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Valant warmed a touch too much.

She stiffened; seven 'nesses of hue sundry, knee high, scrubbed and washed with ladle-poured water many a scale that shined red of a body which had started to heal, the scars to crase the lines tween in a fortnight to dwindle gone in a month at the outpour of writecraft sparkled over her. Within the lour third of the tower Gerlis owned, in a shallow pool steam rose fro, Valant lay unshackled with hinds prest to the fore edge next the three steps, stripped of armour and clothed in hindcloth. A guard of ten linen garbed, with slits shielded by steel girdled to stave forleading fro the harem and ward the latter fro wem by the guard, lined the marble lipped fourside of it. Sandstone oranged bricked the walls and the same paled tiled the glossed floor of the gated room, its ironed-black gate to win there, for the width of the halls thwart flight, scant that it mattered for her wings bound. A 'ness robed in white harped. All waxlit and incensed as it had been since the day she woke and they flaunted her about, that the waftsmells near burnt her nares unheeded, each day to waste stound aft stound on rank pampering and ferrying her fro bedroom bequoth to board room to drawing room to claw sheathing room to meal room to bathing room, filled with couth as though a plan hidden--all to lay her open to befouling shand.

The heating fizzled. The vaulted loftroof was as black as the gate, the edges vented for air to fresh.

Brawn that waned fro a dearth of quickening ached; she tried to stand, but to wobble down, for the shackles had dug into her wrists and ankles to bruise, not mark, flesh Gerlis mushed in their fight. So many slashes driven into that murderer, all for naught, her own lance to blind her at the heartbeat key in haste to get that wherefor was long sought. Laid low by herself, she had let her teachers and her mother down. But that oath, sworn to her as she breathed her last, was yet the selfsame as the rock, as the rock she lay fell on, words of wisdom lost, wanderlust taken, warmth ne'er again to be shared, and that love, for life, buried, on that cursed day years ago, etched and gone and here withal:No more. It would not break.

'A chest can be this hardened?' one who scrubbed it asked, the frith rent without care or thought quick by the din of reards that followed. These seven were cowed at the first bathing by her frame. By this, mayhap the eighth, they stroked to feel this and that in way e'er light; to hold back limbs' striking them took a will seldom called, though their daft smallclothes thrummed thin holp forfend touch, although...my mind: gather. Be not waylaid by smell sweet, for unrighteous be their way. Another dyed Valant's claw sheaths--sheaths that blunted her claws to dizens less than toothpicks.

'Muscled,' eked another who all but hugged her leg, 'and ever flexed.'

Blood seethed afresh; 'Wings built for sustained speed.' Spikes smoothed down by heat stabbed not the hellwight crawling along atop, an unhallowed deed whereat eyes twitched.Dawn by wind unto all. Soothed, soothed, for that they mought give means to breakout someday near or far off, soothed.

Patting her underside. 'Have you seen her underbelly? Taut and concaved like a heroic wulkryja.' Mocked by the words of the brow washer: 'Such esoteric names; you spend too much time in that library,' wherewith most nodded, Valant's query of how she had gleaned the name of the yoretide wolf choosers belayed for fear that her ken would cut her off fro what alms of workfit kinship were idly set aside for her as it had so done in years bygone.

'How do you keep your scales polished clean and sheened without any glare? So easy to look at it.' Nonsense; their hands shined her into a knight. What she would do for a wind to dry her scales. A guard, the captess, had asked that.

'Hello? Excuse me, I just suffer from mine matting and--'

She bared her teeth. 'I bathe in the blood of the unhatched cracked.' They all saw through it and laught. One dared gawk at her tongue, muttering about how forteeing red it was.

'And uproar causing too. I hope Gerlis will let her frolic with us in the rest of the estate and in the sun. I long to treat this bod so tenderly, so softly, soo badly.' Frolicking as enthraled meat for her, a harem, frilla all.

'Hey, would ye mind if I tended you?' One sat tween her hindlegs breathed on the cloth.

'Yea, I mind.'

'Oh, why?'

'Our half of our kind shared draweth me not.'

Each swirled water to plash, three to kiss one another, ere they went to her at once as one giggled, 'Ye haven't lain with another before!' She had, eggs inside yet unbegotten, the wherefore unlearnt of, with three 'tals differed but to find the deed plain and thus set it aside to read and fight whilst they romped. Ruth, e'en the guard thrilled leant in to leer while hands that roamed started to grope; the people of Renait held not a waxlight to the thanes of the east, nor to those of the outskirts of their fellows.

'She'll be shown how entertaining it is by Her Ladyship. Maybe Her Ladyship will have us watch?'

'Or, or, join in, or even do it for her with how rarely she visits.'

Ugh, their stares. 'Her Ladyship?'

'Gerlis, silly.' More plashed.

A guard stept through the gate and waved a claw; the harpist and six thralls pranced out, the seventh to fulfil a prayer--praying, of all things, to, of all things, Valant's slit ere she slank off.

Valant dipped her head to lick the water then spat thrice so scant would hap to ail; salt cleansed and an aft taste told an else eke did, something that spurred the bearing of these 'nesses to lust wanton threefold the wonted.

Alone, a 'ness with hazel scales welk toward her, unheeding of her brown cloak's being soaked. 'Mishra?' She rose and they hugged, Mishra reared to nuzzle her neck. 'Thou sneakedst here how?'

'Laé helped me get you in the city, and she blames your loss on herself, having not realised how much that she-beast could withstand, judgement erred, and has been cavorting with that she-beast to tame her little by little; she had me replace the one who was to, "prepare you," for what comes next so I could comfort you. I'm sorry. This is all my fault.'

'Nea, Mishra: hold fast to thy untethered heart. But to knell thrice, it is then; that, I do see.'

'Val, no; she's going to rape you.'

Valant kept standing. 'That, I feared, too, but I have weathered blows, albet ones unswiveful, fro many an undeer that would crush her.' Unswiveful forsooth, but the last: a bold lie. She thrutched the mind's eye of it, to chance to learn more ofLaé fro Gerlis to lead in its sted--fro Gerlis, as Mishra would still be unforthcoming of aught about her for ends hidden.

'Fan that flame; it must burn bright to see you through, because she'll do everything she can to break you, but you can't let her, please. Don't let her win. Not you. Not you.' This 'ness she had called ally for time short yet sparked, love for a world bettered alike held, was weeping into Valant's chest.

'Wyrms east don't cry,' Valant said. Mishra looked up at her. 'Fro my youth in the northeast, where the wind drieth all tears. Thou hast my thanks, for as my teacher would say, I better steel myself for it. I will thole her and all her wrath so that thou shalt see me as me and only me in time come; I swear it.' Ne'er to tell nor hint at the count of teachers, women and men all, fro lands traveled far and wide most her life.

'Thank you.'

The guard of ten tramped in, shackles carted. One nudged Mishra but she clung to her.

'Fear not, my friend'--she shove her back into a guard, who reared and pulled her away with the help of others--'and tell her fairness the blame falleth on me.'

Once Mishra was taken ayond earshot, they shackled wrists and ankles, the talk unspoken of. 'Allow us to escort you, please.'

'I balk the mere thought.' They fettered her neck with a rope; she jerked; it snapped. 'Trow of thy kin; would ye brook that they thole this? At least reckon a way to do it without that I am tethered.'

Four ropes looped her neck yet eke ripped, so, aft several glances sent at one another to beseech one to do that which shamed, the captess chained it. 'Secured,' she said as the rest pulled. Valant latched her hindclaw left and right under the lip. 'I will not go eath.' She would have sundered the links had Gerlis not punched her back so, but as it was, to bend at all, e'en to reach her neck, flashed stings across her whole backbone.

They began to tug and soon formed a line and hove; thew slacked and ankles twisted out; water plashed as she launched into the guard thence all toppled.

Her head shook. Her chestbone, it had dented. She staggered up, gasping, to start to plod o'er them toward the gate oped but to still, not to go further. She stretched forward, right hindleg snarled on a body; nea, one grunted, a hand clutched it.

'You can't escape her.' The captess. More were about to stand. 'You'll make it worse; just let it happen and be over with it.'

Valant kicked her brow and lunged but they hept onto her; under their weight, she sank to the floor, back sweltered; fore, somewhat colt.

With great shuffling, they propped her up with their bodies to drag her over the tiles thence through the gate; she swang her tail--three wrestled with it while the captess put a palm to her slit; she stopped dead.

'Don't make me,' the captess said, faint blood dripped.

Her tail fell.

Fro hirn to hirn, with waxlight to waxlight, blackened bars of gate and gate, each straight barrel-vaulted hall blurred into the next, sunlight blocked by brick unending, up and down steps, to, by and by, more sandstone that oranged bricked, but these so did to the emptied room ahead; there, to the end of it, they hitched her, ankles and wrists to the floor, fore to the backwall, then trudged to go, save that the captess stayed to fiddle with the shackles.

'My name is Kaiel.'

A-thump a-thump fro ahind loudent. 'Free me.'

'I can't, but you'll get through this, as I did. It hurt, but it did not change me.' The thumps neared, a smell sweet wafting. 'Let's think about something else; about those scales, how do you keep them so?' Fellow-feel: it filled those greyed eyes.

'Thou wilt have me bear a fate shared.'

'Not I. Her.'

Looking down at Valant and stopped at the gate, garbed in a rear-and-side-only skirt, Gerlis huffed, 'Captess Kaiel: go.'

'Yes Marshal.' She nodded then made to sidle past but Gerlis's tail thumped down to block her path, the broad thing a tapered club.

'It is, "Your Ladyship," within these walls, Captess,' said without taking eyes off Valant's body.

'Yes, Your Ladyship; pardon me.' That club rose bare enough for her to squeeze neath. If Valant could but twist it till it tore fro its root and left ends raveled out; at such gruesome thoughts ne'er ere had by her did she cringe, even for them to befall one so evil.For a morrow changed; for a morrow changed; for a mor--

'The gate.'

It clanged shut.Dawn by wind unto all.

She strode to lay yard twain fro her side. 'I heard the incense displeased you, so I've had this room emptied of everything save the candles. Amazing, how the scent becomes one with wood, to say nothing of cloth.' She must have dawdled very little in her own holdings to be so unknowledged of them; more the knowledge of the changes in the burg she would have should she have seen them, changes that worried. Still, the want to swat her tail into that half-smiling snout threatened to whelm and wreck her plan's shaping to save Renait fro its plawing.

'And not the baths, rapist, whom I want to not touch with aught but lance end.'

'Would that I clear one allay you? You have but to ask, and address me properly.'

'Aught I ask of thee be queries, not calls, and thee I shall label as fiend and its kin only.'

'Oh?' A hand overlarge reached far to hold her left shoulder, drawing a growl. The palm was smoother than it should have been, its owner unmeedful, clear here to lour her guard. 'That's a shame.' She chuckled.

'What?'

'I think it a lot around you, "that's a shame." Your struggling, your fighting, akin to Ryil's to our bitter parting and to no avail too.' Steps passing far off echoed, for a time. 'I regret that day more than you know.'

'Thou'st nea right to say her name.'

'Ryil fought me every step of the way, under the misguided illusion that she not only liked 'tals but would need to lay with them as well as 'nesses. But you, you deny our side altogether, and I'm starting to think that calls for a change in plans.' She gave Valant a long look, brows and eyes and lips and cheeks and all...emptied, of anything at all, ere she again spoke, 'What a saddening thought, really, to cut oneself in half for no reason at all.' All talk, for what? Why wait?

'Thou'rt wlatsome, undeer.'

'That said, she did not speak that way, being the leader of rebellion quelled before it gave its first breath, not by me personally; you can ask Her Grandeur about that when she returns. Tell me'--she rolled over and poked her head ahind her forelimb, under her chest while she sniffed--'where have you been this last thirteen years? Why did she hide you from me? And don't mind me: just checking they didn't get too gropy.'

'To shield me fro thee. My larew to thee I shan't e'er name.' What was that smell that came fro Gerlis? 'I speak the tongue of those forgotten by thee--shared by most of thy people.'

'The first isn't it, but maybe she didn't tell you. And yeah, I get that tongue speak comes from the lower class, moving on from which, I've always itched to learn a note about the pangolins--Pagoli, was it?--myself, hostile as they are to the fairer sex.'

'To wipe them out? They would dash a thousand dunes o'er thee to crush thine athwart being wert thou to mere near.'

'Edified not, then?'

'I shew them evenness and a thorp heard it, nary a bent way called for.'

'That savannah is the southernmost part of the continent; you get around.'

'I do not.'

'Mind's on one thing, huh?'

'Telwith thee! I am on the narrow, as was she; ne'er a deed will stoop me to the steep of thy way.'

Gerlis blinked. 'Ahh, this entire time, that was to what not being a "gouine" referred? How you expect anyone to grasp such language escapes me; I went into this thinking you thought you dislike both.'

'Fake not that my musts sway thee. For thou to be in life dev'leth mine all. I pray thou wither'st to death dreaded.'

'Do you? Do you really? Whoever trained you did it poorly, least of the world but in combat too. I saw your claws; didn't know what to do with them; used 'em like human fists. But when you wielded that lance, I saw skill.'

'Seek the sun and gaze at it till thine eyes melt.'

'So that lance, Fates End? Human make? Where does it go?'

'Wyrds End in tongue ayond thee.' An heirloom sworn to hope, smolten together tens of years olden fro shards aged and gathered throughout yore. Gerlis was unworthy of learning the name of its maker. One shard Visar had found, each erf since one more each; Valant, the last. Its yolk blazed with a brightness unseen that would find her heart and parch away her foul blood fro within on the eve the dreams to call would be once more bestowed.

'I'm an eager learner; and from your speech, I've put together a picture of sorts: something northeastern, in the low but roughened alps, where the winds roar and the frost never thaws. You said you were a dame; damed by whom?'

'Nea, o'er the sea.'

'Lo, sarcasm. I'm tiring of this acid. We don't have to tussle. I could have killed you at the council but I didn't.'

'For lust's sake or that Sia bade it.'

'I lead her.'

'I touch a spot sored? That wrath flickereth? Thou cowest me not, Queen's thrall.'

She muttered something in answer, but Valant made out only, 'Enough of her gone.' And then, the undeer of their fight stood next her, at height full, glowering and leering down as that which she was bared unhidden. 'Have no delusions of it; this will be fun.' A hand reached to knead her left flank. 'Does Visar mean anything to you?

'Doeth she to thee? Doeth this burg to thee? Blinded to all that shifts about as we speak?'

'I'll be blunt, Valant the Striker: the only reason I haven't done it yet is your eyes; they flashed gold. I saw it. Who and where are the others? A bloodline like hers could only grow.'

'I am the last.' Of Ryil, not Visar. Gerlis would give those names to the Queen she worshiped if not outright hunt them down herself.

She started to nuzzle the dip in her waist. 'I think I'll take my horns off for this.'

'What ownspeak filthed is that?'

Two horns clunked to the ground as she prest her face deeper into her side. 'Your scales have a remarkable texture: over shiny from the bathing, but on the day of our duel, I didn't yet realise how stunning you are.'

'I am not meat.'

'I am this, I am that; just like Sia. What's with you supposedly 'tal-interested only people? No one else sounds so one note.' Gerlis stood to walk to her hind.

'Do not.'

'Do not what?'

'Hear thy tongue: I do not consent. Do. Not. Touch--'

'This?' Gerlis put both hands to her rear.

'Stop now.'

'If you wanted me to stop, you'd tell me a name of a sibling, of a cousin, something more distant, or hell, even a fake name; did you think of that? It would take time for me to find out you'd lied. Maybe I would still do this, but you'd gain a small chance that I wouldn't. But no, you say nothing instead; you want me to keep going. A warmth beckons me to give a gentle exploration, one uninvasive and careful, one slow and attentive and wholly external in all but fluid. Have you ever been with a 'ness before, or anyone? I won't mock you.'

Her neck tightened; she couldn't breathe. Smarting, cutting, hitting, kicking, scale rinding, choking--all she had been to bear stalwart, sure of herself and her goals and her foe, but for this she had not readied; Gerlis was light touched, too light touched.

'Prepare for the worst, and the least of it slips by on through. It's okay; we have all the time in the world.'

She throsh and tried to buck only to press into Gerlis's hands. Her neck stretched as her backbone bowed and the stinging burnt--

A hand slowed the bending of her backbone, the grip firmed yet softened as the fore of mother's rapist met her back, its spikes not to stab, all flattened as though she were in a fight, readied to kill...for the worst, and the least of it. Mishra; Mishra had lied to her in her tide of need to better hoist her as a rack of meat for ravening by the wicked. 'I'm not letting you hurt yourself.'

'Thou think'st this a kindness? I will end thee and mete reckoning to Mishra and to this Laé; speak of the last, I bid thee.'

Yet the last flew past her. 'Yes, I do; a broken spine does no one good. Writhe as much as you like; I keep you still to protect.' She tilted her tail up, the brawn so readied to strike not answering the call, instead her back bowing more.

'You feel that? It's called Lordosis behaviour, instinct; you are to enjoy life, Val, so enjoy it. Pleasure and strength are all that are in this world.'

Their hips met.

'I, would, rather my body be broken than my mind be thine!' Every word was hoarse, gasped through clenched teeth. 'G-get off me.'

'You're in season if you haven't noticed yet. A lot have been lately, exposed to opportunistic 'tals, but it's no matter when I'm here to do this so they won't. Now, be freed.' She started sliding; Valant's teeth unclenched and she moaned. She moaned. Why did that wetness that poured into her feel so...warm...

***

Seven 'nesses, some different, bathed her again. The water was cool. Refreshing.

She lay at the edge. Some of them were breathing her sweetened smell below. One chose her slit over air.

A week had passed since it. Pampering unending since it.

She walked to her room at twilight. Fluffy pillows by a barred balcony. A guard locked her door for her.

She slept.

She had held not true to the way of damehood.

She let her mother down.

'Wake.'

Her eye ope to coldness. Not warmth. An antlered wyrm mantled in strong dark blue amidst air wreathed in frosted mist, the door oped without her having heard it, and a woman slumped against her side.

'I, Fisa, offer my hand, for I have come to free you. We mustn't tarry. Andor strikes as we speak.'

Andor? Steps were coming.

'I beg you: come with me.'

The dame did not rise. The steps neared. The guard rushed in.

And light rove all.