Braving the Elements Ch. 05

"No, wait!" he called after them, but it was too late. Ah, well, he thought. I was going to give them something anyway. A glass like that is worth a lot more than directions, but what the hell.

As he was thinking, Melia turned to him, a wild glint in her eyes. Maybe she thought they were genuinely stealing from Rajke. Or maybe, through Rajke's emotions, she could tell what was happening. Or maybe, she was just an elemental of the forest - a wild embodiment of life and nature and survival. Whatever the reason, she smelled a hunt.

Melia licked her lips, and took off. Her billowing white dress flared out behind her like the wings of a diving falcon, revealing long, slender legs that pumped inhumanly fast.

She was on the kovir in under two heartbeats, pinning them to the ground and pulling away the field glass.

The kovrim wasted no time with shock. They erupted into cheers - which sounded to humans like cackling, maniacal laughter - and swarmed Melia, raising their hands and stomping their feet - a gesture similar to clapping, Rajke guessed.

Melia walked back to Rajke, nonchalantly, her adoring kovrim posse following along. She handed him the glass without a word.

"Thanks," said Rajke. "But actually, I was going to let them have it."

"Oh," she said, and snatched it right out of Rajke's hands again. This garnered another loud cheer from the band. She tossed it back to the one she had just confiscated it from, and the fight for the spyglass resumed.

Melia and Petra looked at one another. There was a silent exchange between them, and Petra nodded her head. Melia grinned, and turned into a kovir.

***

Rajke, Petra, and Naia ate spicy meat from the kovrim fire. They rested their legs, sitting on the planks of what appeared to be an open common area, like a town square in the trees. Rajke had wanted to press on to the northwest as indicated by the kovrim, but Melia - who understood their language upon connecting with them - explained that they would need a guide, and the group would have to slow down to the guide's pace, since Naia could not energize them and Rajke at the same time.

The journey would take half a day, and the kovrim warned it would be dangerous. It was decided that they would be better off resting for the night.

Rajke and the two nymphs tried to carry on conversation, but it was difficult with the riotous noise of the horde-wide orgy that had broken out, with Melia at the center of it all, just one tree over.

Kovrim sex was loud, long, and public under normal circumstances, but Melia was making most kovrim look like prudes by comparison. Rajke had watched for a little while as she took five koviri dicks at once between her mouth, hands, pussy and ass-hole. It would have been hot, were it not for her koviri form.

The other speaking species of the world were human enough for inter-species attraction, and even mating in most cases. Elves could mate with any of the speaking species - had to, in fact, being a monosexual species that relied on others for breeding the way flowers depend on bees.

But kovrim were different enough from the others physically that there was little physical attraction between them and the other races. Moreover, koviri sex was usually a violent affair, as was most koviri interaction. Dames fought between themselves over which Bulls they wanted to mate with, while the Bulls fought to mate with as many Dames as they could. It wasn't the kind of thing humans, gnomes, and dgi tended to find appealing.

So instead of enjoying the show, Rajke ate and rested with the others. Naia was explaining the shape shifting quality of their nature and Rajke was fascinated.

"So you take the form that the person you're connected to finds most attractive?" While Rajke genuinely wanted to learn about his companions and their capabilities, he also just wanted to know what was up with all the fucking.

"Not exactly. If that were true, we would all look the same to you, wouldn't we?" said Naia.

"I guess."

"We have our own way of thinking of ourselves. That self-image shapes what we look like. I look this way because I met a sea captain once, whom I loved. She stayed with me for fourteen years before she died. Over time, I slowly came to look more like her."

Petra added, "But your perception also plays a part. If you find large eyes attractive, all of our eyes might be a little larger than they would otherwise be."

Naia nodded. "And it's not just about attraction. We used to care for children on the mountain. To them we often appeared more like parents or grandparents. It's more about what physical cues have positive emotional associations to you."

Rajke was following. This, at least, was easy enough to understand, unlike alchemy and physiology. "So you look the way that makes people happy."

"Yeah," said Naia with a brilliant white smile.

"Mostly," said Petra. "It's not one sided. Our feelings matter as well."

A naked kovir stubled onto the platform from a ropebridge that lead to the Melia-driven fuck-fest. He was panting and gasping, his cock swinging between his legs. He mimed for water and Rajke gave him some from his canteen, ready this time if the kovir decided to take off with it.

The Bull was too worn out to try it though. He guzzled water, splashing plenty all over his face in the process. He was so tired he didn't even seem to notice the magical nature of the vessel.

A few more puffs, a slap on the face, and a shake of the head later, he was heading back across the rope bridge, his phallus stiffening as he walked.

"Way-to-go-champ!" Rajke called after him. The Bull responded incomprehensibly, but Rajke thought he got the idea.

"What do you mean?" Rajke asked Petra. "About how your feelings impact the way you look."

She thought for a while and said, "To us, emotions are a little like candy. We don't need them to survive, but we like to experience them. But not all candies taste that good to all people."

When Petra appeared to struggle to explain further, Naia offered an example. "Suppose there is someone out there who feels a lot of pleasure in being humiliated. Melia would enjoy that, and maybe Averna too, so they might appear to that person in a way that makes them feel more humiliated. I, on the other hand, do not like the feeling of humiliating someone, or being humiliated. So even though that person would feel delight, and I would feel delight through them, I would also feel those other feelings that I would not enjoy.

"Ultimately, I wouldn't like it. So I would likely appear to that person in a form that would draw their mind to other things. Suppose they also like good food. I might appear a bit more matronly. I would exhibit physical cues that I am someone who enjoys taking care of people through cooking. We find an emotional middle ground between the things we both want."

Rajke pulled another skewer of spiced meat off the fire. He was pretty sure it was racoon, or some other tree dwelling critter, but it tasted good anyway.

"And what if you can't find any middle ground?" he asked.

"Yeah, that can happen sometimes" she trailed off, thinking, and looking troubled. A dark pall fell over her and Petra.

Petra took over. "Sometimes, people like things so much that it can overwhelm us. Their enjoyment is so immense that it overshadows our feelings, and makes us enjoy it too."

It was their tone and manner that made Rajke uneasy. He tried to understand why it would be so bad to like something vicariously like that. Then he thought about the kinds of things that some people seemed to enjoy too much.

"Oh," he said. He thought of a boy he knew growing up who he had seen capturing and tormenting small animals; of a man in a rough roadhouse who, after a couple of drinks, had confessed that he couldn't get it up unless the woman "fought back."

Rajke shivered.

He wasn't sure if he should let the topic change, or if talking about it would be helpful. He had never been good at knowing when to do which. That was part of the reason he became a wayfarer. Strangers know that you don't know them. They don't expect you to anticipate their needs. The only people you can unintentionally hurt while trying to help, are the people who you love most. The people you are closest to.

While he struggled with what to say next, Naia decided to effectively answer his original question. "So with those kinds of people we just stay far, far away."

The sounds of debauchery were dying down, and more and more kovrim were passing by, naked, exhausted, happy, and in many cases bruised and bloodied.

Eventually, Melia too wandered over to the campfire area. Her koviri body was long and wiry, her hair cut rough and short as if with a stone blad. But her eyes were the same emerald green that Rajke saw when she was connected to him, and her skin was a slightly lighter shade than that of the local horde.

"I see what you mean, about having your own characteristics. How the others influence your form but don't control it entirely."

Melia resumed her human form, still naked, but cleaned of the sweat and fluids that had covered her moments ago. "I like these people," was all she said.