When the days were long
Made an error in my last LJ post, woe me!
Called the last chapter be the wrong number, sweats, fixed now.
Dear seference, thank you kindly for the info’s! It helped me a great deal! ^_^
And to Cal the Gslinger, I will try, don’t count on it thought. My work is eating me here alive as well as my family. I will try?
Oh, and to why I don’t use the answer button, out of a point I do not get, it does not work for me! Tried now three times and it always eats me answers.
Suryallee
When the days were long
Part Fife
When I became aware of my surroundings again, I found myself back in the arms of Oorontes.
He had me half sitting half reclining in his lap. My head was propped up against his shoulder, my legs over his lap and the rest of me was partially draped over his chest. One arm held on my loosely, the hand cradling my head while the fingers played absentminded with my animated hair. It seems to respond almost lazily to him.
From my point of view, I could see him work on something a little away from him and me.
He had a small box standing onto a table usually used in hospitals, the ones that can be clapped out and put together. It was halfway over the bed meanwhile he seem to draw symbols into the sand inside of the box all the time. When finished, Oorontes pushed a small wooden beam over the sand and removed his artistic outpour's again.
It puzzled me why he was doing such, the entire thing reminded me onto a film my brothers, and I had once seen on TV. I think it was called Heroes or other, a Chinese production about a warrior and an emperor and some who had tried to kill the last one? In there had been lots of fighting, what my brothers loved to watch, I had rather been interested into the scene of the school of calligraphy students that was destroyed later.
They too had used sandboxes to think of new ways to write the Chinese symbols.
The most vibrant I kept as a memory of that film where the colors and that scene.
Oorontes now reminded me much on it. I must have said that aloud because I heard him chuckle softly against my head and then give the crown of it a soft kiss. Never stopping his working.
“I actually have seen that one too, that you just mentioned. Don’t remember the name either thought. Yes, I do something similar to what they did in the film.” His dark eyes caught mine before he nodded into the direction of his little hobby. The hand holding the wooden stick, which he used to draw, removed again his latest picture before he drew a new symbol into the sand.
“Look.” He told me in an utterly relaxed sounding voice. Somehow I felt lethargic a bit, too good to move a limb. I did as told and watched him write an unknown symbol into the sand.
“This is a sigil, Myrthal. It describes a Caste level, that of Kaimana actually.” He gave me another look and nodded when he saw that he had my full and undivided attention. Next to it he drew, three other symbols into the sand, each a piece of art if you asked me.
“These are the levels of the first Caste, Ara, Neoma and Brynie.
They together build the first Caste.” He carefully put the stick down to take the box from the stand to lay it to aside of us two so I could see it still. Pointing at the first symbol his voice went on.
“You are now this caste, it automatically happens when you are incepted and through Althaia. Means: your Caste is Kaimana and your level is Ara. Understood?” At my nod, he smiled.
He put another one of the sandboxes on the table into his reach and begun to draw four other symbols into the sand. Just like before, there was one main one surrounded by three others. Somehow, I couldn’t help to notice that all seem to build onto the former ones.
Or was that just me?
“Do they build up on the first ones?” He looked at me curiously. “In a way I suppose. There are three Caste levels, Myrthal; each has three levels in itself. This one is the next Caste called Ulani and the three levels of Ulani are Acantha, Pyralis and Algoma. The most Wraeththu sadly never reach beyond Brynie. They are stuck there out of a point I will never know or they do not want to progress?
It is hard to tell, only a few really want to ascend and really do learn but the others, oh well.”
He shrugged softly and I could tell that he found that a bit maddening. I got the feeling that he could not understand it why one did not want to learn, I had to smile at his indignation. It was easy to tell that Oorontes liked to teach as well as to learn. Our little lecture here was a dead give away.
What can I say; the sponge was back it seems, I silently wondered what Caste my brother might hold.
The next box went onto the bed so I could look closer at the beautiful symbols. My hand went out of the blanked pulled around him and me to touch the first sign of the caste Kaimana with it. Suddenly I had the feeling of something shooting up my arm.
“Ow! What was that, Oorontes?”
He put down his stick again with a curios expression on his face. His hand took mine to look at it. The skin looked normal to me, but after a moment looking at the back of my hand, there suddenly run fine lines over the skin to build the Ara symbol into my very skin. My eyes widened at that. Oorontes too but after a few moments he shrugged it off.
“Seems to me that Ophidien wanted to make it clear to every har that can see what caste you have.” He told me cryptically.
“Who is Ophidien?” At my clueless look, Oorontes gave another of his warm chuckles that I slowly became to love on him.
“He is our tribe Dehar. Our spiritual lead, a god if you want. Many tribes have made one up to guide them. It… is complicated but do believe me, they are very real. Ours is a bit special, I guess. He does not like us to use his name in vain or in the presence to others much. He does not care much for other either Dehara or Wraeththu besides those of our tribe.
You could say, he is a bit fixated about us, as snakes can sometimes be it and possessive too.”
His gaze turned tender when he looked at me. “He is keeping others from us, leads us through our rituals and gives us protection and guidance. Does that make sense to you?” I nodded slowly this time. I could feel a presence coil around us in some weird and wonderful way while Oorontes spoke.
As if saying his name had somehow drawn the attention of the being called Ophidien to our room.
“I think I get the name thing, my granny always used to say that names have power. He is somewhat here?” I gave him a quizzing look. “I can somehow feel a presence here with us, now, how weird is that?” His musical laughter filled the room. Oorontes and that of the ghostly presence around us. I scowled at Oorontes as well at the being in our room with us.
“Wonderful! Now you both are laughing at me!” I pouted.
A new bout of laughter followed my outburst. Oorontes caught himself fast. “Oh do not look so miffed, Myrthal. He and I do not laugh about you but at your words, do you understand?” I nodded slowly still feeling somewhat made fun of but not too badly so anymore.
He took up his stick again and drew again a quartet of symbols into a new box filled with sand just like before.
These looked rather complicated to me and while he did so, one of the symbols shortly and eerily glowed up on the skin of his right hand. My gasp drew his eyes to it. Looking at it for a second, he proceeded to hold it up to me so I could look at it. To me it looked like the second one of the smaller ones surrounding the bigger Caste one.
“I am what we call a Har of Nahir-Nuri Caste level. Actually, I needed a long while to reach it. My level in this caste is called Aislinn what is the second level of it. The Caste is called Nahir-Nuri; the levels are Efrata, Aislinn and Cleatha. Although, once you reach the Caste of Nahir-Nuri you are no longer known by the levels. You are only called by the Caste then.
It is so because of the mysteries of it, they make it hard to become fully understood from even the most hara with higher levels as of the Ulani Caste.
It really is a shame that so few want to reach a higher Caste. The most stumble around in the lower ones and never steps forward. However, ours is a younger race maybe that will change once we mature. At least my hope for the future is that we will, Myrthal.
I never wanted to take on my own tribe as in leading an offshoot. It never slipped off my mind how much work that is to become a Phylarch. Now I have done so anyways and I cannot say I regret it. At least in my tribe there will be no slaking in this! I made it a part of my Hara’s development. I will tolerate no slacking off in this. To much we do need higher Caste level har in the future. Our survival is depending on it, Myrthal.”
He stared down at the sign of his Caste in silent contemplation, I could tell that Oorontes was miles away from here right this moment. Not likening the thought somehow, I tucked at a lock of his hair to get his attention back into the now and here.
“Hey! Don’t go AWOL on me here, Uhm… was that what Manticker meant when he said you could mop the floor with my brother’s ass?” His eyes widened almost comically before he broke out into a wild bout of almost hysterical laughter. He even had to hold his stomach in the end, so wild did Oorontes laugh at my words.
I, I merely smiled secretively and thought to myself: Mission accomplished wayward Nahir-Nuri back the real world! Actually I felt quite proud of myself and in my other vision I saw the snake avatar shake madly in its mirth too before he seem to vanish.
“I was told that you somehow visited those two when you were suddenly gone. He did truly say that?! Oh Dehara, he can be such a moron sometimes!”
At my short nod, he broke down into another fit of giggles. In addition, here I finally had a suspicion confirmed that I had hatched since Manticker had talked about Oorontes. These two knew each other, and from the looks of it, pretty well at least to get this response from Oorontes. He needed some minutes to calm down again.
“He will never change, I guess. That one is as wise as he is moronic! Sometimes I really want to strangle the esteemed Archon of the Uigenna… what a waste of potential that one is. But that is his problem and not ours.”
And there, I thought with a scowl, Oorontes went again and did slip into what I would become to call his zoon-out times in the future.
Never would I like it when he did that on me, but he was what he was and I was what I was supposed to be. This time however it felt as if I should let him think a bit. Instead I went back to look at the now ruined sand pictures. Ara, which was what my level was. I wondered idly how long I would need to surpass it to Neoma and then to Brynie.
My feeling told me, not long and I shrugged it off.
It would go as it was supposed to do; I had, strangely enough, no doubt on that. Always my life had been rounded up around learning; this would make no difference to before since I still felt the hunger for knowledge in me.
I abandoned that train of thoughts for more pressing matters.
As in: why the hell felt I attracted to a guy!
I had never done that in the past, as far I could tell. Oorontes, sitting so innocently next to me, he stirred something in me that I could only describe as a raw hunger, need even. I couldn’t make heads and tails out of this sudden changing of my religion so to speak. Confusing did not even cut it. Grimacing, I tried to make a sense out of my conflicting new desires.
Oorontes eyed me with an arched brow doing so, clearly as perplexed as I was and why I suddenly pulled such faces, although out of a different point as I did make them.
“Something is bothering you?”
I gave a shrug and folded my arms agitated in front of my chest.
Giving the poor Oorontes a quizzing dark look, I tried to picture the girls from my sewing class naked to understand what the hell was wrong with me. Only to blanch when I got it in that they suddenly held no appeal to me any longer. They rather looked ugly to me now and had the opposite effect as before. Their breasts looked more like hanging sacks of useless meat to me now instead of something I had always drooled over before. Seeing me stiffen, he arched the other brow at my strange behavior but choose to stoically wait out the things to come as an alternative to ask.
My suddenly wide-eyed deer’s in headlights look made him give me an utterly bewildered look.
“Uhh, Oorontes?” I could tell he tried to arm himself secretly for whatever I could send his way in the next moments. “…Yes?” My horrified look gave him a pause. I could tell and cared not a shit. Gripping two of his long locks, I practically brought our faces so close together that our noses did touch.
“What the hell is wrong with me! What did you do to me to have this creepy effect?”
His face showed clearly his befuddlement. “I really have not the slightest idea of what you are talking about right now, my dear Ghost. That alone is a feat to accomplish these days, be assured. Let me put it this way, what exactly caused this reaction, if I may ask? Just out of curiosity value, I mean.”
My eyes must have shown my uncertainty clearly, because he cradled me closer to him what made me painfully aware of my state of undress and his of being just in his leather pants.
Vigorously I ignored it and the stirs of emotions that realization did cause inside of my belly were kicked from my mind.
My lower regions felt like they uncoiled and tried to creep inside of me! It was really a too peculiar experience.
“You made me suddenly hate girls and think they have cooties!!” I wailed out, unexpectedly.
Whatever he must have expected to come out of my mouth that day, this wasn’t it. Blinking down at me the message took some moments to register with the brain of one of the most powerful Wraeththu in history and future to come. What really says something about my uncanny gift to confuse the hell out of Oorontes by the way. As he told me not much later.
For seconds the ticking of a grandfather clock that I had not noticed before being in my room filled the silence… then he broke down.
First Oorontes grimaced wildly trying obviously not to laugh but soon he lost it and begun laugh that hard, he lost his balance and fell into the bed next to me whilst holding his belly in a feeble attempt to stop himself. The boxes went flying with the motion and ended up on the floor of my room. The table was kicked to the side by one of his feet by accident. There it hit the bed to then loose balance too.
What was formerly put onto it added new chaos to the room.
All I could do was to glare down at the seemingly gone nuts heir of the tribe Archon of the Colurastes, trying his best to laugh literally his head off. Tears run down his cheeks, his belly heaved air into his lungs and overall it is a wonder that he did not piss himself, so badly he was laughing! Grabbing a pillow I begun to hit him with it in my exasperation.
“That; Thud!; Is; Thud!; Not; Funny!!!” Thud!
He weekly battered at my trusty cushion while trying not to laugh harder.
Not succeeding, he simply used his wildly roaming hair to shield himself from my vicious hits. In the end, he was hiding his face from my hits in the bend of my knee whilst still laughing madly. I gave up. If he wanted to be silly then let him be silly, I thought darkly. Oorontes would get to know my retribution later!
He seems to sense my thoughts because he slowly ceased to laugh like a maniac until he just lay there, next to me still holding his quivering stomach from the laughter.
“Oh blessed Aghama and all Dehara that there are…! This was the craziest thing I have ever been told in my entire life!”
Rubbing the tears out of his eyes, he tried to sit up but failed in his first two attempts epically. It gave me dark satisfaction to see him wobble around like an eel. At least he got some downsides too from laughing at my plight. In the end, he managed it at the third try to sit up enough to look at me again. Mirth danced inside his now bloodshot eyes. He must have squeezed them shut that tightly that a few vessels had popped.
Meanwhile I looked the red slowly vanished to show again.
Leaning forward until our noses touched again while I held the pillow with both arms in front of me, Oorontes lips smiled at me in a decidedly scary way out of the sudden.
“Does your cute words mean that my presence make you nervous, my beautiful one?” He practically purred that out. I swore in my mind when I felt the cursed blush creep in record time down my body. He chuckled seeing it spread. “I take that as a yes.” He told me mirthfully before his gaze became somewhat contrite.
“I just realized what has leaded to this strange event, my dear.
When I had to incept you I forgot to mention this, I just recalled it, oh damn!” He sat up fully and moved until he faced me, still hiding somewhat behind the pillow. Eying him warily. Another chuckle escaped him when he noticed it. “I really had other matters on my mind at that time, which is the only excuse I can give you.” He told me looking rather sheepishly back at my slowly gaining glare when I got it that he left out something.
“What exactly do you mean to tell me here, Oorontes? And don’t you dare to kid around now!”
Ducking down his head, he looked suddenly much younger as he usually did. Again, I had the stupid urge well up inside me to kiss him senseless. I scowled harder at him. “Well?” He shrugged boyishly again. “Oh the ways you make me feel, Myrthal… I haven’t felt to urge to hide like a child from the repercussions of doing something brainless, in ages!” He told me after another minute self-conscious before he shrugged it off.
“I really did not think about that at that time, my lovely. All I had in mind was to convince you to take up the offer to rescue you, I swear. I think you feel like that because it is only natural?” I gave him a blank look. He laughed nervously before he went on, scratching his left ear distractedly. “Remember that I told you that we are not human?”
At my cautious look, he took a deep breath.
“There is actually one thing that has to be done to, how to say, fix you into your new body? Existence? See it like this; you have taken on a kind of contract when my blood infected yours. Althaia is a kind of follow up, it changes a human into a Wraeththu but the deal still needs to be sealed in the end.”
At my wary nod that I had understood so far, he nodded and went on.
“To become like us, we change so utterly and fully that it is first hard to understand and to accept for new hara. We, as in our race, Myrthal are hermaphrodites. Do you know what that is?” Of course, I did know! I wasn’t Marten who had always slept through his school hours noisily and then had me write his tests later, that lazy ass!
“I do, it means to have two instead of one gender? You mean I have now two genders? How is that even possible…?” He broke me out of my beginning musings by touching my face softly.
“Not exactly two genders, Myrthal, you are literally both. And before you ask it, is working, each one of sets, yes. In the future you could even reproduce, so to speak, I will not make the same error twice and keep something from you, you see.”
At my wide eyes, he chuckled again.
“I… what?” His shoulders shrugged. “It is possible. Since barely a year we know now of it. That such can happen. How exactly it is working, we still try to figure out but let’s say, yes, it is possible. Don’t feel too alarmed by it, for now that isn’t something you have to think of, be assured. As much as we know it, one needs to reach a certain Caste or better said level to make it even possible.”
Seeing my beginning horror, he had fast tried to reassure me. I was thankful for it; this was just too alien a thought to comprehend now!
“Back to the agreement thing, as it is your, new equipment? Well it needs to be tried out. If you do not do so, you die. Simple as that. We still do not fully understand it why exactly it is so, but be sure that it is!”
At my thoughtful but not affronted look Oorontes heaved a sigh of obvious relieve.
“Your body is just signaling you that and the changed perspectives of what is desirable and what not is kind of part of the set of information’s that you gained with the change. Somehow, I feel like I should send you another har to take you through your first Aruna, what we call sex… I cannot shake the feeling off that I will somewhat rue it if I do not.”
At my upset look, he shook his head and his face grew somber.
“As strange as that sounds, I know that and meant no insult with my words, Myrthal. Because to be honest with you, at the same time I don’t want to do so. Oh roon it! For once in my life I want to be selfish!” He suddenly leaned in until his eyes filled my vision out and made me instinctively hold my breath.
My first kiss from Oorontes was nothing like any other that I had ever given or received. We literally seem to breathe our very souls into each other, to melt together into one entity. It was that much different that I nearly felt like drowning in him.
When had my back hit the mattress? I still tried to get over that kiss while he looked concerned down at my confused self.
“See? That is exactly why I have to be very careful with you, my dear one. I am too powerful to do this without care. I could literally swallow you whole, Myrthal. Comes with being what and who I am. We call that not a kiss by the way, it is sharing of breath and as you can easily see, it is aptly named.” His soft smile made me give him a full-blown one of my cat like ones in return.
“Oorontes?”
He gave me a curios look.
“Shut up already and do that again!”
His chuckles at my demand rocked our bodies but in the end, he leaned in again and from there on, I was lost and somehow I think, he was too. The next was a haze of pleasure and desire. Somewhere on our journey, he lost his pants. How, I will never know but in the end, I didn’t care much. When he finally touched me, I felt like melting and when he finally slipped into me, I was lost.
I only knew the keening noises came from me and the moans came from him.
The feelings were indescribable, intoxicating and I felt like being swamped away from the pleasure to places never reached before. Not one orgasm seems to wash over me in the end but three in a way. It left me and him panting and Oorontes lying almost weightless on top of me. His face burrowed into the crock of my neck. He mumbled something softly against my skin there that sent shivers done my spine.
“I knew I should have asked someone else; curse it, now I am ruined for every other har forever! Oh well, not that I can complain here.”
All I could do was to smile at those words while winding my limbs tighter around his body. Like the tribe, I now belonged to, like our familiars the snakes I tried to wrap myself around Oorontes to never let go on him again. All others could go to hell for all I cared, Oorontes was mine! Let them try to take him from me again. I would show them how foolish that attempt would be! Just laying there with him I somehow knew that I had found that significant other half of my soul in Oorontes one that I must have searched for all my life without to realize it.
Sounds mushy, I know but that’s exactly what it felt to me.
It wasn’t just infuriation of my first Aruna partner or such, it was something deeper and we both knew it.
Slowly he entangled himself from me to look into my eyes again. His held now a thin ring of gold inside his iris, almost surrounding it. The flecks seem to have melted together to build it out in his passion. I loved to see this sight, made a mental note to have this sight more often in my life and let him take my mind away again.
Only this time he turned tables on me and had me take him instead.
Calling the roles Soume and Quana, what did not tell me really much at that time. I was too busy to survive the endless ocean that was Oorontes passion in the next minutes! He hadn’t been kidding when he told me that it was dangerous to have Aruna with him. His power and passion could really drive one into insanity and make you loose yourself.
Not that I objected much.
That night I slept like a baby. Safe, utterly spend from our activities and actually too tired for once to even try to step out into the other-lands that would become home to me like my own reality is it. I did not even dream that night. At least if, I do not remember it. All I was aware of was his arms around me that held me and the soft and steady heartbeat under my ear.
I got only later aware of it that someone had visited us when I was asleep.
Whoever it was, he cleaned up the mess made by us and tucked us into our blankets. Not even Oorontes awoke at his presence what says something about the person and the trust he had in it.
He was softly chuckling all the time it took.
Then he left silently again.
Suryallee
Called the last chapter be the wrong number, sweats, fixed now.
Dear seference, thank you kindly for the info’s! It helped me a great deal! ^_^
And to Cal the Gslinger, I will try, don’t count on it thought. My work is eating me here alive as well as my family. I will try?
Oh, and to why I don’t use the answer button, out of a point I do not get, it does not work for me! Tried now three times and it always eats me answers.
Suryallee
When the days were long
Part Fife
When I became aware of my surroundings again, I found myself back in the arms of Oorontes.
He had me half sitting half reclining in his lap. My head was propped up against his shoulder, my legs over his lap and the rest of me was partially draped over his chest. One arm held on my loosely, the hand cradling my head while the fingers played absentminded with my animated hair. It seems to respond almost lazily to him.
From my point of view, I could see him work on something a little away from him and me.
He had a small box standing onto a table usually used in hospitals, the ones that can be clapped out and put together. It was halfway over the bed meanwhile he seem to draw symbols into the sand inside of the box all the time. When finished, Oorontes pushed a small wooden beam over the sand and removed his artistic outpour's again.
It puzzled me why he was doing such, the entire thing reminded me onto a film my brothers, and I had once seen on TV. I think it was called Heroes or other, a Chinese production about a warrior and an emperor and some who had tried to kill the last one? In there had been lots of fighting, what my brothers loved to watch, I had rather been interested into the scene of the school of calligraphy students that was destroyed later.
They too had used sandboxes to think of new ways to write the Chinese symbols.
The most vibrant I kept as a memory of that film where the colors and that scene.
Oorontes now reminded me much on it. I must have said that aloud because I heard him chuckle softly against my head and then give the crown of it a soft kiss. Never stopping his working.
“I actually have seen that one too, that you just mentioned. Don’t remember the name either thought. Yes, I do something similar to what they did in the film.” His dark eyes caught mine before he nodded into the direction of his little hobby. The hand holding the wooden stick, which he used to draw, removed again his latest picture before he drew a new symbol into the sand.
“Look.” He told me in an utterly relaxed sounding voice. Somehow I felt lethargic a bit, too good to move a limb. I did as told and watched him write an unknown symbol into the sand.
“This is a sigil, Myrthal. It describes a Caste level, that of Kaimana actually.” He gave me another look and nodded when he saw that he had my full and undivided attention. Next to it he drew, three other symbols into the sand, each a piece of art if you asked me.
“These are the levels of the first Caste, Ara, Neoma and Brynie.
They together build the first Caste.” He carefully put the stick down to take the box from the stand to lay it to aside of us two so I could see it still. Pointing at the first symbol his voice went on.
“You are now this caste, it automatically happens when you are incepted and through Althaia. Means: your Caste is Kaimana and your level is Ara. Understood?” At my nod, he smiled.
He put another one of the sandboxes on the table into his reach and begun to draw four other symbols into the sand. Just like before, there was one main one surrounded by three others. Somehow, I couldn’t help to notice that all seem to build onto the former ones.
Or was that just me?
“Do they build up on the first ones?” He looked at me curiously. “In a way I suppose. There are three Caste levels, Myrthal; each has three levels in itself. This one is the next Caste called Ulani and the three levels of Ulani are Acantha, Pyralis and Algoma. The most Wraeththu sadly never reach beyond Brynie. They are stuck there out of a point I will never know or they do not want to progress?
It is hard to tell, only a few really want to ascend and really do learn but the others, oh well.”
He shrugged softly and I could tell that he found that a bit maddening. I got the feeling that he could not understand it why one did not want to learn, I had to smile at his indignation. It was easy to tell that Oorontes liked to teach as well as to learn. Our little lecture here was a dead give away.
What can I say; the sponge was back it seems, I silently wondered what Caste my brother might hold.
The next box went onto the bed so I could look closer at the beautiful symbols. My hand went out of the blanked pulled around him and me to touch the first sign of the caste Kaimana with it. Suddenly I had the feeling of something shooting up my arm.
“Ow! What was that, Oorontes?”
He put down his stick again with a curios expression on his face. His hand took mine to look at it. The skin looked normal to me, but after a moment looking at the back of my hand, there suddenly run fine lines over the skin to build the Ara symbol into my very skin. My eyes widened at that. Oorontes too but after a few moments he shrugged it off.
“Seems to me that Ophidien wanted to make it clear to every har that can see what caste you have.” He told me cryptically.
“Who is Ophidien?” At my clueless look, Oorontes gave another of his warm chuckles that I slowly became to love on him.
“He is our tribe Dehar. Our spiritual lead, a god if you want. Many tribes have made one up to guide them. It… is complicated but do believe me, they are very real. Ours is a bit special, I guess. He does not like us to use his name in vain or in the presence to others much. He does not care much for other either Dehara or Wraeththu besides those of our tribe.
You could say, he is a bit fixated about us, as snakes can sometimes be it and possessive too.”
His gaze turned tender when he looked at me. “He is keeping others from us, leads us through our rituals and gives us protection and guidance. Does that make sense to you?” I nodded slowly this time. I could feel a presence coil around us in some weird and wonderful way while Oorontes spoke.
As if saying his name had somehow drawn the attention of the being called Ophidien to our room.
“I think I get the name thing, my granny always used to say that names have power. He is somewhat here?” I gave him a quizzing look. “I can somehow feel a presence here with us, now, how weird is that?” His musical laughter filled the room. Oorontes and that of the ghostly presence around us. I scowled at Oorontes as well at the being in our room with us.
“Wonderful! Now you both are laughing at me!” I pouted.
A new bout of laughter followed my outburst. Oorontes caught himself fast. “Oh do not look so miffed, Myrthal. He and I do not laugh about you but at your words, do you understand?” I nodded slowly still feeling somewhat made fun of but not too badly so anymore.
He took up his stick again and drew again a quartet of symbols into a new box filled with sand just like before.
These looked rather complicated to me and while he did so, one of the symbols shortly and eerily glowed up on the skin of his right hand. My gasp drew his eyes to it. Looking at it for a second, he proceeded to hold it up to me so I could look at it. To me it looked like the second one of the smaller ones surrounding the bigger Caste one.
“I am what we call a Har of Nahir-Nuri Caste level. Actually, I needed a long while to reach it. My level in this caste is called Aislinn what is the second level of it. The Caste is called Nahir-Nuri; the levels are Efrata, Aislinn and Cleatha. Although, once you reach the Caste of Nahir-Nuri you are no longer known by the levels. You are only called by the Caste then.
It is so because of the mysteries of it, they make it hard to become fully understood from even the most hara with higher levels as of the Ulani Caste.
It really is a shame that so few want to reach a higher Caste. The most stumble around in the lower ones and never steps forward. However, ours is a younger race maybe that will change once we mature. At least my hope for the future is that we will, Myrthal.
I never wanted to take on my own tribe as in leading an offshoot. It never slipped off my mind how much work that is to become a Phylarch. Now I have done so anyways and I cannot say I regret it. At least in my tribe there will be no slaking in this! I made it a part of my Hara’s development. I will tolerate no slacking off in this. To much we do need higher Caste level har in the future. Our survival is depending on it, Myrthal.”
He stared down at the sign of his Caste in silent contemplation, I could tell that Oorontes was miles away from here right this moment. Not likening the thought somehow, I tucked at a lock of his hair to get his attention back into the now and here.
“Hey! Don’t go AWOL on me here, Uhm… was that what Manticker meant when he said you could mop the floor with my brother’s ass?” His eyes widened almost comically before he broke out into a wild bout of almost hysterical laughter. He even had to hold his stomach in the end, so wild did Oorontes laugh at my words.
I, I merely smiled secretively and thought to myself: Mission accomplished wayward Nahir-Nuri back the real world! Actually I felt quite proud of myself and in my other vision I saw the snake avatar shake madly in its mirth too before he seem to vanish.
“I was told that you somehow visited those two when you were suddenly gone. He did truly say that?! Oh Dehara, he can be such a moron sometimes!”
At my short nod, he broke down into another fit of giggles. In addition, here I finally had a suspicion confirmed that I had hatched since Manticker had talked about Oorontes. These two knew each other, and from the looks of it, pretty well at least to get this response from Oorontes. He needed some minutes to calm down again.
“He will never change, I guess. That one is as wise as he is moronic! Sometimes I really want to strangle the esteemed Archon of the Uigenna… what a waste of potential that one is. But that is his problem and not ours.”
And there, I thought with a scowl, Oorontes went again and did slip into what I would become to call his zoon-out times in the future.
Never would I like it when he did that on me, but he was what he was and I was what I was supposed to be. This time however it felt as if I should let him think a bit. Instead I went back to look at the now ruined sand pictures. Ara, which was what my level was. I wondered idly how long I would need to surpass it to Neoma and then to Brynie.
My feeling told me, not long and I shrugged it off.
It would go as it was supposed to do; I had, strangely enough, no doubt on that. Always my life had been rounded up around learning; this would make no difference to before since I still felt the hunger for knowledge in me.
I abandoned that train of thoughts for more pressing matters.
As in: why the hell felt I attracted to a guy!
I had never done that in the past, as far I could tell. Oorontes, sitting so innocently next to me, he stirred something in me that I could only describe as a raw hunger, need even. I couldn’t make heads and tails out of this sudden changing of my religion so to speak. Confusing did not even cut it. Grimacing, I tried to make a sense out of my conflicting new desires.
Oorontes eyed me with an arched brow doing so, clearly as perplexed as I was and why I suddenly pulled such faces, although out of a different point as I did make them.
“Something is bothering you?”
I gave a shrug and folded my arms agitated in front of my chest.
Giving the poor Oorontes a quizzing dark look, I tried to picture the girls from my sewing class naked to understand what the hell was wrong with me. Only to blanch when I got it in that they suddenly held no appeal to me any longer. They rather looked ugly to me now and had the opposite effect as before. Their breasts looked more like hanging sacks of useless meat to me now instead of something I had always drooled over before. Seeing me stiffen, he arched the other brow at my strange behavior but choose to stoically wait out the things to come as an alternative to ask.
My suddenly wide-eyed deer’s in headlights look made him give me an utterly bewildered look.
“Uhh, Oorontes?” I could tell he tried to arm himself secretly for whatever I could send his way in the next moments. “…Yes?” My horrified look gave him a pause. I could tell and cared not a shit. Gripping two of his long locks, I practically brought our faces so close together that our noses did touch.
“What the hell is wrong with me! What did you do to me to have this creepy effect?”
His face showed clearly his befuddlement. “I really have not the slightest idea of what you are talking about right now, my dear Ghost. That alone is a feat to accomplish these days, be assured. Let me put it this way, what exactly caused this reaction, if I may ask? Just out of curiosity value, I mean.”
My eyes must have shown my uncertainty clearly, because he cradled me closer to him what made me painfully aware of my state of undress and his of being just in his leather pants.
Vigorously I ignored it and the stirs of emotions that realization did cause inside of my belly were kicked from my mind.
My lower regions felt like they uncoiled and tried to creep inside of me! It was really a too peculiar experience.
“You made me suddenly hate girls and think they have cooties!!” I wailed out, unexpectedly.
Whatever he must have expected to come out of my mouth that day, this wasn’t it. Blinking down at me the message took some moments to register with the brain of one of the most powerful Wraeththu in history and future to come. What really says something about my uncanny gift to confuse the hell out of Oorontes by the way. As he told me not much later.
For seconds the ticking of a grandfather clock that I had not noticed before being in my room filled the silence… then he broke down.
First Oorontes grimaced wildly trying obviously not to laugh but soon he lost it and begun laugh that hard, he lost his balance and fell into the bed next to me whilst holding his belly in a feeble attempt to stop himself. The boxes went flying with the motion and ended up on the floor of my room. The table was kicked to the side by one of his feet by accident. There it hit the bed to then loose balance too.
What was formerly put onto it added new chaos to the room.
All I could do was to glare down at the seemingly gone nuts heir of the tribe Archon of the Colurastes, trying his best to laugh literally his head off. Tears run down his cheeks, his belly heaved air into his lungs and overall it is a wonder that he did not piss himself, so badly he was laughing! Grabbing a pillow I begun to hit him with it in my exasperation.
“That; Thud!; Is; Thud!; Not; Funny!!!” Thud!
He weekly battered at my trusty cushion while trying not to laugh harder.
Not succeeding, he simply used his wildly roaming hair to shield himself from my vicious hits. In the end, he was hiding his face from my hits in the bend of my knee whilst still laughing madly. I gave up. If he wanted to be silly then let him be silly, I thought darkly. Oorontes would get to know my retribution later!
He seems to sense my thoughts because he slowly ceased to laugh like a maniac until he just lay there, next to me still holding his quivering stomach from the laughter.
“Oh blessed Aghama and all Dehara that there are…! This was the craziest thing I have ever been told in my entire life!”
Rubbing the tears out of his eyes, he tried to sit up but failed in his first two attempts epically. It gave me dark satisfaction to see him wobble around like an eel. At least he got some downsides too from laughing at my plight. In the end, he managed it at the third try to sit up enough to look at me again. Mirth danced inside his now bloodshot eyes. He must have squeezed them shut that tightly that a few vessels had popped.
Meanwhile I looked the red slowly vanished to show again.
Leaning forward until our noses touched again while I held the pillow with both arms in front of me, Oorontes lips smiled at me in a decidedly scary way out of the sudden.
“Does your cute words mean that my presence make you nervous, my beautiful one?” He practically purred that out. I swore in my mind when I felt the cursed blush creep in record time down my body. He chuckled seeing it spread. “I take that as a yes.” He told me mirthfully before his gaze became somewhat contrite.
“I just realized what has leaded to this strange event, my dear.
When I had to incept you I forgot to mention this, I just recalled it, oh damn!” He sat up fully and moved until he faced me, still hiding somewhat behind the pillow. Eying him warily. Another chuckle escaped him when he noticed it. “I really had other matters on my mind at that time, which is the only excuse I can give you.” He told me looking rather sheepishly back at my slowly gaining glare when I got it that he left out something.
“What exactly do you mean to tell me here, Oorontes? And don’t you dare to kid around now!”
Ducking down his head, he looked suddenly much younger as he usually did. Again, I had the stupid urge well up inside me to kiss him senseless. I scowled harder at him. “Well?” He shrugged boyishly again. “Oh the ways you make me feel, Myrthal… I haven’t felt to urge to hide like a child from the repercussions of doing something brainless, in ages!” He told me after another minute self-conscious before he shrugged it off.
“I really did not think about that at that time, my lovely. All I had in mind was to convince you to take up the offer to rescue you, I swear. I think you feel like that because it is only natural?” I gave him a blank look. He laughed nervously before he went on, scratching his left ear distractedly. “Remember that I told you that we are not human?”
At my cautious look, he took a deep breath.
“There is actually one thing that has to be done to, how to say, fix you into your new body? Existence? See it like this; you have taken on a kind of contract when my blood infected yours. Althaia is a kind of follow up, it changes a human into a Wraeththu but the deal still needs to be sealed in the end.”
At my wary nod that I had understood so far, he nodded and went on.
“To become like us, we change so utterly and fully that it is first hard to understand and to accept for new hara. We, as in our race, Myrthal are hermaphrodites. Do you know what that is?” Of course, I did know! I wasn’t Marten who had always slept through his school hours noisily and then had me write his tests later, that lazy ass!
“I do, it means to have two instead of one gender? You mean I have now two genders? How is that even possible…?” He broke me out of my beginning musings by touching my face softly.
“Not exactly two genders, Myrthal, you are literally both. And before you ask it, is working, each one of sets, yes. In the future you could even reproduce, so to speak, I will not make the same error twice and keep something from you, you see.”
At my wide eyes, he chuckled again.
“I… what?” His shoulders shrugged. “It is possible. Since barely a year we know now of it. That such can happen. How exactly it is working, we still try to figure out but let’s say, yes, it is possible. Don’t feel too alarmed by it, for now that isn’t something you have to think of, be assured. As much as we know it, one needs to reach a certain Caste or better said level to make it even possible.”
Seeing my beginning horror, he had fast tried to reassure me. I was thankful for it; this was just too alien a thought to comprehend now!
“Back to the agreement thing, as it is your, new equipment? Well it needs to be tried out. If you do not do so, you die. Simple as that. We still do not fully understand it why exactly it is so, but be sure that it is!”
At my thoughtful but not affronted look Oorontes heaved a sigh of obvious relieve.
“Your body is just signaling you that and the changed perspectives of what is desirable and what not is kind of part of the set of information’s that you gained with the change. Somehow, I feel like I should send you another har to take you through your first Aruna, what we call sex… I cannot shake the feeling off that I will somewhat rue it if I do not.”
At my upset look, he shook his head and his face grew somber.
“As strange as that sounds, I know that and meant no insult with my words, Myrthal. Because to be honest with you, at the same time I don’t want to do so. Oh roon it! For once in my life I want to be selfish!” He suddenly leaned in until his eyes filled my vision out and made me instinctively hold my breath.
My first kiss from Oorontes was nothing like any other that I had ever given or received. We literally seem to breathe our very souls into each other, to melt together into one entity. It was that much different that I nearly felt like drowning in him.
When had my back hit the mattress? I still tried to get over that kiss while he looked concerned down at my confused self.
“See? That is exactly why I have to be very careful with you, my dear one. I am too powerful to do this without care. I could literally swallow you whole, Myrthal. Comes with being what and who I am. We call that not a kiss by the way, it is sharing of breath and as you can easily see, it is aptly named.” His soft smile made me give him a full-blown one of my cat like ones in return.
“Oorontes?”
He gave me a curios look.
“Shut up already and do that again!”
His chuckles at my demand rocked our bodies but in the end, he leaned in again and from there on, I was lost and somehow I think, he was too. The next was a haze of pleasure and desire. Somewhere on our journey, he lost his pants. How, I will never know but in the end, I didn’t care much. When he finally touched me, I felt like melting and when he finally slipped into me, I was lost.
I only knew the keening noises came from me and the moans came from him.
The feelings were indescribable, intoxicating and I felt like being swamped away from the pleasure to places never reached before. Not one orgasm seems to wash over me in the end but three in a way. It left me and him panting and Oorontes lying almost weightless on top of me. His face burrowed into the crock of my neck. He mumbled something softly against my skin there that sent shivers done my spine.
“I knew I should have asked someone else; curse it, now I am ruined for every other har forever! Oh well, not that I can complain here.”
All I could do was to smile at those words while winding my limbs tighter around his body. Like the tribe, I now belonged to, like our familiars the snakes I tried to wrap myself around Oorontes to never let go on him again. All others could go to hell for all I cared, Oorontes was mine! Let them try to take him from me again. I would show them how foolish that attempt would be! Just laying there with him I somehow knew that I had found that significant other half of my soul in Oorontes one that I must have searched for all my life without to realize it.
Sounds mushy, I know but that’s exactly what it felt to me.
It wasn’t just infuriation of my first Aruna partner or such, it was something deeper and we both knew it.
Slowly he entangled himself from me to look into my eyes again. His held now a thin ring of gold inside his iris, almost surrounding it. The flecks seem to have melted together to build it out in his passion. I loved to see this sight, made a mental note to have this sight more often in my life and let him take my mind away again.
Only this time he turned tables on me and had me take him instead.
Calling the roles Soume and Quana, what did not tell me really much at that time. I was too busy to survive the endless ocean that was Oorontes passion in the next minutes! He hadn’t been kidding when he told me that it was dangerous to have Aruna with him. His power and passion could really drive one into insanity and make you loose yourself.
Not that I objected much.
That night I slept like a baby. Safe, utterly spend from our activities and actually too tired for once to even try to step out into the other-lands that would become home to me like my own reality is it. I did not even dream that night. At least if, I do not remember it. All I was aware of was his arms around me that held me and the soft and steady heartbeat under my ear.
I got only later aware of it that someone had visited us when I was asleep.
Whoever it was, he cleaned up the mess made by us and tucked us into our blankets. Not even Oorontes awoke at his presence what says something about the person and the trust he had in it.
He was softly chuckling all the time it took.
Then he left silently again.
Suryallee