By Moonlight Wrought (Bt Moonlight Wrought) (23 page)

         “Come on,” she said, leading on through a
large outcropping of rocks to the beach on the other side.  The guards booed
loudly, and before Cinder stepped behind the rocks, she waved to them,
eliciting a hearty cheer.  Melissa hurriedly picked Cinder up and carried her
down the rough footing, off the rocks to the sand below.

         “Stop it,” Melissa said.  “They’ll never
leave us alone with you taunting them.”  Cinder simply smiled.  When they had
descended to the sand, Fiona, stark naked was already running into the surf.

         “A true lady should not be tanned,”
Cinder whined. 

         “I thought you were an elf…or half of one
anyway,” Melissa said, shading her eyes as she watched Fiona.

         Cinder glared impatiently at Melissa, but
said nothing else. She moved instead to find what shade she could against the
rocks.  Melissa took off her boots, shirt, and pants, leaving her in her
half-shirt and underpants, laying out her clothing on the sand so that she
could lie atop them.  Her skin was naturally tanned and by the time they left
that afternoon, she had gotten a warm, golden tan, much like Fiona, who often spent
many a day at the beach in the few months the weather permitted.

         “I hope nothing happens to her,” Melissa
said as she watched Fiona swimming farther away.  Soon the priestess turned and
waved, calling them out.  Melissa rose and went in.  “Come on Cinder.”

         “No, not me,” she said snobbishly. 
Melissa shrugged and went in alone.  She did not even go half as far as Fiona,
soon turning and coming back.

         “What is she doing?” Melissa asked with
mild frustration, shading her eyes as she stood on the sand gazing out.  Though
she had keen eyesight, she could barely see Fiona as she neared an island much
more than a mile off shore.  Cinder sat up and looked to see.

         “She’s lying in the shallows of that
island and she’s...with a
man
!?” Cinder said, saying the last part in
astonishment.

         “Where did he come from?” Melissa
asked.   Cinder sat back, intrigued, especially about the man, but more
concerned with being too hot.  Melissa heard Cinder mumbling to herself and
when she turned to see, Cinder’s hair had been transformed into a shade of
platinum blonde, as light now as it had been dark before.  “Is that some of the
magic that Fiona was talking about?” Melissa asked.  It took Cinder a moment to
realize what the farm girl meant.  Then, fluffing her hair out, Cinder nodded
with a slight smile.  When she realized that her discomfort was making her grumpy,
she called Melissa over, sighed an elven chant of relaxation and smiled.

         “It is cooler, this color,” Cinder said,
patting the sand between her legs.  She had taken off her shoes and hose and
laid them on a stone, burying her feet in the cool sand there in the shade. 
Melissa knelt between Cinder’s legs and Cinder spun her around so that she was
sitting, facing the other way.

         Cinder opened her velvet bag containing
her necessities and took out her instruments of beauty, brushing and braiding
Melissa’s hair to pass the time.  Melissa could hear Cinder chanting and
mumbling the whole time, she thought maybe it was some strange elven song. 
Half-an-hour had passed when Cinder threw a long, golden-yellow braid over each
of Melissa’s shoulders, and they fell between her legs.

         “There,” Cinder said.  “Now you look like
a northern warrior.”  Melissa fondled them.

         “I like my own hair,” she thought
silently.  “You can change it back, can’t you?” Melissa asked aloud, worried.

         “Of course,” Cinder answered.  “The color
is easy as pie.  The length I’ll have to cut, but that’s no problem either.” 
Melissa felt her hair again.  It was much softer than before and she admired
Cinder’s intentions, if not her work.

         Melissa rose and walked down to the
beach, her braids bouncing off her buttocks, as Fiona came trudging, panting,
back onto shore.  But she was smiling.

         “Oh, I love your hair!” Fiona said
eagerly and seemingly not surprised it had grown two-years worth of length and
turned golden while she had been away on her swim.

         “Thanks.  Who was that?”

         “Did you have fun?” Cinder yelled,
smiling slyly and batting her fingers at her.

         “Ooo, I like yours too.  Cinder the
Faerie Queen,” Fiona said, alluding to Faeries, like Cinder’s mother, with hair
of gold.  She looked at Melissa again.  “To answer both of you:  It was a
merman.  So, no Cinder.  We didn’t have sex...or fun.  I know that’s what you
meant, you slut,” she said, jokingly.  Cinder stuck out her tongue.  “What
could he do, spawn over me?”  She and Cinder laughed again while Melissa looked
at them peculiarly.  “We were swapping lore,” Fiona then said honestly, as if
in afterthought while looking for a place to lie, thinking her friends would
not appreciate her love of history and general knowledge.   Melissa strained
her neck to try and catch a glimpse of the merman, to see if Fiona spoke to
truth, sad she had missed sight of him if she spoke truly.

         Fiona laid herself in the sun while a
slightly bored Melissa practiced with her sword and took one more short swim. 
Cinder napped in the diminishing shade and walked along the beach briefly,
wetting only her legs as the sun reached its zenith and began to sink over the
water.  Around four bells, the women started back and after entering the gate,
they were followed, or escorted, all the way to Cinder’s home by some of those
same dozen guardsmen they had seen on the city walls.  The soldiers even took
the ladies to dinner at a nearby inn, after which they departed quite
innocently.  The three friends went to Cinder’s afterwards and drank the small
keg of wine she had there.  At Melissa’s request, Cinder returned her hair to
the way it had been and Cinder changed her own as well.

         They talked about men, but Melissa hoped
the conversation would not turn to Dirk.  At first Cinder and Fiona spoke at
length about Selric and his charms, so Melissa relaxed and simply listened to
her feminine friends talk as women will do.  When Cinder suddenly turned the
conversation to Melissa, the girl from Stoneheim flushed and felt immediately
overwhelmed.

         “You and Dirk are so good together,”
Cinder said.  Melissa looked down and tried to disappear from sight, unsuccessfully,
of course

         “I know…don’t they?” Fiona gasped, taking
Cinder’s hand.

         “What is wrong?” Cinder asked.

         “Nothing,” Melissa murmured.

         “Oh come now…you are with the girls…you
can tell us,” Fiona quipped eagerly, bouncing on Cinder’s broad bed, one hand
absently stroking the rich black fur.  Melissa shook her head, avoiding eye
contact.

         “Melissa?” Cinder asked and when she
touched Melissa’s hand, Melissa felt her head rising, though she thought she
was trying to keep her gaze floor-ward.  “I have known you briefly, but I care
for you…I know we will be deep friends. And Fiona loves you dearly.  You can
speak your mind,” Cinder said, her voice somehow different, not so flighty and
girlish, more suave, eloquent and enchanting:  elven, perhaps.

         “Don’t…don’t you want Dirk?” Melissa
asked softly, looking timidly at Cinder.

         “Me?” Cinder asked, seemingly back to her
old self.  “Dirk is wonderful.”

         “Then why would you…” Melissa fell
silent.

         “Because if you love him and I love him,
what is the bother?  We aren’t talking about mating.”  Melissa blushed heavily,
though she could somehow not avert her gaze.

         As Cinder waited patiently, Melissa took
a breath.  “I can’t compete with you.  I have never seen women back home—or
anywhere—like I have seen here.  So pretty.  So smart.   So girly.  The way you
all dress and walk and talk.  Especially you.  Gosh, how could anyone…”

         “Compete?  It isn’t a competition,
honey,” Cinder said, stroking Melissa’s hand and the sensation was so comforting,
her eyes so sympathetic and understanding that Melissa nearly wept.  “Until you
choose your life-mate, there is no reason to horde love…to not share it.”

         “That doesn’t sound very human, Cinder,”
Fiona tried to say lightly, though her eyes bore a serious stare.  Cinder moved
her gaze from the farm girl and Melissa once again was able to cast her eyes
down.

         “Maybe it isn’t,” Cinder said plainly. 
“I have much to learn here. But I know I would not want to deny Dirk and
Melissa the joy of exploring each other, body and soul.”  Melissa rose and
moved to one of the windows, both on the main road outside, and when she threw
open the shutters the summer sun streamed in as it sank low in the sky and she
took a deep breath.  “Well I don’t,” Cinder added, as if to reassure Melissa,
no longer talking to Fiona.  Melissa continued to breathe, her eyes scanning
the busy street as the throngs passed by in their daily business, paying her no
heed and the obscurity calmed her.  She thought of what Cinder said, of Dirk. 
And while sharing Dirk was better than losing Dirk, Melissa could not clearly
discern how she felt about the whole thing.

         After an indeterminate amount of thinking
and worrying Melissa suddenly realized she was being left alone by her
friends.  That idea was so foreign—that one or both would not be prodding her
to speak or reflect or share—that she spun quickly, thinking they had snuck out
of the room.  Her eyes shot wide open when she found Cinder and Fiona
exchanging a fiery passionate kiss.

         “Hey now!” Melissa called out, her
confidence returning to her at the shocking scene.

         “Told you!” Fiona said, breaking away
from Cinder and both of them laughing heartily.

         “Disgusting!” Melissa yelled.  “If you do
that again I’m leaving”

         Fiona patted the bed near her, smiling. 
“Ok, come back.  I just told her you would never notice.”
         “Oh I noticed, all right!” Melissa yelled sitting on the very edge of
the bed, far from the other two women, and again they began to talk and share.

         They talked about the thief, and about if
there would be any future endeavors for them all together, and what they each
held as plans for their lives, especially with the reward money they intended
on winning.  Before they parted, the girls had made great progress in sealing
their friendships, and much of the aloofness between Cinder and Melissa had
melted away and though Cinder was jealous of no one, Melissa could not admit
the same.  City life was so different she wondered if she would ever adapt and
if fleeing home had been as comforting as she had hoped.  She did know one
thing:  she was drawn to her new friends more in those weeks than to any she
possessed back home and known for years.

         At
Master Sellore’s
, Dirk watched
the biggest, fastest, and best swordsmen he had ever seen, all practicing in a
large mirrored room.  Will stood behind Selric a step or two, the two of them looking
like master and student.  But Will didn’t mind and Selric always knew where to
find him.  Will was not as astounded as Dirk at the gym; Selric had already
brought him there; twice.  So, he tried explaining everything to Dirk, who
looked at him curiously:  Will was so different than the filthy, pessimistic
loner that Dirk had first met in the sewers.  He was confident, and talked with
a noble air about him, just like Selric, though sometimes he lapsed back into
the lower class behavior that he had known his whole life.  The change was
surprising, to Dirk, mostly in how quickly it had taken place.

         Selric left his associates standing
together while he crossed the room and walked through a door there.  Dirk
looked around:  there were between fifteen and twenty men, he guessed, along
with one woman, training with everything from spears to heavy wooden clubs. 
Some were with instructors, some practiced on their own.  All appeared
confident and skilled and Dirk hoped someday to be half as proficient.

         As Dirk drank in the atmosphere, Selric
returned with a man of middling height and healthy build.  His face was stern
and he greeted Dirk with a firm handshake; his hands rough, seemingly small for
his size, and as hard as stone.  He stared at Dirk, making him uncomfortable as
Selric introduced them; the man’s name was Belsarus Ironshod.  “He is Senior
Master, second only to Master Sellore,” Selric said with a nod and raised
brows, letting Dirk know he should show the man great respect.  Selric and Will
then left the two men alone to talk, walking down a carpeted hallway which led
to the rear of the House.

         “Dirk,” Belsarus said coolly, “what
instrument of destruction is it that you wish to learn?”  Dirk fidgeted
briefly, shyly, then he drew his blade.  “Not my specialty,” Belsarus said,
looking at it.  “But I can teach you the basics, and some things all warriors
should know regardless of their weapon.”  Dirk nodded.  “Shall we start?” he
asked.

         “Yeah,” Dirk said dumbly, never thinking
his lessons would begin so soon and he wondered when he would have to pay.

         “I have about an hour right now.  We
should use it,” said Belsarus and the hour passed like minutes to Dirk.  He
felt he had learned so little, but already the sword was more comfortable in
his hand:  perhaps because all he had learned was how to hold his sword and how
to stand when swinging it.  He didn’t even learn how to draw it.  He never
imagined it would take so long to learn swordsmanship, but at least he was now
on his way.