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.