Phfinaesque Fairy Saga

She flashed her angry, sad, ashamed eyes at you. Then she turned away, muttering a "God damn it!" and stepped into the stream, bending down to wash herself.

Your eyes couldn't help but linger on her cute little bubble butt.

Then you yourself blushed and looked away, but did she feel your eyes on her? Did she look over her shoulder at you?

She dressed herself in loose-fitting clothes, boy's clothes, from the ... from HER saddle bags, and asked if you needed to bathe, too.

What? You thought angrily to yourself: do I stink?

You sniffed a pit experimentally ... the walk had taken its toll, you were forced to admit.

He ... SHE waited.

Your jaw tightened. "Look away, sirrah!" you ordered imperiously: a noblewoman commanding a paige.

The look of hurt that crossed the girl's face ...

You swallowed. You wanted to explain, that you were calling her 'boy' to keep her secret safe.

But you couldn't talk to that face. A tear fell from her eye. One. Only one. She looked away, and muttered a "I'll get firewood or ... sommat."

And shambled off, lifeless, much like the zombies that attacked her ... that would have attacked you, if not for her aid ... the aid from a commoner.

Shame burned your being. Alone, you disrobed and bathed. The cool water was cold comfort to the burning flesh on your face.

...

Night.

In your arms.

The little girl, taller than you, was in your arms.

Your butt was cold. The fire burned brightly, and cheerily, but she was in your arms, shielding your front from the fierce heat, so consequently your butt was cold.

But you don't care. She, your little baby girl, was in your arms.

And it happened so suddenly, and so naturally. Of course she laid down to sleep on the other side of the fire, a gallant knight, ... knightess? ... (no:' knight.' For her sake, it's 'knight') protecting your virtue.

If only she had known that you, as a noblewoman, have been more acquainted with the ways of the world than, obviously, she has. And you told your physician it was because of horsebackriding.

Fortunately, it was ... well, the first time, anyway.

But then, ...

... well, anyway.

But then, well, you can studiously ignore each other. Or you can talk.

And there are questions. About how she ... how she found herself in this situation, being what she is, pretending to be what she's not.

And how her parents could countenance that.

And that's when she says she ... that she's on her own.

And the tears again, and her angry admission that she never cries, ...

... which only makes her cry harder.

And you don't remember if you went to her and held and rocked her, or if she snuggled into you, and you wrapped her crying form in your arms.

You don't remember.

You just remember holding her, and whispering, 'it's okay, baby.'

'It's okay, baby.' you say.

When it's not okay. It's never okay when somebody coos, "it's okay, baby," and she, she of the whip-smart, sarcastic mind behind the crystal blue crying eyes, knew this.

And still drifted off to sleep in your arms, trustingly.

With her bubble butt pressed up against your ... you know. And you pressed into her back, holding her into you.

And now you're thinking.

How will this work?

How will this work for her? For she's a young thing and can pretend to be a boy, but for how long? And men ... men like to be men, and do manly things, and how long can she be on her own? Or, if with men, pretending to be one, how long before she is discovered?

And then what?

Well, given the rabble: burning at the stake. Obviously she is a witch, disguising herself with magic. Obviously she must be punished and made an example of, for to discourage this sinister behavior, before other women get these heretical ideas as well.

And ... and what about you? You're supposed to be roasted flesh and bones in a (foul-mouthed, talking) dragon's gullet. Do you re-present yourself to Father ... who did what to save you from the rabble that will so eagerly burn this girl in your arms?

You think. And no solution presents itself in your thoughts.

She murmurs and shifts, and you kiss her raven black-haired head softly.

"It's okay, baby," you sing a soft lullaby.

She sighs.

Not in relief.

"You're out of tune," she complains.

You blush. "Sorry," you whisper.

A pause.

"What's your name?" she asks.

You decide not to be affronted at the commoner's forthrightness. She did, after all, save your life.

"Saga," you say.

Another pause. A thoughtful one.

"That doesn't sound Irish," she says.

"My name and ancestry comes from a long line, centuries old, from across the sea, in the countries on the Continent to the North," you state, trying not to sound too grand.

"Oh," she says humbly.

After a pause, you asked amiably, "And you, ... you are not of our duchy. Are you ... French?"

She doesn't look French, she looks Irish. Black Irish.

"Why do you think that?" she asks.

"Your crest," you explain.

"On your shield," you add after a silence.

More silence.

"It's Fleur de Lis," you say.

And wait.

"For those in service to the King of France," you add finally, exasperated.

"Oh," she says, emotionlessly.

After a moment, she adds: "I ... I picked it up from the ground in my wan-..."

She stops.

"I just found it, is all," then adds weakly, "I can't afford to buy a shield from a smithy, so I ..."

She is quiet again.

"Oh," you say. You can't think of anything else to say.

After a moment, your eyebrows purse.

"You're thinking," she accuses.

"What?" you ask, taken aback.

"I can't sleep with you thinking so hard!" she complains, fidgeting in your arms.

"Sorry," you say, softly.

"Don't apologize!" she hisses.

"What?" you demand, affronted at the apology thrown back into your face.

Commoners. No manners, whatsoever!

"You were thinking something, so you don't apologize for it, just tell me what you're thinking!"

Really, someone had to teach this child some respect!

Maybe that someone could be you, you think, then set it aside to quiet the child.

"I was just wondering..." you begin.

"'Thinking,'" the girl interjects.

"Hush, now!" you command ... but was there a motherly tone that crept into your voice?

"I was just WONDERING," you continued past the interruption, "where you obtained those blades. You do not see such craft ... well, for any price in this part of the world."

You could feel the girl in your arms thinking herself, forming the words of her story.

Eventually, after a thoughtful deliberation, she said quietly, "My father was a sailor."

And then silent.

Her deliberated story.

"And ...?" you prompt.

More thought. "And ..." she said eventually, "he was always gone. Always on the high seas, and he would come back after months ... even more than a year ... with booty. One time he came back with the two swords. He liked them very much. He said they were from the Nihons or the Japans or sommat."

"Ah," you say. "And now they are yours?"

"Yes," she answers icily.

"And the horse ...?" you probe.

"I'm not a thief, okay?" she retorts angrily.

"What do you mean?" you respond, surprised at her anger.

"Why are you asking me all these questions? 'Where did you get this? Where did you get that?' if for no other reason than to have me strung up and dancing on the gallows!" she says with hot rancor in her voice.

You try not to laugh at his ... her youthful bluster and indignation.

"Sweetheart," you say, "I know nothing of you, my rescuer, so I ask to learn more about you."

"Oh," she ... SHE says, deflated at her misplaced anger.

"I'm sorr-..." she begins.

You place a finger over her lips, "Hush, no apology," you say sweetly, but also with the ironic wisdom you have over this child.

You feel her lips smile in acknowledgement.

"I guess I'm just not used to being around people ..." she explains.

"You 'guess'?" you chide.

You feel her shift uncomfortably, so you drop it.

"Sleep now, sweetie," you say soothingly.

"'kay," she says tiredly, then grumbles, "Don't call me baby names; it'll give me away."

You smile and frown at the same time, but then the smile wins. "'Kay," you respond softly.

Her breathing shallows and becomes even.

Your brow purses again.

She sighs. "You're doing it again!" she complains faintly.

"Sor-..." you begin, then bite your lip.

"It's just that ..." you interrupt yourself, then break off again.

"What?" she mumbles, complainingly.

"Well, you were using high courtly language when you first charged into the fray, but now ..."

You break off again.

"Peasant-speak?" she supplies for you.

"Well, yes," you admit, blushing with embarrassment of being so transparent to this young girl.

"It's part of my schtick," she explains.

"Your what?" you ask, confused.

"My schtick!" she grumbles, "you know, my act. I have to sound like a knight if I wanna pass for one. Jeez, you are so dumb for a noble!"

"Oh," you say quickly.

You do not add that the knights in the duchy sound nothing like her supposition, but like mercenaries, warriors, hardened and hard men. But you decide not to debate this point with the now sleeping girl, obviously exhausted from the battles she's fought today.

You hold your brave, high-bourne knightess in your arms, warmed by the fire, but warmed more by her.

One more question nags at you. "How old are you?"

"Twenty-four," she answers from her sleep.

You listen for irony. You don't hear it.

She must be delusional, or dehydrated, or dreaming of twenty-four sheep.

The girl in your arms ...? MAYBE she could pass for fourteen. Maybe. But twenty-four? Women twenty-four had four children and were old, old, old.

Unless she were of noble birth, still under tutelage, and never having to put her hand to the loom or the plow or the ladle. Never, as this girl rightly accused, having seen a day's hard labor.

Then one could be thirty, or thirty-one, ... or thirty-two, and still look like a woman in her twenties ... maybe even pass for twenty-four. Maybe.

'One' could look thusly. But 'one' would know her true age.

And hate it. And her lot in life: a life in a gilded cage with a role to play dictated by others. A canary or nightingale in that self-same cage would have a better fate: at least they could sing (in tune) and fly. 'One,' ... 'she' ... you were just an ornament to be fed to a dragon after you refused to be marry off to, in turn, a fop, a clod, a bugger, and a snob.

The one thing these 'noble' men all had in common: they were men, and they simply couldn't get over being that.

And this girl in your arms wanted to play at that sex? Why?

Well, not to be a woman, obviously: chattel to be used and then discarded, with no voice and no role other than subservience and reproduction, a repository of all man's feelings, his lust and his rage, to be impaled with the former and struck with the latter, and no way to vent hers, and no voice to express her thoughts that man thought she had no right to anyway.

Men and women: a curse to be one, cursed to be the other.

The poor girl! The poor child! The poor child in your arms.

Your child.

You kiss her head again, and drift off to sleep.

...

Dawn

You wake. Warm and cold, even under the blanket. You seem to be holding something very warm.

And very heavy. Your arm is asleep.

And you need to pee.

You look around you. There are embers of a fire, and everything stinks of wood smoke. There are no walls, no ceiling, and the vibrant sounds of nightlife.

You are outside. A hunting expedition? Where is your silken tent? And who would DARE sleep near you? Father will have his head ... both of them.

Unless he's that Prince Idiot? What was that philanderer's name? Charmant? Sommat like that.

'Sommat'?

And then it all comes back to you!

You breathe in the musky smell of her hair ... HER hair, the thought catching you by surprise.

But you still need to pee. Desperately!

You extricate yourself, your arm, from underneath her and slip away a few paces into the forest, look around furtively, fold up and fold up and fold up your petticoat, and ... push, then relax, ... and take care of business.

Where the hell are the chamber pots and chamber maids when you really need them? You wonder if yon lass will be looking to come under service as your handmaid.

You blush with shame at so automatically thinking this thought. You finish up, smooth out your dress, and make your way back to the encampment.

...

There's a noise in the camp.

A moan.

You've heard sommat ... SOMETHING! Goodness, the language! ... something like that before, from the zombie horde bent on your destruction.

The girl had told you to run, but perhaps she had not been overcome?

And the horse ... it had fled in terror before. Now it was standing by, still asleep. Horses cannot be surprised. It would have known.

You approach camp carefully, and in the dawning light, you see somm ... SOMEthing writhing in the blankets by the fire.

And you see her expression. Eyes squeezed shut, body in fetal position, ... hands between her legs.

And then you see where the moaning is coming from.

"Oooooooh!" she grunts out.

Has she become one of the orcs or zombies? Infected by them or by their blood as she had feared?

She pants. Then gasps, "Oh, fucking God, I needed that!" and after more breaths, her face relaxed, she moved her hands away from between her legs, and her breathing became soft and even again.

Did she just cum? you wonder.

Impossible. You were just gone a few minutes. A girl cannot bring herself off that quickly. You know that from many, often frustratingly interrupted, experiences yourself.

You look down at this girl child in wonder and disbelief and a touch of awe and motherly affection.

So many conflicting emotions arising together from this enigma. You approach the ground to return to holding her and to sleep, when you step on a twig, and a small snap shatters the silence of the forest.

You don't know what happens next. The back of your head hits something hard; there is a hand entangled in your hair, pulling your head back painfully into the hard thing.

And you feel cold, sharp, tempered steel at your throat.

Blazing and semi-alert/semi-vacant crystal blue eyes glare into yours.

"What the fuckin' ..." begins the furious girl, but then recognition registers in her eyes, and she recoils from you just as quickly as she was on you.

And she is still shouting in anger: "You wanna fuckin' die? Don't fuckin' surprise me in my sleep like that!"

Her short blade almost glows blue in the sunrise.

You retort in the anger of surprise and shock: "I HAD TO PEE!"

Your voice echos through the forest. A crow caws in surprise.

The girl looks around, then smirks sardonically at you.

"You had to pee," she enunciates each word slowly, as if talking to a three-year-old. "That's nice." she adds with a sneer in her voice.

She shakes her head in disbelief at you and sheaths her short sword.

"What?" you demand hotly.

She rolls her eyes. You can't help to admit that the expression is cute.

"C'mon," she says, reconcilingly, "let's get going."

"Where?" you ask.

"Not 'where,'" she corrects shortly, "'What?' and that what is our morning catch."

Your quizzical look asks the question.

"You know," she explains, "breakfast."

Your stomach grumbles it assent.

She smirks.

...

Fish.

Fish.

Never in your life would you think to be eating what even the commoners refuse, starving rather than having this.

Watching her catch the fish in the stream with her bare hands was mesmerizing, and then she simply stuck a stick down its throat and roasted it over the fire.

This girl was simply full of things over which to fascinate.

But fish?

She held out a stuck one to you, and seeing your expression asked, "Would you rather starve?"

You were tempted to shout, "Yes!" but the word caught in your throat.

She simply shrugged at you, sticking the stick in the ground and reentered the stream to catch her own breakfast.

...

You watched her eating a bit before you ventured to try, but hunger triumphed over dignity and scruples.

You will admit this to no one, not even on pain of death, but the fish tasted ... pretty good.

And the cold mountain stream water? Never in your life have you tasted anything so pure, so crisp, ... so delicious.

You think of her eyes as you gulped handful after handful of that crystal clear water.

...

There are many adventures in the Naughtyham forest, for the zombies were plentiful, to be avoided where possible (being downwind of their stench was a dead giveaway) and destroyed where not, but these are not recounted here.

Not those kind of adventures, but there are other kinds of adventures ... and discoveries ...

...

"You do 'it' facing up?" she asks in surprise.

...

She never gave her name. Never. Not after she pointed out that you didn't ask for it, so when you did, she clammed right up and said, 'Call me Ishmael!' and you exclaimed "Ishmael?" wondering if that were her father's name or another sailor perhaps. But she wouldn't bend, not even to your big eyes, and your big eyes always worked, ... even, especially on her, eventually ... for most things.

But not for her name.

So she stamped her foot ...

... SO CUTE! ... you couldn't help thinking, which she immediately saw, which only made her angrier, which made you laugh all the more ... giggling giddily even;

... and threw up her hands and said, "Okay, whatevs! Call me `phfina if you're gonna call me anything, which you don't, so why should you care?"

And you exclaimed, "`phfina?"

But she wouldn't budge from that. Not one inch.

Not even for the big eyes.

...

So ... "`phfina" was surprised to learn that you did 'it' ...

... 'it' ... such a child sometimes, and about certain things!

... that you did 'it' facing up.

"Why?" you asked. "Don't you?"

"Me?" she asked in surprise, her back stiffening as you rode together on Winnie. "No," she grudgingly admitted, "I like to, um, you know ..." and faded off.

"Yes ...?" you ask encouragingly.

"Well, ..." she begins haltingly.

You can almost feel her blush through her armor.

"Well," she pushes into your silent expectation, "I like to do ... 'it' face down, you know? I like to, um ..."

"Yes ...?" you say again, sweetly.

"I ..." then she breaks off again. "Oh, God, this is so embarrassing!"

"You brought 'it' up," you point out primly.

Winnie snickers.

You have your suspicion about that horse and what it knows and what it hides.

After all: dragons can talk.

`phfina clears her throat. "I, um, like to ... thrust down on ... you know ... I like to take ..."

She looks back toward you then looks away quickly.

"Never mind," she mumbles.

You hum tunelessly against the back of her armor, just pleased with the day.

"Can I watch sometime?" you ask quickly.

"Whaaa?" she pulls Winnie up short in shock.

Or maybe Winnie stops in surprise at the request.

Either way.

"No," she responds decisively, and adds: "God, no! Never!"

For you did find out that she had cum that day. In seconds. But that's another story.

...

Another story.

"What were you doing that morning?"

"What morning?"

"You know: the morning you put your knife to my throat."

"My washitashi"

"Yeah, whatever. Your knife to my throat. What where you doing just before that?"

"Sleeping?"

"No, really."

"What, 'really'? I was really sleeping."

"And before that? ... Well?"

"Nothing."

"Nothing?"

"Yes, nothing, okay?"

"Okay ..."

"Oh, Jeez, Saga, 'okay ...' but what?"

"Oh, 'nothing' ... teehehe!"

"Saga ...!"

"What?"

"Well, what?"