A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 55

He was still struggling a little, "These issues that you spoke of," he suggested.

Shey Lann looked down and raised her eyebrows in thought, "Among most of the Faun, a ram takes one ewe for his own and a ewe takes one ram, as it is among most people of any sort. With the lower and poorer ones, it is a simple thing since it can be hard enough to keep each other alive in the world. Better to have the love of another to help with the hardship, I think.

Among the higher houses, a ewe can seek to have -- " she smiled then with a little shrug, "it is a ewe's right to have two mates if she wants, just as it is a ram's by the same standard, if they are all wealthy enough for it. That can lead to a long time of ... selection, since it is best to have one's mates able to, or have the want to love each other as well. For example, I know of several ewes who love a ram and also love another ewe, and all three are happy - from what I can tell, though I obviously do not go into their bedrooms to find out.

Bryth's pairing with Theyl is a political one and they are both aware of this. I think that it says much of them both that they each see the other as the secondary mate and yet try for each other anyway. Oh, they do try for each other very much and I can see that love is growing there for them, but ... well, ... let us just say that Bryth has not found her ram yet."

"And that could be the issue?" Darji asked, so intrigued now.

"One of them," Shey Lann replied, "but not the largest. Bryth is not a girl to sit in her hall and brush her hair while she dreams of the next dance. She is like me and loves to be on the road. At her father's hall, she is unimportant, not that she minds the way that she goes unnoticed, since it would be her way to be able to slip in and out unannounced as she is wont to do. But she was never happy just being pretty and waiting for life to provide her a ram who would keep her fat with kid in his hall. She is a harder person than that and loves life in the fresh air. You might imagine the way that a girl like that would react to be told by her father that her mate -- whom she had never met or even known of - was coming to take her hand."

Shey Lann laughed a little at that, "He arrived with much ceremony and she almost killed him -- right in front of her parents and the whole court. He was in some sort of fine attire from some army or other and she stood waiting for him just as she is now, in light traveling armor and looking like a rogue while the rest of the court looked on.

She brayed that she would never wed a male like this one and her father shouted back that she would or she would be cast out. I still remember his words -- "What is the good of having a daughter and raising her if she cannot be used to keep the peace for the people?" He pointed to the outside and told her that, as who she was, she owed the people this, and to an extent, he was right, I suppose. Bryth looked at her father, who is known to be just as stubborn as his daughter and she looked at her mother, who sat with tears in her eyes, fearing that Bryth was now going to say the words that would see her cast out, never to return.

But my dear friend was not as foolish as all that," Shey Lann said with a smile. "I was prepared to go to her side and remain there, going with her wherever she went if need be, but it did not come to that. Bryth trembled in her anger, but she fought it down after some moments. Just as her father bellowed that he would wait no longer for her to state her intent, Bryth turned, grabbed Theyl's fancy tunic and then she pulled him so that he could look nowhere else but into her angry eyes.

I will never forget it. She did not say it very directly, but she insulted her father, his father, half of the lords in the hall and all of the lords in his father's hall with her words.

'VERY WELL!' we all heard her shout in They'ls face, 'You are MINE. I do not know what you thought me to be when you set out to come here and claim me, but I will NOT sit and have gowns made while you pretend to be a ram lord. In THIS land, the best ram lords are MADE and not BORN. A real ram lord earns his title. He is not given it by his birth.

To be clear to you as a courtesy, I will NOT act shy and demure when it is not in me to do so, holding still for you in the making of one kid after the other. I hold still for no fat rams, so what you wear on your belly under this tunic will need to be worn off and I am the girl to do that for you, you may trust in it.

If I must take you as my ram, then you must take me too and so I think that we had better go to a quiet place to learn what we each have won by the politics of two kings who do not care to know the least of their young ones. So, what is it to be, Prince Theyl?

Tell me no right here and now and you will die where you stand. I have no fear of what would come from it.

Tell me yes, and you have my word that I will try for you if you would have a girl who cannot often sit still and feels more at home with a bow in her hand than the handle of a pot.'

She shook him once and said, 'But mark you this: YOU must try for me as well, so that we do this for each other and NOT for a pair of old kings. If we must be wed, then let us see that it is worth something, and if it is not, then let us make it so, since neither of us has a choice at present.

So what is it to be? Our deaths, one after the other, or will you have a ewe who is brash and bold and has larger stones than most rams?'

Shey Lann chuckled as she paused to sip from her waterskin then, "To say the truth of it, I thought for a moment, by the look on Theyl's face that he might either soil himself or explode. But before anyone could even snicker or laugh, he drew the thin and foppish play-sword that he'd come with and he threw it down.

'If you can but lend me a better blade than this,' he said in a low growl, returning her gaze every bit as hotly, 'then lead me where you will. If we must fight for this, then let it be so, but not here. If you have something to teach me, then I will be your student. I am the son of a king and though I know little of adventuring -- if that is what you crave -- I will try to learn at my ewe's lovely hand of what it takes to make her happy. But I did not come all the way here to be rebuffed, since I had no say in this either. I would make the best of it as would you, I think. So let us begin.'

Theyl was already of interest to many faun girls, those who had seen him arrive, since he is a prince and even as he was then, a little fat, he was thought handsome. But what he'd said earned him much in an instant, not the least of it in the heart of the one that he came to wed sight unseen. There are many rams in that court who have been shamed in the field by Bryth, and not one of them would have had the stones to answer as he did that day. He is only eighteen and she twenty, but a pair of adventurers found each other in that hall then and they became a pair at least in spirit at that moment.

She drew the second of her own blades and handed it to him then.

"Take it, the first gift from your betrothed," she said, "It kills a part of me to say it, but you have won at least a little of my respect with your words."

There were sighs and gasps then in that great hall, but there was no word spoken and the two young ones walked out hand in hand, neither looking at the other, but going where Bryth said to go. Of course, I came along after them, since it was given to me to keep them, ... well, at least a little virtuous until they are wed, but I let them be as they sorted things out. Bryth was honest with Theyl and he was just as forthright with her.

I found them in a peasant's barn and I couldn't think of a better place for it. The farmer stood outside with his ewe staring at a piece of gold that he'd been given to allow a young couple to use his place so that they might come to terms. I added a little silver and told them to allow me to do the task of keeping watch for them and to go to town to spend their new wealth a little carefully.

When I went inside, the two were laughing a little at least. I told them that I admired what had been done by them and that it was certain to be the talk of the hall for many days, but that Bryth's parents were proud of them both and her father told me that he knew that she would make the right choice. But by then Bryth didn't care what her father had said anyway.

I watched them roll around on the floor, laughing and fighting a little at the same time and I suggested the hayloft for their struggles and that it might go better for them without clothing. Then I walked out to spend a fine afternoon in the sunshine while I waited, for I knew that they would not couple then. There was too much unfamiliar ground there for them both. But they did emerge as a couple, not really lovers yet, but at least not enemies either.

Since that time, Theyl has gone from being an unhappy, soft, and bored prince to a fit and strong adventurer. They both know that much hinges on a successful pairing between them. They are fast friends now and they please each other in many ways, just not in ... well he has not mounted her yet, since she still seeks to find a ram for her. It is forbidden until she takes a first ram, which is why I am here, besides to add another sword to their protection. For most, one finds the first mate and then the second one. It is a bit of poor luck for those two that they have the second one in each other, but not the first."

"Then what's the problem?" Darji asked, not clear, even yet.

Shey Lann sighed, "Theyl has not found his ram yet, either."

While Darji sat with his eyebrows very near to his hairline now, Shey Lann moved to get up, "Fauns mostly want mates of the opposite kind, as I have said. Theyl is a ram who has found a ewe for himself, but he also wants a ram as well. He likes both and his hope is ..."

She shook her head a little, "His hope for them is something which happens seldom, but it comes to me as a good thought that Bryth shares his hope and wants the same for them.

I will go to guard now. You should try to sleep a little." She looked back after a few steps, "And I am sorry for my words when we met. I do not favor humans mostly, but I am coming to see that you are different."

Darji nodded and smiled a little, "No harm done, and I'm sorry too."

He stretched out, preparing to sleep, but a moment later, Bryth was there sitting next to him with Theyl. She showed him how she could work the knife that he'd given her and she thanked him. As she chattered a little, Darji thought that he could see a little of the reason for her words regarding humans. He didn't think her stupid at all, but he thought that someone with a dismissive attitude to begin with might come to that erroneous impression. He thought that there also might have been a trust issue at first and he wondered somehow if she might have been cheated by an unscrupulous merchant somewhere. He didn't much like his next thought, but he figured that his father could talk somebody like her out of her life's savings in a minute and not much more.

Bryth wanted to know more about him and where he'd come from. Darji did his best but soon ran out of road. Things that he took for granted in his life held no meaning for Bryth -- cell phones, or phones in general, cars, air travel -- the mention of anything like that earned him an open yet uncomprehending look -- as though she didn't understand what he was talking about but was stuck for the moment and could only look at him for fear of laughing at his outlandish remarks. During one of the times when he'd waited for her to translate for Theyl, he stopped and looked at her for a moment.

"Have I done something wrong, Darji?" she asked, suddenly looking concerned that she might have offended him somehow.

He shook his head, "No. Not at all. I just had the thought that there's something missing here between me telling you about something and the way that you haven't heard a thing about any of it. Let's try this:

If we were at your home and you wanted to speak to a relative who lived in another place, how would you do that?"

Bryth blinked at him for a moment and then shrugged, "If I could, I would go to where they were and talk. If I could not travel then for some reason, I would tell someone what I wished to ask or say and send them in my place. Why? How would you do that? Is it different where you live?"

He nodded, explaining that he'd use a telephone and what that was specifically and how it worked and was used. When he saw Bryth's brilliant and humorous smile at what she took to be a story, Darji knew that something was wrong.

"Let's say that you had the time to travel and it was some distance to where your relative was. How would you travel?"

She shrugged, "I would walk, of course. And you? What would you do, fly?"

As he formulated his reply, Darji thought that it wouldn't make any difference. For what he thought her reaction would be, he may as well tell her that he'd fly. He told her about driving a car on a road instead and she laughed a little and clapped her hands quietly, "I love the way that you tell such tales, Darji." She turned to tell Theyl who also enjoyed the 'tale' while Darji grew a bit uncertain about something.

If he could have risen straight up out of the earth onto the surface where he was now, he'd have thought that no matter where he was, it couldn't be all that far to find a road, and finding a road would have led him to a town or a city, something. He asked about roads and heard about cowpaths. He asked how someone would transport something like sacks of grain and he was told about wagons and horses.

"That is how I have seen humans do it," she nodded to him and he wanted to groan.

He doubted very much if there was any place on Earth today where people used horsedrawn vehicles much anymore, and yet she was telling him that it was so. There was a mistake here, but he didn't know what it might be. He knew that the circumference of the earth was some twenty-odd thousand miles and more than seventy per cent of the surface is covered by water. That leaves a lot less distance, he thought, and he didn't think that there could possibly be very many places where even the poorest person had lived any part of their life without seeing evidence of some form of mechanized travel or communications. He knew that it was possible, of course.

He just didn't think it was very likely.

And it wasn't just his thoughts out of ignorance, either. He'd been all over the world himself and, though he knew that there had to be places totally devoid of many of the encumbrances of modern life, he couldn't think of one which might be devoid of them all. It was a troubling notion which, if true, concerned him greatly.

She reclined then, leaning on Theyl's crossed thighs and she pulled his hand to her mouth to kiss it briefly before she moved it so that he could slip it into the space between her leather vest and her breasts, wanting to feel his hand against her. There wasn't much shyness about it and Darji was convinced that if he wasn't there, they'd be doing the same thing anyway. The spoke for a minute, and Bryth looked up at Theyl and shook her head, saying something else in reply. Theyl blinked at her and then he looked at Darji.

What came out of him next was horrible, but it was Theyl's honest attempt to ask a question in English. Darji listened but didn't get it at all until Theyl pointed to the old revolver strapped in a holster on Darji's thigh. "Theyl would like to know about that," Bryth said, "what it is and what it is for. Mostly he wishes to know why it must be tied to your leg."

Darji explained a little slowly, to leave Bryth time to translate. "This, ... well, I've been stuck here for a long time. Where I lived before, I never grew attached to things. I come from rich people and if you can have whatever you want, then after a while, nothing matters to you very much, does it?"

After Theyl had been made to understand it, he tried again to speak, and this time, Darji got that he was agreeing, since he'd come from the same kind of home. But Theyl looked down at Bryth then and then back at Darji, saying that perhaps the best things to have were the ones which hadn't come easily. It took Darji a few seconds to get it and Bryth pieced it together at the same time and smiled up at Theyl.

Darji nodded, "Yeah. So we understand each other then. Anyway, I found this and another one on the body of a human a while back. It's just another loud weapon, and in fact, it's worse than that. This one's and old-fashioned copy of a Colt Army Model 1860. It's not like my other ones. It fires a lead bullet and uses black powder. That means that loading it is a slow thing and to shoot it means having to lose sight of your target in a cloud of bitter smoke, but, ..." he waited while Bryth helped Theyl over the parts that he didn't understand, "I like it a lot. It feels good in my hand, better than the semi-automatic one that I also carry. It's in this holster to carry it and keep it safe where it's strapped in, and the holster is tied to my leg so that it doesn't clap around if I run. I keep the other one in my pack and I guess I'll use it for parts if I need to."

Darji reached behind him and dragged out one of his packs. After a brief search, he found the other pistol and handed it to Theyl since it wasn't loaded. Darji checked just to make certain first and then he showed Theyl how it was to be used, drawing back the hammer and then squeezing the trigger. "They made millions of better ones, and they still do, just like this, but they load a different uh, ... arrow and you can shoot them without pulling back the hammer first. You just pull the trigger and that makes everything else happen."

Theyl listened and considered, "It," he said pointing to the one on Darji's leg, "can throw?"

Bryth said that Theyl was asking if it could shoot, so he nodded, "But it's loud and we would all be choking on the smoke." Theyl handed it back to him and nodded, saying that one day, he'd like to see it shoot."

She raised her eyebrows then, "He heard it when you used it but he didn't see when you did. He says it looks better than your other weapons."

Darji looked at Bryth and asked about Shey Lann, saying that they were a lot friendlier now, but he wanted to understand why she'd been so distrustful at the outset.

"I see that she must have told you at least something about us," Bryth said, "Shey Lann's mother is an elf from a group that tries to hold themselves apart as though they are ... above the other elves. Her mother met a wood elf one night as she was travelling. The two talked and went to an inn, since it began to rain and they were both strangers there. One drink after another -- and elves can drink quite a lot before they feel it -- they got drunk and then one thing led to another. The pair paid for a room and since they were drunk and it had cost them so much to get drunk, they decided to try to stay that way for a little while.

They stayed drunk for two days. The girl enjoyed it all, but she was horrified when the bloom of the drink was off on the third day. The wood elf said that he would marry her if she'd have him, but she said no and left, running back home as fast as she could go and wanting to pretend that it hadn't happened. But it did and she was with child from it and Shey Lann was the result.

As a young elfling, Shey Lann looked different from the high elves and she was never accepted by them. She never had any friends, since I think that high elflings are just as stupid as the parents who teach them. Her mother was the most foolish of all, not for what she'd done, though anyone can see that she'd made a mistake. Shey Lann's mother hung herself, a victim of the stupid notions that she'd been taught and the culture that she'd grown up in.