I snuck out during the night to stroke myself to Miyani’s sublime physique. I wanted to lay her face-down on the bed and kiss her up and down her neck, then slap my dick on her butt and rest my whole body weight on her arse.
Before I could finish, my mind shifted to images of Blue ripping my liver out and leaving me a mass of shredded flesh to seize up while the remnant of me dumped gallons of blood onto the grass.
I had a problem, and I needed to stop. I'd lusted after Guenevieve, and it cost me Sarina. I'd lusted after Alys and it cost me all my friends in Kyoen. I'd lusted after Oasis, and it cost me the church in Ulum. May well cost me my life if she caught up with me in Carthia; wouldn't that be a way to go out? Giant alligators, lizards that rip your throat out, venomous snakes, an invisible enemy lying in ambush in the jungle—survive all that for one really pissed off girl to get you.
She did promise.
Carthia wasn't helping. Everywhere I went, women of every color, every shape, every size, every age walked around with their breasts out in the open, hips on full display, legs, arse, back, arms, bare feet, skin everywhere. My eyes were in heaven.
But lust was a sin.
Breakfast was the same grainy, paper-flavored slop and came with some large, green-red fruits that had a wonderfully sweet-tart yellow meat inside with a stringy texture and made a sticky, glorious mess. maŋo, they’d called it, and it was beyond delicious.
Borel was silent; he spent the morning glaring at Chirpy as she clung to Geraln's shoulder.
Northstar sat with his hands behind his head and an easy grin plastered all over his long face. Faren nodded towards him, “somebody had fun last night!”
Northstar’s eyes popped. He blew out and shook his head vigorously.
Kelint's whole baby face smirked. “This place is insane, man! These girls, fucking unbelievable!”
“Women,” Davod corrected him.
“Yeah yeah, that. So last night, and they've got some incredible food here if you got the kren—way better than this rubbish. We're just having a meal, and this girl…”
“Woman,” we corrected him.
“Gorgeous. Simply gorgeous. Tobori, nice and plump. What was her name?” he looked up.
Rock stood beside him with a satisfied grin. “Two six two, eleven nine.”
Kelint laughed, as did Northstar. Jame smirked. “Didn’t get her name, did you?”
“Nah, nah, we did. Whatever it was.”
Northstar remembered, “Isa.”
“Isa,” Kelint snapped his fingers. “Anyway, I’m trying to see if maybe she’ll talk to one of us, you know? See if maybe we might get somewhere with her. She just comes right out with it; does you all wanting to have turns?”
Gino furrowed his brow. Davod shook his head. “Please tell me you didn’t go along with that.”
“The fuck not, we ain't no chastity virgins, man.” Everyone glanced at me for some reason. “Of course we did! She was clear about it, too; I never heard of anything like that in my life!”
Rock waved his meaty hands side to side. “No brag. No brag!” Then he switched to Goloagi, “she was saying, you are wanting wait? Why not same time?”
Jame’s eyes nearly popped out of his head. “You have got to be kidding me!”
“No brag!” he said again.
Faren listened quietly, while Ales’s jaw dropped. “So you’re there… the three of you with this woman… you’re all there… together…”
Kelint leaned in close. “How’s this for clarity, man?” He lifted his chin towards Northstar. “She sucked him off while I fucked her from behind. She tells me to finish in her, then he’s about to blow his load so she gets up and sits on it. He pumps her full, she lies down and tells Rock to have his way. Is that clear enough?”
“That can’t be real,” I shook my head.
Rock pursed his lips. “No joke. No brag.”
Jame lowered his eyes. “Damn, that’s some freakish weird shit, man. I don’t know if I could go through with that. My man here lost half his money to some kid in a card game,” he slapped Borel's back. “By the time we figured out what happened mum shows up and they've all scattered.” Borel closed his eyes and fixed his lips hard before muttering, “fuck this place!”
Gino slapped Geraln’s back. “Well this one here met the love of is life last night…”
Geraln blushed and smiled. Borel continued to glare at Chirpy.
Sæwi was beautiful. Her face was the one in the grand ballroom where the crowd parts, clearing the way to the other end of the hall where, bathed in a halo of soft moonlight, she stands in a sparkly blue gown gazing at you with those lustrous eyes and tempting you with those large, flat lips.
Why she chose him over me.
Outside, Commander stood in the practice yard staring at us with the heavy rain clattering in pools around him. He smiled while streams of water flowed over his muscles and dripped down from his kinky, dark-bronze hair. The rest of us crowded beneath the stone awning outside the entrance to the mess hall.
After a minute the rain stopped, and the twelve of us slogged through the muddy grass to form a circle with him at one end. Jame and Borel stood together with arms crossed. Opposite them, Renou had taken the side of Kelint while Rock and Northstar stood beside him. Ales stood looking strong as ever. Beside him was Faren with his hands at his sides gazing at Commander through droopy eyes. Geraln and I each took one side of Davod, with Gino beside me. At the center, few blades of grass clung to specks of blackened blood while the remnant of Massi had washed away with the rain.
Borel locked his jaw and continued to glare at the friend on Geraln's shoulder.
A splattering of water crashed into the muddy grass as Commander reached forward to ring out the front flap of his loincloth, and he bellowed out in his deep baritone, “I love war.”
I looked around. Everyone else was taken aback as I was.
“Who wants to guess why I love war so much?” Commander grinned.
Kelint spoke first. “Because you get to kill your enemies?”
Commander looked at him and grinned. “I hate killing. If any one of you gets to a point where you enjoy it…” he shook his head. “I pray you never do. Guess again.”
Ales smirked. “Comfort women!”
He earned a few giggles for that, but Commander shook his head and scowled. He then lifted a finger and checked each one of us. “I don't know what you heard. I don't know what you were expecting, but if any one of you tries to force yourself on a woman, ours, theirs, doesn't matter, I'll carve your shit off and feed it to the gators, then make you show the stump to every other man who comes through here.”
None of us dared speak, but we checked one another no less.
“This bears repeating,” Commander continued. “We don't take comfort women. Is that clear?”
We all stared blankly while about half of us nodded.
“I said, IS… THAT… CLEAR?”
“Yes, sir,” we called out.
Commander turned to face Borel. “What’s clear?”
Borel’s tall, meaty frame stood with his chest up, arms crossed, and legs apart. Long, straight, dark green hair flowed down his back and he scowled at Chirpy.
Commander stepped up to him directly. “I’ll gut you right here and now. I’ll ask you one more time. WHAT is clear?”
Borel chewed his meaty face and spat on the ground. “No comfort women.”
Commander nodded and turned back around. “Who else wants to guess why I love war so much?”
I looked around; we all did. Most of us shrugged.
Commander smiled wide. “I love war because it cuts through the bullshit…”
Gino furrowed his eyebrows; I did too.
“... Out there in the real world, bullshit is the currency that makes the world go around. I have my bullshit, you have yours, and so does everyone else. It doesn't matter if you're incompetent as long as you can convince everyone you know what you're doing. Similarly, you can be an unparalleled master—an expert in your field—but if you can't master convincing everyone you are, what good is it? It's bullshit!
“But not war. In war, be incompetent, and you will get yourself killed along with anyone stupid enough to follow you. No. War is proof. It's the decider. The ultimate judge. Tax the rich, or tax the poor; which one's better? War reveals the truth. Imperial authority or self-governance? My god or your god? Slavery or freedom? War decides. Always has, always will. War decides because war doesn't leave room for bullshit…”
Beside him appeared three of those lizards along with a woman who looked up at him and smiled. She was a native, dark-green skin with a soft, angular face beset with bright yellow eyes and deliciously soft lips. She was very short, maybe an inch or two taller than Miyani if that, and had the most marvelous legs the world had ever known.
Commander faced her. “Are you ready?”
She answered him in Herali with a voice perfectly balanced between alto and soprano and an exotic accent dripping of pure sex. “I see you philosophizing to a captive audience again.”
He chuckled lightly and turned towards us. “Gentlemen, this is Ahmi. Unless you want to go the way of your friend yesterday, listen to her.”
The day we arrived at Carthia, she’d overlooked us from the balcony of the administration building, standing alongside the Imperial Voice and the woman with the braids. Today, the dress she wore was simple tanned linen, buttoned along the front from her modest neckline all the way down to the hem that wrapped around about mid-thigh. She wore no jewelry but a black robe tied around her waist, her long white hair feral behind her back, and she stood barefoot in the grass.
“Good morning to you all.” As she spoke, my mind lingered on her figure—hips of a goddess, delicate breasts, lean arms, and absolutely phenomenal legs that carried me away in unspeakable fantasies.
Rock spoke what we were all thinking, holding his hands out before his chest and grinning wide. “Why cover you titties because every Carthia girl don’t?”
She answered, “because I do not need to justify my choice of attire to you.”
“Bu-u sa’ao ga!”
At that, she stepped up to him and looked up at his face, then answered in his language, “fam faboush she… gayiwi au-u’se mama?”
At that, Rock's eyes went wide, Northstar snorted hard, and both he and Kelint stepped away from their stocky friend. Then, Rock turned his head down and gazed at his feet.
Ahmi said it again, “tiiai gayiwi au-u’se mama, hak sa-a boti?”
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“Vu,” he mumbled.
“Eh?”
I looked at Kelint and tried to mouth the words, what did she say. He looked back, shook his head, and looked down.
Rock mumbled again, still keeping his eyes on his feet. “Hodo be-e na…”
“I don't want an apology.”
One of the lizards she’d brought with her had a dark green color across its back and a light blue underbelly. It wandered around and turned its head to look at each of us, keeping within arms reach of her the whole time. As my eyes traced the muscles in her thighs, the creature stepped between us, bared its jagged, serrated teeth, and clicked.
Borel interrupted, “do those things need to be here?”
Ahmi walked up towards Borel. The green-and-blue lizard kept in front of her until she tapped the side of its neck, then it stepped to the side and allowed her to stand close to him and look up into his face. “I am sorry about your friend. I know how it feels to lose someone that you care about.”
Borel closed his eyes and lowered his face towards the ground. The angle at which she stood gave me the most perfect view of that dress as it fell over her body. Davod elbowed me in my side and whispered, “stop looking!” I glanced at him with incredulity; I'd known him my whole life.
Jame held his arms crossed and snapped at Ahmi, “yeah, well that bitch is a fucking menace that needs to be put down.”
She turned to face him. “Maybe you should be put down.”
Jame pulled his face back and frowned.
“I was raised by vita’o, and as you can see, I still have my throat. But you know more than me, so go ahead and teach your friends how to not get killed. I will wait.”
With that, she stepped to the side as though she were one of us and stood with her arms crossed, looking at Jame in expectation. Ales covered his mouth to stifle a chuckle, while Jame pursed his lips and set his hands out. “Sorry. I mean, sorry, you don't want… uh… I'll be quiet, now.”
After a minute, Ahmi stepped towards the center of our gathering and explained. “There is a difference in mentality between your people and ours. In your culture, when an alligator eats a child, you kill the alligator. In our culture, we teach our children how to not get eaten. This is why I am here. What happened to your friend yesterday did not need to happen.”
She then walked around, checking each of us. “Vita’o are my life. I can promise you that if you adhere to the rules I give you, you will not have any problems.”
As before, the green-and-blue lizard kept close to her side the whole time, stepping where she stepped and never permitting more than a few feet of distance from her. The second one had a white underbelly and a light-brown color over its back with white spots. That one stood like a statue, not moving its neck, a claw, or anything. I couldn’t discern if it was breathing. The third one lay down in the grass and stuck its claw in front of a beetle. The beetle wandered in the opposite direction, and it stuck its claw in front of it again only for the beetle to wander off again.
When Ahmi approached Geraln, the blue-and-green lizard came around and stood directly between me and her and wiggled its talons while Chirpy stretched her long neck out and chirped. Ahmi then reached her arm up, and Chirpy jumped from him onto her shoulder and settled down, rubbing her tiny head in Ahmi’s cheek.
“Hey!” Geraln protested.
Ahmi smiled and continued. “The three rules I want you all to understand are these. Do not pull a weapon on a vita’o, do not assault their friends, and the ones who live out there are not your friends.”
She’d pointed out towards the wilderness beyond the main gate. She was close enough that I could take in the smell of her—wild, like the untamed jungle itself dabbed over her skin like a perfume. As I listened to that delicious accent of hers, that man appeared, the same native man who’d led Davod to go talk to someone the previous day. Ahmi turned towards him. “Which one?”
He nodded towards Borel, “za.”
Ahmi nodded. “She will wait.”
The man chuckled. “xʊ’ɪ gæðuse xeŋɪ…”
Ahmi interrupted him, “it is rude to exclude people from the conversation.”
He smiled wide. “You mean to tell me that Peyumi should… wait?”
“I will not be long.”
The man smiled and stood beside Davod as though he were one of us.
“Each of you,” she said, “I want you to hold out your wrist like this.” Kelint and his friends glanced at one another and obeyed, as did Renou. Rock was slow to comply; he still hadn't taken his eyes from his feet. Faren and Ales did, as did Geraln, Gino, and Davod. Jame did as well, but Borel did not move. I’d have done anything she asked. Ahmi stared at Borel for a moment. He looked left and right, then back at her, still holding his arms crossed. She continued to stare at him and spoke not a word to anyone for a full minute before Borel finally complied.
The blue lizard let out a sharp caw, then a string of clicks. Ahmi reached up and tapped the top of his head, then stroked the side of his neck and whispered something to it in that native language. With that, the blue one made rounds, sniffing each of our wrists while she spoke. “His name is Zhagu’u. In Dayuda this means Thunder. We named him this because when he was a baby he would hide under me every time it was storm outside.”
She then walked towards the second one, the brown one with white spots who still hadn’t moved. This was away from where I stood, and I was quite happy over the view. Davod slapped my arm. When I turned to face him, he widened his eyes and held his hands out as if to ask what I was so interested in.
I whispered back at him, “what happened to always about that, huh? Like you're blind!”
He lowered his eyes and shook his head.
Ahmi then whistled and clicked her tongue, and the second vita’o lizard creature stepped directly to Borel, sniffing his wrist, up along his arm, and then rubbed its head in his cheek.
Borel stepped back with his eyes wide and mouth agape.
The lizard clicked, then sniffed his shoulder.
“She is named Fluffy.”
Davod chuckled, “Fluffy? You serious?”
Ahmi let out a light chuckle. “She asked for a name that would cause her enemies to underestimate her.”
Fluffy stepped to Borel’s side and wrapped her long neck behind him, then rested her head on his shoulder while Borel stood with terror on his face. She then let out a long chirp and clicked. Borel furrowed his eyebrows and pleaded, “why is she on me like this?”
Ahmi answered him, “she feels very sad for you that you lost your friend and she wants to make it up to you.”
Borel turned to face the creature, who opened her jaws wide and chirped before wandering to Jame to smell his wrist.
“This one,” Ahmi went over to the third one, who lay with its back in the grass, holding one claw up in the air while a beetle crawled over it. “He is named Du-u gati’ada.”
Northstar erupted in laughter while Kelint lowered his face and chuckled. Even Rock let out a smile. Then she gave him a light kick in the side, to which he groaned and then ignored her.
Gino looked at Kelint, “what’s that mean?”
Kelint smiled. “Best way to translate that… Lazy Bum.”
Ahmi giggled lightly. “We told him that if he did not choose a name, that this would be his name.”
Half of us laughed at that, but Lazybum didn’t seem to care. Rather, he twisted his claw around to watch close as the beetle crawled over him. Then the beetle fell and bounced across his light-green scales onto the ground. Lazybum then turned over and probed his nose around to look for the thing.
Ahmi kicked him in the side again. “pʊ baɣese tuzubo! gæðuse zawa!”
He yawned his jaw open and croaked, then peeled himself off the ground only to slog through the grass towards us, bobbing his head lazily with each step. He came up to Renou first and sniffed his arm.
The brown one with white spots, Fluffy, came up to Ales and sniffed him around, then turned to the others and gurgled out a strange series of clicks. Immediately, the others rushed over to him and sniffed about him. Ales grinned, a nervous veil over the terror that held him while three monstrous lizards crowded him, opening their jaws to bare serrated teeth while they clicked and chirped. Thunder then turned one eye towards Ahmi, who smiled wide. “They want to know if they should call you Thisisweird, or Coconut Guy.”
“Those are my choices?” Ales echoed, then chuckled. Lazybum reached out and rubbed his head in Ales’s cheek before letting out a string of clicks. “Sure, Coconut Guy. Let’s go with that.”
“So…” Ahmi continued, “I want you all to understand. The way the mind of a vita’o works is different from ours. They do not have a hierarchy, and they do not work in dominance. It is important to remember that they do not serve us any more than we serve them. It is a cooperative arrangement that begins with respect, but the foundation of respect is trust. They choose to abide by the rules we have, or they are free to leave. In this framework, we are mindful of the rules we establish. It is a beneficial arrangement…”
As she spoke, her eyes went about our gathering, checking each of us. When her eyes came to mine, they lingered just a little longer.
“...to be able to rest here within the safety of these walls is a privilege for them. And so, they abide. If they feel the rule is unfair, they leave.”
Geraln raised a hand. “Does that happen often?”
Ahmi nodded. “I will not say often, but sometimes one of them prefers to be with a tribe out there. When the war started, a lot of them left because they did not want to take part in it. The reverse is also true; this one’s mother,” she stroked Chirpy’s back, “lost three babies to the jungle. When she was ready to lay again, she came here.”
Everything about her. Her calves, perfectly lean. Her thighs, sculpted by God himself. Her hips, her waist, her shoulders, her arms, her fingers, every curve absolutely flawless. Her dark, dark skin, her rough white hair, her eyes, she had everything.
Thunder brought the side of his head inches from my face and leaned one eye into me so close that I had to lean back some.
Ahmi smirked at me and continued. “Here is where you should pay attention. To understand how rules work. The imperative not to pull a weapon is not a rule for you; it is a rule for them. If you choose to make home at Carthia, and this is a standard rule that all human tribes have, then you may not harm a human unless they pull a weapon. That is the rule they must follow.”
“What if they break it?” Jame asked. Borel humpfhed in agreement.
Ahmi nodded. “They will not. Their minds do not work that way. Be warned, however. Some of them can be temperamental, and if they are angry enough they will try to convince you to draw a weapon. But even then, words will remain as words, and they will answer choice words with choice words. If you do not cross the line into weapons and violence, they will not as well. That is the rule, and they are creatures very much governed by rules.”
Lazybum sniffed around my arm, then moved on to Davod.
“Now there is one exception to that rule. They are allowed to act in defense of their loved ones. So if you attack their friends, even if you do not use a weapon, they are allowed to protect them. And a special warning about this: everyone who lives in Carthia, they consider their friends. So basically do not attack anyone. Do not menace anyone, and do not threaten anyone. There will be no need for that, here.
“It is important to remember that they are not service animals. They do not understand authority, not like we do, and they will not accept it. They thrive on trust and respect, and in that framework, they will always obey rules. Now… they do understand that humans have a fluid relationship with rules, and some of them are… more patient than others.”
Her voice was like smooth silk. As she spoke, my mind carried my cheeks between the skin of her thighs and created the sound of her voice crying out, begging me not to stop in that delicious accent she spoke with.
“Are there other rules?” Faren asked.
She smiled. “Of course! But these I think are the ones that will get you killed. Yes we have others—do not eat the opossums. Eh… I hope this does not need to apply to you?” she furrowed her brow and looked around, earning a few laughs. “Please do not eat the opossums.”
Kelint translated; she pulled a lock of hair behind her ear and shot a glance at me only to resume her attention on all of us. “I want to draw attention to these points, now, because this is very, very important. Out there, in the jungle, they are not bound by any of our rules. In here, you will make friends with them. Play games. They want to be your friend; they love to do things for us that we cannot do and to have us do things for them that they cannot do…”
“Like lasso coconuts,” Faren inserted.
She smiled, “yes. Like that. But my point is that you should understand this. The ones out there are not your friends. The Sweu’oni have vita’o like we do. They have allied with our enemies; they will hunt you down and kill you. And there are tribes that don’t like any humans; they will hunt you down for meat. Vita’o politics is often complex and dynamic, and while some of the ones here may have a positive relationship with the ones out there, they may also have a negative relationship.”
Jame scratched his head while Thunder sniffed around his arm. “We’re going to be fighting these things… out there, where we can’t see ten feet?”
She hesitated a moment. “You shouldn’t. Vita’o in the jungle are aware that the human tribes are at war and they mostly prefer not to be involved. Most of the time, we are allowed to trespass on their territory during the day while they are allowed to trespass on our territory during the night. It is a delicate balance, and so when you are out there, be mindful that you might be trespassing and act accordingly.”
“Ahem,” the native man standing next to Geraln cleared his throat.
“Yes,” Ahmi said. She then stepped close to Borel and looked up at him. “You may go. To reiterate the important points, number one do not pull a weapon on a vita’o who lives here in Carthia, number two do not try to overpower their friends with violence, and number three out there,” she pointed towards the main gate, “those ones are not your friends and are not bound by any of our rules.”
Borel looked up into the cloudy sky and blinked as he took in a deep breath. Then he turned to our visitor. “Where am I going?”
“Peyumi wants to talk to you.”
As they went off, Fluffy walked with them. The visitor brushed the side of her neck and laughed while Borel still gaped his eyes at her.
Lazybum was on his back, rubbing back and forth in the grass. Ahmi stepped close to Geraln and allowed Chirpy to return to his shoulder. She then tapped Thunder on the top of his neck, he crouched low, and she swung herself onto his back. I watched her glorious thighs as she rode him bareback and away from us, around the corner and out of view only for Lazybum to follow a minute later.
Gino waved his fingers in front of my face.
I looked at him and smirked.
“I dare you to go talk to her!”
He earned a few laughs at that. Jame smiled wide, then reached into his coin purse and tossed a kren on the ground. Ales tossed a kren of his own along with it. “Don’t pull a weapon, man!”
Kelint followed with another, then looked at me and grinned.
Davod pulled me by my arm and spoke softly. “You don’t have to do this.”
“What's gotten into you?” I said. “You let that go… shoulda made love to her… you're always the one pushing me into this sort of thing.”
“This place…” Davod shook his head. “It's not what you think.”
But I looked around at the others. Faren was rifling through his own coin purse, Gino grinned wide, and Ales, Jame, and Northstar were all looking at me. “Keep your money. I will go talk to her.”