The Red-Haired Knight Ch. 13

Red-Haired Knight 13

What Ecna Learned in the Mountains

Ecna awakened naked in the bed of acorns. Her boar was sleeping nearby. She thought about what she had learned as they slept and as a result of their union.

Ecna and the Boar communicated at a deep, and yet simple, level. For one thing, the Boar had no personal name, the concept was foreign to him. His essence was maleness, his secondary nature was a hybrid of beast and man in unequal measures. He did not speak; he did not learn-- he KNEW.

He knew of the Mountains and of ancestors. He knew of Valley people; some came and stayed, though their nature changed. The rest left; their minds altered. Those would be all right, eventually, but would remember nothing of a land they could not comprehend.

The Others also came to the Mountains, but their bodies did not follow. They came as seekers, so they said. The Boar did not trust them. They were chaste beings. They were not life creating; they eschewed Life Creation. In his maleness, his need to create and enjoy life was one of the essences of the Boar's being.

This Boar could not trust these Others, who would not enjoy their own bodies or risk the processes of begetting others.

The Boar knew Ecna enjoyed her body, enjoyed the pleasure it gave to herself and others. She had begotten life and all that was good. A boar, this Boar could trust that.

Ecna dressed. It was cool in the winter oak forest, being that her passion was spent. Her night with the Boar was exhilarating, orgasmic and terrifying.

The relentlessness of the Boar's breeding her was exhilarating and multi-orgasmic. The terrifying part was the feeling that crept into her...not wanting to leave. To be this Boar's sow and breed with him through eternity.

Intriguing was their silent communication, between the grunts and moans of animal satisfaction. The Others, the Boar spoke of, were clearly the Mages of the Eastern Uplands. The Chaste Beings. Ecna knew of few of those, and the Mages and the Wizard Poets were notorious for their shocking life of chastity.

Their price for forbidden knowledge was too high.

And yet, Ecna's union with the Boar was a kind of madness. She needed Jeremy. Only being with Jeremi could save her. She had been away...she did not know! Time meant nothing here. She needed to be with Jeremi at least once every moon cycle, although that was extremely dangerous. Both to her and Jeremi. Several times a moon cycle was healthiest.

Without Jeremi she would never return from the Otherworld, the world of spirits and demons. Incorporeal and extra corporeal.

Jeremi without her energy...would be dust.

Well, she had dressed...that was step one...still, she gazed at the magnificent boar...who then stirred in his sleep. His being even then reached out to her to possess her.

Then she felt the presence of the Other! One of the Mages. At a distance, she could tell. His power was diminished...at a distance. She could deal with one Mage. Where was the other...? They both were abroad. Freed from their bodies...seeking to know. They did not LIVE as men do...they existed to know.

The Boar snarled in disgust. This chaste creature! Male yet willfully impotent. The Boar snorted flame to cleanse his nostril.

The spirit of the Mage (Ecna could not tell which one) recoiled...not in fear, but, as always, in caution. This Mage sensed the presence of two special beings strong of Otherworld Powers.

Ecna and the Boar. The spirit power faded...this reconnaissance over. Not failed, for knowledge was gained, but no power asserted. The Mage would try other avenues but had written off the Mountains of the West; of this, Ecna was sure.

The lure of this Land, the bare earth binding her bare feet to it. The pull of the Boar, the temptation to power, to the ultimate lust. Ecna despaired leaving, she could not leave...but staying meant madness.

Jeremi, Jeremi...that mantra...that prayer that pleaded to the gods for sanity.

She crawled. Her knees wrapped in her long skirts; her hands wrapped in wool cut from her cloak...her weapons lashed to her back. The journey back was slow, the earth fought to keep her. The Boar, well at heart a Boar, was busy elsewhere.

Ecna found she could rest on rock, the rock had not the holding power on her as the earth.

She rests on a rock with a view to the Valley, still a good day's walk, if it were possible for her to walk.

Her far-seeing eye, saw, HOPE. Beyond her eyes' sight, a figure stumbled as one not used to adventures. A man, aging rapidly. A man not often out of his library. Jeremi had come!

Once again, many thanks to my editor kenjisato. The Beast, the Boar of this story, is a fantastical beast of my imagination. Any sex or implied sex with this Boar is with a magical Beast of imagination and not a real animal.

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