Sleeping Beast Ch. 07

NOTE-- Same caveat and general sucking-up, dear readers. Family demands are still moderate to severe and writing time minimal, so this is again an early draft. Most of the basics, but stuff like period-appropriate language suffers. Mea culpa, adiuta fortuna. Grovelling, etc, etc. I also got carried away with the sex scenes, which slightly screwed up the order of events, but I didn't want to make you wait any more, so you're getting a draft-y version!

REMINDER- I write long stories, and they're way more fun if you start from the beginning. Thanks for reading!

--o----O----o--

Something was going on.

Nivid couldn't say what he was sensing or explain how he knew its meaning, but every horned, hooved, animal inch of him knew: something was going on.

And it wasn't good.

Since Troi learned the magnitude of the curse controlling the Denova destiny, Nivid had been forced, time and time again , to stamp down on his own desire to drag her aside and tell her to stop what she was doing.

Talgut nudged Nivid's elbow to get his attention. They'd been steadily devouring another of Troi's enormous breakfasts while they eyed Argus, who was sitting across the table from them, smuggling small bites between answering Troi's questions.

She'd asked many, many questions. The first day after her discovery had been devoted to carrying on the conversation she and Nivid had begun the night before, and he'd been largely exempt from her questions since then, unless she needed a second point of view on information she'd just learned. The second day, she'd focused almost entirely on Talgut, and the third-- yesterday-- on Argus. It now appeared Day Four might also belong to the youngest Denova.

Talgut's glee at witnessing Argus' ongoing discomfort was bolstered by the relief he felt after escaping from his own. He leaned toward Nivid and muttered under his breath, "Almost makes you wish her hurt feelings were back, don't it?"

Nivid snorted, drawing a hasty glance from Argus and a fleeting glare from Troi.

While he kept an eye on Troi, who seemed determine to increasing her already excessive pile of woes and worries, Nivid tried to dampen down frequent spurts of his own inappropriately buoyant mood.

Two months ago, he'd been doomed to an aeon of simply existing: hunting and breathing and fucking with no purpose but to go on doing so day after endless day. Now he was sitting at a table eating with his family, spending many of his sunlit hours and all of his tempestuous nights with a woman who seemed sure to provide him with a lifetime of surprises.

A month ago, he couldn't recall the last time he laughed; now it was happening several times a day. Of course, Nivid was smothering most of his chuckles in order to save his own skin, but still.... they were there, simmering beneath the surface of a life which was changing so radically, so rapidly, he hardly recognized it as his own.

He'd barely adapted to the idea of Talgut speaking to him on a regular basis when the nomad started mumbling these witty asides. Nivid had no idea what precipitated the other man's increased level of comfort, but if it gave the rest of them access to the undiscovered font of dry wit beneath that gruff exterior, he was glad for it. On the other hand, the difference in Talgut's manner before and Talgut's manner after was wildly disconcerting, and Nivid wasn't alone in his opinion; he'd seen Vesa staring at the younger man, too.

But Nivid's returning sense of humor and Talgut's ebullient persona were hardly the only things which changed when Troi learned the truth of the curse, and Nivid didn't have to ask if anyone else had noticed; he was completely certain everyone in the castle divided their lives into the same neat pieces: BEFORE Troi knew and AFTER Troi knew.

It wasn't so much that she was angry as that she'd lost the last shred of fear beaten into her during the years she spent living as a slave. As if the fear had been shackles and chains and a collar of lead, Troi's movements became looser and more expansive. To say she was less restrained would be a serious understatement, and that change was most easily discerned in conversation, where her quick replies seldom came edited. She was also louder and taking advantage of a remarkably broad vocabulary.

At the moment, she was using her verbal skills quizzing Argus about his role in the early days of her captivity. Nivid got the feeling yesterday had been more of an introduction to the topic than the detailed recounting she required. For obvious reasons, his brother didn't want to talk about it.

Troi had been probing for thirty minutes, while Argus stubbornly replied with yeses and nos and rudely short phrases.

"So, you sense when he's losing control and try to soothe him?"

Argus nodded and grunted around his spoon.

"Do you purposely renew contact to find out how he's feeling, if he's in control?"Troi was starting to sound irritated with Argus' one-word responses.

"Sometimes." Argus shrugged and swallowed, shoving another bite in his mouth.

"When?"

He shrugged again, still chewing. "When I think he needs me."

Evidently deciding her leading questions were leading her nowhere, Troi stabbed straight through to the core of her concern. "Well, what about at night? Do you 'help' when Nivid is fucking me?"

Argus nearly choked, coughing, sputtering, and finally spitting the hard-earned morsel of food into a napkin. When he finished coughing and wiping his watery eyes, Argus stood to face Troi, wearing a look which landed somewhere between horror and disbelief. "I don't interfere in Veli's private activities!"

Troi put her hands on her hips. "That's not what you said yesterday. You said--"

"I know what I said!" he bellowed. "I was talking about being able to quiet each other's ill humor, not... not... not...."

With a roar of fury, Argus threw his balled-up napkin toward the corner of the room and stormed from the kitchen with more vigor than he'd shown all week-- despite having eaten less than a quarter of his meal. Troi stomped off in the other direction. Thankfully, her expert cursing shocked Nivid and Talgut out of laughing. Because unlike those occasions when Troi and Talgut battled for sibling supremacy, there was nothing playful in Troi's retreat. She had no sense of humor when it came to the subject of the curse, and mocking her investigation would be riskier than napping with one of Nivid's wolves. None of the men she lived with were that foolish.

For four days she'd quizzed them tirelessly, endlessly about one subject after another-- their parents, their history, their family, their lives in the castle and before, in places and times they could barely remember.

--

You said your mother wasn't a witch.... what about the rest of her family?

None they knew of. Their Finnish grandparents must have passed away by now, and if Täti Pilvi, their aunt, was still living, she was back in Finland, too.

Your father's family?

There was "odd" Uncle Bari when they lived in Arkhangelsk, but ten fruitless questions proved the boys had been too young to absorb any details of his strangeness.

--

Troi's questions were earnest, penetrating, and obviously goal-directed. Though she never explicitly stated her intention, no one felt the need to ask: it was plain to see what she was after. No matter how random an individual question might seem, every inquiry eventually led back around to the subject which drew forth her deepest interest.

--

Your father's family never came to visit after you left Arkhangelsk?

No, the farewell letter their parents left behind explained the reason for our departure but specified no destination.

And you never saw your family again?

Our parents didn't think it would be safe.

The man who died-- your mother's jilted lover-- it was his mother who paid for the curse?

Yes, she threatened Suvi-- our mother-- at the funeral, and the letter she wrote detailed the form the curse would take... children who are strong and evil or good but weak, they will never be together and never be apart, never wake but never sleep, never be completely good nor evil, never die and never live....

Until you find true love.

Yes.

--

"You're sure she hired a witch? Did it say that in her letter?"

They didn't remember.

Troi replied to the question in their eyes. "A sorcerer uses different magic, and if the curse called on a demon, that would be an entirely separate matter."

In this way, most of her questions were broken into bits, interspersed with answers to their parade of quizzical expressions, short lessons on sorcery and spells, and what little she knew of curses.

"My mother was a shaman," she replied to one of Argus' questions, "and her uncle a holy man of our clan. I listened when the elders met, or I snuck out at night and followed them when I should not. The spirits don't speak to me like they did to my mother, but I can do a few spells, and some practical magic, like finding rain or a lost calf.

"I can light the way home for isem, the name soul, or kot, the fortune soul, if one of them wanders far from its owner. The breath soul is beyond me, and no one summons a departed life soul without a demon at his back and evil intention on his mind.

"Demons?" Nivid asked, the word hissing at both ends as it tumbled over his unwieldy tongue.

Glancing over her shoulder, Troi gestured impatiently at the table, making a face which told Nivid he better get back to coring the pile of last year's apples he'd been given. He could listen just as well while he cut and cored as he could with idle hands. He bit back a smile.

She started telling him about the great battle she'd seen taking place above the elders' holy fire one midwinter night, but Argus and Talgut arrived two minutes later and she had to begin again.

That story led to another story, but Talgut was leaving for his trip into town, so Nivid-- who had finished coring his apples-- went to pen up the wolves for a couple of hours. Argus and Troi were left alone, a situation they'd both been trying to avoid. She stood quietly for a moment, then pivoted on her heel. "Argus--"

He cut her off. "Troi, don't. Can we just agree we both behaved in a manner we now regret and go back to being the way we were before?"

Troi looked at the floor and thought about it for a moment.

She met his eyes with an unambiguous nod. "Da," she said quietly, turning back to her cooking and resuming her questions.

"So you woke in the old man's body after the accident? Did you see him before the accident?"

"I don't think so."

"Did anything odd happen that day?"

"Other than dying? Or other than waking up in a different body with my mind bonded to my brother's? No. nothing odd."

Troi laughed with more enthusiasm than his quip deserved, but she could see Argus was making an effort to respond with answers of more than two words, and she wanted to do her part. She doubted they'd be able to "go back" to their former relationship, but she had so many things to do in the next few weeks she didn't think it was a problem she needed to untangle right away.

"I mean did anything odd happen before the accident, you goose?"

"Not that I remember."

"How did you discover you could visit other bodies?"

"I dreamed."

Troi's head snapped around when Nivid answered the question instead of Argus. She frowned. She hadn't even heard his hooves as he returned.

"YOU dreamed them?" Her forehead folded into a hundred tiny wrinkles. "Didn't you say you were 'together' back then, one person with one mind?"

Argus and Nivid nodded in unison, something Troi noticed they'd begun to do more often over the past few days.

"And...?"

Argus answered. "If the dream was about something happening to my body, it came to Nivid as his body slept, but I'd see it at the same time, like a vision or a memory in the back of my mind."

Troi nodded slowly. She really didn't understand this concept of sharing a mind, how Nivid and Argus could speak of separating will from consciousness and consciousness from intellect as though sorting eggs for market.

"Nivid dreamed of being other people," Argus went on, "but until Talgut showed up, we thought they were merely very lifelike dreams. But Nivid only found Talgut because he got a brief flash of being in Talgut's head, with the wolves howling below the tree where he was hiding."

Troi turned with a frown. "I thought you said the person's mind must be completely addled or absent in some way?"

They nodded again.

"Talgut was in bad shape, half-dead, half-starved, and he'd been in that tree for who-knows how long when we found him. Mayhap he was on the verge of passing out, or hallucinating from hunger, or even drifting in and out of sleep." Argus shrugged.

Troi thought some more. "Didn't you--?" She waved at Argus, and they answered her wave with another nod. She wondered if they realized they were nodding at the same time.

Argus elaborated on the three-line story he'd told her a few weeks ago, how he'd seen "the boy" sitting on a sunny bench outside a dingy poorhouse, smiling as though all was right with his world. He didn't respond to touch or speech or eye contact, and the matron told Argus he'd been like that for nigh-on ten years.

"Sick with fever. Fits." Nivid growled, elaborating on the reason for the boy's condition. "No family."

"He swallowed whatever they put in his mouth," Argus added, "but that was the only thing he could do for himself. The poorhouse wasn't adequately funded, and the boy was emaciated, his face nearly gray. He wouldn't have lasted another month."

"How did you move from your first body to--"

Argus shrugged. "We know not. We neither prayed nor contributed to the church for a consideration. We did nothing different we can remember or relate. I donned old clothing we'd made even more ragged, rolled in the dirt, and stumbled into Ufa. I fell asleep outside the poorhouse-- as close as I could to the bed of the mindless lad-- and woke inside the building, looking like—" Argus motioned to his own face and torso.

"And the other? The old man?"

"He was already in the undertaker's cart when I stuck my head out the window."

"Hmmm," Troi said.

The brothers waited while she stared off into the middle distance, deliberating.

Her eyes drifted back to earth, eventually, and she looked slightly confused to see them there, watching her so intently. She shook her head. "You have each told me you were much closer than you are now, nearly one person in mind and spirit, if not in body. Was that true when you came into this new body?"

Neither answered, and after a long, empty silence, Troi altered the question.

"Nivid, has Argus-- in this body-- ever hunted with you?"

After a moment to think, Nivid shook his head.

"Argus, has Nivid ever visited Ufa with you in this body?"

He shook his head.

Troi pursed her lips. "When you pulled Talgut out of the tree.... do you remember being together near that time?"

Their eyes wandered momentarily before once more they answered with a simultaneous nod.

"After that time?"

Their negative reply didn't require a pause for thought.

"Hmm," Troi repeated, as she went outside to stir the laundry.

--o--

Staying upwind to avoid the lye and smoke, Troi poked the linens languidly around the big iron pot, going over all she'd learned in the past week. The mountain of tasks ahead of her was dauntingly high, and the list of her failings grew longer every day.

As a child, she'd learned the rituals every Bashkir woman needed-- the rites of life and death and celebration, how to purify one's home after an illness and protect your family from evil spirits, plus blessings and thanks for all twelve gods. In addition to those everyday rituals, she'd learned to interpret omens and weave a few small spells.

She could ward herself, her family, and their castle or yurt from mischievous sprites and even evil spirits, but banishing a demon who'd already taken up residence in the body of another-- or breaking the curse cast by a powerful sorcerer-- those were much weightier matters. Troi wasn't a shaman, and she wasn't accustomed to conversing with the gods. They wouldn't recognize her voice if she called to them for help-- not an issue if one were requesting a fruitful harvest or a safe birth-- but again, battling the momentous evil of a curse... the spirits didn't favor strangers with their most concentrated gifts.

Even her mother's skills might have been at a disadvantage here.

Troi closed her eyes, paying attention to the heat of the fire at her feet and breezes from the valley brushing the fine waves around her face.

She'd need to stitch together a patchwork of things she knew, things she didn't quite know, things she suspected, things she wished she remembered, and things she prayed the gods would someday forgive her for attempting. She swallowed, fighting the fear which rose to clutch at her throat and belly.

There were no decisions to make.

Though she wished it might be otherwise, Troi's heart said she was probably the Denova brothers' only path to freedom.

--o----O----o--

Nivid stayed by her side as much as possible. She was restless at night, and she spent all day on her feet, working or wandering or pacing. He'd seen her talking to herself on more than one occasion. While he'd happily tell Argus not to dwell so deeply on events he couldn't change, Nivid wasn't willing to risk his life by saying the same to Troi. Not only were the issues Troi dwelt upon much larger than his brother's, but Troi's motivation was completely selfless.

With Nivid awake all day, Vesa was increasingly tired and irritable. He and Troi were going at each other like cocks in the hen-house, flapping and squawking with talons bared and bloody feathers flying. Talgut planned to be away on his errands for the next two nights, but by noon on the second day, Nivid wasn't certain anyone would be alive to greet him when he returned.

Nivid quit trying to decipher the causes of their recurring spats. Troi was agitated, Argus was irascible, and Nivid didn't care to listen any longer. His brother and his woman were upset, and a cure was required.

After a midday repast which was far from relaxing, Nivid decided a rest would be beneficial for Troi. She was being contrary, so he carried her to the tower room, tossing her onto his massive feather bed when they arrived at their destination.

"Nap," he said, his conviction making the word into a command.

Troi screwed up her mouth and scrambled off the foot of the bed. Nivid caught her and tossed her back. "Nap."

"Nivid!" She scurried off the other side, and he caught her again.

"Nap."

Cursing and hissing with the wrath of a sow in springtime, Troi aimed an easily-dodged kick at his leg and tumbled off Nivid's side of the bed, making the kind of eye contact every beast recognizes as prelude to an attack. The hair on Nivid's head and the fur at the nape of his neck lifted and he grumbled, his dark nostrils flaring. Sensing his ire, Vesa's mind prodded at the barrier he'd erected. Nivid ignored him, standing with his feet apart and his arms folded across his chest as Troi stared him down.

Briefly, he considered throwing her back on the bed and holding her down, but he had no trouble imagining what the results would be. She'd spit and fight just like every female in the taiga when being subdued by a larger male. Unlike the bobcats and wolves, however, Troi's resistance would probably end in tears. No doubt she'd fall asleep later, but Nivid didn't wish to make his woman cry. He stayed right where he was while she spun on her heel and marched out, slamming the door behind her.