Talla's Fallen Temple Ch. 06

H'reena waved Maksa around a curtain to a small desk with two chairs in front of it and indicated that they would sit.

"I understand you're considering a Facial Upgrade?" H'reena asked.

"Yes, Mis -, ah, H'reena."

"How long have you been an Adept?"

"Just two weeks now."

H'reena nodded, taking notes.

"You are owed two upgrades outside your Division," H'reena pointed out. "Any idea what else you'd be interested in?"

"I already have one in Point," Maksa said. "Possibly I'll try for Abundance again, see if I can make it this time."

Abundance upgrades were almost as popular as Within upgrades. The competition for them had been – and continued to be - quite fierce. Maksa had been pleased to get a Point upgrade as her second choice.

"An Adept at your age?" H'reena said with a tone of admiration that was unmistakeably honest. "You're Officer bound, I think, so you're very likely to get what you want."

Maksa had reached the rank of Keeper just before her twenty first birthday, a mildly impressive feat that put her a little above average as far as passing exams and meeting quotas went. Her scores, however, hadn't been impressive enough to get her the Abundance upgraded she'd wanted. She'd never heard that age could be a factor.

"What does my age have to do with it?" she asked.

Maksa had seen the same charts every other woman had. It was rare to reach the rank of Adept before turning twenty two. The vast majority of women didn't get that far until age twenty five.

"Dear," H'reena admonished lightly, "even women on the Officer Track don't usually get to Adept this soon."

"Officer Track? What about the exams?"

H'reena rolled her eyes.

"Can you imagine if we made Officers take all of the exams for all of the upgrades they're entitled to?"

That was a thought. A Queen would need to take almost a hundred exams, wouldn't she?

"But those exams are mandatory," Maksa protested, getting over her shock.

H'reena's delicate lips cast themselves into a vision of cynical delight.

"That lot make a lot of rules," she said with a jerk of her head towards those next door. "And they break them when it really matters."

"So I won't have to write the exam?"

H'reena shook her head.

"I just have to ink you in," she told Maksa. "Do you want to do the Facial upgrade first, or do you want to go see Abundance?"

"Yours first," she replied instantly.

"I'll set it up in two weeks, then," H'reena said sweetly. Tilting her head forward in a gentle, conspiratorial voice, she added, "We still have to observe the rule about the one month hiatus since your last upgrade."

"Oh, wait," Maksa said, a flash of worry passing over her face. "I still have more Pussy upgrades to go. I'm not up to par there either."

H'reena squinted, her eyebrows making a delicate expression of confusion.

"Ah," she said in realization. "You've switched Disciplines."

Not a difficult conclusion there. The only reason Maksa could need more than one upgrade in her home Discipline was if she'd either switched Disciplines or been catapulted several ranks at once. As far as she knew, no one got to skip ranks.

"You'll find it's best to alternate upgrades," H'reena said. "Better for your health. I'll set you up for two weeks from today. Then you go finish up your Pussy upgrades or go see Abundance, all right?"

"That'd be great," Maksa said sincerely.

The sooner she got her upgrades, the sooner she could continue on this 'Officer Track'.

Well, not too soon.

There was that one other requirement for reaching Adept II, after all. Every woman had that duty.

-----------===================-------------

Zhair'lo would have described the setting as "trackless woods". Kenji would have pointed to the deer tracks that were quite obvious to an experienced hunter and downgraded the assessment to merely "woods".

It was a pleasant afternoon, as long as you were in the shade of a nice big, leafy green tree and the foliage wasn't so thick that it prevented breezes from coming through. The forest around their current perch reminded Zhair'lo of the times he had run along the river, eager to meet Talla, to mesh with her ...

The two Hunters had found this tree to climb, found it so quickly that Zhair'lo had guessed Kenji had used it before. Bows on their back, they had shimmied up and taken positions several body lengths up, on either side of the wide, brown trunk.

The key, Kenji had told him, was to get comfortable.

And what did Hunters do, while they waited? They talked in whispers, so as not to scare away potential prey.

"You don't have to worry too much about deer," Kenji explained in that quiet voice he used when dispensing indispensable wisdom. "There are beasts which require dead silence. For deer, it's enough to whisper – and wait."

"I can only stay out here until sixth bell," Zhair'lo said.

"Another upgrade?"

"I'm a Seal Breaker."

"One had heard," Kenji's voice floated back, neither derisive nor impressed.

Pause.

"Must be exciting for you," Kenji volunteered.

"More excitement than I need," Zhair'lo answered. "Do you know any others who were Seal Breakers?"

"Master Lyric was," Kenji pointed out. "So was I. A few others."

Zhair'lo leaned around the trunk to try to look at Kenji, but the tree was too large to allow eye contact without him risking the loss of his balance and a long plunge.

"You were?"

Kenji didn't answer. Hunters just tended to ignore questions like this. Kenji hadn't reported this fact to impress Zhair'lo, after all, so he didn't care to bask in the younger man's surprise or admiration.

"How many seals did you break?"

"Dozen or so," Kenji said. "I wasn't the only one around at the time, so it wasn't such a big deal."

"How did they find you?"

"Find me?"

"Find out you could break seals?"

Silence for a moment. Kenji was thinking how to respond. It was quite a while before words started flowing again.

"There was a girl," he began. "Special, in a way. The mesh -"

Kenji stopped speaking and Zhair'lo knew better than to prod him. Sometimes it was best to just wait. That's what adults did – especially Hunters.

"It was very strange," Kenji went on. "She noticed the strangeness and she told her superiors. They tested me against a Sealed Virgin."

"And you succeeded."

It wasn't necessary to answer that, either.

When Kenji didn't continue the conversation, Zhair'lo decided to push on.

"They found me because I quadrupled a girl at an upgrade."

"Quadruple?" Kenji's voice actually lilted with surprise.

"The meshes with her were spectacular, too."

"She the one you got in trouble with?"

"Yeah."

Another long silence as each man considered his own life, his own thoughts and distracted himself by looking down into the forest for some sign of quarry.

"Didn't seem fair, that bit," Zhair'lo spat out suddenly.

"No, it wouldn't," Kenji replied. "Not until you've thought long and hard about it."

"You have?"

"I've had a decade," Kenji pointed out, the first real admission that he had been through the same thing Zhair'lo had.

"The rawness of it wears off. So does the anger. You move on to other girls – other women. You realize there's a whole city out there that needs us, up in this tree, doing our jobs. You realize that a strange feeling you once got about one girl isn't that important. You realize that there are a lot of people in this city and that you have no right to ruin what works for everyone else."

Clearly, Kenji had thought a lot about this.

"We have a choice, Zhai," he said, his voice softening into something almost completely unrecognizably Kenji. "Once we accept that we are part of an entire society where everyone lives a pretty good life, where no one starves, where no one suffers unnecessary pain. We can choose to contribute to that society, build it up and make it better for those who come next. Or we can choose to tear it down and leave a horrible mess for someone else to clean up."

Zhair'lo didn't think too long about his response.

"Couldn't we choose to make it better?" he asked. "For everyone else and for us, too?"

"That's not what you're thinking, Zhai," Kenji said.

"How you do know what I'm thinking," Zhair'lo protested indignantly.

"I told you, Zhai," Kenji said, almost lazy and nearly condescending, "I've been there. It's been a decade, but I know how you're feeling."

"So you just forgot about her, then?" Zhair'lo said, his voice dripping with accusation. "You whipped a girl and just decided to the nine hells with her?"

There was a long pause that Zhair'lo found impossible to read. Was Kenji smarting with the pain of his declaration? Had he won the point? Was he better than Kenji because he was standing by Talla where he had deserted his woman?

No. This silence didn't taste like victory. There must have been some subtle sigh from invisible Kenji, hiding round the other side of this vast tree trunk, some clue that made Zhair'lo realize he hadn't quite put the arrow through the bull's eye. Kenji had had ten years to think his position through. Could Zhair'lo possibly come up with something earth shattering in just the first few weeks?

"You're not thinking about protecting her," Kenji's words came flatly around the trunk of the tree. "You're thinking about tearing everything down."

Zhair'lo froze, unable to breathe as the accusation he had uttered against Kenji became a poison on his tongue.

"You've really been through this?"

He imagined that Kenji would have nodded.

"Yes," the other replied. "The whipping. That potion they give you. The warning to stay away from her. They did give you a warning?"

"Yeah."

"Then, like I said," Kenji admonished. "You care about her. You stay away from her."

Zhair'lo's nostrils flared as he drew in an angry breath.

"And let them think they're right?" he asked in a harsh whisper. "If no one does anything, this will go on forever."

"It's been going on quite well for centuries," Kenji pointed out. "For most people, it's been quite good -"

"So they tell us," Zhair'lo interrupted.

"So they tell us," Kenji conceded the point in a way that dismissed it. "Everything I see around me tells me they're right. It seems there's a part of our nature that makes most of us quite happy with multiple sexual partners."

"So you're okay being unhappy as long as everybody else is happy?" Zhair'lo asked.

"Yes."

Zhair'lo snorted.

"And what if everyone else is just pretending to be happy, too?"

Kenji let out a breath of air that might have been a laugh.

"You think that's terribly likely, Zhai?"

-----------===================-------------

"What do you think?" Yua asked.

"Gorgeous," Tina said.

They had skipped the baths this afternoon in favour of taking a trip to Tina's room. Talla and Tina were taking it in turns to throw pieces from Tina's copious wardrobe at Yua.

"It must be nice to have real clothes," Yua said, surveying the long rack of clothing at the end of the room.

She frowned and turned her back on the little mirror so she could look over her shoulder to see where the lines of the skimpy top crossed her spine.

"You'll have your own soon," Tina said encouragingly. "We might even be able to trade between each other."

There was no guarantee there. Being of different ranks, there were some things they simply weren't allowed to wear.

"Think how much I'd have already if my first upgrade attempt had worked," Yua said.

It was almost a pout, but she squeezed her lips together and drove the self pity away from her expression. Talla and Tina shared a knowing glance while Yua was looking the other way.

With a resolute twist of her body, Yua turned back to face the mirror.

"Can I borrow this top?" she asked.

"Sure," Tina said. "I lent it to Talla once before."

"With your boobs?" Yua asked. "You must have been falling out of it!"

"Try the skirt, too," Talla said. "That was my favourite."

That bit was true. She liked that skirt more than anything she had ever worn. It was the short one that Tina had kept from when she was still an Initiate. As a Neophyte, Tina was supposed to wear knee length skirts, not crotch-height ones like this.

At one hip, the skirt was nothing but a string of lace to be tied. At the other hip it was knee length. It crossed the crotch, diagonally, at exactly the level it had to in order not to violate the Temple's rules.

Yua stepped out of her work skirt and tossed it on the bed. There was no underwear to be seen, just a pair of bare, lightly tanned cheeks. Yua had a thing against underwear, based on the extremely long period of time she'd spent trapped in the confines of an ankle length skirt.

She slid into the fancy skirt and tied it at her right hip.

"Wow," Yua commented, cupping her bare right cheek in her hand. "Leaves a lot hanging out, doesn't it?"

"Looks nice," Tina said.

She twirled to check her back out in the mirror and flexed her legs.

"Makes me wish I had a Tight upgrade," she said.

"You wouldn't go for Within?" Talla asked.

Yua raised her eyebrows and looked at Talla.

"Hello? Sealed Virgin?" Yua pointed out.

She turned her eyes back to the mirror and turned her body to see how visible her genitals were.

"There's this belief," Tina explained, layering her words with dubiousness, "that the Temple holds it against women that they were once Sealed Virgins. So Yua thinks she doesn't have much of a chance at the best upgrades."

Talla nodded.

"Within's all hype anyway," Yua said, still admiring herself in the mirror. "I don't want to administrate. I wanna be able to run."

Talla and Tina shared another look.

"I'm going to get a pitcher of water," Tina said. "I'll be back in a bit."

She slipped out the door very quietly and closed it behind her.

"Any particular place you're looking to run?" Talla asked.

"Anywhere," Yua said, her voice going wistful. "Away."

Yua bowed her head and turned away from Talla, holding back a sob.

There weren't going to be a lot of chances like this, were there? Talla approached her and put a hand on her shoulder.

"It's all right," she said.

"No, it isn't," Yua protested squeakily. She turned to face Talla, her eyes brimming with tears, and added, "What they did to us wasn't all right."

She collapsed against Talla's chest and gratefully let herself be enfolded in an embrace. Talla was acutely aware of the way Yua's skirt had been brushed aside; how Talla's thigh was pressed into the very soft flesh between Yua's legs.

"No," Talla said. "It wasn't right. But we can make it better."

"How?" Yua asked, pleading to Talla with her wide, wet eyes.

"Things can change, even Temples," Talla said. "We can make the rules more fair next time."

"That won't help me."

"It will help the next Sealed Virgin to come along," Talla said. "And who knows what we can make better with the rest of our lives."

Yua was panting now, and pressing herself against Talla's thigh.

"You mean it?" she asked. "You think we can change -" she jerked her head at the walls around them "- all of this?"

"If we have enough people we can trust," Talla said.

Yua's eyes narrowed before she spoke.

"You can trust me."

Talla looked carefully into the others' eyes.

"I have to be sure," she told Yua.

There was a damp feeling against the bare flesh of her leg where Yua's crotch was rubbing against her. Talla slid her hand down between their bodies. Yua inhaled, pulling her stomach out of the way; tacit permission to proceed. Talla's hand moved farther down and she pushed a finger between Yua's lips, eliciting a gentle sigh.

"I haven't been with a woman since ..."

Yua trailed off as Talla's finger began making circles around her clitoris.

"Let's lie down," Talla said softly.

They picked Tina's bed, as it was closest. Talla kept her finger in light contact with Yua's genitals as she backed the smaller girl up on to the bed. It left her other hand free to untie her top. Seeing Talla's breasts set free, Yua couldn't resist: she quickly unlaced the top Tina had lent her and bared her chest as well.

"Abundance," Talla said admiringly of her sister's breasts.

"Double to your quadruple," Yua said, nodding at Talla's much larger pair.

Talla starting rubbing gently between Yua's lips again, feeling her clitoris engorge with blood. She leaned over, face to face with Yua, until their nipples were just touching.

Yua shivered and started giggling. It seemed the sensation was too much for her, for she wrapped her arms around Talla and pulled her down, compressing their breasts together. Yua's sigh told Talla that this took the edge off.

"I want you by my side," Talla said.

"Always," Yua breathed. "Whatever I can do."

"There's something you must see," Talla told her.

She slid her finger down past Yua's lips and started running rings around her vagina. In her ears, there was music playing, a gentle melody with great, powerful drums in the background.

"Beautiful," Yua said, perhaps hearing what Talla heard.

Talla slid a finger past Yua's entrance, drawing a moan from her sister's lips.

"Oh ... yes," Yua murmured.

"Now you," Talla said, hoping to all nine hells that this was going to work.

"Me?"

"Your finger," Talla explained patiently. "Inside me."

Her wet and desperate eyes showing comprehension, Yua reached down between their bodies. If she was surprised that Talla had no underwear in evidence, she didn't show it. She found, however, that Talla's lips were dry. This was a minor inconvenience. Yua put her fingers in her mouth, coating them liberally with saliva.

"Ready?" she asked Talla, showing concern that Talla wasn't showing the usual sign of arousal.

"Go ahead."

She set her wet middle finger against Talla's lips and pushed, sliding inwards with lubricated ease -

...

Anger.

Sadness.

Bitterness.

Arousal.

All of the emotions flooded over the mesh from Yua. Talla, who was expecting it, had better control of herself.

Now Yua's surprise came through.

"Mesh? With a woman?" the voice in Talla's head asked.

"Yes."

"Not like this with men."

Where their breasts met, crushed between their bodies, there was a powerful – almost burning – feeling. It was stronger even than the feeling of being penetrated.

Yua, unbidden, began pushing deeper inside Talla. Talla felt her juices beginning to flow, the inevitable side effect of absorbing Yua's sexual arousal. It was easy and painless now for Yua to plunge in and out of her.

"Would you bring down the Temple?" Talla asked her.

"Bring it down?"

"So we could be free of it, for all time?"

There was no hesitation in the mesh, only honesty.

"Yes," the seething reply came back, laced with all of the power her misery could afford it.

Talla could trust this, above anything else. No one could lie to her in here.

Suddenly ferocious, Yua tilted her body to put Talla on her side. Twisting herself, she brought her mouth to Talla's breasts, nibbling and biting all over the soft flesh, even as she worked her finger into Talla's wet tunnel.

Yua was in a hurry. There was an aura of tenseness and anxiety about her. It was, after all, the middle of the afternoon. Sunlight, filtered by light curtains, shone over their mostly naked bodies. They could be discovered at any moment. A certain amount of hustle seemed appropriate.

But Talla calmed her down, letting her own relaxation wash over the mesh. Talla knew that Tina had not gone for a pitcher of water, but rather was standing guard outside; far enough not to hear them but close enough that the planned signal – an exaggerated coughing fit – would be heard from inside.

Once that patient assurance saturated Yua's mind, she ceased her determined penetration of Talla and became gentle once more, teasing shyly where her panic had elicited a more ferocious and urgent passion.