*** A little of what's happening in both places now, at sea and on land.

Something to note here; The creatures back at the keep are not human and they have a rather involved societal structure.

I'm aware that there are readers who might not especially like the way that these things all have a varying degree of capability to go in both directions which depends on the individual - and it's even built into their society, though not overtly.

Just be aware that it's there and know that I didn't write this to make the reader who doesn't like that sort of thing grumble. I've purposely glossed over things a bit for that reason. It's just the story and how it goes, that's all.

So read the tags and decide. I'm not out to shock the gentle-hearted. That's why there isn't much fine detail. If readers wanted that, I know they'd just go to that genre on Lit, and be happier.

No matter how they play, I'd prefer that you fall at least a little in love with a few of the characters.

0_o

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Margit looked up from her inspection of the hoof that she held between her knees. This particular mare had been a handful for a long time to the Kurtadam riders, never showing much of anything other than her will to them, and her will and what it caused her to do, was never what was wanted. She was fairly docile and even bordered on being good-natured a lot of the time, but once a rider was on her, ...

She'd been brought to Margit's attention as a bit of a problem child.

She'd listened as the problem had been explained to her and then she'd asked to have the animal led around one of the pens. There hadn't even been one circumnavigation made before Margit was calling the walker to bring her in. It had been subtle, and the animal sought to hide it, but Margit went straight to that one hoof and began to work on the problem of removing the tiny stone which had lodged itself and been missed during the regular once-overs done by the horse handlers.

That little thing had since become embedded deeply and almost grown over.

She noticed the presence of another and smiled when she recognized Tirga, who offered a hot drink of hot mulled wine, so she ambled over to wash her hands.

"You are ever a wonder to us, my friend," the Kurtadam smiled, "Many have looked in just that one place and they saw nothing."

"Well that 'nothing' just happened to be in the perfect place to remain lodged and also cause her enough pain to favor it, but only slightly.

Horses can often be beyond stupid, but there are some who are quite bright and that girl there knows enough to do what she can to hide her trouble most times. With a rider on her back, it gets too much for her to work though."

"I have another matter to speak with you about today," Tirga said and then she smiled, remembering something.

"You and Gunnar do much for us all. It came to me that, though you both can work many wonders to our eyes, there is one thing which you cannot do -- not that any of us can either," she chuckled.

"You do not have enough hands for all of the things which you attend to in your day. You might see it as nothing more than being busy.

I have many things such as that as well. But I have help if I only raise my hand.

As well, I have some things which need answers which I cannot give. But I have an idea and seek to ask your help as well as Gunnar's, if you can provide it. I think that if this can work, you both would have help which you need, I might have a little less on my list, and both of us mothers might smile from it."

Margit was intrigued now, not really having any idea of what Tirga had in mind. She nodded anyway, wishing to help her friend in any way that she could.

Tirga sipped her drink and sought for the best way to begin.

"As with any other people, I would guess," she said, "we are not all the same. Some are more fortunate than others, some are wiser, some are stronger, and so on. It is the same with us as it is with you.

I try when I can, with Petra's aid to look after the poorer ones among us.

During the time of the confinement, I could do little other than watch and try to help where I could. There was a young female who had been orphaned. We were at the time, completely dependent on our human captors for food, and I can also admit to my mild shame that there are those among us who can be greedy.

This female was smaller, of a type which never seems to grow beyond a point. It placed her at a disadvantage and she could never get enough food to eat and was always hungry. She was also very timid. But starvation is a powerful force which can drive anyone to do things which they would not do, normally.

I was kept in a different cage and could do nothing more than shout, and so I had to watch as the poor one came at last to the desperate point of offering her body to another for a little bit to eat.

She became pregnant from it of course. Hunger always returns, though the effect of what we do can last beyond us. She gave birth and then she had more troubles."

Tirga looked over a little sadly, "She perished a few years later not long before we won our freedom, but I have never forgotten what I had to watch. That cage was the last which we forced open, more than a year after the first, for the locks and the bars were strong and the worthless monks gave us no keys.

Among the very first things which I did was to have the male killed, since he was beyond useless. There were others in there with them, who shared a little of what they'd been given, but not that one.

Since that time, I have cared for two young girls who are not mine. They are not royal and receive little aside from basic care as I can give it. It is not what I would have wanted, but I am so busy.

But they are now of an age where they need to be kept busy themselves, for I will be damned if I will allow what I had to see replicate itself and reproduce that way -- for it will, unless I do something.

Can you see a way that you might use them, you and your fine male? I would suggest setting them to work for you in any way that you see fit to help you and even to serve you as you need. Make them a part of your household and, if you can, try to show them that you care if you can do it. I will have more food brought to make good on what they eat.

They were so young when their mother died of malnutrition. She wasted away, giving them most of what little food she could get to give to them. For most of their lives, they have not had anyone like the mother who whelped them."

Margit couldn't see that she and Gunnar needed any help in the form of servants or assistants, but she did understand her friend's request very well. As the daughter of a Khan, she'd seen people who lived in abject poverty in her time.

"I can try," she smiled a little uncertainly, "I have a thought that what I miss as a mother are my children when they were old enough to need little care from me, but we spent much time together working our farm. What are they like?"

"They are the same age as my son," Tirga smiled in a bit of relief.

"They are well-mannered, but like their mother, they tend to be shy and it makes then very quiet. One of my regrets is that I have not had much of any time to give them what they need so much of so that they might gain their confidence more. They are smaller and they hide their age somehow just as their mother did.

They tend to be considered, ... a little backward because they say little, but if you take a little time and watch to see it, you will see that they are both very bright and thoughtful."

She looked at Margit for a moment, "Do you remember when we were young, and there were those times when girls, ... are curious about each other and, ..."

Margit grinned, though she had to look down to manage it, "I remember, Tirga. It was just the two of us being curious, as you say, though I looked forward to visiting with your people because of you for it. Just a naughty thing when a young one tries to learn a bit."

She laughed a little, "Such a pair of fumbling, curious girls we were, not that it was more than that at our ages, we were so young. I have not thought of it for long years, but it was nice. Why do you mention it, though I thank you for the memory?"

"Kurtadam whelps born in the same whelping are a kind of twins to the human way of thinking, though we do not consider it such," Tirga said.

"These two are actual ones and look so very nearly alike in everything. I mention our young and curious play in order to say that it has gone between them since they were that age in the way that our whelps care for each other, especially since they are all that they have together. Not wanting to see one or both of them follow in the steps of their poor mother, I have forbidden anything else for them until they have found their place properly among us. That time comes to an end now and I am a little sad that I could not bring them out of themselves more."

She looked over hopefully, "For that to happen, where they take their places as adults, I now pray that I have you to do what I could not for them."

She looked off and, seeing the ones that she'd brought waiting, and looking beyond uncomfortable, she smiled a little and waved them over.

The pair looked very reluctant and painfully shy, but after a moment, they took each other's hand for a little uncertain courage and began to approach. They were as Tirga had said, completely alike if one didn't know them, both a little mouse-colored in their body fur, but having much lighter, wheat-toned hair.

Margit stared for a moment and then she grinned, "So there are TWO of the one which I always saw watching me as I worked, but staying far enough away so that I would feel foolish to ask if there was a problem."

The pair almost stopped then and seemed to appear a little sad, thinking that they were about to be laughed at. Margit shook her head and beckoned to them herself.

"I laugh because I see now that there is more than one of the shy ghost who watched me so often, that is all. I am Margit, an old friend of Tirga's."

She held up her hand to her friend, already knowing that she was about to hear their names from her.

"Tell me your names by yourselves," she smiled down a little at them, "so that we can have proper introductions."

The two looked almost frightened then. They seemed to have slightly large eyes anyway, but at Margit's remark, their eyes grew even more. Margit tried to bear what Tirga had said of them in mind -- that they were a kind who never seemed to grow fully, and even still, it amazed her a little.

Here were two young Kurtadams, eighteen years old and looking more like twelve year-olds and under-developed at that. She didn't care at all; she just found it striking somehow.

"I -- I am Nala, lady" one of them said, "and this is --"

Margit's palm flashed upward once more," No -- no," she smiled, "I need to hear it as each one speaks for herself. "Who are you, young friend?"

The second one looked for just a moment as though she would have given pretty much anything for only a chance to hide herself under the hay strewn on the floor of the paddock.

"Bremma, I am called, lady. Are - are we to stay with you now?"

Margi nodded, truly wanting to laugh now, though she didn't dare to out of fear that they'd misinterpret it.

"Yes," she smiled, "though if you think that you can forget just one little bit of the manners which Tirga must have taught you, I would like it if you could just not always remind me that I am a lady. I am a simple human woman, and I am happy to meet you both."

Tirga prepared to take her leave, "I leave you to Margit's care, then. Serve her well, for she is an old friend of mine and I find her nearness to me these days as a gift."

"Wait!" her friend said suddenly, "How is this to go? I do not really have uses for servants or -- helpers such as these yet. How am I -- how are we to think of them, Gunnar and I?"

"In any way that you think you might need to draw them out of themselves, Margit. They are a little like a pair of girls who could come to you to be as adopted, or perhaps you might feel more comfortable if they were as only servants to you. Try to give them a look at your family life and then you might all manage something from there."

She put her hands on their thin shoulders and bent to kiss each one for a moment, "They need a family life for the feeling of safety and confidence to grow out of, and they need a little work in some tasks to keep them a little busy -- or a lot - if you have the need. I know that you would treat them well, so that is not even a thought to me. Try to make them a part of what you do every day and that is the best place to start. I could not do that for them.

What would I do? Have them work in the keep's kitchens? It would give them the work and nothing else.

But do not let them stand idle, for then they only draw together and fall into what I seek to draw them out of."

The twins said goodbye, looking afraid and clearly struggling to keep themselves - and each other - from bursting into tears as they hugged Tirga tightly for a moment, and by her face, she was clearly a little surprised. But after they'd watched her walk off, they turned and looked at Margit with the same huge eyes, waiting to see how this would go.

"Oh come," she smiled, "I want none of this anguished hand-wringing that I have been watching until now and there will be none of the nervous hand-holding between you now. Hold MY hands and we will go to find a midday meal together."

She nodded to each one, "THAT is where we will begin this."

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Come on then," Margit smiled as they walked into the kitchens, "Let us go and see what our feast for this day will be." She had to tug at their hands a little to get them into the line with her.

She made them go together with her and one of the cooks greeted her. "Here with a little company today, lady Margit?" she smiled.

Margit nodded, "My two new young friends -- or perhaps I stand with my new daughters, I do not know at all yet. Tirga brought them to me and asked me to take them for a time. But I grow quite smitten with them and I need no servants, really. I am thinking of trying to teach them what I can, and to do that well, since they have no family, I think of just making things simple and treating them as I would my own almost grown children."

"Oh, I know this pretty pair," the cook smiled, "If they are not sent here to bring food for anyone else, they only stand a moment and then leave. Such shy ones, they are, and so lovely too."

She leaned forward a little to look at the girls, "Now, you are finally here for yourselves. For once, give an old girl like me a little pleasure and tell me what it is that you would want to eat.

If you are like this for every meal that you do eat, it is little wonder that you are not bigger. It may be some notion that you hold in yourselves, but we do not all wait to take your pretty heads off if you only ask for something to eat."

The pair looked as though they almost wanted to hang onto each other, but Margit wouldn't allow it at all. "No, you are a part of my house now, and here, you need to say things sometimes, so out with it, girls."

It took a bit, and the next ones in line looked at them a little harshly until the cook waved her wooden ladle a little threateningly at them to hold their tongues, but she heard their almost silently spoken wishes and heaped their platters high for them with a laugh.

"Remember my rule -- take all that you want, but eat all that you take."

She chuckled at Margit, "Do not expect these two to move much after this. I'll fill their bellies, lady, you may trust in me."

Margit laughed and nodded as she led them away to a table.

She spent more time watching the pair eat than she did eating her own meal.

"When you are near here at the midday," she said, "I want you to look for that cook if you can. You do not see it, but there are people who would like to help you and not look at you sideways. Now where is Gunnar?"

The two girls looked almost terrified then and she asked over it.

"We have watched the man as well," Bremma said, "The Lady Tirga has been trying to push us to you both for a time. That is why we watched as we could. We are afraid of him, Margit."

Margit had to hold onto the table to keep from collapsing in her laughter for a little time.

"Then it is clear to me that you have never found the courage to actually speak with him. Look, here he comes now."

Gunnar had been trying to see what was being offered by peeking through the line a little unobtrusively. Considering that he stood almost seven feet tall, it usually didn't work out all that well for him most times when there were others waiting ahead of him.

He looked around briefly for Margit and then he saw her and walked over. The two girls looked as though they were considering a quick bolt for the door. Margit held them fast and then they realized that the seating arrangement would have Gunnar sitting across from his wife and between the two sisters. They almost groaned.

"Ah, and here you are, Margit, sitting with the two young watchers this day?"

"The two young watchers, Gunnar? What do you mean?" Margit asked.

"I have marked them from time to time when I work and even when I used to practice out in the courtyard."

He smiled a little from one to the other for a moment, "They always try to stay out of my view - which does not work - and they always come alone, one or the other but not both together."

"So you knew that they were twins then?" his wife asked in a surprised tone.

Gunnar nodded, "Well of course, Margit. They are as different as night and day to my eyes by their motions and demeanor. This one," he gestured with his thumb, "is only painfully shy and this one is even more so by about half."

He leaned forward looking curious then, "You mean to say that you hadn't noticed this?"

Margit threatened him with her piece of bread crust and even the shy pair smiled a little.

"So, I am Gunnar," he said, "please tell me your names and then we can step to the important things. I need to know what is good to eat today."

They introduced themselves only a little louder than it had gone in the food line, but it was a little quieter where they sat and Gunnar caught their names after only asking that they repeat themselves twice.

"I think that they might be our new daughters, Gunnar. Tirga asked us to help them to learn."

Gunnar shook his head. "And what was wrong with the old way that we made children, Margit? I like that way a little better, I think, since something was needed from me in it."

He sighed a little dramatically, "Well if we have two more, as you say, then I must step forward and resume my fatherly duties once again. A lot of that involves solving their troubles, and here I see that they already have problems with their meals."

He looked back and forth at them and Nala shrugged, "The cook gave us all of this, but she said that we must eat it all and we cannot. One of these platters would be more than enough for us both."

"Ha!" Gunnar exclaimed quietly, "Why it is simple, my new daughters. Both eat from one, and give the other one over to me."

They nodded eagerly and Gunnar had his meal before him then. He got up and fetched an empty platter so that the two could split what remained and they did it very nervously.

"Alright," he smiled, "now please tell me how it is that I have another two daughters of a sudden."

They looked at him as Margit told of it all, and they found that they weren't quite as afraid of him anymore. But it was still like pulling teeth to get much out of them.

"Look girls," he said a little seriously, "You make me a little nervous here. I think that if I were to sneeze, you might fall dead of fright. If you are to be part of our house, then this cannot be.
What are you both so afraid of?"

They made no answer and Gunnar stopped eating and placing his elbow on the table; he held his head up with his chin and looked at them expectantly.

Finally, it was Nala who found her tongue first -- as was usual between them, they came to learn.

"We feel lost," she said before she looked down, "and -- and we have felt this all of our lives." She looked over at her sister, who nodded and then SHE looked down as Nala continued.

"We do not know how to do much of anything and -- well, Tirga told us that all Kurtadams must do something as they live their lives so that all of the people may gain from it -- like the cooks over there."

"So you mean as an occupation? As a job?" Margit asked and they both nodded.

"Well that is why you were given over to me," Margit smiled, "I will teach you as we go in many things, and if you can somehow find the courage to look my husband in the eye, I am sure that he will teach you as well. He will not harm you."

The pair looked as though her words caused them to be even more fearful, if it were possible.

"I cannot understand this," Margit said, "You have only just met him. Why do you look as though you fear for your lives?"

There was more painful squirming from the pair, but neither of the humans were about to let the matter rest. Finally, Nala did her best.

"We heard Tirga say to you that we are to be servants to you if you wish and -- "

Margit shook her head, "I would have preferred it if she had said only 'helpers', if the other word is all that is needed to turn you both into quivering rags.

We will have to see how it might be done, girls. But the way that I think to do it, at least to begin, is that we take you into our home as, ... well new-found and distant relations of a sort. I think that it might go even easier for Gunnar and I if we think of you as another pair of daughters."

Bremma almost squeaked as she raised her finger toward Gunnar, "Mistress Margit, I know nothing about anything, but, ... "

She looked down for a moment and then gathered what little of her courage remained in her for this, "He is fearsome to us. He carries scars and when he moves, I - I want to run. He -- he frightens me."

Nala nodded and Margit's mouth fell open for a moment.

Gunnar had been eating as he listened, but he stopped then. "There are Kurtadam warriors. I have seen some of them. I may be wrong, but some are likely larger than me."

He leaned forward, doing his best to smile a little, "Have you ever seen them?"

The girls nodded. "Yes," Nala said, "but we try to stay away from them, so we do not ever go close by."

"Have you ever seen one if he is in the human way that you all can look?" Gunnar asked, and they shook their heads and then wondered at why he smiled the way that he did then.

"I think that, if you had seen that, then you would likely see them looking like me -- with all of these fine wonders that I carry. You only have not seen it because of their fur."

He laid his spoon down and placed his hands, palm up on the table, one each in front of each of them.

"Here is my first lesson to a pair of frightened young beauties," he smiled, "Try to gather as much courage as you think that you might need for it and lay your hand on the top of mine. Go on, you will see that I am warm to the touch and that nothing terrible will come of it."

He chuckled, "And you can take comfort when I say that if I were to do anything bad to you at all, I would have to fear facing something afterward which might cause me to fear badly enough myself to almost piss in my breeches if I were to give it enough thought."

They stared at him.

"Go on," he chuckled, "Touch my hands."

They leaned forward and looked at each other for a moment and then their hands came to his very slowly and cautiously.

Bremma's was there and gone, like a mouse who jumped to seize a crumb and then run away, but Nala was more purposeful about it and seeing it, Bremma's hand was back.

Gunnar closed his fingers over their hands slowly and he smiled, "So we are well-met finally."

He opened his hands and they took theirs away.

Bremma had to know and she gathered more courage as she watched Gunnar eat again. "What is there which could cause one like you such fear? I cannot think of anything."

"Hmm?" He looked over as he finished the mouthful of his meal and swallowed, "Oh, a simple fear it is, but well-founded. I fear Margit's wrath more than anything in the world."

His reward for it was to watch them blink for a moment and then they laughed while Margit nodded.

"Remember something if you grow afraid of him," Margit said, "Between us, we have raised two children and one was a girl. For a little time, we had her childhood friend living with us also. Neither one feared him or had any cause to, and the only thing which they had that you lack is to have had him in their lives from the beginning."

They chewed on it for a moment and then Nala asked, "Where are your children now?"

Margit said, "Our daughter is far from us, but Gunnar has seen that she will come to us here in a time. Our son lives here. You will meet him soon for we see him at almost every other meal."

She smiled then, "That was not a fair thing to say, I am afraid. But we see him most days at some time."

"He is the young human," Bremma said in realization, "the one we have seen." She looked at Margit, "He is very nice to look at, Margit, and very, ... "

"Very handsome," Nala said, finishing Bremma's thought for her.

"So now that we seem to have gotten you from hanging onto the table by your nails from your fear -- which was unfounded -- what remains to be said to put you at ease?" Margit asked.

"We are sorry," Nala said, "but, ... Tirga said to us that we are to serve you, and among the people, it, ... we do not know much of humans, a -- and, ..."

Margit's eyebrows rose to her hairline then as the thought came to her.

"No one has ever asked it, a - and we are afraid," Bremma squeaked again.

Gunnar clearly had no clue, so Margit said, "Among their kind, a richer one or a noble may keep servants. They are not slaves and there is usually some, ... agreement to it, but a servant is a part of the home and often it means, ..."

She leaned forward and took their hands in hers, "Do not fear for that, girls. Let us think that you are as new daughters to us instead."

She held their hands a little tightly for a moment, "Among our kind, a father who is worth anything does not do that with his daughters."

Gunnar's jaw stopped in mid-chew and he sat looking at them for a moment.

He swallowed then. "I have gone from one place to another here and never left my seat. I came here to eat a meal and then I am told that I have daughters and now ..."

He shook his head as if to clear it. Looking at the two of them for a moment, he turned to regard Margit.

He raised one finger. "These are not my daughters - no matter what you might need to hold in your heart so that this might go a little easier in your mind.

So do not look so horrified at some thought which they put in your mind with their nervous quivering. What you speak of is their way with servants, not ours.

I have no servants nor do I wish for any. And even if I did, I am certain that I have come to an age where I can manage my own urges. Do not insult me with the notion that I could not manage my urges with a daughter - or a pair of orphans who come to my household in need and fear.

I have brought my own girl from a little stick-girl to what she is today. In the doing of it, I did far more than I think that any father might for a young girl who had her need to know of things - and still I had no thoughts of what is raised to my face here."

He looked from one twin to the next, his eyes boring into them each time, "You are not my daughters, not even a little close. You are someone who needs a little help and guidance which Margit seeks to give.

I have little time for your foolish notions which you then turn into foolish fears.

Do you know where the monks kept their vigils here as they moaned and chanted their stupid prayers?"

They both nodded, their eyes almost brimming now.

"Good," Gunnar nodded, "One of you - only one, and I do not care which one it is, will be there in one hour to meet me. We will be alone there, that one and myself and I will begin to give more things to think about so that these thoughts will no longer have a place to form in your minds.

After the beginning at what I will teach, you will leave me there and return to Margit to help her with the evening meal.

No one will harm or use you, but I can tell you this: if I have two more to my house now, then for certain when I have my bath this night, someone will come to wash my back for me.

I have not been able to make a sauna yet, so I must make do with only the first part - the bath. Surely I do not ask for too much."

He stood up and walked off.

They watched him walk away and Margit nodded to herself. "Gunnar is right. You do not even need to hold most of these thoughts in your head, and though he did not say it in so many words, I was being caught up in your fears."

She smiled at them, "There is no need to fear him at all. You only need to get to know him, and I can see that he is setting the stage to begin with you both. He seeks to force you in some way to get past your uncertainty, that is all."

"But, ... Margit, "Nala began, "wash his back?"

She nodded, "I see what he means. You will not die from it. Where we lived before was his homeland and I grew very used to the ways of his kind of people.

Most there hold no mystery or strange thoughts over their bodies. A sauna is a room made hot as a steam bath. You bathe first and then sit in the heat for a time, either all alone, or with family or even guests. After a while, you go out and cool off. It is very healthy, but while you re there, you wear nothing of course.

And no one cares. They are not there to stare.

But he has not got his sauna yet, so it is only a bath and a backscrub. I will be there the first time to show what you must do and how.

If nothing else," she smiled, "it ought to clear up your notions about his fearsomeness a little.

I think that you will find that a lot of work which must be done every day, and the business of living as a family will soon remove the need to grow fears in those lovely heads. You will be too tired and bored with it soon enough."

-----------------------

By the time that they'd had their evening meal, the girls were tired. Margit had begun to work with Bremma at the paddock and Nala had survived her first exercises with a wooden sword that Gunnar had made for her. Despite her worry, it had been little more than simple exercises, learning to hold the practice sword and spoken lessons from Gunnar.

The two stood with Margit as Gunnar eased himself into the tub and though they had even more to stare at for a time, they even lived through the backscrub.

Margit gave them Koten's bed and his room to begin with and she sat with them a little before she left them for the night. They had questions about how Margit and her family had come to be there and she told them a little.

Margit's stories quickly became something which the twins wished to hear about every night.

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It was night and once again, it was raining.

Not only raining, Louhi mused to herself as she stepped onto the deck from below, it was teeming. So why were they still sailing and not anchored somewhere? Who could ever even see in this mess?

She pulled her cloak around herself a little more tightly and put up her hood. Stepping to the rail, she looked back and she could just make out the dark hulk of the other boat back there, following faithfully behind and not far off.

Thorvald was there in what had become to Louhi his usual place for this trip, since she almost never saw him anywhere else. And just like any other time that she saw him, he didn't look happy and it caused her to wonder if such an expression was even possible on that face.

"Why have we not stopped for the night?" she asked, "Are there no good places to anchor in?"

The seaman turned his head for a moment, "I know the waters from here to where you want to go better than I know the tits of my favorite whore, and I know those ones well, trust me. As for places to anchor, ..."

He shrugged,"I know plenty of them, Mistress. Only it's not something that you'd want to do here." He sighed and looked down for a moment.

"From here all the way through the Baltic, I'd love to see weather such as this; enough of a wind to move us well, and plenty dark enough for us to hide in while I curse the fool on the other boat for the way that he chose to split the crews."

He turned and looked back a moment, "For sailing an almost overladen washtub such as this, I have the best crew from among those that we had. The number of people he carries is not all that much for handling her, and the horses in the hold are almost as good as ballast.

I'm carrying most of the people, and I also have to carry your large acquaintance down there, and when he moves, Mistress, believe me, I feel it from here.

My problem -- the one which I carry in my mind tonight at the least, is how far we might go in the dark here not all that far off the shore. As soon as it gets lighter, I'll pull us out much farther and if the gods give me the wind I'll be looking for then, both boats will hang every bit of woman's laundry that we can find up if it will give us enough speed for the run right down the middle of the Baltic."

He spat over the rail to check the wind for a moment and then he looked at Louhi as he pointed off into the darkness to their left, "All along this shore, while we hug it and run, cutting all of the corners as best we can, there are two kinds of Northmen -- fishermen and pirates - since the trade in both professions is good enough.

Farther out, the pirates have faster boats than this one by a wide margin, because they are all Vikings. It is another worry of mine. If we make it through them, we'll be looking all sorts of others in the face I fear; more Swedes, Germans of all sorts, Slavs as thick as flies the farther we go and maybe even Goths. Some of the milder ones are fisherman AND pirates, depending. You can tell their preferences by the type of boat they use."

He spat again, "It is all a matter of degree. If the hunting as gone well hereabouts lately, then why come out on a shitty night such as this to try to stop us? It wouldn't be worth the work and the hazard.

But if you're hungry and if the fish aren't running, "he sighed, "A man will do as he must to keep himself and his own alive, neh?

They say that you and the lovely one the other boat have some kind of powers. If the talk has any truth, Mistress, I'd love a bit of help if we're seen. Between the crews, I've got the worst fighters."

Louhi understood it then, and it was worse than Thorvald knew.

"Thorvald, what do you know of the people you carry? Most of them, the men, they are fighters, though they are better on dry land and on horseback than they might be on a pitching deck. But most of them are here, on this ship."

She looked back for a moment, "I need to think of the others and the horses."

She walked toward the rear hold, thinking, and she almost walked right into another figure there on the deck because she'd been looking down, lost in thought.

Louhi started, looking up, and she saw a truly miserable and forlorn face.

"Your pardon, Mistress," the woman sniffled as she shivered uncontrollably from the cold, "Is there a place that you know of here where I might go? I am sorry to even trouble you, but I have nowhere else.

My man has thrown me out into this rain, and none of the others in the hold will let me stay. I've been sitting on the steps down, but they told me to be off so that they could close the door and it was little shelter anyway.

I've tried to go and ask the crew, but they told me no also. My clothes are soaked through and I am wet to the skin."

Louhi knew that it would have been no good to ask the crew anyway. There were not enough places for them all to sleep as it was and they split the spots, one man sleeping in the bedding of another while he was on deck and working.

A thoroughly wet and cold woman in with them now would call for a lot of strong drink for them all and then what a disaster that would be to get them on deck and able to work once more.

Louhi looked down. And that was if she was willing.

"Why have you been cast out?" she asked in a little disbelief.

Who would throw a poor woman out on such a night?

The unfortunate groaned a little, "They are all angry with me," she said miserably as she began to add her tears to her unhappiness, "They say that I've been a gossip and that I tell tales about them all, especially the man who I thought loved me." She hid her face in her hands and she almost wailed.

Louhi didn't know the rangers and their families well at all, but she wondered at this turn.

"Come," she said at last, "I do not know if you would be welcome in the place that I think of either, but it is worth the asking, if nothing else."

She took hold of the woman's sodden cloak and led her to the other hold. The woman groaned to herself but said nothing.

She stood on the bottom step in the next moment, feeling the warmth of the hold as she hid herself a little by standing behind Louhi.

The woman stared at what she saw there by peeking out around the tall blonde. Off to one side, there was a curtain of rough cloth hanging, but from the other side of the hull all the way to far past the middle, she saw the basilisk, and lying with most of her front on the tail of the beast was the she-troll.

Her eye was drawn to the way that the end of his long tail slid over the troll's bottom and looking farther, she saw, ...

The troll was suckling the beast, and it was plain that she was more than a little enthusiastic about doing it.

Louhi cleared her throat and Gudrun stopped to look back as the basilisk looked up.

"Is there but a little room down here for one more?" Louhi asked, "This one needs shelter this night at least. She is wet through to her skin."

Gudrun tried to see who the other person was for a moment, "Draw your hood back," she said, and it wasn't a request.

The figure looked at her own sopping shoes and the puddles of rainwater that she was leaving on the rough planking as she pulled back her hood, not being able to hold her head up. She still shivered, though at least she wasn't quaking as much from it.

"Please," she said.

Gudrun was surprised, "Gitte, is it? Why are you not with the others? Why have you come? Do you seek for more to talk about to everyone?"

Gitte was about to say that her worthless man had thrown her out, but she bit it back, remembering all of the angry words which had been thrown at her by the others.

She sobbed, "My fault." It was all that she said as she hung her head.

Gudrun kissed the shaft of her lover and then she got to her feet and grabbing one of the rough packing cloths, she walked over carefully, trying not to hit her head or step on anyone, "Take your wet things off and dry yourself with this."

Gitte looked horrified for a moment and then she began to try to move toward the curtained-off area.

"Not there," the troll said, "Chiorstan sleeps there with her babe. Do not think to go there and disturb them. Take that all off. Surely even for high humans such as you, there is a time when keeping cold and wet things on becomes a stupid notion."

Gitte hesitated and Louhi nodded, "As they are now, your things are more of a danger to you than a help. We are all the same in our want to be warm, are we not?"
Gitte nodded and she removed her dripping cloak.

"The dress also," Gudrun nodded firmly.

"Come on, you are being foolish. If what you seek to hide there is worth the hiding of it so much, then you do not truly need to be here, do you? You can be lovely and frozen dead in your beauty outside."

Gitte looked to Louhi, who took her wet cloak. "Gudrun is right. Shame is one thing, if that is what this is, but dying from the cold or sickness is another. You should take it off. I would, were I you. It is so nice and warm here."

Gitte had a thought where she reasoned that if she looked the way that the white-haired one did, then she'd likely feel no shame at all to be naked in front of others. She wondered how it must feel to be a little proud of how one looks.

She groaned then and struggled to get her soaked dress over her head. The wet fabric made her reluctance even harder to bear.

She felt hands helping her in the fight and when the dress was off, she was surprised to find that it had been the troll.

"Here," she said, handing over the packing cloth, "Give me your things so that I can look for a place to hang them."

She laid her large hand on Gitte's shoulder carefully, "You are not one which I would wish to see here this night, but this is a matter of more importance than my dark thoughts -- and I try now not to have any, since there is no need to hate someone who has bad fortune on a terrible night.

Find a place to sit and I will look for something for you to eat. I think that there is yet a little broth in the pot."

Gitte nodded as she tried to hide her shame with her hands and the cloth while she tried to cover herself with it and towel the water off, "Thank you."

She looked toward Louhi, "And thank you, Mistress. I think that I might owe you my life if I do not get sick."

Louhi smiled pleasantly, "You are with us all, Gitte. I try to think of those who are in my care. It may come to pass that one day, I might need a kindness from you, no?"

As Gitte nodded, liking the thought and wondering why she'd never liked the woman until now, when she'd needed her help, Louhi spoke to Rex, "We sail into waters where there are many pirates, Thorvald had told me. It may come to a fight more than once, and my fear is that most of the fighters are here on this boat, while there are not many on the other.

Rex, would you help if it comes to that? You as well, Gudrun? We will need the horses alive when we land. Any help that you might give, I would have and gladly."

The basilisk nodded, "Ssomething to hope for," he smiled, "Yess, I will help."

"Count on me, Louhi," Gudrun nodded, "I can swim, but not all that well, so if it comes to a fight, then I would rather sail on than lose."

Louhi nodded and she turned to go back up the steps, feeling better, "My thanks to you both. I have a hope that sometime in all of this, we might sit together, you two and I. Does your kind have a want for friends, Rex? You are making one in me, and I regret that I have not even had the chance yet to spend any time at all with Leif's lovely cousin."

"We will," the she-troll nodded, "I only wait for the day."

Rex laughed a little, "Friendss are not anything that we keep much of, lovely witch. But I feel a want to come to know you and the otherss a little better. Until now, I have found little chance to make any."

He chuckled, "Most humans wish to see my kind dead."

Gitte spun to face Louhi then, though she remembered after a second to try to cover her bottom with her hand and her front with the cloth. The attempt failed a little laughably. Gudrun looked from it to Rex and she grinned.

"You are a witch?" Gitte asked in some surprise.

Louhi nodded, "Something like that. Why? Does that change what I have done for you in your eyes?"

Gitte didn't know what to say for a moment, but then she shook her head, "No, not at all, Mistress."

"Then I am pleased," Louhi smiled once more, "I must go to speak with Màiri. A good night to you."

Gitte stared, "But, ... Mistress Màiri is on the other --"

She found herself talking to the empty steps in front of her. Louhi was gone.

Gitte was bewildered, "Where did she -- "

"She has gone to the other boat," Gudrun said quietly, "It is her way to move like that, I am told.

There is still broth and plenty, but it is a little cold now. It will be a little while as it warms. We have only a very small heater to cook on, but I will get some for you when it is hot. Go and sit with Rex there, Gitte."

Gitte looked and she saw that Rex, such as he was, took up almost all of the rest of the space. She didn't think that there was a place where she might sit that was not on top of some part of his long body.

"Come here, girl," he smiled.

At thirty-two, Gitte was, by her own admission, only barely pretty anymore if at all and for damn sure; her days of being a lithe and willowy girl were far back in the dust behind her. These days, she was a little closer to Rubenesque in her figure. She was a also a bit older than most of the other women on board and the beast was being very charitable and polite in addressing her as 'girl'.

She shook her head, preferring to stand there.

"I do not know if you have any knowledge of my kind," he smiled a little slowly, "but I think that you will find that I have a very warm heart -- as well as other thingss, to be sure.

But - and you might assk my Gudrun there -- quite often, when we meet ssomeone who iss lovely ssuch as you are in circumstancess ssuch as thesse, there iss a little , ... bargaining to be done."

Gitte stared at the beast and then she looked around a little frantically.

"Your things are there, "Gudrun pointed, "hanging up and dripping on the floor. Rex is offering you a choice, Gitte. You need to be warm and fed. He will provide that and I will help, being his wife now in most ways.

I do hope that you will not sink back into foolishness. Rex wants you to lie with him and he will be very gentle. You are the sort of human female that he likes for a bit of his fun, since you are full enough to possess the strength to take a little more of what he gives. You are a female and it is clear to me that he likes you. He seeks to make a bargain with you. You will come to know him as few females get the chance of, and you will be fed and warmed. He will not hurt you, and if you like him, it can go on."

She looked past Gitte as a gust of wind brought a change in the pattern of the sound of the rain, "Or if you would rather hold on to your treasures, you might go to try and reconcile with the one who threw you out."

Gitte said nothing in reply. She'd already tried that -- and she'd begged him, in front of them all.

Gudrun looked over at Gitte, "If you think a moment, you might see that I am being a little kinder to you than you were to me. I offer to share my warm place, my food, and even my fine husband for your pleasure. There is no one here but us and so I am a little curious about the way that human females hold their virtue as though it was something a little holy."

The phrasing caught Gitte's ear. She was thinking that in order to be able to remain here where it was warm and dry, she would be forced to allow the beast to ...

Yet, she thought, here Gudrun had just made it sound as though she was prepared to SHARE the creature's affections. She wondered very briefly how it would be taken if she declined.

"I -- I don't know, "Gitte stammered a little and Gudrun placed her hand on the woman's shoulder once more.

"Look at it this way," she said in a quiet and earnest way, "What I speak of is nothing more than sharing. I try to make a friend -- even in one who showed me meanness. Chiorstan teaches me that it is what ought to be done among humans, though it is done very seldom."

She waved her other hand across the space of the hold, "Here, we are as travelers, are we not? What is the difference whether we crawl into a wayside shack, all of us strangers, cold, wet and hungry, or as we are here?

The only thing to be done in both cases to make our common misery into something far better is to share what we have. Since you have nothing else, why not share yourself, since we are willing? No one sees, no one knows. Who would be the wiser, then? At least those of us here will share our smiles over it, and surely none would be able to make friends faster.

Since you are here, it must be that you have no friends among the rest. Try to seek the best in us all and we might find the friendships that we all seek.

Look, I am a half-troll and Rex is a basilisk. Who do you know who has friends such as us?"

Gitte stood paralyzed for the moment, feeling the maelstrom of her emotions as they swirled around her head, mostly her anguish and upset. She felt the hurt of her man's words anew as he'd railed at her in front of the others, "Six years, Woman. Six years I have had to listen as you ran everyone around us into the dirt over what you saw as failings. Do you think that you are better? You are not."

She remembered the way that he'd lunged for her then, taking hold of her by the throat to shake her, "Do you think that I do not hear of the things you say about me? The names that you have called me when you speak to anyone else?

Worthless, am I? The one who works to feed us both and keep us alive? Begone!

I have had my fill of it, night after night of trying to sleep -- since there is never a want in you for me, besides as a fool for you to prattle your tales to. If I must seek for my relief among the poxy wenches in a tavern, what use have I for you? You do nothing for us. The next time that you think of your first man and how HE failed YOU, you can add me to your list. Away with you!"

Gitte hung her head and began to cry. What would the others now say about her? She didn't think of it as a proper thought, but she'd been sniggering and spreading gossip about others over her poor sense of worth. It had been easier than facing her own faults to try to correct them, and this was now the price of it.

Rex leaned forward and he picked her up under her arms, "Come here, ssad one and ssit on my knee a while as I warm you."

Gitte was surprised at his strength, but she made no attempt to fight him off. The alternative was the cold rain out there on the deck. He sat her down on him and he wrapped his long arms around her so that she'd be a little warm.

"Now," he said in a soothing tone, "what is the matter? You are here now, ssafe and being warmed. All that I asssk for is a little pleasure with ssomeone whosse lovely body was made to love with one ssuch as I am."

She hid her face in her hands and sobbed a little, "But that would be to lie with, ..."

"Well, I am no demon," he smiled, kissing her ear very softly as he hugged her and even in her discomfiture, Gitte had to admit her surprise to herself to find that she liked the way that it felt. She'd have thought that his scales would hurt to be pressed up against this way.

She exhaled heavily after a sob passed out of her, "Everyone will know."

Gitte looked up as she felt Gudrun's fur-covered body move against her from behind, "No one knows -- yet," she smiled, "though a few might come to the notion, wondering where you might have gone to after being cast out. There really is little else for you than this, is there not?

Even so, the notion of you lying with beasts such as us will not come to their minds quickly. The one who would come to the idea the quickest of all is you, Gitte.

And you are not there to put it into their heads, are you? Why worry over it?"

Gitte shuddered as a slight sob escaped her, "But, ... but I am not beautiful like the Mistress. I am an old woman, long past my time."

She felt the warm heat of the basilisk's long tongue as he licked her throat. When she'd guessed what it might be, she'd have thought that she'd want to shudder, but a long-forgotten sense came to her that once, long ago, she'd loved to feel this from her first husband -- before he'd thrown her out.

Before she allowed the thought to slide past, Gitte realized that just maybe, both of her men hadn't been complete arseholes. Certainly neither one had started out that way. She wondered if they'd turned into that or whether it might be that she'd caused it in them over the way that she'd been to them.

She thought of her first husband when they were young.

If ever there was a more loving boy who sought only to see the best in others, most often in her, she had to admit, ...

Her second had been a tough and seasoned veteran who by his own admission had sought her out wanting someone to love again, since his life had grown so lonely and cold.

"I don't ask for much," she remembered him saying to her in a quiet and humble way which had surprised her, "I want only a good woman to hold onto me and love me. For that, from one such as you, Gitte, I'd give all of anything that I have."

In a flash of insight, Gitte decided that these things hadn't been solely her fault -- but she'd certainly had a large hand in the ruin of her own chances at happiness.

Now she was between the warm bodies of a she-troll and a serpent, and they were making nice sounds to her. What more did she have to lose? And why not try to have a little of something which she hadn't experienced in so long?

"My kind iss known for many abilities, lovely one," the basilisk hissed into her ear very softly, "I can ssensse much in you, and I also know your true age -- to the blessed insstant when you uttered your very first ssoft little criess. You are not old, Gitte. Pleasse let me love you."

She heard and felt his careful sigh against her neck on the other side, "I can give sso much to one like you."

He reached and moved her dripping hair away from her neck and then he began to lick her ear as well, "I can change thingss for you. You will never feel weak again, and I will fill you often with my love. The little mother over there already knowss what I give. Come and love with uss, Gitte. It will never be a regret to you."

She felt such heat coming to her from his long body and it felt so good, and now that she had the thought of it, she hadn't felt such pleasant caresses over her breasts in long years and she wondered why she hadn't taken her husband's offers so many times. He'd been very good at this for her.

Gudrun moved against her back just a little to seek for a better position and Gitte was a little startled to feel that it was her large hands who were making her tits so happy. She wanted to struggle a little then over the sense of this being wrong, but then, she thought, she'd never felt a sweeter touch on them, at least not in the last half-decade.

One of the hands left her breast and she felt it make its slow trip downward. She thought that she ought to slap it away, but then she wondered why and she sighed as the long warm fingers began their gentle explorations.

"She has been a mother, I think," she heard Gudrun whisper and Gitte nodded.

"Once. My little boy was trampled by an Englishman's mount. I -- I never had the chance, ... or the want to make another. I was alone then. The birthing tore me something awful."

She wanted to hang her head again, but Gudrun's wet fingers came to prevent it as they slipped under her chin.

"Why do you feel shame, Gitte? Mothers lose their little ones to many things, and a mother cannot be everywhere at once. Mothers always lose. It is part of the sadness of being a female, but there is also joy, if you would allow it. Rex cherishes mothers, you will see."

Somehow, it settled things for Gitte, though she never knew just why. Gudrun's hand returned to Gitte's soft cleft and what it did felt so good to her.

She moaned for a moment and then Gitte did what she would have told anyone at all before this -- mostly to herself just to hear it - was an impossibility.

She raised her head as Gudrun was kissing her cheek and then she kissed the troll full on the mouth, her lips parting to allow the thick tongue in. Gitte moaned and reached to hold the troll-girl there by one horn. Without really meaning to, she began to hump her hips very slowly against the troll's hand.

"Thank you for such a sweet kiss, Gitte," Gudrun whispered as she kissed Gitte's shoulder, "Kiss my husband now, so that you know how much he wants you."

It wasn't as difficult as she might have imagined it to be at all. Rex had that long neck, and once they began, Gitte began to feel a wanton need in her rising like never before in her life.

And the effect was a mutual one as she felt him harden against her bottom back there behind her.

"Jusst lie back against me, ssweet one," she heard him whisper to her as he lifted her only enough so that Gudrun's hand could reach underneath her to move it forward a little, and then he set her down again.

The next thing that Gitte knew, she was being lowered, still against the serpent as he leaned backward. That long red thing of his was against her cleft and it felt, ...

She groaned once more.

Gudrun kissed Gitte for a few moments and then she smiled, "You are very wet, but please allow me to make you wetter. You will relax more and then it will go easier. Rex would not hurt you, so you may forget what troubles you."

She grinned a little, "I almost said, 'my love'. Yet it does not feel so strange to my lips as it would have before."

The troll looked at Gitte for a moment and then she began to smile even more, "You -- you like me, yes? Is that what I see there?"

Gitte had been looking at Gudrun, not feeling any of the revulsion which she knew had always come to her at times when she'd met someone different. She sighed to herself, and if these two were anything, they certainly were different.

"Yes," she whispered, "I have never seen one like you and - and it stirs me somehow."

The sweet little shy smile which she saw returned to her over the remark was suddenly worth a lot to Gitte, though she wondered at herself now.

She'd been a little mesmerized at watching the troll-girl's nipples as they peeked out through her fur at her. She had the thought that Gudrun must be aroused. She hoped so, because she certainly was and she knew it full well now.

She was about to ask if she might have a chance to kiss them, but she didn't yet have the courage or enough of the blind lust that she'd need for something such as that, but it was a nice thought to her suddenly.

But by then, Gudrun was already reaching for her Gitte's tits once again and Gitte moaned to feel the way that she was being squeezed. One of Gudrun's hands reached to take Gitte's thigh and lift it as the troll began her kissing path down her front.

Gitte wondered why anyone would want to do that to her, but there was no way that she was about to throw up an argument by this point.

It wasn't long before she began to feel Gudrun's incredible tongue as it was set to work on her lips and inner thighs, gliding along each one of them before she felt the way that they were being sucked out. She could even feel the way that they were now so swollen and needy from it.

But it all went by the boards when Gudrun began to croon to her softly as she licked. She drew her face back a little and she smiled up and Gitte was startled at just how far her legs had been spread in this. Then again, she thought, the girl had a large face.

Not for a troll, she guessed, and she could see quite a bit of beauty in it now as well, but for a human - someone like her - doing something as wonderful to her as this, well, she needed the room, that was all.

Gitte moved her knees as far apart as she could and she could feel the soles of her feet touching each other behind Gudrun's head, noticing the gentle way that the troll held her bottom up a little for this feast.

The troll shook her head in open admiration for a moment, "Sweet Gitte," she sighed, "no old woman gives juice this fine, surely. Do not ever say something to me like that again -- and please, oh please, say to me that I can do this again for you sometime."
Gitte was astounded, but she was given little time to question it as Gudrun lifted her just a little higher and moved her forward a touch. While Gitte was marveling at the troll's strength, she felt the very tip of something slip into her guided by Gudrun.

"Your joy comes soon," she whispered and then she kissed Gitte's belly softly as she fed a little more of Rex inside.

"Take her, husband." Gudrun sighed, "She is as ready as I can make her for you."

As Gitte felt the heat of that shaft sliding into her, she groaned and raised her head at what she felt.

There, visible over her thatch of dark fur, was Gudrun's face, licking and wetting the thing which now had possession of her and sought to claim her.

As the strokes began very slowly, Gitte felt her legs being lifted and eased down past the troll's shoulders. "Do not fear now," she smiled, "I will stay with you here. Something like this, I now have such a strong want in me to see unto its end."

Rex began to go a little faster, after feeling just how far he might be able to go into Gitte without hurting her. She laid her head back onto him and reached up to kiss him.

Gitte had never imagined that anyone could ever stir her this much, the way that this pair seemed to be able to do so easily, but she knew that she wanted it now, all that the pair of them could give to her.

Rex held her breasts and kneaded them in a way that no man ever had as she felt the very first beginnings of the little slaps from his thighs against her bottom, and she also felt the slow and careful lapping of the troll's tongue against them both.

"Fuck her, Rex," Gudrun whispered a little hoarsely, "She is yours."

Three long seconds of deep thought on her part later, Gitte added her voice to it, "Ohhh yes! Fuck me, Rex, you wonderful beast. Fuck me. Fuck m -- Oh! Ahh, fuck, ... fuck, ...."

The basilisk was in a bit of heaven, finding that he was able to bang a human as he'd wanted to for so long. As long as he held himself just a little shorter so as not to harm her, this one could surely go the distance with him.

He smiled softly as the hold echoed with the soft slapping of him against her fine ass.

And what an ass, he grinned to his wife as she grinned back.

He slid his hand down along the length of her, feeling the flare of her hips and then the soft swell of her haunch.

He could hardly wait to see such magnificence the very first time that she knelt before him to offer herself to him.

And, he thought as he looked down to see her head lolling back and forth while she made such nice grunting sounds to him, he now knew that she would offer it to him that way.

He felt it as she tightened on him the first time that she came with a cry.

He plowed right on through it and she keened while Gurdun enjoyed the new flood of her moisture which suddenly flooded out just a little around the basilisk's maleness as he pumped on.

She writhed and wailed out her joy when she came again only a few minutes later, and Rex plowed through that one too, never even slowing a little and giving her no respite, not that she gave any sign of wanting it, and she was bouncing against him now.

He fucked on and on, waiting for the next one. He'd decided that he'd try for that one.

When it happened, she surprised him, truly.

He thought that she'd lose the rest of her mind, but it wasn't an issue at all for her.

Gitte had only lain there shuddering and sighing as he filled her and it ran out to Gudrun's waiting and eager lips.

Gitte reached up over her head, in her horizontal position there on top of his hard abdomen to caress his face. Both Rex and Gudrun were amazed.

"Thank you," she whispered shakily, still shuddering, her legs twitching a little in Gudrun's grasp, "For once in my life, I can say that I have been well and truly fucked.

I imagine that we all ache to feel it when a man fills us. But we never really feel much of anything, other than when he sends it each time, and that is if we are a little lucky.

This time, there was no mistaking what was being done to me. Thank you for that, Rex."

The pair of them stared at her as she sighed, "I wish so much that I was what you might want in a woman, but I guess that you also have Chiorstan for this."

Rex looked down into Gitte's eyes -- they both did.

"He has Chiorstan," Gudrun nodded, "we both do."

Rex nodded, "Stay, Gitte. Wish for what I have told you of to happen and stay if it is what you want."

"I like her," Gitte nodded, "even more now that I know that she has you both and for the way that Gudrun said that she teaches her. Chiorstan is right. People should be better toward others."

She lifted her head to smile at the troll, "If I can ask it, would you please let me kiss your bosom? The want of it is in the front of my head now and I want to ask while I have the nerve."

Gudrun sat down, plainly in a little shock, but she nodded and she appeared to be every bit as shy as the other time when Gitte had said that she liked Gudrun.

Gitte groaned deeply as she sat up, "The other side of this fine joy is that a girl like me -- "

She stopped then, wondering at her own words.

Gudrun nodded, "Go on, Gitte. Say what was on your tongue."

"I wanted to say that fucking like that, after so long without, is a little hard on the hips. Did I just speak of myself as a girl?"

Gudrun nodded again, this time with a hopeful smile, "Why? Do you feel as a girl again? We do not think that you are old. Gitte."

"You know," the woman smiled a little, "I think that I do."

Gudrun reached for her then and she tumbled backwards very slowly as Gitte pressed her face against the Troll's breasts.

------------------------------------

Chiorstan stirred a little and then she opened her eyes.

She lay there a minute, wondering at the way that she felt a little different. But she had little time to think on it or to reflect very much as Katy woke up hungry.

Chiorstan gave it a thought and then she noticed the weight from her chest and the let-down came only an instant later. She picked her baby up and smiled, "Well if you do not mind waiting to have your bottom cleaned for a few minutes, your Ladyship, I've got my wee bairn's breakfast ready just now."

She held Katy up and then she reached for her breast so that she could get Katy to latch on quickly.

The infant found her nipple and then she began even before Chiorstan needed to look.

What Chiorstan noticed was the way that Katy was looking up at her. She looked down and blinked as she stared at her hand and the swell of her full breast.

Katy was well locked on by this point, so Chiorstan shifted her gently to hold her with one arm and she held her hand up in front of her face, staring at what she saw.

She looked down then at the stark contrast between her infant's smooth and slightly pink skin and her own, right there on her breast.

What she saw was slightly shiny, slightly pebbled, and a mottled mixture of black and red.

She almost dropped Katy.

She looked elsewhere and it was the same. Then she leaned down to examine herself closely, looking at her thigh. Her skin wasn't there. Instead, she had little, ... scales?

She ran her hand over her long leg for a moment. Since when had her legs ever seemed this long? Her touch told her that her skin, such as it now was in this dream, was smooth and dry, but for the tiny, very smooth bumps of millions of the scales.

Her eyes ran the last of the distance to her feet and she wanted to scream. What was there looked nothing at all like her own feet -- and there were the long claws there.

She thought about her big toe for a moment as she remembered what it had looked like only the day before and her consciousness returned the knowledge to her that her toe was fine, present and accounted for.

But she didn't see it.

She tried to wiggle it and that was when she found the claw all by itself, four inches up on the inside of her leg, just below what she guessed was her ankle, since that was the way that it felt to her.

She ran her hand over her head and felt her hair. But it wasn't the same at all to her touch. There was a ridge or something on the top of her head which leaned backward as some sort of spike.

Her mouth fell open.

And even that felt different today. She slid her hand forward to feel her lips and she almost put out her own eye.

She lowered her hand and really looked at it.

Claws.

Wicked and cruel-looking claws.

Struggling not to begin to cry now, she still held Katy, but now she looked for Gudrun.

She was a little trapped here, not knowing if she even knew how to stand on what passed for her feet now.

She saw Gudrun's hip and she shook it as gently as her trembling and fearful hand could do it. She found that she had to do it again and then again before the troll stirred.

"Help me, Gudrun," she said in a tremulous voice, full of fear now.

"What?" Gudrun groaned, "What help do you need?"

Chiorstan looked down, wondering over the pressure and the pull as she leaned toward Gudrun and she saw the reason for it as she looked back.

It was her tail.

"I don't know!" Chiorstan wailed.

Katy began to cry, sensing her mother's distress.

With what looked to be a supreme effort of her will, Gudrun slowly sat up and rubbed her eyes a little, "What can I d-"

Gudrun stared at her friend in disbelief, her mouth falling open very slowly.

------------------------------

"So, you feel better now? You look a lot better, now that you have calmed down," Louhi said as she walked along the deck with Gudrun and Chiorstan.

The day had dawned just as darkly as the evening before, though the rain was holding off a little as though it was preparing to drench everything in sight in about another minute or so. The two boats were scudding along just as fast as their sails could take them, Thorvald not seeming willing to give up the small edge that he felt they were being given.

Chiorstan nodded, heaving a sigh of relief once again at the thought of it as she watched Louhi and Katy smile at each other as Louhi carried the baby.

"It was terrible," she said," and I was so frightened that I would be like that forever. Thank you for the help and for coming so quickly."

"Well it was a shock to be sure," Louhi chuckled, "especially since I did not know at the time what had caused it and to come rushing down the steps to see you like THAT. I didn't know what to think and wondered how yet another magical creature had come on board."

She laughed a little, "I am only getting used to the fine pair that we have."

"Well, I know how to manage it now -- as you showed it to me," Chiorstan said, "so I know how to make it come and go as I wish. I almost made myself dizzy for a time. You cannot imagine the way that it shakes your mind when you only turn your head at some sound that you have heard -- and your head moves quicker than any chicken's head. I am only glad that it didn't really frighten Katy until the end when I was crying myself.

And she got over it so quickly, too."

"She is an adventurer, this little one," Gudrun smiled.

"So, um, Mistress Louhi," Chiorstan began a little nervously, "Can you tell me just what I am then? ... You know, when I become that, uh, thing which I was?"

Louhi shrugged, "Truly, I know not. Some sort of lizard, but you remain warm-blooded -- even a little hot to the touch. I do not know of anything like that, and so strong you are then, Chiorstan, and so very fast in how you can move. One day, I would like to see how quickly you can run -- when you have the room for it, mind you," she smiled as she indicated the length of the deck with her chin.

"You do look very nice to look at that way.

I mean," she smiled, "there is nothing wrong with the way that you look at any time, but like that, with those patterns on your skin and that tail, ... very nice to see."

"Mistress," Chiorstan began, "let me get a little used to it first and find my own large feet then so that I do not tip over, and I will let you see me like that, if you like, but I do not wish to let others see me that way."

"I understand," Louhi smiled, "I was only saying it."

She turned to Gudrun then, "And of course, you will get to see it much more anyway, I would guess. What of the other one? Gitte? You say that you think this will happen to her as well?"

The troll groaned a little and then grinned at the way that the sound caused Katy to laugh, "I cannot say. I only know that Rex fucked with her the same way that he fucked with Chiorstan here, so I would guess, ..."

"Please ask him not to fuck with anyone else then," the blonde said, a little seriously.

"But thank you for what you both did to take care of her, you and Rex. I have heard that she was mean-spirited in her gossip, not the least toward you."

"I learn from my friend here," the troll nodded, "and Gitte has since shown us that she is sorry and we have found her to be very, ... thankful in our bed, but if this is what will happen to her when she wakes up, I do not know if I am ready for two of them."

There was a loud cry from the doorway to the rear hold and the three of them began to run to it a second later.

-------------------------------

They found Gitte staring at herself, still a little distraught, but coming around to it. She'd been as frightened as Chiorstan had been at first, but she'd reasoned it out for herself and she could already make it come and go as she wished.

Right then, as the others came down the steps quickly in answer to her cry, she was holding her breasts -- or rather -- her new breasts in this guise. They were lush and full, better than her own had been when she'd been at her best as a young woman. They'd been lovely back then, but these girls, she thought, these were like weapons to be used on unsuspecting ...

She tossed the thought and she asked herself if she'd not learned anything from the day before.

She removed her hands then and tried to hide herself under the blankets of her bedding, a little late for it. She almost jumped straight up when her thumb grazed her cunny, and it was all that she could do after that not to feel herself a little just to try to learn what was what down there now.

But she found that she did like her dark gray skin very much. As far as she could tell, she was very near to Rex in her color.

The three of them stared at her and then they all wore wide smiles.

"Well," Louhi said, finding her voice before the others, "I must not tell Nikki of what goes on down here. I like her just as she is and she can already be a selkie girl.

I see that bringing you here was the best thing that I could have done to help you, Gitte. You're a little different this day from when I saw you last, but you are quite lovely like that, you know."

Gitte stood up rather slowly and she bowed just a little to Louhi, "It was a night of nights for me, Mistress and no mistake. Now," she sighed a little, "if only I knew just what it is that I am this way."

She half-turned to show them her small tail and she shrugged, "I do not know. I went to touch my face and I found these," she said, indicating the small pair of tusks which protruded from her lower lip, "I find that I now have a fear that I have been turned into a two-legged sow, or something like that."

She hung her head a little, "Though I must guess that it serves me right for the way that I have lived my life until now."

She looked very human for the most part, and to anyone's eyes, she was shapely, though not voluptuous, not quite that. And as humble as she was at the moment, not particularly liking the two facial features which she'd found, Gitte was still very pleased because while she was not a willowy thing again, she was firm everywhere, as solid as a draft horse.

She liked that.

"They're very nice to look at," Louhi smiled, "Truly. If anything, I think that I would have to say that you look rather, ... inspiring, in a lusty sort of way to me."

Gitte almost blushed, knowing just what was meant. She couldn't wait for a moment when she was alone, wanting very much to test the feelings that she now felt from down there below her smaller tufted thatch.

She looked at Chiorstan, who smiled, "I like the way that you look now, Gitte, but more than that, I have heard of what was done and what you said. I hope to find your friendship if it can be between us. I am not very good at throwing hard words around."

Gitte nodded, "Well, I do not know if I can actually turn over a new leaf, even if I am given a chance to redeem myself."

She shrugged and gave them a soft smile, "But I know that it is what I want to do, and I know at least where I ought to be, and it seems to be here -- since none of the others will have me."

She looked a little uncertainly at Gudrun, waiting to hear something from her.

Gudrun looked down, feeling like an idiot, but also feeling the words which she wanted to say.

She shook her head and looked up. "What do you think, Gitte? I have tusks too. I think that you are beautiful. I am sorry that I cannot string pretty words together -- especially now as I stare at those beauties on your chest."

She groaned a little longingly, "Could we just go to bed?"

The ship lurched to one side rather gently and they heard the clatter of the basilisk's heavy claws on the decking above them.

Thorvald looked over at the beast's face a little searchingly and Rex returned his gaze.

"Boatss," he said with a nod, pointing off in the direction that they were sailing in, "Many, each full of armed men. A larger long one wass with them. They sstay together and move thsis way sslowly."

----------------------------------

The 'sea battle' ended up as a lot of yelling across open water which became a bit of a rout afterwards.

The many men on the boats were pirates, and they did order the two ships to heave-to to be boarded.

"You asked to fly with me?" Rex said to Gudrun -- who was already stringing her bow as she nodded to him.

As the shouting match continued, Màiri and Louhi both stood on the decks of their respective ships, away from the men who shouted taunts from the rail. They were sensing, looking for the obvious leaders in their opposition. There was a large man who seemed to be the leader aboard the longship, but they wanted the ones who most of the men looked up to in the groups of the smaller craft.

A lean and hungry-looking fighter stopped his urging of those aboard the boat which he was on as well as a few of the ones nearby when a comely woman appeared out of the air to stand before him with an impassive expression.

She tilted her head, plainly waiting for him to say something.

Of the ones around him, he had the quickest tongue, but even so, to see a red-haired beauty just show up out of nothing in front of him...

The words were coming, Màiri thought, but she had elsewhere to be, so she smiled at him.

It seemed to confound him even more, but he stayed rooted to the spot in confusion as her sword flicked into view, and with a quick cross-stroke and a slight grimace from the effort of the swing, his head was off and the men had no leader among them. She faded away then, leaving them all to begin their arguments over who would lead them now.

The same scene was repeated several times over in the little flotilla as Louhi began to do the same thing.

When Louhi appeared before the man in charge of the longship, he seemed to be a little quicker in the uptake than the others, or he was dumber than all of them combined as he shook his long-axe at her. He barely looked surprised at the way that she'd just appeared there.

"Why do you attack us?" he bellowed in Swedish, "We have done nothing to you!"

Louhi smiled a little coyly and pointed, "The fishing here must be very good, if fishermen are forced to sail with weapons in their hands to club the fish so that they might stack them better after they jump into the boat."
Another man tried to get the large one's attention as he pointed to what had happened to the group leaders all around them.

But he was gone an instant later, to lie in a crumpled heap a dozen feet away with a long and thick arrow protruding from his chest.

Everyone but Louhi gaped and then turned to see where the large arrow had come from and they stood with sagging shoulders as they stared at Màiri's ship.

Leif had come on deck.

"They've a fucking troll, Snorri!" one man exclaimed as he turned to look back, "A fucking real and live troll!"

"So?" the man bellowed back, "They have two boats. Surely we can get something out of this before that one gets any nearer!"

He turned to regard Louhi, "I do not know how you come to be here, but --"

There was a shout then and everyone looked to see the dark blur which flashed upward from the hold of the other ship. Their cries turned to groans when Rex spread his wings and flew off a ways before he circled back.

The man turned back to Louhi, but his eyes bulged a little in that instant and he looked down to see her blade buried deep in his chest.

He grimaced and let out only one groan as she twisted her sword and withdrew it.

As he sank to his knees, dying, the white-blonde hair blew in the wind over Louhi's face for a moment.

"See to your own defense," she smiled at the others, "When my friend and I fuck men, we fuck much harder than they do."

Then she was gone.

It was pandemonium between the boats then as they all tried to pull away as quickly as they could in different directions.

They knew that it only wasted time to look up, trying to see where the flying beast was, but many couldn't help it.

Gudrun killed a few with her bow, laughing as she did it, but what brought her and Rex the most returns were her laughing cries and shrieks. When anyone looked up - if they happened to be in the basilisk's view -- he focused on them and they fell dead.

The two ships pulled away, leaving the longship and several of the smaller craft drifting, full of corpses. Any who could were pulling on their oars for their lives, and whenever a survivor noticed a dead man near him, he stopped rowing long enough to push the body over the side before he went back to his rowing, unless the dead man had been a friend.

Louhi stood with Cuilén and Thorvald as Rex flared in for his landing. The basilisk was about to scuttle his large body back down when he saw the seaman holding up his hand. Thorvald thanked Rex and Gudrun and they nodded back, before they descended the steps.

Louhi stood with her mouth open and smiling. "What is this?" she laughed a little as she looked, "I never thought to see a smile on that face. I never knew that you even could smile, Thorvald."

He nodded with his toothy grin showing through his beard, "Now that I see that we are not helpless, Mistress, I am almost happy enough to dance."

Their laughter ran its course and died away, and as it did, one after another of them looked over to regard a lone figure standing at the rail all alone and looking out at the retreating boats. The rangers still on the deck on that side had left a wide half-circle of room around that one.

Chiorstan stood wearing only her open cloak, holding her husband's sword.

But none of the men knew her as the young widow any longer.

She turned around and the men all took a half-step back.

"What is the matter?" she asked them, "Am I not seen as an ally anymore?"

"Who are you and how did you come to be on this boat?" One of the bolder ones asked her, "We do not know you."

She flicked the longsword overhand once and then she slid it into its scabbard and looked up, her eyes looking a little beady as her long tongue flicked out over her lips once very quickly.

"No, perhaps not," she replied, "or perhaps it is that you do not mark me as one that you have never had much of a thought for before now."

She pulled her cloak around her and they stared at the young widow then, whom everyone had seen, but few had ever taken the time to speak to.

"Do I frighten or disgust you all enough that you would turn away one who would fight in our defense over the way that I can look? If one of them had but climbed up before me, I would have fought for us all."

"We are not that foolish," one of the rangers said with a smile as he stepped over and held out his arm.

Chiorstan looked at the offered hand for a second and then she clasped the forearm above it, "Then know that I am still an ally of clan Ciar's rangers. I only seem to have come into my own in a strange way," she smiled with a shrug.

"Can you use that blade?" he asked.

"Other than to swing it," she said, "I do not know. Until now, I have never been able to do much with it but carry it. I seem to be stronger now, but, ... well, I would welcome a little teaching in the art."

"Then come with me," the man smiled, "I would teach you a little gladly."

"Could I ask you to hold a few moments?" she asked, a little embarrassed, "My tits are full to bursting and I need a little while to feed my girl, if you have time."

He smiled and nodded, before he caught the baleful glare of his woman.

"Oh, don't you start," he laughed, "I seek to teach her, not to die at your hands when I am asleep, Woman."

"A good reply," she said, breaking into a wide smile as she walked up to Chiorstan, "You might live long enough to grow older and gray with a quick tongue like that one.

Is there anything which I might do to help you, Chiorstan? I cannot swing a blade as you can, but ..."

"Only gird yourself if you mean to come down with me," Chiorstan nodded, clearly a little pleased, "Things down below are a trifle unusual, but I will take a friend however I can get one."

---------------------------

They walked Nadya's horse to the stables and being a horsewoman of sorts herself, Petra helped to get the saddle off and the horse stood much warmer and far more content a few moments later.

"In here a moment," Nadya said, leading the princess into the gatehouse.

As soon as the door was closed, she grabbed Petra and threw her up against the wall to glare into her face, pinning her arms above her head easily.

Petra felt the back of her head slam against the wall. She found herself being held there in contact with it from her shoulders to her backside, and Nadya was in her face, snarling.

"Have I just seen the reason that you stood talking with me and saying nothing? Was it all so that I would make a better target? You must have wondered what took the archer so long to shoot that you had to stand still in the cold and wait for her shot."

Nadya smirked then, "Royal plots often come to hidden endings, I think."

Petra looked to be on the verge of tears, and yet, Nadya could suddenly see just a hint of backbone at last on those eyes and she could feel the way that Petra pressed back to get away from the cold wall.

"I am no human," Petra sneered back, "I speak truths the same as any Kurtadam."

"Truths are one thing,"Nadya nodded, "but you are a royal, and telling falsehoods is only one means of deception. Some things might be said, and others can remain unspoken to much the same effect as a human lie."

Petra shook her head.

Nadya pressed harder.

They stood nose to nose, belly to belly, as Nadya stared into Petra's eyes, seeking for what was really there.

"Who was the archer?" she asked down low in her throat, "Was it your sister, Princess? How does it feel to have been the true target?"

Petra tried to turn her head, not wanting to think about what had just happened and what it meant.

Nadya pressed even more, ignoring the way that her mound was now up against Petra's, "The truth, Petra. I want all of it now. Was this a plot which turned against you or not?"

She pressed again, harder this time, and the princess' eyes opened a little wider, though it wasn't clear if the reaction had been one of surprise or not.

"There, ... there was no plot -- at least none that I was a party to," she said quietly, "I came to meet you and to ask about them, the males which you have taken for your pack. I told no one where I was going."

She cast her eyes downward for a moment, "I have heard that one forest warrior lives yet. I wished to meet you."

She sniffled once, "I have always felt regret that we did not have any now -- when we need them the most, here where there are so few of us. It was my dream as a young one to learn from them."

There was nothing from her for a moment but another sniffle, and then she said, "I have never wanted to be who I am; one who is handed matter after matter to decide over, always for others and seldom for myself."

She looked away for a moment then, "The one time when I had a matter which carried MY hopes, MY dreams, and MY happiness, I ruined things for myself."

She looked Nadya in the eye then and her gaze narrowed, "Let me loose, Nadya. You make it worse like this for me, having to look at the one who triumphed over my fool's hope for myself."

Nadya said nothing for a moment in reply. She only pressed hard against Petra again, and then again in a subtle way for all the forcefulness of it.

"You have not answered me, "she said, "Who was the archer? Do you know her?"

"It was Jenna."

The whisper hung in the air between them for a moment and then Nadya nodded as she pushed once more.

"Do you like this, Petra?" the red-haired one asked with the smallest hint of a smile.

"What, this?" Petra asked, "Being fucked up against a cold wall by the one who has what I dreamed to have? Does it please you to do this to me? You said that you take no joy in my misfortune. Does that mean that you take joy in having a princess up against a wall instead?"

"Yes." Nadya smiled a little wider now as she began to hump more rhythmically, "I still find no pleasure in your pain, Petra. But I am finding a measure of it with you. "

"Let me go!" Pettra snarled, "I am in no mood for this. How dare you, I -- "

"To gain what one might want," the red wolf-girl smiled, "one must first want it badly enough. Then one must dare to take it. If you do not dare, you cannot have it, Petra. That is how I dare."

Nadya kept Petra just a little quieter by kissing her very forcefully, though she was still surprised at the level of sound which a person's nose might allow to pass.

She drew her head back, "I can allow that you might not be in the mood, Petra, not long after having an attempt made on your life by one who followed you all of your lives, especially.

But you see, at the moment, I am in the mood and very much.

It serves several purposes; the one which I like so much at the moment is to see the fire in your eyes. I was told that you were known as iron-willed, but until just now, I have only seen hints at it.

Now, ... your anger," she smiled, "Ooh, and that royal outrage at what I do here, ...."

She lunged then and kissed Petra again, grinding her sex against the girl and pressing her body against Petra's as much as she could, wanting to feel the princess' breasts as they were crushed by her own, but pulling back just in time as Petra snapped her mouth shut.

Nadya wouldn't allow Petra much in the way of any movement, but she found a little latitude anyway and went there and knew that it had been a mistake in the next instant. Nadya had known and she now held Petra that way to enjoy her.

"I know that it is at least very pleasant for you, Petra. I can feel the way that you hold your hips to give me a better angle."

"I only do it in the hope that you might finish quickly," the princess hissed a little, "since I have no hope otherwise until you have finished with me."

"Oh," Nadya sighed, "Want a kiss, then?"

Her face split into a wide grin a moment later, "You dirty, naughty, beauty," she chuckled, "If only you could have seen what I did there in your eyes just now.

I am not one who seeks this with other females usually, "she said with a smile, "but I can see that you are much more -- comfortable than I would be. Your face says that you do not like this, but your eyes tell me a different tale."

Petra shook her head, but Nadya saw the way that her mouth opened a little and she felt Petra's breath against her nose and whiskers. She went a little faster and her reward was a small gasp.

"If you were not one who likes this," Nadya grinned, "then I think that you would not be standing on your toes now, the way that you are, so that we might match up a little better.

Do you know who it is who fucks you now?

For the past few years, the last one of the kind which you say that you admire so much was a whore. Did you know that?"

Petra closed her eyes very slowly and she bit her bottom lip just a little as she shook her head.

"Oh yes," Nadya whispered, "I do not hold myself up very high, Petra. I only try to live better now, since I have the chance to because of your sweet brother and Koten. But I was not only used by men in the town. I had to fuck with women as well.

It was another thing which I did not want to have to do. But in the doing of it, I came to know much so that I could please any female who paid for me."

She leaned in and slid her cheek against Petra's as she crooned into her ear, "Do you like me, princess?"

Petra opened her eyes about halfway and she nodded, "Yes. Only, ... only please, could you kiss me again? Just, ... "she moaned as she gave in and began to move her hips, "Just a little?"

"I might have the wish to, "Nadya said softly, "but first we need to keep on like this while I tell you of some things that I hold in my mind, Sweet Petra."

"Why do you torment me" Petra asked, "if it is not to shame me?"

Nadya shook her head, "I only want to drive you to recover your will, Petra.

I can feel that you are no soft princess, no matter what you try to tell me in your shame and sadness. I like that in you. Also, you need me.

You need me for many things, Petra. You only do not know of them yet.

You need to be protected a little over who you are, but you also need to recover your strength of spirit. I can help with it easily.

Sad to say, but the way that things are, there can only be one ruling princess after what has happened today. I think that you need me for that as well.

But first, before anything else, Petra, ...

You need this."

Nadya kept humping against Petra, but to the princess' surprise, she felt it as her wrists were freed from Nadya's grasp.

Petra looked into Nadya's face then and Nadya closed the gap to kiss her. Petra held onto Nadya, though she allowed a little room as the red-haired wolf-girl raised her pawed hand to clamp it onto Petra's breast.

Petra raised one leg and tried to wrap it around Nadya's hips and they went one together that way for a long time, both groaning a little softly now and then until they both trembled at different times.

Petra chose her moment and shoved her tormenter away as hard as she could and while Nadya was a little off-balance, the princess attacked.

There was little in the way of furniture in the place, but most of what there was, the two combatants demolished within a minute as they crashed into everything during the struggle. Petra wanted to kill Nadya over the embarrassing interlude and she cursed herself as she tried to get a clear opening to throw her punches through.

She kicked and tried her damndest to both hurt or maim Nadya in any way that she could while trying to guage her moment in which to make her dash to the door, and, ...

-----------------------------------

As her own orgasm faded, Petra savored the way that she could feel Nadya's fluids seeping down along her own sopping cleft to mix with her own. Nadya was still humping her slowly to try to prolong the moment.

As it finally passed, Petra slowly unwrapped her legs from around Nadya and groaned over how stiff they'd gotten during their tryst here on the cold floor of the gatehouse. She looked up, so confused over everything, but Nadya only smiled for a long minute.

Somewhere in it was the instant that Petra knew that this had been about settling things between them, and not only about a forced humping against a wall. She wondered why Nadya had wanted that, and why with her of all people, if it was not to rub Petra's face into her defeat.

"Now you know the one who you wish to follow, I hope with all of my heart, "Nadya said as she felt Petra's fingers in her hair and the way that her thumb ran over her ear as Petra slowly nodded, "But, ... I do not understand, ..."

"Listen, Princess Petra. Koten was asked for more than he felt that he could give. The only true wrong in it were the words which were spoken.

Between us, I can give him human and Kurtadam young -- mixtures like me. But the people need one princess and it will be wanted by all, not least that princess to bring forth Kurtadam whelps.

Who says what the royal pack must be made of, Petra? Natan can give you whelps. There is nothing wrong with it in the eyes of them all. Your parents are not related by blood, I have heard. One pairing in the bloodline will not give weaklings. Natan would have you with us gladly. You know that in his heart, he still needs to follow you as well. I know that it troubles him to no end.

In the dark and behind the doors, you follow Koten and me. I want no part of ruling here -- that is your domain and not mine. I expect no recognition from anyone over what we are in our pack.

So you see it now?"

Petra's eyes widened, "You - you offer me the place of your second? Why, Nadya?"

Nadya nodded, "Because many need it, Petra. The people need one who rules with her royal brother, who has come to be a very fine young lover. You could have both of them as I do, and it would do your heart as much good as I know that it would do theirs. Your parents need this so that they will feel better and know that everything is not lost. The council need it before they argue themselves into apoplexy, and, ..."

She kissed Petra's nose a little playfully once and then she smiled, "And you need it, most of all.

"And you?" Petra asked. "Do you not need it at all?"

Nadya hugged the princess tightly, "Not especially at the moment," she said airily," but then I have had a little fun already, fucking a beautiful princess up against a wall and on the floor.

It was very good when we were on the table too for a time."

"Until we broke it," Petra smiled up. "I have only done this with my sister. I must admit that you are very good."

"Thank you, and I can say the same of you," the warrior smiled softly. "I will admit to something here and say that this has been the one time when I hoped so strongly that what I learned of doing this between females would stand me in good stead.

To have had the chance of this with you and not been able to carry it off somehow was a bit of a worry."

"Oh?" Petra smiled up, "Strange to hear that from one so confident and daring.

And here I worried and I found myself actually growing a hope in me - once I truly gave in - that you would like it with me. Other than with Koten at the beginning, I have never had the thought that I might not, ... hold up well to the mark in another's eyes.

But for all of our fighting - which I enjoyed, I now feel such hope for the first time in a long while. Also, I seem to have found one, who lies atop me now, who I might learn a little from."

Nadya nodded, "We will have to see, but if it goes as I hope for us all I think that I will need you for your skill too in a time, for I have heard that the one I lie with here is fearless when her back is up, but that is not the important thing, as much as I can say that you cause me to want this with you, when I have seldom had that sort of want.

The pack becomes two in a real way. Yours will yield royal whelps.
My pack becomes one of both kinds from it and it seals things between the two. If and when I birth my children, we will not be living in a hole in the dirt and needing to be fearful all of the time.

I guess that it will be a thing of convenience, but I also hope for much between the females who stand at the heart of any pack. We are the mothers and even at that level in one pack, the hopes of a people begin.

But there are two things which can cause it to hang.

You must find your place in Koten's heart once more. I will help, and I do not think that he is beyond your reach even yet. Even so, it will be a hard thing to do. Just try and see. There will also be questions of you from your elders and the council. You must ride through them and if I can, I will help there also."

Petra nodded, barely able to speak for the hope surging in her breast. She kissed Nadya for a long time before she felt that she was ready to speak very much.

"If this can be, Nadya, I will follow you forever. You might not see the way that I find that I am surprised to have found so much in such little time, but even in all of your taunting to me, I grew to like you.

What is the other thing?"

She saw Nadya's eyes turn a little cold then. "I do not know if I know the way to say it, but as I froze outside with you, these things came to me and I saw that they must be for the good of many -- and myself, Petra. I knew almost at once that we could do this, if we walk side by side, all of us, the roles of the female pair count for so much in an ideal pack of four.

But to do it needs a little time and a place for it to become firm. I rode to the town today and I heard many things as rumors and idle talk. The attempt on your life does not really surprise me in light of what was said to me.

You are sisters, you and Jenna, and close you were. When would she have learned about wolfsbane?

She bought it, that much I knew, so I already guessed what I would smell on that arrow.

And it grows worse than even that. I do not know who the other party is as yet, but Jenna seeks to make pacts in her hatred. Is she is not stopped, I fear that she will hand the keep over to someone else.

The bitch who tried to kill her own sister must die before everyone here does, though I will leave the decision of how everything is handled to you and the council. If it is desired, I can be the instrument of it, but like any other matter pertaining to your rule, it is up to you."

She kissed Petra lightly one again and smiled, "And if this works, I also have my hope, Petra. I liked the struggle, but not so much the taunts which I had to throw in it."

The princess smiled once more as she rolled her eyes, "Oh, I can find a little in my snooty, high-born heart to forgive it - since I liked it so much ..."

She reached up and stroked the edge of Nadya's ear and the three small rings which were worn there, "Especially if the one who I must follow can find the want in her to fuck me again before we go to begin the unpleasant parts of it.

Ask me what you will in the middle of it and I think that I would agree to anything that you want."