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Cultural Relations

©2025 Bruno Hirschkoff

For Irving

The following is a work of erotic fiction intended solely for adult audiences. It is not intended for commercial publication nor for widespread distribution without the permission of the Author. The Author asserts the exclusive right of ownership of Asantrea, and all characters, settings, concepts, locations and events described herein.

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Approx 9,900 words / 50 minutes reading time

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Chapter 8

The party of five Y’Dasz—Araxes, Tsu-Isi, Yt’tai, Zanta and Veyo—made their preparations for another journey north to Lamaye lands, and left Zalemanya in the days that followed. Veyo in particular was excited for the journey, and made no secret of why.

They took their spears, and the bundles of cloth they would use to cover their bodies when they reached the foetid, sweaty barrier jungle on the north side of the Cavern of the Ancestors. Araxes found himself looking around Zalemanya as they moved through it on their way out, and discovered that he’d come to regard it as home.

“What are you thinking?” Veyo asked him, noticing his wistful glances.

“Only that I hope we return soon. When I arrived here, I was so unsure of everything, and had no confidence in my future. Now, it feels like I belong here. And I am a little sad to be leaving, even if I know we will return.”

Veyo looked him over, and with characteristic vulgarity, dragged her tongue along the underside of his ear. She took his hand and pressed it between her thighs.

“There’s a little bit of home right here, if ‘home’ means a place you belong and feel confident. And you can come home any time you want…”

Araxes spluttered and laughed. “You are unlike any woman I have ever known.”

“She’s unlike any woman we’ve ever known, either!” called Yt’tai from a few paces ahead. “That’s why we love her.”

“You heard the healer,” Veyo smirked.

“Heard, and agreed,” Araxes said quietly, casually holding Veyo’s crotch in his hand while they walked. “Are you getting wet?!”

“Of course, you’re touching my cunt!”

“You put my hand there!”

“Yes. I like feeling wet. It makes it throb and feels good.”

“Amel’s tits, you’re incredible.”

“C’mere…” Veyo conspiratorially grabbed him by the cock and dragged him off the trail, into the undergrowth. “Quick, I need to come. Use your mouth.”

*

Tsu-Isi, Yt’tai and Zanta were waiting for them an hour or so along the path. They had slowed their pace to wait, at first, but then had stopped until Veyo and Araxes caught up. Yt’tai looked amused; Zanta was neutral; but Tsu-Isi looked displeased.

“Are you two quite done? Come, we have a mission!” she snapped.

“Are you jealous, sister?” Veyo taunted her. “You can have him if you like!”

“We’ve been travelling for four hours, we have over a full cycle of Saliel to go! Bringing you was a mistake, you’ll slow us down.”

“With respect, Tsu-Isi,” Yt’tai interjected, “time is not the most important factor here. The next gathering of the tribes would not occur until next dry season. We can set a more languid pace than our last mission.”

Tsu-Isi blustered. Zanta raised her hand, and all fell silent to hear her speak. She did not say much, but what she did say was generally worth hearing.

“Yt’tai is right,” Zanta said, in her low, masculine voice. “We need not hurry. Ayya-Yurah can see our progress and there will be no mystery where we are. If Tsu-Isi wishes to hurry to be home all the sooner, she can return now, with no hard feelings. I will not rush. Not until we cross the barrier into the sweating place, at least—then I will move more swiftly, if only to be rid of that foul swamp and its biting insects all the faster.”

There was a long moment of silence, and Tsu-Isi calmed herself.

“Very well,” she eventually conceded. “Veyo, I apologise. We will travel at a slower pace than usual.”

The group rested for another half hour, and then moved on.

“Why is Tsu-Isi so concerned about speed?” Araxes asked Yt’tai, once they were moving again and Tsu-Isi was out of earshot ahead of the group.

He remembered the exhaustion the healer had shown when she had last travelled with Tsu-Isi. Nur-Ayya had set a robust pace when they returned with Araxes, but nothing like the pace Tsu-Isi apparently demanded. Yt’tai patted his shoulder and chuckled.

“Tsu-Isi is—or rather, was—the youngest of Ayya-Yurah’s daughters. Of the three of them, she is the smallest and least… physically imposing, as I’m sure you’ve noticed. She is a beautiful person, Araxes. She is tender and loving, but… intense. What she wants, she generally gets. And as the youngest sister, she felt a particular pressure to out-perform her older siblings. Particularly Veyo, who never seemed to put any effort into anything, but excelled nonetheless. Her abrasiveness to Veyo is for Veyo alone, not to any other. You are caught up in that because you are so often a part of Veyo,” Yt’tai chuckled.

Araxes nodded and processed that slowly. He remembered how relaxed Tsu-Isi had been around him the first time they had met, on the night of his acceptance to the Y’Dasz, and hoped he could get back to that point with her at some stage.

The group had moved beyond the densest part of Zalemanya, although they were still more than a day from its outskirts. Araxes made a point of avoiding spending all of his time at Veyo’s side. He spoke to Yt’tai, and to Zanta, although Zanta typically had little to say to him. At first, Tsu-Isi was unwilling to speak to him much.

By the end of the second day of travel, the party of five had left Zalemanya and were once again travelling through the wild vastness of Ammunash’s Garden. It was far less alien to Araxes now, of course, although he still felt somewhat out of place in the awesome cathedral of life. Veyo as the pathfinder, led the group forward. That meant that Araxes saw less of her during the day, and that afforded him the opportunity to speak more to Tsu-Isi.

She, beyond the comfort and familiarity of Zalemanya, wore her flaxcloth arranged into a simple loincloth with crossed strips that rose over her shoulders to hold her breasts. Following her lead, Araxes had clothed himself to a similar extent, in the simple flap-and-pouch loincloth Nur-Ayya had shown him. Tsu-Isi, to Araxes’ surprise, seemed less hesitant to talk to him when he was clothed.

He presented her with food he’d foraged with Zanta and Yt’tai, which seemed to appease her.

“I hope that my presence has not caused any friction between you and your sisters,” Araxes said to her quietly, after a short period of awkward silence walking alongside her.

Tsu-Isi turned her head toward him, and clicked her tongue.

“No, it has not,” she said. “As I am sure Yt’tai the gossip has told you already, my sisters cast a bright glow, and I am a mere firefly in their orbit.”

“You think too little of yourself,” Araxes said. “You are a leader. Perhaps more so, because you have worked for it.”

Tsu-Isi stared at him critically. “I am not a born warrior, as they are.”

“Nor am I,” Araxes said with a shrug. “But where the Lamaye revile those who are like me, the Y’Dasz celebrate them and embrace them.”

“You are right, I am sorry. I forgot how much you have had to endure. Listening to me complain must make me seem so petty and selfish.”

Araxes shook his head. “No, it does not. I did not mean to belittle your feelings. When I first saw you, outside Ayya-Yurah’s hut, I thought you glowed very brightly.”

Tsu-Isi snorted, opened her mouth, then closed it again and looked him over. “Truly?”

“Truly.”

She lapsed into silence, but Araxes was pleased to see that she subtly held herself a little more confidently. A short time later, Araxes saw Veyo and Yt’tai waiting for them. Yt’tai was seated on the root of a tree, while Veyo stood alongside her leaning on the haft of her spear. Once the group was together once more, Araxes suddenly recognised where they were.

Veyo and Yt’tai, it seemed, also remembered—judging, at least, by the filthy smirk Veyo gave him. It was the place where they had accepted the hospitality of the Y’Dasz for the first time, and where the young woman had presented herself to Araxes—and he had refused her.

“We thought you would like to come back here, Araxes,” Yt’tai said.

Tsu-Isi squinted, and turned to Araxes. “What is this?”

“Unfinished business,” Veyo said.

“I… when Nur-Ayya and Veyo were bringing me to Zalemanya, we stayed here one night. I was still shaka’hakt, of course, and refused a woman’s… demand for my companionship,” Araxes explained to Tsu-Isi.

“Zanta is meeting the elders,” Veyo continued. “If she is here, are you going to give her your gift? No excuse this time!”

Araxes stammered and spluttered.

“I suppose you want to watch, do you?” Tsu-Isi sneered at Veyo.

“Yes,” she said bluntly.

Tsu-Isi snorted, turned on her hoof and stalked away towards where Zanta and two of the tiny settlement’s elders were talking.

“Nicely done, Veyo,” Yt’tai jibed her.

Araxes sat beside Yt’tai on the raised root, and Veyo stepped behind him to massage his shoulders firmly. He groaned and leaned back into her. Then he had a thought.

“Veyo?”

“Mm?”

“Would I be allowed to make love to that girl if she is here?”

“What are you talking about?”

“When I was first accepted as Y’Dasz, there was that agreement between you and Nur-Ayya that my seed was hers alone until she was pregnant—you waited, and now it is yours.”

Veyo snorted. “A silly pact between sisters. You have my permission, Araxes, to rut the village girl. If I get to watch.”

Yt’tai laughed and swatted Veyo playfully. “You horny cow.”

Veyo presented her arse to Yt’tai. “Do it again. Harder!”

Zanta approached the three of them, and motioned for them to join the group. Veyo grinned at the swelling in the front of Araxes’ loincloth, and groped it roughly for a moment before casually wandering towards the settlement. Araxes blustered and awkwardly adjusted and arranged himself, and it was at precisely that moment that she appeared.

Her slender torso and wide hips were unmistakeable. She was naked as she had been the last time he’d seen her, and was carrying a soft basket filled with foraged food towards the gathered Y’Dasz. She stopped in her tracks, ears pricked sharply forward, and then gave a squeal and dropped her basket to run towards him.

“You came back! You came back! I did not think you would!” she cried.

She stopped a couple of fetlocks’ distant from Araxes and Yt’tai, suddenly seeming to be unsure of herself. Her eye rose to his face questioningly.

“Do not worry,” Araxes said to her. “I am Y’Dasz.”

He met her gaze with his final words, and Yt’tai subtly shoved him forward. The village girl squealed and leapt into his arms, hugging him robustly and laughing breathlessly against his cheek.

“Oh, I have dreamed so vividly of this moment, of you coming back through the trees to find me! I never in any of those dreams imagined it would truly happen! And you speak Y’Dasz so well, for… a Lamaye, are you not?”

“I was Lamaye, yes,” Araxes confirmed. “What is your name? I never heard it when I passed through last. I am Araxes.”

“I am Tesfai. I…” she looked at Yt’tai, and then at the other three spear sisters as they joined the main group. “Are you going back to your people?”

“Only to visit. A meeting to talk about the future of our peoples.”

“And then you will come back?”

Araxes nodded. “I shall pass here once more.”

“Then I shall perhaps have you twice,” Tesfai said, with an air of assumed dignity that utterly failed to disguise the excited tremor in her voice. “Come, I want as long with you as I can!”

She grabbed his hand and dragged him away from the gathered group of Y’Dasz women, under a dozen pairs of curious eyes. Araxes followed her happily, over a low rise in the forest floor and down towards a small stream, beside which a few awnings of homespun flaxcloth stood, supported on poles on the water’s edge.

“This is where we sleep!” Tesfai said excitedly, then motioned to an awning set a little apart from the rest, on its own in facing the other direction. “And this is my place!”

“Why does it face away from the others?” Araxes asked, while Tesfai busily fussed with her bedding.

The young giraffe flattened her ears and blushed, then giggled. “B-because of my… desires…” she said quietly. “They keep the others awake, if I sleep too close.”

Araxes swallowed thickly. Her naïveté was fetching, plucking at the edges of his cultural consciousness in stark opposition to the blatant, often vulgar sex-forwardness of the spear sisters. Tesfai was no warrior; her arms were slender and her stomach was soft and pliant, not a wall of muscle as Araxes was used to. Her hands, he noticed, were fidgeting nervously as she stood before him, swaying on her hooves. She clearly had no idea what happened next.

Araxes stepped closer to Tesfai. She mirrored him. He could smell her arousal, and allowed his gaze to fall to her chest. She pressed her breasts upward and forward towards him, each of them a comfortable handful crowned with a dark, soft nipple.

“Do you like me?” she asked.

“You are beautiful. I have thought of you often since you first presented yourself to me,” Araxes said. “And your desire is… very alluring.”

“It is?”

“Yes. I can smell you. It is a smell I have become familiar with since coming among the Y’Dasz, and it is a smell that I think I shall never tire of… the scent of a woman’s arousal is like the scent of Nightglow Orchid, to me.”

Tesfai fluttered and murmured in appreciation of the metaphor. Over her shoulder, Araxes caught sight of Veyo approaching, bold as brass. She paused a few dozen paces away and scratched her crotch, then announced her presence with a belch.

She is so charming, he thought.

Tesfai spun around in shock and stared at Veyo, who waved and sauntered towards them.

“This is your sleeping place? It is very cozy. What happens when the river rises?” Veyo said bluntly.

“I… I… we… we move the bedding up the hill…”

“Why not keep it up there all the time?”

Tesfai blinked, and briefly glanced back at Araxes. He smiled pleasantly at her.

“I do not know,” she conceded. “For safety, perhaps?”

“Perhaps. No matter! Araxes and I agreed that he may lay with you, so long as I may watch,” Veyo said.

Tesfai flushed and snorted and stammered.

“Oh do not be worried, I recall seeing your bare arse freely presented for him in front of your whole village on our last passing. Have no fear of my judgement, or my presence.”

Araxes laid a hand gently on Tesfai’s shoulder, and felt her press back into him. “Veyo has desires as strong as your own, Tesfai. I have known them since the day she found me, the day she rescued me from the Lamaye grasslands where I had been abandoned by my people. She is blunt and shameless, and would take great pleasure from watching us.”

She shivered under his touch, and pushed her soft rump backward into his groin. “But what if I am bad? I don’t know what to do…”

“Nor did I when I first found him,” Veyo said. “None of us did. He was the first man any of us lay with. Don’t worry, I’ll help you if you need it!”

Veyo sat down inside Tesfai’s awning, then reclined to lean on one elbow. Tesfai stammered softly and twisted her head around to look worriedly at Araxes.

“Have no fear,” he whispered. “There is no ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ thing to do. Do what you feel you want to do. I shall guide you.”

He exhaled softly when he felt her grind her plush buttocks into him again, and then press her hand down to feel his crotch through his loincloth. He fingers curled around him through the flaxcloth, and she aimlessly fumbled and fondled him.

“It’s getting bigger and firmer,” she said.

He nodded. “Mmhm. It is supposed to. It means it feels nice. Veyo has told me many times, and in great detail, how it feels when a woman becomes aroused. The pressure and warmth, the pulsing sensation, the way parts of you become very sensitive and pleasurable and you become slick and wet. It is the same for men, although in slightly different ways. Our cocks become hard and swollen, as mine is, and similarly sensitive…”

Tesfai groaned hornily and turned towards him. “Hearing you say that… you know what I am feeling…”

Her breath was rapid and shaky against his throat, and she palmed aimlessly at his cock, draping her other arm around his shoulders. Araxes trailed his fingertips delicately up and down her back slowly, and felt her arch and press against him. Gently, he pressed his thigh between hers, and allowed his hands to wander down over her buttocks to pull her against him. He immediately felt her heat and wetness through his fur, and felt her hand grip a handful of his mane. She muffled a horny whimper in his neck, and mouthed at his throat.

“I do know,” Araxes said to her, mouthing her ear sensually. “It is beautiful.”

Tesfai whimpered and ground heavily onto his thigh, and he felt her hand fumbling with the knot at his hip, seeking to unfasten his loincloth. He kneaded her buttocks firmly, and glanced past her at Veyo. She allowed her tongue to fall from her muzzle, and parted her thighs to spread herself with two fingers. Finally, Araxes’ loincloth fell to his hooves, and he stepped over the fallen fabric.

A dense, heavy rain began to fall, and the dozen or so other Y’Dasz women moved towards the other awnings by the riverbank for shelter from a sudden tropical deluge that was heavy enough to break through the dense canopy. Yt’tai poked her head in briefly, grinned broadly at Araxes, and then with a sway of her hips rejoined the main group.

Tesfai, meanwhile, was staring open-mouthed at Araxes’ cock, now she had exposed him. She trailed her fingertips delicately along it, tracing the line of a thick vein, and then around the rim of his foreskin. Then she released him, and lay down on her bedding on her back, with her legs spread to expose herself to him. That brought her head close to Veyo’s, who casually nuzzled her ear and shuffled closer to offer her breasts as a pillow for Tesfai.

Araxes stared at the two women before him, and for the thousandth time, gave a prayer to all the gods he could think of for granting him so many blessings. He knelt below Tesfai, and moved over her body. She tensed up, and he paused.

“I won’t do anything to hurt you,” he said to her. “I’m yours.”

Veyo moaned. “I love it when he says that…” she said, firmly and noisily masturbating.

“Just as I am Veyo’s, as well,” Araxes chuckled.

Tesfai reached once more to touch him, and Araxes gently pressed himself forward through her hands, and then drew back—showing her, in a way, the motion he would use within her. She squirmed under him and he felt one of her hands leave his cock to instead touch herself. Softly, he displaced that hand with his own, and cupped her crotch in his palm. Tesfai laced her fingers between his, guiding his touch. She was swollen and wet, and her hips bucked and trembled. Delicately, Araxes explored her. He touched her clitoris, eliciting a whimper from Tesfai, and then dipped a finger inside her. Then two. She groaned and rolled her hips, and Araxes began to move them within her, in and out, curling upward against the special spot he knew most women to have. She gasped loudly and tensed, and almost immediately gave a guttural and rhythmic series of grunts.

“Did she just orgasm?” Veyo interjected.

“Y-yes I did!” Tesfai moaned. “Oh, he is so good!”

“He hardly touched you!” Veyo laughed.

“I am very sensitive!”

Araxes groaned heatedly and felt himself leak into his foreskin. Tesfai glanced downward, eyes widening, and palmed over the end of Araxes’ member, causing him to gasp and thrust forward against her hand.

“It’s wet…” she said thickly.

He felt her clench around his fingers, and flexed his cock in her grip. Veyo grunted, and Araxes smirked at her.

“I like it when you flex it like that,” Veyo said. “Do it again.”

Araxes complied, and Veyo reached down over Tesfai to push back his foreskin with her fingers. Tesfai’s eyes widened, and her nostrils flared at the sudden onslaught of his scent. She surrounded his glans with her palm and awkwardly rubbed it, and Araxes gasped in sensitivity.

“Alright, enough teasing,” Veyo said. “Are you going to give her one, or do I need to do it for you?”

“I thought you were just here to watch!” Araxes said. “It is Tesfai’s first experience, I do not wish to rush her.”

Tesfai leaned up to nibble his throat. “I want you to put it in me,” she said shakily. “I want to feel it. I ache for it. I have since the first time I saw you. When you came last time I stayed awake all night rubbing myself over you, I hid in the forest near where you slept and watched you. I saw Veyo touch you and how desperate you were for each other and… I prayed to the goddess to allow me that feeling…”

Araxes gazed down at her. Her half-lidded eyes met his gaze, pupils dilated with arousal and lust, and he felt her legs lift around his hips, and her hand press his cock downward toward her. Her hips rose, rolling upward to rub the head of his cock along her most intimate parts, and Araxes could not deny her any longer.

Veyo shifted, to lay alongside them, and slid her arm beneath Tesfai’s shoulders, cradling her against her powerful body. Tesfai turned toward Veyo and kissed her, tentatively and awkwardly at first. Veyo guided her, and within a few heartbeats was kissing her deeply and passionately, in a way she never had kissed Araxes. He trembled in lust, and Tesfai’s hand stroked him against her body, lodging his tip at her entrance. He felt her clench against him, and gently pressed forward. She flinched, then relaxed, and he felt her heat envelope him. He entered her slowly, watching her face carefully for any sign of discomfort. She gave none, and then he was inside her. Her vagina felt tighter than any other Araxes had yet experienced, and he worried momentarily that he would not be able to move inside her without hurting her. Tesfai moaned into her kiss with Veyo, and Araxes began to move, pulling back and rolling forward, building to a slow and experimental rhythm. Her second climax came within heartbeats, then her third, then a fourth, each of them hitting when Araxes was as deep inside her as he could go. He held himself still inside her each time she peaked, savouring the sensation of her body trembling and bucking beneath him, and her vagina seeming to milk him into its silken warmth. She broke her kiss with Veyo only to drag him down to kiss him instead. He could feel the rapid shaking motion of Veyo’s masturbation beside them, and her shallow, rapid breathing with which he was so familiar.

He grunted and thrust into Tesfai more firmly, and she gasped loudly and gripped around his body, dragging her fingers up his back. The sound and feeling of Veyo beside them, and Tesfai’s urgent, naïve desperation beneath him, drove Araxes quickly to the edge of his climax. He faltered and paused, and held himself on the edge inside her for as long as he could, bringing Tesfai to climax after climax.

“Tell me where you want me to finish…” he whispered breathlessly against her ear.

“F-finish?!”

Veyo chuckled against Tesfai’s other ear. “Do you want him to put a calf in you, or pull out and spill himself over your body?”

Tesfai climaxed again, shoving her hand between their bodies to rub herself. “Oh goddess… both… either… you have given me such a gift… I want to see what happens… show me, Araxes…”

Araxes groaned in arousal, and Veyo edged. He thrust into her deeply and held it, savouring the burning edge of climax. He felt semen rising lazily along his length, and allowed it to leak inside Tesfai. He exhaled heatedly across her muzzle, and then met Veyo’s gaze.

“My seed is oozing inside her right this moment…” he grinned, knowing the effect that would have on Veyo.

Veyo climaxed with a bestial groan. She hunched and bucked and trembled and masturbated furiously throughout, and then collapsed beside Tesfai. Araxes focused his attention on Tesfai, holding his cock deep inside her and riding the edge of his climax.

“Come for me once more, Tesfai…” he said.

She whimpered and he felt her hand moving between them, trapped between their groins as he ground himself hard and deep inside her. She fluttered and clenched around him, and then grunted and tensed up, and Araxes felt once more the rhythmic contractions of her orgasm around him. He pushed and ground himself into that sensation, pushing himself over the edge, and withdrew his glistening cock from her just as the first contraction of his own orgasm overtook him. Freed from her body, his cock twitched and bounced freely with each pulse of his climax, sending heavy, sticky jets of seed splattering upward over Tesfai’s body, sprinkling her face and torso with his lust. She stared at it open-mouthed, and halfway through had the presence of mind to take his cock in her hand and stroke him through the remainder of his peak.

As his orgasm passed, Araxes braced himself on his hands over Tesfai’s body, and leaned down to lick an errant streak of his seed away from her muzzle before it could drip into her eye. She held his cock as it softened and shrank, and mumbled her thanks to him in a voice suddenly thick and heavy with fatigue.

*

Tsu-Isi, Zanta and Yt’tai had set up their camp for the night a short distance from the villagers’ awnings, which meant little more than laying out their bundles of cloth in relatively dry parts of the forest floor, away from the rivulets that ran down the trunks of the trees and beneath the vast understorey plants that would provide some shelter if the rain intensified again during the night. That meant that the group was somewhat spread out.

Veyo and Araxes emerged from Tesfai’s awning together, stumbling with fatigue and clearly very well-exercised. Tsu-Isi watched them come, and suppressed the upsurge of jealousy she felt for Veyo’s closeness to Araxes. Deep within herself, Tsu-Isi had coveted him since the moment she had first met him, but her own lack of confidence in the shadow of Veyo and Nur-Ayya held her back, and as Yt’tai had rightly ascertained, was a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Tsu-Isi lay awake under the cover of a vast leaf, against which a gentle patter of rain sounded. The rain made the forest humid, and the dense layer of moss on which she lay eventually dampened the flaxcloth and made it uncomfortable. She thought back to that first night Araxes had spent in Zalemanya, when he had slept within her nest. She had made no secret of her desire for him, although she had not spoken it aloud. But the aching throb she had felt between her thighs the moment she had brought him to Ayya-Yurah seemed never to have fully subsided. She had touched herself to the sight of his erect member pulsing forth his seed onto her mother’s pregnant belly during the induction ritual, and then again while he slept beside her in her nest. She remembered the firmness of his cock under her tentative touch, the way it pulsed, and rose and fell in his sleep. And countless times since, she had seen it and dreamt of it in her hands, in her mouth, against her body.

It was galling to need to travel with Veyo and Yt’tai, she felt. They were barriers between herself and Araxes, barriers she did not know how to break through. Intellectually, she knew they would have no compunctions about her simply dragging him off and riding him as she saw fit—as was her right—but she could not.

But Veyo was not stupid, nor was she possessive of Araxes. She had arranged for them to arrive and spend a night at this particular settlement on purpose. And, as they approached where Tsu-Isi lay, they parted ways. Veyo stared directly at Tsu-Isi for a moment in the bioluminescent night, and Tsu-Isi fancied that her older sister gave her a wink and nodded towards Araxes as he moved to where his bedding lay beneath a huge understorey plant similar to Tsu-Isi’s. Tsu-Isi glanced around. Araxes’ bedding was in a position where no one else would be able to see him once he was laying down. Her ears pricked upward. Had that been deliberate? Maybe Veyo had spoken to Yt’tai about just that?

Tsu-Isi could see Veyo a short distance away. She yawned loudly, scratched herself, and then lay down on the forest floor. Tsu-Isi rose as if in a trance. Soft, gentle rain dampened her pelt as she stepped out from beneath her leaf, and moved towards Araxes. The flutter of heat in her groin intensified and became urgent and pressing the moment she saw him, laying alone in the forest floor, naked and exposed. She hissed to catch his attention, and saw his eyes glistening in the darkness as he looked up at what must have been her silhouette against the glowing backdrop of the deep forest.

She did not speak, not yet. But she dropped to her knees and crawled over him, straddling one of his legs and splaying her fingers upward along his slender chest. She could smell Tesfai strongly on him, the scent of a woman’s arousal, but that did nothing to dissuade Tsu-Isi. Quite the opposite. She ached for him. He gazed at her in the bioluminescent semi-darkness of the forest, and said nothing. Simply gazed at her. Tsi-Isi took his hand and placed it on her breast. She pushed it into his hand, and felt his fingers explore her. His other hand came up to her face, and she pressed her cheek into his palm.

“Tsu-Isi…” he murmured quietly.

“I know you have just rutted the village girl, and probably Veyo as well. I know little of men, but I know you cannot fuck endlessly. Have no fear of disappointing me,” she said. “But I need you. I cannot hold myself back a day longer. I have restrained myself for so long. And now I have you alone.”

Araxes stroked her cheek with his thumb and rose to nuzzle her face. “You did not need to wait to get me alone, Tsu-Isi. I have… I have dreamed also, of touching you and feeling your body. Since the night in your nest in Zalemanya.”

She exhaled hotly over his face. “As have I… Oh, Araxes, I touched myself for the entirety of that night while you slept, over and over again, to your body and your cock, which seemed to have no limit to how many times it grew full and erect…”

He groaned softly under her, and Tsu-Isi pressed her hand into his groin to feel him. He was half-erect, and at her touch his cock thickened and hardened. She gave a quiet, needy whimper, and explored him with her touch. There was uncertainty in his eyes, and she felt that he was not as hard as she knew he could be.

“I do not expect you to mount me, not tonight,” she reassured him.

He nodded in the darkness. “Tesfai… was very needy.”

Tsu-Isi chuckled. “As am I, but I am older and have better self-control.”

“More self control that Veyo, and you are her younger sister…”

“Unlike Veyo and Nur-Ayya, I do not seek your calf, Araxes. I seek your companionship and the pleasure of it. I seek sexual release. Please. Touch me.”

Her voice quavered at the request, and she saw Araxes’ eyes fix on hers in the darkness. Her body trembled. His cock flexed in her hand, and Tsu-Isi trailed her fingertips up to its tip, playing erotically with his foreskin. Araxes’ hands left her breast and cheek, and Tsu-Isi hissed in arousal to feel them sliding down her body, following the curve of her waist and hips, and upward over her buttocks. She flagged her tail high and pressed herself upward and forward over his body, straddling his waist carefully. Her breasts hung over his face, and he pressed his muzzle between them sensually. Tsu-Isi closed her eyes and sank into the simple eroticism of his closeness. Her loins throbbed and ached and she pressed her hand between her thighs, touching and stroking herself over him.

“Lay alongside me,” Araxes said quietly.

Tsu-Isi tilted her head questioningly.

“It will be easier for us to touch one another.”

She needed no better reason. She dismounted him, and he shuffled across on his bedding to make space for her on the dry fabric. She sank down alongside him, and immediately felt his hands on her body once more, caressing and touching her. She arched into his touch, and raised one leg to expose herself, an unspoken demand for where she wanted his hands. He did not disappoint her. With a skill that could only have been gained from direct experience, Araxes’ hand slid down over her abdomen and into her groin, where he at first teased her with his fingertips, tracing the curvature of her vulva and mapping her sensitive spots.

Tsu-Isi gripped his body and rolled her hips into his touch, desperate for more, and grappled for his cock. He gasped softly and a thrill of excitement ran through Tsu-Isi to feel him push into her hand, his cock hardening and flexing at her inexperienced, but eager, pawing. She stroked him awkwardly and without rhythm, pulling back on his foreskin until he grunted and pulled back.

“What is wrong?” she mumbled.

“You’re pulling too hard. You’re not peeling a fruit, the skin is attached!”

“Ahh! I apologise, I thought the skin went… all the way back?”

Araxes guided her with his free hand. “No further than… than that. Feel how it is attached below the head?”

Tsu-Isi lifted her head and turned her gaze down towards his cock, observing it closely. More closely than she ever had before. She moved his foreskin awkwardly, rolling it up to cover his dark, purplish head, and then sliding it down to expose it again, with a fresh sheen of wetness.

“It… hum… it is like the hood of skin on your clitoris,” Araxes explained.

She grunted in understanding, and lifted her palm to touch his glans. “So this is very sensitive?”

“Yes.”

“Good.”

She held her hand over the end of his cock, using her fingertips to gently roll his foreskin up and down, and sliding her palm delicately against his glans with each downward motion. Araxes groaned in pleasure and she felt his cock harden and leak against her hand, and knew she was doing the right thing finally. Perhaps too well, for his hand had ceased to move against her, and she hissed in frustration.

“Keep touching me,” she said to him, rolling her hips onto his hand.

He complied, and Tsu-Isi felt his fingertip press inward against her clitoris and begin to move in a well-practiced circle. The thrill of pleasure that coursed through her body elicited a moan from her against the side of his neck, and she licked him erotically. He supported her body with his other arm around her shoulders, and masturbated her tenderly and skilfully—far more skilfully than Tsu-Isi had anticipated. Within a hundred heartbeats she was nearing the peak of her pleasure, and redoubled her efforts to stroke him to completion as well. As it happened, she came long before he did. But he did not pressure her to continue to stroke him. Instead, they lay together breathlessly for a short while, until Tsu-Isi wanted to continue.

They lay there for most of the night, their bodies writhing and entwined in periods of intense, shared pleasure. There was no rush, nor any urge to escalate. Tsu-Isi climaxed several times on Araxes’ fingers, and she relished each peak as it came. Towards dawn, Araxes finally ejaculated to her touch, and Tsu-Isi was enthralled by the feeling of his cock pulsing in her hand, his hips rhythmically bucking forward, and the emission of his seed onto his abdomen. He collapsed with exhaustion right after his climax, and Tsu-Isi was not far behind him.

Her itch scratched for the time being, she finally settled alongside him, draping her leg over his, and fell into sleep with her head pressed to the side of his neck.

It was going to be a slow day of travel, she had already decided. They were in no hurry.

*

Five days later

*

Luwam erupted into Shuva’s hut. The wazīr was breathless and his pelt was matted to his skin with sweat and dust.

“Shuva! Y’Dasz approach Impili!”

Shuva was holding an audience with the village elders of the five Lamaye settlements, and appeared irritated by the explosive entrance of the wazīr.

“Luwam! Be calm. Catch your breath, man!” Shuva snapped. “What is so urgent that you run to me such, and break the sanctity of Council?”

Luwam dropped his gaze, and then went down on one knee in humility. “I… my gravest apologies, Chieftain—a party of Y’Dasz has been sighted less than half a day’s travel from here, and moving toward us. They travel openly, and do not hide. The people are frightened.”

Shuva frowned. No one had heard much from the Y’Dasz at all since he had ascended to the Chiefdom. Perhaps they were coming to ask why the Lamaye no longer offered them sacrifices.

“How many have they killed?”

“None, that I have heard.”

“How many huts have they razed?”

“None.”

“What violence have they brought, of any kind?”

“No reports of any violence, Shuva… they are not carrying weapons, and it is reported that they have sought hospitality from nomadic Lamaye.”

“Then why do you burst into my hut as if the world is on fire? How many Y’Dasz, do you at least know that?”

“Four… five, maybe.”

Shuva clicked his tongue in irritation and rose to his hooves. The amber and copper amulet of Chiefdom clinked and rattled as he moved towards Luwam, and hoisted the man upright.

“Let them approach. Listen to me, Luwam. They are not to be harmed, nor threatened, in any way. Is that clear?”

“Shuva, I…”

“Is that clear?”

“Yes.”

“Go. Welcome them. Bring them to me.”

*

The approach to Impili from the south bore little resemblance to how Araxes remembered it, from barely a year ago. Then again, he reasoned, the last time he saw this place he was terrified for his life, and the world was bleak and he had no future. Now, he was an Y’Dasz man, and a father of an Y’Dasz calf—an Aethyrborn calf no less—and on a diplomatic mission to his former people.

They did not see a Lamaye face for the entirety of their approach. Every Lamaye they saw, they only saw from behind as they fled in fear.

“Why do they run?” Veyo asked Araxes, frowning with her hands on her hips as yet another family beat a hasty retreat in the distance.

“They, as I once did, have always believed that the Y’Dasz are demons. They probably expect that you’re coming to kidnap them,” Araxes said.

“I become a demon only when I am in heat, and I smell cock,” Veyo said flatly.

Araxes laughed and pinched her buttock. “Veyo is always in heat,” he joked.

She lewdly tongued his ear, and Tsu-Isi clicked irritably at her.

“Can a single morning not pass without you begging Araxes to root you, Veyo?”

“No. He makes me come. His cock feels good. So does his tongue. You worry too much. There is plenty left for you, Araxes can fuck many times over!”

Tsu-Isi snorted, but Araxes saw her gaze flick toward him momentarily and her ears swivel backward.

“Lamaye approach,” called Zanta from a few dozen paces ahead.

Zanta was a giant of a woman—she made Nur-Ayya look slender and finely built. Unlike the younger women, Zanta had seen combat. Her pelt bore several jagged scars, and she carried herself with such poise and posture that her body seemed weightless, as if she was floating across the ground.

Veyo pricked her ears forward and squinted into the heat haze. Three tall, slender figures were moving towards them, and from the way they moved, they were warriors. But they did not carry spears. Veyo wrapped her hand around the hilt of the small obsidian dagger concealed in her clothing.

The three figures slowly became clearer and more distinct as they moved closer, until Araxes could see their features clearly, and the dust kicked up around their hooves as they walked. Their familiar pelts markings and flaxcloth tunics caused unpleasant memories to surface for Araxes, and he edged closer to Veyo. She rested her hand on the nape of his neck reassuringly, and the party of five allowed them to approach.

Two of the three Lamaye suddenly became highly animated, pointing and conversing rapidly to the third.

Araxes squinted. Then his heart dropped.

“Hoy, runt!” Oaal bawled, waving his arms in the air.

He clung tightly to Veyo, and she grunted in discomfort at the tightness of his grip to her arm.

“What is wrong?” she asked him.

“He is the one who gave me the head wound,” Araxes said shakily.

Veyo straightened and stared at the approaching Lamaye. Her face was steely, and Araxes heard her dagger being drawn by her other hand, held behind her back.

“Easy, Veyo,” Tsu-Isi reminded her.

“He hurt Araxes,” she said.

“We cannot allow this mission to fail. Unless he becomes violent towards us, he is not to be harmed,” Tsu-Isi instructed.

Veyo tucked her dagger back into her clothing, into a fold of her sari above her tail.

Of the other two Lamaye giraffes, Araxes recognised one better than the other. Xanaf, Oaal’s offsider, walked on the other flank of the third, a warrior who bore ritual scars from his collarbones to his sternum, a stack of horizontal lines which demonstrated his prowess in battle.

“…it is him, you idiot! It’s Araxes! Look at how skinny he is, who else could it be? The forest demons found him after all but he yet lives!” Oaal was babbling, addressing Xanaf.

“Would you two shut up?” snapped the third giraffe.

Araxes finally recognised him. Luwam. Once, he had been one of Isaeos’ personal guards. Araxes felt a moment of horror. Had the scryings been wrong? Was Isaeos still Chieftain after all?

“You are far from home, Y’Dasz,” Luwam said, once the three Lamaye were finally face to face with the five Y’Dasz. “Who is your leader, and what brings you here?”

“Araxes, would you translate, please?” Tsu-Isi asked him.

Araxes started and stammered an apology.

“Sa’a estur ninu val-arek akaleyur, Y’Dasz. Sipa aketu’awak-ur? Esti-seba baway-kur andakesini?”

Oaal’s eyes widened to hear Araxes speak fluent Y’Dasz, and the dumb bully’s mouth fell open in shock.

“Esti-sa Tsu-Isi, ket-akh maka’lah Y’Dasz makhasuri,” Tsu-Isi replied.

“She is Tsu-Isi. Third daughter of the Aethyrsage of the Y’Dasz,” Araxes translated.

“And you? My… friend, here, seems to think he recognises you, translator,” Luwam said, addressing Araxes.

“That is because he does. And I recognise him. I am Araxes, of the Y’Dasz.” He turned his head and spoke clearly for his companions’ benefit: “Esti-sa Araxes, Y’Dasz-ur.”

Veyo whooped.

Luwam smiled thinly. Oaal squirmed. Araxes stared squarely at him. He seemed different, somehow.

“I have orders from Shuva, Chieftain of the Lamaye, to greet you and bring you to Impili. Do you come with peace in your hearts?”

“Esti-eqata, esti-tidak imlaq’tur ke-Shuva, makhasur Lamaye, te-lur faha’ilqeti kam-niat dama’akti,” Araxes translated.

Tsu-Isi laughed. “A-lah? Lur-kam ni-akti at’dama-ur?”

“Tsu-Isi asks the same of you… Luwam, are you not? She wishes to know if you have peace in your hearts,” Araxes translated.

“Aye, I am Luwam. We have been raised on tales of the savagery of the Y’Dasz, blame us not for our caution. You are welcome to come in peace among us.”

Araxes translated once more, and Luwam gestured for the party to accompany them towards Impili. Oaal ogled Veyo, open-mouthed, his eyes squarely focused on her breasts. Veyo waited until the other two Lamaye were looking elsewhere, and lunged at him. He bleated and beat a hasty retreat, only for Xanaf to cuff him about the ear. The two resumed their habitual bickering, and Araxes felt Veyo’s hand on the back of his neck once more, reassuring him.

Impili was very different from the way Araxes remembered it. The longhouses on its outskirts had been expanded and re-thatched, and their walls glowed with new daubing. Many of the huts were either being renovated, or had recently been rebuilt. The former Chieftain’s hut, which had been the largest and grandest structure in the village, no longer existed. It had been razed to the ground and its materials repurposed elsewhere, and the site on which it had sat remained empty. But what stood out most to Araxes was the optimism and bustle of the people—and they were not only Lamaye. Araxes saw many Sagunu and Il-Qahra among them, working industriously, integrated with Lamaye society where under Isaeos they would have been slaves. In the company of Luwam, Oaal and Xanaf, no one ran or hid from the Y’Dasz women. Rather, they attracted curious stares and even a few cautious waves from those who recognised Araxes.

A woman ran towards the group, with a small child on her back, strapped to her with swaddling cloths. She began to speak rapidly to Oaal, gesticulating towards the edge of the village, while the calf on her back squalled and flailed its arms.

Oaal was a father. He took the child from its mother and jostled it in the crook of his arm, put it over his shoulder and patted its back until it burped. The calf ceased crying. Araxes heart softened. He and Oaal had something in common. They made eye contact, and Oaal shrugged sheepishly.

“Life changes,” he said to Araxes. “Shaman Atatafi showed me and Xanaf the error of our ways, and Shuva forgave us. I… Araxes, I am sorry. For everything. We were cruel to you because we knew no better. Amel sees us now, as she sees us all.”

He held out his free hand to Araxes, and after a moment of hesitation, Araxes took it in the Lamaye warrior’s grip, wrist to wrist.

A sudden cry of joy came from behind him, and Araxes turned. Atatafi the shaman, his mother, hurried towards him with her arms outstretched and joy on her face. She crashed into him and enfolded him in her arms, and peppered his face with kisses. He hugged her tightly and sobbed with joy at seeing her for the first time in a year, and, in some ways, for the first time ever.

Because she spoke.

“Araxes… my son. My son!” she said, her voice husky and hoarse.

His eyes widened. Lamaye custom stated that a shaman was unable to speak to any other, save the Chieftain or another shaman.

“Mother… I…”

“Lamaye law states a shaman may not speak to any other Lamaye,” she said.

Comprehension dawned on him.

Veyo sauntered up behind him, and clapped him on the back.

“Esti-Araxes Y’dasz!” she said.

Atatafi laughed, kissed his eyelids, and then finally drew back enough to look at him properly. She clicked her tongue and hummed the way she used to when he was a calf, to reassure him without speaking, but then gave him a knowing smile.

“You have done well, my son. You are the reason for all of this. You may not know it, but you are the cloud that begat the flood that cleansed us of the Bezari chieftains. The river goddess was swift in her retribution for your treatment. I have seen it in my dreams, just as I have long known that you yet lived, in the care of the Y’Dasz… and then as one of them. Now come, the Chieftain will be awaiting your arrival. He is keen to meet you again, on his own terms.”

During their northward journey of eight days through Ammunash’s Garden from Zalemanya, there had of course been many conversations between the Y’Dasz about this moment. At Zanta’s demand, contingencies had been thought through, plans made should the meeting go awry. It was why each of the Y’Dasz approached Impili with tiny obsidian blades concealed in their saris. But they had also discussed finer details, including their entry to the chieftain’s hut in Impili. So when Luwam the wazīr ushered them into the presence of Shuva, the party of five entered in a pre-determined order.

Tsu-Isi entered first. Then Veyo. Then Yt’tai. Then the giant Zanta. Then, after a pause of a few heartbeats, Araxes entered.

It had the desired effect.

Shuva had been comfortably seated on the floor of his hut with Arashi and their child beside him, and with his other advisors around him. The Chieftain’s eye moved from one Y’Dasz spear sister to the next, and by the time Zanta stepped in, he had risen to his hooves. There was wariness on his face, Araxes saw, but the wariness was carefully hidden behind his hospitality, and the warmth of his welcome. Behind Araxes, Atatafi and Luwam entered, and the latter closed the covering over the doorway of the hut.

The Chieftain stepped toward Araxes, and took both of his hands in his own.

“Araxes! My wazīr mentioned that you were among the visiting Y’Dasz party, but I did not quite believe him until this moment! I am deeply gladdened by your arrival, to know that you have not only survived, but seemingly have thrived. It fills my heart with happiness to see, and I want you to know, personally, the depth of my shame at what was inflicted upon you. I am truly, deeply sorry. You are welcome among us.”

Then Shuva stepped forward and embraced him. It was unexpected, and Araxes stiffened at first, before awkwardly embracing him in return.

“I… Despite what occurred, I cannot find it in my heart to resent you. You, of all the Lamaye, showed me kindness as you were able to, but I understand that you were not free to do so, and in a way, you paid a price for that,” Araxes returned.

Then he paused, and translated the conversation for the benefit of the spear sisters.

Shuva’s eyes widened.

“I did pay a price, but the result of that was the Lamaye accepting me as their Chieftain. It… worked out for the best, and it was you, Araxes, who was the instigator of so much change. And there is more change still to come—please, friends, all of you, be seated and be comfortable. Drink urba’azi with me and let us commence our discussions.”

Beside Shuva, Arashi’s daughter stirred in her mother’s arms and fussed to be fed. Arashi turned her back on the group, and Veyo spoke up.

“Why does she hide?”

Araxes translated.

“It is Lamaye custom. Such things are private, although necessary,” Shuva explained.

“Stupid custom,” Veyo grumbled. “We Y’Dasz are usually unclothed, such things are no shame for us. She is a Sagunu woman, yes?”

“Y-yes, she is. Arashi? It is alright. You should face our guests.”

The slender, dark-pelted woman did so, although she seemed deeply uncomfortable to have her breast exposed before the party of foreign visitors, even for such an essential task as feeding her daughter. Veyo did her best to alleviate Arashi’s discomfort by shrugging her sari off her shoulders and exposing her breasts to the room with an exaggerated sight of relief. She scratched and rubbed her crushed pelt, and grinned at Shuva.

“Clothing is uncomfortable, we Y’Dasz do not bother with it.”

Tsu-Isi elbowed Veyo bodily in the ribs, but Veyo did not relent. And eventually, Arashi giggled and seemed more at ease.

“Tits helps everything. Why do you think we are so peaceful?” Veyo said, as her final argument, before, for Araxes’ ears only; “And now, we own the conversation. Clever, ah?”

“Yes, I… see your point. Both of them,” Shuva chuckled.

“Hah!” Veyo barked. “Funny Lamaye. I like this one.”

Shuva cleared his throat. “My shaman, Atatafi, has counselled me about her contact with your shamaness, the Aethyrsage Ayya-Yurah. I am aware that there are ancient trading and exchange customs between our peoples that have not been practiced in some time.”

“Yes,” Tsu-Isi replied. “It is the reason for our visit. Both to introduce ourselves to your people as Y’Dasz, not as the Forest Demons, and to recommence those ancient traditions. Our people are suffering, Shuva, and have suffered for generations hence, since the annual gatherings of the tribes on the plains ceased to occur.”

“Tell me more,” Shuva prompted her, leaning forward in earnest and offering another pot of the fiery urba’azi liquor to each of the seated Y’Dasz.

“Generations ago, as I am sure your Aethyrsage Atatafi has told you, there were great gatherings of the far-flung tribes. Every year, at the peak of the dry season, our peoples would come together under the suns to trade, and to take lovers, and to pray to the goddesses for the rains to come, to water the crops and fill up the rivers so that we may eat and drink with their blessings,” Tsu-Isi continued.

Araxes translated, and Shuva nodded curtly.

“The yearly gathering, yes, Atatafi has spoken of it with great urgency,” the chieftain said. “Our peoples all have suffered, not only yours and mine, but also the Sagunu and the Il-Qahra. The rains have not come regularly, and it has seemed that Amel and Lakesh have forsaken us for many years. Now finally, it feels as though the goddesses see us once more, in many different ways.”

As he spoke, Shuva’s eyes were on Araxes. He wondered how much the Chieftain knew. Surely there was no way he knew Araxes was a father. Or that Lu-Temba was Aethyrborn. Those were things Ayya-Yurah had suggested that he keep to himself. But had she told Atatafi, or had Atatafi gleaned as much from him through scrying or other means? Araxes had no way of knowing. He felt a moment of apprehension.

The meeting continued for some time with carefully hedged conversation, diligently translated by Araxes. There was nervousness evident on both sides, understandable after multiple generations of each of the tribes believing the other to be fundamentally evil. Several times Veyo managed to dispel a tense moment with strategic deployments of her tits into the conversation, and by the time dusk was gathering, the Y’Dasz and the Lamaye, lubricated by the buzz of the urba’azi, were conversing far more casually and naturally and laughing together.

And, crucially, it was agreed all around that a gathering of the tribes would be sought the following season, when the dry season reached its peak. It would last for a full month, to make up for the many years where it had not occurred, and would be located on the grassland at a point somewhere between Lamaye and Sagunu territory, on the fringe of Ammunash’s Garden.

Having translated every line of every conversation between the two tribes for the whole day, Araxes by that time was exhausted. He had drunk only one pot of the Lamaye’s fiery liquor to keep his wits about him, and was beginning to wonder if he was the only person in the whole village who was able to speak both languages.

When the parties finally broke for the evening, Araxes could hardly disguise his relief. He sagged and swayed on his hooves, his head spinning with exhaustion, and fell directly into Veyo.

“Whoa, hey there, easy. Are you alright?”

Araxes mumbled something unintelligible into her fur.

“Oh you poor thing. You’ve translated everything all day, I almost forgot how hard that would be! Come, let us find somewhere to sleep. I’ll give your big clever Lamaye brain a nice massage and you can sleep on my tits.”

*

_ _

Epilogue

_ _Atop a low hill south of the gathered tribes, in the lee of a rocky outcrop that resembled a hoof, two Aethyrshapers met face to face for the first time. Each knew the other as well as if they’d been neighbours their whole lives, but there was still a moment of indecision as each laid their physical eyes upon the other for the first time.

“Atatafi.”

“Ayya-Yurah.”

“Oh, but it is good to finally see you!” the Aethyrsage of the Y’Dasz said.

“And on such an auspicious occasion!” the shaman of the Lamaye replied, in her dry and husky tone.

“An occasion brought about, in no small way, by your son.”

“But without you and yours, he would never have had the chance—and my people would probably never have been saved from the Bezari chieftains.”

“The goddesses work in mysterious ways.”

“Yet they always work. Even when it seems they cannot see us.”

Ayya-Yurah motioned to the festival-like gathering of the tribes occurring on the plains below. The grassland was emerald green, heavy with rain. The river in the distance flowed deep and clear and fast, and the trees glimmered with new growth. On the plains, beneath heavy clouds that sent misty tendrils down almost to the ground, between sweeping sheets of rain, a great swathe of land had been covered with tents. Thousands of people—Lamaye, Y’Dasz, Sagunu, Il-Qahra mostly, but more than a few Vataki and Dhriti—mingled and traded and celebrated and loved. It was a great orgy of relief, one which had been almost three generations in the waiting. The sounds of celebration, music, and exultation carried through the rain-drenched air, audible even over the steady hiss and roar of the monsoon.

A low, but somehow gentle roll of thunder rippled across the sky. Like the purr of some giant, distant cat.

“Amel sees us and is pleased,”

“Our harvests will be plentiful next season. Of all kinds, both food and calves.”

The rain intensified.

“Lakesh caresses Amel. Our two goddesses writhe in shared ecstasy over our offering!”

“The river goddess is a slut!”

#