The Druid and the Igniad Ch. 04

Chapter 4

Many moons had passed since that night beneath the standing stones, when Lu cast a spell of binding upon Chief Gartham. Ever since, he had been nothing but helpful to Lu, though his sudden unshakeable loyalty disturbed her, and she harbored guilt that her magic compelled him. What she found most unsettling about it was the fact that Chief Gartham fully understood that he was under a spell, but he didn't care. He thanked her for the magic that moved his heart to be in the service of such beauty.

"I guard our secret well, my queen," Chief Gartham said yet again during one of their weekly secret meetings.

"Please," Lu said with a tilt of annoyance, "do not call me your queen, Garth."

Lu's long legs of ebony skin were covered from her flared hips to her knees by a skirt of crimson cloth. She had become so good at controlling her elemental power that she could wear flammable materials. It helped to conserve her power, which did not come steadily and naturally as it used to. She felt her connection to her volcano waning, and she feared it was because Evalyn was corrupting the magic of her crystal grove.

"Forgive me," Garth said deeply, "I speak only what is in my heart. I only wish it to become true. A false queen has taken your home from you, and I will fulfill my oath to return it! And, perhaps after..."

"No, I told you. You cannot take me as your wife, Garth. I do not want to be a queen, I just want to save my crystal forest."

"Can we...never be together again? Like that first night here?"

"You mean when you tried to have your way with me?" She gave him an accosted look.

"I did not mean exactly as that night, mistress," he said with a blushing of his freckled cheeks.

Had the circumstances not been so serious, Lu might have laughed to see such a beefy, accomplished warrior look so embarrassed. But she was embarrassed, too. Things had happened so fast, and there had been so much at stake. She resented the demon Labolas, as well, for his part in it, for he had given her spell power from an aspect of destruction. She felt violated. Labolas did not come as often as before, and he seemed to be holding back in her lessons. He would not tell her why. She spent more of her time with Gern, and helped him prepare for war. Chief Gartham, by her instruction, was influential in rallying other clans to their cause. In front of others, she had to pretend that everything was alright, or else someone might discover her secrets.

She had never had secrets, before. Secrets that she couldn't even share with Gern, even though she thought about it every day. The burden of her guilt came with fear that Gern would be angry with her, but that made her choice easier. He did not need to know. Knowing would only hurt him.

"We cannot be again as man and woman in that way, Garth. All I can offer you for your help is my love and thanks. I am your friend."

"You are...my friend," Gartham affirmed with sadness and longing in his eyes.

"Thank you for understanding, Garth." She approached him and hugged him. The swell of her belly poked at his hip. Her brass bra was warm from her touch. To have any part of her hot skin pressed against his was sweet torture to him. His phallus began to swell under his kilt, and he was haunted by the memory of falling under her spell. His heart ached with yearning, and he feared that he would never feel anything as good as what he had almost felt that night.

"Is there any news from your kinsmen?" Lu asked as she stepped back from the embrace.

Gartham cleared his throat, and took a moment to find his voice.

"Every warrior from the Mountainlands is making the journey here," he answered, "now that the passes are clear."

"And what of your sister's mate?"

"My sister's husband has pledged fifty ships of warriors from the tall islands. They should have set sail soon after my messenger did with their answer. Soon, we will have the strength we need to take back your mountain from the witch!"

"I pray to my mother that you are right. Go now, before someone sees you up here."

Chief Gartham dipped a bow with a hand over his chest, and departed down the little-used goat path on the side of the mountain.

Lu hurried down the other way, on the well-kept path the druids used to ascend the cliffs to the standing stones. Stretched out below were the buildings of stone and oaken beam that she still found bizarre, and the teeming people whose lives were now entwined with her's. A few moons ago, she considered their lives too short to matter to her and her mountain, but then she fell in love with Gern, and then Evalyn....

So much had happened, it felt like ages ago. She had learned so much, but though the knowledge empowered her, it did not make her happier. She felt separated from who she used to be and where she came from. She forged tools of war with humans, dressed like them, took arcane lessons from a demon, and even had a loyal thrall to serve her.

She ran her hand over her swollen belly. She tried to focus on her child, the synthesis of her love with Gern. She felt her daughter's receiving, feminine energy, and she sang a song she used to sing with her trees. She imagined a warmth of love nurturing her child, and in return she felt the peace of pure innocence still her churning mind.

She came to the sacred hot springs halfway down the path, where the time-worn pools of hot mineral water cascaded one into another from the top-most pool, where scalding steam wafted from the bubbling vent that reached into the hot depths of Gaia. She felt replenished and rejuvenated when she bathed there, and even though it was very different from bathing in lava, she had dreamt that the fire in the water was connected to the fire beneath her mountain in the deep below.

Before she could remove her skirt, she heard a sound in the water. It must be Gern, she thought, as he was the only one who came to the pools without her invitation. She turned her head to the source of the splash, and was startled to see the shape of a woman languidly swimming just under the water's surface.

Lu felt a ripple of goosebumps spread across her body as she watched a head of luscious, dark green hair rise from the clear water. Golden-irised eyes opened and looked at her.

"You're here!" The strange woman exclaimed jubilantly, and her apple-sized breasts bounced as she rose up swiftly. Her wet hair hung down to the small of her back and clung to her skin.

"Who are you?" Lu asked. She thought about taking a defensive guard, but she felt no ill-intent from the woman. There was a naturalness to her that was soothing and inviting.

"I'm Opal," the woman replied in a voice as clear and sweet as a babbling brook, "and you're Lu! I am so happy to finally meet you."

Lu took in the sight of Opal, who stood waist-deep in the natural pool. Her madrone skin did have an opalescent quality to it, flecked with pink, blue, green, and gold, and shining like wet gemstone in the sun. Her cheeks were speckled with duckweed-green freckles. Her lithe body was decorated with pyrite swirls, and her eyes were a deep ochre yellow. She was sky-clad except for an actual opal at her bellybutton, and a waterlily leaf that shielded her sex and covered her pubic mound.

"You're like me..." Lu breathed in wonder.

"Yes. The humans call me a naiad, and they call you an igniad, but they call us both nymphs. We are like cousins!"

"Why are you here? Did Gern send you?"

"You know Fern, too?"

"Not Fern, *Gern*."

"Who's that?"

"He's the Archdruid of this place. My mate."

"His name is 'germ'?"

"Gern."

"Well, I'm not here for germs or Gerns. I'm here for you!"

"What do you mean?"

"Well, I guess I'm also here for your baby."

Lu put a protective hand over her belly, said: "You want to take her?"

Opal gave Lu a confused look, then put her fingers to her lower lip in understanding.

"Oh, sweetie, you must have had it so terribly difficult to think I might do such a thing. No, I am here to help you give birth."

"Help me give birth? Why?"

"Because I want to! How can I not? No igniad has ever given birth by a human before. Fern told me that the only igniads who ever gave birth were by mating with dragons."

Lu blinked a few times as her imagination wrangled with the resulting images in her mind, then focused on Opal again.

"Where did you come from?"

"From a long way that way." She pointed to the south. "It took me so long to get here! I have a spring in my stilt-grove where I live. It's not warm like this one. Do you make it like this? Can you teach me how?"

"No," Lu shook her head. "It has always been this way, since Gaia made it. Did you say 'stilt-grove'?"

"My trees grow on spidery legs," Opal explained, and she gestured with her fingers. "where the land and its waters meet the sea. The trees grow in the salty shallows, and my spring flows into it from a special place."

"That sounds lovely, Opal. You left your home unprotected to come help me?"

"Not unprotected. I live there with others like me, but I am the best at helping in the birthing ways."

Opal walked out of the pool and came close to Lu, eyeing her swollen belly vivaciously. Trailing rivulets of pure water trickled from Opal's green hair, which was fine as strands of pond algae.

"Oh, you're sooo beautiful!" Opal marveled. "I thought you might be all crusty with rocks and stuff." As she spoke, she rubbed her arms and her skin seemed to change before Lu's eyes, cracking and bulging with rock salt crystals.

"Magic..." Lu breathed.

"It's just salt," Opal giggled, and shook her arms out, shedding the crust of salt.

"How can you do that?" Lu asked.

"I'm special. I can change myself." Opal planted one hand on her tilted hip proudly. "It's how I traveled all this way! I can change you, too, a little bit, if you let me."

"I don't want you to change me," Lu said and took a step back.

"But...that's how I can help. I can't sense any water in you...so I can't ease your birthing in my normal way, but I can help you change yourself to make the birthing easy. But only if you open yourself to me." Her cheeks blushed deeper hues of iridescent pink. "Please? Can't you feel me? Or...have you never met another of our kind?"

"I haven't," Lu said after a pause, and she relaxed some after allowing herself to feel Opal's good intent with her empathic power.

"Please." Opal pleaded, and she offered her hand.

Lu stepped closer and took Opal's hand. They looked into one another's eyes, and Lu felt their link form gently. Beads of sweat formed on both of them, water from Opal and oil from Lu, and it was a strange feeling, like no other link Lu had felt before, and she realized she was holding her breath.

"Breathe," Opal said softly.

Lu stopped holding her breath, and suddenly a feeling washed over her like she was submerged in the purest water. She felt her form become more fluid in essence, the taut muscles of her sculpted form relaxing and stretching. Her belly grew in size slightly, expanding around her unborn child inside, easing the pressure on her skin. Lu breathed a sigh of relief.

Lu looked up from her belly at Opal, and her eyes widened as she saw Opal's breasts bulge, growing to almost match the size of Lu's oil-beaded orbs. Opal felt herself conforming to Lu's shape as their empathic link grew stronger, and the water on her shining skin began to steam. Opal felt herself warming, without and within. Her sweet core grew hot and instantly wet as the power of creation within Lu electrified her. The fact that Lu was pregnant made Opal's body ache to be similar, to be fertilized as the natural magic churned between and throughout them both.

Without warning, Opal pressed her lips to Lu's, and her tongue plunged inside. She tasted to Lu like warm lotus flower extract, a medicinal oil that she drank like a tea, but with notes of salt. Lu's head was swimming in euphoria and arousal, and without thinking, her hands stroked Opal's smooth skin. Opal did the same in return, and Lu's skirt suddenly felt foreign to her. Lu broke the kiss and held Opal at arm's length.

"Oh my...." Opal stated deliriously. "That was stronger than I expected. You are...stronger than I expected."

They gazed into one another's eyes again, and they did not need clumsy words. Feelings raced between the two in their link, and they felt one another's desire and trepidation. The desire was stronger. Lu had never felt anything like it, an attraction that was akin to what she felt for Gern, yet in a different way. An attraction of similarities, rather than opposites. Would Gern not want her to explore this attraction, she wondered?

Lu felt Opal's feelings reverberating off her own, and they told her that she didn't need to define herself based on who she mated with, nor sacrifice her own physical and emotional independence. She did not belong to anyone. She was free.

With that, a great weight of guilt was lifted from Lu's heart, and her connection with Opal strengthened. She felt validated, more like one of her own kind than ever before.

Lu felt Opal's urge to embrace her, to explore her and meld together more. She knew in her heart there was no danger in it, and she wanted to learn more from the only other nymph she had ever met. With a thought, Lu summoned some of her elemental power, letting it manifest at her thighs. Her red skirt came apart in flames and fell around her bare feet. She stood before the naiad as a true nymph, skyclad except for her bonded crystal.

They embraced one another and kissed. Opal's body stretched as she became taller, matching Lu's height. Their breasts pressed against one another as their bodies rubbed together, both their nipples poking the soft flesh of the other. Their hips could not touch, as Lu's pregnant belly kept them apart below, but Opal's hands caressed Lu's thighs and rear, and the two nymphs glowed with sexual energy amidst the steam of the hot spring.

Opal withdrew her lips from Lu's mouth, eliciting a soft moan of loss and want from the igniad. Opal skipped away, then stretched out on a mossy bank kept green and vibrant all year by the warm steam of the site. The moss reacted to Opal's presence, growing luscious around her, the tiny feathery fronds brushing her silhouette.

Lu followed her, and slid up alongside. Their lips met again, then Lu straddled Opal's waist. She slid her rear over Opal's iridescent skin, and her crystal protecter touched Opal's waterlily.

The waterlily clung to the crystal, just as the crystal protector fell away from Lu, peeling the lily pad from Opal. The two objects dropped onto the moss between their legs, the lily pad hugging the crystal shape, locked in embrace like their counterparts.

Lu marveled at Opal's graceful beauty, and saw the naiad's body imitating aspects of Lu's own form, which Lu found very becoming. She did things to Opal that she liked Gern to do when she joined with him. She rubbed Opal's wide, ruddy areola with the tip of her tongue, and slowly, rhythmically rubbed up and down the flowering petals of Opal's slit with her fingers.

Opal squirmed under Lu's weight, and gave great sighs of stimulation, transferring the feeling to Lu each time with their empathic link. Lu had always felt the pleasures of a male body and mind through her link, never a woman's. And yet, Opal's feelings and sensations were more familiar to her, and waves of succulent sharing poured forth into her loins, magically charging her sacral chakra.

Opal purred and rustled under Lu's ministrations, pleasure rippling through her. She scraped her polished, oyster-shell fingernails down Lu's back, and felt a tide rising within her as everything was reverberated back to her through their link.

Suddenly, Lu stopped. She felt someone watching. She sat upright on top of Opal and turned her head. Gern was standing at the edge of the hot springs, his mouth agape.

"Gern!" Lu exclaimed in surprise, and she removed herself from on top of Opal.

"Lu?" Gern asked in bewilderment.

"Oh, this is the Gern!" Opal said as she sat up with a smile. "He is handsome."

"What is this?" Gern asked. "Who is this?"

"Gern..." Lu began, her face flush with embarrassment, "this is Opal. She is here to help with our child."

"And helping herself to you as well, it seems." Gern said. He did not seem angry, though Lu feared he might become so after the shock wore off.

"Since when does a nymph need a druid's permission to do what nymphs do?" Opal quipped.

"I...I just thought that...." Gern trailed off, and Lu saw hurt in his eyes.

"Gern," Lu said, holding her belly and walking to him, "this is how Opal can help us and our child."

"Yes!" Opal chimed. She got to her feet and slinked up beside Lu. "The joining is very good for an expectant mother."

"It is?" Gern asked, eyeing them both. The sight of Lu was always striking, but her together with another naked nymph teased him into hardening beneath his leather kilt.

"A child of human and igniad has never happened before," Opal explained, "so we must do everything to help the birthing. If a woman is disconnected from her body, then she will have a more difficult birth. If Lu is connected to the power of creation that made the child, if she is in tune with her body and feeling good in herself, then the birth will flow with relaxation and grace. Being energetically open prepares her to ride the intensity of the birth and for the baby to more easily come from her body. Understand?"

"I...think so," Gern said to Opal. Then he looked to Lu, said: "I just wish you had told me about it, first."

"I'm sorry, Gern," Lu gushed, tears welling in her eyes as the guilt of keeping secrets from him returned to her heart. "It just...it just happened so suddenly...." She hid her face in her hands and began sobbing, thinking of the night she cast a geas upon Chief Gartham.

"Lu, all is well, now," Gern said, taking her into his arms. "If Opal is here to help you, she has my support. You have my support."

Lu wrapped her arms around Gern and trembled with an eddy of emotions.

"You two are precious!" Opal gushed. "He is so thoughtful and caring. I haven't felt this aroused in ages!"

In their embrace, Lu extended her empathic link to Gern while still maintaining her link with Opal. Their natural sexual excitement became mutual and open. Opal's shameless temperament translated to Gern through Lu, and he relaxed into his body.

"I will help you both..." Opal said, sauntering behind the druid. "In every way I know how." She felt Gern's unconscious desires, desires that he kept locked away within, and she submerged his engrained feelings of possessiveness. She reached around his waist to unbuckle his kilt.

Gern reacted to the second pair of hands on his body with a stirring from his embrace with Lu, and looked down just in time to watch his kilt drop to the ground. The stem of his loins sprang up, and he looked into Lu's purple eyes as she reached down to pet his length lovingly with her fingertips. At the same time, Opal stroked his back, her link growing into his subconscious like the tangled underwater roots of the stilt-trees of her home.

Before Gern could think about what was happening, he found himself being led to the mossy patch and gently pushed down onto his back. He felt the steam of the hot springs kissing his skin and drank in the sight of a nymph of fire and a nymph of water stroking his body, their turbulent energies swirling in his spirit. His cock ached with hard want, and Opal used her hand to hold it while Lu gently stroked the hot flesh around the tip. Opal's transformative magic leached into Gern, and his body heat climbed dramatically, drawing from Lu's connection to elemental fire. Lu positioned herself and slowly sank onto him, letting him fill up her tight birth canal. He gazed up at Lu as he felt himself enveloped in her heat, her face framed in the wafting black of her smoky hair.