Chapter 7: Fawning over Fauns
Note: Allan sings a few songs from Earth in this chapter. If you want to listen to them for the full experience, the songs are marked with asterisks (*) and listed at the end of the chapter.
Floret was in trouble. Or she would be, in a few hours.
It was the morning of her wedding. For many girls, that would be a day of joy and celebration. For Floret, it was a day of sorrow and dread. She wondered how many women there were like her who not only didn't love, but outright feared their husbands.
But the wedding would go on. Floret's father was the tribal chieftain, and Floret's wedding would secure an alliance between their tribe of forest fauns and a clan of mountain satyrs. Their races were similar in a lot of ways, and old tales said that they were once one and the same, but they had since diverged.
Both races had upper bodies that resembled humans with goat horns and goat ears, and lower bodies resembling the hind ends of goats. Both races had a love of music and dancing. Both liked to have parties.
The biggest difference between the two races was their size. Satyrs stood as tall as humans, while Fauns were much shorter, more comparable to halflings in height. The horns of satyrs were huge and curled around their heads like those of a mountain goat, while those of the fauns were short and straight. Satyrs lived in the mountains, where they used their nimble hooves to scale cliff faces. Fauns preferred the forest and climbing trees. At their parties, Fauns liked to sing, play instruments, and dance by the light of the moon as a celebration of nature. The parties of satyrs featured loud music, large amounts of alcohol, and ended in orgies.
Like most women, Floret had sexual desires, but she wanted to make love with someone she loved and trusted, not whoever grabbed her in a drunken bacchanal.
But she wasn't sure she wanted to make love to her eventual husband, if he could even tell the difference between rutting and making love. Besides not loving him, she'd seen his penis. It was hard not to. Male satyrs tended to show theirs off at any opportunity. It was huge, like a horse's. She was fairly certain it would split her in half.
Plus, she'd seen the way his current wives flinched at his touch. The haunted looks in their eyes. The way they looked down and avoided his gaze. She didn't want to live like that. It would probably be worse for her, since she was half their size.
But everyone told her how lucky she was. He was chief of the Red Mountain satyr clan. He owned fruitful orchards that produced famous wines and ciders. She would be rich beyond imagining. He was also, even she had to admit, handsome, and known for leagues around for his skill on the lyre and the pipes. Floret might have thought she was marrying a prince out of a fairy tale.
If it weren't for the looks in his wives' eyes.
She had woken early and run off to the woods for a last few hours of freedom. She would have to return soon or there would be a fuss.
She perched on the edge of her favorite pond and looked at her reflection. Tan skin, amber eyes, and dark hair that fell in curly ringlets around her face. Short, black horns poked out of her hair. She wore a wrap across her small breasts. A cloth which hung from her belt preserved her modesty down below. The shaggy fur of her legs was colored golden-brown, and shone like bronze in the sun. Her fiancee bragged about how beautiful his next bride was. What a prize she was. He had written a song about how he lusted for her rump, which was large and shapely. She had felt proud of its size and shape, until he'd written that song. She wiggled the toes of her cloven hooves, which had been polished for the occasion. She was used to climbing trees with them. She wondered if they would chip on the mountain cliffs she was soon to climb.
She pulled out her reed pipes and began to play. A mournful tune that echoed across the pond. She had played without thinking, but realized she was playing a funeral dirge. She thought it was fitting. When she finished playing, she leaned her head back against the tree she was sitting by and sighed.
She loved this forest. She loved this tree. She loved this pond. She had always felt a connection to forests, to trees, to the green life there. If she weren't a chieftain's daughter, she would have wanted to be a druid, connecting to the magic of the forest. But soon, she would leave this forest forever. It tore her heart in two.
She wished she had a deity to pray to. If the fauns worshiped anything, it was nature, but there was no god of nature. If they worshiped anything else, it was music. But there was no god of music. There was a god of wine and revelry, but she suspected he was more fond of the satyrs.
There were many gods mentioned in the tales and songs Floret knew. Some were for specific races, like Tak for the goblins, and some were for occupations like Defiswa, God of War. There were even gods for elements, like Myatrad, God of Light. But no god for fauns, nature, or music.
But she had heard stories of a god who might hear her prayers. A goddess who watched over small folk. It was said she could find anyone's soul mate, if they opened up their soul to her. She could also save those who prayed to her for deliverance from their doom.
But there was a catch: those who prayed for rescue vanished, never to be seen nor heard from again.
Floret didn't necessarily need rescue. She wasn't so desperate that she wanted to be removed from this world. But she might find salvation if her soulmate showed up. She didn't know how she would recognize her soulmate if and when he showed up, but she was fairly certain it wasn't Cidba, Chief of the Red Mountain clan.
Floret had never said a prayer before. It seemed intimidating, speaking to a god. She put away her pipes and pulled out her lyre. Maybe some simple arpeggios would give her courage. With her soft background music lending her courage she prayed: "Shorsena, goddess of love for the small folk, I have never spoken to you before, so forgive my impertinence. If the small folk includes us fauns, please, hear my plea. I am soon to be wed to a man who will bring misery to my life. I need not transport from this world to escape him, but perhaps, if you would be gracious enough to send my soulmate today, I could be saved. I have not much to offer save my music, but I can write songs. I will write hymns in praise of you. I know I have no right to ask, and I show great indulgence praying for a miracle to happen in the next few hours, but still I ask. Amen."
She put her lyre back in her pack and hoisted it onto her back. Then she rose to her feet and set for home. She wasn't far from the road, but she did not walk on it, even though the ground of the forest was choked with thorns and briers. With a leap, she bounded into the air and landed on the lowest branch of the tree she had been leaning against. More leaps brought her into higher branches. She picked up her pace and leapt from branch to branch, tree to tree, her nimble hooves granting her grip and purchase on the rough bark of the ancient oaks of her forest home.
As she passed near the main road, she thought she heard voices, so she stopped to listen. To her surprise, the voices were singing! A man and two women, from the sound of it.
"As she onward sped, sure I shook my head and I looked with a feelin' rare. And I said, says I, to a passer-by, who's the maid with the nut-brown hair?"* sang the trio.
That man had an amazing voice! Floret felt a tingle in her loins. She needed to see him.
She moved closer to the road. Hooves were not made for moving silently, but she moved as stealthily as she could through the branches. Between the leaves, she caught a glimpse of the singers. It looked like one human and two folk of smaller stature. Children? They didn't sound like children. She risked moving closer and got a better view. The tall one was definitely a human male. He wore a floppy, wide-brimmed hat and colorful, flamboyant clothes that marked him as a bard. He was strumming a lute. No, a mandolin. The bare feet of the alto marked her as a halfling. She was playing a flat drum -- a bodhran if Floret was right. The soprano was harder to pin down. They were neither halfling, nor gnome, nor even human child, by the way that they walked. They were wearing a dress, so they were probably a woman. The way they bounced was almost... squishy? Floret finally caught a glimpse of her face mid-jump, and was so distracted she missed her next landing and crashed down through the tree, hitting, it seemed to her, every branch along the way. She landed on the side of the road, bruised, battered, and covered in scratches.
The halfling rushed to her side. She had a kind face with emerald-green eyes framed by brown hair. She was also exceptionally curvy, with huge breasts and wide hips. "Are you all right?" she asked, concerned.
Floret could only groan. She hoped nothing was broken.
"Oof, you're battered something fierce," said the halfling. "Allan, come play your music on her."
The human, presumably Allan, walked up behind her. He also had a kind face, Floret thought. He gave her a gentle smile and started to play a quick tune on his mandolin. Floret thought it sounded familiar, but couldn't place it at first. As the pain in her muscles and bones started to fade, she recognized it as a variation on a healing song. In only a few minutes, all her cuts and bruises were healed and she was able to rise steadily to her feet. She stared at her arms, which were free from scratches, in wonder. She had never heard of a song healing so quickly.
"Are you all right now, dear?" asked the halfling.
"I am, somehow," she said. She looked up at the human. "That was amazing! Thank you!"
He smiled, and Floret thought his face shone as brightly as the magic crystal on his necklace.
"You are very welcome," he said. "Allow me to introduce myself." He doffed his cap and swept a low bow. "My name is Allan, wandering bard. And allow me to introduce my wives, Homaera and Cherry." By his gestures, he indicated that the halfling was Holmaera and the other was Cherry.
Floret's mind swam in confusion from three places. First, she had been completely healed by music. Well, maybe he was just exceptionally healed. If he'd traveled far, he could have learned many things she hadn't.
Second, a human had married a halfling. Well, he was a bard, and bards were known to be eccentric. Plus, halflings were known for their musical abilities, almost as well as fauns and satyrs.
Finally, Floret had no idea what Allan's third wife was. "Cherry" was entirely blue, for a start, from her face to her arms to her legs which poked out from beneath her dress. She was also see-through. It was like looking at a woman made entirely of water.
"You... you are..." Floret started, but couldn't finish.
"I'm a slime woman!" she announced, as if she were saying which country she came from. True, she was the color of a common slime. But slimes didn't walk, talk, wear dresses, or sing soprano.
Floret was reminded of how little about the wider world she really knew. Maybe slime people were common in other countries? But surely at least one story about them would have reached her forest.
"You... have a lovely voice," she finished, not wanting to be rude.
The slime woman smiled broadly. "Thank you!" she said. "What's your name?"
