***It can be a little startling, certainly. Sometimes, when you're in just the right place for it, geographically as well as within yourself, someone can just, ... get to you. It can be a lot of trouble, usually, but then, some of the greatest loves begin that way too. 0_o
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Book of the Merren Part 7
Selena's jaw dropped as she looked around. It looked like a scene from far to the south. There were no geographical features like this anywhere near where they were and it was so warm and inviting. She didn't know for certain, but the air seemed to be even warmer here, though she felt cool little breezes on her face, as though there was just the barest sea breeze coming to her off the water.
She glanced up, "That's not the sun, is it?"
"No," the demon said, "it's nothing more than an approximation, just as the rest is only an approximation of a place on another world. The color of the light is a little different, and tends to be just a little more red, though it is hard to see. It looks like many places in the warmer parts of this world that I have seen."
"I feel as though I'm standing in the sunshine on a warm summer day," the rogue said, wiping the first beads of sweat from her forehead. At least her body had appeared to have decided about that, she thought.
"Well I suppose that in many respects, you are," Ny'Zeille smiled, "Tell me, are you going to stand there like that all day? You look a little out of place standing there like that."
"I don't have anything lighter to wear," Selena shrugged, "I came here dressed to travel through winter."
"Well, if your shame of your body bothers you that much, then remove everything but your undergarments," her friend suggested in a helpful tone, "You'll drown if you try to swim like that. It's not very deep here, but you'll be lugging around your wet clothing if you go in like that."
She smirked, "Really, Selena, if you were alone and had no one hunting you for something which you'd just stolen from them and you found yourself here on this beach, what would you do if you wanted to swim? Would you get all of your clothes -- and weapons and whatever artifacts and charms that you might be carrying soaked? I don't think that you would. And I don't think that you'd just sit in the sunshine and sweat, either, at least not for long, anyway. You're too bright for that."
"Well if I knew that I was alone and there was no one to see me, I'd take my clothes off and go for a swim, "Selena said a little nervously.
"And who is here now," the demon said with the barest hint of sarcasm, "someone who might lust after you or wish you harm? All that I see is a woman and her small granddaughter. We are all who are here, three girls who would be dressed in nothing if this were any of a thousand fishing villages on this world and we were washing clothes if we were human and if there were no males nearby. In many of those places, their men are forbidden to be there then -- if they want to have clean clothes to wear and do not want to have to do their own laundry."
She turned back to her granddaughter and they walked into the small waves, leaving the rogue to stand and sweat by herself.
She hadn't been completely truthful; there was another here, a young male Xer who sat on the rocks a way off, drying off in the light. But he'd hidden himself and sat there invisible. Ny'Zeille knew that he'd be leaving soon anyway. He came here every day at this time, wanting to feel a little as though he were back on his home world, instead of here on this lump where he'd been dragged by his uncle Arrax.
Xhan looked over, watching with the barest interest as the strangely-dressed female began to disrobe a little self-consciously. He'd wondered why they wore all of the encumbering fabric when he'd seen her earlier, but from the little that he'd learned of her, ones like this always seemed to need pockets to carry all of the trash that they wished to carry along wherever they went.
But two things came to mind for him in a few seconds. He did like her body somehow, as strange as it was to him, and the female was armed six ways from tomorrow. His eyes widened a little as he watched. She must have been carrying six blades, not counting the one that he saw strapped to her thigh under everything. What was all of that for, he wondered?
He'd ask Arrax about it later. For now, despite what the Esteemed One had said, they were not alone and he was intruding. He slipped off of the rock and stood on his long legs as he stretched languidly and ran the fingers of one hand through his mane for a moment as he yawned silently. He looked again and saw that she was bent a little to step out of her garments.
Xhan's gaze settled on her backside and he smiled, finding something about this one to like after all, even though she had no tail. He wondered how her kind knew how felt about each other without tails to tell by. Remaining invisible, he changed forms and padded away, just as Selena stood up and turned around, wondering why she'd felt as though someone had been watching her.
Ny'Zeille marked it. If the young Xerian hadn't made a move to go, she'd have been more pointed about it in her words, while still choosing them in such a way so that her friend would likely not catch on. She liked Xhan a great deal and she was aware that he wasn't happy here. He'd excelled at his studies and was more than ready for his first off-world assignment. The trouble had been a female, she smirked to herself, as it so often was. Xhan's eye had been caught by a sweet-looking little bitch back on Xer. Ny'Zeille had seen her and had to give her points for her efforts at landing a male from a prestigious family like Xhan's.
Arrax had also seen her, however, and there was no way that he'd allow the same thing to happen to the nephew that he loved so dearly as what had happened to him. True, they'd made the best of it, he and his first bitch, but it had been a rare thing, the way that his female had managed to charm his family into accepting her. He knew that it wouldn't happen twice, even though he knew exactly how the young lovers felt. He wasn't the only one who needed charming, after all, and the bitch that Xhan was so lustful for didn't have a tenth of the natural charm and grace which would be required to even get her paw into the door.
Besides, the young male had chosen to follow in his uncle's footsteps, and a life in that service carried more than enough hazards on the worlds of far-flung planes. Death could come in an instant from any of countless directions for ten thousand reasons which a newcomer wouldn't be cognizant of.
Ny'Zeille frowned. That's what had happened to her male's first bitch -- the one who'd been the right species for him. Death had come to her and their whelps in an instant while he'd been off to meet a dignitary. She loved the Xer that she'd taken as her male -- just as he loved her, but she'd known him before the tragedy as a friend and colleague. She'd met his female and played with their little ones.
He'd never been the same afterward.
