smells absolutely amazing in here with the scents of bread and herbs but herbs like in soup. He offers a seat to both of us and Falcon pulls out my stool and sort of seats me I smile and just sort of watch the king as he makes coffee with what I think is sort of like a French press or the elven version of it.
I’m usually not a coffee person having burned myself off on it during my trucking days but this is interesting it’s got this center device inside of it where he pours the beans and then puts the lid on and it spins and it grinds the coffee beans and as it’s doing that the water inside comes to a boil and the coffee which is so fine it’s like dust gets infused into the water as it’s grinding and spinning and soon the smell of the coffee is competing with the smell of the food that he’s making.
“That’s amazing, we don’t have anything quite like that at home but we do have coffee.”
“He nods, some things are universal there’s a repeated themes or variations of things that are on many planets that can support life.”
“We only know of Earth.”
“We sylvan’s were refugees, escapees from another elder dimension far before my time and we have always know there was other life through magic and having other beings sharing our once home long ago and then we came here and were sorely introduced to our not so nice neighbors.”
“That would suck.”
“It did, and it might again if Lyam has his ways.”
“Because he’s allying with the C’thull right?”
“Yes exactly, we’re what we call high blood my family and my clan and we came here following our ancestors that originally came here escaping the was that ravaged home. It was the last exodus of our people from there and it had come after tens of thousands of years had passed for us.”
“So to the others you were related by like immigrants.”
He pours the coffee and he goes to an oven and takes out simple looking fresh bread rolls and a dish of hat looks like butter out of a cupboard that is actually one of those disguised fridges. He set’s it out and he pours for us and resumes talking after a first drink and reaching for a roll and Falcon dos the same and so do I.
“Not quite for when my ancestors arrived here the C’thul had enslaved my people’s ancestors and had worked their flesh altering and gene altering magics on them and they took so many of them from here on the holy planet and changed them to suit their wants and needs as they seeded them on the teraformed moons.”
I take a drink of the coffee and it’s dark and robust and has all of these notes of chocolate and fruits but none of the bad flavors that I found wore on me…coffee then chocolate then almost a blackberry sweet finish. It’s really, really good that good I’m drinking it black.
“This is amazing…So, that’s why there are so many ethnics of Sylvan’s here?”
He nods. “Yes and we’re sure that they were patterned and gene grafted from other species as well, the changes are minute and we’re still the same race but try explaining that to the highborn that call themselves The True Borns.”
“And Lyam and all of his are True Borns?”
“Yes. And with his alliance or recruiting of the C’thul to his cause we might see us invaded again.”
“But he doesn’t get that’s insane/”
“He thinks that with us having defeated them in the past that we can do so again but I’m afraid he’s wrong about that.”
“So would I, I mean afraid that is.”
We share a butter knife as we tear into the rolls and it’s this really just good, good white bread sweet dough and really amazing butter but with the coffee it’s just perfect.
“Lyam thinks that if he rules he can use the dark powers he’s using to defeat the C’thul if they turn on him and once he rules here he’ll militarize us and start a war to purify the galaxy.”
“Genocide?”
He nods. “Before all of this Lyam chaffed at the idea of trade with the other races out there, he hated that he wasn’t afforded the respect he thought that we were owed because of our powers and our age as a people.”
“So could he defeat the C’thul?”
“No, Our high born ancestors that came here were very advanced compared to the slaves we had all of the technology and magic and everything we could salvage from our kingdoms and our old universe before coming here. We lost a lot of that during the war with the C’thul we found ourselves in as soon as we were through the portal. We only truly won though by the sacrifices of the slave sylvan races whole died in untold numbers because freedom was in their grasp and they had everything to gain and nothing to lose.”
“So your people were like the catalyst for the rebellion?”
He nods. “Lyam has steadfastly ignored the reality of us not being the mighty race that he thinks we are.”
I nod and eat half a roll and try not to do the yummy eye roll and be serious. I swallow…there’s a lot of people home that think that way too with the different people and different nations and assume that they’re better than everyone else.”
He smiles and holds his cup up symbolically. “As I said some things are universal.”
I like him, I really like him I feel smart and stuff here with him, he doesn’t talk down to me at all and he’s kind and he’s feeding me too.
“We need to find them then and we need to stop them.”
He nods and then pours himself another cup of coffee. “I hear you have a plan to help with that?”
“So your highness have you ever heard of forensic accounting?”
He looks surprised and interested both. “No…but it sounds like something that my son would understand.”
“Which son you have several?”
“Daughters too and daughters-in-bond but I meant Brennan.” He was looking at me as he was saying the part about daughters.
“Sir…you barely know me.”
“’Lani saw into you heart and soul Erendae when she worked her spells to heal you. The spells are very powerful and have a cost one that she was more than willing to pay once she saw the real you.”
(Sniffle.) “But…but…”
He moves over and he hugs me again in that special dad way and I push into it like a pup getting scratched. “It’s magic Wren, and magical things do tend to happen with all of that.”
I nod several times. “I’m sorry it’s just such a huge thing and it’s just so not something that’s even possible home.”
He leads me to his seat at the kitchen island and he goes to the stove and he stirs something in a pot which smells wonderful and it’s just leeks and herbs cooking down and some other bits and he takes out a frying pan and a basket from another bottom cupboard with these small baby potatoes in it and then in no time there is butter and heat and frying potatoes that end up in this thick sort of potato chowder with leeks and ramp? but also rosemary and thyme and black pepper as well as butter and cream.
Sylvan potatoes are a very yellow potato and they are cooked but not soggy and still sort of fluffy inside and the only other major difference is that the rosemary is milder not as strong as home and the butter here I think might be sweeter in that kind of clover fed cattle way.
It’s actually a taste sort of from home way back in my childhood or the rare few places on the road that you’d stop at and they still did everything the old fashioned way.
He cooks and we eat and I start explaining to him how we should be using forensic accounting to track the movements of their supply chains and how we can audit some of these True Borns houses and see what they buy and who eats or drinks what and track the sales of these items.
Because people are people and they have habits and favorites and these are people that live a hell of a long time so you’re bound to actually pick more up rather than less and rich people always think that they can get whatever they want so…
“It might not show us all of them or even most of them but once we do know, and we get Intel on the ones that we do catch with this we can keep eyes and stuff on them for even more information.”
Him and Falcon are nodding the entire time that I’m explaining things and I’m pretty nerved up because as casual as this is it’s still two very much older and two very much more experience people and I’m…
I’m just Wren.
Okay, that thought just made me smile.
Snakes and Ladders-34
Chapter 34
*** Shaya…
Things are coming together here in the fortress and it’s taking time doing so but it is happening. It’s slow going and we’re set to get more troops and people in here to take this place apart and to claim things back for the crown and to go over everything.
Wren’s plan is amazing but it’s a lot of work here on our end right now because we have to catalog and count everything here and that’s a task that is going to take a lot of time.
And then there’s the fact that I’m here in command alone and without Bhlaze with me and without my partner here, without the presence of my dragon there’s still the thing that I am still me.
As much as I’m Shaya…as much as I’ve changed and fought to live through the guilt over the things that I did…it’s still there.
People know, I’m hardly a secret really and with that it’s still going to be there.
Illian, The Black-son, the fallen one and Lyam’s left hand….
I open my eyes and stare up at the ceiling from my bedroll and frown then sort of hug myself. I’ve gotten used to Wren being with me and the feel of her against me and the scent of her and the fact that honestly it’s easier sleeping with her, with someone to hold me and someone for me to hold…or hang onto.
Even though we’re linked and everything it’s me being alone and in command and command isn’t a place mentally that I was really ready to do. I mean in action it’s one thing and with other officers and with Bhlaze there it’s different I’m not me as much as I’m a dragon rider and now I’m actually in command here as things are getting done.
There’s so much to do too and as I’m not sleeping I get up and I walk over to my little area that we have set up in the storerooms off of the hangar area and have well warded off in case of surprises and such or just even little nasties.
The Darklands are full of little nasties.
I go to my basin and I hold my hand over it and I chant out spell words that bring water from the air. You can do spells without words but words of magical power are descriptors of forces, like the verbal keys to a specific phase or kind of magical energy and have been used for so long they have their own providence from ages on ages of cause and effect.
Sort of like when you know a song by its notes the majik knows these words and it has been used to define these force-meanings for so long it has its own effect of the world. It gathers the mana and shapes it.
Lesser mages have to repeatedly chant things over and over until they get the result but a spell caster that puts their own energy into the spell that you’re chanting does so a lot faster and the words actually make the energy requirements less.
In theory you can do anything with enough raw power. I’m not trying to do that though instead I’m doing a call water spell and it pulls moisture from the air and lets me pour water into my basin and another spell does a little flash of energy focused solely on the water and it heats the water.
I take a quick sponge bath and since I’m not prowling I use my nice scented soap and feel better and more myself…Shaya the woman.
That’s still important to me. It’ll always be important to me after all of the hell and abuse and silent-living death that was my former life.
It’s why I was throwing myself into my oaths as a knight; it was why I embraced the darkness and fought for my uncle.
I could maybe die doing that.
And in that act of masking who I really was, in how bad it hurt me and that hurt being anger it had me believing him.
Lyam is a warrior a general and he was older than my father… Dorian my father was named king by my grandfather at the end of the Summoning war on his death bed and he wanted father because he was…he was peaceful.
We’d just went through a bitterly toxic civil war against the Forsaken and he was being hailed as The Peace King.
But by the warriors and a lot of the generals it was a break in tradition, it was putting “The Farmer” in charge.
I was angry enough and hurting enough to buy into all of that and just do some very bad things under Lyam in the guise of for the greater good. Things that Shaya can’t leave behind even if my body is reshaped and my soul freed it’s still things that I’ve done.
The sponge bathe even after years of being like this is still in my quiet just me introspecting and over analyzing is amazing. It’s having the quiet just almost sinking into the rightness as I run the cloth over my ski and over all the right parts in all of the right places.
A little shiver as the water and bare skin reacts with the cold of the caverns, we are in the mountains it’s not bad or even intolerable but it’s just this sort of physical reaction that I still treasure. A confirmation of size…since my body matches my soul I’ve she’d almost another person…well another girl’s worth of weight as I lost twenty percent of my height and close to forty percent of my weight as my body was reshaped.
As Shaya I have my father’s line in the dark hair and the way that my magic works or follows. I’m not a green mage like he is but my powers are closer to rawness and nature. But physically I follow my mother who is a fae blooded or that’s what they refer to it as and that’s slender and light.
Wren makes two of me almost. (Big smile.)
I am so very much in love with her and the time’s we are together and are doing things and making love and even just snuggling and being together…her human body is bigger and warmer than all but the biggest of sylvan women, the rarest of them and her breasts.
By the gods and goddesses her breasts.
I have literally never seen a pair like hers. Nor has any sylvan I think. She says it’s common there or relatively so where she is from and that’s daunting to me as is the other things that she has told me of and scary things too.
I know we have very bad problems here but some of the things that she has said and told me of scare me and break my heart for the one’s left suffering.
I empty the water down the jakes off from the side of my “room” and then I get dressed. I’m not going into battle so it’s my under things and then my line leather pants. They’re line with silk that’s been molded to fit the inside of the leather and it stops a lot of the chaffing and a mage charm that I bought for the button actually keeps them comfortable temperature wise with a little burst of mana that alter the temp of the leathers in relation to my body temperature.
It won’t help me in a desert or in deep cold but like this…it will help me from sweating like a pig on L’honei. Then my shirt slip and then one of my steel-silk shirts. It’s actually woven glassteel and spelled to not splinter and leave fine glass under the skin and such. It is expensive but it’s good protection against sharp things like cuts and grazes or dagger and knives. Over that my plated hardened leather vest/breastplate and then gloves and boots and my weapons belt and then I secure my things and get my large purse and my tablet and stylus and a few things I’ll need and I head out to get some more work done as I’m not sleeping.
It’s to the main hangar first where we had the big battle and the showdown and where we also ended up crashing and breaking one of the enemy air-ships and it’s taken some muscle power and some know-how to get it moved back to the center of the room where the cradle is and we’re slowly trying to repair it.
That in itself is a very big task and we really don’t have a whole lot of experts on the subject here. That being said it’s still a very imposing bit of magic work and techno-wizardy. The ship itself is long in the fashion of a barge with a very shallow draft like river boat but this is more for aerodynamics than for its use on water.
It has a sharp ramming prow like a blade that resembles a voulge’s tip that leads to the spike of the bowsprit…but the spire is not a bowsprit but instead it’s a heavy beam cannon that looks like it might have at one point been used from some of the ships out of the stellar navy. That’s a powerful weapon even in the atmosphere with a great range and it is definitely made for anti-fortress use.
That’d likely be a breaching weapon more than a full out assault weapon unless they actually wanted to…not saying that they wouldn’t do that.
Then there’s two turreted quad guns on the front these are open guns with four barreled pulse lasers and what I think might be a personal shielding unit and there is another two of these on the aft and in the below decks is the side long weaponry of firebolt guns…like the combat spell they fire off a stored spell pattern of a firebolt which in reality is an elemental attack that uses a contained cloud of combustible minerals and it’s lit while the majik spins the flames in a manner to create thrust so as to “shoot” the bolt.
A dangerous and damaging weapon with the range of a decent crossbow and there are thirty of these built into each side all tied to a control panel on the bridge and a power batter giant crystal under the ships castle/bridge.
It’s not a starship but it’s still damned deadly and add in some people that have gate spells and stealth spells as well as troops to fight with this ship could have ravaged the entire region and worse.
It’s a big problem since by sacred laws we cannot take starships or fighters down here to the sacred planet and it’s further compounded by the fact that The Crown doesn’t have that many actual airships. The cost is huge and father being father he will not commandeer the airship docks and builders of others to build up our stocks.
Politics, traditions, elder laws and more politics and people using that to their advantages and father not being the kind of man that will break those rules even if Lyam would do that and has done that.
The Sacred planet, Sylvania itself is a neutral zone, it’s is its own realm all of itself and it is home to The Holy City and all of the gods and their temples. And the king has to have the consensus of the Gods in order to rule. It makes no sense in a military way but they all state that such things as high military technology are forbidden on the planet. Small normal tech, hand weapons are fine…but ships, fighters, war machines…these were last here as the weapons of the C’thul.
I sigh as I walk through the ship watching as the try to repair the side masts and the top masts all having taken damage in the crash and the fighting. It’s just frustrating and scary that this was here, that it was almost ready to be used and with those War bats as living air support.
Mentally that’s not a pretty picture.
And Lyam will not play by tradition or rules.
I head over and meet up with some of the people that are going through things and counting them and I see Ilisa sitting with Kyte as they’re looking over clothes that were captured and they’re talking about colors of the dyes and the weaving but also the stitching and things.
“And this stuff’s important? I mean no offense but I don’t know much about these things except for things that I find pretty…”
I can’t help it it’s the truth and there’s a part of me that sort of quails still about something that at least with these two seems like such a relevant thing.
Ilisa looks at me. “Oh well I was just mentioning there were things that we should maybe look for in the finery and even the very well made travel wear and it turn out that Lady Kyte here is an authority on some of it.”
I look to Kyte who looks pleased with herself and I’m not sure if it’s a one upwoman thing with her over me or not. Despite her thing with Wren she has not been one of my supporters nor her house and I have heard her say things that in sylvan time weren’t that long ago about me and my transformation.
About being an affront to the gods.
It’s hard to not feel those stings even now and the look.
Or I could be just me and sometimes so wrapped up in my own things and my own darkness that I see trouble that might not even be there.
And Bhlaze is so far away…he’s still there and still bonded but it’s still so far…Wren too. I could contact them but I don’t want to be that needy, I don’t want to lean on them all of the time.
Kyte starts in though like she never picked up on what Ilisa and I were sort of skirting (Unintentional-pun.) “Home we deal with this stuff all the time when you’re a noble lady the fashions and the providence of the clothes and the cloth and who made it and who seamstressed it is a thing especially if you can get one of the real mistresses to make something for you. This stuff isn’t quite in that level but there are tags on some of these and mana marks too if you can see them that say where these were made.”
I look at her. “So the sign their work?” I’m honestly surprised because most clothes I have are nice and some are even fancy and stuff but at the same time they’re still clothes.
Kyte grins almost ruefully. “Yes, it was an advert through the guilds originally but it has become a class thing with the noble’s home. Who’s work you’re wearing is important there.”
“And that means?”
Ilisa says smiling and holding up her tablet and quill. “It means we can have a good idea of where they shopped which lends to where they’re from and their habits and how much they’re spending on things like these.”
I nod. “Wren’s pretty smart.”
Both of then nod and Kyte says. “She has a completely different perspective and we need that I think. I’m still…” she turns red with a blush and I sort of get it that sheepish thing where you really just don’t have words to get the feelings out.
Ilisa says as she’s writing things down. “She’s alien and human and she’s quick to a lot of things or should be according to the legends.”
I look at her. “Legends?”
She looks at the two of us. “It’s not the first time our two races have met.”
Snakes and Ladders-35
Chapter 35
*Before…Shaya
I nod. “Wren’s pretty smart.”
Both of then nod and Kyte says. “She has a completely different perspective and we need that I think. I’m still…” she turns red with a blush and I sort of get it that sheepish thing where you really just don’t have words to get the feelings out.
Ilisa says as she’s writing things down. “She’s alien and human and she’s quick to a lot of things or should be according to the legends.”
I look at her. “Legends?”
She looks at the two of us. “It’s not the first time our two races have met.”
*And Now…
I tilt my head and take a rest by leaning on some of the crates that are near us. “I was to their world and I’ve seen their technology and they have no magic Wren and I are linked I think that I might have felt things like that through her.”
Ilisa says. “Aaah but they could have had magic and some magic is powerful and it lingers.”
Kyte asks. “Does the King know?”
She nods. “If I have heard of this certainly the High King has as well.”
I look at her. “I’ve not been in the family good graces for a long time but I think that I’d have heard of this too.”
Ilisa says. “I heard it happened on Kyu-nari.”
I nod, that could explain many things. Kyu-nari is ruled by an extremely ancient Empress one that is rumored to be immortal and she has been the ruler since my great grandfather’s time and she has built her moon up since the C’thul had enslaved us.
Actually Kyu-nari was at one point considered the heart of the rebellion before my people came to here during that ancient war.
Wren calls them Asian or at least by the standards of her earth culture.
I look at Ilisa. “So what had happened in this contact?”
“They say that there was a battle at sea that somehow was transported from the world where they were at to our world or to the world of the Kyu-nari.”
Kyte asks. “Has anyone ever seen the relics from this?”
Ilisa nods. “I have, there was a few things that they say come from this event that were smuggled out to some of the temples a helm with goggles, a sword like the kyu-use, and slug cartridges for a slug thrower.”
Kyte asks. “Slug thrower?”
I shrug. “I’ve never heard of it either.”
Ilisa says. “Metal fired through a barrel by using gas created by a think like flash powder in a cartridge. They’re actually quite powerful, lethal even.”
I look at her along with Kyte. “How do you know of them so, from the bolts or whatnot?”
“Bullets I think they’re called.”
I look at Ilisa. “So we’ve had contact with them before so that’s how Bhlaze and I got there?”
She nods. “It would seem so; do you remember much of that place?”
I think back… “It was dark and very stormy there and I don’t know.”
I reach out to Wren mind to mind and sort of fill her in and I feel her mind do this fascinated.
~Ohhhhh…~
~What? ~ I think to her.
~You’re people and mine we’ve like met. ~
I mind-smile. ~Yes and since we’re talking about that here and all Ilisa was wondering what might have been around that might have helped with that? ~
I see images and a sign that she had seen as she’s saying. ~We were right on top of this sacred native heritage site; it’s the great snake mound not too far from Calgary. ~
~Great snake mound? Natives? ~
I feel this sort of sadness and shame from her about her people coming from her. ~Natives as in Native Americans or First Nations peoples they were on the land before my ancestors settled it and well…well we did horrible things really to them and they were things that were never really made right Shaya…The Great snake mound was some kind of like sacred site and the government there in Canada made it a protected site. ~
Wren’s showing me these native peoples and they look to me like the Wyldera peoples from that moon and they have the same sort of look and colorings and some of the things seem the same like the buckskins and the other adornments or little shamanic items they call fetishes.
It’s such an experience being bonded to her and we’re sharing mind to mind details and I’ve only been to Wyldera a scant few times as a dragon rider and never as my old self because they’re poor and hold no sway over the nobles save for their resources which are forever out of reach since they forbid mining and the like there.
And with the very, very strong shamanic magic that they have and the powers of their spirits there’s nothing short of an invading full army that’d allow that kind of thing there.
And the only one with that many troops to spare is father.
Though Uncle Liam would certainly try it if he had or takes control of the throne and the space fleet. Magic or not an orbital bombardment would change any resistance there.
And on a few other places as he’d be certain that the Sylvan’s of the pure blood had as much gain as possible over those of the outer realms.
And once again Wren’s shocked at the comparison between the worst of our people. I suppose though really some of the bigger houses and clans might as well be nations and the kingdoms on the other moons.
And I am still after everything she’s showed me awed by the sheer number of humans that there are in the world.
Billions of them.
As in multiple billions and that thought it just scary.
Well honestly there’s a lot of things that are scary in Wren’s head.
I know that there’s things she sort of hides from me.
Not like things she’d keep from me but there’s a lot of things she knows that she doesn’t want me getting exposed to.
And I feel for her and I feel for her people really.
And I’m keeping things that I know of from our people too.
Pointed eared or round eared it seems there are shitty people all over the cosmos.
Yes I so took shitty from my darling.
Wren has a whole lot of turns of phrases from her home that are just admirable in their creativity.
I sometimes think even as nice as she is that she could give a dark fae creature a run for its honey in a swearing competition.
I can feel her getting ready to go and saddling Bhlaze up and her with Commander Falcon and she feels fairly happy and flushed with good feelings about my…father?
Oh…
Well I’ll be…
Father and Mother tried with me and they still are trying with me but there’s space between us.
They never saw what I was going through, and I never announced that I was “trans” as Wren has called it instead I kept that to myself and lived in this whole tortured life that was never mine for hundreds of years.
And then there was me being squired to Liam and him finding out and him threatening to spill it out and dishonor my family and he had me so scared…scared enough that while I was young enough that I was his bed thing.
There’s nothing like LGBT here we don’t breed well so there’s so, so much focus put on that and being like that…being like the couples that are like what was depicted as the everyday standards. Those that are Tryst and sleep with those of the same gender are as bad as a Twyst that lives as the other gender.
And that fear mixed with my self-loathing and that brewed into poison.
Illian became Liam’s black gauntlet, his right hand and I did things that still give me nightmares.
And even while no one every suspected the mystical miracle that Kailyn pulled off in making me really me that’s still left a void between me and my family.
Well except Kailyn.
Because he literally saved my soul.
And Brennan my scholarly brother who loves books and hides from people and is just as sweet and as Wren says “geeky” as scholars get and then there’s Jaiden…my twin brother my identical twin who’s sometimes like a shadow.
Actually he’s a disgraced squire turned thief and outlaw over him finding out about things between Liam and myself and he was framed for theft and murder and even though it was those loyal to Liam that did it including myself…Illian father hasn’t pardoned him.
Because he’s more useful where he is as an outlaw.
And part of me has a rough time with father doing that.
I do want to be close to my parents but honestly after everything I don’t know how.
Because part of me still feels the monster.
I feel Wren.
I feel her reaching through to me with our link and Bhlaze and she’s holding his head and he’s muzzle pressed into her chest and he’s dragon trilling which is like whistling to dragons since they can sort of sing and I can feel the vibrations through her and into me and just how much it’s soothing my heart right now.
~I love you Shaya, and you are not a monster. ~
~I feel like it Wren, it’s like sometimes I feel that stain still. ~
I can feel this huge surge of love and warmth and understanding…so much understanding that it’s making it hard to swallow.
~PTSD and Dysphoria is a bad, bad combination especially with abuse. ~
I want her with me really bad right now and I feel Kyte’s arm around me. “Shaya?”
I look at her and wipe at my eyes. “Sorry we should get back to work.” (Sniffle.)
“No…I think not, you have that look.”
“What look?”
“That I want a fort of bedding look and the worlds all can go and spin without me look.”
(Sniffle-laugh.) “Aye…very much that.”
~Done.~
~What? You’re saddled already?~
~No…I’ll built you a blanket fort when I get back and we can cuddle and we can tell the worlds to spin.~
~Go spin. ~
~What’s the difference? ~
~ I don’t know…grammar? ~
~Oh I was bad at that in school. ~
~Well it’s street-speech so it’s not likely taught in school. ~
~That’s true but I like it. ~
~What go spin? ~
~Yeah it reminds me of sit and spin or sit on it and rotate. ~
~Sit on what and rotate? ~
I get the image of her people’s middle finger gesture and then the other part of that particular saying and that’s just… ~Eeeew Wren! ~
I hear her snerk in my brain through the link and I’m smiling even as I feel her pull back as her and Bhlaze are getting ready and leaving Lilac House.
Kyte sighs. “I wish I had something like that, like that bond.”
“I don’t know who I’d even be without her at this point.”
“She makes you smile.”
“She does, and so much more.”
“Your eyes shift to being bluer but a lighter blue when you’re in contact with her.”
I look at her and smile. “I didn’t know that.”
Ilisa says as she comes over with a bottle. “Only the really deep links can do that. Now who has some cups I found a particularly fine vintage back there and I think that it’d be actually patriotic to drink something our foes must have paid such a tidy sum for.”
I look at her. “That’s evidence.”
“There’s a whole case of them back there, I think that we can be just disreputable enough that a few drinks won’t be amiss.”
She pulls a dagger and does and clean sabering off the wrapping and the cork and doesn’t even chip the glass and I shake my head but smile.
Then I reach out for the bottle. “If I’m drunk and weepy when Wren gets back it’s your fault.”
Snakes and Ladders-36
Chapter 36
*Wren…
It’s really important to me when I catch Shaya in those moments. Dysphoria is a damned horrible thing to live with and to have the social stigma that comes with that and all her own cultural stuff and pressure and then the abuse.
I have my own stuff, growing up and into someone that was the size of a Bear and so not feeling any of that well it was all sorts of hell and finding yourself in the midst of all of it is really hard.
But I really get the whole thing that just smacked Shaya and I’ll even go so far as to say it could be like post-fight related too when the adrenaline wears off and everything and the blood cools down but the mind is still in sort of fight mode or semi-fight mode and that kind of stuff still messes with your head.
I knew a lot of vets from driving truck there’s a lot of people that I knew that were really messed up.
Shaya’s my sweet angel but she’s still really messed up and she’s really still serving.
Bhlaze… ~You never really stop serving Wren, Shaya’s guilt from the wrongs would have eaten her alive long before now if she hadn’t taken service with me. ~
We’re actually all ready to fly but we’re just walking through the streets of The Holy city right now and I’m getting more and more used to doing things while mentally doing other things like talking.
~You each haven’t said how you and she happened. ~
~We can’t that’s sealed between ourselves a rider’s bond is a sacred thing and I’d prefer to keep it so. ~
I look at him and reach over and scratch some of the back of the jaw-hinge scales which I know he likes. ~I can respect that. ~
~Good, you’ll have to. ~
Okay it’s kind of neat and kind of strange that I can feel/hear the sarcasm in his reply through my link with him and Shaya.
~So, you know where we’re going? ~
Bhlaze wuffle-chuff’s. ~Of course I do I have been here so many times Erendae that if you added it all together I will have been here longer than you have been alive.~
~Wow, so you make old feel grey. ~
He nose bumps my butt and sends me in this little hop push like into the air and three feet ahead. “Hey!”
~Is for herd animals you deserved that you silly human. ~
I laugh and we are getting some looks anyways and I’m smiling and walking backwards now looking at him which is making me smile all the more too since it’s been a long while in my old life since I could actually do that.
~So Shaya and I were sort of sharing and apparently according to Ilisa my people and your people have met before? ~
~Well your people and The Sylvan’s have and I would have to say to some degree too with dragon kind too although it’s nothing within my memories. ~
~Okay well does your kind have like histories and the like of it? ~
~We must but I am not nearly old, nor wise, nor powerful enough to be considered an Elder Dragon and have access to The Keepings.~
~The Keepings? ~
~It’s like our library and it’s located deep in our homeland. ~
~You have a homeland? I mean like of course you would but all of the legends with Dragons and the like sort of never really talk about such a place. ~
~Not many of my kind really speak much of it, it’s a legend of our own actually and because of our powers it is invitation only. ~
~So like a retirement thing? ~
~Much-like yes and for those of us not exiled like the dark dragons and Shai-Tan when we die our bodies are pulled there from wherever they have fallen by the powers of home returned.~
He stops and he looks at me and the link gets bigger, more powerful and I’m suddenly not there in the city but I’m with him and there’s some huge battle that had just gone on and there’s dead Trolls everywhere and Goblins too and there’s things burning and it’s snowing and there’s fog?
~Dragon’s battled here, Frost and Fire and Storm…this is what you’re seeing, leftovers of that…but here look. This was Fayine…she was a brave dragoness and when the Troll Warlord G’vassh raised an army and used the blackest of powers to bring over a beast from the hell-planes Fayine battled the demon tooth and claw and frost and snow and she saved The Fortress of Shining-Star from being overrun by darkness and saved so very, very many lives. ~
I see part of the battle in a flash…she was silvery white scaled like pearls and ivory and she was fighting this creature that was covered in what looked like natural plate armor if it was made from flesh and bone and leather and volcanic rock and it was huge…and I mean huge twice the size of all of the troll and they rolled and rolled and blocked and bit and tore into each other and the demon tried to escape but it wasn’t fleeing it wanted free of the battle to feed…feed on this castle and the little walled town surrounding it.
And she wasn’t allowing it… and part of me wants to cry and scream and my mind is freaking out because this is real, he was there and demons are real.
Which is a bit of something…yeah it’s hurting my head and my heart to know this now and she’s losing.
Every time it gets away from her it hammers on her with even greater anger and hate and somehow time after time she recovers.
She even does this sort of jump like we do to travel but she flash-jump tackles it.
Twice…no three times and that last time she pins it down and there’s this surge?
~What? ~
~Ice magic, some of the very most powerful ice magic where cold borders of flames in how the aspects of control can happen.~
~Aspect’s like how fire magic can control temperature? ~
~Aye, almost all magics are interconnected at their highest masteries. ~
~Oh… Well I’m glad I got that right. ~
I have no idea what I’m seeing but I see her build this energy in her mouth and it seems to spread within her and there’s this huge, huge explosion.
It’s white and silver and blue, it’s burning so blue.
~What? ~
~Shaya’s brother Brennan called it Cold Fusion. It was the only way she could win. ~
~Oh Holy cheese…~
~That’s a few blocks over. ~
The scene shifts and I’m back looking at the aftermath and her broken body the only thing that’s there and I think that’s just because of her having so much resistance to what happened. Then I see this light…it’s like a halo of light but it’s the same color as that vibrant electric-blue incandescence that happens when we jump.
Only it’s there over her a few hundred feet up and her body begins to fade away and as it’s fading it’s breaking up or like maybe evaporating and there’s motes of magic or starlight itself and they’re all rising and flowing into that halo and they’re…I can feel it as much as he did.
They called her home.
He pulls out of my head or the deep link with me and I’m bawling because it was the scariest thing to learn and it was one of the most beautiful and spiritual things that I have ever seen in my…in both my lives actually and I can’t help but to walk right into his muzzle and hug his face.
It takes me a while before I can stop hugging him and shaking and being all emotional and I rub his face scales and let him go and he does the head lift and look at me like he’s bemused and that he’s happy that I felt this so strongly.
That I felt with him and for one of his so strongly.
We start walking again and we are still attracting looks and attention. Partly because it’s a walking dragon and that’s rare here and I’m getting a lot of looks myself.
And there’s some whispers of… “It’s her.”
And… “Human.”
It’s odd that here I’m the being from story and legends.
I don’t even really know what those stories and such really are but no one’s running from me screaming so that’s good I guess.
And Bhlaze is sort of mind nudging me with feeling of directions too as we go through the city and I suppose we could have just hop-flown to the places but I thought that’d seem rude and rushed and this is a truly amazing place.
Just considering The Great Tree alone…it’s huge, and by huge I mean it’s beyond scope to me. I can see the rising roots from here and on those roots there’s roads, not paths but roads and with those there’s buildings like spires and towers and some are old stone and some are what looks like clay or porcelain buildings and some are towers that are actually from little offshoot branches or parts of the tree that are growing up like those little sapling shoots at the base of some trees and these sapling-shoots are molded into towers or hold tree houses that are like whole buildings and barns..and they are five and six or more stories high.
You can see the shape of the canopy from here but not the actual details because of clouds and fog between the bottom of the canopy and the city.
It’s so high that it doesn’t really affect the sunshine, but it’s huge enough that it breaks and buffers all of the storms.
I’m told it’s a forest within a tree that it’s the home to rangers and druids and their kin and fae and all manner of beings.
And now place it by the shore of this huge flat crystalline lake and then surround it with a city on one third a side that is so old and lived in and care worn that it has this immense charm to it.
I inhale and I like it here.
Actually I love it here.
The streets are worn flag stones and they’re of this white slate. It’s actually a kind of slate or maybe a sort of shale but it’s white and it’s all over the city. The buildings are made of it too or the first floors for about half of them are with the rest being built of wood like ruins reclaimed and then there’s some of stone and mortar and others of bricks and tiles and all are old and worn some are exotic and yet been here for what feels like forever and it’s.
It’s Old Quarter New Orleans under the tree.
And the trees.
I mean there’s that tree sure but there’s trees here that are huge and old and some of them are some of the most amazing looking things I have ever seen.
Cherry trees and other fruits trees and something are in bloom always here.
Willow trees shaped to look like faces with hair sometimes.
Huge oaks and elms and others I don’t know.
Trees with little shrine archways in them and statues.
Trees in yards with shaped wood. Cupped divots and places for other plants to grow…I see an apple tree in a house yard and it had been full with apples and there had been so many strawberries in it’s planters and the runners had climbed through the tree that is was decorated with little red jewels.
It’s everywhere.
I’m in no hurry taking all of this stuff in. My new home and all this wonder and beauty and this being precious to Shaya and it’s becoming that way for me too.
And then well…well there’s shopping.
And Shaya’s not a shopper.
She’s never been brave enough to from what I feel. Get in get out don’t linger all her old life and that’s a habit now. She’s also a royal so most things she wanted others got or found or went for her….and she’s actually still very sort of shy and scared of her public now even after her change.
But I am better at it.
I buy food, I get some cheeses and some bread and some tomatoes and a few other odds and ends and I get some hard to find things like fae-fluffs.
This is what they call marshmallows and they’re wonderful and old school all cut to order and everything and I get those and I get a waxed paper package from a bakery and then I’m off to a few other shops where I get some blankets and a couple of nice quilts and I get a couple of bedrolls and everything is packed and tied up for me and Bhlaze.
I’m happy too… Blankets, and cozy things and yummy things and I think that we’re all set and I get us close to the lake and take in the view as I saddle up.
~This so reminds me of a song, of music from home and I can’t remember all of it. ~
~Oh? Know you not the dragonic cantrip for memories? ~
~Uhm no…I’m the bonded and not the Rider. ~
~Pfft matters not, you’re still linked to us and that’s enough. Now bring what you have on your mind and just channel power to it and you will remember the whole of it. ~
~I will? ~
~Yes.~
~And can I share this with you or Shaya? ~
~Aye.~
~Well then I want to be in the air for this and headed home are we do a fly around The Great Tree. ~
~Ha, you’re like Shaya you both love to circle the tree. ~
~It's amazing and the view with it and the lake and the city it’s just amazing. ~
~Yes it is!~ he launches into the sky and he does a dipping glide over the water gaining speed and them he’s climbing and we catch a thermal and we bank going with it and up and, and up and them we start to go around The Great Tree a little dragon like a bush plane in front of a literal mountain of a truck and we’re coming around it and leveling off and I take a breath and channel the power into the memory of a perfect song for this and we’re coming around the bend of the tree to get the lake into sight and the city after that and I’m replaying.
*Bonny Portmore* in my head as I’m flying back to my love on dragon back.
Snakes and Ladders-37
Chapter 37
*Before…
~Ha, you’re like Shaya you both love to circle the tree. ~
~It's amazing and the view with it and the lake and the city it’s just amazing. ~
~Yes it is!~ He launches into the sky and he does a dipping glide over the water gaining speed and them he’s climbing and we catch a thermal and we bank going with it and up and, and up and them we start to go around The Great Tree a little dragon like a bush plane in front of a literal mountain of a trunk and we’re coming around it and leveling off and I take a breath and channel the power into the memory of a perfect song for this and we’re coming around the bend of the tree to get the lake into sight and the city after that and I’m replaying.
*Bonny Portmore* in my head as I’m flying back to my love on dragon back.
*And Now…
The city is really something else but as we pass over it and the walls we head out and over the plains and to me that’s all sorts of amazing too.
The entire Holy city area is cupped in mountains to the south until north east and in the north of the city is a huge mass of forested foothills that seem to go on and on. They’re big really, really high but not like mountain high but certainly very Tennessee old coal country hills.
From the north by north-west to the west are the plains that we’re flying out over and there’s dirt trade roads cutting through the plains and even a few intersections as well but it’s this sea of three foot or so high grasses that just keep going for leagues.
I’m still reeling some even being here as long as I have at the sheer scope of this place.
I mean my head’s still working with the idea of this planet is actually bigger than earth by a lot and it’s because there’s less of a gravitational thing here that life’s sort of the same, except for the much longer day periods.
I’m just caught by moments of beauty here, of alieness but not.
~Aye it’s like that for me as well, Dragons are just as alien to Sylvania as Humans are only we got her a lot longer ago. But where we reside in these realms it’s very different culturally. ~
~Forgive me for being dense but I wasn’t aware that you had a culture or a civilization; I mean I always associated dragons with wilderness and independence. ~
He banks and he catches a thermal and we rise up really fast and it’s thrilling because I can feel the wind on flesh and bone in that sort of way that you feel the hum of rope in your fingers when you’re sailing.
And I’m not him…I can just imagine that rush inside if that was my flesh and bone rising and gliding through the air with little effort and defying the bonds of gravity.
~We do but by and large most dragons here and perhaps other places have flights and those are like clans here and within the flights there’s families and we have a home ground place but it is also a place for our riders very often and it is where we bear our young, care for our old and bury our dead and those sorts of things. ~
~Has Shaya been there? ~
~Yes, when Shaya became a rider she came to us and given the things in her past life there was a council on it. That and she had come to our home on her own and that is nearly unheard of for the location is a secret of the riders and the dragons alone. ~
~Nearly unheard of? ~
~There’s been others but those are few and far between and in every case they all because riders of great deeds. ~
I smile. ~I like the thought of that and Shaya after all she had been through actually making her way there. ~
~As did I that’s why I met her to bind with her. ~
We pick up speed and then we’re heading off banking to another direction until we hit the point of us finding a leyline and that’s so…odd. I mean you’d think, most people would thing that a leyline is just on the ground but no…there’s some in the sky too and this has a different feel to the mana that is gathered and flowing through here and I feel Bhlaze open himself up and it’s like sort of almost feeling a solar panel charging up or something and I feel him pulling the power into himself and then there’s that jump.
Welding flash brilliant white and I feel this feeling that’s like being stretched to the point of where we’re going like reaching out to catch hold of something with every muscle fibre that you have and then it’s like falling forward to get there and there’s this wave of like inertia like you were travelling that catches up with you once you come through.
Not unlike the forward feeling that goes through you when you have touchdown on a plane.
We bank as we’re there again back over that base in the steppe like part of these mountain here in The Darklands and we circle on the way down a few times and the place is pretty heavily guarded from the things here with the troops and I see the airship that’s there being worked on by people and it’s sort of a patch job I imagine after what had happened in that hangar area/dry dock.
That was a fight, that wasn’t just a battle but that was a boss fight and we barely cleared the level but we didn’t take out the boss he retreated to likely plague us further on down the road.
I really need to do better with the fighting things even if I really stopped that sort of stuff back home.
As Bear I have enough moments that were young and angry enough to make what I was feeling and all that dysphoria stuff worse.
Y’know if ya gotta be a monster and all that.
That got better as I got older and more tired of living life hurting and angry and sort of turning all of that stuff into energy to help defend girls I knew and loved.
And that helped, that likely saved me really.
I have things here now, important things…Shaya, her family, her people…almost my people a little bit. I mean I adore her father who seems for such an important man so down to earth.
Mind you that was away from that palace and in his Camp David spot so yeah big differences.
Kyte, Bhlaze, Ilisa…the rogue…commander Falcon all are friends.
And I really don’t like greedy class mongering warlords.
We come into that general area winging in and heading for those double doors and the warehouse sort of place that was carved from the caves where they’re taking count of things and where everyone is camped too.
A sylvan camp is very different to me and it really sort of reminds me of those colonial sort of British ones where everyone has all these things or someone carries a part of the amenities for camping and such like the folding cloth and framed chairs and cots and then tents are actually pretty elaborate too and they have these weighted bases for camping that the rods and stuff click into instead of being pegged into the ground.
I see Shaya with Kyte and she’s coming out of the counting area to come and meet us and I slide off oh Bhlaze’s back and saddle to go and meet her and pull her into a kiss and a face nuzzle.
She leans into me and into my hands and it’s just one of the greatest things really having that sort of relationship linked or not where she leans on me as a source of comfort and I can feel the tension from her dysphoria attach she went through earlier leaving her.
I think that honestly it’s one of the biggest keys to our relationship besides the facts of how we got together and that’s we have that in common.
Yes we’re mystically changed, healed into being a match on the outside of who we really were on the inside but we’re still both trans and there’s a very real and good thing that we get each other when we go through this stuff.
I kiss her a little more and I let her lean on me inside and much as outside and there’s a mental sort of feeling there from Bhlaze that’s more like a feeling that I’m getting than a projected one and that he’s tired and he’s wants to rest as much as I do and Shaya does.
I love the fact that Shaya just smiles a little of that getting better but not there yet kind of thing and we both head over and walk with Bhlaze over to our where we’re going to camp ourselves finally.
Kyte comes and she’s helping take some of the bags off and setting them aside from Bhlaze’s harness and she’s giving him looks and she’s got that look that kids get in barns when helping with horses and they’re not used to it.
I don’t suppose many people have a chance to be this close to dragons really and I grin at her. “Everything go well?”
“Boringly so, I’m not one for all this book keeping.”
“It’s important stuff.”
She looks at me and she sighs and there’s some pain there. “Book and numbers were never my strengths as I trained. I was barely granted leave by my family to do that much or be that useful to involve myself in the things of our family holdings and our estates would have been too much.”
“I knew people home like your family and that thinking isn’t just wrong it’s also wasteful of talent really.”
She looks at me. “I’ve thought so too I was told that I’d be dishonoring my uncle who was running the estates and the finances since I was a babe.”
I reach over and rub her shoulder. “You’re more than a blade Kyte and you’re more than just marriage material either.”
She pouts. “I’m not much of marriage material really back home I’m a woman who fights and wears armor and trousers instead of dresses and I can bear no children. I’m just barely tolerated because of my rank and my shield.”
Shaya looks to her. “I could speak to Kailyn about seeing if he can heal you?”
Kyte’s eyes widen and then she shakes her head. “My family wouldn’t allow it, it would put us into you debt in a way they’d never ever allow.”
I look at both of them. “Is Shaya’s family hated this much?”
Shaya does this nod and shrug. “It’s Skywood, it’s rich beyond reason and at the same time it was the realm that was given to Uncle Lyam he had control over that since before the war really when he married my aunt from there who was the daughter of The Clan Skywood’s princess and he won great favor when he walked away from being a Highwood and taking the Skywood clan name.”
And Kyte adds in. “He was very strongly spoken in favor of house Highwood sharing its secrets and opening up the throne.”
I shake my head and pull off the saddle as Shaya gets all of the harnessing. “Of course he’d want that because he didn’t get the family secrets when he didn’t become King.”
Shaya nods as she’s taking care of the straps and things. “He would rant about that, rant about Dorian the farmer and Dorian the minstrel and my mother the scullery trollop.”
I look at that. “Scullery trollop?”
Shaya nods. “My mother’s folk were of noble birth but they had lost everything and in the fashion of many who lose things they left Highwood for the Holy Planet and she as a result of that was raised in The Holy City and while titled she was a cleaning girl that worked in inns and taverns and cleaned many of the shrines and temples. She gets looked down on for that an awful lot.”
Kyte nods. “There’s great consternation of the High Queen being that as well as the fact that she is one of the most powerful wielders of magic still living.”
I nod. “She healed me, made me whole.”
Shaya smiles. “Kailyn taught her that spell, she taught him and he went on to learn and develop other things. She taught Brennan too and he went his own way with his magic too and is much more focussed on things like words and sigils and runes.”
I look at her. “So you learned your magic from?”
Shaya says. “Some was mother but I and Jaiden were bad students for that but some was Lyam and my knightly teachers but that’s all very basic things the rest I learned as a rider.”
Kyte says. “I’ve little magic or ability I can channel into devices with my power to use things others have made and that is it really.”
I look at her. “Not everyone can do magic Kyte, nowhere close.”
She nods. “But it’s another strike against me when those of title are expected to be able to at least do a few things. I struggle with cantrips.”
I look at her and give her a hug. “Then we get you some of those things and we get you some time to see Kailyn for a consult regardless of what your family might think because life is too short to let other people control it.”
She nods and she looks ready to cry some and I look to Shaya. ~Love can she stay with us? Honestly she’s have no support and she never really has. ~
I let her feel the whole momma-wren feelings and yeah I can’t help it I like her and she reminds me of a kid that has had no support in her life or much love either.
I was never that kind of parent and I never will be.
She smiles at me and Kyte. “It’s been a long day why don’t you join me and Wren tonight and you and I can share in her surprises.”
“But…I’d be intruding…” (Sniffle.)
I squeeze her a little more. “Nope, Shaya and I feel the same way about this…you’ve been alone in life for too long Kyte and I really feel like spoiling you along with Shaya tonight.”
(Sniffle.) “Uhm…okay?”
We get Bhlaze settled with a room that I use several fire spells on to heat the stones and we make sure he’s comfy and Shaya and Kyte give his scales a good brushing to clean him off and things and I get things ready in out place and I use some rope and the wall sconces to make a line to start to hang the bolts of cloth I bought in the city.
Then it’s three grass mats I had rolled up to take the stone coldness from the floor and a rolled up Shaelani carpet as a sort of back stop and I have a couple of fleeces that I bought too and then I have some extra blankets and quilts but also a whole bunch of travel pillows.
They’re inflatable leather with an air sign on them and you touch power to them to inflate them and deflate them and I have lots of pillow cases and covers and I have a dozen pillows all around while I add the blankets and quilts and make the whole thing into a blanket and pillow for tent and then at the front of the tent I have the cooking things I bought and start heating things up and taking things out as the girls come in and settle in and I smile at them.
“Dinner and junk and TV.”
Shaya and Kyte look at me. “TV?” They both say in unison.
“Wondertales from home, I’ve come up with a way to show you how to see them and I can share things from home I hope.”
We I make cheeseburgers with ground meat and as close to the condiments as I could find and the cheese and the buns were easy and frying pan cooked chips now that I know that potatoes are such a thing here and I have chocolate and cookies that are really the closest thing to graham wafers and I bought marshmallows there too and I make smores.
And using some of the sound power ideas from my air horn blast and focusing a light spell as a more of a tube based TV and stuff to show things I create a sphere that lets me show them things.
A little power in my memories to do a recall spell and I show them. “The Secret of Nimh.”
It works and while it’s strange for me to experience it this way basically replaying things from locked up memory wisps it’s so much fun to watch these two be just girls and themselves and just get lost in things.
And snuggling with a truly happy Shaya is pretty awesome too.
Snakes and Ladders-38
*Before…
“Wondertales from home, I’ve come up with a way to show you how to see them and I can share things from home I hope.”
We I make cheeseburgers with ground meat and as close to the condiments as I could find and the cheese and the buns were easy and frying pan cooked chips now that I know that potatoes are such a thing here and I have chocolate and cookies that are really the closest thing to graham wafers and I bought marshmallows there too and I make smores.
And using some of the sound power ideas from my air horn blast and focusing a light spell as a more of a tube based TV and stuff to show things I create a sphere that lets me show them things.
A little power in my memories to do a recall spell and I show them. “The Secret of Nimh.”
It works and while it’s strange for me to experience it this way basically replaying things from locked up memory wisps it’s so much fun to watch these two be just girls and themselves and just get lost in things.
And snuggling with a truly happy Shaya is pretty awesome too.
*And Now…
I wake up to the touch of Shaya down below and her cool tongue doing things inside of me. I shudder at the feelings because it’s incredible…the way she loves this, and me and the way we make love and she touches me and how much we can take each other over the edge.
Sylvan’s have a cooler core body temperature than humans do apparently so really when Shaya touches me it’s this sexy cooler touch that stands out more to my nerves and it just highlights everything.
It’s the reverse for me I’m hotter than she is so it’s this warmth that she feels as I’m doing things to her and we’re moving in the sheets all kisses and suckles and licking and touches and some gropes and fingers and more.
More…more oh…oh more.
God I really, really love being the real me.
I love my vagina.
I love having sex.
I love my breasts.
Honestly I’d been happy with anything; I’d been over the moon to just be me to the point of like SRS back home and everything.
But this, this being the healed me is really that healed, healed to the point of all those feelings that I have struggled with and the ones that were all these sweet and bitter daydreams of a me that would never be are me.
And even so many more things that I really could like never imagine.
God there is just literally so much more.
Right down to even breathing right.
But Erendae of Earth and consort to Shaya the Dragon rider kind of sort of puts Barbarella to shame.
Jane Fonda and Raquel Welch were serious go to people that I so wished that I had been born as instead of me.
This is better because I have Shaya.
I could have never have ever dreamed up my Shaya.
We were loud too and after some cuddle time we get cleaned up and make our way out of our little area and to where Kyte and Ilisa are at and Kyte looks at us and voosh her face is red enough to match her hair and she’s having a hard time looking at us.
Ilisa just smiles at us as she’s reading things that look like reports and then there’s other things too and she motions towards a crate that’s made into a table that has what looks like coffee and biscuits and jam and ham too.
“Break your fast?”
I grin. “I’m actually hungry.”
“There’s plenty.” She says and I look at Shaya as she pulls a long thin dagger and starts to slice ham off of the joint. I’m still not used to that even if they used to do that home in the pioneer days and they still do that in some places.
Again it’s one of those many differences that I’m still adjusting to.
I get a drink and Sylvan coffee’s very different than what I’m used to drinking which is good because I honestly after all those years of trucking really started to hate coffee because it all kind of sort of blurred together at a certain point really and it sort of all tasted the same.
And those flavored coffees did not agree with my stomach.
And I never really went for those high end places.
This stuff’s different completely in that way that it comes from a culture that is so old and so long lived that there’s details paid attention to that us humans actually wouldn’t be really able to sustain like time wise.
This I actually like, and my curvy patootie is definitely getting spoiled.
Shaya giggles at me. “Patootie, that’s a cute word.”
Kyte looks lost and it’s funny watching her trying to learn how to say patootie and seeing her mouth it over and over again.
We share out some food and I’m looking outside at things and I can see the troops doing things and still fixing things with the airship or they’re trying to.
“So what now?” I ask around a mouthful of the ham. It reminds me a lot of proscuttio like from the deli’s back home and stuff.
Shaya eats some more and she gets a scone/biscuit thing and piles on a lot of jelly/jam stuff on it.
It’s very much that whole faeries like sugar type of thing really. Well more like you burn off energy fighting and well if you’re wearing armor then it’s that too and you actually burn off energy from your body when you do magic too.
It’s all interconnected so when you do magic part of you magical essence is connected to your like life force which is like sort of maybe like your bio-electric field or something? All I know is that you burn actual energy like you would if you were trying to keep warm in like a cold climate when you cast spells.
But it’s not all of that power, the rest of it literally is magic and unless you’re doing it or have it wakened in you it’s sort of like this sort of reserve that you have that’s really something else…it’s in you just like your bio-electric stuff or body heat it’s like just there.
Shaya looks at me and she eats some more. “We’re really waiting on reinforcements to come and people to take this place apart and over so we’re really on sort of a garrison duty until then. So… after we eat we’re doing rounds and then we’re going to figure out the perimeter to a better and more defensible standard and whatever else pops up before 1rst-3rd.”
1rst-3rd is about a 3rd of the way through the sylvan day so it’s sort of lunch.
We finish eating and then we get our things and it’s still a trip getting into the armor and settling things and my new blade too and settling everything into place. Sylvan armor’s way more like a form fitting plated jumpsuit that old fashioned armor from earth and it weighs less I’m sure but it’s still this very much feel I guess of getting into fatigues and body armor and strapping on the web belts.
Shaya is a lot fasted at this and she almost slides into her weapons harness since she carries her swords on her black and her daggers and blasters on her hips but it’s like she has done this so long that it’s like breathing for her.
Kite’s already ready and then we’re off leaving Ilisa to do her cataloging work and the organizational things that she’s been doing with the captured goods.
I think she’s doing some of the things tha I suggested with the whole forensic accounting stuff.
Where these guys are getting supplies either legally bought or not it’s Intel that’s important.
Then it’s a lot of walking and Shaya is one of those military walkers and so is Kite and they have that walk or march thing that’s just so fast. I’m really glad for my long legs and my stride that helps me keep pace with the two of them.
We go outside first and that’s first down to the gates where I came in at and we’re checking the defenses there and the rangers are well…they’re fast and these guys must work really hard since it’s their thing and there’s two towers that are up a good thirty feet in the valley and then there’s an open pit trench with a wooden bridge on it and there’s magic symbols laid on it to blow it if need be.
Okay I’m not sure that’s what it is but it’s what I would do and once past that there’s a series of wooden gates in a large earthen berm or wall that they made and there’s posts with lines coming off the berm to the ground?
I can see Sylvan’s up on it with bows watching.
We are behind the lines after all.
“What’s the lines for?”
“Escaping once our men are in danger of being overrun.” Shaya says and she looks at me and I can feel her inside our link and she tilts her head. “You call them zippo lines.”
“Zip lines, zippo is a brand of lighter.”
“Lighter?”
“Uhm…Naphtha for lighter fluid and a wick and a built in flint and striker.”
“Oh…”
Kyte nods. “That would be useful.”
I concentrate on my spell from last night and sort of do a hologram of a zippo lighter. It’s really like an obvious one but still I’m getting better at the thing and that might help me with stuff in a whole cross cultural sort of way.
Kyte’s nodding. “Could you draw one? I’d like to have one made since I don’t have magic and I could use something like that.”
I nod. “I used to own a few they were collectable and some were really nice even if I didn’t smoke.”
They nod, one wouldn’t have thought or I never would have thought but sylvan’s smoke. I’ve seen it but they seem to have very sort of places for it and flavored and scented things. Shaya partakes of something called sunleaf now and then.
I feel through the link.
Oh…oh well my girl smokes pot.
Shaya looks at me and her eyes are wide. “Why would I smoke a pot?”
I laugh. “It’s not honey it’s a street name for sunleaf. I think because it was grown in pots for home use so much.”
“Humans are odd, no offense Wren.”
I kiss her lightly and smile. “None taken beloved.”
God I love saying beloved. I mean home it would have been like really odd and strange and corny but here it’s just different, it’s not culturally taboo to say words like that.
We head outside actually past the gates and there’s rangers there working and they’re clearing the brush and cutting limbs and there’s some carrying bundles inside to the fortress for firewood and they’re clearing the lines of fire here and at the same time they’re stocking up?
“Did we just take this place for keeps?”
Shaya nods. “We’ll garrison it and try to run missions from here as best we can to see if we can hold it.”
“If?”
“It’s The Darklands it’s a huge land full of bad neighbors.” Kyte says.
Shaya says. “There’s been some reports already that we’ve been seeing Warg riders a few miles out.”
“Is that bad?”
Shaya’s looking around but I feel her doing something with her magic while she’s doing it.
“We’re invaders, they took this territory ages on ages ago, even when the C’thull made this region their realm they brought things like Goblins with them. They want to drive us out as much as they want to invade outside of The Darklands and wage war on us…we’ll get an attack soon.”
“That’s not good.”
Shaya actually shrugged. “I’m not actually worried too much about the first attack or three. They’ll be the hot blooded and crazy ones and then then next few will be probes and such and them it’ll get bad as the old canny ones, the kings and the chieftains start to stir and make actual plans.”
I’m looking at her. “You say that like it’s not a bad thing?”
Shaya looks at me. “It’s actually a good thing, Goblins at the very least breed fast, way fasted than we do and any attacks here are not attacks on anything at the border fortresses and this way we can winnow them down.”
I nod.
I don’t like it but I nod. “And if Lyam’s bunch gets involved?”
She looks back out to the Darklands forests. “That’s what we’re all dreading, not just here but everywhere. A serious breach and we could see hordes push out of here and spilling out to other places and killing innocents.”
I look back at the fortress. “You think that this was the only place for those bats?”
She bites her lower lip. “If it was me, no…if it was me still out there with Lyam I’d have other places, other places to breed them just to be safe, just to be sure.”
I look at her. “So this could get a lot worse then?”
“It does, it means they might have fliers now…and not incidental creature but squadrons.”
I look at her. “So why aren’t the Stellar Navy forces you all have down here?”
“The temples, they won’t allow large scale machines here because of the C’thull. They waged war with us using technology and they hold a lot of power and weight as well as magics too.”
I nod, Ilisa is from The Holy city or she at least works there being who and what she is and all. And this whole situation actually would have been hugely harder without her powers and knowledge and support. That on a large scale…yeah it’s bad but good too.
And who knows what else is down here too…I’ve seen Gryphons and I know a Dragon.
They might not see technology even magic based technology the same way as I would.
I look at her. “Okay.”
“Okay?”
“We can do this.”
She smiles at me and she steps over to sneak a kiss with me. “Yes we can.”
We head back inside through the gates and then turn to start walking towards the rocky face of the valley part here and I see a very long rope ladder has been made there to take us up the slope.
Very long…I mean really?
We climb and while Shaya and Kyte seem to be really fast this was nothing like as bad as I feared.
I still have old body memory in ways. It’s all my life experience of aches and pains and just seeing things that I knew would hurt me doing them it’s still there.
And there is this kind of like right on Wren feeling after I rope ladder climbed up a cliff face at least close to two hundred feet high.
And heck yeah it was scary being up that high without Bhlaze.
But it’s been awhile since I’ve had that I did it feeling.
And then we’re walking again, in that military way.
Y’know if sylvan soldiers were all in this shape we’d be in trouble, they aren’t even winded really.
It’s sobering too because if Lyam ever did win, ever did invade…hell we couldn’t handle him in space at all home and if this was how sylvan soldiers were on the ground?
He’d stomp us out like rats.
It’s a lot of the same things here with them building defenses and traps in that making pits way and there’s zip lines here too from positions where there’s places to fire from and it’s the first time that I got to see the outside of this part where the blast doors for the hangar were at and it’s a huge solid mass of a door except the place where Shaya and Bhlaze got through and the mountain part just looks like a mountain part except there’s a line of darkness there that’s a sort of window space that’s in this upper level of the hangar and used for likely recon and guard duty and as a place that they could fire from.
It’s actually a big place really at least the size and scope of a large NFL stadium and all of its components really under this rock and stone.
Then we go back inside and we head inside and down and we’re checking on places that are getting repaired with supports from the fight and the water cisterns and talking to one of the rangers that has a half dozen ferrets that are bonded to him mystically.
Okay they were adorable but they’re also here with some others to hunt and kill pests and to check the airways of this place.
I’d have never have thought of either. Honestly we’d trap and do other stuff but he can get sensory information from them too.
Which is really cool and it reminds me of this old show Beastmaster that was like off of like really old B movies.
And they’re cute too especially when they’re not just tame but sort of like socialized so when you have a ferret come up and grab your hand and head-bob like a bow it’s more than precious.
It’s also really nice to see that Shaya and Kyte aren’t immune either.
Then we’re checking on stores and the cleaning and there’s a lot of cleaning and scrubbing being done. Shaya stops and her and I and Kyte all take rooms and we help the troops doing this and it’s sweep with heavy bristled brooms made by hand and it’s using other brushes and things that we had or that the turncoats here had and it’s scrubbing down the walls of soot and odor and of Goblin and Orc or Uruk?
It’s actually very important because I guess they carry all sorts of nastiness and diseases and it’s another claim on the place too in a way.
The power washer I have in the trailer of my truck would have been great down here.
And we get out of out armor and we take spelled cloths for our faces and we put on bandanna’s and we give the others a break as we each take rooms and Shaya’s not satisfied until we’ve cleared seven rooms and the whole hall we were at and we were at it for hours.
Okay it felt like it and it might have been two but still it was a lot of work and I’ve never seen someone clean as hard and as fast as Shaya who did most of the scrubbing actually on her hands and knees while we swept things clear and hauled rinse water.
But y’know all the soldiers seen her; dragon rider or not princess or not scrubbing hard and working just as hard as the rest of them.
And yes she did that on purpose, that whole commander leading by example but also there’s this whole knowing that you have to earn respect.
We were lucky as there was ample water to rinse ourselves off with and there were cloths to dry with too. Then it was back into our things and back through pretty much everywhere and then out of the depths and out to where we were camped sort of inside the hangar’s warehousing room and there was 1rst-3rd’s meal being made by the soldiers.
There were more soldiers?
I look around and I see Kyte taking a breath. “My cousin Rafe’s here along with some of my troops.”
I there’s some other troops too with royal colors and uniforms and armor as well as rangers and others there too and I can see two airships outside anchored just past the blast doors and there’s things being unloaded as well as new folks over at the captured airship.
I look to Shaya. “Were we getting new troops in?”
She nods. “We aren’t meant to garrison here and some are here from the royal navy shipyards that do the work of the old magic and work for airships. We’re going to get that captured one back into fighting trim.”
“And then what?”
“It’ll be used here, we have a fighting ship here and that can defend or it can be dispatched out to places in need.”
“So good news?”
She’s looking over to Kyte. “Mmm…not too sure on that given it’s one of her relatives here with house troops to volunteer.”
“So that’s a bad thing that they’re here?”
She shook her head no. “Not necessarily, Kyte’s been with us and she won honor for her house in a military victory and her house will throw in support here just to have people know that House Starling was involved. But as much as that’s a good thing it’s still the fact that from everything that she told me her family is…problematic maybe.’
I purse my lips. “You mean they’re assholes.”
Shaya coughs. “Yes well let’s try to not let that be a thing we go to right away Wren, you don’t need to be dueling with another knight from House Starling.”
I blink. “That’s still on?”
She grins at me. “Yes, oh yes honey it’s still on and there’s people that are likely waiting to see you in action as well as her. It’s court, the rumor mill will be going still with the time you and Kyte butted heads.”
“But we’re good right?”
“It’s still not been withdrawn, Kyte likes you but she’ll still fight you because of her honor and the expectations of her house.”
“Okay…well this just adds to what I’ve been feeling.”
Shaya looks at me and she does that elfin eyebrow Spock thing.
I look at her. “I need to get better especially after that guy that we fought inside that airship.”
“Jerek…Jerek Thistle.”
“You sound like you know him?”
“We fought together back in my other days, he’s a knight as well as a combat mage and he’s also trained in several fighting arts. He’s a deadly man.”
“Yeah…got that part down really well. Why’s he working with Lyam?”
“Blood, revenge.”
“Revenge?”
“His family, parts of it were involved on the other side of things during the summoning war and sometimes those that were left after that when the war was over the old and the young and those that never fought they have a very big grudge against the crown.”
“Your family.”
Shaya nods. “Mine, our allies, the fact that as a people we have the power that we do and we don’t use it to make us more powerful or to build an empire instead of The Republic that we are.”
“But your father is High King?”
She nods. “And there was royalty for ages and that’s still part of our government but it was my ancestors when they fought off the C’thull who introduced the voting in courts and democracy and pulled the moons together a whole lot more and made a central sort of government and military.” She looks at me. “Father and mother are more like a sort of caretaker and commander. The courts make the laws and petitions for laws these are debated in the courts and then father will say yay or nay to them and they get sent back to be redone. He can also propose laws too but they have to be debated in the courts just like anyone else and then it’s the majority of votes in the start of that in the courts that say yay or nay to his ideas. Then if yay it’s debated and then there’s another vote and so on.”
“Can he pull rank?”
“Only in times of War, he is still The High King.”
“So who declares being at war?”
“Father but that must be ratified by the temples.”
“Oh….so another reason that the temples laws are so powerful.”
“No war without the backing of the gods.”
“So what prevents something like a holy war?”
“The fact that the temples are very different and the fact that the druids are involved and that involves The Great tree. The Tree brings in the voices of other beings that are connected or allied to it that are affected if Sylvania is mobilized to war.”
I shake my head. “That’s a lot like home and nothing like home. Can everyone vote?”
She nods. “Yes, even with succession there’s a vote or a vote can be called on if say a noble isn’t what the people want ruling and the family has to choose someone else.”
“Does that happen a lot?”
“No…the nobles are either good enough that it’s never really an issues and it requires at least three quarters of the voting peoples there. And there has to be an alternative for that to be allowed and then there’s the fact that some folks won’t swerve from the old ways and will embrace any heir no matter how bad they are and then there’s the fact that some places rule and control the votes through fear and money.”
“So Lyam really wants to destroy the Holy city and to take power from the temples and then completely rule in the old, old ways.”
Shaya nods. “The Old blood ruled with whatever they could and might very often was what was right and it’s partly why when The C’thull came we fell because we were so divided.”
She stops at the food line and we both get trays. “He wants Highwood power and technology and magic to go along with the way things used to be and then rule only his rule will be unspeakably evil.”
We sort of stop and we’re doing this sort of linked up kind of processing about all of the stuff we’ve been talking about and she steps up to the food tables.
“After we eat you and I we’ll take Bhlaze out and we’ll practice.”
“Flying patrol, and isn’t it dangerous out there?”
“Flying patrol and it is dangerous and we have Bhlaze with us so we have a dragon to watch over us.”
“And while we’re gone?”
“We help Kyte out with her family and leave her in charge.”
I smile. “That’s actually a good idea, her cousin Rafe might have a WTF over that and if not at least it’ll be a good thing for her and her men.”
Snakes and Ladders-39
Chapter 39
*Before…
We sort of stop and we’re doing this sort of linked up kind of processing about all of the stuff we’ve been talking about and she steps up to the food tables.
“After we eat you and me we’ll take Bhlaze out and we’ll practice.”
“Flying patrol, and isn’t it dangerous out there?”
“Flying patrol and it is dangerous and we have Bhlaze with us so we have a dragon to watch over us.”
“And while we’re gone?”
“We help Kyte out with her family and leave her in charge.”
I smile. “That’s actually a good idea, her cousin Rafe might have a WTF over that and if not at least it’ll be a good thing for her and her men.”
*And Now…
The food here is something I’m not sure that I’ll ever get used to there’s so much green here that it’s boggling and I just call it salads but they are salads but they’re also a lot of other dishes that are specific even if they’re vegetables and fruits and variations there off.
I know a lot of this is foraged food too.
It’s just some of the stuff that they eat…like how raw meat, raw venison or barely done venison is a thing here with berries or wine on it or vinegars and herbs or salts.
Raw, raw, raw especially with the ranger crowd.
Sylvan sushi.
Though there are things that sort of are growing on me that kind of defy things at home like clear fir balsam that’s mixed with lots of mint and the with other herbs and ground into paste and pepper and it’s sort of like a mustard of a sort that some of them use.
The wild woods flavors are a very cultural thing here though it’s definitely a thing with here in the Holylands since I see Kyte make a face at the smell of it.
I know I talk about this stuff a lot but even when trucking one of the first things that you notice and get a handle on is the food. And if you like or know some of the local faves it goes a whole long way to actually giving you a bit of local credit.
And I might need that since I’m a human living in fairyland.
Wow…there’s a though the TV shows and movies I could film here compared to home, super special effects budgets.
I chuckle around some food and Shaya gives me a little curious link nudge and it’s a little back and forth as she’s still really sort of trying to wrap her head around stuff from home.
They don’t really have TV or commercials or Media or Movies here they have a set of royal com channels that are sort of like c-span and one’s like royal news and announcements and weather warnings and the other one’s is sort of like recorded music and people reading poetry or books.
I mean that’s very, very strange to me.
But then again I’m in a culture that has never actually needed the light bulb and can make magical energy into tangible energies.
And they live…almost obsessively in a way.
Do you know how nice a small farm is here when they have hundreds of years and a thirty six hour day?
Every farming house does things like butter and cheeses and makes their own wine and tea blends and just, just everything here is taken to that whole Tibetan sand painting thing.
And like really taking stuff like that in it’s just really easy to see that I’m very much in a whole other world with all sorts of other standards.
It’s funny though because Shaya is very intrigued by the idea of all of the things that humanity has with our multi-media things and the way we have so many arts forms that her people never even dreamed of.
She’s intrigued by comics and the thought of collecting them is actually very sylvan for her since it’s what her folk tend to do anyways. Collecting is a big thing with her kind it’s a time thing I guess when you live so long there’s a sort of appreciation I can get for things like continuity.
She latches onto the thought of the whole idea of the funnies in the papers and of papers too and they have what they call the sheets and she finishes eating and I finish eating and she looks at me and then at Kyte.
“Wren and Bhlaze and I are going out on a patrol I’m leaving you in charge while we’re gone.”
Kyte blinks pretty surprised looking and so is her brother Rafe who actually looks stunned and his eyes widened and he was looking like it was the last thing that he expected to hear and I shoot both of them an smile and he’s that off his game he actually forgets to glower at us as Shaya and I head off to get ready for our flight and our trip.
“He wasn’t expecting that.”
Shaya nods. “It’s just a temporary thing he’ll be back to being an ass most likely.”
“Okay so how is this going to do things for Kyte?”
“Well it’s not that long but legally and officially she’s in command which means she’s had some more serious command experience or at least according to the records.”
“And that’s a good thing for her, how’s her family going to take it?”
“I don’t know but there’s very often the case that as you call them shitty people hon they’ll ease off while she’s making them look good.”
I nod and help her get everything flight ready and it’s a lot faster now that I have some real one on one experience with doing this myself.
“You think we’ll have to watch out for Rafe?”
Shaya nods. “I do, he will eventually in my opinion try something even if it’s just being an asshole and undermining her authority in from of the men.”
I nod fastening buckles. “It’s unfortunate but there’s a lot of men that will do that to women because they can’t stand a woman gaining even if it helps them too.”
She has this look. “I was like that, just…so jealous of seeing people being everything that I should be.”
I look at her. “Yeah but having a whole shoulda been me dysphoria attack isn’t being a misogynistic dirtbag, women getting to equal men doesn’t take things from them.”
She nods as we finish. “We never have these conversations though, there’s this whole secrecy about being a tryst or a twyst.”
“Well maybe that’s something that we can try to start, maybe we can get some of the temples involved?”
Shaya shrugs. “That’s more mothers’ domain than mine. I hated the gods and I just assumed that they hated me just the same for having cursed me as I thought that they did.”
“I liked church at home; there was still a whole lot of good and wonderful things there in being a Christian.”
“So how does having one god stack up to actually meeting another race and everything else?”
“Uhm…that my faith is mine and it’s how I interact with the great divine and that I have been really, really lucky to actually see that there is such a bigger and much more wonderful universe than anything that I knew.”
She helps me on and she smiles as I don’t need as much help actually settling in.
“We’re linked though and I’ve seen your people and how they see faith and what they do.”
I kiss her. “Honestly Shaya I’m still at a loss of the hard questions in the big picture way but I see it as…if your gods are real mine must be or can be too and that they all just might be the same thing but I’m not the person to figure that all out.”
“If your gods of light types stand for things that I believe in well…then we’re fine.”
She grins. “It’s that be decent to me and I’ll be decent to you?”
“Yeah pretty much that whole do unto others as you’d have them do unto you.”
“Oh that’s more poetic.”
“That’s from the bible hon, you were quoting Eminem.”
“Eminem?”
I laugh. “He’s sort of a performer, it’s called rap.”
“Why?”
“Not a clue honestly it’s a racial developed and adapted urban sort of chanting poetry with a rhythm.”
“Okay that sounds pretty.”
I’m laughing as we take off with Bhlaze running and then there’s this boost with Shaya aboard this time and it’s like she helps him shoot off the ground somehow by like?
Her voice in in my head. ~ We pushed off the magnetic field of the planet.`
~Oh…well that makes sense.~
There’s actually a lot of physics and stuff in magic which kind of really makes all those scenes in D&D where there’s all those wizards with labs and all the books and everything.
Bhlaze’s wings snap out and we sail up and I can feel it too…he rides magnetic fields as much as air currents.
~Do all dragons do this?~
He answers. ~To some extent it’s different for very specific ones but we do things mystically in our own ways, fire and storm dragons are some of the best fliers, sea dragons or water dragons the best swimmers and are deadly strong and armored.~
~Oh…depth and pressure adaptations?~
~Exactly and actually the dragon race itself is literally our ethnics as it were as mystical adaptations occurred.~
~Oh that makes a lot of sense!~
We bank and we rise and turn going over the immediate valley and we’re looking out really intently all over again because for all of the talking we are for all intensive purposes in enemy territory.
The land is so darkly green with so much being these really intense evergreens but dark colored leaves for hardwoods are also here and there and then there’s this whole thing that might be regional or magical but there’s lots of vines and ivys and hanging mosses in the trees too that make this really dense and hard to see through canopy.
And it’s hills and buttes and bluffs and it’s really just super hard terrain and honestly I’d be lost pretty quick and maybe dead soon after and that’s just the survivalist stuff not knowing the flora and fauna here and then there’s the enemy.
With all of the history here of conflicts and the things called in it’s unlike anything I know of at all with the non-sylvan’s and the inhuman races and then there the beasts and monsters too and part of me is very glad that the Sylvan’s have the forethought to blockage the place.
I’m still not sure how I feel though about them having all that advanced ship weaponry and not resolving it from space and having the whole respect at that level for The Holy Planet.
I’m actually very sure that humans as a race if we had this open up and be like this place here that we’d come together and we’d nuke and bomb the hell out of it with no regard for how religious or historically significant it might have been.
It’s just so highlighting the very big difference between us and them.
Bhlaze thinks at me. ~No, it’s not that. That was argued and one major point kept coming up and it wasn’t tradition. ~
~Oh…well that was? ~
Shaya hops in mentally. ~The unknown, there’s a lot of gates here and there’s things that were left behind by both the C’thull and the Forsaken that if hit from ship weaponry could unleash untold devastation…maybe even do something that might destroy the planet.~
~Destroy the planet? ~
~Like missile ordinance hitting something like a gateway to the elemental plane of fire. The energies from that gate could magnify that explosion ten to a hundred fold and then that damages the mantle enough and it gets boosted by the gate that no one can get to, to shut it down and it all just keeps burning.~
~Oh holy crow, just…~
My mind sort of boggles at that for a few moments before it sort of settles too. We have the same thing but different home. There’s things that can be targeted and there’s things that can’t for the repercussions in either payback or just plainly what would happen.
The Universe is vast.
The Universe is small.
We don’t actually go that far by dragon wings and Shaya and Bhlaze find this bluff that’s got a flat top and it’s about the size of a football field and it’s a good hundred foot climb from the bottom of the ravines around it.
The only people that will see us are those that can fly already and we land and take off the things that we packed and get down to the gear that we’ll be using and wearing to start to train and to spar.
The first is exercises and warm ups and that’s completely different than what I was taught in Steadfast and Ramparts.
There’s stretching sure but then Shaya has me channeling power while I’m doing that.
“Shouldn’t I be learning how to do this without the magic?”
“You have been and we will but you wanted to learn how I fight and how Jerek fought and to really train.”
I nod.
Breathe, stretch, channel and fill my muscles with mana just like I have living energy like electricity and food energy going through it and use it to push…push off and jump.
Yeah an eight foot standing jump in the air and I land on my butt and back.
Eight feet…that’s literally impossible for mortal people to like do outside of movies.
Shaya pushes the thought of up at me and I get up.
She wasn’t pleased even at that.
I was supposed to power up, like Kick-up or Kip-up but with my power still going and then we’re training again.
Jumping and leaping and learning control and learning how to maneuver as she shots at me.
I didn’t know that when she is in physical contact with Bhlaze she can fire things like a stun-bolt at will pretty much.
Stun-bolts are like energy darts that fly from her hand and hit like a taser.
Okay not quite that bad but they will daze you good, they’ll set you on your ass every time and it’s my bonded and my love and lover that’s firing at me teaching me how to control my empowered body.
For hours.
Did I mention a thirty six hour day yet?
Next is doing all of that with the sword and that’s when she joins me with sparing and we go through fast and acrobatic or at least gymnastic sort of fighting and I get to feel some of Shaya’s speed and then her strength as she pours power into herself as she’s fighting.
She’s smaller than me and it’s surprising just how hard she strikes when I block her strikes.
Or when she hits me.
Hard…That my god and her gods for the armor that I’m wearing.
Then after we spar for a while and she hands me my ass she’ll go through everything and teach me the moves, the hows and the why’s.
“Wren…take the memory charm that Bhlaze taught you and apply that to your body…instead of calling things up though use it to record this, all of this and apply it directly to your body using magic to reinforce your muscle memory.”
Well…okay then…
And boy oh girl was that easier said than done.
It’s trying to pour power into the feeling of everything you’re doing while you’re trying to boost everything you’re doing and trying to spar and train and keep from getting your patootie kicked.
But after a few more hours I’m getting used to that even as I’m getting just crazy exhausted from doing all of these things.
We stop and she looks at me. “Okay let’s break and we can set up camp.”
“We’re not going back?”
“Not tonight, I want Kyte to have a full night of command. It’ll look better and it’ll be better than just us being gone for part of the day.”
“Good point.”
“Plus we’re going to be doing a lot more training.”
“Oh damn.”
We stop and get out of our armor and we set up a fire and our bedrolls and she takes out things to cook like ranger rations and it’s a pot of water and these bricks of salt and poultry with dried chopped veggies and herbs and salt and it’s all bound up into dried noodles.
Holy cheese we’re having sylvan instant ramen.
Snakes and Ladders-40
Chapter 40
*** Kyte…
I was shocked more than Ilisa was when princess Shaya left me in charge and I could literally see Rafe stop when he heard that and he did a double take. He asked the men with him and he asked some of the men here and he looked at me with that look of disbelief and he smiled afterwards.
“Congratulations, it does seem that you’ve matured and that there was something that went on here that was a major battle.”
I know that smile’s a fake but I nod and I say. “This was far more than political rebels Rafe. It was filled with the dark races and we had a hard fought battle to take this place and even ended up doing battle with some of the traitors that support Lyam here too.”
He frowns at that and that at least is a good sign.
We might have our own politics going on but there’s still something to be said about those that would go that far as to ally with the servants of the C’thull and those leftover beasts and bastards from The Summoning War.
The Summoning War started in essence when our old nobility had ruled with a cold detached and aloof hand and that led to contention with the mage blooded. Now most Sylvan’s can use power to some degree but it’s inborn to us….nothing book learned but things like connection to elements in tiny ways or animals or plants.
Mageblooded are completely different as they have natural power and talent to do amazing things and master forces that are sheer and stunning. Some of those thought that those natural born powers meant they were at the least the equal to the nobility.
Or better.
The nobility disagreed and to top off all of that there were nobles like those from the Highwood family that had magical power in vast amounts and had secrets of crown magic that they held for themselves.
This led to open protests and then our realms getting plagued by monsters.
Things that we didn’t know were summoned through gates until the forces of the royals were thought to be so weakened that The Forsaken a cabal of dark mages that were blacker than black moved en masse to lead attacks that hit every moon and every serious city as they tried a coup.
We are a long lived people with a strange and complex biology, we do not breed overly fast and for such a large space that we occupy in our system we are few.
And in that first start of the war tens of thousands had died mostly innocents too and that started The Summoning War.
Long and bloody and mystical.
It claimed the life of the current High King’s father and his two eldest sons and heirs and it left Lyam and Dorian.
And on his deathbed Old King Jusitane chose Dorian the younger brother to become heir over Lyam.
And Lyam has pressed this affront with those that want power in the nobility…those who didn’t want change.
And he’s embraced the darkest of people and means to get the throne.
And this has been getting worse and worse and bloodier and bloodier and as a house of Skywood I’m caught in between things or I was.
Skywood is the second most powerful of the moons with economics and noble power and it was the seat that Lyam inherited as prince in waiting. He married into house Skywood and he had long courted us all with money and titles and gifts.
There are many that he has bent to hate and fear Dorian who upsets the order of noble title and such.
His children…A dragon rider now…A mage scholar that is building schools for the untitled and a huge free library…the next is a knight and mage but he’s a mage healer…one’s a thief and a smuggler…the lone daughter or once the lone daughter a commander in the stellar navy a force that’s sworn to defend the crown and the republic.
His wife High Queen Aeselani a woman of noble blood and zero property and monies no more than a temple maid and a barmaid from The Holy City sits on the throne with him and she dares to be the affronting woman who might just be the most powerful spell caster that we have seen in the modern age.
And she is also far too exceedingly fond of charity for the likes of too many people and she’s also said to be a subversive…a proponent of something called social democracy?
And now after everything my uncle has ever said and things I’d been told about how precious the balance of power is and how much the nobility are truly needed to steward the moons and even the holy planet I’m here…in temporary command and under rider Shaya.
On the other side of all the things that I was raised.
And then there’s Wren.
Erendae…tall, blonde, large busted and alien Wren.
The alien bit will drive a lot of Lyam’s supporters and court conservatives to a lot of anger once word gets out more and more about her existence.
They won’t like she’s a heroine already.
I’m going to catch nine kinds of hell for losing to her in our fist fight.
And they will still demand that I cross blades with her.
I’m far better than her.
I’m afraid at what they’ll ask of me to try and do to her in that bout.
Sigh…
I head out to see to the new men that Rafe brought and already I’m getting some looks from him to me from them and I was expecting that actually but they will follow my orders as long as he seems to agree.
I don’t like it but these are house troops and others loyal to us.
And while I’m knighted and I worked damned hard to be so it’s not the respect that I’m being accorded because I’m a woman and there’s a bias there that has only gotten worse over the years since the wars and women had been killed.
And as I said we are not the best breeders out in this universe.
Even here really when you look at things like the Goblins and the orcs that dwell here in the Darklands.
And thanks to our unfortunate dealings with The C’thull we know we’re far from alone in the universe.
And we have a space fleet too for more than just space exploration.
Though again those are crown secrets that rankle many people.
Rafe is actually doing a good job giving orders and he does have a fine sense of command and we’re going over things with the sergeant that he brought with him from Steadfast and there’s supplies that we actually really need here since it looks like we might be staying here in the military way at least for a long time and possibly using it as an in-forest base.
Rations and fresh food as well as potions for a dozen different things like purifying water and the likes and medical supplies and things to set up a small hospital inside and then there’s weaponry.
Fresh arrows and swords as well as new armor that we can use but also things like Starfire pistols and rifles as well as Starburst cannons.
A Starfire is an energy weapon, it’s essentially an ion pulse weapon that is powered by sylvan magi-tech and that we or those with the power to can recharge by pouring mana into it. Pistols have a set power and range and rifles have more and Starburst cannons are bigger and heavier and need a bracing tri-pod but they fire in much bigger and heavier pulses.
We have many sorts of magi-tech weapons but Star-series ones are those that are the ones made for us by The Sylvan navy. They’re deep blue crystal barrels and there’s wires and ward-circuits that you can semi-see inside if it and then the whole thing is done in a white ceramic with filigree of starflowers and the symbol of The Sylvan republic on the handle.
That’s a blue-white planet with The Great Tree on it and there’s silver points like stars around that represent the moons on which most of us live.
I’m looking at dome of these as we’re getting them in. As a knight I’ve learned some of these weapons but I’m not Republic Navy and the use of firearms is very much prohibited. Wartimes only unless you’re in The Republic Navy.
We used to have more, we had a whole era where sidearms were a thing and unfortunately it was well proved that there were more than enough members of our society that were not responsible enough to have such weapons as violence and so called accidents rose to numbers that no one was comfortable with especially in the wake of several mass killings where people just “Snapped”.
The ease of point and shoot lethality turned the tide.
It was one of the few times both the Highwood’s and the conservative families voted together.
I am not used to seeing things like this with so many weapons on this scale. It’s only been a few times in my career actually.
I look to Rafe who is looking over the weapons too and he has a tight look on his face as it’s not our house troops getting these but those sworn here and to the crown itself.
“They’re nice weapons aren’t they?”
He nods. “They are but it’s too easy to see where they go to and who keeps the power here in The Republic.”
“Our elders thought it safer that sidearms and more not be in the hands of everyone that could turn them to doing wrong.”
He’s making a face. “And what happens when the ones with the weapons turn into oppressors? What recourse do we have when the people have no power and through that no voice because all the power is rendered academic by the royals having all of the weaponry.”
“We have weapons and the royals I’m finding aren’t like that.”
He’s staring at me. “These same royals that put women in danger regardless of our population, regardless of how it endangers our whole race? And what good is a sword against a company with blasters when you finally have said too much, too openly?”
I look at him. “Speech is a protected right in The Republic.”
He just looks at me like I’m stupid then he walks away from me. “It’s all well and good for you to be here Kyte it really is given your condition but honestly…they’re swaying you. Filling your head with ideals that aren’t for the good of out race or for Skywood or for your family…think hard Kyte think really hard about just what you’re lending your sword to.”
I’m mad…it’s not like Ai don’t think about this all the time.
I do, I’m a childless woman and for me in my family that’s a waste and it’s a shameful thing for me to be and it’s just the fact of my birth rank that I could go and train for my shield…I’m not marriage worthy since any off spring that my husband would have been of another woman’s…and no house wants me because I cannot give heirs.
I think about family and politics and duty all of the time.
I clench and unclench my hands and watch him go and he’s talking to others and they’re shooting looks at me like…like I’m some stupid and silly girl.
Like I’m not worthy.
Even with disdain.
It makes me feel dirty and everything that I’ve worked and fought for seem small.
*Before…
“Wren…take the memory charm that Bhlaze taught you and apply that to your body…instead of calling things up though use it to record this, all of this and apply it directly to your body using magic to reinforce your muscle memory.”
Well…okay then…
And boy oh girl was that easier said than done.
It’s trying to pour power into the feeling of everything you’re doing while you’re trying to boost everything you’re doing and trying to spar and train and keep from getting your patootie kicked.
But after a few more hours I’m getting used to that even as I’m getting just crazy exhausted from doing all of these things.
We stop and she looks at me. “Okay let’s break and we can set up camp.”
“We’re not going back?”
“Not tonight, I want Kyte to have a full night of command. It’ll look better and it’ll be better than just us being gone for part of the day.”
“Good point.”
“Plus we’re going to be doing a lot more training.”
“Oh damn.”
We stop and get out of our armor and we set up a fire and our bedrolls and she takes out things to cook like ranger rations and it’s a pot of water and these bricks of salt and poultry with dried chopped veggies and herbs and salt and it’s all bound up into dried noodles.
Holy cheese we’re having sylvan instant ramen.
*And Now…
Honesty I’d balk at instant ramen.
Driving truck I have eaten them more times that I ever want to remember and both nuked or cooked or even dry.
Sometimes long haul driving you eat what you have.
Or have time for.
And sometimes because you are bored.
It was all of that for me back then and the added bonus of being trans and filling that void with taste and treats and honestly that whole dopamine effect and even just the sensation of taste.
Like everything Sylvan there that like lifespan of thought in them.
Something like a soft bouillon soup so more fudge like than powder and these really dense sort of buckwheat noodles that pump up to like being super thick and them there’s spices and this rich soup and the poultry is deboned squab and shaya adds it all to boiling water and has a small onion like bulb she sliced into simple strands and adds a few mushrooms she picked sometime somewhere.
We finish eating and then we’re right back to it.
Channeling power into moves and memory and muscles and nerves.
I mean it is sort of cheating but as Shaya explains it’s not.
High Sylvans, high blooded and high trained Sylvan’s are an entirely different animal than everyone else here.
They fight like experts because they are.
They fight like superheroes and jedi because they can.
And unless you can fight on their levels you’re...I’m a dead woman.
I’d rather not be that, especially after just finding her and all of my life here.
I’m just getting started and I want to live it.
We go for more hours on hours until I’m steaming with sweat and starving and she is too.
But still we just stop for trail food, rations like cereal bars and then fruit and there’s broth that she makes from these leaf wrapped pods that’s frankly delicious and heavily tasting like game meat made into either stock or dust or both and garlic and the herbs which the only one I recognize is rosemary or something like it.
We drink the entire pot of soup and eat real elvish or Sylvan wheybread with it.
It literally is mystical.
The way she describes it is that it’s a pastry layered with this flour made by the druids that has cheese whey powder in it and that there’s butter for the fats and then there’s honey called star honey baked between the layers of the pastry and it’s filled with a heavy cheese that’s filled with whey powder and a sort of cream cheese and a jelly from fruit. The ones we have are fig filled.
The magical part is from the star honey that is from hives that rest on ley lines and the honey is charged with mystical power so it helps recharge people faster in both their bodies and in their power.
The druids bake this with a special ritual that lets your body break down the wheybread far better than we can do even naturally and faster.
The rest is just food energy and protein.
It tastes like something like if baklava met a jam and cheese danish.
They’re really good and filling and they do fill you with energy.
Heck the army home would adore these as rations.
And I’m oddly reassured in the fact it’s not just magic it’s like magic boosting science.
After using the “bathroom” we start training all over again.
This time it’s evasion with Bhlaze firing stun bolts at both of us like he’s spitting sunflower or watermelon seeds.
There’s another learning curve too because he isn’t really spitting and it costs hit like zero power to do it and he’s fast.
Literally able to fire as he wishes as he sees us.
Even Shaya’s not perfect in this set of drills.
He literally takes over training us as both as he’s working her too and he flew off and fetched firewood which were several logs that we had to cut and split with sword strokes.
That’s damn near impossible without magic.
Even with magic it’s supremely hard as it takes skill to not get your sword stuck in the logs he brought.
Shaya gets different drills than I do where she’s working on channeling his might into her body.
That’s hard because dragonrider or not no one is built for that so it’s like building up a tolerance.
Me it’s a skill thing with my blade.
I do get better at it, sort of doing these moves like the chopping slices of an axe.
Which is not what he wants but… ~It’s a beginning.~
It’s hard and he adds in us sparring with each other a few times too and by the time we are done bhlaze’s instructions we are exhausted and with the sun starting to set we are done for the day.
But we have firewood which Shaya dries out so we can use it and we even have a rough sort of bench of the biggest split log.
We have a sponge bath to get off the worst of the stink and I’m flabbergasted and hitting my hand to my forehead when Shaya uses the tea/coffee pot to heat our water and as long as it’s not too hot it’s a good rinser.
Especially with more water ready in our cooking pot.
It’s my turn to cook.
And looking through our rations I see some things that I can use.
We have pasta curls that sort of look like apple peelings in shape and we have some cheese and there’s butter of course and we have these milk pods that are gelatinized milk that are another druid thing and melt into milk just by adding water.
I make us Mac and Cheese.
They don’t have Mac and Cheese either. The closest thing is several noodle or long pasta and cream styled dishes and cheese is used as a condiment.
And they don’t have Italian food so they have like pasta and they have sauces for it and they have cooked veggies that they add into it. There is no red sauce, there is no pizza, there is no calzones.
Oh my poor Shaya.
It was really good by the time it was done it’s not the same as home and leaning really closer to this sort of white cheddar version. I made a bit too much sauce but I’m definitely not used to this pasta either.
It was still good plus Shaya and I ate right from the pot scooping the cheesy gooey pasta on the forks and feeding each other and kissing sharing these quiet laughs and cuddling together for warmth.
I’m doing this all beside this small fire with this raven haired elven princess and a dragon on top of this rise that’s defensible with a dragon behind us as the night sky just comes alive out here because we’re so open showing me stars I could never dream of.
And as breathtaking as all that is they still don’t match up with Shaya or how beautiful she is especially just being something as simple as being happy.
I feel her feeling the same way about me.
Knowing my past, who I was trapped as.
Who I am now.
~Bright as a light spell, warm as a hearth, as beautiful as a field of sunflowers.~
It made my breath catch and my heart skip then sing as Shaya kisses me.
Soft and sweet, she’s as new to being with me as I am with her and there’s still this incredible rush of our bodies and this linked pleasure slipping through our bond.
We’re like ember and tinder to our sexual heat.
Our fire and then we’re together in our opened and mixed bedrolls one as a bottom and the other as our blanket and we’re stripping each other and touch, kissing.
There is no feeling like this.
There is nothing as solid ever as your partner, your lover understands how much each touch means to you as a woman. As who you were both meant to be. You need to give her as much as you’re getting from this, you want it to be a thing that sinks into your bones.
God honestly, honestly this...us...it sinks into that pain I have held inside of my like that arthritic rub.
We’re slow too, taking our time and letting it all sink in and be as we taste and explore and finger and stroke but stroking insides that was where we both always needed.
Having those realm orgasms and riding over each others with the link is the deepest of sexual experiences and one of the most spiritual things I’ve ever done.
I couldn’t believe how beautiful Shaya could be on top with firelight playing over her pale skin and the stars all behind her.
We’re alone save for Bhlaze who watches over us while ignoring our mating. Being our watchful wall because he’s linked in too in his own way so he gets how desperately we need this.
We’re humanoids so the actions we’re doing isn’t that interesting to him.
The emotional stuff with Shaya and I he’s protective of.
It’s needed in the world, love is needed in the world.
Healing is needed in the world.
So as we make love he ignores us but approvingly so and he keeps watch and defends us.
God life is such a mix.
I mean I’m in my healed body with my beloved who is literally an elven princess and there’s a dragon and I’m on an alien planet.
And yet it’s still so perfectly familiar and comfortable that I fall asleep with the scents of the campfire and being outside and camping.
I have always loved camping.
And not the big campgrounds sort of stuff but those are fine too if that’s all you get but I like really outside someplace deeper and bigger.
I tried to take the wife and kids to do things like that before everything in life got too urban. It was sort of important to me as I’m a kid from some pretty old crappy suburbs.
This right now and I’m sure that it might get old is nice.
And snuggled and intertwined with Shaya under the bedroll blanket and up so high. Plus that added bonus of all that work and all those times we brought each other to our bliss I sleep deeply and soundly.
Oh Sylvan’s use bliss or reaching your bliss as one of the many nice ways or saying orgasm or getting off.
We dream too.
Shaya dreams of flying and this sort of plan of what might come in the places that we have to visit and bring the messages to. She dreams of this cabin of logs and stacked stones built into the side of a mountain on a plateau there’s a cavern entrance or a mine entrance beside it and there’s a lake with steam coming off of it.
She dreams of us dancing together, in the palace her in a uniform cut to flatter everything she has and me in a dress that matches.
I love the thought of that dress and would be terrified to touch it.
Strapless and a bustier of yellow silk threaded to highlight this almost amber, almost glass like lace and there’s actual gold in the support piece that lifts up my breasts while revealing and mystifying them and it’s all coming in tight to everything and then there’s this delicate layers of yellow gauze sheer material as the skirt.
She made me look so beautiful and yet in the dream it’s just a dress and things it’s me that is her focus.
It is life changing to have someone dream of you and you know it as a real thing in your life.
I dream.
I dream of home.
Of snippets of camping with friends and family as a kid.
Of past knowing I wasn’t who I was supposed to be when I seen the other kids, the other girls..it was fun.
Campfires, tunes, potato salad, the times we did that on holidays. The few times I’d gone canoeing.
Then dreams of older me as a parent and husband.
A few times we went ay campgrounds because it was easier but they still had seen it as an adventure.
Making smores.
Even camping one time in the living room with them.
I love them, I miss them too, I hate that my life was so bittersweet in so many memories.
Then those dreams shift and change and it becomes something else.
Shaya and I together.
Doing things that are dreamlike.
Flying through this place of islands floating in the sky with towns and castles on them and even forests and mountains on some of them.
We’re listening to music from home and she’s sharing an MP-3 player with me.
We’re flying through islands and these smaller fragments of them like from that Avatar movie and we’re listening to Fly by Sugar Ray.
Then we’re home, we’re someplace we’re calling home and it’s snowing out and we have a Christmas tree and she’s gasping at every box of ornaments that she opens to put up on the tree. I’m making Christmas cooking with the house smelling of so many things from all the baking that I’m doing.
And then we’re in N’Orleans and it’s not mardi gras or anything but this little diner out by the 610 to the 10 heading to Kenner.
It’s raining and the truck is outside and Bhlaze is painted down along the trailer and I’m taking her here because this is one of my places I always stop at because they always have the best gumbo here with the sausage cooked to this deep crisp and the chicken thighs just melt and the shrimp you can tell they got in that morning and you get deep fried okra there as the croutons.
They don’t have anything like that here.
The closest things are this Ajanian type of stews.
And the dream shifted from there to Ajania one of the other moons and it’s the home moon of what my brain is calling africanized elves.
We’re flying on Bhlaze’s back as we soar over Savannah and woods but not the jungle woods but this other kind of forest where there are Acacia trees the size of those big old southern oaks.
My heart hurts and races at the same time as I see a place like Africa home if it was never pillaged.
Shaya says in the dream feeling it. “It was, The C’thull turned this place into a hell Wren, it was slaves on top of slaves and what wasn’t the strip mines it was farms for them to sell off in their markets.”
“Africa home is beautiful too from things that I’ve seen but nothing came back like here...because we are the C’thull.”
We sail over herds of animals and some are just like from home. Some I think are extinct or close to it here and we ended up sailing out over this river for miles until we came to a Delta and there was a small fleet of boats all around these large barges, the barges were like villages and ports both?
We landed on one and we had this stew of hellfire like sauce with crayfish in it and these little silver dollar sized pink crabs you could eat with the shells and there was bits of goat chops instead of the chicken in gumbo and they had their own kind of sausage.
But the spices, this pepper stuff in there was hotter than anything I was used to and I’m sure it was from the link and Shaya’s memories.
She took some honey from a spoon in a jar on the table and licked it and she kissed me to save me from the heat.
We woke up after that dream and kissing like we had done in the dream.
She tasted in this lingering way of deep dark honey and spice.
Bhlaze had nudged us mentally.
~You wanted this hour Shaya.~
“Thank you, definitely.”
She added more charcoal from a bag to the embers of our fire and she filled a kettle and pot and she made hot tea for both of us and porridge and we sat together eating after getting dressed and watched the world change as the sun rose.
Oh my god.
It’s sunrise from a height over an alien world and there are still three of the moons brightly visible and large in the sky when the sun comes up.
I cry happily as I’m watching it with my tea and Shaya’s drinking in my amazement.
Seeing her world through my eyes.
We took our time doing that before we began to train and practice again pulling power into me and my body towards using the memory charm on my reflexes, to push myself harder.
And it’s not easy training at all with the hand to hand form she’s showing me called Jarorin or with my sword work.
We do this for hours and hours and hours before the sun seems like it’s moved into mid morning.
Shaya is a skinny girl a literal elfin waif.
Uh-huh yeah, you know this wire hard skinny people that hit you and it feels like all bone?
That’s her.
All princess, knight, dragonrider serious beating my butt all over camp with this thing that’s like Sylvan Tae-Kwon-Kick-Ryu and then there’s the sword work.
Where my princess swings so fast that velocity becomes strength.
And I’m softer than I used to be.
But somewhere in that transformation I still have all of “Bear” it’s like it all got sucked into me with the magic so I have all that strength that I had.
Actually I think I’m stronger with two good legs and nothing wrong with me like heart problems or being diabetic.
And I’m faster too.
It’s just sort of getting to warrior, fighter, brawler as a woman in my head versus all of the other stuff that my brain knew or more like wanted for me to be.
As the sparring goes on I’m getting more and more warmed up into it and I am going on more of the old instincts and things I used to do. Lots of real life fights and lots of scuffles usually helping other people and a little american football and some wrestling both high school stuff that I actually did in school and some of the TV stuff that I added into things I did while in fights.
I score a few hits, back and I’m actually good at the back elbow move.
Lots of people think they can take you down if they get behind you. I’m really practiced at not letting people outflank me like that.
They don’t fight like that here.
And they don’t use the uppercut much either.
I stopped after I sent Shaya off her feet with the uppercut after the elbow and slid to her side feeling her reeling from the stun.
I felt deep into her to see if she was okay.
She could feel me enough through the dizziness to sit up and find my lips with hers and she kissed me until her head stopped spinning.
“I”m fine, that...that’s a good move, we don’t do a lot of that here.”
I sigh with relief.
“I know, your moves are all fast stuff, deadly and sort of like Bruce Lee.”
“Bruce Lee?”
We get up and start getting cleaned off and then dressed to leave and I’m telling her of what I know about Bruce Lee, who he was and the little bit I know about his whole Jeet Kune Do martial art that he made.
Shaya returns the favor quite fascinated with what she knows of Kyu-nari.
The Silvan sort of Asian Moon realm and one of the reasons why it’s not a unified kingdom but a republic.
Kyu-nari is ruled by an Empress.
An empress Jocelyn Moondragon who is powerful in her own ways as Shaya’s parents are mystically and maybe more so but she’s a sort of odd xenophobe that is all for her moon and her people politically and economically but she seldom ever leaves and outsiders are frequently kept under watch.
Really it sounds like Imperial Japan had a kid with Maoist China and oddly ultra hardline feminism as she has a harem of men and only her female children have been kept.
At first that sounds messed up but Shaya explains that Jocelyn has only girls for the most part and of the two princes that were were both were assassinated.
And there’s this whole subsets of warlords and parties and contingents that want her dead and want her children dead.
That there are people that think that if there is an Emperor of her line that’s survives to take the throne that it will pull in those in line that oppose Jocelynn because she’s a woman.
And Kyu-Nari is a financial power too as they produce almost all of the rice consumed by the silvans as well as medicine, fruit, and a huge list of other things that no one else does here so a lot of outside parties are interested in the fall of a woman that holds the planet in there dainty pale fist.
I tell her as we break camp carefully so as not to leave any hazards about China, Japan, Korea, Thailand and Vietnam which isn’t much because I was never one of those Asian obsessed people.
I do know some more about North American Asians since I have spent a lot of time delivering things to those neighborhoods. Sadly it’s mostly food stuff. But she’s intrigued at ideas like egg rolls, wontons and fortune cookies since she’s never had them and she’s pretty sure they don’t exist here or things like bubble tea.
We fly out from camp and we do circles and Shaya does some combat magic with farsight magic. God the feeling is weird since I’m included and it is like mental zooming in. I guess the idea is that the spell makes adjusting lens like filters that we look through.
We can see miles away in good detail.
Humans...Earth governments would kill for a Silvan combat mage.
Advanced senses compared to a human, low light vision naturally, farsight without tech and the training and everything else.
And it’s an easy spell to learn, one of their basics so while we scout and fly and glide both she and Bhlaze teach it to me.
I’m still amazed at how in learning how to use my energies like they do that I can do magic at all.
I’ll never really be a mage, I mean I have my ramming “Freightliner” spell but that’s a lot closer to an ability. It’s like wild magic something I know so well that I can make it happen.
Academically it’s a nightmare because none of the force is channeled accurately, it wastes power and that effects use and range and all of these other things.
Spells are like programs or stuff like that. I know now some computer tricks and things but I’m not a programmer or a code writer.
Still though I live a life where I can do magic.
Me…
The scouting is interesting too.
The Darklands are their own ecosystem really it’s where the C’Thull central starbase and slaver areas were placed. It’s a continent sized place too with all these leftover dangerous being and life forms and leftovers from the war with them and it was made home by those Forsaken assholes from The Civil War called The Summoning War where things were pulled through by magic from other places to here.
It reminds me at least here of a Utah, Colorado with the rock formations and bluffs and even mountains here and there are forests here that look very untouched by any kind of formal industry. Even with the alien plants here that I see like near black needled spruce trees and a maple that looks like it’s that blue you seen in dark navy leather it’s still sort of familiar.
At the same time...With things that Shaya told me...it’s an active version of like Silvan Australia size and all with hostile races like mercs working for terror groups back home all fighting around the remains of a war zone that left dealy tech and things behind in the countryside like both sides did at Nam.
And that’s not including Lyam is out here somewhere.
And all of his allies and traitors.
And likely a thousand more things too big to cover without just living it.
We see trail sign, things likely from the base and checking them out with landing and Shaya’s skills and her teaching me and Bhlaze using his taste of smell this isn’t recent traffic but leftover trail sign from the fortress.
I can feel her and Bhlaze know at some times we have eyes on us but nothing happens.
I do ask when we mount back up and fly again.
“We’re being watched?”
“Definitely and maybe not by Lyam’s forces but just by other things, there are a lot of other things Wren.”
“And we don’t engage?”
“Some of the life here isn’t friendly or even just not safe for the sylvan people but it’s not like they are outright enemies here either. Unless it’s a known enemy here I go with a careful and cautious neutral.”
“Mercy and forbearance?”
“I am a knight as much as I am a rider.”
“So do you use a lance?”
“On horseback yes.”
“Not on Dragonback?”
“That’s a wondertale. Uhm fiction or fantasy from your perspective it’s never been practical, the most realistic weapon from dragonback is a blaster rifle and after that a blaster or bows and even then riding while aiming is hard.”
I chuckle. “That makes sense it’s not what I thought though.”
“Even with our own most people don’t get that there are lots of tales and stories our biggest work on dragonback is actually mystical defence with shields and being a linked other set of eyes.”
Bhlaze adds in. ~Plus a mystical booster in varying ways we amplify each other.~
We bank and start a new patrol track and then another and another going through the circle we first flew out and around and tightening the loop.
I’ve hunted some a little but nothing as serious and defined like this.
When we get back we can make out that the ways to the fortress have been blocked off and there are earthworks and palisades up and even a few finished stone walls?
That has to be magic but we’re holding the place for sure and there’s no mistaking the Sylvan army presence here especially with the flags that are out and flying in several places.
We get back and land in the now cleared airship hangar with people busy working at repairing the ship and they’re all Rafe’s people.
He has this look of serious arrogance on his face and I see Ilisa there and she’s healing Kyte who looks battered even more.
Shaya slides off of Bhlaze from the front down over his face like she fell/walked on purpose and kept walking in that pissed off Legolas grace and she’s matched by Bhlaze growling as well at the same time.
I slip off sideways thankful that I do so gracefully enough to look normal.
Shaya demands. “What happened here.”
Ilisa says dryly. “Commander Kyte and Commander Rafe had a difference of opinion in who was in command.”
Shaya looks at him. “I specifically left Kyte in command.”
He stares back. “And I outrank her.”
“AT home, AT Skywood not here and not over the orders I left.”
“My mistake, I thought that it was fine seeing as many of the troops and the men followed my orders as I gave them.”
“And why is she hurt?”
“Because we had an honour duel and she lost.”
I look at Kyte and she’s red faced and she’s fighting really hard not to look miserable and bullied and my heart goes out to her because she reminds me of one of my kids.
“What was the fight over?”
“Duel if this had been a fight everything would have been much different.”
Shaya growls and she sounded bigger than she is like part of Bhlaze’s growl came out of her. “Duel then, why was there even one.”
“My Little sister thought that she could order myself and my men.”
“I left her in command.”
“And that only works with republic forces not those of houses.”
“That’s splitting hairs and you know it.”
“That’s the law rider, one that you are sworn to abide by. Expected co-operation isn’t enforceable.”
Shaya looks like she might get a little too pissed off right now and well to me...this guy might be a knight and have a command but he’s just another rich douchebag, he might be of noble blood but he talks like a shifty politician.
I walk over and put my arm on Shaya’s shoulder.
She so fits herself. Dark and gothic, broody sometimes, likely too much and with so much passion too. Plus she’s bonded to a lightning dragon.
I look at him and I give him the same look I reserve for those types of folks that disgust me like the really sexist pigs or those people of faith passing or hate literature or racists like the Klan.
Y’know the not only did I step in something but some leaked into my shoe look.
“I’m pretty sure that you know the difference Rafe.”
“You do not get to be so familiar with me.”
“Oh? Why? I’m not one of your subjects or vassals I’m a free woman and currently only beholden to myself and my bonded.”
“You should watch your manners.”
“Likewise Rafe, obviously you didn’t care for those when you tossed yours aside as an excuse to sully your sister. How many hundreds of years old are you and you tarnish her, your command, your men, your house by being some petty jackass.”
He steps forward to glare at me and I channel all the pissed off ladies I’ve ever known that acted just like him.
Hell I channel my grandmother when she was dealing with men like him.
I draw myself up and I literally let the generations of the women in my blood wake up and I stare him down in that way that we do as women when we’re done.
Just done with their bullshit and not afraid of them either.
He stops in his tracks and he looks flustered.
He won’t or can’t look me in the eyes.
I keep staring at him.
He looks at me with a glance and at Shaya and he looks like he might say something and Bhlaze cuts that off with a growl and then he looks at Kyte and Ilisia sort of looks back and her staff floats from the ground to her palm like a Harry Potter broom.
Something there says he backed off from The Loremistress earlier.
Rafe growls something I don’t recognize but spins on his heel and storms off to his men and starts shouting orders for them. “Stop working on that airship we have no obligation here we’re leaving!”
Shaya’s staring at me...I can sort of feel her feeling me.
As he’s leaving I tilt my head watching him go. “Well as much as things are different they’re still the same. Give some preppy jackass their comeuppance and they through a fit and they flounce.”
Shaya breaks into a giggle as does Ilisia as she says. “Flounce I like that word.”
I laugh. “Extra points for using comeuppance in a sentence?”
She laughs. “Definitely. I enjoyed that. He’s an asshole.”
I laugh and others are staring at the Loremistress like they don’t thing that clergy swear.
Rafe hears us laughing and he’s distracted enough that he missed the Folding side stairs for his airship and he trips. Which he follows up with this fast sprawl up them and trying to act like it never happened at all when he is on the deck.
And yeah it was funny, and we laughed as well as a few others.
Since far from everyone here is beholden to him or his family.
I look over at Kyte. “You okay?”
She has tears in her eyes. “No…” (Sniffle.) “How can I fight you after this?”
I look at her. “By the rules, literally when we do this we have a match by all of the rules of sword work and courts and things and we give them the best fight that they have ever seen….and then we top it off by being friends.”
She gets up and she limps over and she hugs me tight.
“With honor.”
I hug her back. “With honor.”
*Before…
We talk some while eating and say our goodbyes and shaking hands as we get ready to leave and Kyte is in the prow of the boat with a blaster rifle that looks like red polished wood and brass with plating that has runes and such carved into it instead of a bow and Illisia is standing and she uses the tiller like one of those long handled propellers on a regular boast and they zip out from the hangar really fast like one of those hover skiff’s from Return of the Jedi.
We’re with them and on Bhlaze’s back and we gain altitude and the girls are matching us in the long boat and we’re headed to the northern edge of the rim for The Darklands and we sort of sail once we get to that edge of things and patrol as we head towards Shikari Fortress our next stop and the fortress that is supplied and supported by the Sylvan’s from the Kyu-nari moon.
*And Now…
It’s like nothing I could have dreamed being like this.
Being remade here as me.
Flying with a legit elfin princess on the back of her dragon.
Of course I’m pausing the whole thing of Shaya being this highly trained warrior and an actual knight and able to kick booty on a level that I thought reserved for Hollywood movies.
I mean it’s all cool but The Lover, The Me being with the whole princess thing and doing this right now is something I’m letting fill my heart with joy.
We bank and glide with the others following us in the air-skiff.
Shaya says. “I don’t know how we’ll be received at Shinkari.”
“Why?”
“The Kyu-nari are part of The Sylvan Republic but they’re not ruled by my father or any of my ancestors.”
“Oh...okay.”
“They’re ruled and always have been by Empress Jocelynn.”
“Jocelynn? I thought she was like Japanese?”
I feel the link buzzing as she and Bhlaze are feeling out my references.
“Well you’re right the name is odd and different even for her people...and yours.”
“So have you met her?”
“A few times at the palace before my healing so she only known me as Illian.”
“Sorry.”
“No, that’s sort of part of this trip to get me out there and seen so that the places we got to can of course report back to their moons about me….and now you too.”
“So we’re kind of strangers to them, will they be okay with us?”
“Maybe? The Kyu-nari have a fractious culture with a lot of nobles and other titles plus there’s a whole contingent there that is unhappy with the everlasting rule of The Empress.”
“EVerlasting?”
“She is immortal from all reports and histories and cannot die, she took power or the throne there when she raised rebels to overthrow The C’Thull there and built is herself.”
“Wow...so she’s powerful?”
“One of the most power women in The Republic, Both my parents are very powerful mages and they both have said that she’s more powerful and dangerous.”
“So she is the shit and does what she wants and now after so long of peace others want what is hers.”
“Pretty much and there are those in The Republic highly offended that she takes and keeps consorts and has not married and will never place a man over her.”
“Sounds like a reason to hate her if you’re a dick like Kyte’s brother or whatever the local variety of that is called.”
She shocks the heck out of me when she does that deep japanese like bass growl talk and says. “Hauuuuu….Deekheddo.”
You know like SNL and Samurai Hotel.
I laugh and I laugh and I laugh getting looks from Kyte and Ilissa and even Bhlaze snorts with mirth then laughed out loud.
OH MY FALCOR….. Being close to a dragon actually laughing out loud and not through telepathy has to be one of the most amazing moments really.
It’s literally a wonderous thing to see.
I’m crying that I get to do this, be here, feel this.
She reaches behind me and takes my hands and she squeezes them and pulls me ahead so my arms end up wrapping around her.
We’re like that for at least an hour before we start getting close and I can smell fire on the wind, I can feel fire spells going off?
The scene unfolds as we break the trees and there’s a japanese looking walled settlement down in The Darklands floor and they’re under siege.
Shaya lets go of me and she pulls her two guns and I pull my firebolt blaster and Bhlaze swoops in and swings low and fires a bolt of lightning cooking a troll that was going to throw a boulder from behind and I shoot a Warg in the face and Shaya’s firing her guns unleashing blue-silver bolts of energy. It’s the first time that I’ve seen an ion weapon before.
They’re called a starfire pistol and they look like if elves made a wheellock pistol of blue glass and inlaid silvery symbols and mother of pearl.
She’s firing off left and right really fast like a gunfighter taking goblins in the head as we’re cruising through the ring of them around the settlement and I guess I can add gunfighter to her list of amazing.
Bhlaze knocks loads down too lashing his tail where he can bowling over goblins and mounted ones.
I shoot another two dropping them and making them burn from the fire bolts and I see Ilissa unleash a couple of flash spells before she raises a magic shield bubble around the air skiff as this swarm of smoking black arrows hits it and it came from some woman in robes and strange and super goth style headdress.
She has other women with her and they’re not goblins but they’re sylvans and there’s three of them and they’re armed. The mage woman raises a shield bubble of her own and two of her friends pull bows and start firing at us.
The other shouted something in Goblin and they started firing en mass at Illisa and Kyte’s using her blaster rifle and firing back.
I lose my firebolt blaster to one of the arrows and we going into evasive flying.
My blaster flew apart like a high powered rifle hit it.
All the while the settlement’s wall folks are fighting back as well with their own guns, firebolt rifles that look like sleeker versions of the Japanese age of gunpowder.
And I see warriors jumping off their walls as soon as we showed and this is like a samurai movie with the fighting men...bushi warriors and what literally looks like samurai leading them into battle versus the goblins.
We takes arrows, literally even as evasive as we are I catch one to my shoulder plating and it hurts, the arrow shatters with the power of its own force but it shatters my armor plate there and well the force still rocked me.
If I didn’t have such good armor I’d have lost the arm.
Shaya’s hit too and in the rib area and I feel her pain from the impact doing the same to her but definitely bruising ribs and Bhlaze is grunting as he’s ticked off with the impacts and there’s a snarl as three arrows tear through wing membranes.
That pisses me off enough that I chant and form a fireball pushing power and will into it and fire it at the four assholes streetfighter style.
The armed one not fighting she holds her palm out and does something and all that power gets ripped apart and I made a ribbon of flame light show.
We’re still in the air at another pass and Bhlaze is mad enough he’s fast spitting lighting arcs into anything and everything and Shaya sheathed her guns and she raised her own shields too not the bubbles but three discs that look like five foot wide round war shields of blue light and with dragonic designs.
And she’s not fighting anymore but she’s using them to deflect the incoming attacks.
There’s a battle between Illisa and the mage going on as the witch does those black smoking arrows several more times and Illisa’s shield takes it and she retaliates with these silver light streaks that look like teeny little elf knights on dragonflies with lances? They explode with energy when they hit the shield.
Then Ilissa is just taking more and more fire from the goblins with dozens of firebolts making her shield flicker and start to falter.
Kyte’s blasting away and firing like a mad woman taking as many out as she can.
The Kyu-nari aren’t helping them right now so there’s nothing local there to get hurt and I chant and pull together another fireball and unleash it down on them.
It stays together this time and...as bad as these things are I’ve never grenaded anything before.
It’s bad but needed being done.
Through the link I know...feel these things, goblins, trolls eat people.
I don’t get the stuff about the women I feel from Shaya, but they’re all sorts of bad news.
The witch women with the bows keep up a steady hail of arrows at us and Bhlaze rolls into mid air evasion again still taking a few arrow blows to his main scales. They don’t sink in but Shaya and I can feel their impact like a punch for us would.
Sylvan bows as easily as high powered as a modern earth rifle I’d guess.
I catch swirly glimpses of more mage fighting from the head dressed main witch and Ilissa. Well she’s still doing all of the offense and Ilissa is still concentrating and casting?
Kyte is still firing away with her spell rifle staying smart and using the air skiff for most of her cover as well as Illisa’s shield.
I can see the Kyu-fighters going at things hard and the fighting looks like this Japanese fighting movie with all the real life horror and sounds and smells added to it.
We level out and Bhlaze must be able to track targets flying like this because as soon as we do he’s opening fire again and the first two shots are really accurate.
Shaya is helping him chanting some other spell that’s pushing into his body.
Me?
I work up another fireball and I make it start to spin in my hand as I form it and I cut loose with it towards the third escort the fire snuffer one and I see her reach out at my fireball and when she targets it she misses as I put some good ol’ english on the ball as it were.
I aimed for the ground knowing the main woman has that shield sphere going and I try and jostle them with the explosion.
And that actually worked.
The two archers are still trying for us recovering fats but the one that tried negating my fireball she looks just shocked that this even happened and she and the main caster woman took a step and faltered.
The sphere shield flickered.
Shaya yelled and pointed and Bhlaze breathed out lightning but it was straighter some other attack that was faster like a beam.
He’d have hit the main caster to except for the one that was negating the fireballs moved mystically fast even for an elf and pushed her down and took Bhlaze’s beam attack right through her shoulder making her scream.
The two archers stop firing at us and they start firing at the Kyu-nari forces out fighting on the ground like they’ve decided to do as much damage as they can.
The main caster woman goth-headdress regains control of the shield and she’s getting up and I see her turn towards Ilissa who fires this deeply gold light spell into the earth near where they are at and the ground rumbles and shakes and then it explodes as this humanoid shape of actual earth pulls the exploding earth and dirt into it as it forms and I see Ilissa move her fingers in some way and as it’s finishing the ripped up sod becomes one of those rice hats and pants?
I can feel it? Or Bhlaze can feel it?
Living earth?
Oh geez she summoned an elemental.
It winds back and it starts to hammer goth-headress’s shield sphere and it’s really pounding away at it and I can see the four gather and hold each other then there’s a flash of light and a shreach like some huge evil bird of prey and they teleport away.
Illissa’s elemental turns on the goblins that are there fighting and firing at her and Kyte and we?
We land and we watch as the Kyu-nari fighters are turning the tide of the battle now.
Shaya’s channeling magic into Bhlaze helping him heal faster and by that I mean he regenerates.
Okay I didn’t know this but yeah...apparently Dragons regenerate like Logan in the X-men regenerate as I watch the holes in his wings growing back.
Ilissa soon joins us with the boat and she said something to Kyte to keep her from joining in.
“Is this some sort of honor thing us not joining?”
Shaya nods. “It is. But it’s more than that too. This isn’t an imperially sanctioned settlement.”
“I don’t understand.”
“This is set up by either a group of people to glean from The Darklands because it’s so known for it’s Danger that it sells or it’s here for other things like a forward base for hunting and treasure and gathering things that will sell on Kyu-nari or other markets.”
“So the black market?”
“Pretty much, father can’t stop what goes on down here on the Holy Planet as it’s out of all politics from The Republic and the moons. The Rangers will take any Cthul technology and place it in our care so it doesn’t fall in the wrong hands but that’s it really and well dangerous living creatures.”
“And the fortresses don’t get involved even if it’s their people?”
Shaya shakes her head. “It’s usually frowned on doing but people still do it and most places will come to their aid when attacked hard like this. The Kyu-nari imperials won’t, they’re on orders not to by the Empress.”
“Oh...so bad blood?”
Ilissa says. “Most of the ones here are working for one faction or another that is against her and trying to raise funds to do so.”
“Okay and those women?”
Ilissa says. “Sisters of the Darkest Kiss. They’re local, they’re Forsaken allied witches and casters that see ALL of The Darklands as their nation.”
I nod. “And all the bad stuff here too.”
Shaya nods. “One of our as you’d say home grown terrorists.”
“Allied to Lyam?”
“Sort of, Lyam works with and flirts with both The Forsaken and The C’thul. They tolerate him more than anything.”
Bhlaze adds in. ~Shaitan is A Forsaken creature. A tainted Dragon.~
Ilissa nods. “But They won’t support him Shaitan was once the Dragon of Seth of Forsaken and he hated women.”
I look around. “I’m taking that I missed a lot of history with all of this?”
Shaya nods. “The summoning war lasted a couple of generations after The C’Thul were defeated. It was the evil side of the power vacuum as opposed to the rise of my family and the nobility as the moons were finally free of The C’thul.”
I nod. I know there’s a lot more and a lot of nuance to things here but it’s still sort of getting it.
Home, Earth is bad, just as bad but at the same time...I’m not sure if we’d ever stand a chance if anything here ever came to Earth and stayed.
And if The Forsaken came or The C’thul we’d be done because we couldn’t stop fighting long enough to really fend off those first attacks.
I look and Kyte’s pointing to a skiff boat like Ilissa’s but definitely oriental looking and with it are two samurai women in this armor that looks like fine glazed porcelain in green with golden trimming and a woman in a lovely cloudy-sky hooded-Kimono is with then as they’re coming towards us. I can barely see her face but it is painted but with the hood and the fan it certainly creates and effect.
And there’s riders coming out to us from the settlement on horses.
And all of them are men and they’re looking at the incoming air-skiff and at us and you can see them getting that we’re two groups of women.
Yeah there’s this guy in the middle and he doesn’t look too pleased.
Snakes and Ladders…Jaiden’s Tale.
It was colder than one would think as I move through the streets of Tamsinar. I’m up in the northern polar regions of Shaelani. This is a rich land, it’s also home to the most die hard conservatives in the Shaelani culture. The region is called the Saltlands and is one of the biggest suppliers of salt to the other clans.
The entire region is based on a very saline sea that makes up the northern pole of this moon. The politics here are from the older courts, Lyam’s people and supporters, White, Skywood non-natives came here and developed the tribal lands and over thousands of years here changed the local culture. Men rule everything here, women do nothing but breed and raise the children here and menial tasks, they aren’t even allowed to show any more flesh than hands and feet.
Needless to say it doesn’t sit well with the rest of the clans, but in a desert world salt is important.
Actually Salt is important everywhere in the Sylvan realms. Only here, L’honei, Rymora, and Skywood have salt water oceans. Take what they use aside and the other moons and the holy planet’s population too…
Lyam and his royal house controlled all the salt on Skywood.
Uncle Lyam…
I get to a place where I can watch some of the comings and goings here obscure by the cover of night. Some sugar and spider webs blended with some sugar cane juice and I rub it on my palms and say a few incantations to bring out the definitive parts of the components and I climb up the blind wall of one of the towers of the tax collectors here in the city. It’s a good choice for an outlaw most official buildings are, this in particular is a good choice. Tax men love to remain close to the trade markets and…who likes the tax men enough to really look at their buildings for more than a rude gesture. High above the wash of the street lights I can see the goings on in the city and be fairly stealthy.
There was a rumor that there’d be money, serious money to trade hands here tonight. Lord Gilden of Skywood had been suffering labor problems with his workers and instead of dealing with the mining guilds he fired many of them outright.
Another rumor said he was building dormitories right in the mines. That meant indentured workers. People from Ajania and Marahaesh fleeing the social strife there to go to other moons or the Holy Planet for better lives. Neither the Ajania or the Marahaesh allowed their people to leave if they were set into serfdom.
So they pay smugglers of flesh to escape to places like working for the Skywood nobility in hopes they can pay off that debt and begin to live free lives. The only time I’ve ever seen it happen is with the few thieves and smugglers that I work with. Just one more thing amongst my many crimes.
So why am I getting involved with this?
Simple Gareth Gilden, the lord in question is a conservative. He’s of the old blood that’ll never change and he used to be a supporter of Lyam. I served with Aerik Gilden as a squire when I first ended up at Uncle Lyam’s.
I’m sure they’re funnelling monies to Lyam and trying to keep in good with him in case that his bid for power finally succeeds. Here is supposed to be a safe place for them because the Saltlander’s want a rulership where they can be ascendant instead of the trading clans. This is pushed of course by the Saltlander temples that worship strange gods left over from The Great War.
Lyam’s using his black allies to smuggle them here and taking the money to hire mercenaries, buy loyalty and to cause havoc. His spies are in the old money places of the kingdom. Barristers, Guildsmen, Bankers and more he comes in like a misunderstood knight and buys out debts of businesses and lesser nobles and those on the edge owning them. And it’s never too hard to find those that get desperate enough to turn to him and his for aid. He’s just like a devil making a deal.
Without legal proof there’s not much to be done. I settle in to wait and drift back on memories.
*** Skywood nearly seven hundred years ago…
I look at my brother excitedly as the page ceremonies when on. We were just finishing our training as pages and were passing on into being squires where we’d be chosen by and trained to become knights under knights of long service.
My brother, my twin wasn’t anywhere near as happy as I was at the entire thing. He fidgeted and tugged at his collar and looked miserable. I wish I knew what was going on with him. The last two years he’s pulled away from me and he’s gotten into such a funk that it’s disturbing. I know it’s over some girl…he’s been staring at the girls of the court mooning over them and brooding and there’s been the whiff of perfume in his rooms the odd time or ten…
But for him not to talk about it.
I tried several times and there are times where I can tell he’s scrutinising me. Watching me when I’m with my friends and having fun. Over the last two years he’s stopped trying to make friends, he stopped joining into games and having fun with us.
I shake off the funk that I swear I’m picking off of him and watch the events going on and waiting. There a lot of pomp and stuff but there’s a lot of excitement too. We get to compete against each other and show off the skills we have to attract a knight that’ll want to train us.
When it comes to my turn I do really good or I thing I did good. I’m good with a sword and I’m really decent with spear and staff and the bow.
I’d like to squire to several knights, there are many that are true heroes. I didn’t know that my fate was set in stone and that my uncle had spoken for me in the tradition of the old ways. My father was King and he couldn’t be my knight master but it was considered a Grace in the realm of court politics if the crown’s second that being the ruling prince of Skywood was the willing knight master of the king’s children.
While there had always been a distance between my uncle and father from father being chosen to be king rather than him this would set things much more aright.
Illian was outstanding; whatever has been riding him it has sharpened his edges to a fine honing of his skills. Before he’s been my lighter half. Laughing and having fun until this girl that he seems to be obsessing over.
It was a proud moment when we were chosen by uncle, we took the tabards that were offered with his symbol on them of the black dragon rampant on a red field.
***
The first two years in Castle Skydancing were good. I loved living there it was so magical just living on Skywood. Long ago during The Great War a terrible magic was used by The Enemy and the moon was nearly blown apart. Some powerful force had wrought a spell so strong that all the land masses rendered to float like clouds, it’s a moon of endless oceans underneath and sunshine and clouds and beautiful islands and small continents floating in the sky.
It denied physical laws but it was beautiful. Court on the other hand. Court was hard and strange, the Skywood nobility were just that. Because they lived among the clouds it had ingrained into them this attitude, this arrogance that me and Illian had never known growing up under the ways that our parents had taught us.
Illian was getting even more dark and intense and he was seldom from my uncle’s side. It started to become that we were rarely speaking to each other.
***
It was in my seventh year as I squire when I was in the stables when uncle came in. He was drinking and he was laughing with several of his knights. He looked at me strangely and he walked over and he grabbed me by the hair and kissed me.
I was shocked!
Here was my uncle a steadfast conservative, one that spoke of noble traditions and values treating me like some tryst? I struggled but then I was still young, he belted me across the head with a strength I’ve never felt.
I reeled and the next thing I know the knights are holding me down and there’s a rag in my mouth and my uncle is shoving himself inside of me. I cried and tried to fight I tried to scream but nothing worked…I heard him chanting over and over. “You’re mine you little bastard, you’re mine, I own you. You say anything and I’ll ruin you, I’ll tell everyone what a little pixie you are and bring shame on your family. You’re mine, oh Jaiden you little pixie hole is so tight, just like your mother I bet.”
He used majik to keep himself going, I was hurt inside and I was bawling. My mind was reeling at his words and what he did and he pulled out and the others took their turns.
I feel the sorcery being worked on me. I tried to fight it but my majik was so small and untested then. I felt this haze like a drug come over me and part of me just went on automatic, I couldn’t fight back or talk just make sounds like moans every time I tried until uncle Lyam shoved his dirty..my..dirt…thing into my mouth and down my throat!
He was my uncle, he was family. He was a knight!
They were knights!
They were laughing!
And after awhile being so young the feel of that spell fading into the abuse…your mind plays tricks on you. You might think you might…like it?...like maybe this was…
Illian…I see him out of the corner of my eye.
I plead with my twin; try to reach that bond of ours. But there’s this look, like I betrayed him. Like I was enjoying this! There was this sneer on his face, this look of hate there and ….and…he turns his back on me and he leaves me.
That hurt me so much and it shocked me to the core and I fought, something went feral inside my heart and thrashed against the spell.
Lyam…Uncle was first…I clamped down my mouth filling with blood as I bit the top three inches off his cock.
There was blood everywhere, thick and black, burning me and reeking of something like tar, tar and rotten eggs. He fell back and his eyes changed to something red and reptilian.
My mouth was burning, literally burning my throat as I swallowed some of the blood.
The two knights holding me let go and were cursing and I spit the blood on one of them by accident and it burned like a fire breathers trick lighting him on fire. The one inside me pulled out on shock as much as his friends did and pointed at uncle Lyam whose cock was regrowing itself… he yelled “Demon!, Monster!” pointing at Lyam who laughed and said “Not quite.” And he let loose this thing a sphere of solid air? And it hit him in the chest hard enough to collapse his ribcage.
I ran…I ran and took a sword from the knight that I had burned and ran. The next thing I know I’m being chased through the streets by the royal guards and two of Lyam’s other knights being accused of the murder of the three that were at the stables and firing them to cover my tracks because I was found out to be a dirty tryst and was trying to cover it up with murder and arson.
Illian, my twin brother was bearing as the witness.
The royal guards were trying to detain me, but the two knights were trying to kill me. I killed one of them in the street in self defence but the crowds would report that I ambushed him…like the assassin they call me.
I hurt several guardsmen and was nearly taken if it hadn’t been foe a Dark-elven thief, a rogue and a lower island and city smuggler by the moniker of Bandit.
Hunted, wanted for murder, framed by my Uncle and my twin brother I left Skywood with Bandit and joined his little band of mercs and thugs and disappeared.
***
It took a long time before I came to terms with my brother, and a long time I thought he was just as bad as Lyam…
The night of my rape.
He murdered our Aunt, Lyam’s wife Fayaelle…a really kind and sweet woman who likely was in Lyam’s way. He did it wearing my clothes and that too I caught the blame for…he had raped her as well…beat her skull in with a fireplace poker.
I still don’t know why, if it was him and his tortured soul or Lyam’s orders.
***
I was hunted, Lyam hired mercenaries and sent servants and creatures after me and I tried to survive, tried to get proof of his wrongness, sent letters or tried to… to father and but Lyam was cagey and smart and then there was Illian always pointing at my evidence and saying I’m lying, that I’m tainted and was trying to rip the family apart.
What really undid Lyam was my parents. Illian and I are the first born and Illian might not ever claim the throne and I as an outlaw wasn’t able too so it put Lyam in a pretty good place. Until my parents kept having children. Elves are notoriously fickle breeders, our women because we are such majikal beings are tied to their children. If there isn’t a warm and loving atmosphere around them it restricts the spirit and the energy flow which is just as important as the food and life blood.
No love, too much stress…no child. That’s why it is so hard for some in a culture where arranged marriages are common.
Mother and Father had after Illian and I, Brennan, Galadriel, Amerantha (died in a rockslide age 11) Gabriel (Died of a food allergy while on Kyu nari.) then Kailynn who is the baby of our family.
That’s seven of us and five still living, and with them being High King and Queen and the stress levels…they must really love each other.
When Kailynn returned to court after the death of his beloved Lyam took the chance to raise his faithful and used the festivities and having so many people in one place he attacked the palace.
I had got wind of it and had sent warning letters to father. It turned out he had been listening to the ones I’d sent, the ones that had gotten through that is. I hit them with bandit and the others from behind and between the Knights of Highwood and the Thieves guild we sent them running away and revealed Lyam for the traitor he is.
Me for my crimes I’m still hunted, and not just for the ones from then but I’ve broken more laws more times than I could be bothered to count. Why when I could be pardoned by my father.
That’s one reason right there, because he’s my father. Secondly here I’m a greater asset to the family.
Speaking of assets.
***
I smell his perfume first, Gareth Gilden and he’s waiting on his horse with his attempt at desert robes with a good twenty of his houseguard just as amateurly disguised. On the other end of the street I see about a hundred grey robed “devout followers” of Anubis one of the Saltlander gods. They have escorts of mailed warriors in shrouded desert garb with the look of Lyam’s followers and a couple of Saltlander nobles or knights too with two jackal masked priests. I see the really large payment in a coffin to go to the temple with Gareth.
I pull my blaster and flicker the laser sight. I see Bandit signal back. I grin and wait for the timers to go off. The two groups are together for about a minute before the flask bangs go off and we move in. None of them will like us bloodying them or taking their monies or stealing their wage slave workers.
Good.
I like pissing these people off.