Childhood Demons Ch. 01

"Are the babies ... of your kind ... do they all have mouths so large that you need mountains like that to feed them?"

Yasmikha chuckled, "Most of them yes, though I have never birthed any."

"I couldn't even move if mine were like that," the Bedouin said, "Are they hard, or ..."

She didn't know why, but she made a smiling lunge then and she reached out to touch Yasmikha's breasts. The she-orc laughed and tried to dodge away and it ended up in a playful struggle for a few laughing moments. Afterwards, A'ishah surprised herself again and she still asked to try just for a moment and Yasmikha nodded.

So for maybe a minute or two, they stood still as A'ishah leaned a bit with both of her hands holding one of Yasmikha's breasts while she sucked a little just to see. She was astounded at how hard and firm they were and she liked holding on like that. The next minute, she reached for the other one, seeing as Yasmikha seemed to like it as she stood with her eyes closed, so A'ishah toyed with the other nipple at the same time while she suckled a little longer.

When they pulled apart, Yasmikha put her arm around A'ishah's shoulders while the smaller girl slid her arm around her waist when Yasmikha offered to help with the washing. "Did you learn what you sought to know?" she asked.

A'ishah nodded in an uncertain way, "I think so. I liked doing it very much as soon as I began for some reason and when I saw that you liked it, I just went on. When you do have little ones, they will grow up strong, I think."

"That may happen one day, though it would not be wanted so much," Yasmikha said as they began the laundry together, "I have only my brother and my sisters for me sometimes."

A'ishah was shocked, "Your - your brother? You - you have sisters as well?"

Yasmikha nodded, not looking ashamed at all, "Think a little, my friend. We have little choice.

To the ones here, I am too large and I frighten many - as I did you last night - only to see me. My brother is the only male like me. There are times when we all have a need and ... well, there is no one else who would want us, my brother and I. So we do what we must, though not often. I have two sisters also. I am the oldest of us all by a little. We haven't seen any others like us in some years. Who in the world might care if we do what we can to please each other?"

"I think that I understand it now," A'ishah said.

She looked up then, "Still, it is a pity."

Yasmikha nodded, "We get so lonely sometimes."

"That is worse, for I know the way that it feels," the Bedouin smiled up a little mischievously, "but it was not what I meant.

You said not often, Yasmina. THERE is the pity to my mind."

Yasmikha stared a little, though her lips curled into a small smile after a moment, "Alright, perhaps it is a little more than that. I only wanted to say -"

"A lot would be a far better thing for me to hear," A'ishah said with a little grin. "Take some pity on me who has no one, beautiful girl. To look at you, I'd much rather hear it that way. Why to me, it would be a crime to hear -"

"It happens all the fucking time," Yasmikha laughed, "Would you feel better lying in your bed to think of it like that, A'ishah?"

"Yes," the Bedouin smiled a little, "much better to know that someone enjoys that body. But can there not be anyone else for you? Anyone at all that you might like besides your brother and your sisters?"

Yasmikha thought for a second before she nodded, "Other than your kind hopefulness, there is a man that I like - I think. He is one of the soldiers. I was there to see him when we ... bumped into each other last night. Well, I was there to try to look at him because I think that I like him. But that doesn't mean -"

"Which one?" A'ishah asked a little excitedly, "I think that I must know the man that you like. I have seen them come sometimes, for a few nights a month, anyway."

Yasmikha nodded, "He is a big one, very light hair and blue -"

"I know of him," A'ishah smiled a little triumphantly, "He comes only because the others do. He never chooses a girl. He only sits and drinks quietly."

"A little strange for a French soldier," Yasmikha remarked, "for a soldier of any kind really."

"They are not French," A'ishah said, "Most of them are not, anyway. The few French ones who are ordinary soldiers are criminals from France. The rest of the French ones are officers. Most of the men are from other lands. I learned of it from the man who comes and asks for me sometimes. He is a Spaniard. From him, I learned that the one that you saw yesterday is not French either. Juan calls him the Northman."

Yasmikha smiled, "I know that kind. If I am right, his land is not far from where I came from. To him and his people, my kind are a legend lost in time. It is not true, but we do not show ourselves to them very much. They used to call us Jötunn, or the Jotnar in their old stories. I wonder what he is doing here."

"Easy enough to know, for most of them," A'ishah nodded, "They come to a place in France to join for many reasons. Some are wanted men elsewhere, Juan told me. He is one something like that. Some join to forget something or someone in their past. Some come because they have nothing else or no one. Some are criminals and a life here so far away is better than a rope around their necks or the big knife they call guillotine. They join in France and are sent here. They are forgotten men and no one back where they came from will weep when they die.

Your friend, he -"

"He is not my friend," Yasmikha said, "I only saw him yesterday and I followed because he looked good to me. I do not know him at all. What reason has he to want to be here?"

"He does not want to be here," A'ishah said quietly, "Juan told me that he was in a fight in a tavern in a place called Brest. He told Juan that he didn't start it, being only a sailor who wanted a night off the freight ship that he was on. I don't know the rest really well, because I only asked a little, but from what Juan said, sometimes the French judges give criminals a choice among several, though most often they just sentence them. They can go to the French prisons - but they are full, so they can be sent to the French prison colonies on the other side of the world to die there.

Or if the judge thinks the man might be too strong and could be trouble for the jailors, he is given the choice to join the Légion étrangère- the legion of foreigners to fight for France. If the man agrees, he is taken and delivered to their offices and he joins. They are used to keep the power here in French hands. Some take that choice and run when they get here. But where is there to go?

The people here hate them and would cut their throats for nothing. And to run out into the desert ... men who do not know how to live there ... not many last more than a week before they are found either dead or begging to be taken back.

And if those ones are taken back, the rest might kill them because they had to leave to go out and hunt for them. Juan told me that they are punished then, and that they can only be taken back once."

Yasmikha nodded as they worked, trying to digest what she'd learned.

"So he would run?" she asked.

A'ishah shook her head, "No. He is smarter than that. He would leave if he saw a chance maybe, but not if he had to run with his own comrades hunting him down. Juan said that he wants to go home before he dies. But very few men live that life and leave it. Most are killed sooner or later.

How did you come to be here?" she asked, "I've never seen anyone like you."

Yasmikha shrugged, "This is the direction that the rest walked. There were many of us once. We do not like the sunlight, but the bigger and stronger of us can walk in it. Where I am from, we live in the darkness, mostly underground. I was young when I took up with that bunch and they led me -"

"Here?" the shorter girl asked, "That must have been a long walk."

"Well it was anyway," Yasmikha said, "But I didn't walk right around this sea here. My brother and I stole a boat and this is where we stopped, out of the smelly oil that it needs to run. I keep it hidden in a little cove. The water inside is calm, but the rocks outside and the waves make it foolish to try to go in there even with a little boat if you row.

I go out at night with a jug," she smiled, "and no one sees me. I go from boat to boat, usually one a night and I steal a jug of fuel. Now, I have the tanks full and several drums as well. Soon I can leave to go north once again. I can abide the heat, but it is not to my liking all of the time. I love mountain passes and hillsides the most. The air might be cold sometimes, but it is freedom to my heart.

Sometimes I go to the east a little. There are mountains and it is a good place to hunt."

A'ishah nodded, "That is where some of the Legion regiment will go in a week or two. There is a little trouble there now; the people try to rise up sometimes - as they might here once again soon. There is restlessness in the air that I can almost feel. It all makes me nervous.

Juan told me that there has been a large uprising far to the west, in Morocco. The people there fight the Spaniards, trying to throw them out. The French are there in small numbers too. They sent some legionnaires there to build a line of little forts; more than sixty of them, but the people attacked and took most back.

So many more legionnaires were sent. The big one that you like was to remain here, for he is as good as several of the others. It is known that some men are Spanish, so those ones are not sent and remain here. Juan is one of those.

But now there are less of them all here and it has been noticed, so there are little uprisings everywhere as the people see their chance."

"Do you love this ... Juan?" the orc asked.

The Bedouin shrugged, "I - I like him very much, but I do not love him, no. He treats me very well whenever he comes for me and he pays well for a little loving with a low one like me. He gave me extra one time, but it was taken from me after and I was beaten over it. Now I beg him not to give me anything.

I like it when he comes because he makes me feel a little special and it is nice to have someone to hold on to in the dark. He talks to me and tells me of what is happening outside of the brothel walls."

As they gathered up the washing, finished now, Yasmikha looked over and had a thought, "A'ishah, what are you in that place - when you are not a washerwoman?"

The smaller girl looked up, "Just a slave.

I am nothing and have nothing. I do the work that no one wishes to do. My mother will die soon I am sure, and already, I must do more work than ever to take her place."

"No."

There was that word again and A'ishah tilted her head, "Again no?"

Yasmikha nodded, "You are not nothing. You are my friend, the first I have had or wanted in a long while. You make me smile and laugh as though I have no cares and I find that I love to hear you talk of anything."

She set the largest bundle of wet laundry down and picked A'ishah up until she was looking up into her shocked face, "It is a good thing to keep someone like me laughing."

She leaned a bit and nuzzled A'ishah's little tits, one after the other, opening her mouth to suck a little as well, just out of fun and because she knew that it would cause the other girl to giggle and laugh.

A'ishah looked down, her cares forgotten for the moment as she saw that mouth open and felt so good as she watched Yasmikha's long, warm tongue move a whole breast around easily, chuckling as she did it.

She admired the tattoos on Yasmikha and she found that she was a little intrigued by the widow's peak at the front of her long black hair. It felt wonderful to A'ishah and she wrapped her legs around the she-orc's ribs as she held her head to her breast, "Oh, a little longer please, Yasmina. I like this so much."

As they stepped onto the beach in the gathering dusk a little later, Yasmikha took both loads of the heavy and wet laundry, "So if you are a slave, then to them, you are a piece of what they own?"

A'ishah nodded, "Yes. Not any more than that."

She stared a little then, "Why does that make you smile?"

"It is nothing," Yasmikha said, a small grin remaining on her face, "If you are only that to them, then they might be persuaded to part with you - for the right amount, of course. Would you like that? To be free of them?"

A'ishah nodded, though there was little hope in her face, "My mother ..."

Yasmikha nodded and they fell silent as they went for as far as Yasmikha though it prudent to go together. She waited while her friend took one bundle inside of the gates and then came back for the other one.

"Thank you," she said quietly, "For your help and ... for you liking me."

"The liking needs no thanks," the orc smiled, and the rest - " she shrugged, "It needed doing, so I helped."

A'ishah reached up and Yasmikha helped so that the shorter girl was on her toes and they exchanged a few kisses, friendly ones which were done a little quickly.

"I will come back in a few days," A'ishah said, "More laundry."

Yasmikha nodded and watched as her friend walked away. She felt a little sad for A'ishah. She didn't have much in her own life, but she had what she needed to get by. She found that she didn't like the thought of a girl like A'ishah, who was not strong and hadn't been raised to be self-reliant, having to live at the beck and call of others.

Where she stood was hidden in shadows and she watched as the gates closed before she turned away and walked back to the shore, wondering if there was a way that she could help.

They saw each other at least once a week for a time, when A'ishah came to do her washing and it grew to be a firm friendship, though the slave never said a word to anyone about her large friend.

-

One time that A'ishah came to do the washing, Yasmikha saw that there was not so much to wash and she asked about it when she greeted her friend. A'ishah hadn't even noticed the presence of someone else there in among the dark rocks.

She began to weep quietly and said that her mother had died the day before.

"But I am given no time to even cry," she said with a sniffle, "Once, I couldn't go on and ... "

She turned and let her cloak slip from her shoulders and Yasmikha gasped to look at the five lines left on A'ishah's slender back by the lash. The only reasons that she didn't feel her fury rising within herself was out of the sadness that she felt for her diminutive friend and her observation that the strokes had been given lightly by what she could see.

A'ishah was startled then to see the other person, obviously a male and a few inches taller than Yasmikha. As well, that one was broad-chested and very fierce-looking. His eyes were so much like his sister's, and they fairly glowed with sudden rage.

A'ishah wanted to run, but she saw Yasmikha hold out her arm to restrain the other one as she spoke a few words to him that the Bedouin couldn't understand and he settled down, though barely.

"This is the worst kind of meeting, "Yasmikha said, shaking her head, "I wanted you to meet Håkan and our sisters when we met the last time. He is my brother and to his way of seeing things, someone must now die for what was done to you."

A'ishah looked up into his face for a moment.

He was younger than Yasmikha, A'ishah thought, though perhaps not by much. His hair was longer than his sister's and she could see that his tusks were a little longer as well. He wore the same widow's peak over his brow and she imagined that he might look even a little boyish at times, though it was hard to tell.

At the moment however, he just looked murderous.

"Why?" A'ishah asked him and the look faded instantly. After a moment of what looked to be an internal struggle, he looked at Yasmikha.

"He ..." Yasmikha sighed, "Håkan admires you," she said with a sad little smile due to the circumstances, "Even before the night when I almost stepped on you, Håkan saw you and later he spoke to me of a girl that he liked to see whenever he could. He just said nothing of it to me until after you and I met.

At the same time. I was trying to tell him of the one that I'd met and liked so much. It was almost an argument between us because we were both speaking at once. It took us a little time to see that we were speaking of the same person. At first the others, that is to say our two sisters, were about to moan to us to shut up, thinking that we were arguing over something small and unimportant as we do sometimes. But when they heard everything, they became interested and since that time, you have never walked the streets after dark and been truly alone, no matter where it is that you are sent.

If any of them see you go out of the gate near dark, they follow, at least one, because they wish that you come to no harm when you are sent out unattended while I am out stealing more fuel.

They watch over you mostly, though Håkan and Koåhn have both killed a man each to keep you safe because they saw that you were being followed. You take the same way back whenever you go somewhere and it is a bad thing to do. That night, two men were waiting for you to do that very thing. You'd have walked straight into them."

A'ishah thought back to one particular errand the night after she'd met Yasmikha that she'd had to undertake all alone to pass a message to someone a few streets away. She'd been sure that someone was following her and she'd been pretty tense and frightened. Once she'd passed the message, hoping that the one in the doorway wouldn't pull her inside, she saw a look of shock and fear cross that face as he'd looked past her and then the door closed and she was alone.

She remembered turning around to go back and seeing no one, but as she retraced her steps, she almost tripped over a body on the ground in the alleyway. She only looked once, but it was plain that his throat had been cut so savagely that most of what she saw was a yawning opening.

"That - that was ... you?" she asked in a shocked whisper.

He said a few words to his sister and she nodded, "There were two. Håkan was with Koåhn that night. They saw the men and followed them as they stalked you. You only saw one."

Håkan spoke again and Yasmikha said, "The other one saw it and ran. He died without a face when my sister caught him."

He spoke again and Yasmikha nodded before turning to A'ishah, "This is not time to be doing the washing. Go with Håkan. He will not hurt you. I do not think that he even could. He wants to give you something to eat and though he has trouble with speaking your language, he does understand much of it and he wishes very much to hear you tell of your mother if you would.

I will do the clothes washing for you."

A'ishah was nervous and she was so upset over her mother's passing, but she trusted Yasmikha and went where Håkan led her. In a little while, they sat together in the cabin of a launch, not more than thirty-five feet long as it bobbed gently at it's moorings.

Even though she was somewhat upset and still in her grief, she found herself looking around and as her eyes adjusted to the dimness of the cabin which was lit by only one small lantern turned low, she stared for a moment.

There was a girl there, very thin by comparison to Yasmikha and Håkan. She imagined that next to them, she would look willowy. Even sitting as she was, she was obviously taller than A'ishah, and on her, the breasts that she saw were small - being not all that much larger than her own. She sat in what to A'ishah was very little light as she looked into a mirror and shaved the sides of her head with a dagger, leaving the top and the back quite long.

When she finished the long, slow stroke with the blade on the one side, she turned a little and handed the dagger to another person. Noticing that one for the first time, A'ishah was a little startled, for she was nearer to the size of the others, though perhaps not quite as lean in her musculature, as hard as it was for her in that light to determine anything much. That one said nothing for the moment, being careful in how she handed back a second blade so that she could re-sharpen the first.