Two women dropped from the sky, hitting the snow-covered ground with the full force of their powers. They scattered snow everywhere and cracked the ground where they landed. Jerome studied them behind the simple barrier of light he had crafted. He had to give himself props for this one. He had improvised in the moment to see what he could do.
Light gathered and bent around him to obscure his form from sight so he could move around and study the women — no girls. The best thing was, he achieved this with only his will and knowledge of how photons interact with atoms of the air — and a little help from Achilles. The downside was he had to keep circling the photons around himself.
These new women were clean. They wore simple light brown, sleeveless shifts, made from flax and embroidered with the shapes of stars and two moons. The two moons took up the front of their shifts like they were the center of attention, with the stars in the background. They were both extremely beautiful, with skin, the color of porcelain. One had ivory horns like the two beastkin inside the caves. But hers were a lot bigger — protruding from her temples and curving upwards — like she was making a statement to the world. She was tall. As tall as he was. And had all the same super curves the beastkin had. Her shift was stretching at the seams as it tried to contain her ginormous bust and hips. And the simple clothing didn’t reach down to her knees exposing parts of her thick, luscious thighs.
The other was a fox. Mysterious looking with an otherworldly beauty. She made his eyes ache just looking at her. Her flame red hair featured two fox ears, with tufts of white hairs on the insides, at the top of her head. Her ears flicked from side to side as if listening for something. Her high cheekbones and pouty lips gave her the look of nobility, purity, and innocence at the same time. She was not tall like the bovines. Only as tall as Csala — shorter even. But she was just as curvy — busty to the extreme with wide hips.
How tall is Csala?
“Five feet eight inches. The fox is five feet six inches.”
Jerome nodded absently, studying each of them some more.
Both women had their feet and legs wrapped in brown hide-like stockings, up to their thighs. And they wore wooden slippers of sorts. For a society that lacked resources, they were being very creative with what they had.
The bovine moved to turn, observing her surroundings, and her voluptuous chest bounced with each movement. Jerome’s pulse quickened at the sight, sending his blood down south.
What is it with these women and curves?! He could feel another hard-on coming on.
Achilles chortled. “You heard Csala. Terra Praeta lacks males. This is Mother Nature’s response to the needs of the females — make them more attractive. So attractive, you can’t take your eyes off them.”
“Urgh,” he grumbled. Is that really true? The fox heard that. Even as silent as he sounded and from at least fifty yards away. She shot forward and the bovine was right behind her.
They stopped in front of the cave as Csala blocked their path. Well, there was a barrier that would prevent them from coming in but he doubted the integrity of the barrier. He had rushed the binding powering it so… yeah.
Did you see that, Achilles? They move like Csala. They had moved with great speed from the start and stopped as if they were puppets on a string. It was almost mesmerizing to look at.
“Quite interesting, Xerae.”
But is it really true what you said about the women of Terra Praeta?
“Partly, Xerae.”
“We seek the male,” the bovine said in faerie, looking down her nose at Csala like she was some pest. Her voice sounded deep yet sultry — not too deep as to be uncomfortably male though.
At the sound of the voice, the two beastkin nearly pasted themselves to the wall of the cave to hide from the mystic kin. Jerome turned to observe them. They quickly finished off the venison and picked up stones. They started filing down their horns but the stones would shatter each time they used too much force.
Jerome had an idea of what was going on. He looked from their short, stubby, almost non-existent horns to the gigantic horns on the head of the mystic cow. Yeah, that sounds about right. It made him angry to know that one could wear her horns proudly and openly and another was forced to file down hers. Probably some sort of cultural rule, but it seemed backward and racist.
He sensed Csala’s countenance change and she seemed to raise herself higher, squaring her shoulders with her chin up, and pushing her chest out to appear taller. The two mystic kin imitated her and tension rose in the air. To him though, it just appeared as if they competed to find out who had the bigger chest. Jerome held back a laugh at that.
“There’s no male here. Go search elsewhere,” Csala replied in faerie, and Jerome’s smile dropped. Her voice contained so much compulsion! Not as much power but he could tell this was done masterfully.
The two women’s eyes glazed over for a moment before they shook off her compulsion.
“You dare use your witchcraft on us, succubus!” the mystic fox sneered at her. Even her sneer looked beautiful. And she had a beautiful voice too — almost angelic.
“In the name of The Twins, we sentence you to death by beheading,” the mystic cow roared. A giant axe materialized in her right hand and she shot forward, raising the axe to strike.
What twins does she speak of, Achilles? Jerome asked as he reinforced the barrier as best as he could so it didn’t crumble. The axe hit the barrier the next moment and bounced off, the repelling force carrying its wielder along with it.
“The twin moons are regarded as goddesses by the beastkin, Xerae.”
The ground and walls of the cavern shook violently. Jerome watched with interest as the mystic cow’s gigantic breasts bounced around, straining to be set free.
God help me, he thought as he shivered a little, goosebumps rising to his skin.
The two mystic kin bombshells took a moment to observe the shield as it faded from view. The war axe came into his view again and Jerome balked. The head was cut out of stone! With a wooden handle. How the fuck did a stone survive contact with his barrier?! He couldn’t tell what type of stone because it was caked — or perhaps painted in blood. The smell was a dead giveaway.
“Another witchcraft,” the mystic fox said.
Something mysterious happened the next moment. Three tails grew out of the mystic fox’s behind. Big fluffy red tails that glowed and crackled with energy as they waved around in the air. Her irises took on the glow of hot coals burning in a furnace. And the air crackled with arcane power. Jerome observed the tails in awe. He sensed they weren’t physical things somehow. Even though they looked every bit fluffy and tempting to touch. They also reminded him of the sacred beast he saw in Farryn. But he could tell these girls were different.
There was no essence interacting with those tails.
The same thing occurred in the mystic cow. But she only grew a tail — a cow’s tail — which also crackled with power as it waved in the air. Her horns grew bigger and her long black shiny hair seemed to grow. The strands stood on end, hovering around her with the same arcane power he sensed in the mystic fox. The horns were the place where the power was packed, he concluded.
Incredible!
“Feels familiar…” the mystic cow said. She stored her axe in her storage ring and cracked her knuckles. Jerome watched as her clenched fist grew a bone-like covering that mirrored her horns. Her fist glowed and crackled with the same power as her horns. “But will it be able to withstand the power of my punch!”
That sounded like bad news. The clenched fist contained so much raw energy that he couldn’t identify. What the fuck?!
The mystic cow shot backward to give herself more room. For someone who carried so much weight on her, she moved fast. Then she shot towards the barrier, her heavy footsteps pounding the ground. Jerome silently retrieved his binding. No need to be careless with this one. He wanted to stop the transmission of essence to the script around the entrance of the cave but decided to protect the binding instead. It was best to know the strength of the adversary before engaging them. In any case, he could always make another binding if her power proved too much for it.
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He poured more essence into the binding and began to recite a spell under his breath to help boost it and reinforce the barrier. A moment later, the mystic cow’s fist collided with the barrier, and a shockwave spread throughout the small hill as the ground quaked with tremors. The hill collapsed everywhere around them.
~~~
Csala
Jerome pulled her back, protecting her from the falling debris with his barrier. She sighed, thankful for the support. But now he was visible for all to see.
The mystic kin glared at her first, then the glorified cow spoke to him in a commanding tone, “You come to us!” their human-speak wasn’t very good, it seemed.
“Can I call that one ‘mystic cow’ and the other ‘mystic fox’?” Jerome asked silently.
“That’s exactly what they’re called,” she said pointedly. These annoying animals were always a nuisance anytime she encountered them. If she had her full powers, they’d be nothing more than buzzing flies.
Jerome stood up to address them with his hands raised to signal peace. “Clearly, we set off on the wrong foot. I’m not your enemy. Now I’m not too clear on the condition or ratio of males to females on Terra Praeta but it can’t be that bad, right?” he turned to her and asked again, “Right?”
Csala snorted. He was in so much trouble. He just didn’t know it yet. He had said ‘male to female’, unknowingly putting males before females. She should have told him that Terra Praetans were matriarchal. But it was better this way. He should sort himself out.
The mystic fox hissed, taking offense. She pointed at him, glaring. But her words stuck in her mouth and she blushed profusely. “M-male to fe-female? You dare!”
Jerome turned to her with a raised eyebrow. Csala smiled sweetly at him, batting her long eyelashes. Signifying that he was on his own.
The mystic cow thumped her foot, cracking the ground some more. The brute. “You come now. Male listen and obey!” she said authoritatively as she walked toward him and Csala marveled at how tall they both were. The mystic cows were giants but Jerome wasn’t this tall when she first caught him, was he?
She felt Jerome’s countenance shift, anger rising in him. He folded his arms, glaring at the heifer, waiting for her to reach him. The moment she did, she reached out to grasp him by the head. The female slammed into the ground with so much force, that the earth quaked and rumbled. She was buried in the earth in an instant. Jerome turned to the mystic fox. She screamed and her tails whirled in the air.
“Interesting,” she heard Jerome say before something bludgeoned him from above. It had neither shape nor physical appearance, just… a warping of the air above him. Jerome held his ground though, and then he vanished. He appeared, already punching the mystic fox. She shot into the distance screaming profanities in faerie.
Hmph, maybe he can hold his own against them. “So?” she asked.
“Let’s pack up and leave.”
They both turned to see the two beastkin kowtowing on the cold hard floor and shivering in fear, their rumps high in the sky. Csala felt Jerome’s arousal spike. He took in a deep breath and exhaled loudly.
She hated it. Hated that they were the cause of his arousal and not her. She was startled at that revelation and glared at him. She steeled her heart and walked up to the beastkin while Jerome went to put out the fire.
“Go,” she commanded with a wide display of her hands. They looked up and she repeated herself. Jerome handed the still-cooking venison to them. The beastkin grabbed it and raced out of the crumbled cave and into the storm.
A moment later, the mystic fox flew over. Heaving and disheveled. Jerome didn’t even look her way. His visha stirh’aun shot out of the ground and trapped her in place.
“Don’t keep him all to yourself you whore!” the fox screamed in faerie, addressing her.
Csala raged. She wanted to let them be but she couldn’t let that insult pass. She was upon the fox in an instant.
~~~
Jerome watched as hair and skin flew everywhere. Csala was vicious, coating her half-inch nails with her psychic energy and slashing at the downed fox. But the mystic fox was also bound. Jerome didn’t care though. Life wasn’t fair and you get what you get.
Tell me about this power they wield, Achilles.
“There’s nothing about it in my catalog of memories, Xerae. The mystic kin are an evolutionary mystery to me. They evolved the fastest on Terra Praeta, without my knowledge. I estimated that they have been around for only ten thousand years. My studies of them show that—” he shared some memory with Jerome, “they draw energy from some otherworldly plane. Where that is I don’t know. And the most mysterious thing of all is, there are only ever ten of them in every generation.”
That rare, huh? Or maybe something else is going on. Jerome watched a scene play in his mind’s eye as two figures, one of a beastkin — a ‘foxkin’ — and a mystic fox, grow from infancy to adulthood. The fox kin gained her core at puberty, while the mystic fox gained a tail. He watched on, the sounds of Csala brutalizing the mystic fox in the background in his mind.
The mystic fox in the memory exercised her tail and the energy it provided by using it. She grew her powers in her sleep and at a certain age, she popped another tail. While the fox kin had to meditate and cycle to absorb essence from the world to grow her core.
Not once did Jerome see the mystic fox meditating, cycling, or absorbing essence. She just popped a new tail after many years of training. We’ll discuss this later, Jerome said to Achilles. When he felt Csala had let it all out of her system, he pulled her off the poor mystic fox who was sobbing on the floor.
“Don’t come after me, both of you,” he said in faerie as he uprooted the mystic cow from the earth.
The fox was startled, surprised that he could speak faerie. “You must follow us,” she said.
“Your word is not my law. I am my own person.” Then he glared at them both. “If you come after me, whether by yourselves alone or with others, I will start dropping you like flies.”
They both swallowed, their eyes going wide with fear.
“Good,” he said, freeing the mystic fox and walking away with Csala.
They flew off into the distance. The storm was dying down and he could smell the ozone in the air. That was a really nasty storm. Jerome began to prepare Godspeed again, readying himself for the long marathon flight. After half an hour or so of chanting, he picked up speed and shot forward, the landscape below them giving way to the sea.
Csala gasped. “I’ve never visited the sea before.”
Jerome smiled. “Terra Praeta has five continents, huge land masses separated—”
“I know what continents are,” she interrupted, glaring at him.
Jerome chuckled. “Well, this is one of the five main seas around the world. Though there are fifty of them.”
“What’s it called?” Csala asked.
Jerome sighed. “Unfortunately, no one has stayed in one place long enough to name it since the fae built the mountain. Before then, Terra Praeta was just one giant landmass. And the rest of the planet was covered in water.”
“How is that possible?” Csala looked up at him in his arms in disbelief. She inadvertently rubbed her thigh against his erection and Jerome groaned in pleasure.
Csala turned beet red and grew silent. The silence grew awkward but Jerome spoke.
“I’m highly aroused right now so don’t move around so much.” He adjusted himself as best as he could midair and continued. “So you were asking?”
“Yes,” she said hesitantly. “How is it possible for one landmass to become five?”
“The Rumbling,” Jerome said and he watched the emotions play on her face as it all clicked in place.
“Ah. So, the battle that took place eons ago led to the land mass splitting into five pieces. It makes complete sense.”
Jerome let her ruminate over that for a while. They flew in silence watching as the sea gave way to the ocean. It was just water everywhere. Someone could really get lost flying over an ocean like this without excellent navigation skills or equipment.
Csala marveled at the waves and creatures diving out of the ocean and back into it. Giant whales swarm together, their calves swimming and having fun around them.
“So beautiful,” she said, admiring the sights.
“So about the beastkin,” Jerome began. “I gather they have very few males—”
“They live in tribes of ten to two-ten beastkin, Jerome. And they’re forced to be nomads — we all are. They go to sleep in one place and wake up in another. Then they have to find the tribe all over again the next morning. Mothers have to tightly secure their children to their limbs with strings made from vines or flax — flax if they have the resources and time to make it. It irritates the skin less.”
“That’s awful,” Jerome said. He was now feeling bad for the mystic kin. They were desperate.
“That’s our life, Jerome. If places aren’t named, I can see why. We don’t have many males around, even incubi — and no one likes incubi. No one wants to be…” Csala stopped herself from saying more. Jerome knew that she was about to say that ‘no one wants to be enslaved.’ “It’s an extreme way to live. But it’s our life. I’m not sad about it. But I’m not happy about it either. I just want to survive.”
Jerome rubbed her back to comfort her and she leaned into him instinctively, sighing. “And the mystic kin?”
Csala snorted. “What was that she attacked you with anyway?” she asked, ignoring his question and giving him a curious side glance.
“I should be asking you,” he replied. “You said you’ve only ever met two of them?”
“Yes. Twice. Their powers are so strange. They don’t use essence like the beastkin. They don’t have cores — at least that I know of. From what I’ve gathered twice that I met the mystic kin, they rule the beastkin.”
“Figures.” Jerome sighed, looking ahead into the distance.
“You shouldn’t have said ‘male to female’ in front of the mystic kin,” Csala went on. Jerome felt her relax some more due to his ministrations.
“I gathered,” he said, rolling his eyes.
“Terra Praetan tribes are matriarchal. Putting the male before the female, even in a statement, is blasphemy. You’d do well to remember that.”
“Of course,” he said. We’re going to pull down all their traditions, Achilles. No matter what it takes. I won’t be anyone’s breeding mare.
Achilles chortled in his head, enjoying his discomfort.