Daughter of the Witcher Ch. 09

Gitte nodded and she removed her dripping cloak.

"The dress also," Gudrun nodded firmly.

"Come on, you are being foolish. If what you seek to hide there is worth the hiding of it so much, then you do not truly need to be here, do you? You can be lovely and frozen dead in your beauty outside."

Gitte looked to Louhi, who took her wet cloak. "Gudrun is right. Shame is one thing, if that is what this is, but dying from the cold or sickness is another. You should take it off. I would, were I you. It is so nice and warm here."

Gitte had a thought where she reasoned that if she looked the way that the white-haired one did, then she'd likely feel no shame at all to be naked in front of others. She wondered how it must feel to be a little proud of how one looks.

She groaned then and struggled to get her soaked dress over her head. The wet fabric made her reluctance even harder to bear.

She felt hands helping her in the fight and when the dress was off, she was surprised to find that it had been the troll.

"Here," she said, handing over the packing cloth, "Give me your things so that I can look for a place to hang them."

She laid her large hand on Gitte's shoulder carefully, "You are not one which I would wish to see here this night, but this is a matter of more importance than my dark thoughts -- and I try now not to have any, since there is no need to hate someone who has bad fortune on a terrible night.

Find a place to sit and I will look for something for you to eat. I think that there is yet a little broth in the pot."

Gitte nodded as she tried to hide her shame with her hands and the cloth while she tried to cover herself with it and towel the water off, "Thank you."

She looked toward Louhi, "And thank you, Mistress. I think that I might owe you my life if I do not get sick."

Louhi smiled pleasantly, "You are with us all, Gitte. I try to think of those who are in my care. It may come to pass that one day, I might need a kindness from you, no?"

As Gitte nodded, liking the thought and wondering why she'd never liked the woman until now, when she'd needed her help, Louhi spoke to Rex, "We sail into waters where there are many pirates, Thorvald had told me. It may come to a fight more than once, and my fear is that most of the fighters are here on this boat, while there are not many on the other.

Rex, would you help if it comes to that? You as well, Gudrun? We will need the horses alive when we land. Any help that you might give, I would have and gladly."

The basilisk nodded, "Ssomething to hope for," he smiled, "Yess, I will help."

"Count on me, Louhi," Gudrun nodded, "I can swim, but not all that well, so if it comes to a fight, then I would rather sail on than lose."

Louhi nodded and she turned to go back up the steps, feeling better, "My thanks to you both. I have a hope that sometime in all of this, we might sit together, you two and I. Does your kind have a want for friends, Rex? You are making one in me, and I regret that I have not even had the chance yet to spend any time at all with Leif's lovely cousin."

"We will," the she-troll nodded, "I only wait for the day."

Rex laughed a little, "Friendss are not anything that we keep much of, lovely witch. But I feel a want to come to know you and the otherss a little better. Until now, I have found little chance to make any."

He chuckled, "Most humans wish to see my kind dead."

Gitte spun to face Louhi then, though she remembered after a second to try to cover her bottom with her hand and her front with the cloth. The attempt failed a little laughably. Gudrun looked from it to Rex and she grinned.

"You are a witch?" Gitte asked in some surprise.

Louhi nodded, "Something like that. Why? Does that change what I have done for you in your eyes?"

Gitte didn't know what to say for a moment, but then she shook her head, "No, not at all, Mistress."

"Then I am pleased," Louhi smiled once more, "I must go to speak with Màiri. A good night to you."

Gitte stared, "But, ... Mistress Màiri is on the other --"

She found herself talking to the empty steps in front of her. Louhi was gone.

Gitte was bewildered, "Where did she -- "

"She has gone to the other boat," Gudrun said quietly, "It is her way to move like that, I am told.

There is still broth and plenty, but it is a little cold now. It will be a little while as it warms. We have only a very small heater to cook on, but I will get some for you when it is hot. Go and sit with Rex there, Gitte."

Gitte looked and she saw that Rex, such as he was, took up almost all of the rest of the space. She didn't think that there was a place where she might sit that was not on top of some part of his long body.

"Come here, girl," he smiled.

At thirty-two, Gitte was, by her own admission, only barely pretty anymore if at all and for damn sure; her days of being a lithe and willowy girl were far back in the dust behind her. These days, she was a little closer to Rubenesque in her figure. She was a also a bit older than most of the other women on board and the beast was being very charitable and polite in addressing her as 'girl'.

She shook her head, preferring to stand there.

"I do not know if you have any knowledge of my kind," he smiled a little slowly, "but I think that you will find that I have a very warm heart -- as well as other thingss, to be sure.

But - and you might assk my Gudrun there -- quite often, when we meet ssomeone who iss lovely ssuch as you are in circumstancess ssuch as thesse, there iss a little , ... bargaining to be done."

Gitte stared at the beast and then she looked around a little frantically.

"Your things are there, "Gudrun pointed, "hanging up and dripping on the floor. Rex is offering you a choice, Gitte. You need to be warm and fed. He will provide that and I will help, being his wife now in most ways.

I do hope that you will not sink back into foolishness. Rex wants you to lie with him and he will be very gentle. You are the sort of human female that he likes for a bit of his fun, since you are full enough to possess the strength to take a little more of what he gives. You are a female and it is clear to me that he likes you. He seeks to make a bargain with you. You will come to know him as few females get the chance of, and you will be fed and warmed. He will not hurt you, and if you like him, it can go on."

She looked past Gitte as a gust of wind brought a change in the pattern of the sound of the rain, "Or if you would rather hold on to your treasures, you might go to try and reconcile with the one who threw you out."

Gitte said nothing in reply. She'd already tried that -- and she'd begged him, in front of them all.

Gudrun looked over at Gitte, "If you think a moment, you might see that I am being a little kinder to you than you were to me. I offer to share my warm place, my food, and even my fine husband for your pleasure. There is no one here but us and so I am a little curious about the way that human females hold their virtue as though it was something a little holy."

The phrasing caught Gitte's ear. She was thinking that in order to be able to remain here where it was warm and dry, she would be forced to allow the beast to ...

Yet, she thought, here Gudrun had just made it sound as though she was prepared to SHARE the creature's affections. She wondered very briefly how it would be taken if she declined.

"I -- I don't know, "Gitte stammered a little and Gudrun placed her hand on the woman's shoulder once more.

"Look at it this way," she said in a quiet and earnest way, "What I speak of is nothing more than sharing. I try to make a friend -- even in one who showed me meanness. Chiorstan teaches me that it is what ought to be done among humans, though it is done very seldom."

She waved her other hand across the space of the hold, "Here, we are as travelers, are we not? What is the difference whether we crawl into a wayside shack, all of us strangers, cold, wet and hungry, or as we are here?

The only thing to be done in both cases to make our common misery into something far better is to share what we have. Since you have nothing else, why not share yourself, since we are willing? No one sees, no one knows. Who would be the wiser, then? At least those of us here will share our smiles over it, and surely none would be able to make friends faster.

Since you are here, it must be that you have no friends among the rest. Try to seek the best in us all and we might find the friendships that we all seek.

Look, I am a half-troll and Rex is a basilisk. Who do you know who has friends such as us?"

Gitte stood paralyzed for the moment, feeling the maelstrom of her emotions as they swirled around her head, mostly her anguish and upset. She felt the hurt of her man's words anew as he'd railed at her in front of the others, "Six years, Woman. Six years I have had to listen as you ran everyone around us into the dirt over what you saw as failings. Do you think that you are better? You are not."

She remembered the way that he'd lunged for her then, taking hold of her by the throat to shake her, "Do you think that I do not hear of the things you say about me? The names that you have called me when you speak to anyone else?

Worthless, am I? The one who works to feed us both and keep us alive? Begone!

I have had my fill of it, night after night of trying to sleep -- since there is never a want in you for me, besides as a fool for you to prattle your tales to. If I must seek for my relief among the poxy wenches in a tavern, what use have I for you? You do nothing for us. The next time that you think of your first man and how HE failed YOU, you can add me to your list. Away with you!"

Gitte hung her head and began to cry. What would the others now say about her? She didn't think of it as a proper thought, but she'd been sniggering and spreading gossip about others over her poor sense of worth. It had been easier than facing her own faults to try to correct them, and this was now the price of it.

Rex leaned forward and he picked her up under her arms, "Come here, ssad one and ssit on my knee a while as I warm you."

Gitte was surprised at his strength, but she made no attempt to fight him off. The alternative was the cold rain out there on the deck. He sat her down on him and he wrapped his long arms around her so that she'd be a little warm.

"Now," he said in a soothing tone, "what is the matter? You are here now, ssafe and being warmed. All that I asssk for is a little pleasure with ssomeone whosse lovely body was made to love with one ssuch as I am."

She hid her face in her hands and sobbed a little, "But that would be to lie with, ..."

"Well, I am no demon," he smiled, kissing her ear very softly as he hugged her and even in her discomfiture, Gitte had to admit her surprise to herself to find that she liked the way that it felt. She'd have thought that his scales would hurt to be pressed up against this way.

She exhaled heavily after a sob passed out of her, "Everyone will know."

Gitte looked up as she felt Gudrun's fur-covered body move against her from behind, "No one knows -- yet," she smiled, "though a few might come to the notion, wondering where you might have gone to after being cast out. There really is little else for you than this, is there not?

Even so, the notion of you lying with beasts such as us will not come to their minds quickly. The one who would come to the idea the quickest of all is you, Gitte.

And you are not there to put it into their heads, are you? Why worry over it?"

Gitte shuddered as a slight sob escaped her, "But, ... but I am not beautiful like the Mistress. I am an old woman, long past my time."

She felt the warm heat of the basilisk's long tongue as he licked her throat. When she'd guessed what it might be, she'd have thought that she'd want to shudder, but a long-forgotten sense came to her that once, long ago, she'd loved to feel this from her first husband -- before he'd thrown her out.

Before she allowed the thought to slide past, Gitte realized that just maybe, both of her men hadn't been complete arseholes. Certainly neither one had started out that way. She wondered if they'd turned into that or whether it might be that she'd caused it in them over the way that she'd been to them.

She thought of her first husband when they were young.

If ever there was a more loving boy who sought only to see the best in others, most often in her, she had to admit, ...

Her second had been a tough and seasoned veteran who by his own admission had sought her out wanting someone to love again, since his life had grown so lonely and cold.

"I don't ask for much," she remembered him saying to her in a quiet and humble way which had surprised her, "I want only a good woman to hold onto me and love me. For that, from one such as you, Gitte, I'd give all of anything that I have."

In a flash of insight, Gitte decided that these things hadn't been solely her fault -- but she'd certainly had a large hand in the ruin of her own chances at happiness.

Now she was between the warm bodies of a she-troll and a serpent, and they were making nice sounds to her. What more did she have to lose? And why not try to have a little of something which she hadn't experienced in so long?

"My kind iss known for many abilities, lovely one," the basilisk hissed into her ear very softly, "I can ssensse much in you, and I also know your true age -- to the blessed insstant when you uttered your very first ssoft little criess. You are not old, Gitte. Pleasse let me love you."

She heard and felt his careful sigh against her neck on the other side, "I can give sso much to one like you."

He reached and moved her dripping hair away from her neck and then he began to lick her ear as well, "I can change thingss for you. You will never feel weak again, and I will fill you often with my love. The little mother over there already knowss what I give. Come and love with uss, Gitte. It will never be a regret to you."

She felt such heat coming to her from his long body and it felt so good, and now that she had the thought of it, she hadn't felt such pleasant caresses over her breasts in long years and she wondered why she hadn't taken her husband's offers so many times. He'd been very good at this for her.

Gudrun moved against her back just a little to seek for a better position and Gitte was a little startled to feel that it was her large hands who were making her tits so happy. She wanted to struggle a little then over the sense of this being wrong, but then, she thought, she'd never felt a sweeter touch on them, at least not in the last half-decade.

One of the hands left her breast and she felt it make its slow trip downward. She thought that she ought to slap it away, but then she wondered why and she sighed as the long warm fingers began their gentle explorations.

"She has been a mother, I think," she heard Gudrun whisper and Gitte nodded.

"Once. My little boy was trampled by an Englishman's mount. I -- I never had the chance, ... or the want to make another. I was alone then. The birthing tore me something awful."

She wanted to hang her head again, but Gudrun's wet fingers came to prevent it as they slipped under her chin.

"Why do you feel shame, Gitte? Mothers lose their little ones to many things, and a mother cannot be everywhere at once. Mothers always lose. It is part of the sadness of being a female, but there is also joy, if you would allow it. Rex cherishes mothers, you will see."

Somehow, it settled things for Gitte, though she never knew just why. Gudrun's hand returned to Gitte's soft cleft and what it did felt so good to her.

She moaned for a moment and then Gitte did what she would have told anyone at all before this -- mostly to herself just to hear it - was an impossibility.

She raised her head as Gudrun was kissing her cheek and then she kissed the troll full on the mouth, her lips parting to allow the thick tongue in. Gitte moaned and reached to hold the troll-girl there by one horn. Without really meaning to, she began to hump her hips very slowly against the troll's hand.

"Thank you for such a sweet kiss, Gitte," Gudrun whispered as she kissed Gitte's shoulder, "Kiss my husband now, so that you know how much he wants you."

It wasn't as difficult as she might have imagined it to be at all. Rex had that long neck, and once they began, Gitte began to feel a wanton need in her rising like never before in her life.

And the effect was a mutual one as she felt him harden against her bottom back there behind her.

"Jusst lie back against me, ssweet one," she heard him whisper to her as he lifted her only enough so that Gudrun's hand could reach underneath her to move it forward a little, and then he set her down again.

The next thing that Gitte knew, she was being lowered, still against the serpent as he leaned backward. That long red thing of his was against her cleft and it felt, ...

She groaned once more.

Gudrun kissed Gitte for a few moments and then she smiled, "You are very wet, but please allow me to make you wetter. You will relax more and then it will go easier. Rex would not hurt you, so you may forget what troubles you."

She grinned a little, "I almost said, 'my love'. Yet it does not feel so strange to my lips as it would have before."

The troll looked at Gitte for a moment and then she began to smile even more, "You -- you like me, yes? Is that what I see there?"

Gitte had been looking at Gudrun, not feeling any of the revulsion which she knew had always come to her at times when she'd met someone different. She sighed to herself, and if these two were anything, they certainly were different.

"Yes," she whispered, "I have never seen one like you and - and it stirs me somehow."

The sweet little shy smile which she saw returned to her over the remark was suddenly worth a lot to Gitte, though she wondered at herself now.

She'd been a little mesmerized at watching the troll-girl's nipples as they peeked out through her fur at her. She had the thought that Gudrun must be aroused. She hoped so, because she certainly was and she knew it full well now.

She was about to ask if she might have a chance to kiss them, but she didn't yet have the courage or enough of the blind lust that she'd need for something such as that, but it was a nice thought to her suddenly.

But by then, Gudrun was already reaching for her Gitte's tits once again and Gitte moaned to feel the way that she was being squeezed. One of Gudrun's hands reached to take Gitte's thigh and lift it as the troll began her kissing path down her front.

Gitte wondered why anyone would want to do that to her, but there was no way that she was about to throw up an argument by this point.

It wasn't long before she began to feel Gudrun's incredible tongue as it was set to work on her lips and inner thighs, gliding along each one of them before she felt the way that they were being sucked out. She could even feel the way that they were now so swollen and needy from it.

But it all went by the boards when Gudrun began to croon to her softly as she licked. She drew her face back a little and she smiled up and Gitte was startled at just how far her legs had been spread in this. Then again, she thought, the girl had a large face.

Not for a troll, she guessed, and she could see quite a bit of beauty in it now as well, but for a human - someone like her - doing something as wonderful to her as this, well, she needed the room, that was all.

Gitte moved her knees as far apart as she could and she could feel the soles of her feet touching each other behind Gudrun's head, noticing the gentle way that the troll held her bottom up a little for this feast.

The troll shook her head in open admiration for a moment, "Sweet Gitte," she sighed, "no old woman gives juice this fine, surely. Do not ever say something to me like that again -- and please, oh please, say to me that I can do this again for you sometime."