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.