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.”