Talla's Temple Ch. 24

It wasn't terribly likely, was it? She forced herself to say it anyway.

"Maybe we can find each other again."

He could only look at her. He wanted to run to her, grab her, hold her -- anything. But that would only make things more dangerous. He might never touch her again.

"I'll find you," he choked out.

"Then go," she urged and, as much as it hurt, turned her back on him.

"Go," she repeated over her shoulder.

She started running, hoping he was doing the same, knowing that if she didn't leave at that moment, she might fail entirely.

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The boy was a healthy swimmer. Elena had to give him that much credit.

She had made the assumption that he was using the river because he had to cross it, so she'd found a wide part of the river and carefully stepped across the rocks to the far bank. All she had to do now was follow him down until he exited. She could even afford to be pretty casual about it. There was very little chance, given the way he was frantically thrashing in the water, that he would notice even a person standing right at the river's edge.

Hunting was her skill. Elena had been raised much closer to the frontier than Marissa had. She'd been in battles. Real ones. The kind where people died. It gave her a perspective that Marissa lacked despite her seniority. It made tracking this disobedient whelp a rather trivial, almost relaxing game -- more a test to keep her in shape than the serious matter that her superior supposed it to be.

The river was narrowing and getting deeper. It gave the boy a bit of help, seeing as how he was headed downstream. No matter. She was from Tight and no amount of foliage or current would keep her from tracking a swimming male.

There. He was treading water, preparing to get out.

She crouched. The water was deep here. It took some effort for him to pull himself up on to an embankment.

Where was he going? Well, this was stupid. Why had he used the river if he was getting out on the same side as he went in?

Elena rolled her eyes. Diving into the river wearing leather armour would be the height of stupidity. She wasn't planning on engaging in battle anyway and she did need to follow him.

In the distance, a bell rang out. Nap time was over.

Madra Zen, her quarry was getting away. The bell seemed to have inspired him to greater effort.

Two buckles on her side came undone, releasing the entirety of the armour covering her upper body. Underneath it, she wore only the smallest yellow top she owned. It was really only there to protect her nipples from chafing on the leather. Point was her only external upgrade, a small luxury of hedonism where her mates would have taken Strength.

The skirt was another problem. Not removing it, naturally. With only one buckle holding it in place, it fell off easily. What was underneath it, on the other hand, was not something she wanted to talk about.

With her armour in a neat pile on the bank, she dove into the water with a nearly silent rip, eager to catch up to her prey.

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Having heard the bell, the men of Harzen's farm were waking up. The first of the men to stick his head out of the farmhouse was Tilgan. He stretched his neck, fixed his straw hat in place, and prepared to return to work.

He heard footsteps behind him.

Slowly, not quite completely conscious, he turned to see a woman at his side.

"Sir?" she said.

"Hm?"

A woman out here? Without a message satchel on her back?

She pointed out towards the stables.

"Do you know that boy there?"

Tilgan squinted.

"Zhair'lo, probably," he told her. "Only kid we got out here."

"Zhair'lo?"

"Mm-hm. That's him."

He turned to look at her.

Odd.

Dripping wet, for one thing. Dark hair just starting to go strawberry blond in some places. Flat chest with the tiniest yellow top he had ever seen.

His eyes wandered down her body. Legs of a messenger, no doubt about it. This was a woman of Form. But -

She coughed and his eyes immediately moved to meet hers. She was blushing.

"Thank you, sir," she said, drolly, and turned to run away ... into the forest?

Tilgan had fucked a lot of women. He was in his late thirties, after all. They'd worn white when he was young, and nowadays they only came in orange and yellow. The orange women always showed up in some fancy tops and little underwear-like bottoms. Sometimes they wore thongs, sometimes they had patterns or jewels in their little outfits.

The yellows, though, always had skirts.

And yet, with all the yellow-clad women that had ridden his cock, never in his life had he seen a yellow pair of underwear on a woman.

That made today a first.