Blooded

"I should have listened to her clan-mother." He shakes his head. "We should have simply killed a wildfowl or a pig or something."

"Shush foolish boy. You are Regthar's son and she is my daughter. You would do nothing differently. Now stop your boyish sulking and rejoice at the prize of your hunts. You both bring much honour to the clan this night."

"At what cost though clan-mother." He runs a gentle yet still blood stained hand along her sleeping cheek. "At what cost."

"Pah... Men are such romantics. A great prize demands great risk young fool. Now, she will wake soon. Gather yourself. Be the prize she fought for." And then with a wicked grin, "And drink up, gather your reserves... We Morrigans have hearty appetites."

............

Groth stands between the Northern and Eastern fires. He is proud and steady despite his many wounds. Blood has dried in his hair, on his arms and body. He is fierce and gruesome; a picture of carnal celebration. He is naked and fully erect. He has been erect and throbbing since the first cup of herbal tea. He knows no shame in this moment. He is too weary to think about his nudity and too hungry for the spoils of his hunt.

The clan gather around the outside of the fires which are now low piles of coals. They hum an old wedding hymn. Deep chords and a lilting melody fill the village square. In the very centre of the fires a massive fur is spread. It is the Ursula's skin.

From between the Southern and Western fires there is a rustle of movement and the hymn quietens as she steps into the light of the fires. Her breathing is ragged and Groth knows she's drunk deeply of the tea and lusts just as he does. She stands tall and proud and equally naked. There is a single hemp bandage carefully arranged on her head to hold her long red hair away from her face and to protect her own wound. Her naked breasts still carry the artful clays but they are stained with dark dry blood. Her legs and arms are rashed with abrasions.

Bright red blood smears on her inner thighs and fades into dried darker red. His eyes find hers and the village becomes silent. They smile at the feast to come and step forward to meet on the fur and face the Northern fire.

"My daughter," The crone's voice is shrill in the silence. "Your promised one is injured in his hunt. Do you still want this damaged man?"

"With all my heart, clan-mother." Anise's voice is earthy and deep.

"My son," Regthar continues, "Your prize is likewise marred. Do you want this damaged woman?"

"With all my heart, father."

"Then you have the clans blessing to wed in the eyes of the gods."

Regthar O'Dea and the crone intone together, "In the light of the blood moon, when the goddess has her bloods, they hunt. They offer their naked hearts in the sight of the gods and join truly in the sight of the clan."

The crone lifts a massive gore soaked heart in her right hand and walks to Anise.

"It is your heart to give daughter." She hands the Ursula's heart to her and retreats into the darkness.

A drum starts a steady low rhythm and Anise kneels in front of Groth.

"Husband, I offer you my heart. I give it freely and without fear."

Groth takes the heart from her hands and holds it high above his head and turns for all the clan to see it. He brings the bear heart to his lips and bites deeply into it, tearing off a massive chunk of the matriarch's heart and eating it.

The clan erupts in applause and shouted congratulation. Groth hands the heart to an aproned woman to add to the clan's porridge.

"This is your heart to give my son. Your choice honours our family and the clan."

Groth takes the smaller dark heart of the Orynx and kneels before Anise on the Ursula's fur.

"Wife, I have only one heart and it has always been yours. I offer it to you freely and without fear."

She cradles it a moment and he sees her eyes well with tears. Then standing she raises the heart for all to see. She turns to look into Groths eyes and brings it to her lips. With a sultry wink, she bites a piece of the Orynx heart off and blood dribbles down her chin as she chews it. Swallowing proudly, she hands the remnants to the cook.

The drum picks up in tempo slightly. Groth steps forward into her arms and lifts her naked body to his to kiss hungrily at the blood on her chin. She offers him her neck and groans aloud for all to hear as he licks and kisses along it to come finally to her lips where they drown in each other. They nip and tongue and lose themselves in the chemistry of their shared lust. The fires fade away from them and the clan's song hushes in their ears. They know only each other now.

They kneel together to the fur. He sits on his heels and she sits with her thighs either side of his. She breaks her kiss only long enough to lift slightly and impale herself fully upon his erect cock. She howls a moment of pain and lust with her neck thrown back and he pulls her closely to him and waits for her to find herself again. Anise buries her face in the side of his neck and starts gently rocking, testing the fullness and feeling of him stretching and filling her. Tentatively at first, she lifts and lowers, plumbing her depths with him, learning her body and his.

Groth's eye's flicker with the sensations. He has had women before, but only the rent wives used in the manhood ceremonies. This tight, wet clinging silk sliding thing, that clutches at him is something new again. He has been shown how to pleasure a woman and to control his own release but never prepared for the melting of two bodies together like this. Somehow when your heart is as intensely stimulated as your body the whole mess of this act becomes a new and terrible thing.

Anise has found a rhythm now. She rocks, grinding herself and riding him in time with the drums. He holds the base of her back and the back of her neck pushing her more firmly onto him. Her pace increases as she bites at his neck and thrusts down on him. The drums and the wedding hymn quicken with them and soon she is slapping loudly, sloppily down on him with the wetness of both blood and arousal. She howls pleasure into the night and then stiffens on him.

She is still only on the outside. He feels her clench and grip at him and knows to hold still while she rides her orgasm through. They kiss deeply as she shudders and groans and soon she is limp against him. The drums are quiet and slow. The singing low and harmonious. She falls against his chest in exhaustion and he lowers her back on the fur. Her eyes open upward at him and in them he sees a whole future offered to him.

His weight comes upon her and the strength of him moving into her and over her frightens her with the depth of her reflected need for him. She bucks up at him when he gently enters her, taking him into her where she needs him. He pulls slowly out and she almost cries with disappointment at the vacant feeling that remains. Then pushing forward again he slides fully through the tightness of her. She feels him deep, so deep inside then gone again and it's horrible until he thrusts forward once more.

This time the drums go quite and the clan hum just a simple variation on a chord. Couples venture forward into the fire light and disrobe to fuck alongside the newlyweds. First is Regthar and Trudith. They are joined then by the Crone and who has chosen one of the apprentices and so on in social order until the village is alive with the writhing of bodies and howls of lust.

Groth is hammering deeply and fast now. Anise knows he is about to spill and wants to give him that release but wants this feeling not to finish. He looks away for somewhere to cum. The rent wives had made him spill on their stomachs or into their mouths. She wants this though. This is her man, her husband, her cum. Her feet hook around his back and hold him within her.

With great lurching thrusts, he groans and shoots, hot and sticky, splashing deep inside her. His elbows shake and he falls upon her. The heat and weight, the smell and blood, fill her senses as much as his cock and seed fill her body. They are truly one in the sight of the gods.

"Groth..." she whispers into his neck. "Groth."

"Yes." He pants.

"Roll off me you lump. You're squashing me."

"Ha." He rolls onto his back and she won't release him, rolling with him. Her feet hold him deep inside her. He is still hard. She starts slow, slick circles on him building quickly to a savage orgasm then collapses upon his chest.

"Okay, now I'm done." She giggles. "For now."

They lay such for long minutes. Soaking in the glorious mess of themselves. Around them people fuck like animals and slowly they become aware of their surroundings. Wine is brought for them and furs for their shoulders. They sit like lovers everywhere do, in oblivious post coital silence until Groth notices a sadness to her eyes.

"What troubles you wife?"

She smiles at the word, then frowns again, "I am married now. Other men may use me. It's my duty to be a wife to the men of the clan so long as they wear a sheath. It's normal I know but I just..." He knows she is searching for words so stays silent. "You know, that was so intensely uniting. We were connected inside and outside and well, I just don't know if I could be like that for someone else. And it would be disgraceful in the eyes of the clan to deny a man."

"I think I know how you feel. When we had our manhood ceremonies, it was very different to what you and I just had. It was like a game, a sport, a way to scratch an itch. Not horrible, lots of fun sometimes but just nothing prepared me for the intimacy of us."

"Maybe it's just the hunt and the fires husband. Maybe it will get to be a sport in time." She smiles at his growing erection, "You want to try again and see?"

They join the whole fucking village in their own celebrations on the Ursula's fur.

...............

There are speeches and dancing. There is drinking too. A lot of drinking and some more fucking. Here and there around the great hall a couple sneak off to a quiet corner. It is almost time for the newlyweds to take their leave and enter their new home. The clan has spent the last few months building it for them as a gift. Regthar stands and bangs a knife against his drinking mug. The crone stands with him.

"Clansmen and women, it is time for our gifts." She yells quieting the assembly. "My daughter is born of warriors. This day she killed an Ursula with nothing but a knife. But that is not all she is. Her ferocity is the spirit of protection she will mother her family with. She will be the Ursula, the protector of their cubs, the keeper of their den. I would give you this my young couple."

The bear cub wrapped in furs is handed to Groth.

"This cub will remind you of my daughter's strength and the responsibility of family. It will grow to hunt with you when she cannot."

Groth, dressed now in the traditional cloth of the clan takes the cub and holds it high for the village to view. When the applause settles he kisses the crone on both cheeks and sits back down at the table.

"Clansmen and women," Regthar speaks, slurring a little, "My son has brought great honour upon the clan this day. Not just by his hunt. Yes... It has been many, many years since we have seen an Orynx and that is a great omen for us, but most importantly, he brings honour in another way. He has finally found a woman who will put up with O'Dea bullshit." When the laughter settles, he continues, "and as we all know that is as scarce as Orynx fangs."

Voices raise in cheer then settle as he bangs his drinking horn again.

"A gift from the chieftain... Well, we have heard the tales of this hunt and doubtless we will for many seasons. But today in his hunt Groth learned something. He learned to trust his wife. This lesson was all that brought the pair of them home today. Just as Anise had his back when he faced the Ursula, the Orynx was also protected. In the instant of its trap he realised that it would have a mate as ferocious as the woman he loved and he turned to see the Lyrynx in mid pounce. His spear caught it through the heart but it still managed to poke a little hole into my new daughter's thick head. We are lucky she is here with us. But mostly, lucky that I fathered a stubborn bastard who was able to kill the Orynx with a bloody stick of all things otherwise she would be here alone. So, my gift to this couple is a strange one."

The room falls silent with curiosity.

"The Orynx and the Lyrynx mate for life. We all have heard the legends of how the Orynx has two long fangs that come from his top jaw. The Lyrynx has a single fang which comes up from her bottom jaw. They are made this way to fit perfectly together. Part of the legends say that during courtship they nip at each other like lovers kissing and that these fangs sometimes lock together. They have been found dead like that in ages past. They are a symbol of marriage and partnership. For the clan, they have come to signify the synchronicity of life. So, my silly gift is this one."

He takes the Orynx and Lyrynx skins and spreads them on the table in front of him. The Lyrynx skin is white in contrast to the Orynx's black skin and it shimmers with dancing lights reflecting the candles and torches.

"These skins I think, would make a wonderful thing to lay a baby on. Please take them to welcome the cubs you will bring my family name." He hands them to Anise who holds them up for the crowd to see.

Banging his mug again for silence, he continues, "This other gift though, is a symbol of my respect for you Anise Morrigan now O'Dea."

He hands her the Lyrynx fang on a leather cord. The room murmurs in hushed awe. The Lyrynx fang releases its wearer of duty to the clan. It remains always the property of the chieftain and is usually given to his favourite consorts so he can keep them for himself.

"The last person to take a Lyrynx fang was your own dear mother... She killed the Lyrynx herself in the hunts that united her and Nornal Morrigan, your father, the chief before me. She was deeply in love with him. That was known long before their fires. He was already chief and by that right the fang was already his property, but the fact that she hunted it and brought it to him was something that should have been spoken of in clan legends. The stories are silent on it though."

The crone nods beside Regthar and places a hand on his shoulder.

"Nornal did not return her love and married only for convenience and status. He had come shamefully to chieftaincy by challenging his own sick father and killing him in combat. He thought perhaps the union with a respected hunter's daughter would win him back some favour with the clan. He killed a massive python for his hunt and confirmed himself a snake when disgruntled with the birth of a daughter, he took her gift to him, the Lyrynx fang from about her neck and gave it to her sister, taking her against her will as wife."

The quiet is tangible. None have spoken of this for a generation. None have dared, given the curse. The clan-mother lifts an age yellowed fang from between her breasts and holds it for the clan to see.

"It was many years before I was man enough to challenge him and take back the clan for the people."

The crone continues, "Your dear mother died in childbirth from heart break not from tearing. Her last words upon this earth were, "no good shall come to the clan until another Lyrynx fang hangs within reach of loving hands." Since then the veldtbeast have not returned, the fishing is scant, the corn blighted."

Regthar lets the silence linger before again speaking, "You are the last of a line of warriors my heart's daughter and I would give you what was taken from your mother. As chieftain, it belongs to me but so long as it is about your neck, you are released from your duty to the clan and we are released from the curse. You may take such lovers as you will but only those you will. None may demand service of you."

Amid the noise of approval, Anise takes the fang in both hands and hangs it around her neck. She reaches, with tears streaming down her face, to kiss the cheeks of Regthar O'Dea her new father. He grabs her in a bear hug and yells over the raised voices of the clan, "But it doesn't count until after I've kissed the bride." He leans her back and kisses her as passionately as a woman could ever hope to be kissed then lifts her back to her confused wobbly feet and smacks her rudely on the bum.

"Now go... Go make little O'Dea cubs daughter. Warrior women, hunter boys, make lots of them daughter of my heart."

.....