Here is proof that commenting helps. I got three early, positive comments on the last chapter, and they inspired me to spend that night writing, finishing two more chapters. This is the first, and there will be another tomorrow evening: Dawn

Chapter 64 – The Pretty Ones

“Who are the pretty ones?” Jason asked the fairie princess.

“They are the others native to this land,” she replied. “They create magic. Magic that our people need to live and expand. They look a bit like your animal, but much smaller and … well … much prettier. They have a long horn that comes out of their forehead. It is only a few inches long when they are born, but it grows longer each year that they live. The longest ever was over five feet long by a pretty one who lived nearly 1000 years. Eventually it got so heavy that she was unable to get up and get around. The others, including my people, tried to bring her food, but she eventually died.”

“That sounds like a unicorn,” Stone said.

“Such a sad story,” Rayla said. “Are there many left? Can we go and see them? Why do the centaurs want them?”

“So many questions,” the princess said. “I will try to answer all. Firstly, there are nearly 20 alive now, hidden in the forest. You cannot go to them, but they might come to you. They will come to this one,” she pointed at Emily, “for she is still pure. And they might come to the other young one, who was violated many years ago, and has remained pure since.”

“And I am not pure,” Rayla said, thinking of the many times she had made love to Stone.

“That is uncertain. You are not a normal person. I think there would need to be much discussion by the pretty ones to decide if you are pure or not. And your last question might be the most important. The outsiders come every year and try to get to the pretty ones. You see, their horns contain much magical power that the magician craves. Years ago he sent only a few of the beasts, and our people easily defeated them. The next year more came until two years ago there were hundreds. The magician makes more and more of the beasts. I think he does nothing else. None came last year, and I fear he has kept them back in order to get a larger group than we can stop.”

“You little things can defeat a great animal like a centaur?” Stone said with a laugh.

“We are small, but we have a deadly sting. We poison our spears and they can be deadly. Big ones like you can swat many of us away, but only one needs to get through and sting you to kill you.”

Stone stopped laughing as he thought of how close he had come to death when he swatted the little fairie away. “How many of you are there?”

“We number just under five thousand,” the princess said. “We usually lose five fighters for every beast we bring down. But we fear there will be more than 500 attack this year. We might be wiped out and if there are any beasts left, then they will go after the pretty ones, and take some. I fear they will slay the pretty ones and just cart off their horns.”

“Well, I can assure you that our group will fight. We have powers that will help you. And if the ship is still here there are 40 more men like Jason who will help out. Is there some way that we can call you, or for you to call us?”

“Wrk will call,” the princess said. “We can communicate with others in the tribe over great distances mentally. She is quite comfortable now and would like to remain where she is until she is completely healed, and perhaps longer.” Stone looked over at Rayla, and just could see the head of the small creature he had hurt poking out between her large cleavage. The fairie had a comfortable smile on her face and didn’t seem to be jostled as the bigger woman moved. Stone knew for a fact that those breasts were soft and cozy and realized that he wouldn’t have access to them for some time.

The princess and her escort flew off to the forest, where there was nearly no more humming or other noise. Jason left Stone and headed back to the ship, where he saw that no more goods were being unloaded. Instead the men were hauling the ship up onto the beach so it would be safe if there was a storm and higher tides.

The hauling was hard, with all 40 men pulling on six ropes. Shortly after, Stone and Doug returned and Jason stopped the men and he split the exhausted men into teams of 10 on four ropes. He then handed Stone the other two ropes, tied near the middle of the ship. When the men had caught their breath, he had another hauling. Only this time it was not a matter of the ship moving a few inches with each tug, but several feet. Soon the ship was well placed high on the beach.

“You did even better than I expected,” Jason told his father. “You moved the ship faster in a half hour than the men had done in two hours.”

“There is strong magic in this land,” Stone said. “I was able to draw it from the ground and it made both Doug and I many times stronger than normally. Now, can you send some men up to work on a house or two for the family?”

There were no palm trees in the woods nearby, but the men had lumber on the ship, both coconut trees and oak from Lakeport. The wood was hauled out and as the captain got crews working on scraping the barnacles off the ship, Jason took the carpenter and some men to work on the houses, erecting them in a spot that Wrk decided was ideal. It was close enough to the forest for her to call her people, yet near enough to the ship for safety.

That night the family slept in lean-tos with blanket roofs, but over the next few days the family got two sleeping rooms and a kitchen set up. The captain had gotten the hull scraped and once the houses were built the carpenter repaired all the leaks and defects on the vessel.

“I’m worried,” Keenstone said to Stone. “If the men get accustomed to being idle, they will not be a useful crew. I suggest we find them something to do. I want to build a proper dock here, and then put the ship back into the water, but that is only going to take two weeks or so. What can we do after?”

“Well, you have a ship. There is a lot you could do with it. You could try whaling, although I didn’t notice many whales on this end of the ocean. There are ample fish though. You could fish. Or you could explore the coast a bit. We will be moving on inland after we settle some business at this end.”

The captain mused. “I don’t think there are any whales about, and even so there is nowhere to sell the oil without going back across the ocean again. Fishing might work. We could go out for a week or two at a time. There are nets in the hold and a lot of room down there. We could fish till the hold is full, and then come back and dry the fish on the beach. It will keep the men busy for a few months, until we have fished the area out.”

That became the plan. The dock was built in five days: the men were getting adept at carpentry. And Stone and Doug helped get the ship back into the water on a high tide. Soon the men were ready to try fishing. Their first trip was only five days out, followed by four days in with Rayla selecting the prime fish for her kitchen. Wrk would not eat the fish, so Rayla’s idea of having a feast for all the fairies died. They were vegetarians, and three times every day her people sent a delegation in to feed her.

“Where does she poop?” Jason asked one day as he looked at the little creature nestled in his mother’s bosom.

“I asked,” Rayla said with a laugh. “She said fairies don’t poop. She has been out a few times lately to practice her sore wing, and I’ve checked. There wasn’t anything down there except a few tiny crumbs of the leaves she eats.”

The ship sailed again, planning to go out for two weeks. Kalosun sailed on the first trip but found there was little need for a second trip. The others on board, particularly the cook, had some healing skills. Kalo felt his place was with the family. Kookla switched places with him. His father wanted him on board ship, especially when Stone said that he expected to have to deal with magical beings. The boy’s mother had agreed to let him go on the ship, but not into magical danger.

Soon the beach was covered in thousands of drying fish and while the men had built fences around their haul, it didn’t seem that any animals came after them. Arthur reported that birds were around, and the gulls especially would come down to try and grab a meal. But Arthur was quicker and had made meals out of several of the birds before they realized that poaching here was not safe. Eventually Arthur started eating one or two fish a day, a negligible amount considering that he was keeping flock of gulls at bay that would decimate the entire beach in a day.

One morning Wrk awoke before dawn in an agitated state. “They come, they come,” she cried out, waking both Stone and Rayla from their separate beds. Jason also had a bed in that house, while Sissy and Emily were in the other. He woke soon after his parents.

“Our scouts have seen them coming,” Wrk cried. “Too many, too many. They say 10,000. We cannot stop that many.”

Jason and Stone then left the house and walked up to the riverbank. “They cannot cross here,” Wrk cried from her niche. “Further up the river is a mud bank they might try. If not there, then they will go up to the ford.”

Rayla had gotten her quiver and bow, and Stone had Pate on his shoulder. Jason had his knife. Both Pate and the knife were calling out danger. Their warning was not needed: both men could hear the sound of thousands of hooves thundering down the other side of the river.

Wrk led them to the mud flats, and they saw that some centaurs were there before them. Two particularly big ones were on the bank, about 20 feet above what looked like a sandy, wet beach. One called out with what seemed part way between a horse’s whinny and a human yell. Stone and Jason looked at the beasts, which seemed odd. In the front they looked female, with long hair that turned into a mane, and huge breasts. Not Rayla huge, but bigger than any normal female. But it was possible to see that there were male organs between the rear legs, even though the front human part seemed to have a female vagina.

Finally a young filly appeared, much smaller and apparently responding to their whinny. She reported in front of the bigger beasts, and one casually pushed her off the cliff into the mud. She immediately sank into what looked like quicksand, and her struggles to free herself just dropped her lower and lower into the muck.

The males on the ledge just laughed, looking at her struggles, and then cleared off. There was the sound of the herd thundering by.

“They sacrificed the small one to see if the flat was safe to cross. It isn’t, so they have gone up stream leaving her to die,” Wrk explained. “We need to go to the ford now.”

“No,” shouted Jason. “He grabbed the rope on Doug’s saddle and dashed out into the flats.

“No Jason,” cried Stone. “You can’t save her. You will die yourself.” But the boy leapt forward and half swam, half crawled out to the filly, who’s eyes showed raw panic.

Stone watched as his son reached the filly and saw him wrap the rope around the girl’s horse torso. He started back in his odd swim/crawling motion. Meanwhile Rayla picked up the end of the rope lying on the shore, and handed it to Stone, who started to pull. The filly stopped panicking as she felt herself being hauled into the far bank. Soon she felt solid muck beneath her and stumbled out of the mud.

Like a horse, she rested standing up. Mud was caked all over her, both parts. Emily and Sissy had followed the family, and now came into play, peeling the drying muck off the filly. She was over seven feet tall, and Stone realized that meant that the males who flung her away must be over 10 feet tall.

“Oh, pretty Pinky,” Sissy lisped as she cleaned mud away from the filly’s pink hair and mane. The girl’s face was extremely attractive, and her breasts seemed almost as large as the males that had pushed her in. Emily lead her upstream to a clear pool of water to wash, but she stopped next to Jason. “You are my hero,” she said, looking down at the exhausted sailor. “I love you and will do whatever you want.”