Sorry again, everyone, for the long delay. Hubby changed jobs recently and has a much longer commute. We were planning on 10 chapters in total, but that has since expanded to 11, and those final chapters are already reasonably well along! For those of you who've been following our little band of travelers since the beginning, you'll know that the POV jumps around a bit, but never to Leotie the huntress! That changes today, and let us tell you, she was a blast to write as a POV for their continuing adventures!
As always, keep the comments coming! It helps us get better and tell the most compelling story we can!
Hmm...gods dammit...I have no idea if I'm even writing this correctly. Most of the time, all of Serina and Kiravi's little scribblings just look like wriggling gibberish on a page. I still can't believe Serina managed to get me to sit down long enough to learn my letters, or that I stayed patient long enough for at least some of it to stick. Kiravi has been scribbling his nonsense in that magic book of his for ages -- Serina too, apparently -- and only recently did she tell me what it was. I suppose that's probably why I forced myself to learn the Ymdroki script.
What is it that those two call you? Dear readers? Well, dear readers, I learned my letters because I wanted to make sure they didn't portray me like some tribal oaf, and that everything I saw and felt during our travels had just the same weight as theirs. They've done, um, well it seems they've done pretty well so far, from what I've read.
So, well, with that said, here's the first bit Serina helped me sneak into Kiravi's wildly rambling notes.
I blinked awake around dawn to the sound of the last drizzling scraps of the storm. My whole body ached, especially my womanhood, but that only made me smile weakly at the soot-blackened roof of the cave. In those groggy, half-awake moments, I wasn't even sure that the night before hadn't just been a feverish and trembling dream.
Kiravi snored, loudly, as he usually did, his scarred and muscular chest rising and falling in its slow rhythm. They haven't told you that he snores like a rumbling thunderhead? Probably not, since Serina was snoring too, a dainty little squeak at the end of each outward breath. His arm was draped around me, solid and thick, protecting me even though I didn't need it. That was what drew me to him all those weeks before, despite his clumsy attempts to survive in the wild and his over-cultured speech and mannerisms. He was raw power, both physical and magical, and I wanted and needed to shelter within that power. None of the hunters or shaman from my band had had that brash, easy strength, but he did.
I eased from under his limb, feeling the pink, puckered skin where the knife had torn into his muscle. Beyond the scar, it seemed as though the elixir had made the limb as whole as possible. A cold and damp breeze blustered past the cave mouth, and I shuddered as I sat up. My naked skin rippled with goosebumps, and, for once, I wished Kiravi wasn't so violently eager when he stripped me; I had no idea where any of my clothes were.
It didn't matter, I decided, and I wriggled out from under the mess of the bedding to rise to my knees. I poked at the few remaining embers and added fresh tinder from the pile I'd set aside. The wood and dry needles caught, blackening and curling under the flame, and I heaped a few more broken sticks onto the blaze. Heat washed over me, or my front anyway, but I embraced the cold and damp air. It was helping to clear the last of the sleep from my mind.
Happy?
It wasn't a spoken word, just an impulse that curled its way around my thoughts and wriggled into my conduit. I looked to where Niknik had just unfurled himself from sleep, stretching powerful limbs. His amber eyes looked right into mine, waiting for my response.
"Yes, I'm happy," I whispered, not trying to wake Kiravi. Niknik would hear me even if I didn't even utter the words.
Good. Niknik happy too.
I beckoned for him with my hand and my mind, and my companion padded over. He purred, pushing his big head into my scratching fingers. I found more pemmican, and he eagerly snatched it up, his tongue rasping on my palm.
Serina and Kiravi knew Niknik was bonded to me through the power I pulled from the Kwarzi, but they couldn't know that bond's depths. Niknik held one of the Kwarzi within him, made more tangible than the land-spirits by flesh and blood. Our bond was as old as my womanhood and would only end with one of our deaths.
I glanced over my shoulder at my snoring companions and couldn't help but smile to myself girlishly, "We have a band again, Niknik." My face grew warm, my eyes hot and wet, "We have a home."
Home. Niknik home, too. Big Man and Magic Girl, home too?
I chuckled at the names Niknik used for Kiravi and Serina, "I think so. Big Man, yes," I frowned slightly, "Magic Girl, Serina...I don't know."
Big Man, Magic Girl, mate?
My cheeks burned, not from gazing on Kiravi's golden-bronze chest, but at Serina's naked back and slowly moving ribs. "I don't know."
Niknik chuffed at me, grumbling.
Your mates. Your home.
"Oh, stop it," I huffed and shoved his head away. My skin was flushed with embarrassment, and the cold wind suddenly made me realize I was filthy and sticky from the night before. The cold pool called to me, its surface gently rippling in the wind and dark in the faint dawn glow.
I couldn't help but gasp as I slipped into the cold water, my muscles clenching and my entire body immediately wracked with shivers. It parted before me, embracing me in its frigid totality. I gently scrubbed the sweat and dust, Serina's nectar, and Kiravi's seed that Serina and I had missed, all of it from my lean body. My fingers teased open my tight braids, massaging water into my hair and pulling out the worst clumps of grease and dirt. Then, with the help of a short stick, I brushed out the tangles of my slightly curled hair, making sure the cold water reached every strand.
The fire flickered brightly by the time I finally emerged, soaked and shivering, from the pool. The almost painful cold sharpened my other senses, filling my mind with sensation while something else filled my conduit. Yellow-bellied Junco birds chirped among the striking green trees. Tangy, sharp scents of high desert plants filled my nose. Smooth sandstone pulsed beneath my feet.
I added more wood to the fire and sat, cross-legged, in front of it. Fresh heat and damp frigidity clashed across my skin. My long, sodden hair draped across my shoulders and over the swell of my breasts, the weight comforting. Then, closing my eyes, I focused inward on my daily communion with the Kwarzi.
Serina had already helped me in the days before, and I knew the whispered names of the Kwarzi that made their invisible homes in those jagged hills. Water-Striking-Stone, Green-Leaves-Against-Sky, Roots-of-the-Hills, Shimmering-Red-Heat, Bones-in-Water, and a thousand more. I could feel Niknik's bright presence nearby as well. A few of them sniffed around me, their power tickling along the shallows of the magic in my conduit.
"Good morning, Grandmothers and Grandfathers," I spoke in my mind, "I honor you with my heart and my power."
More spirits, tiny scraps of mortal souls tied to this land, swirled towards me, both hungrier and more energetic than I could ever remember them being. I felt Bones-in-Water hovering close to me at the forefront of the flock, dipping its power into my conduit. Our minds brushed against each other, and I felt a rush of old emotion. Ancient pain, confusion, regret, but new release and closure. Like always, I tried to press, to understand the confusing scraps of emotion, but they were simply too alien, too different.
"You are remembered. You are honored. I give you my notice in exchange for your power," I focused more deeply, opening my mind and my conduit to the Kwarzi. Invisible to everyone -- except, perhaps, Serina -- tiny motes of my magic bled out of my conduit. The dozens of gathered Kwarzi flocked around me, sating their eternal hunger with my offering. My conduit would refill the lost power long before noontide, but the Kwarzi had lost their easy connection to the Eldritch River when their first lives ended. The spirits pressed closer for a moment, a brief surge of euphoric heat filling me, and Bones-in-Water embraced my conduit one more time before disappearing from my mind.
Small fingers brushed my knee, gentle as a whisper, and my eyes snapped open. Serina's softly glowing eyes stared back at me, her cheeks dimpled with her warm smile. Behind her, Kiravi was, of course, still snoring.
"You should've woken me," she whispered, but there was no hurt in her voice, "I love helping you."
"They remembered me from yesterday," I responded, "I didn't want to disturb you."
She giggled, and my heart fluttered for half a moment. It made me feel like a love-struck little girl, and I hated it. "I doubt that you could disturb me, lover," her words and the earnest adoration behind them left me wrong-footed, and I half-mumbled something. Her hand brushed through my wet hair, fingers teasing it off of my shoulders, "I don't think I've ever seen your hair down. It's beautiful, and there's so much of it."
I regained my voice, trying to ignore the light, soaring feeling in my chest, "My tribe never cut our hair, to honor the gifts the land and the Kwarzi give us."
"So beautiful," she murmured, looking not just at my hair but also at the rest of my body that she'd explored the night before. "I love the color, the way it waves. You're so unique."
Heat flushed through my chest and cheeks, and I knew my skin was turning even darker red. But, gods dammit, why was I feeling like this? The night before, we'd...well, I don't know exactly what we'd done, or how we arrived there, or what it all meant. I certainly had no idea how I felt about it.
