Ogres and Ogresses Ch. 28

He chuckled, looking into her eyes and knowing her thoughts. "The woman isss incapable of ssseeing what you offer...to give it to her now would be...a wasssste."

"You call it wasteful, but I call it a gift,"

Vine said. "If she can merely open herself—"

"She will ressent you, nymph. ssZyra of the Roviansss does not open...

Vine looked over at her, and she affirmed Scallen's words with her eyes. He turned back to Scallen.

"And in her future?"

"If sshe fallss into your clutchess and offersss the invitation...onssce more...I will not ssstop you..."

Vine looked at Zyra who was focusing on staying completely still. Caleem had paused with his dick pressing against her.

Stay calm...

You don't want to accidently pull it inside you. You don't want to remind him that you're here. Scallen will protect yo—

"You've teased us then." Vine shook his head disapprovingly. "I noticed you long before. You merely watched. Why did you not voice your disapproval then?"

"YUFF WHUFT?!"

Caleem took a step back.

Scallen shrugged. "Sshe is young, and headssstrong. Ssometimesss, she needss to be punissshed..."

"FUUNSHHD?? IMF GROIG TU KRIL OU!"

Vine scoffed, amusement warring with frustration.

"Then be kind enough to spank her yourself."

Vine waved a hand in her direction and the vines fell away. Zyra crumbled to the ground, sucking up full heady mouths of air, her body trembling from the dramatic change of slight strangulation to forest air. Her shirt lay closest to her, torn at the bottom. She reached for it, holding it to herself, willing her body to calm down.

Scallen's gaze was bereft of mercy. "Perhaps now you will learn to wait, sssZyra..."

The nymphs gathered her clothes, rushing by her side. Caleem knelt, her underwear in his hands.

"Friend Zyra, are you—"

"Don't touch me!"

Her venomous bark stilled the nymphs chatter.

She tried to ignore the looks of hurt on their faces. Quietly they put her clothes by her feet and backed away looking dejected. They dared act like she had victimized them? She'd never understand these creatures.

Zyra dressed and hesitantly looked around her. Vine's back was toward her, and Scallen's face was unreadable, a blank light green mask. It was Caleem whose visage held all of nymph's emotions.

His bright blue eyes seemed dulled, and his hands hung limply by his side.

"We disgust you," Caleem stated softly.

Yes.

She shook her head no.

"No, it's not that. It's just I..."

Their blue eyes bore into her, eager for an explanation.

"I-I just..."

"You just...what?"

She swallowed the lump in her throat. I just can't stand what you represent.

"It doesn't matter." Shaking her head she ran off into the woods.

Vine let out a burdened sigh. "She's heading for—"

"I know," Scallen hissed running behind her. "I know."

--

Rair took another sip of the moon root to calm her nerves.

Failing, you are failing.

Her mind raced with all the possibilities, all the measures she could have taken to save Paj, to save the huntresses from this grief. Never, since Kyzu's chiefdom, had a huntress or villager been killed. Old age and sickness were the only ways to die. It was as though the earth felt the imbalance of leadership, of truth in the Rovian lands. Had Rair been so unfit to lead the huntresses, that a third way to die, murder, had infected the land?

She sipped more moon root.

The sky was lightening. She sat in the branches, staring down at the serene landscape. She had put a huntress watch on, stationed at each end of the village, but Rair could not sleep. She could not bring herself to see Paj lying there, floating in a field of flowers, an innocent smile on her face, cold, with a small trail of blood, dry blood, trailing down the corner of her mouth.

Rair stared at the ground below her, feeling the weight of her soul's debt.

"That should have been me." She knew she spoke the truth, no matter how dark or steep the price. She took a long swig, ignoring how the pleasure was gone and all remained was a burning in her throat. The world spun around her in a tantric dance. How enticing the shame made the ground seem. She could lean back, and pay blood with blood. She could...

"Rair!"

Her gaze jerked forward. Slowly, her unfocused eyes searched for the voice. It was Gharla.

Rair wasn't happy to see her, but she wasn't unhappy either. Besides, it was a well-known fact that Gharla liked to stick her nose about.

Gharla noted the disheveled state of the usually elegant woman. She glared with uncensored disdain.

"Rair!" she called again. "Come down here!"

"You are not on watch, huntress," Rair said evenly. "Why are you awake?"

"I was relieving myself," Gharla lied unconvincingly. "I happened upon you. What are you doing up there?"

Rair let out a deep sigh, and braced her body against the tree's hard bark.

"I am a failure."

"And failures belong in trees?"

"This failure does."

Gharla's lips thinned. "It wasn't your fault. We both know what happened was in no way natural."

"I was in charge!" Rair shouted. Gharla jumped. Rair had never raised her voice before. If Rair noticed her reaction she didn't show it. She leaned forward, her knees raising.

"I was the leader and I let her down. I let Paj down...I let Zyra down..."

Gharla looked at Rair, wondering if she was seeing her, truly, for the first time. There was something dark and worrisome beneath her rock like surface.

"Rair...there was nothing you could have done—"

"Paj is dead and Nima has strange dreams. Zyra has not given word, Firetoucher and Henna are missing, and the ogre..."

Rair took another swig, chuckling. "The ogre has run away. Took a few belongings and abandoned our lands. Beyond our reach, beyond our promise of care. Zyra will return home to find nothing but loss, and it will be I. I, who has already cost her so much who—"

"Already?"

Gharla shifted, crossing her arms. "What do you mean?" she asked suspiciously.

Rair looked at Gharla, then looked up at the sky. Why was the Rovian sky so bright?

"It is pointless," Rair said quietly. "My debt cannot be repaid."

"What debt?"

"You know who I am," Rair said. "But you do not."

"The moon root has addled you," Gharla chided. "I was there, I was a village girl. We found you when you were a child."

"I was not found sister."

Gharla looked up at her. She reached a firm piece of bark and climbed her way up the tree. Cautiously, she sat beside Rair who leaned against the bark's brown surface for stability.

Gharla put a hand on her so the woman would look at her. She did. Her black eyes were laden with sorrow.

"I would ask that you make yourself plain now sister."

"After a drink perhaps."

"Let the earth drink it...pour a sip for beloved Paj."

"..."

Rair dropped the moonroot bottle and they watched it smash hard against the ground.

She chuckled mirthlessly. "Fine, I will make it plain. Plain like a Rovian sky."

She pointed to herself, a bitter smile on her face. "I owe Zyra because I, am the cause of her mother's death."

--

Zyra stormed out beyond the trees, angry at the situation she had been put in. How dare they attempt to rule her fate? She still did not understand how the nymphs worked, nor did she understand why they were what they were, but she did know that in their twisted minds, they were attempting some sort of altruism. Perhaps what bothered her most about the nymphs was their ability to overpower her.

Alone they were helpless, like children. If that, but together in their pack they were a force to be reckoned with, a force that she could not overcome despite her abilities.

What good was it to be the keromedio if a pack of nymphs could best you?

She was tired of the valley, tired of the witches, and most of all she was tired of that no good perverted Sca...

"...!"

Her heart leap out of her chest when she realized she was falling. Before she could make so much as a peep to sound out the last two vowels of her impending demise, she felt herself pulled back by strong fingers fisted at the back of her shirt. She turned on her toes, her heart in her throat, and she saw the no good pervert, Scallen.

"I told you to wait for me."

He released her and she fell to the ground. Without mercy or regret he watched her scramble up, dirt and sweat covering her.

"Why would I wait? You were watching you piece of filth!" she screamed. "You are the lowest of the low. I don't know why you saved me. You should have let me die to allow me peace from this my embarrassment!"

"You ssshould be embarrassssed..." he hissed. "You are acting like an ungrateful child..."

"Why do you side with them?" Zyra demanded. "Why do you not see that they are not noble creatures?"

He slid around her, his eyes slitting. "Of courssse...I sshould ssside with you, ssso the future will be riddled with cliffs asss far ass the eye can ssee...how could I deny you ssuch thingsss?"

She tried to ignore his cheeky grin, always on the brink of slipping into a smirk. It was difficult to argue with him when he was like this. It was even worse that he had just saved her. It suddenly occurred to her that she had forgotten a very important detail.

"Where is the Nightlock?"

"Are you sso ungrateful that you fail to thank me for ssaving you twisssce?"

She winced. "Thanks. Where is it?"

"Isss that the bessst you can do?"

She took a breath. "Thank you, Scallen, for saving me. We are officially even, one save repays when you tried to kill me, and the other covers me sparing your giant scaly life."

"What about the battle in the valley?"

"That was between you and Caligula. I was a lucky coincidence."

"And the food? Have you forgotten our first kissss ssZyra?"

"No. Just like I haven't forgotten that you drugged and molested me. Nor have I forgotten that I woke up stripped. Or how mere minutes ago you watched me being defiled and instead of assisting me immediately had a jolly ol' time!"

She turned, poking him in the chest with each statement. "No amount of saving can ever repay the anguish your sense of humor subjects me to. And no good deed on your part will ever undo the future injustices I am sure to succumb to in our continued friendship. So thank you, for your continued penance. Take me to the beast, or I will feed you to him."

Scallen tilted his head at the much shorter human woman whose nature was ever violent and his smirk finally unfurled. "Very well, my...liege..."

Chuckling he tilted his head and began to walk off. Reluctantly, she followed, silently cursing him in her mind. He was quiet as they walked, which only served to unnerve her. He didn't nag like Medean, or tease like Kail, he just...irritated her...silently.

"Where are we going?"

He raised an eyebrow. "To the...Night lock..."

"But where? What location?"

"Afraid I'll take you back to the nymphsss...?"

She grimaced, the thought never entering her mind. "I won't even dignify that with a response."

--

Scallen's walk began to fill her with irritation.

How dare he stride so elegantly, round his shoulders with such self-assurance and arrogance? He lived in a hole in the ground? What gave him the bearing of a Chief? She longed for the sweet sight of ungainly human awkwardness. When was the last time she saw someone stumble on nothing but air?

Zyra sighed. She was so tired of magical creatures. She missed the creatures of her land, even the foolish Perkadu. Well, at least she was on her way to see a familiar face. The smooth baritone voice of the beast echoed in her mind. She frowned.

As familiar as a savage animal given the ability to speak could be.

--

"Who are you?"

Rair leaned back, her face frozen with bitter amusement.

"A curse to all who look up me."

"I need you to focus Rair."

"I am focused. Perhaps for the first time."

Gharla waited for a moment, then smacked her. Rair's eyes welled up and Gharla's hand stung. Slowly, Rair turned back to her.

"Thank you."

"You are welcome. Now...sister, answer me."

Rair pointed out into the distance, her eyes glazing over with memory.

"Do you remember what was? What rested in the distance long ago?"

Gharla nodded. How could she ever forget?

"That was where the Akeerans dwelt."

Rair nodded. "The tattoo of the Akeerans is upon my shoulder, but as time passed so did the significance of this symbol. There was a time when I, like Zyra, was ostracized because of a symbol sewn into my flesh. Now, the children have forgotten. The adults have forgotten, and the sins of the past lay beneath clothing, but what of the story do you know Gharla?"

Gharla sat up, the oral tradition coming to her like a dream. "An Akeeran child grows without love or kindness. They are brought into the world to be soldiers, and snatched from the earth, the child seeds scattered to grow Akeeran hatred. If they run they find the world to be an unfeeling place. To take an Akeeran child in is to declare war of their tribe. But the Chieftess, Mother of goodness Kyzyra, could not bear to hear the stolen children of the Akeeran cry."

"I was the child," Rair stated.

"But we know this—"

"No," Rair snapped. "No...I was the first Akeeran child that Kyzyra stumbled upon. I was running away." She shook her head mournfully. "I was tired of being beaten. I was weak with hunger and I saw a fire in the distance. But I was an Akeeran. I knew no kindness or decency. I took a stone in my hand and I crept up to the owner of the fire, and I brought the stone down to strike her." Rair shook her head at the memory. "But she was a huntress, the Chieftess Kyzyra, and she could hear a clumsy youth sneaking upon her. She caught my hand and gave me a look that bore into my soul. I trembled in her grasp."

Rair touched her wrist, her eyes far away. "I can still feel her fingers. I was terrified."

"I don't remember that."

"She never told anyone I suppose," Rair said. "We were already said to be unworthy of trust. When she saw my condition the Chieftess had pity on me and fed me food from her fire. I ate my fill and she spoke soft words to me, huntress words and common tongue that I could not understand. The Akeerans taught us the Akeeran code. Without language we could not share our pains, we could not cry out to the neighboring tribes, but Kyzyra was a special woman. She heard my cry, she said, she could see it in my eyes."

Gharla's heart filled with pity for the child Rair was, knowing that to carry the conversation of the dead woman until she could understand the tongue of her, must have been a difficult task.

She put a hand on her knee.

"Then what happened?"

"She laid me down beside her, but I snuck away. I feared for her, the first good person I had ever known. I went back to my home, but your Chieftess found me. With a hunting party she scouted the area, I saw her sometimes, saying nothing as she observed our pains. Then, one day she came with the huntresses to appeal to Venya, the Akeeran Chieftess. Venya was unlike the other Akeerans, she was the bloodline of cruelty. She did not need to be raised without kindness, she was merely evil. And she was horrible to me."

"Why did she resent you so?"

Rair paused, her heart laden with the truth. "I was a reminder of her weakness. Of how in her drunkenness she fell prey to the charms of an Ursie. I was...her daughter."

Gharla gasped. "But...you returned with that hunting party. You followed Kyzyra back to the Rovian lands."

"Yes."

"So when Kyzyra left with you..."

"She had taken the Chieftess' daughter. Venya did not retaliate due to disrespect, she retaliated because I had been taken. It was because of me that Venya took Zyra and Kyzu. And it was because of me that Kyzyra had to fight Venya to the death to save Zyra."

Rair pressed her palms into her eyes, trying to contain the throbbing behind her eyelids. "The Akeerans believed that blood must be paid with blood. Iridis was to be Kyzu's corpse, and Zyra was to be mine. Venya did not come for me that night. She could have, but the Wakai had killed us all. She could not bring herself to bring us to true extinction, to bring the last of the Akeerans by her own hand."

Gharla grabbed Rair's hands, holding them tightly in her own. "Kyzyra was mother to us all. She saved you for a reason."

"She did not know who I was or she would not have saved me."

"Rair!"

"At 10, I had undergone five years of torture and training. I was almost of age. The night of Kyzyra's death she came to me. Venya told me that I was to carry on the bloodline, that no matter how far I ran, no matter what tongue I learned, I would always be an Akeeran. I was mute then, wordless when I could have warned my saviors. I was mute about my lineage, and when Kyzu became Chieftess and Zyra cried alone, one overwhelmed and the other orphaned, I had no words."

"What could you have said?"

Rair looked at the blonde haired woman, and she pulled her hands back. "I could have said anything. I could have prevented the death, but the death follows me. I am the daughter of Venya, a true Akeeran."

"You are a Rovian, Rair."

"No longer."

"Yes!" Gharla's sure gaze fixed Rair, forcing her to focus upon her. Despite her resistance Gharla could see that behind those sullen eyes was an ember, dying as it was, of hope.

"Zyra trusts you enough to make you the leader huntress," Gharla said evenly. "She trusts your judgment and your reason and I agree with her. She knows her allies and their strengths and weakness. She takes great care with her closest companions."

"But I—"

"Quiet," Gharla chided. "You have been a keeper of Rovian ways for as long as any of us can remember. You have been loyal in your silence, and it was you who broke that silence, defying everyone, our Chieftess even! To prove your loyalty. Zyra could not blame you for your mother's death more than she can blame herself for being in danger and causing Kyzyra's death. You are a Rovian, sister."

Rair's lips trembled. "...do you truly think so?"

Gharla nodded with a wistful smile. "Is such petty behavior like our beloved Zyra?"

Two fat tears brimmed in the corners of Rair's eyes. Her lip began to quiver, understanding the gift she had been given by both Gharla and Zyra, true friends. A sense of loss overcame her.

"I miss her."

Gharla nodded, and they embraced one another. "As do I."

Rair allowed herself sweet release in the arms of Gharla, her drenched with sorrow. Yet in the darkness she felt her heart grow braver and braver.

"We have to get word from her," she whispered.

"We will, if it takes every breath in my body."

Gharla nodded, half-hearing her words, and Rair's eyes stared defiantly towards the border, daring a witch to feel her power.

Scallen led her to the edge of the nymph forest towards a place filled with rocks and rubble. It was obvious that there had been something here before, some kind of massive rock structure that had fallen prey to evil forces, or perhaps time. There in this ruin she could hear labored breathing, like a rasp inhaling sand, as the body of the abused Nightlock forced itself to heal. She approached it warily, her mind ill at ease. The creature had spoken her name, had it not?

"Go on...", Scallen urged.

She tiptoed closer. To be so close to a beast that's brothers she had killed so easily. She had done it for her tribe, but the carnage...she had not forgotten. It could not have forgotten. So how could it call for her?

How could it think of calling for her?