A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 55

Shey Lann was only an elfling, not far past ten, when she met her father, who had come once he'd gotten news of it all. He took her home to live with him. The trouble was that most wood elves will have nothing to do with the high elves for their foolishness and Shey Lann had few friends there, but she did have some, at least. She grew and learned from her father until he was killed one day by a human. Since that day, Shey Lann is a blade for hire and she takes very little in payment if the mark is a human."

Darji could relate, he guessed and asked how Shey Lann had come to live among the Faun.

"I met her while we were both far from anywhere," Bryth said, "both of us were lost and looking for a way back home, well, that was what I was doing. Shey Lann was looking for a place to stay and live. She did not feel at home among the wood elves, any more than she was not welcomed by the high elves. So she travelled, looking for work. Sometimes, she would take a male for a bit of pleasure, but she knew that she had to be careful, always worrying that if she were to find herself with child, there was no way to raise it, having little enough to feed herself with and the road is nowhere to have a little one, since they need to have sheltered places and protection.

We just fell in together," Bryth smiled, "and it was far better to journey with another than it was to go on alone. I took her to my settlement and though there were some who would not have her there, since she was an outsider, I said that there were other outsiders here and we had welcomed them. There was a warrior there who said that he'd kill her if she did not leave, but Shey Lann only smiled as she stood before my father, the king. She nodded and asked if it would be alright to kill this loud warrior and if she could stay if she won.

My father nodded and in seconds the warrior was dead. It was a shock to many, for Faun warriors are a little hard to fight for most kinds of creatures. But Shey Lann had seen the way that I fight and she knew what to expect from him, only more and harder, she supposed. Anyway, she had nowhere else to go. I was happy to see her live and in truth the dead one was a loud brute to begin with and no one mourned when he lost.

So Shey Lann was allowed to live with me in my little part of the hall since I was the one who had spoken for her. We had a lot of laughter, sharing everything. In a little time, a feast day was coming and we went out together that night. Shey Lann had her fun, just as I had mine, but somewhere in it, she met two warriors who appealed to her, though not at the same time. They each said that they remembered her from her test and said that it was not an easy thing to have killed the brute as she did and they liked that about her.

When we met again later, she told me of them and she also said that she liked the way that they mated with her, each one. They were, ..." she searched for the word for a moment and then she smiled, "very strong and VERY vigorous ," she said to me and she liked that. She was actually sad to part with the first one and when the same thing happened with the second one a time later, she asked me why all of the rams were not like that.

I had no answer and said so, but I saw that she really liked them, so I told her that if she could describe them, I would try to learn what I could of them before the next feast so that she might approach her search for one of them with at least a bit of a plan."

She grinned then, remembering it, "You must try to imagine my shock to hear her descriptions of a pair that I did indeed know and quite well, too. But I had no way to tell her so that she wouldn't just declare that she didn't want them -- on principle, since I already knew her quite well at that point. Shey Lann is a bit of a different breed. She readily takes what might come to her, but she will refuse most things that are given. That she took the knife you gave to her says something, I think.

Regardless, I spoke to the two rams when I met them next, since they were together at a function which related to the town guard and the army. Both of them are leaders there and are very popular and much sought after by many single girls. They both told me about the elf-girl who now haunted their thoughts day and night. I was torn, but after hearing Shey Lann moan about when the next feast would be, since she really wanted to meet at least one of the rams who could please her like no other male that she'd ever been with, I decided to act and try to help things a little. I also hoped that I would not lose a friend out of it all.

A few days later, I watched it all happen," she grinned happily. "Shey Lann and I love each other. There have been times when we were alone on the road and both wanting a male very much when we just looked at each other and laughed a little. After several times like that, we found that we liked to lie together sometimes, though what we did for each other wasn't what we really wanted then. It was just a bit of pleasure and comfort, but we liked it and it must be said that it made us closer.

That day, Shey Lann was in a fallow field practising with her bow when she saw BOTH of the rams who she liked so much coming to see her. Shey Lann can talk a good game and she really is fearless, but she can have trouble talking to one male sometimes, not wanting to seem too rough and two at the same time made her quail a little. She doubted her ability, so she slung her bow over her shoulder and ran.

Now, elves can run like the wind, but then so can fauns and it is a little different to be running away from someone who you might not wish to talk to than it is to be running for your life. Another thing is that faun rams when they have a want for a certain female and think that there might be more there than only lust can run very fast indeed, and it is an old strategy among rams sometimes to work together. The rams split up and she didn't know which way to turn after a while, because just as she thought that she'd evaded one of them, she saw the other one coming from a different direction. It took an hour, with me far up a high tree watching it all for them to run her down. Shey Lann prepared to fight very reluctantly and when the two came for her and there was nowhere else to go, she asked what they wanted from her, fearing that she might be forced.

They laughed and said that they wished her no harm at all and had only wanted to talk to the ewe who had come to us as a stranger and seemed to be magical enough to stay in their thoughts for days after the feast. As Shey Lann crawled backward up the hill - still out of breath - one of them threw down a blanket and the other produced a basket of food and a wineskin.

Shey Lann stared and asked them if they really only wanted to speak with her that badly that they'd go to these lengths to do it and they both nodded. One of them took off his armor then and sat down, saying that if she really wished to be forced, that they were prepared to do as she wanted and the other one began to disrobe as well.

Shey Lann gaped at them and they told her how they felt and hoped that she might search for them during the next feast evening, but that they really hoped that she wouldn't wait that long.

Shey Lann looked from one to the other and thought about how many nights she'd been alone and no one had wanted her. Then she thought about the males that she'd had when there was no one else in the middle of the night and she knew that those nights were her lucky ones. She asked the two rams if they only wanted her right then and at the feast and they shook their heads, saying that they'd never had a finer ewe in their lives and hoped to make something a little longer-lived than the odd night sometimes with someone like her."

She said something to Theyl then and he handed her a waterskin so that she could sip a little and then she handed it back and smiled at Darji.

He looked at her and laughed a little, "Well? What happened? Bryth? I need to know now. How did that end?"

Bryth smiled a little mischievously, "Shey Lann is my friend and I know her so well. She is many things, Darji, but Shey Lann is not stupid. She was looking at two of the finest rams out of all of the ones among my clan. Faced with that, she made the only decision that I knew that she could make.

She threw off her clothing and after a moment where they looked at each other, I watched as Shey Lann ran to them.

I watched it from my tree and then I had to move so that I could rub myself a little. It went on for a long time -- all the afternoon! She rode first one and then the other of them, bucking and calling out their names. She was mounted by one of them while she suckled the other one. Shey Lann surprised even me that day. It grew to be evening and I walked out and brought them all another meal and more wine in another basket. When I reached them, Shey Lann had mounted one ram and then the other one had mounted her from behind.

She was a mess, as were the rams, but they were all happy, having enjoyed each other for hours and they had already pledged to each other that they wanted this to go on. I listened to them and I asked if this had been like a private feast evening for them, but all three of them said no. This had gone on far longer than any coupling that one might have on a feast evening and they still wanted to go on.

I said that it had gone on long enough to begin to attract the attention of others and so they got up and got dressed. I did the only thing that I could do, really. I took them all to my rooms, where I slept in my bed alone. They went on for four days! Every time that I came home, they were still fucking!

When none of them could move anymore, I brought them hot food in the bed and the rams asked if there had been trouble over their duties. I smiled and told them that I had made their excuses for them and stood in for the drilling of the troops, but that the troops would be happier to see them again, since I seem to ask the moon of them, somehow.

That was when I asked if this would go on and they told me that it would and that they all agreed that this could be built on and was not only lust after so long at it. The two rams left with Shey Lann in the morning. One of them sold his house and they all moved into the house of the other one and that is where they live now -- when Shey Lann is not burdened with watching over my virtue while I settle things with my ram, Theyl."

"She told me that she and you are nearly related by her marriage," Darji said, "Does that mean that one of them is your cousin or something?"

Bryth shook her head with a warm smile as she reached over and laid her hand onto Darji's knee, "No. Shey Lann was brought before the king where she pled her troth to both of the males right in front of him and the whole court. My father spoke with my mother then and they asked the rams if all of this was so, and they heard that it was. The following month, my friend Shey Lann left with written permission to be married to two of my brothers at a time of her choosing, neither of them the crown prince, mind you, and from what I know, they are all happy with each other, though right now, I think that she must miss her rams as I am certain that they miss their ewe.

They cannot journey as much as she can and when they have had to part before for a time, she tells them not to miss a single High day's feast and to have their fun. But I can say that when we get back home, it is no good going to call on her for several days after. Shey Lann stays abed then and so do her rams. She is holding back, wanting to be sure about it. For an elf to wed a pair of rams, ... well I can see why she would want to be careful."

She ran the side of her thumb over a seam of the worn denim of his jeans for a moment in curiosity over the feel of the fabric a little thoughtfully, "Until I brought her to live with me, Shey Lann hardly ever smiled, unless it was at me when we lay together in a dark place on the road. She was always the way that she was to you when we met each other. When she is there, and can lie in the arms of my brothers when she has the want, she laughs and grins very freely, in a way not unlike the way that we saw her here with you earlier, though here, we must all be a little quiet."

Bryth asked Theyl to move his hand and then she sat up next to him with her arm around him. As he sat with them and saw the way that they hung onto each other while they ate the little of the dinner that was left, Darji decided that he liked them.

He wasn't sure, but he thought that they were a young couple who were just starting out and like anyone would -- even in a culture as vastly different as theirs was to his own, they seemed to have their share of troubles and were trying hard. He liked that, too, he thought as he closed his eyes and tried to sleep.

The two fauns sat hugging each other silently; watching him for a long time after they'd heard the change in his breathing. Finally, they just got into their few blankets and caressed each other for a time before they fell asleep.

A few hours later, it was Darji's watch and he walked to the place where Shey Lann stood waiting to be relieved.

"I am only concerned about the noise when you shoot anything," she said.

Darji shrugged, "At least it ought to wake everybody up if I do."

The watch passed without incident and then he went back to the cold long-out fire and prepared his things for the day's travel.

Shey Lann went on as point when they set off though they switched up now and then. Darji heard them all speaking in the language that Theyl spoke but before he could ask about it, Bryth came back to where he walked and explained that it was better that the three understood each other, since they were out ahead of him. If anything came up, he'd know anyway, she told him.

She stayed walking next to him for maybe an hour then and he asked what it was that they were seeking and she surprised the hell out of him when she said that they were to look for a fallen-in temple to a long-forgotten god. "There is a small place there, I was told, where a small figure is kept. I saw a drawing and to me, it looked like a very fat woman with no head, wearing no clothes."

Darji held his tongue, wanting to know a bit more, but inside, he was in a bit of turmoil, since what she described sounded a lot like the statuette that he carried. It meant little to nothing to him, but he had concerns all the same. Something to do with that thing had played a role in the brutal death of his mother. Did he really want to give it to these innocents?

Not only that, but there was also the way that he didn't seem to be able to be rid of the thing. What was he to do when the only way ahead for him was to go through a membrane -- which had appeared as a direct result of him trying to leave the statue behind?

All of the other times, the membranes had been there before he'd gotten there. The one time that he'd wanted to walk away, one of them had just appeared to block his way. For some time now, he'd been wondering what would have happened if he had just chosen to walk on, right through one which appeared as he was trying to leave the statue behind.

Would he be outside?

Or would he blink out when the thing snapped into nothingness?

"Who is this chancellor and what does he want with the figure?" he asked.

"What he wants, I do not know,"Bryth said, "I know only that the chancellor must have made such an annoyance of himself to the king over it that it was decided to send me for it -- if it can be found. We have been here over a month and I have seen no temple, let alone a small figure. If it was so important, then the chancellor should have gone himself."

At the sound of the title, there was a brief comment from Theyl and Shey Lann laughed along with Bryth who answered quietly that she had no doubt of it. She put her arm around Darji and grinned, "Theyl said that the chancellor is no traveller, and that from his meeting with him, he decided that he might have been a warrior once, but now he seemed to be an older person who has lost his stones and does not know where to begin his search for them."

"Who is this guy anyway?" Darji asked and she said that if they were successful, she would take him to her settlement to meet her father and he'd to see the chancellor there. "He is a human, as you are though," she grinned again, "you are much better to look at, Darji."

She called something out to Theyl, who turned back and nodded with a smile. "I have just told Theyl that I hold onto you as we walk and if that was alright and he said it was."

When he looked at her, Bryth looked just a little bit uncomfortable and said, "Theyl will be my second ram one day. I do not want him to feel left alone. I try to teach him what I can. We did not begin well, but he and I seek to be good for each other. It is a choice that neither of us wanted at first, but it must be, and now we grow to be close friends at least."

There was a cry from the front and they ran ahead. Theyl was caught in a thick web of some sort and Shey Lann was looking off into the distance for its owner as she tried to pull him free.

"Tell him not to struggle," Darji said, "he'll only get more tangled. We've got to wait until Momma shows up to drag him off. THEN we shoot her or him and then, we get Theyl out. Anything else and we might all get caught up."

Bryth translated for Theyl and Darji cautioned Shey Lann not to shoot until the spider was close by. "The closer that the spider gets, the more greed will force it to even defend us against others. If you shoot from far away, you might find yourself facing half a dozen."

He looked as far as he could see, and even looked back the way that they'd come, but he saw nothing for the moment, so he slung his shotgun over his shoulder and told the others not to look at him or Theyl, but to look outward and let him know if they saw anything. He was about to wade in with his knives when he had a thought and looked up.

What he saw there made him reach for the shotgun again and he pushed Shey Lann aside while he shot the nearest ones. They landed with soft splashes and then he grabbed his rifle and shot the ones farther away and they scuttled off along the vaulted cavern ceiling out of sight. He pulled out his long knives then and set to work, carefully hacking the sticky webbing away from the nervous faun before he pulled him free.

"Are you alright, Theyl?" he asked and the faun nodded with wide eyes after Bryth asked him so that he understood.

"Come on then, all of you. They'll get over their fear in a minute. I wounded a couple for sure and they'll try to kill those ones first for an easy meal, but they will all remember us in a little while. We'd better be gone when they think of us again."

They ran as fast as they could, but they were hampered by the darkness of the cavern and the uncertainty of the evenness of the floor -- even with the torches. All that it would take now would be a badly sprained ankle and they'd be forced to hold up and then have to defend each other against who knew how many huge spiders. While this ran through Darji's mind, he had a thought that surely something had spawned all of the patio table-sized things.

"Wait, Shey Lann," he called out, "Stop a second."

She stopped and waited for them to catch up, "First you say to run, so I ran, since I can see better in the dark than any of you. Now you say to wait," she smiled, "I am learning to like traveling with you, Darji, but please ..."

He looked at the three torches that they carried and then he reached back for one of the pockets of his pack. His hand came back with a pale, thin rod after a moment. He looked ahead and held on to Shey Lann for a moment to lean in, "There must be a fat-assed mother here somewhere."