The Chronicles of Harold the Healer Ch. 06

A note to the reader:

The events in this chapter start the morning after those of Chapter 5. It took me some time to figure out where this story was going to go, and more time to write because I don't have a lot of free time. It is long because it is following three threads. Chapter 7 will finish the day's events and will probably be as long. Thank you very much for taking the time to read it.

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The Chronicles of Harold the Healer, Chapter 6

Love is a Magic, wild and untamed, and it never sleeps, even while those who are happily, helplessly under its spell do. Two Mages, who had become bewitched under the light of the harvest moon on the night of the Autumnal Equinox nearly twelve years ago, slept and dreamed in their bed, warmed and comforted by the other's proximity.

Harold Moser was dreaming a memory, of his first true love Dana Magnussen's face, framed by her long, blonde hair, with her bright blue eyes looking into his and her DD breasts with large brown areolas and long, hard nipples rubbing on his chest as she slowly raised and lowered herself on his cock, giving him teasing squeezes as she did so. She had known he wouldn't blow his load too quickly because he and Leila had just had an intense lovemaking session and had caught her with the wave of their orgasm energy just as she had knocked on the door. He remembered Leila's face peeking around the doorway and his pulling Dana down for a hot kiss, which had left her ass exposed. He remembered Leila's wicked expression as she had scooted into the room with the Joy Buzzer strapped to her, gotten on the bed behind her, started the Buzzer and placed it at Dana's anus, and he remembered both Dana's expression of shock and Leila's evil glee as she pressed the device home.

Leila Parsons was dreaming of something she'd never known that she'd wanted. She was outside doing some gardening on a sunny, warm afternoon, but she was only wearing her nightgown instead of her usual work clothes. Harold came out from the kitchen door, wearing only a bathrobe, and had approached her with a self-satisfied smirk that she had come to know so well. She stood up and allowed her gown to fall open, exposing her body to his lustful eyes.

"Hello, sailor. Come here often?" she had asked in her sultry voice, striking a hot pose.

"Every time I visit you, I come several times," he leered, allowing his robe to open, exposing his hard, glowing cock. Above it he had strapped the Joy Buzzer, which was just as thick, but longer and had many strategic bumps and ridges 'for her pleasure'. "Now it's time to give you the double stuffing that you've been aching for."

"Let's go here in the shade," she replied, casually sauntering past, grabbing his cock, and leading him to the table which, at this time of the day, was in the shade of the house. Giving him a sizzling over-the-shoulder look, she bent over the table and hiked up her gown, exposing her ass and already swollen pussy. "Put them in me. Now!"

"Your wish is my command," he replied, placing his hot cock at her pussy, pressing the stud to start the buzzing and turning as the Buzzer started drilling its way into her asshole.

Marcie Parsons, the product of their love that magical moonlit night, stood in the bedroom, hands on her hips, and scowled at her sleeping parents. Her efforts to awaken them had gotten nowhere, and she was Not Happy. Yesterday must have been a very tiring day for them, but today is Monday and she had to go to school and didn't want to be late. She had never seen them so unresponsive before, and didn't know what to do aside from poking and shaking her Papa. The gleam of gold from Mama's dresser caught her eye and she went over to have a look. The two medals that Papa had gotten yesterday from the two Army Colonels were resting in very pretty boxes.

The round one was the Order of the Kingdom and had writing engraved on it in a fancy script. She was able to make out "The Order of the Kingdom, with all its rights and privileges, is presented to Harold Moser in gratitude for his outstanding service to the Kingdom." The ribbon, with its blue, green, and white stripes, lay in an untidy heap on the dresser. The other medal was a gold four-pointed star, with small green gems at its tips and a black one in its centre. In a fine script above the black gem was the word "Harold", and under the gem was the word "Moser". This was the Golden Star of Carcosa, and its black, green, and yellow striped ribbon was also in an untidy heap on the dresser. They were both so pretty, and she wondered if Papa would like to bring them to school to show to her friends. That reminded her that she still had to eat breakfast before she could go to school, which required rousing at least one of her sleeping parents. She remembered that before Papa had been given the medals, the man had shouted and how Papa had jumped to attention. She thought that it would be worth a try.

"Lieutenant Harold Moser, front and centre!" Marcie shouted, doing her best to imitate the sound of command from the Colonel. To her relief, the response was immediate.

"I didn't do it!" Papa said, sitting up and looking around wildly for the source of the command. His eyes finally found Marcie, dressed in her nightgown and arms crossed on her chest. Her long, auburn hair was rather untidily tumbling down her back and her eyes, which were an odd shade of blue with hints of green similar to his, sparkled in the dim light of the bedroom. It was a sunny morning, but the curtains were closed to mostly keep it out. Mama also started awake, looked around and muttered something that sounded like "Oh, damn," and then flopped her head back on her pillow. "Oh, hi there, Marcie," he continued, clearly trying to remember where he was. "What's up?"

"I have to go to school and I'm hungry," she replied. "I've been trying to wake you up."

"Sorry, sweetheart. I was really tired after all that I'd done yesterday. Go get things ready and I'll get up and get breakfast started."

"Things are ready," replied his daughter. "Please hurry. I don't want to be late."

"OK. Now shoo and let me get up." Marcie grinned and ran out, closing the door. Harold grunted, got his legs out from under the sheets, stood up and stretched, with a creaking and popping of various joints and vertebrae. He stood just over six feet tall and his rather hairy body was well-muscled and had a few scars in various places. His hair, which had once been a dark brown, was now mostly gray, quite thin on top, and was cut relatively short. His cock and balls, overtaxed from all the work that they had done yesterday, hung limply under rather sparse pubic hair, but he made sure to flaunt them and his ass at Leila as he hunted for his regular clothes amid the disorder of items on the floor.

"Any more of that and, school or no school, you're going to have me all over you," she murmured, reluctantly getting out of bed and stretching. She could almost feel his unashamed ogling of her five-foot-ten frame, with almost D-sized breasts capped with medium-sized pink areolas and nipples that quickly stiffened in the cool air of the bedroom. She slowly moved towards her husband of less than a day, her hips and closely-trimmed copper-coloured bush swaying hypnotically until they were in each other's arms, kissing warmly and gently, their naked bodies pressed into each other's.

"I think that you already are," he replied after their lips had parted. "But if we don't want to get busted by Angry Daughter, we should control our baser urges and do what needs to be done."

"I suppose that we must," she sighed, releasing him from her embrace and moving towards her dresser for some fresh clothing. She picked up her wedding dress from the floor, ensuring that he got an eyeful of her shapely rear, and draped it over his tuxedo and shirt that were on the back of the chair that was at her desk. "We'll have to hang these up later. When Angry Daughter is in school, we will have some time before she comes home for lunch."

"If you can bring this dead thing," he responded, waggling his inert cock and leering at her hungry look, "back to life within a day, I'll have to start calling you the Necromancer."

"That sounds like a challenge," she purred as she removed panties and a bra from her dresser and started putting them on, smiling as he pouted when her parts were covered up.

"Damn it, where are my regular clothes?" he complained, tearing his eyes away. "I'm not wearing that tuxedo again!" He paused and suddenly remembered. "Oh, right, Pella snatched them to get me into the tux in your cunning plan to get me to the altar," he grumbled, while mock-glowering at his new wife and old love. "I have a spare set in my pack in the spare bedroom." He put on his tuxedo pants, peeked out the door to see Marcie standing in the kitchen with a basilisk stare directed at him. "I'm just getting my other work clothes," he said. "Since my others are at Pella's, right?" His daughter giggled at the memory as he hustled across the hallway to the spare bedroom, whose door he closed behind him. Aside from the spare clothes, he had a business-type suit, a medical kit, several books, his journal, and a flat box at the bottom with emergency Army field rations for the few times when he couldn't get food or needed a little extra. He was dressed in a couple of minutes and met Leila in the hallway.

"Do you want first crack at the privy?" Harold inquired as they made their way to the kitchen. "I will get things started in the stove. Oh, nicely done, Marcie," he praised as Leila went out the kitchen door, making some haste to the tastefully painted privy on the left side of the yard. Marcie had laid out the wood and kindling in the stove, which he ignited with a few words and gestures. The sausages and bacon were in respective frypans, the six eggs were in a bowl waiting to be cracked into another frypan, and the loaf of bread was on a cutting board with the bread knife. She had even filled the kettle, which occupied the final cooking spot on the stove. One heel of the bread had been sliced off and eaten.

"It was so kind of those people to give us this breakfast," said Marcie, giggling at his stare at the bread, then her, then the bread again. There were also no crumbs on the cutting board, he noted.

"You go get dressed and we'll see that this gets cooked as quickly as possible," said her father. "Don't be slow or I'll eat your share," he mock-threatened, getting another giggle as she ran for her bedroom. Leila returned from the privy and they exchanged a brief peck as he scooted out for his turn. The kitchen clock chimed seven as she started turning the sausages and bacon and cracked the eggs and started cooking them. The cooking was well underway by the time Harold returned to the kitchen.

"You remembered to shave," Leila commented at his newly bristle-free face. He had applied Mage Shave while in the privy. "Usually, you don't bother when you're heading out."

"But today I'm not heading to Havisham, I'm staying here," he replied, a look of mild confusion on his face as he remembered that he was now retired from the Order of St. Thrimble and no longer needed to be on the road for most of his job. "So, I have to maintain the illusion of respectability."

"Good luck with that, my love," she replied, patting his cheek, making him pout dramatically and getting a snicker from Marcie, now dressed for school. Leila had put the kettle in the middle of the stove to bring to a boil. Harold looked around and found the small bag of coffee that he'd brought yesterday and put a spoonful in his and Leila's mugs, while Marcie poured the last of the milk from their icebox into each of three glasses. She then set the table and sliced the bread as her parents continued the cooking process, which was filling the kitchen with drool-inducing aromas.

"I'm going to have to go shopping this morning. We're out of almost everything," said Leila.

"Papa, would you like to come with me to school and show your medals to my friends?" Marcie asked as the long-awaited food was plated and they sat down to devour it. "I think that they would like to see them." Her parents exchanged glances and he shrugged.

"Sure, I can do that," he replied after swallowing a piece of sausage and following it with a swig of milk. "I think that there's stuff that I'm supposed to be doing, but probably not until later in the morning. Being a Hero of the Kingdom requires making appearances, signing autographs, kissing babies..."

"Don't get too dramatic, Harold," sighed Leila, rolling her eyes skyward as Marcie giggled at the pose he'd taken. "You've never met her teacher. I'm not sure if you've even seen the school."

"I don't think that I have," he said, sipping some coffee. "Normally, I'd be getting ready to go off to Havisham to fill in the paperwork for my last trip, and that's something that I will have to do to complete my severance officially, but now that I don't have to go, at some point I would like to see the poor person who has to try to impart knowledge into that noggin of yours."

"It's too easy and Ms. Franklin makes me help the others after she teaches the lessons."

"Mages have to be smart to learn all the stuff we need to know," said Leila, looking down at her empty plate. "Where did all my food go?" she asked plaintively, batting her eyelashes at Harold.

"We must have been hungry," her husband replied, chasing an imaginary crumb around his equally empty plate and burping contentedly. "Do you stay there for lunch or do you come home?"

"I come home, Papa," replied Marcie as they all got up, gathered their dishes and put them into the sink. "The school isn't that far away." After Harold gallantly ceded the honour, such as it was, Leila hit the dishes with a Clean spell that made a loud clatter and made them jump, despite their expecting it. "We have to leave soon or I'll be late!"

"OK, sweetheart, get your books in your pack and we'll be off," said Leila. The clock had somehow worked its way around to 8:15 and the two Mages put away the dishes as their daughter got ready.

"Don't forget your medals, Papa," came her voice from her room.

"Yes, Master," he replied in his patently fake servile voice, dodging a half-hearted swat from Leila with a grin and walking down the hallway to her, now their, room to get them. He hadn't had a chance to examine them yesterday, and felt touched when he looked at the inscription on the Order of the Kingdom. The other side was the Kingdom's coat of arms, in excellent detail. The other side of the Golden Cross of Carcosa was an intricate engraved abstract pattern surrounding a flaming Phoenix. 'Harold' had been engraved on the rear of the top arm and 'Moser' on the rear of the bottom arm. "Rising from the ashes. How appropriate," he murmured. He had heard bits and pieces of the progress of its reconstruction over the years, mostly from Pella's family who had remained in contact with their friends, and had been pleased that it had been going relatively smoothly, with help not just from the Kingdom, but other neighbouring states like the Argosy Federation. The OK went into his right pocket and the GC into his left, and he turned to see Leila watching him from the doorway.

"There are a lot of stories behind those medals, aren't there?" she asked quietly, advancing a few steps and holding his face in her hands. He raised his hands to stroke her half-copper, half-silver hair and smiled sadly.

"Yes, there are," he replied. "And now that I can't escape, you'll be wanting to hear some of them," he added with an impish grin, giving her a quick kiss.

"I want to hear all of them," she growled. "Let's get going." He grabbed his hat and they walked back to the kitchen where Marcie was waiting for them, rather impatiently, wearing her dark brown backpack and her white sun hat. Leila found her hat and Harold grabbed his staff from the corner in the kitchen where it had wound up after last night.

"Hi-ho, hi-ho, it's off to school we go," he sang, badly off-key as usual and the others winced as they walked through the kitchen door and Leila locked it.

"Papa, have you always been such a bad singer?" asked Marcie as they walked along the path from the kitchen door to the street.

"Marcie!" exclaimed Leila. "You shouldn't speak to your father like that!"

"That's all right," Harold replied, putting a hand on his daughter's shoulder at her mortified expression. "I have been this way all my life, as far as I can remember. I am one of those very rare people who has no musical talent whatsoever," he continued as they turned left to walk away from Main Street. "Musical ability is one of the Assessments that we have to go through when we are admitted to Mage School because there are a number of spells that operate through music. They tried everything on me. I made noises with trumpets and trombones and violins that nobody had ever heard before. In desperation, they gave me a triangle, and instead of a 'ting', I somehow made it go 'tzannnggg'." Marcie and Leila laughed as they turned right and headed down the street that would lead them past Kim Blandford's house. "The Music Professor, then and there, wrote a note for me to take to the Office officially excusing me from any and all Music classes. The other kids gave me a round of applause as I left. As I found out later, my lack of talent makes me totally immune to Musical Magic." Leila quirked an eyebrow at that. She wanted to hear the memories that he was clearly reliving as he said it.

"And your Papa then used it to save the day at the Battle of Carcosa when the other Mages Amplified his voice, like we did last night at our wedding, except much more loudly so that the whole battlefield could hear it," said Leila fondly. They were coming closer to the school and could see other people converging on it, three blocks to the south.

"The Beer Song has a high note near the end," said Harold, memories of the time suddenly flooding back into his mind like they had happened yesterday. "After our initial success from our charge using our Wards to blow through their lines, we started losing ground because they outnumbered us and had more cavalry and better horses. Such beautiful horses. It was Dana who suggested it. When I hit that high note, every horse on the battlefield, including ours, totally freaked out. They ran everywhere, trying to get away from that awful noise. We managed to get ourselves organized and broke the Carcosans, who were totally terrified, thinking that it was their God who had somehow turned against them."

"Battles sound scary," said Marcie thoughtfully as they approached the school, which was a large, three-story building that housed all students from kindergarten through Grade 12.

"You have no idea," her father replied, shuddering. "And it is my sincerest wish that you never experience one, either. In the end, it was worth it, but I never want to go through that again, not for all the medals in the world." The schoolyard was large and included a track for people to run races, a baseball diamond, a soccer field, and a large playground that was swarming with kids of all ages. Harold was rather taken aback by the sight, as he'd never thought that there were this many kids in the town.

"Go get your friends," urged Leila and Marcie ran off through the knots of kids and the happy noise of play to where her friends had congregated. "And where do you think you're going, Mister War Hero?" she demanded, catching her husband in mid-sneak.

"I think that Lakash went back to Kim Blandford's place for the night after the wedding and I wanted to ask him if he'd found a replacement for me," he replied, the Picture of Innocence.

"Marcie wants you to show your medals to her friends, remember?" she replied, establishing an iron grip on his left upper arm, all the while smiling sweetly.