A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 20

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TaLtos6
TaLtos6
1,932 Followers

Eventually, she managed to find her feet and she wandered down the hallway out into the thin morning light of an overcast winter day. She stood blinking in wonder for a while as she grinned.

This was more like it, she thought.

She looked at herself and smiled as she saw the winter coat which had grown in as her body's response to the plummeting temperature in the huge knapsack as Yuan had climbed ever higher. Rocks and boulders, she thought, she was now even the right color for this, as she saw the overall light gray patterns on her.

The last Rohn tribeswoman, the very last one of her clan of mountain demons was still alive. She lifted one of her long arms up and then bent it back at the elbow next to her head as she stretched on her clawed toes languidly. The motion caused her small breasts to peek out through the part of her long mane which hung over the front of her shoulders. Her eyes were closed for the moment a she yawned comfortably, but they opened a second afterward and her light gray snow-ghost eyes took in the scenery of her surroundings.

She still lived. Even though she was likely the last mountain demon alive anywhere, it still felt good to be moving air.

And she was free.

And she was in some mountains.

And it was even winter.

What more could she want?

She stopped that line of thought right there. There was no point getting stupid.

She ambled off along the ledge to look for the girl who had brought her here.

Twelve minutes later, she stood staring through a doorway, looking onto a room where there was a bundle on the floor which she felt was her friend. Something was very wrong. She felt little if any life there, just the barest inkling was all that she got. So very wrong, and that wasn't the immediate issue.

There was a being there, kneeling over her friend and looking down at her. Her irises opened a little more and she felt the adrenaline hit her system in a surge.

Billy knew it would happen. He'd tried to stop himself and hold the line at only helping the young woman, and then when the fever took hold, he'd planned by then to be at least a little ready for this part before it came. He'd wanted to maintain a bit of distance, not investing anything of himself so that it wouldn't be a loss when the sad part came. But it had happened anyway, no matter what he'd intended.

He couldn't imagine a bigger idiot anywhere than himself. But there was no other way around it. He'd known that she would get to this point. That his heart had taken a leap at her pointed to his own weakness, he decided. He'd done the right thing to try to help her. He knew that.

He should have just kept his heart out of it. That, and his weak need to have another person in his life had caused this. Holy shit, he thought, he was fine not seeing another breathing person for almost three months, and the very first one who just strolls along and falls on her ass, ...

He reached out slowly to touch Yuan's cheek as one of his fucking immature tears fell on the sleeping bag. He hated the ease with which his eyes gave them up. He was angry with himself, upset at how someone so beautiful could lie there dying when he was the one who was obviously defective – a weak, poorly adjusted, and needy specimen, he thought. He hoped that his parents were still alive somewhere.

Because if they were dead, then by the little that he'd been taught of his people's beliefs, they'd have to be there, watching what he did. They'd be there seeing the way that the weaker of their spawn failed at everything he did, just a feeble and pathetic example of a kind of demon from some plane far from this shit-heap fucked-up world.

Hank should have been flying that last day. Hank could make a difference in the things that he did. He was right far more than he was wrong in almost anything. Hank should have been flying and then it would have been Billy out there lying dead in the dust.

But regardless of the way that he whipped himself, he was still a demon. And the sort that he stemmed from had always lived out on the very edge of survival in places where one's death could overtake them in the span of one breath or less. Evolution was nothing more than natural selection in allowing the ones who'd been able to summon the ability to deal with what came to them successfully to be alive at the end of the day and have enough desire left over to breed among the rocks in the wind.

For what he was, it was the ability of his kind to have found ways to survive and flourish at one time in a bitter place, and that meant that the successful ones – the ones who had been alive afterward to lick their wounds and tend to the hurts which another one had suffered – those ones were alive enough to hold scraps of food up to the lips of the ones they were with, and hug them, rubbing their bodies against each other hopefully to offer them the chance at a little love. That had been in their past. That had been what had been built on.

Those ones had been able to deal with threats without getting their brains too involved. Survival was based on visceral patterns and blinding speed, ...

The same things which they used when they killed something.

Billy didn't know what it was, but in only a few milliseconds, he was aware that there was something else here, and that it was intent on his destruction. His body took over and based its reactions on its faith in itself. His mind could wonder and feel sorry for itself afterward. Right now, ...

Things slowed down for him then, and this time, he was not held in it as a prisoner or passive observer. The way that it slowed opened up so much room for the blinding speed which his forebears had passed on to him.

He heard and felt each accelerating footfall. He even heard the soft swish of half-opened wings which sought to help cover the distance to where he knelt. Inside of himself, Billy knew that he had all day for this, as he turned first his head and then his upper body to deal with what came for him. It left him plenty of time to hear the curse in a tongue that he hadn't heard in over two decades.

Lots of time to feel astounded that he could understand what was spoken to him through a tightly constricted throat and past long and vicious teeth.

"Get off her, shanrashh! Your death now."

Besides his wonder at it, Billy was a little taken with the choice of curse here. He had a furious ball of gray fire coming at him and little time to think. He saw the light eyes and the wrinkled snout pulled back as it was by lips drawn away from gleaming teeth and he just reacted as the threat crashed into him.

His left hand blocked her right-handed slashing strike before it came to him, and he put enough into it to be a strike all by itself. His right hand shot up from below for the throat which must lie back there, under those teeth.

For this, he'd need to close his fingers and grab what he could, before the claws on the thing's legs could be brought into it as well. He was at a disadvantage, being dressed in the clothes of a human. But fate had dealt him a hand to play and his body was playing it.

His fingers felt something which would have caused his eyebrows to rise in surprised recognition had there been the time for it. As it was, there was precious little time now that it was about to get close. He closed his hand, turning it a little for a better grip as he did, and using his legs, he moved in the same direction as the attack, throwing himself backward with one knee up to hold those clawed feet at bay for the instant of time that he needed for this.

As they rolled together in a blur, Billy changed his grip, reversing faster than he'd have ever thought possible and the pair of them landed with a crash, one atop the other on the floor with Billy on top holding that head by one long and down-turned horn and jamming that surprisingly lovely face into the floor.

She found herself looking at a male human hand – strong and appealing to her in a stupidly surprising way, since it was pinning her own clawed hand to the floor. She blinked once and wanted to curse again for the way that she even liked the thin golden hair on it.

His eyes took in the patterns on her dark gray face and he knew.

He didn't know how he knew, he just did. He wasn't even aware of what his mouth was doing as it mouthed three things that he had no knowledge of, things which his mother had cooed to him as he'd nursed at her breast, sounds which came to him from inside himself as though they were hardwired into him, since they were.

It wasn't a language, and she hadn't been reciting them to teach him anything. She'd done what all mothers of her kind had done forever, activating what lay in the breasts of their infant young as they loved them, from mother to child, handed down one generation at a time.

On the cold world where Billy had been spawned, the one where winter never gave up its grasp at the higher elevations and latitudes – even as the lowlands baked, Billy was a Ch'arnn. The word meant the clan that he'd been born into, long known for their strength, speed and intuitive ability, and the way that they could react and turn things to their advantage. Translated loosely, 'Ch'arnn' as a word worked out to something like 'guided lightning', though it lost a lot in the translation. It was why they ruled the loose federation of the clans and the binding of that conglomeration had been managed countless generations before without bloodshed and by agreement. All of the hill clans bowed to their Ch'arnn kings.

The Ch'arnn never gave it more than a warm and thankful thought, but they felt a close kinship with another clan far from them, the closest and most staunch allies to them in their hearts, the tribe widely famed for two things; the beauty of their females and the magic of their witches.

And of that clan, every single female child who survived long enough to pass into young womanhood was a witch, her powers coming to her as surely as her first menstruation. Indeed, there was little hint at anything until the first night of a girl's first period. It marked her awakening and sudden attunement and synchronization with the other forces of nature in the world around them, because it was what they also were - a part of that nature. The only variable from one girl to the next was the strength of what ran in her lineage and the ability which came from that.

The word for that smallish clan meant 'snow ghost', for they saw no difference between a dead one and one who lived, other than that one could touch a living one, on the off-chance that one was feeling a little brave and if she would permit it, of course. Whether one survived it was largely up to her whims then.

They were the Rohn and mostly they kept to themselves, but they did feel a bond to the Ch'arnn, a strong one. It was why some of them sought their mates among the Ch'arnn, male and female both. To have won a Ch'arnn female for oneself was a difficult thing to do for the males of that clan, but those unions always produced fine young. And it was also why only the best and most accomplished Ch'arnn males dared to try to seek out and win the heart of a Rohn witch.

It was a simple truth among the Ch'arnn that if you didn't have the stones for it, you'd best stay on your own mountain, because it was not something for the weak of heart, body or mind. Many never returned.

The fortunate among those who returned brought back a wild bride, one who would never be tamed and who usually added to the wildness of her male.

Among the Ch'arnn, it was a test of any of the males of the high families to seek out a mate from among the Rohn. It was absolutely expected of their rulers.

That was why Billy's mother had not been a Ch'arnn female.

Billy's mother had been a fine and beautiful Rohn witch.

It was why she'd crooned to her young quietly as she nursed them, bringing forth what they'd need one day, but leaving no trace of it. Only Rohn mothers knew of this and knew as well that their young carried enough of themselves to be able to use it.

That was one of the only reasons, aside from his lightning-fast speed, that Billy had managed to turn this attack without even knowing who it had been who'd launched herself at him, and how his body knew at almost a cellular level that this one had to be held by a binding spell before she could speak her own. He didn't even know that he had it inside of him.

Survival was based on visceral patterns and blinding speed, ...

She writhed and struggled, not believing the force of the magic which held her as she growled.

Billy made it worse when he began to chuckle.

Her eyes opened wider in disbelief, and she spoke in her tongue that she knew that he couldn't understand. "Laugh? You laugh at me? Let me up shanrashh, and I will show you what it what here."

He really began to laugh then, but she felt that it wasn't at her discomfort. She could just see him shake his head bitterly. But what she heard then ...

"I have been here almost all of my life," he said quietly in the very same language to his own surprise and to her amazement, "In all of that time, I have not ever been this close to a female demon of any kind. My fate and foul luck that the first one that I see close up is a beauty, and she greets me so nicely. I barely knew the word when I heard it. I was young when I came."

He laughed again, "And what did I hear?

I can't believe where I am now, on the back of a Rohn witch who calls me dickbreath. How nice."

"You know the speech!" she hissed in amazement, "How can a human – " she sensed him then, "You are not human, and not weak or slow as they are. I never thought – "

"I never thought either," he said sadly, "Only I could fuck something into the ground so badly. A fine Rohn witch, and I am here on her with my knee in her back, wondering how to let her get up while keeping my eyes."

He leaned down carefully so that she could see the face of the fine young surfer or college student who held her down. "Snow Ghost, this is a mistake. If I'd seen you first –"

"You'd have tried to tear me apart," she hissed, "but you'd have died the agony for it, even as fast as you are."

She watched him shake his head, "No. I would have come to you slowly and done what I should, and gotten to my knees in my joy to have even seen you. It is luck to see a Rohn like you." He snorted to himself, "Something that I have little of."

"What do you know of the Rohn?" she asked as she struggled, "How is it that you dare to speak thusly?"

"Dim memories," he said sadly, "all that I have."

"You should have had the thought before now," she growled, still straining to get free and wondering why anything that she thought of wasn't working. "What have you done to her?"

"Nothing," she heard him say sadly, "other than to try to give what comfort that I can, Rohn. She is sick and dying, and it was nothing that I did."

He felt her sag underneath him, "Dying? Of what? Which sickness?" she groaned.

"She has the fever which has killed billions of humans," he said, "I know that she is something else, but right now, it is this which will take her soon. She is a friend to you, or more?"

"A friend," the witch replied, "and a little more, mostly we are friends only. Unbind me, so that I may see what I can do. She has done much for me and I would not see her die if I can help her." She seemed to struggle with something in herself for a moment as she gulped another breath, "Please ..."

He remembered what his hand had grabbed when he threw her. With two more quiet sounds in his throat, he was off her and holding her up by her collar as she gasped and struggled for breath, still helplessly bound into inaction. He peered at that collar and his world seemed to bend for a moment.

He set her down and grabbed her by her mane as she coughed. Billy was quiet and shy by nature, but the events of the past twenty-four hours were really pushing him now. What he was looking at around her pretty neck almost drove him to fury. He stared at that old leather and the markings on it before he looked at her face, doing his best to fight down the impulse to commit murder.

"I know the Rohn," he said through his teeth, "Where is your mate?"

"I have none," she said in even more wonder.

He snorted, "A witch maiden with no mate yet you wear a Rohn marriage band -that band, here on this plane." He looked down and she knew nothing of what he said next because it was English, "Why here? Why that band? How much more fucked up can I get?"

Billy saw the tears that she tried to blink away. "Alright," he said quietly, "I ask only one thing and I am sorry for this mistaken meeting, but you began it, Rohn. See to her as you can. If you wish to harm me still, then I ask that you do it so that I am ended."

"Why?" She asked as she felt the freedom of movement again, "Who are you?"

"No one," he said quietly as he looked from Yuan to the demon, "Twenty of the years here and more with little more than nothing. Two days of far too much, months of solitude, nothing but loss, and now I have no wish for anything but to be alone." He looked at the ring of leather again, "And I have nothing left anymore."

He pointed, "Through there I have meat hanging. Take what you want and there is a pot of soup which you may have to eat, and a smaller one with broth for her, if you can manage to get it into her. I have kept her warm over the night. Eat and then help her if you can."

He picked up his rifle, "I will bring you more meat. You may stay here if it suits you. If you still have the want for my death, then do it, I care not. But take that off your neck if you are a true Rohn. First you attack me and insult me with your tender greeting, and then you do worse by letting me see that. Take it off and if you insult me again in either way, there will be two of us dead, and no one to help her."

He walked out of the room as she got up to run to Yuan's side.

Two hours later, he was back with a doe, already gutted and cleaned with snow. He said nothing as he went into the room and worked at getting the hide off to stretch it out on a rack that he'd made. When he had it butchered crudely and hung, he washed his hands and asked about Yuan.

"She is the same, or little changed, maybe. The soup was good," she said with a nod, "My thanks for that and all of this."

He nodded, "When the night comes, hold her close to you and warm her. This place is not cold, but that is when the fever rages and harms the most. She will shake, even though she is like this."

She saw that he had deer hides in his arms and a knapsack, and he nodded before her question could come to him. "The hides are for me. I leave the bedding that she sleeps on for you both. I will return in a few days, perhaps, before the meat is gone. You cannot hunt while she is like this."

"What if she passes?" the female asked, "I try my best but it takes time to see what might work for her."

"Then I will help to bury her," he said with sadness as he turned away.

But she saw the glint of silver in his eyes for just an instant and by the time that he was outside and walking quickly away, she was on her knees staring at the empty doorway, her own universe seeming to bend.

He had miles to go to his new home, another of the deserted settlements of humans long gone now. It was smaller and colder, but it was what it was, he thought.

When he arrived, he went to the stream and drank, before he walked up to go inside. He took off his boots and his pants, and unbuttoned his shirt slowly, folding the jeans and hanging up the shirt on a peg. He lit his small fire with a thought as he walked outside naked and with a shake of his head, he changed.

A male mountain demon stood there all alone. He felt the cold breeze as it lifted a little of his mane and his silver eyes surveyed the landscape for several minutes. It would do, he thought, and it was far better than the space between a pair of boulders.

TaLtos6
TaLtos6
1,932 Followers