Chosen Mate Ch. 06

--What the hell? Harry thought, as she disappeared.

Donna left, passing through to Sandra's bower, leaving the three of them alone. Flying out the hanging vines covering the entrance, she collided with Gerry. Their mated minds briefly exchanged information in an instant, as she rebounded from him and sped away down the corridor.

Gerry watched her fly away, scattering the lights of the lesser Fay in her hasty passage. He wondered why she was going to see her mother in such haste when she should be celebrating her sisters mating. He considered the speeding Donna with one sip of his rapidly dwindling beer, one inquisitive arched eyebrow, and one unanswered question. What's Donna latest drama?

He turned to the staff leaning against the wall of greenery, then took it up and knocked three times on the stone floor. The sound, amplified by the free striking staff, echoed along the corridor. He consoled himself with the thought that there would be beer where-ever Harry and Sandra were.

Harry's head was in the refrigerator when the three barking knocks sounded. He straightened, peering about out of the corners of his eyes, then out the kitchen.

--Answer the door Harry, Oldman said patiently. Harry walked into the living room and opened the door. Sandra's frisky, diverted giggle joined with Oldman's delighted laughter for the trip across the room.

"Hello?" He ventured to the empty stairs. Gerry appeared by him. Harry looked at him numbly.

--This is going to take some getting used to. Oldman uttered lowly. Gerry paused in his beginning clasp of Harry's shoulder.

"Who is that?" Sandra's spontaneous intermittent snickering was the background of the lengthy explanation around the table with beer and coffee. Gerry held his thoughts close to him as he had at the first sound of Oldman's thought. His bright blue wings waving normally, his piercing blue eyes focused on Harry's as the story of Oldman was told with many asides.

"Now we really need to go, Gerry." Sandra said, and moved to hold him in a tight hug. She sent Gerry their repeatedly delayed agenda, and he, his congratulations.

"Don't drink all the beer." Harry said jokingly as he picked up a bag and moved before Sandra to the stairs, thankful that he had stocked beer and the last bottle of the good red wine in their bag.

"I'm just down the hall if you run out," Gerry replied easily. Oldman and Sandra laughed in Harry's mind at its puzzled, and then surprised awareness of the meaning of Gerry thought was made clear. Harry ached with the desire to see their alternate home.

Gerry watched them drive away out of the kitchen window. Their departure proceeded by the loud rumble from the garage below that quickly became the big-wheeled truck with Sandra at the helm.

--Happy mating, he sent after them. He remembered his own heated consummation by the side of a lake that slowly drained down a series of cascading falls feeding a gentle stream. There was some good fishing there too. He sipped at his beer for a moment in remembrance then turned to find Donna again.

Donna sped down the passage, calling as she neared her mother's room. She was met outside the verdant hanging vines that covered the entrance of her parents abode. Her mother wore her aura wings down, covering her like a gown of brilliant white shot through with threads of platinum pulsing with random flashes of vibrant light. A matching shawl of energy flared from her head of silver hair. Donna poured the details of Sandra's experience into her mother's shocked thoughts. Margay, Queen of Fay on earth, pricked her ears forward with rapt attention, her raiment glowing brighter as the story progressed.

The trip to the cove was swift. Sandra drove feeling as if she had two pairs of eyes, her's and Harry's. As they moved down country roads leaving town to the nearby spot on the river, she instructed them in their tasks. Harry opened the gate. Sandra drove through it and stopped. She flew from the truck toward the nest at the side of the cove. A red gold blur, comet like and fading into ultra-violet, marked her speedy passage.

Harry traveled along in her mind, leaving Oldman to shut the gate and follow with his body and the truck. He was overwhelmed with the feeling of flight; he wished he could fly. Sandra's elfin laughter accompanied new knowledge. He sighed in mental frustration at all that was unknown.

She flitted about the foliage and trees surrounding the cove, surveying them from the tops of the trees to the base of their roots. Her beautiful wings were gliding now over the still waters of the cove like a thistle puff in a slightly wafting breeze.

Oldman parked the truck, gathered driftwood, and started a small cheery fire burning, then, laying stores nearby for later. Candles were placed around the shallow nest on flat stones, unlit in the strong afternoon light. A quilt beside the nest shared its spot with the bag and Harry's clothing, shed by Oldman; he entered the water to float on his back at Harry's command to watch as Sandra spiraled higher over the cove, absorbing the rays from the sun.

She looked like a brightly burning star hovering there for a moment and appeared to be drawing the sun's rays. Then, with wings folded tightly against her body, she plunged. Striking the water like an arrow she descended to the bottom of the pool. Oldman rolled over to observe Sandra as she changed into a water dwelling creature.

Harry felt the transformation, so strange but so natural, as her gills drew in oxygen. Her fins and tail drove them to the bottom; turning about the pool, she looked about.

Harry returned his thoughts to his body, floating now on its belly, face turned down to see the depths below. He greeted Oldman with new insight.

--I'm glad you are real. He thought with genuine sincerity.

--Thanks, Harry. Can you feel it, the energy in this place? Harry looked out the door to the shining paths and found them much changed. Sandra called to him.

--It's time. Come to me Harry. Change as I did.

He swam down to her, copying her transformation with the same feeling she had used. He saw his form in her eyes as he saw hers in his. The double image was overlaid in his mind. Her golden body was freckled with red scales; gold spines of fins and tail were joined by opaque red membrane. She moved in the now crystalline clear water of his piscine vision toward his red descending form with its own scattered golden scales.

He took his first gulp of air with his gills; the unexpected ease was as natural as breathing. He wondered what it would be like to swim about the paths of no-where. What would it be like to be independent of traveling along the twisting shining trails by imaginary foot? She pulled at him, bringing him back with a cautioning thought and impatient need.

He turned to her. Her scent filled the water around them; it drove him shivering along her length with his flank in ecstatic need at the knowledge of the impending release of her eggs. Oldman was silent but held tightly to both their minds as they danced around the cove in fishy foreplay.

They swam above and around and under each other. She pressed her body and mind against him as they circled the cove. She leading, he following, they patrolled across the graveled bottom. They swam among jumbled fallen rocks under the bluff and the shallow entrance to the river. Several large fish left the pool hurriedly as they made their circuits of the cove. She would be ravenous after she deposited her eggs and left them with Harry while she fed.

They moved into shallower waters, passing to and fro of the dimple of water connecting the nest to the cove. The sun dipped. The shadows lengthened across the waters calm surface, as they slid around and against each other. Their shivering forms passionate touch seemed tortured and painful.

She flipped into the nest and rose from it as Sandra, stepping on the gravel, lighting a candle in the fire then the others scattered about. He entered the nest, making several testing turns until he too, rose clumsily in his transformation as Harry. They ate from the bag and drank beer as the sky dimmed.

Darkness fell slowly and curtain like in an unhurried close of the first act. Spots of light appeared in the foliage surrounding the cove, flickering or blinking in the variegated shadows there. The red nimble light from the fire played across Sandra's bright body in an ever-changing dance of rippling illumination and shadow.

Her eyes, twin points of pale sapphire, focused across the river where new glowing balls of light began to form; they grew from small centers, increasing in magnitude to shine like stars in the dark sky of the far bank. Neon pink, bright blue, then blindingly bright white light, were followed by one of red, gold, and purple; it's surface swirled with cloud like patches of the different colors. It was joined by the blue one; they came together closely as if in deep conversation. Then a constellation of others were born around them.

Harry began to think at her, despite his inclination to stare vapidly across the river in gaping wonder. Sandra shushed him softly with her mind; standing, she called for the wine in the bag. He bent, uncorked, and brought it to her. She coached him silently in his actions. He formed a cup of his hands, holding them before her; she filled them from the bottle.

A small glowing form of lavender raced to her side, taking the bottle, and then floating beside her in attendance. She performed obeisance to those across the river and drained her mate's cup. Refilling his cupped hands she again repeated the act, filling her mouth then turning to Harry. He drank the wine from her lips, its piquancy now full of undercurrents of tantalizing unknown flavors. The aroma of it was heady as their vapors filled his senses. He swallowed, then kissed her unbidden, feverishly.

Singing ethereal voices from the gathering of Fay followed them as she led him back to their nest. They changed once more, swimming around each other trembling, quivering, and shuddering as the moment neared.

--I love you Sandra, you too Harry, Oldman whispered in their minds; his was filled with the thundering buildup of energy that was gathering.

--We love you too Oldman, Sandra whispered back.

--Yes, thought Harry, unable to impart more because of the electric fire that was playing over his body from Sandra's aura-wing-like fins. Then she gasped, screaming out her release in their shared minds. Thousands of glowing, golden eggs began spilling from her body, filling the bottom of the nest with their light and substance. Harry reeled with the force of her emotion, then his need. His milt began to flow from him in opalescent streams of shimmering pearl white fluid. He and Oldman cried a duet of ecstatic joy and endorphic emotions.

They were a thrice burning flame now, joined forever by the shared fulfillment that every living thing is driven to achieve. Sandra probed Oldman's kernel of secrets. His tickled, laughtered, thought sent her in pursuit of his fleeing sensitive kernel. Their net of silent merriment, playful threats and impish warning calls, ensnared Harry's warm thoughts, leaving them thrashing in the mesh they wove about him.

Their minds were in close enfolding acceptance; they felt their brood coming quickly to life under them. Tiny sparks of living thought were being born as they fanned slowly above their quickening spawn. Harry cried, warm salty tears of joy, as his children acknowledged their parents. He needed to talk to his mom, and if he needed to talk to her then she must need to also. Sandra's nervous laughter, and Oldman's knowing laugh as he replied to Harry thought, surprised him.

--Saw that one coming. He would have raised his eyebrows if he had been in human form. It seemed the fish reaction was a number of quick bubbles that floated upward slowly. Harry eased out of the nest, carefully avoiding the growing intelligence in it, and into the lagoon. Oldman and Sandra's soft mental caress joined his ...their children. A small spark came out of the nest with Harry, rising with him as he stepped from the water in his human form.

--Hello 'Quick One.' Harry said, bowing to this first born, then progressing to the quilt for a sandwich and his last beer. ...I greet you. Harry motioned with the beer as the small red globe hovered near him, probing about with its mind, exploring its new world. Sandra's cooing thoughts reached to it from the water.

Harry watched the Quick One dart about, sometimes over its Mother, sometimes near the river to study the four original lights now gathered together, pulsing randomly in an animated appearance, but always returning to the foliage; it raced among the sleepy lights there that brightened with each buzzing passage. When Harry tossed chunks of wood in the fire it danced in the sparks then returned to nurse from the energy surrounding Sandra.

Harry turned his thoughts back to his mom.

--Go, go see her. Sandra's gentle pushing nudge of thought came to him. ...I'm safe. I'm here with my family she assured him.

--I'll stay, volunteered Oldman. Harry and Sandra's minds went still at this. Sandra glided out of the nest and into the cove, standing swiftly and moving to the quilt with Harry. Quick One came fast behind her. She held Harry as his heart beat rapidly with the unwelcoming idea of not having Oldman near him. Then the Quick One perched on his shoulder. it's tiny aura crackled in his hair and beard as it nuzzled against him. Its tiny mind held on to his.

"Can you do this?" He said aloud to Oldman, his eyes locked with Sandra's as her mind blankly assimilated this extraordinary thought.

--It's up to Sandra. Oldman replied. Sandra reasoned that they were already joined. How could it be so different? She gulped and nodded. Harry took a deep breath and repeated her actions, holding ever tighter to her with mind and body. The sensation was odd in their joined minds. Oldman slowly moved into Sandra's mind as he withdrew from Harry.

--There's not as much room in here; Oldman jestingly began, and then gave a reverent stricken. ...by the great Creator! The thought was followed by silence. Sandra and Oldman became locked in near total communication as her kernel of secrets flashed with answers to Oldman's questions. Questions that Harry had not thought to ask yet. He dressed for the drive home.

Harry left them, accompanied by the Quick One who was now holding to Harry shirt, not even leaving to dance in the sparks of the fire when it was refueled. He drove from the gravel bar with his mates' gentle assurances and confident knowledge of their safety; but, they must be back before dawn.

"Come on Quick," he said aloud to his passenger, "Let's go see Grandma." Harry gave a start as the "G" was reproduced in a tiny tinkling tone almost unheard. Harry drove across the pasture, among the sleeping cattle, toward the bright blue light across the field. Gerry was standing by the open gate when he got there. He leaned in the window as Harry pulled out of the gate and stopped.

"Got room for one more?" He asked, waving a finger playfully at Quick, who moved shyly into Harry's beard, then sent inspecting thoughts out at Gerry, after polling Harry's mind and finding it relaxed in this new presence. Harry grinned at his new brother in mate.

"Jump in Gerry, we're going to the house to pick up supplies and check on mom." Gerry locked the gate then climbed in.

"I've got a business proposal for you Harry." He began, with a greeting clasp of Harry's shoulder. Harry listened and nodded, asking varied questions as Gerry spoke rapidly with occasional punctuating pressure of his hand. Quick moved closer, its inspection of Gerry remained rapt.

They entered the driveway and ascended to the house. With Max's first booming bark, Quick began moving about the cab. Harry's first reaction was one of abject fear as Quick flew out the window, zooming over the big dog's head, then leading him on a chase around the truck and across the yard.

Harry bolted from the truck, calling Quick then Max desperately. His racing footsteps slowed, then stopped, as Gerry's amused laughter at their antics registered in his mind. Five minutes later Max was laying by his water dish, lapping in defeat and Quick was once again nestled in Harry's beard.

Maddie was in the kitchen making a snack during a commercial. Harry managed to make introductions then was excluded from the conversation as Maddie and Gerry became instantly fast friends.

He moved to the coffeepot while they talked, filling a mug and micro waving it. Quick was pressed to the glass and seemed to be seeing the raw energy within. It reproduced the 'ding' when the timer ran out. Harry made sandwiches and sweet tea jars while keeping an eye on Quick and an ear listening to Gerry and Maddie's wandering conversation.

He ran to the bedroom for a bag, digging one out of the closet while Quick played in the red light of the clock radio; they returned to the kitchen to pack.

Harry helped himself to pie, and then sat with Maddie, paying little attention to the exchange of words beside him. Quick was burrowed deep in his beard near his chin. He sipped his coffee, reaching out to Oldman and Sandra's minds. They were still talking. Donna had joined them. He looked and found Gerry's eye upon him, his voice rattling away in rebuttal or approval of one of Maddie's comments.

--It's about time you looked over here, Gerry thought seriously. Harry caused fish bubbles to rise slowly in his mind.

--Have you been practicing that long? Gerry's thought came. A jovial wrinkle twinkled at the corners of his eyes and then was still.

--Just learned it tonight, Harry thought back, then continued. ...The two lights with you and Donna, are they her parents? Gerry's thoughts gave no forthcoming indication to the answer. Harry stopped, waiting for the reply that would confirm his conclusions. Gerry's thoughts were empty of everything but its delight in his animated conversation with Maddie, but he did nod as if in agreement to one of her statements.

--You'll meet them soon enough. These last few hours have been full ones for you. Enjoy your mate and children. Tomorrow will be a full day for you ...Brother.

Maddie rose, still talking. She and Gerry cleared the dishes. She kissed Harry, whispering in his ear.

"I like your new friend. Tell Sandra I said hello." Then she moved off to her bedroom.

"Night mom." Harry answered and left, turning off lights and heading for the truck.

They returned to the cove. Gerry opened and closed the gate behind Harry's sedately moving truck. Quick was near him, observing, until Gerry flew ahead. Quick followed, a bright red spark, darting among the sleeping cattle for a curious moment, then speeding after Gerry.

Harry followed them down to the river and parked near the quilt. Then, removing cooler and bag set them easily in reach. He paused for a fast glance around the spot that had become so comfortable.

Gerry and Donna were floating back across the river; their bright blue and neon pink glow was followed by Quick's red one as far as the end of the gravel bar where it halted, observing for a short time. Sandra's coaxing call brought it back to the nest.

--You too Harry, come to bed. He sent a smile to her thoughts and stripped from his clothing and stepped into the cove. Yawning, he dived into the pool to make a leisurely pass around it, surprised at the number of their progeny that were moving among the rocks near the bluff. Sandra called again and he moved into the nest beside her, his heart heavy with the instinctive knowledge that, with the rising of the sun, the nest would empty as their spawn moved into the water or air to begin the second phase of their life. They floated calmly under the full moon.