The Earth had changed, the old nations had fallen into eclipse. There were less than one billion people on the planet almost all of whom lived in the northern hemisphere. By the 2600s there was no permanent ice anywhere in the world except on the highest mountain tops.
The witch and her apprentice traveled the roads that rimmed the Sea Of Darkness. It had once been known as the Polar Sea or the Arctic Ocean, although it had been always iced over, but that was before the New Age. The ways of the people of the old world changed it and now it is open water. On this sea it is night for half of the year and day for the other half which is how it came to be known as the Sea of Darkness.
With the changes in the world had come changes in how the world was understood and dealt with. The branches of learning known as Science and Medicine had drifted into obscurity. The place of science, the way that the universe is knowable had been replaced by the Magistra Ritus. Male dominated, very formal and rigorous. Medicine, now called simply "wellness", was now in the hands of the Guild of Balance. Female dominated, flexible, personal. The witches of the guild preserved the wellness of the people creatively and humanly.
The witch was Rhone. She was mature, but very fit and well with long chestnut brown hair, pale skin and sea blue eyes. Her figure was womanly with broad hips and a generous bosom but by great care she had maintained a narrow waist and an almost flat stomach. Most people cosidered her to be quite beautiful. Rhone was very well known around the coast of the Sea of Darkness not only for her beauty though, but also for her extraordinary grasp of people's needs.
Rhone's apprentice was Aine. Young, buxom with a head of wild, curly red/blonde hair. One could be forgiven if they were to take her to be merely a vivacious young hoyden, but she was far more. Rhone had chosen her because she had taken the best accademy scores of her year. Few women her age understood the human condition as well as her.
Their huge wagon, a house on wheels, was drawn by Venko, a mammoth. One of the last acts of the science of the old nations was the resurection of these mighty beasts from extinction just at the time that the last remnants of their original habitat ceased to exist. It was apparently done simply because it was possible without consideration if it was advisable. Nonetheless, they had become valuable sources of power as the world's fuel supply dwindled away. It was dark in January, a brisk twelve degrees outside, but not really requiring a jacket and so Rhone stood almost nude only in sandals and a short kilt upon the roof of the wagon enjoying the breeze on her exposed skin raising goose bumps on her skin and erecting her nipples. A pair of hands reached from behind her and grasped her breasts.
Aine said, "Mistress, you should come inside and let me warm you." She rolled one of Rhone's nipples betwen her thumb and finger for emphasis.
She placed her hands upon Aine's. "I suppose so. The breeze feels so lovely though!" Indeed in the summer it could become hot enough to fry an egg on an exposed rock. These cool temperatures were heavenly by comparison. It rarely got much colder than this on the arctic coast.
"My kisses shall feel even more lovely, Mistress."
They had stopped outside of the fishing village of Lamertine in the land of Yukon where they had come to serve, but they would rest before they entered the village. Rhone and Aine filled a tub and bathed one another. Aine carefully toweled off her mistress, brushed out her hair and then braided it into a silky rope that fell to her mid back. She merely pulled back her own wild mane with a leather thong.
Rhone ran her hands over Aine's porcelain skin, lingering on her plump young breasts. She lightly tongued one of her nipples and the girl let out a sigh of pleasure. Their lips met, their tongue tips danced together. Their bodies met skin to skin. There is no greater bond than that between mistress and apprentice. During her five year apprenticeship, Aine would be of one flesh with Rhone, her student, her servant, her daughter, her sister, her lover. Attuned to her on every level.
Rhone embraced Aine with her legs as the girl lovingly and first gently, then roughly applied her tongue to her mistress's vulva, now just tickling at her center of pleasure, then thrusting her tongue deeply into her vagina. Aine's own pudenda ran copiously with fluids of passion as she pushed her beloved mistress toward release. Before too long, Rhone let out a deep moan as she pulled the girl's mouth to an even deeper kiss of her quim. Outside, Venko responded with a trumpeting that likely woke the village. He too was attuned to his mistress.
It was nine hours later that the wagon rolled into the village square.
The local healer greeted Rhone and Aine warmly. Her name was Gabrielle. She and Rhone had attended academy together, but she had not become a high witch like Rhone. This was the village where she had been born and she came back to serve as the healer to the people she had known and loved all her life. She was not a striking beauty like Rhone. She was short and plump with a broad friendly face and a smile that would thaw the coldest heart.
The last time they had met, Gabrielle had no apprentice, but now she did, a male one at that! Men in the healing arts were not unheard of, but they were a rarity. For Gabrielle to have taken him on, he must have been quite talented. He was the son of a fisherman from another village and was named Alexi. A tall handsome lad twenty-two years old, blonde and blue-eyed and well muscled from serving on fishing boats on his formative years.
Rhone needed to make the formal preparations for her duties as a witch to this village. Of course she was not what people of the past would have thought of as a witch. To some that word would have conjured the image of an evil old woman who used magic spells to harm the innocent, who flew about on a broomstick and ate children. To the somewhat more enlightened the image might be that of a practitioner of a pagan religion who danced skyclad in the moonlight. neither would be close to the truth. Rhone was a doctor, an herbalist, sometimes a surgeon, often a healer of broken souls. It was her job to know a person's needs. To do this sometimes she was a high priestess, sometimes a warrior, sometimes a whore, and all of these are honorable things by the lights of her society.
She had sent Aine to go visit with the young men and women of the village to treat them for lice and rashes if need be, but there was little doubt that Gabrielle had those mundanities well under control, but she was also there to educate them in the ways of love. In this dark world, learning to take the greatest pleasure in one another staves off dark moods. If she can teach a girl a finer grip with her purse, a young man a better twist with his rod or either a more clever flick of the tongue, the world becomes a happier place. Rhone knew that she would return from this assignment tired, but pleased with her efforts.
The job of preparing Rhone fell to Alexi. She must be perfumed, anointed and dressed for her assignment. Gabrielle was concerned at his ability to meet all the steps of the ceremony on his own and wanted to stay to help, but Rhone insisted that it had to be just the two of them, that he would be inhibited by the presence of his mistress.
It is a job that is normally done by a girl, but Rhone was not bothered at all. For Alexi it was a bit different he realized has he was sponging Rhone's nude body in the bath. His clothing was becoming soaked as he did so.
"You really should be nude when you are doing this." Said Rhone.
"It would be uncomfortable, Lady Rhone."
"Really, more uncomfortable that wearing wet clothes?"
"But Lady..."
"You think you are to become a healer and you are squeamish about the human body?"
"Lady Rhone..."
