Beginnings

Ohhh, cop out. I know. This was written as it was told to Rel and Una likely didn't want to share that part of his life. Just as he can't tell Rel the full details of his murder. It's still personal and likely will never be any less personal. His comment is also a bit of a snark.

Una has been a strong supporter of the age of majority of the society of the time. He is also a strong believer that if you believe someone cannot be mature until twenty, then they will not bother to express maturity until that time. At the time of Una's birth it was sixteen for males and probably an average of 14-18 for females, depending on when they "become a woman."

Vera can be just as emotional as anyone else, it's just that she's had more time to learn to handle her emotions. I've never seen her throw things before. I've heard tales of Vera bending Rahl-ta over her knee, but he's not alive yet. Not quite, anyhow. Gods are pregnant longer than people are, and the people are still fairly new at this point (Vera has never said that she was people, just that she was alive long before Una was)

Anyways.

Read, Review and Enjoy.





The kiss was accompanied by a hand caressing my back through the thin linen shirt I wore. Erit pulled me forward until our chests were pressed together. At the time I was taller than others my age but I was most definitely not tall. Erit was huge by people standards, towering over the tall Vera. From a southern village, I think Vera once said of the man, where height was a trait worth breeding for. To Erit I came no higher than his shoulders.

It really is too bad that Erit’s people did not survive long enough for me to find them. They were wiped out by some upstart of a lord. A strong, proud people massacred, their sacred lands burned so that some man could have a vineyard as a sign of his status and power.

The hand moved from my lower back and groped me.

Suffice to say, I do not want to share with you what Erit and I did. I was underage, by your own societal standards I should not have been with Erit, who was a whole two hundred by that time, let alone anyone else.

Was it good? Yes. Did it leave me wanting more? Yes.

By all means, fill in the blanks with any sort of sexual act you can come up with.

For over the two weeks Erit and I dodged Vera and bribed servants we did all that and likely a few things you have never heard of.

…

Oh, the things we did to one another…

Where was I?

Yes, of course. At the end of two weeks Erit sent me back to Vera, grinning all the while. I slid into her rooms, feeling quite full of myself as Vera inspected a new female. Large breasts, pale skin and wide hips she was bound for the cow room.

The place where Vera put those meant for breeding. Vera dabbled a little in combining bloodlines, the cows would produce a child, thusly proving their fertility, and then find homes amongst rich lords wanting wives who could produce many children.

Vera ignored me as she walked her slow circle around the young woman, up and down, coming to stand in front of her. The woman’s father or brother or keeper, the one who was selling her, stood to the side. Vera made a finger motion towards the man.

“Two pieces.”

“Two-”

“She’s not a virgin, as you claimed she was and she’s had two children before, I can see the lines on her stomach. You’ll be lucky if you get two pieces elsewhere.”

“I could make more than that prostituting her out!”

“Yes, but then you’d have to feed and clean her and any children she bore which would cost you a good deal more than two pieces. I will be saving you money, really.”

The man growled, “five pieces.”

“Two.”

“Four.”

“Two.”

The man sighed, “fine, two pieces. But I take her clothing with me.” as if he were some how hurting Vera by taking the clothing.”

“I was going to burn them, anyhow,” Vera muttered, moving to her table to retrieve two pieces. Pieces were bits of a drug plant, dried and cubed together. One piece made one tea which would send the user into a dream like place. Vera only traded pieces off when she wanted to ensure that a sale was final between herself and a user. She took the pieces to the man and dropped them into his out held hand. “now leave, before I change my mind.”

The man scurried past me, glancing up sympathetically before he closed the door behind him.

I watched him go and turned to Vera, confused.

“Child, go get washed,” Vera motioned and the young woman fled.

“Good morning,” I said as the door closed behind the young woman.

Vera ignored me, walking towards her worktable. The woman inspected her mortar and pestle, jaw line set. If I had known better I would have kept my mouth shut. I know now that the set of her jaw, the way she pretended I did not exist while she was so obviously annoyed and angry, meant that she was about to lose her mind.

“What?”

“Am I bad to you? That bad to you?” Vera asked finger trailing down the side of the mortar.

Stupidly I answered the loaded question, “no.”

“Then why. Did. You abandon me?” her voice strained. For Vera it was a very serious topic, it was a serious insult to her pride. To… her. She had waited so long for one like me to arrive but when I did arrive I acted as if her waiting meant nothing to me. It did mean nothing to me, but how could I have known that my having fun would inflict such a blow to her.

“I was with Erit, I was only having some-” I ducked as Vera hurled her mortar at me. It struck the door behind me and embedded itself there, “fun. Now there’s no need to throw-” I skittered to the side as Vera threw the pestle. The item slammed into the door, breaking through the thick wood and shattering the wood. “things! Really? All I did was go off for a little with Erit, like you wanted me to!”

“No!” Vera threw a dried plant at me, the piece fell halfway between us, “I never said go off and run away with Erit, I never told you to take my favourite piece. I never told you to go and. And leave me here!”

“You were not alone.” I protested, “you have servants and pieces and followers.”

“I have gods who kneel to me, do you think any of them matter to me when you walk away?” Vera snapped. “You left me here to worry about whether or not you were coming back.”

“I. We. Just, were having a bit of fun.”

Vera burst into tears, sinking to her work table and cradling her head in her hands. I had never seen a woman cry before. People had died in my village before, certainly, but it was at a time in history when death was not the end, only the beginning. Those who lost a loved one looked at it as their family member returning to member and that was a gift everyone wanted and cherished. Women were not beaten in my village, they did not morn the loss of a child. I had seen people near tears from laughter and misting up at Mother’s beauty on clear nights as the moon rose.

Children cried when they were hurt.

Women did not cry when they were hurt, they did not cry at words or because they were upset. I stared at Vera, not understanding what was happening. The sound was most definitely not a pleasant one. I knew that she was upset from what I had said.

When it dawned on me that this was a bad thing, that women cried when they were really upset, when the males around them had done something irrevocably stupid, I jumped in my spot and looked around for help. Only there was no one in the room.

Vera never threw a fit when anyone else was around. Her servants always know that she is capable of breaking doors with random objects or shattering a bed with a kick of her foot. But she rarely showed her temper in public. Those who were on the receiving end of her emotions were subjected to them in the privacy of Vera’s rooms.

Leaving me no options. I crossed the room and settled on the bench beside Vera, edging close enough to her to wrap an arm around her shaking shoulders. Drawing her against my shoulder came as instinct. It seemed right for me to comfort her with physical contact. Vera cried for quite some time before she quieted down.

“One day, I’ll have to leave,” I said, though that in itself was not a smart thing to say, “we’re both dominant.”

“Erit’s been teaching you big words,” Vera grumbled.

“But just because I leave,” I continued on, “does not mean that I will never come back again. Or that I would not visit on a regular basis. I have not thought about running away or leaving.”

“Even though you were mad at me?” Vera asked, sitting up and immediately straightening her shirt, wiping the tears from her cheeks.

“I was upset, but where would I go? Who could teach me what I am or how to handle it?”

“Handle what?” Vera asked, an edge coming to her voice.

I shrugged, “I. Well, I feel better since Erit and I. You know.”

“Had sex.”

“That. I’ve calmed down now but a week of that was just me calming down. I was up all hours of the night and Erit is going to need some time to recover. He was fantastic. Best I’ve ever had,” Even as I said the words, it dawned on me how wrong that statement was, “though that is really simple to be at this point in my life.”

“I have no clue what that is.”

“When you,” I shifted away from Vera, frowning, “have sex, your body does not tingle? My whole body tingles and then I feel satisfied, like I just ate after a long time without food.”

“My body does tingle,” Vera murmured, “but that is because it is good. A pleasure should satisfy you.”

“I have not eaten in two weeks.” I said bluntly.

“…” Vera looked me up and down and stood, walking towards her door, “we shall fix that this instant. Elva! Food immediately!” Vera turned back to me, “that is not normal, you have tanned a bit, though I see, that is good.”

“I have not been outside in two weeks.”

Vera stopped, halfway between myself and the door. Her red eyes narrowed, head turned just a little to the side as she considered me, “this is not what even I would consider normal. I need to bathe in the sun once a year at the very least, otherwise I start craving dirt. Sex does not exit me, does not up my energy. It pleases me and I crave the pleasure.”

“What happens if you do not get the pleasure?”

“I get upset. People get moody when they do not get what they want.”

Little did I know, but my words would set off centuries of experimentation for Vera. She would test and retest the various pleasures until she finally found herself satisfied. Logically satisfied, that was. Vera would discover that what I said was, basically, true. She and I feel pleasure differently. Vera, once she does something or someone several times, gets bored with it and the pleasure no longer sustains her. Myself, I can do the same thing, the same way, with the same person for centuries and I would still react the same way.

I was more sensitive to sexual pleasure.

“What do you mean, you crave dirt?” I asked her, curiosity getting the better of me.

“I crave dirt,” Vera muttered, lowering her voice, “as in eating it. Dig your toes into the soil sometimes, it will calm the turmoil of your mind. If you find yourself drinking a lot of water, soak for a few hours in fresh, living water. In a lake or a creek or a waterfall. Sunlight and specific plants, you would want many or even all of them.

“My cravings did not start inside my natural lifespan. Obviously yours have already begun, that is odd, perhaps because you were killed and that triggered your change at such a young age. They will get worse as you get older and you need to learn how they feel and how to feed them. Some cravings could be unique to you or I. I crave a specific plant before I bleed. That does not mean that you will not crave that plant at all, but at the same time it might be that that plant is for female Mother born.”

“You bleed.” I asked, shocked, horrified and perhaps just a little pitying for a female immortal who was subjected to the monthly terror that could be a female’s time.

“Yes, once a century or so, I am viable, I can breed.”

“You can breed?” my voice squeaked out of me, “but that would mean there would be little ones of you bouncing all over the place.”

“None of them survived past childhood. We cannot mesh cleanly with people, I think. Much like the silent people.”

“Silent people?” this would be the first mentioning of the Sidhe that I heard. Over the years under her tutelage, Vera would prepare me for my encounter with the people of our sister. The people who Harella-shay created as the guardians of Mother. All that she taught me still did not prepare me for that meeting.

“Mm, a race that is not people and not us, they belong to sister.”

“Sister?” I asked, for the gods did not exist in a village such as mine, only Mother ruled the heavens.

“Yes, boy, have you not been listening to a thing I’ve told you in these past weeks? Mother gave birth to a daughter, Harella-shay, and she, our sister, disappeared for a time, going to sleep. The stars, seeing Mother grieve the loss of her child, created Shey-har. The pair mated and Mother bloomed into life. Harella-shay created the Sidhe to tend to Mother and pay homage to her, to keep her company as Harella-shay and Shey-har… enjoyed one another.

“The Sidhe flourished, the word Sidhe meaning people in their language much as people means people in our language,” Vera paused as Elva came in with a tray laden with food, “They spread across Mother’s surface and grew into a civilization. Bits of their civilization can still be found. Then Harella-shay became pregnant. Shey-har made the people as a gift to her, to care for her and her children.

“Harella-shay had not, and still has not, told her mate of her own people. So, not wanting to wound her mate’s pride, she asked the Sidhe to step aside. They did so, and thus they were blessed many times over. Longer life, no judgement after death. Sidhe come and go, souls, every one of them.”

“Soul,” this was a new word to me, a word I had never heard before, “what is a soul?”

“Ah, I’ve finally gotten you curious have I?” Vera murmured, “sit down and I will explain what a soul is while you eat.”

.