The Sighs of the Priestess Ch. 07

They laughed at each other and then began to work together to pack. There was a lot of head-scratching going on until Smyrna arrived to help. "I watched for a time, but I can only laugh for so long," she said, "If I leave this to you, you will be here still packing long after the army has gone."

With her help, it was done in no time and their things set into the cart. With a little time to spare, Yanna took Illya to the river.

"I do not know how to say it, Illya, but I have been bursting with the strangest news. I needed to get you alone to tell you."

Illya looked at his young bride and couldn't quite get a handle on the emotions that he saw there. "Well tell it then," he smiled hopefully.

"I do not know how I should feel," she said, "I walked here with Nisi-ini-su and we talked of many things. She and I are becoming friends, but she was also there to talk to me about another matter concerning Daggat and Smyrna. They have something to ask us, but the priestess offered to raise it to me first beforehand in the case that it might ruin our friendship with them."

Illya was confused now, but Yanna just asked him to hear her out, since they both had to decide something. "They have been very good to us and I love them for their help and friendship to us and mostly, to me," she said.

"They have been together for a while now, a few years, they said, and now they would like to have a child between them. The priestess was asked and she has given permission for one of them to be spared from her duties for this."

She looked at her husband as he put the pieces into place. He nodded, "Go on."

"Well on the one hand, part of me wants to feel a little shocked, but another part of me feels very honored to be asked. They want to ask us if you would help them. No one knows yet if I can be a girl again and I don't think that I can give you children at all like this, so they have offered that if you can get Daggat with child ..."

She looked at Illya carefully, "Then they would have a child to love and raise, and the child would know that you were the father. Also, if it works and we cannot have our own children by then, they offer to make another child with you for us to raise. It is a very strange thing, Illya, but I find that I am not totally against it. In a way, I am also a little proud that they ask for you."

He looked down as he thought about it. "I don't know how I feel about that. I am glad that the asking is being done so carefully here, but I want to wait until they ask us together before I even decide anything. The way that I feel right now, I would say no." He looked at Yanna, "Why are you a little proud?"

She hugged him tightly and kissed him, "The legend of my man," she grinned, "If I cannot give you a babe myself, we would still have one to raise and love, and ..."

"Your count would go up by one more."

Illya stared at Yanna. He looked straight into those lovely and thoughtful amber eyes that he loved to lose himself in, wondering what had gotten into her. He'd been mindful of some possibly fragile feelings, and had even thought ahead to be thinking of her possible possessiveness. And she came to him with this?

It was bending his brain a little. Aside from how she was confusing him now, he felt more than a little uncomfortable with the idea. He kept staring, wondering if he ought to even blink.

And then he saw it, the tiny twitch of her whiskers.

His eye went right to it. Her whiskers were trembling just slightly, and he knew that she was doing her best to hide a grin that wanted to come out.

Yanna was leading him on.

"What is it?" she asked, but her facial control was already fading. Illya smirked and it was all over for her.

His heart swelled in his chest from the way that her beautiful head went back as she laughed freely. It was a big change from the way that they'd met, wrapped up in unhappiness.

She pushed him down and leaned over him for a second, laughing before she nuzzled her nose under his jaw. He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her down to him.

"I couldn't mislead you?"

"For a long moment, I believed it," he chuckled, full of relief.

"I hoped that you would be nervous and refuse, and also, I hoped that you would accept - only because I have a picture of you and Daggat mating together in my mind," she said, "I do not wish for it to happen, but it makes me a little wet to think of it."

She looked at him with those eyes again. "I really am very proud of you, just not proud enough to share."

"I see how I am looked at here," he said, "and I know what is in people's minds," Illya said. "Some think it strange that I am together with you, but I also see what is in most of their eyes. I am a very lucky man and when I see the way that they all look at you, I am so proud of you, Yanna, that you would love me."

She pulled her head back and looked a little serious, "I was asked, you know. I was very uncomfortable about it and I knew that you would be also, but as I sat struggling with an answer, the one called Fox came to us and told Nisi-ini-su that she and Wolf had agreed that he would help Smyrna and Daggat. You and I were the other choice."

She jumped up and grabbed his hand to pull him up. "Come," she giggled, "follow me."

Illya sat up with a smile and allowed Yanna to lead him. "Where are we going now?"

"We are here at the river," she said, pulling him, "and we are going to leave soon. The armies are preparing to fight, and no one looks here."

She pulled him into a thicket of reeds. When they were inside, she threw her arms around him and kissed him hard for a moment before her pawed hand reached for his loincloth. A few seconds later, it sailed over the reeds toward the shore. Her head pulled back with a grin. "Now," she said.

"Now? Don't you mind the stinging flies here?"

Illya stared at her. Yanna had turned around and bent down to place her hands on the bottom as well.

"Now and here," she said, "I want my man and what you sting me with makes everything better."

She moved her hips a little suggestively and her tail found his leg. "No one can see, and anyone who hears us will not want to face a large cat that they cannot see here in the reeds. I have wanted to do it this way from the beginning."

Illya smiled and stepped forward to mount her.