A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 55

He took the rod and bent it sharply. A greenish light sprang into existence and he handed the rod to Shey Lann after straightening it a little, "Here, take this and toss it ahead of you as you run. Not too far, maybe the distance that you can run easily for about five to ten steps. When you get to it, don't look at it. Look around it. If there's nothing there, then pick it up and throw it again for the next sprint. I hope that you don't find anything.

And don't get too far ahead that I can't get there to help if you do see her."

She was amazed but she nodded and tossed the stick. It landed and rolled a little and then she was there, picking it up. She waited a little, looking around and then she threw it again. They were good for almost ten throws before the rod landed on something somewhat higher than the floor, where it bounced off and rolled away into the darkness.

There was something out there and it moved toward them a little and then stopped with a hiss. Darji was beside Shey Lann in an instant. He produced another stick, bending it to bring the light that they needed and then shaking it to mix the chemicals inside. He reloaded his shotgun and, jacking the action once time to load the chamber, he began to walk forward, holding out the glow stick as the fauns came toward Shey Lann.

Darji held up the stick and he could see a few highlights or reflections from a few shiny places on the beast. There was a shuddering hiss from out ahead of him.

"There she is," Darji said calmly, "Quite the smelly piece of shit too." He looked at her legs, and the way that two of them appeared to be readying to reach for him. He estimated their reach and added six feet, just because he was a little scared. When he got to that distance from her, it occurred to him that some spiders that he'd seen on the surface can jump remarkable distances. He almost stopped and then he realized that this thing was too large and heavy to do much jumping.

"Come on, baby," he crooned, "just look at that fat ass. Lemme see you shake it for me one time, honey."

The thing seemed to quiver and tremble at the sound of his voice and Darji figured that it must be in anticipation of a meal, since he couldn't think of any other reason, so he held up the shotgun and pointed it right at that face as he pulled the trigger.

The shotgun roared and then Darji was backpedalling, trying to dodge the insane dying movements of the spider as it seemed to roll and hop a little. It stopped then and let out a blubbering sigh as the others ran up to him. He handed the glow stick to Shey Lann.

"No time to stop now," he said, "If you know where you're going, then lead on, Beautiful."

Shey Lann stopped then and looked at him. "You -- you think that I am beautiful?"

Darji grinned then and nodded, "All of you are to me. Now come on, Shey Lann. Get going. We can't stay here."

She ran on then, tossing the glow stick as she went. It went on for an hour before she slowed to a stop and waited for them to reach her again.

"What's wrong?" Darji asked and she stood shaking her head, "I have been leading us back to where we came in."

"What's wrong with that?" Darji asked while Bryth groaned, "We have not found the figure. We have not found anything but ways to die here. Spiders ... beasts ... rats. It is hopeless. We have been here over a month and have nothing to return with."

"Is there a place nearby that's reasonably safe where we can spend the night and rest?" Darji asked.

Shey Lann thought about it for a moment and then she nodded, "There is another hot spring not far from here, if my memory is good. We can stay there in safety. When we were there last, we stayed three days to rest and wash."

They walked on for a long while, with Bryth looking back often to see if they were being followed and Shey Lann walking point again, since she seemed to know where they were. Darji walked with Theyl in silence. Theyl was getting better at English very marginally, but at the moment, he seemed to be lost in a little introspection. Darji looked over and nudged Theyl's shoulder. "Hey, are you ok?"

Theyl looked at him a little blankly for a moment, "Ok?"

Darji put his arm around the faun, "Yeah, Are you ok?" He spoke a little slowly, "Are you alright? Is there anything wrong?"

Theyl nodded in understanding then. "Ok." He sighed then, "Bad to talk." He asked Bryth then and she said, "Theyl wishes he could speak in your speech. He wants very much to be able to talk to you."

Darji nodded and looked back, "Please tell him that I wish that I could speak whatever fauns speak."

Theyl looked at him strangely when he'd heard the translation, "Why, Darji?"

Darji grinned and tightened his grip on Theyl's shoulder, "If I knew how to speak that way, then think of how easy it would be to just talk about anything. You wouldn't have to wait for Bryth to say it to you and I wouldn't have to wait and Bryth could have more fun just talking too. English is the problem here. You all can speak ... faun or whatever it's called. I'm the one who holds everyone back."

Bryth looked at him as she translated it and Theyl looked at him for a long moment.

"Well yeah,"Darji smiled, "Think about it. Really, it's Shey Lann and Bryth who are being nice to me by speaking English so that I understand. It's thoughtful of them, but it means that you feel left out. That's why I wish that I could speak ... ok, what is it called?"

"You were right," Bryth said, "it is called Faun." She walked up and put her arms around Theyl, who smiled at her.

"Hey, I'll just drift back to keep an eye out behind us. He seemed to be looking a little down, so I wanted him to know that it's really me that's the language drag around here. Do a little of your faun-girl thing and make him feel better, ok?"

Bryth stared at him for a moment and then she laughed, nodding, "Ok!" before she threw her arms around Theyl's neck to hug him tightly as they walked.

Darji watched them for a minute and he hoped that Theyl wasn't feeling useless or anything for stumbling into the web back there. He'd done it himself many times and even now, it was still sometimes hard to see them until it was too late and you were in them. He'd almost died a couple of times. Thinking it over, he said that to Bryth and she translated to Theyl who seemed surprised.

"He asks does this still happen to you?"

"You tell him yes. It can happen at any time, so it wasn't just him. It could have been any of us -- even Shey Lann if she was on the other side of the path at the time. I've been here a long time and it still happens to me."

She told him and Theyl looked as though he felt better then. Bryth looked back and mouthed the words, "Thank you," and Darji nodded with a smile.

He watched them for a little while, being unobtrusive about it and he decided that he liked these three people quite a lot now. As he walked, he had a chance to really enjoy looking at their back ends for a long time.

Only Shey Lann knew that he was doing it, checking out their butts. She looked back a few times and her smile told him that she'd figured it out -- even that he was checking out her ass too, right through her cloak, her chainmail, AND her elven travelling trousers. It didn't matter. He just watched the rhythm of her walk and he could see all that he needed to, thanks to good old male X-Ray vision.

He knew that Shey Lann knew because she'd sometimes drift over to talk to Bryth for a moment and whenever she did that, Darji just fell in love with the way that she could make her ass jazz a little when she did.

After more than an hour of looking back and seeing nothing, Darji found himself staring at Bryth's butt. It took nothing for him to decide that he liked what he saw there quite a bit. But then he asked himself if it was something that he really wanted.

From what he'd heard, Theyl was a lot like him and thinking back, Darji thought that he'd seen a few signs, but he couldn't be absolutely certain because there were cultural differences here. Oh yeah, he thought, there were cultural differences here to be sure. But then he'd been there before and it had never presented him with more than a little challenge, back when he'd been 'on safari' with his mother, as they'd called it.

He looked from Theyl to Bryth and then to Shey Lann -- who was looking back at him right then -- and he asked himself again, did he really want this?

Darji sighed.

He wanted a place where he didn't need to keep a loaded shotgun near him as he slept. He wanted a place where he didn't always need to think about looking for food every so often. He wanted a place where he could have a hot bath now and again. He wanted to feel the sun on his face. He wanted ... Fuck, he thought, he wanted a lot.

Then he looked at those fine asses there in front of him and Darji Saladin smiled to himself.

Oh hell, yeah, he wanted some of that.

At that point, he saw a subtle movement up ahead. It was small, but he knew what it was. Cave rats, shuffling slowly along, looking for food the same as everyone else down here. He partially closed his right hand and clicked his thumbnail against the edge of the nail of his middle finger three times fairly quickly.

The quiet sound turned all of their heads and he held his fingers up to his mouth signalling silence and then he pointed as he walked up to where they were as quietly as he could. He watched the lumbering shapes for a moment and whispered, "The fat one at the back. He's just coming back from having a shit or something and he's looking to rejoin the herd. We'll take him."

He reached for his pocket and shoved two shells into his pump gun silently, since he knew that he was down at least that many in it. "If you can get close from a little beside and behind him," he said to Theyl quietly as he put his arm around the faun's waist, "can you put a bolt into his ear, Theyl?"

He watched carefully as Bryth spoke into Theyl's ear. When Theyl nodded, Darji watched as the crossbow was drawn back and a bolt placed to load it. Shey Lann said that she'd distract the herd and then she was gone, stealing silently out to the leaders with Bryth, both of them holding arrows nocked loosely against their bows.

It all worked pretty much according to plan. The lead animals stopped to peer for a moment at the two archers who stood a few yards in front of them with bows drawn. Their mark got the word too late but he stopped as well. There was a split-second of silence and then there was the thud of Theyl's bolt hitting home, deep in the creature's skull. It fell on its face as though poleaxed, the stumpy legs spayed out in all directions. The sound of that spooked the ones in front and they charged the girls, who stepped out of the way and were forgotten. Only Theyl was there, looking at what he'd killed with Darji beside him.

Darji dropped to his knees, pulling his knives to set to work as they walked up. "Tell him it was the perfect shot," Darji smiled as he looked up at Bryth, "Thanks to our friend Theyl, we'll all eat well tonight and tomorrow."

Theyl watched for a moment and then he knelt beside Darji with his own knife out, "How?"

Darji pointed to where he needed a cut, "There. Just through the skin and the fat, from there to here."

They began it with Darji teaching as he went and in little time, they were rolling the thing onto its back. "Here to there, here to ... here, "Darji said. Two minutes later, Darji wiped his hands and asked Shey Lann to roll up his sleeves for him. As she did, she looked at his face and then at his arms, staring at the tattoos that she saw there. "How did these come to be here?" she asked, "I think I saw all of you in the spring yesterday and -- "

"And you weren't seeing," he smiled, "You only saw a man who you didn't like at all. But that was then. Hell, I only saw an elf who kept wanting to hold her sword to my throat." He looked down at his arms, "That's good. Thanks, I always forget to do this before I start, but I'm usually alone, so then I get blood on everything." He walked over to the carcass on the floor and asked Theyl to hold onto the claws or the wrists or something- anything but the head.

Theyl understood well enough and held on while Darji cleaned out the innards and left them in a pile on the floor. He asked Shey Lann to get the blue tarpaulins from the side of his other pack. When he had them, he sawed the body in two roughly, hacked off the head, and began to wrap the pieces in the tarps quickly. That done, he grabbed the rope that he kept for the purpose and then he hefted the smaller piece and asked who would carry it. Theyl nodded and in a minute, he stood bent forward a little under the weight as Darji took the other, larger half. He pointed to his two packs and the girls took one each to add to their load and then they were off, walking away as quickly as possible in the direction that Shey Lann took them in.

Theyl walked a little quicker so that he could be next to Darji for a moment, "Darji," he said, "Why fast? Work so fast. Why?"

Darji pointed back the way that they'd come, "Look. His brothers are already eating what we left behind. We need to be farther than they can think or they'll follow the trail to get more of him. Bryth, honey, watch our backs please and try to see if we're dripping blood at all. I want no drops, so if you see any, please tell me."

She nodded and kept a watchful eye on everything.

It was half an hour later when they came to the place that Shey Lann had spoken of. Darji found the colder water and he washed the meat carefully, re-wrapping one section. After that, they washed up a little before Darji began to prepare his 'magic food' again. All the way, he'd been wondering about Shey Lann's remark about this place being safe, but now he saw the reason for that. There was a huge stone door and there was no other way in or out. The door was a little hidden and it was counterbalanced so that it swung easily if one pushed it in just the right place. Once inside, it was a small matter to bar the mechanism so that the door was in effect, locked then.

"It seems we are home again," Bryth said to Theyl in their speech and he nodded, asking what the word would be in Darji's speech. Darji turned to look at them when she said, 'home' and then he saw Theyl looking at him as he repeated it once.

With the small fire heating the stew -- since that was all that Darji wanted to hazard trying to make out of the cave rat meat, they all migrated to the hot springs to get clean again. Darji was trying to get the last of the cave rat blood off him which was left from the butchering when he noticed Theyl next to him working on the same issue. They smiled at each other and kept at it.

"I do not know how to begin," Theyl said to Bryth quietly over his shoulder in the Faun language, "I am nervous that he might not have the want to be touched by me."

"Show him how you feel and that you seek his friendship," she replied, "I think it is a little clear that since we both like him, we may have found the ram that we have been searching for, and I have seen the way that he looks at us both."

"I have no wish to dampen your feelings," Shey Lann said from the other side of the springs in the same language, "but I wonder how an arrangement such as that would be seen back at the court. You and Theyl are allowed two mates each, but the supposition -- I would guess -- would be for the other to be a faun, not a human male."

"I have no thought of it,"Bryth said quietly as she washed herself, "Theyl and I were handed off in trade by our parents before we even knew how to speak. It might be the goal, but we have grown close for us and not them. I am ready to mate with my ram Theyl at any time and he knows how I feel about him. All that we wish for is a ram for us both.

We have whispered of it since we met this one. He is good in his heart, it is very clear to me that he cares for us - all of us, Shey Lann, you as well. He is fine to look at all the afternoon. All that remains is to find out if he has a want for us which lasts longer than a few pairings each, and he must show me that he can have feelings for Theyl as well. Whether it is as a close male friend or as a lover to Theyl is to be determined by them both. I just know that we like him very much and we have a hope that something is possible.

As far as what you spoke of, to me, you are the proof that it need not be only a faun. You are the ewe of two royal rams. I will take my own royal ram in Theyl. Why cannot my other ram be a fine and strong human? There is the life aspect, I grant, but with a little of my juice in him past his sweet-looking lips or with some of Theyl's seed in him anywhere, that is no longer a concern, is it?

I do not care a stuff about what the court thinks -- or the queen -- or the king for that matter. Out of duty or out of a need to force things to work for us, we all travel the road which was set out for us -- by two faun kings and not by us. I do not want to hear my father as he quibbles that I did not walk it in the way which he intended. My father can try to fuck his crown for all that I care."

"Well that is good," Shey Lann laughed in her way, "but we are not in the hall now and neither you nor I are in our season. Surely we have missed a High Day feast or three by now in our wanderings, and I am free to seek a good rutting, just as my rams are back at home." Her face fell a little then, "though I suppose that they are not my rams anymore by now."

Bryth noticed the change right away and grew concerned, "What has happened, Shey Lann? Tell me."

Shey Lann looked down and shrugged, "It is my own fault most likely and even of it is not, I accept the blame. I did not want to tell you of it because they are your brothers and I am afraid to cause hard feelings in you."

"You cause no such thing," Bryth said as she stepped over in concern, "only tell me what went amiss."

"Two things mostly, "the elf said sadly. "First, though they are very vigorous in how they love me, that seemed to be all that there is to them in a bed. Like most rams, they hurry it too much for my taste. Understand that I like that, but not always, Bryth. There are times when I want very lazy loving as long as it is meant. Perhaps my favorite thing is to be in bed when it rains. Even better is to wake either late at night or early in the morning to find that it pours outside. That is when I love a male who is slow and puts much into what he does for me. I tried several times when it rained, but your brothers never knew what I wanted -- even though I told them clearly each time. They jumped onto me as though it was the afternoon and we had little time for it, so it was over -- both of them spent -- before I was really awake.

The other thing is political. You know how I feel about the same old ways that your people have which keeps the poor under the heels of the rich. When I mention that it is unfair, the two fools can only see that it is what has kept them in wealth all of their lives and they will brook no argument for change or even try to see what I tell them -- that if things remain as they are, then one day, and I have no idea when that might be -- the people will change things for themselves, and woe betide the wealthy then, for it would be too late to change anything gently then. The change would come marked by many deaths. I understand those two, but they do not understand me and so we have parted over our differences."

She smiled over at Theyl and Bryth through the hot fog of the place then, wanting to change both the subject and the mood, "I propose that we use these circumstances to learn what we can of our companion, since we have the makings of a feast day in a sense. I will help in any way that I can so that you both learn what you seek to know about him. If there is any interest in me from him after that, I will try to take what pleasure that I can."