Starbright

"It doesn't matter. The three of you will be dead soon, anyway."

"Yeah?" said Pelan. "How do you figure? You're bleeding out, and me and Tula are fine."

"Actually," said Tula quietly, "I'm exhausted. Blocking the curse and then ridding you of it took too much out of me. I do not think that I can cast again..."

"Right," said Pelan, her confidence waning. "Well, I'm fine." Banishment, banishment, banishment. She had done this at least thrice before. Why wasn't it coming back to her?

"I was saying," said Zara. "Something interesting about myself. Me, my kind, fire does not burn us."

"Yeah, I picked up on that." Fuck it. Pelan was going to go for it, even if she couldn't remember exactly how. She would figure it out while she was doing it. She took a breath, prepared herself to cast.

Zara looked over at the Starbrights in their cage, with a grin. "All fire. Even if it's magical."

She realized what Zara was about to do just a moment before it happened. "NO!" she yelled, but it was too late. She didn't have time to stop them. It was such a simple thing, for a dreamrider, after all. Zara pointed at the Starbrights, and a tiny mote of flame burst out of her finger. It zipped through the bars of the cage, right into one of the big ones in the middle, and...

The noise was deafening. It hit the three of them before the fire did, and nearly knocked her off of her feet. The flames engulfed Zara, who was laughing, and they rushed towards the three of them, and she was sure that she was going to die...

Unless.

There was one thing that she could do. The effort of it might kill her, but she would die for sure if she didn't try. She reached out with her arms, and then she reached out with her mind, and the flames...

Moved.

--

Her senses came back to her slowly. Her head was throbbing, a fresh wave of pain with every beat of her heart. It was horrible. But then, at least she knew that her heart was still beating. She couldn't see, and every joint in her body ached.

"Ah," said a voice. "You're moving. Good. If you can hear me, open your mouth."

It sounded like Tula, so she did. Her throat was terribly, terribly dry, but she felt something being pressed to her lips. A cup, or a bowl. "Drink this. Just a swallow at first."

It tasted lovely, like jasmine and something earthy but pleasant. And breastmilk. It hurt to swallow, but when she did, it filled her with warmth, and the pain - all of it, from her head to her toes - eased somewhat.

"Thank you," she said, and she found that her voice was raspy and faint.

"Your sight should come back in a few moments, if it hasn't already. That was an impressive bit of sorcery. It very nearly killed you."

"Fire would have. If I hadn't..." She wanted to say more, but it still hurt to speak. She took another sip of the soothing drink. Her vision was starting to return. She could just make out the twinkling stars above her. To one side, there was a blue-and-purple blur, and to the other, there was a silver-and-brown blur. "That you, Naala?"

"Yes," said the silver-and-brown blur. "You saved our lives. Thank you."

"Saved my own life. You were just nearby..." Another sip, a bit more of the pain gone.

"You didn't have to move the flames so that they didn't hit us. You could have just protected yourself. It would have been easier."

"Yeah. Well. You saved me from dreamrider. Call it even."

Tula giggled. "Well, we are still thankful."

Pelan's sight was rapidly improving. She could barely move her body, but she managed to crane her neck a bit to look around. She was lying on her back, and they were still in the Starbright grove. Except...

The cage in the middle of the clearing now protected nothing but a smoking hole in the ground. All of those Starbrights, gone in a moment. Just the thought was almost enough to make Pelan cry. The cage itself hadn't melted, but the flames had softened it enough that it was sagging under its own weight. The grass in the clearing had all completely burned away, so that the ground was nothing but ash and dirt, except for a neat half-circle around the three of them.

"Did they escape?" Pelan asked hoarsely.

"I'm afraid so," said Naala with a frown. "I have already alerted the Order of the Chrysanthemum. We'll be looking for them, here and abroad."

"Already?" Pelan blinked. "How long was I out?"

"A few minutes. Don't worry about it."

"Right. Well." Pelan leaned back and closed her eyes. The pain was quickly leaving her, but it was replaced with exhaustion. Now that she knew for sure that the danger was gone, the strain of what she had just done was catching up to her. "I'm just going to take a little nap, then..."

-~o~-

When Pelan opened her eyes again, it was in an unfamiliar bed, underneath an unfamiliar roof. The bed was warm and comfortable, but she had been sweating in it. There was a window nearby, and there were golden-orange rays of light filtering in through it, though she wasn't sure if it was the light of dawn or dusk.

She tried stretching, and found that the pain was gone. Mostly. She was still a bit sore all over, but it wasn't as unbearable as before. And her head had stopped hurting. She tossed aside the blanket that she was under and found that she was still in her robe. Whoever brought her here had not undressed her, though they had taken her egg-box, which still had an egg in it, and set it on a table next to the bed. Good thing, that. If the box had come open in her sleep, and she had rolled over on the egg... Gods, what a stupid way to die that would be.

She sat on the edge of the bed and tested her legs. She was a bit wobbly, but she could stand. When she did, she caught a whiff of something gross. After a bit of investigating, she found that the source of the smell was... Herself. Ugh. How long had she been asleep?

She grabbed her egg-box (best not to leave it laying around where someone could stumble upon it - she had learned that the hard way) and wandered out into the hallway. It was empty, except for a few paintings. That was a tradition here in the north: when a person died, their loved ones painted a portrait of them right on the walls of the common house. Pelan had always found it unsettling, having the eyes of the village's dead upon her when she was sleeping. None of the paint on the wall was fresh, though, so that was reassuring. She meandered around, looking for the house's exit, but she stopped when she heard voices from one of the bedrooms.

"Lorn... I wanted to tell you that I heard what you said to me when I... When I was unwell."

A pregnant pause. Pelan creeped up to the door. It was mostly closed, so that she could only see a sliver of the room through it. She didn't dare open it further.

"Mm. You remember that, do you?" came the deep rumble of Lorn's voice.

"I remember how you stayed by my side all night, watching over me until you fell asleep."

"If I was even half the man that I thought I was, I would have been able to protect you from that monster. They must have come right into the bedroom when they took you, and I didn't even stir."

Ah, Lorn was a man. Pelan had guessed as much - beards and chest-hair weren't especially popular looks for women anywhere in Felu Shala. Still, uncommon though they were, she had met women who proudly wore beards before, and men who were even bustier than her, and folks who were in-between or neither who came in all sorts of shapes and sizes. One never knew.

"Please don't blame yourself, Lorn! The creature was terribly powerful. Even if you were awake, I'm certain that there was nothing you could have done. They might have killed you if you tried to fight them. But that's not what I wanted to say. What I wanted to say was that... Everything that you said to me... I feel the same way, Lorn. And that night, it wasn't just the dreamrider's magic that compelled me to... To do what I did. That was me. In my dreams, the dreamrider enchanted me by pretending to be you, and there was a reason that worked so well."

Pelan wasn't sure what was going on here. It sounded vaguely like a love confession? If that was what it was, the other person should have just told Lorn that they loved him. Pelan never saw the point of dancing around your own feelings like that.

There was another tense silence. "Well? Aren't you going to say anything?"

"Kuraduyn, I-"

"You can call me by my birth-name. Please. I would like it if you did. It's-"

Pelan blushed furiously, covered her ears, and walked away. Eavesdropping on a private conversation out of sheer curiosity was one thing, but she wasn't going to eavesdrop on that. She didn't like it when anyone called her by her birth-name, for any reason, but she knew that for other folks it was something that was very personal, shared only with those who had earned the right to hear it.

She'd been hoping to ask Lorn, when he was done talking to the other person, how long she had been asleep and where the bathhouse was, but if this was that type of conversation, he may well have been occupied for a while. Instead, she decided to just wander around until she found it herself. In fact, that would be better, because she wouldn't have to answer any awkward questions about why she had lied to the entire village to their faces.

She managed to escape the common house without seeing anyone else, and when she stepped outside, she saw that the sun was in the west. It was dusk, then. That explained why she hadn't seen anyone else yet - the whole town was still asleep, except for the two lovebirds back there in the house. That was fine by her. It meant that she would be able to sneak a quick bath and then put this place behind her before anyone noticed that she was gone.

She found the village bathhouse without much difficulty. It wasn't hard mainly because it wasn't really a house so much as a set of walls that surrounded a natural hot spring. She could see steam from outside, since there was no roof, and there was a relief carved into the wall above the door that depicted a mermaid. The mermaid was quite busty, which made Pelan smile.

She stepped inside, and...

Hello. Tula and Naala were there. Naala was seated on the edge of one of the pools of the hot spring (there were three), and Tula was in the water. Tula's face was buried between Naala's legs, and from the noises that they were making down there, it was clear that they were going at it very enthusiastically. Tula hadn't noticed her yet, but Naala was looking right at her. She didn't know if they were red out of embarrassment, arousal, or heat from the springs. Maybe it was all three. Regardless, Pelan turned right back around and closed the door behind her.

"Sorry!" she shouted back through the wall, and then giggled when she realized that Naala had said the exact same thing in time with her.

"Sorry," Naala repeated. "We thought that we could... Sorry. We thought that we were the only ones who were awake."

"Oh, don't mind me!" said Pelan. "I can come back later." She didn't want to wait - she smelled terrible, and the hot water would do wonders for the soreness that was still inhabiting her - but Naala had looked like they were enjoying themselves quite a bit, and Pelan felt bad interrupting them.

"No. No, it's fine." There was a soft splash. "We're done. You can come back in."

Pelan opened the door again and peeked inside. Naala was in the water now, but Tula was leaning back against the pool's edge, their huge breasts floating on the water and bobbing with their breaths, which were coming hard and heavy.

"Phew!" they said. "I could not breathe down there. Hello, Pelan! It's good to see you up and moving about. How are you feeling?"

"Much better, thank you." Pelan closed the door behind herself. "A bit sore, but that's to be expected. Thank you for tending to me, after the explosion."

That made Tula laugh. "We should be thanking you. Speaking of that, you may call me Suminara, if you'd like. My birth-name."

That made Pelan blush even harder than she had upon walking in on the two of them being amorous with each other. "That wouldn't be appropriate. I hardly know you."

"Mm. True, but you did save my life, and the life of my beloved. For that, we both have love for you, no matter what sort of person you are. I think that it is appropriate."

"Well," said Pelan, "you saved my life, too, and I'm thankful for that. I hope that you won't be offended if I don't give you mine, though. My birth-name doesn't fit me. I've never liked it."

"So it goes, sometimes," said Tula - or rather, Suminara - with a gentle smile. "I admit that sometimes I find it difficult to live up to mine." Suminara, in addition to being a name, was also a word that meant, roughly, 'be happy'. It was an exhortation from parent to child. "If it makes you uncomfortable, I do not mind if you continue to call me Tula."

"I think that I would prefer that, if it's all the same to you. I don't mean to sound ungrateful, but... We only just met."

Their smile didn't falter. "I understand. Naala and I are clean. We won't mind if you would like to join us, but if you would rather bathe alone, we can leave."

"Oh, I don't mind. I just didn't want to interrupt. The two of you seemed a bit... Busy. When I walked in."

That made Naala blush and Tula laugh. "Don't worry about that. We can finish later. I simply want to avoid causing you, ah... Any undue stress by bathing with you."

Pelan blinked at that. "Why would the two of you cause me stress?"

Tula just nodded their head towards Pelan's crotch. She looked down at herself... And after squishing her breasts up against herself with her arm, she saw what they were gesturing towards. Her cock had apparently jostled its way out of her smallclothes at some point, and it was making a tent in the front of her robe. "Oh." She sighed, and shrugged. "You're both very beautiful."

"Thank you." Tula smiled earnestly. "I think that you are beautiful too. Have you noticed anything odd since you woke up?"

"Odd in what way?" said Pelan as she shed her robe and started working on the knot on her breastband.

"The dreamrider's curse. They said that I only fixed half of it, but I don't know what the other half of it entails. It's a dreamrider curse, so I can only assume that it will have something to do with sex."

Oh. Right. Zara had said that, hadn't they? "I haven't noticed anything odd, but I have only been awake for a few minutes." She struggled with the knot on her band for a moment. It was tighter than normal, probably because laying on it had pulled it taut at some point while she was asleep. She wished that whoever had deposited her in the bed had stripped her first, but of course, they would have no way of knowing that she would have been okay with that.

"Hmm. Well, let me know if anything seems amiss." They sat back in the water and sighed. "We will stay in town for another day or two, to make sure that being under the dreamrider's thrall has no lasting effects on the eight who were captured. Their memories are all a bit hazy, but nothing too terrible, considering what they all went through. I expect they will all be fine."

"Where will you go after that?" asked Pelan as she wiggled out of the last of her clothes. She was still hard as a rock, but neither Tula nor Naala seemed to mind, so she slipped gingerly into the water, on the other side of the pool from the two of them.

Tula looked at Naala, who said, "Back to the sub-headquarters in Kolan Aun. After that, wherever the Order sends me. Wherever we go, it will probably be in search of our dreamrider friend. We destroyed their portal-"

"Good," said Pelan. "I think that it was being powered by the Starbrights, and I doubt that it would work without them, but better safe than sorry."

"We thought the same," said Naala. "It's little more than pebbles, now. The hypnotized folks were very happy to take pickaxes to it, once they were on their feet again. So that's taken care of, but the dreamrider is still out there. If the Order picks up any scent of them, I'll be one of the first to know. I have standing orders to pursue them if I find any trace of their presence."

"That's something that I never understood about you folk," said Pelan.

"My folk?" said Naala. "Which folk?"

"You Chrysanthemum folk. You choose a leader, and once you've done that, you just... Do what they say? All the time? Without question?"

"Ah," said Naala. "Not all the time. I have disobeyed orders before, when my conscious disagreed with them. I have been reprimanded, but I have not been removed from the Order, so..." They shrugged. "It's not so bad. I swore an oath to help people, not to follow orders without question. I have only ever broken orders to keep the oath."

"Mm. Well, I'm also headed to Kolan Aun after this. Why don't I travel with you two?"

Tula and Naala looked at each other, and some unspoken agreement was arrived at between them. "Yes," said Tula. "Good idea. That will give us more time to work out what this curse of yours entails, and I will be around to cure it, if I can."

"On one condition," said Naala.

"Name it."

"No more lying. Everything worked out all right this time, but you could have seriously damaged the reputation of the Order." Naala's voice was rather monotone, but it had taken on a commanding edge to it now that lent weight to their words. "I would like you to promise that you will not pretend to be a member of the Order anymore, even after we have parted ways."

"Okay," said Pelan. "Sure. I promise."

Naala blinked, as if they had expected that to be harder. But really, why would it have been? The only reason Pelan had done it in the first place was because the opportunity had presented itself, and it hadn't even worked that well. She had the feeling that they would have voted to allow her to have a Starbright even if she hadn't lied.

"Well," said Naala. "Alright then."

Pelan stretched and spread her arms out along the edge of the pool. The hot water was doing wonders for her. The last of the soreness in her was melting away. "That's that, then. By the way, Tula, to be completely honest, I suspect that the dreamrider was lying about the curse. I'm still tired from redirecting their flames, but don't feel any different." She frowned. "Um. I apologize again for groping you, by the way. I was-"

"No apology necessary," said Tula. "I've dealt with dreamriders before, and I've dealt with this dreamrider before. I know that you were not in control of yourself. No harm done."

"Still," said Pelan. "I want you to know that's not something that I would do."

"I want you to know that you can touch them any time you'd like, as long as you ask me first."

Pelan blushed. She was glad that they couldn't see her cock under the water, because she could feel it throb.

"You should know," said Naala, "that we tend to get ourselves into dangerous situations. The other night... Well, it's not every night that something like that happens to us, but it's also not the first time that either of our lives have been in danger."

"It's not the first time that my life has been in danger either. I didn't learn how to redirect spells like that by studying books. Could have used a bit more practice before tackling something that big, though..."

That made Naala chuckle. "It was well-done. When Tula and I found that we were still alive and unharmed, we were a bit shocked."

Pelan shrugged. "To tell the truth, I don't know if I could do it again. Sometimes you surprise yourself when your life is in danger, you know?"

"I do," said Naala, and the three of them sighed, all at once. "Say, Pelan, there is another thing that I would like to know about you, if you are going to travel with us."