Jonah and the Fairy Ch. 03

"I'm a human. I don't claim to be smart, and I have yet to grow to be as wise as Jacob was."

Sadness crept across Shunda's face as I mentioned her mate's name.

"What I saw in both of you was something I see when I am at school. We have twins there who fight each other, yet should anyone come between them they instantly join to fight back. It is there way."

I went on to explain that all through school both girls fought each other in everything: sports, clothes, even their grades at school. One always had to be better than the other. Sadly, one had an accident on the way to school. The damage was bad, and for a while her family believed she would die. The only thing that kept her alive was her sister and even then when her sister needed a transplant it was the same sister that agreed before the doctor had even finished speaking.

It was this bond I see in both of them. The only difference was neither could communicate it to the other. When one became a Bodyguard the other had to be a Hunter. The competition between them would simply go on unchecked until something drastic happened to show them both that they simply loved each other unconditionally and they simply had to live with it, because if they didn't life would simply turn against one or both of them.

Watching the reaction on their faces showed me I had struck home on so many levels. I couldn't help but notice that while I told my tale of the Baker sisters, Robin and Shunda held hands. After a while Robin turned to her sister and said, "I do not see a destructive end my sister. We are one and I am now at peace with that. This will end because I choose it to."

"As I choose it too. Thank you, my sister."

My relief was tangible. I wanted to leap from my chair, scream, and dance around the clearing. Finally they could see it, just as the looks on their faces and their leaping into a kneeling position told me they could now see Marise as well. The sound of clicking fingers and clothes returned to both of them, just as a blue glow entered both their heads, told me they now had their magic back. Marise didn't stay. No sooner had she come than she was gone. Not a word spoken.

*******

It was also time for me to take the consequences of my actions, and simply looking at Robin's face told me there would be a reckoning. But just as suddenly a questioning look came to her, and that confused me.

"You didn't finish your tale. You have held something back. What happened to the sisters you described?"

"I held nothing back. Both recovered, and until the day I left to become the Keeper both sisters were happy."

Shunda looked at me just as closely as did Robin.

"The Keeper has not lied to us, my sister, but I agree something is missing."

This whole conversation was going downhill fast, and short of telling them everything it could just as easily take both of them back to were we where. With a sigh I sat forward in my chair and watched both sisters closely. They still hadn't moved from their kneeling position, they simply waited, leaving me with no choice but to say, "The sisters became inseparable. When one sister became involved with a guy, marriage was spoken, her parents gave their blessing and a date was set. Just as suddenly the date was off and marriage was never discussed again."

The pause was longer this time and both girls eventually looked at each other rather than at me.

"You have done it again, my love, something in your tale is missing. So tell us or I will repay you for striking me and for allowing my sister to walk to the edge of the clearing knowing she would cease had I not stopped her first."

I fidgeted in my chair, now regretting ever mentioning the Baker sisters. But these two were the fairy version of the Baker sisters. I had noticed that when Shunda looked at Robin seconds before walking onto the porch and wrapping a blanket around herself. She knew the outcome, and she was willing to sacrifice her life so her sister would live and still obey the command that I had unknowingly given.

"When one sister realized that marriage would mean leaving her sister alone she could not go through with it. She discussed it with her man and a deal was struck that to this day all three have lived by."

There was no choice. The whole thing would either unravel, or they would both see that what I was saying is what happens to humans and not to fairies.

"The marriage was canceled and both sisters moved in with the man and all three have remained exclusive to each other. In their minds they are married to each other."

The look on their faces said it all. Both looked at me for a moment and they shimmered away. I sat for an hour looking out at the clearing, yet seeing nothing. I wanted to show both of them that the competition they had would lead to a destructive end, and I was happy to use parts of the Baker sister's lives to reflect that and hold them up as an example. It seemed Robin could read me too well, and her insistence on knowing the rest of the Baker sister's lives proved to be the undoing.

I had jobs to do. The need to find something to take my mind off of this morning led to me channeling most of my energies into those chores for the rest of the day. I returned to the cabin only as the sun went down and the shadows reclaimed the forest. Mom sat on the porch waiting, I told her I had to have a wash before we did anything else. She sniffed as I passed and agreed, and by the time I had returned Mom had made us both something to eat.

"You told Robin and Shunda about the Baker sisters."

It wasn't an accusation, simply a statement. I just shrugged my shoulders.

"I wanted them to see what their constant feuding would lead to if they kept going. I had to do something, when Marise literally gave me two naked fairies and told me to deal with it. What was I supposed to do?"

I looked at Mom, waiting for an answer.

"Both of them came to me in the nursery and told me the tale you told them I knew you were talking about the Baker sisters. They wanted to know everything about the sisters. I know you had your reasons for using them as an example, but you could have shaved a little off the story, son."

Now I had my Mom bugging me about it.

"How did they react when you told them?"

"I had no choice. You had backed me into a corner, so I told them everything I knew and that was plenty since you know I've been friends with the twin's mom since grade school."

Oh great, this just couldn't get any better, could it?

"What happened when you told them?"

"That's the strange part. Nothing happened. They sat and listened, and said nothing until I had finished. They thanked me and then got up and left."

As Mom once said, 'what's done is done.' On the positive side, Marise won't need to punish them anymore. They did seem to get on better, or was that because they now had a common foe: me? The cabin door opened and both girls entered, stopped me from dwelling too long on that subject. They hugged Mom and both sat at the table. Robin looked at Shunda and then at me.

"We agree. We have talked to our Queen and it is not as unusual as you believe. Since we now have her blessing, nothing more will be said."

Mom and I sat and looked at each other. We both felt like we had walked into a conversation half way through and where playing catch up.

"Robin I haven't got a clue what you just said."

Her eyes looked toward the cabin roof and she gave an exasperated sigh.

"My love, we listened to you explain the lives of the twins you believe our lives mirror. When we talked more to the Keepers, Mom, we fully understood why you kept parts of your explanation to yourself."

Mom looked at me and for a moment. I thought I see a flicker of understanding in her eyes before she seemed to dismiss it. Yet as she shook her head she stopped and said to Shunda, "You understand you will be equals in this mating."

The air left my lungs. I couldn't believe Mom just said something so ridiculous.

"We are sisters and have given ourselves to the great Mother as well as our Queen. We are one in our choice of mate."

Mom simply nodded and looked towards me; the confusion must have been evident to her.

"Congratulations son, you have two mates now and both are sisters just like the Baker girls. I'm not sure how I'm going to explain this to your Father, but I'll do my best."

The rush of blood to my head was total. Even Mom asked if I was ok. By now I was pacing the cabin, my mind all over the place. How could all this go so horribly wrong?

"No, I'm not ok. Robin is my mate. The rest flies against everything I was raised to believe."

A small smile danced across Mom's lips before she said, "You weren't raised to believe in fairies yet two sit across the table from you. Have you ever wondered why you see more females than male fairies on the mountain?"

Before I could answer Mom looked at Shunda again and nodded her head.

"The great Mother blesses the mountain with more females. We outnumber the males by many. It means we have harmony here. The females live in harmony with the males and the males do take many mates, but the dominance of the females in every aspect of our society also keeps the balance on the mountain."

Shunda smiled at Mom and then looked back towards her sister before saying, "Yet my sister allows Keeper to dominate her by only taking one mate, and for so many cycles I could never understand why."

Robin held onto her sister's hand, and even though I was totally speechless it seemed all three of them expected me to say something. I eventually lifted my hands to the cabin ceiling hoping for some divine intervention. This was all going so horribly wrong and my mind simply couldn't process fast enough everything that was being said.

"I don't dominate Robin. I never have and never will. We are equals in every aspect."

"But that is not the balance, my love. I have loved you with all my heart for so many cycles, but our harmony is wrong. For some time now I have felt that the great Mother sought to address that balance by giving us our child and so early that I was not yet in my adult cycle and therefore not capable of carrying her in my human form."

Stopping in my tracks as Robin finished her statement made my blood boil. She noticed and quickly left her chair to hold me tightly. But Robin wasn't finished. She needed to press home her argument and hoped holding me would at least make me listen while she did so.

"What you have shown us both is what we should have seen many cycles ago. Now it is our turn to teach you, and the balance of the mountain means that since you took a fairy as a mate you must take another to keep that balance."

Robin barely stopped long enough to draw breath; she didn't want me to interrupt her.

"Please, Jonah, you must listen to me. I will be away for many cycles both in the nursery and with our Queen. You may be human but you're also male and those needs have to be addressed. My sister has no mate and even though she is a Hunter and has duties of her own between both of us your needs will be met."

I held onto Robin for so long, too afraid of saying anything, knowing that if I did it wouldn't sound right. The secrets that the Keepers have kept through the generations had left so many ramifications for the next Keeper that takes their place. None of us get any inkling into what to expect, and times like these I feel that no matter how hard I run to catch up it simply isn't fast enough. In all honesty, I was afraid. Robin was my life, the daughter that snuggled into my palm and gurgled as she sucked her thumb was my life. Could my heart accept another even if it was my love's sister.

When I brought my head away from Robin's shoulder Shunda was just shimmering back into the cabin. Mom was gone from the kitchen and the questioning look toward Shunda as she stood in the middle of the cabin left me confused.

"The Keeper's Mother asked to be returned to the nursery. She said this evening was ours and she felt she would be intruding."

Robin stepped away from me and within a blink of an eye both where naked. Again the scars on Shunda's body left me feeling the job of a Hunter is more dangerous than I imagined. Shunda watched me for a moment and then lowered herself to her knees as Robin stepped away from me and joined her sister. She stood behind her, both hands on her shoulders.

"I must speak and you must listen, Keeper. The scars you see will never heal. They are there to remind me of my failings. When my mate died I went mad with rage and despair and I sought out the bear that killed him and exacted revenge."

Tears flowed down her cheeks and Robin gently squeezed her shoulders, reminding her sister she was there and of her support as she spoke.

"The Heeler cannot bring me to full health, which means, Keeper, that I am barren. The bear took my mate and it took the child I carried in return for its own life. The great Mother had set the cycle of life, and killing the bear in revenge disturbed that balance."

Shunda moved her hands down her body and then held both hands out towards me.

"This is all I have to give to you, Keeper. It is all I have left after the great Mother reset the balance and my cycle of life continues."

As I looked away from Shunda and at Robin, both of them were in tears and I had to admit I wasn't that far behind either. I was drifting when the Keeper's job was thrust into my hands. Robin and I found each other and the confession Shunda just made started me thinking that perhaps she had now found us, or perhaps the great Mother had taken so much she had decided to give her a gentle shove in our direction and leave the rest up to us.

I told Shunda to stand, and as I approached I heard a click of fingers. I was now as naked as they were, a clear indication to me that someone in this room wanted us all to enjoy more than just a group hug. On my insistence, however, I wanted the cabin to be a magic free zone, and if magic needed to be used then used wisely. Maybe I'm just an old fashioned type of guy and getting your mate naked simply by taking their clothes off can be more fun than clicking your fingers.

Robin and I took Shunda to bed and proceeded to fuck her to the point of exhaustion. I must admit other than DVDs I had never seen girl-on-girl action, but these two sisters took to it like they invented it. Robin was the more aggressive of the two and Shunda may have been the more fit of the sisters, but I could tell somewhere in the early hours Robin and I had made Shunda a quivering wreck, far too spent to do anything but back away to the edge of the bed as we came for her one final time.

*******

Was it my imagination or did the birds sing louder this morning? The sound of cups in the kitchen told me Mom was back, since I still had both sisters wrapped around me. My movement woke them and the sounds in the cabin alerted them to someone else being here. I headed for the bathroom. Shunda followed Robin into the kitchen. The sound of laughing told me that they had both forgotten to put on clothes When I joined them all in the kitchen all three looked at me before Mom spoke.

She said, "Marise is happy you have addressed the balance, and judging by the smell of sex from your room it doesn't take a genius to figure you have accepted the fact that you have your own version of the Baker sisters."

I blushed and all three laughed. My mind would finally accept this. I knew that to be true, but it still didn't feel right, as though I were cheating on Robin, even though she was here and played more than an active part in what we did to her sister. Would it be the same when one or the other was away from the cabin and me? Time would tell, I suppose. Mom made it a point to return to the nursery for the next three nights while Robin and I ripped Shunda's clothes off of her and proceeded to take her every way we could, leaving her a lump of jello that we both held onto as sleep took us.

Shunda finally refused to let Mom return to the nursery on the fourth night, saying she needed the rest far more than Mom did and not even Jacob had exhausted her so much with this amount of joining. It was the first time we had heard her mention Jacob without looking sad, and that showed us all that she had come to terms with her killing the bear in vengeance for her mate and the retribution the great Mother took from her.

Mom returned home after a week. Even Marise came by to wish her a safe journey. Peace settled back onto the mountain, and I could see in Robin's eyes that she was anxious to return to our daughter for a while before returning to her duties as a Bodyguard. Even the call of the mountain was becoming too much for Shunda, and as we sat one morning on the porch watching nature I told her to magic her bow here and start getting it ready. She would be leaving in the morning.

Her smile and the whispered 'thank you' said everything that needed to be said. I helped with what I could do and she spent the rest of the afternoon making sure everything was ready for an early start.

*******

I hadn't seen either of them for a couple of weeks now. It was something I had got used to, I suppose. As Keeper my jobs still took me into town and all over the mountain, just as their duties did with Shunda being a Hunter and Robin having our daughter to take care of as well as her Bodyguard duties. Marise had already told me that she was about to ask Shunda to step down as a Hunter to take the place of Jacob, and although it seemed unsaid between us we both knew what that would really entail.

Dad still enjoyed the mountain and came up here at every opportunity. He took badly the news of Jacob's death and although I took over the task of being his guide I was nowhere near Jacob's league and we all knew it. As a first step Marise had ordered Shunda to meet my Dad, and what a first meeting that turned out to be. When Dad was sitting on the porch she came around the corner of the cabin just like Jacob always had and introduced herself. Dad went pale and even though he offered her a seat he couldn't take his eyes off of her.

Knowing the short fuse she had I was expecting her to take him to task. Instead she offered to teach him how to use a bow, and for the next hour I couldn't get either of them away from the clearing they had decided to use as a practice field. I went inside and by the time Mom and I came back out both had gone. Mom asked the birds to find them and she was told they were on one of the trails Jacob and Dad always liked to use. It seemed Shunda was Dad's new best friend.

But time to a fairy is nothing like time to us. I suppose they too easily dismiss our time since they live far longer than any of us. To fairies a decision could take a short while, but in human form that could be six months to a year, and that's a lot of waiting on a human, and hell for a Keeper with a debt to repay. But waking that morning left me feeling that something was going to happen. In a sense the mountain seemed to let me know. I even waited on the porch longer than I normally did, eventually deciding that whatever it was will happen whether I want it to or not.

Shunda was already seated in the lake when I got there. Her scars were now a part of her I never really took much notice of any more. Stripping and sitting next to her, the warmth of the sun beating down on the mountain contrasted with the cold of the river. My instincts told me that Shunda had chosen her time and place. It was now left to me to listen and agree. I just hoped I could find it within me to live with what she was about to ask.

"You sense it don't you, Keeper?"

"I know it's time, Hunter. Tell me the debt I owe."

Looking at her would have been no good. If she was anything to go by then all the Hunters on the mountain would make great poker players.