TRC - Lord of the Glass Desert Ch. 23

Perra frowned. "I'm not sure if that's wise with Gerda and Bas there."

"Naidah doesn't have any hatred toward monster girls."

"Gerda and Bas are special. Their kind are hunted by humans, especially magic users, thieves, and assassins. If word of their presence got out, it could bring even more unwanted attention to the area. The dwarves consider their kind sacred, to a degree, and don't speak of them when humans are around. Naidah and the other girl need to know and understand they absolutely cannot repeat any mention of Gerda, Bas, or the word 'nurlaf.'"

"Ye already told us that when ye first brought up the idea," said Kahrin, looking unimpressed. "I was goin' to tell Naidah the same when I spoke to her. And if I dinna feel I could trust her, it'd just be Bren and me."

Bren chuckled. "I must say I'm curious how the dwarf women will react once I take my pants off."

A wave of laughter ran through the room, skipping over Dax, who stayed silent as her face turned bright red. Tain and Thom thanked Perra for the ale then excused themselves as there was still work to be done. Likewise, Dax said they would need to extend the pack's patrols further up the road to watch for any more visitors from the capital before leaving through the back door. Alina shot a look at Bren, then gave Perra a knowing grin while waving her hand under her nose before following her alpha.

Bea stepped up to Perra and grasped the human's hands. "This will be my last visit for a long time unless Kuto or one of the other harpies bring Adalena for me. We butterflies don't have the same ability to make what they touch light, and Adalena is getting too heavy for me to carry through the mountains."

"Then how did you trap men in your nest?" Elta asked.

"I can lift a man up to my cocoon's entrance, but that's about all I can manage. We aren't made for carrying heavy things over long distances. Also, a butterfly girl's home isn't nearly as escape-proof as a harpy's nest.

"Before Kal, I would let the men chase and have their way with me in the ground beneath my home. I often needed the extra boost from their seed to lift them into my cocoon. The same was true for my mother and her mother as well."

Elta looked at Perra, "Monster girl's inherited memories still creep me out. I can't imagine growing up with my mother's memory of conceiving me stuck in my head."

Bea laughed. "We don't grow up with those memories. Those pop into our heads when we reach mating age. In my case, I'd seen my mother with enough men growing up that there weren't many surprises when those memories finally came to me." Seeing the scandalized look on Elta's face, the butterfly continued, "There isn't much room for privacy in our cocoons, and men in a lust craze don't care who might see. My mother did tell me to hide when she brought a man home, but I'll admit I peeked a few times."

"At least you didn't get thrown out of the nest by a man your mother brought home," said Kuto. "Mother came and got me once he passed out from exhaustion."

"She waited until they were done to come get you?" Deena asked, stunned. "What if you were hurt in the fall?"

"Harpy chicks are very bouncy," Kuto explained. "Unless they land on something sharp, it's almost impossible for them to get hurt from a fall. That night I found a hiding place at the bottom of a tree and didn't come out until she called for me. It sounds cruel, but if she had stopped to get me, the man would have jumped out of the nest after her. With most harpy's nests, that's fatal."

"Rone and Marda never gave the impression Felli's mating scent was that strong," said the cleric.

"Felli holds back a lot with Rone. She prefers to be wanted without magical help. I think most monster girls feel the same, and it's one of the reasons we love Kal, Thom, and Tain so much," said Kuto as Ghoss and Bea nodded in agreement.

"If I have a mating scent, I have no idea how to use it," said Sera. "Between Kal and Senshu, I'm not looking for another mate anyway."

"Are you sure you don't want to add Graff and Velt?" Veir asked.

The gorgon blushed, "I do enjoy when they invite me into their bed, but I think if they add another to their house, it will be someone who can live there with them. Until the town at the top of the mountain is finished, the tower will be my home. Even then, I'm not sure I could leave Senshu behind. I love Kal, but he has all of you."

"Not to make you feel bad, but Senshu did just fine the centuries before you and Kal arrived," said the raven.

Sera gave the harpy a questioning look, "Not to make me feel bad? Anyway, Senshu and I will make that decision when the time comes. By then, maybe she will want to move here too."

"Maybe for a few decades, but I doubt she would make a permanent move."

Perra glanced over at Bren, Kahrin, and Deena. "The curious things you hear keeping company with immortals. 'A few decades' seems fairly permanent to me."

After Bea left, the rest of the conversation settled into idle chatter and updates about the happenings around Telsin. After a while, Sera slipped out the door to the front porch claiming she needed some fresh air. Perra frowned as Elta followed her out a moment later.

---

"I feel like I should be more upset with you than I am," said the cleric as the door closed behind her. "But I'm sure Perra has told you about the split happening in the church. It seems clear that this priest was not aligning himself with the Goddess's new vision."

"I still wish I hadn't needed to kill him," Sera said. "I feel a lot worse about killing the knight with him. He seemed like a decent man and deserved a better death than paying for another man's hatred." Sera closed her eyes, "Why couldn't he have just gone on his way and left us alone? I am so tired of being hated because of what I am. I miss the tower already."

"Perra told me a little about your life before Kal. Your situation was unique but similar to the experiences of most monster girls. As near as I can tell, they all feel the same way. My Goddess is hoping to capitalize on that and add to her ranks of followers by making you feel welcome and accepted."

"Why not just take away the power of people like that cleric?"

"That will happen eventually, I'm sure. But many clerics have been the Goddess's followers and upheld the church's doctrines for their entire lives. She won't throw away their devotion and service lightly. It's unfortunate now, but her first monster girl followers will look back and appreciate her commitment."

"Her commitment to the old ways, not to them. I wouldn't expect much appreciation."

Elta stared. "I suppose you are right," she finally conceded. "But remember, she is still trying to make a better future for monster girls. Don't fault her for not destroying what she has built over thousands of years for something that may not yield the effort she puts in."

"What do you mean?" Sera asked, confused.

"As far as I know, any monster girl who isn't immortal goes through a mating cycle or heat. They are guaranteed to have a child from any union with a human male during that time. Now I know that you can get pregnant outside of that cycle and that many of you know how to find or even grow gondas weed, so you don't have children with men you find unworthy. Bea is a perfect example, she waited many years and had many mates before she met Kal, but Adalena is her first child. With that kind of control over when you have children and your heats to offer a guaranteed child, what can the Goddess offer you?"

"I hadn't thought of that," said the golem. "Then why would a monster girl follow your goddess?"

"Because the Goddess smiles upon new life and all the activities that lead up to it."

"That doesn't quite fit with what Kal and the girls at the tower told me. Although, he did say that the acolytes he met in Lantaris seemed quite... lusty."

Elta chuckled. "We are, which is why so many Lantaran soldiers take us as wives or partners. But when you strip away all the 'righteous fury' of the Goddess's more fanatical believers, the celebration of love and new life is what's left. I'm sure you can see how that aligns with the feelings of many monster girls. Adding to that is the Goddess's spells that make a woman fertile, help in childbirth, and in some cases, cure infertility."

The cleric sighed, "Sadly, I believe it's that 'righteous fury' faction that militarized and made the church so powerful, and neither humans nor gods let go of power easily. In Telsin, the hardest part of getting the townswomen to accept monster girls has been convincing them they are just as necessary and important as the men. But we are fighting the church's message of monster girls making human women obsolete. A message the church has used to fill its ranks for centuries."

"Then how do you plan on winning?" asked Sera

"Patience and understanding," Elta replied. "It's working so far, and nobody has run to the capital screaming about Daxas's pack or Silma. I wonder how much of that might be due to Perra's pendant. Their acceptance seems unusually consistent."

"Kal said her necklace can't force people to do things they don't want to."

"Not unless she is extremely upset, and Perra is cautious with her anger for that reason. But its effects are very subtle otherwise, and this is something she has been passionate about since she and Kuto got together. I wonder if her feelings primed the town to accept monster girls long before the meeting when we introduced Silma."

"What does Perra think?" the gorgon asked.

"That I might be right, but she hopes I'm not since that means that getting other villages and communities to accept monster girls will be a harder fight."

The farmhouse door opened as Deena, Kahrin, and Bren left, saying their goodbyes before circling around to the barn where they tied their horses. Perra followed them out, carrying a neatly folded robe similar to Elta's but with the Mevaria's colors. On top sat a short rod like the one hanging from the cleric's belt.

"I thought you might want to send these back to the church in the capital in case he had a family. I have the knight's belongings as well."

Elta's face hardened. "What am I supposed to tell them, Perra? Should I lie and tell them these men fell to a group of bandits or some wild beast?"

"Tell them that these were found on the road west of here and delivered to you. The person who delivered them to you believes that their owner has passed away."

"Your ability to lie without actually lying pisses me off sometimes," said the cleric, snatching the robe out of Perra's hands. "Bring me the knight's too--" the sound of metal sliding across fabric followed by something falling onto the porch interrupted her. Looking down, Elta's eyes widened before she shifted the robe to one hand and used the other to cast a spell at the necklace next to her foot. She groaned as a faint blue outline appeared around the onyx gem in the necklace's pendant.

"Oh, no."

------

"Tayla!" a red-haired woman called out as she rapped her knuckles on her friend's door. She wore Lantaran robes with the Mevaria's colors, and the seal on the robe's breast informed others she was an acolyte and not a full-fledged cleric. Her friend lived just a few houses down from her in the district behind the cathedral reserved for clergy members.

"Tayla! Are you alright? You missed this morning's sermon!" she yelled, then more quietly grumbled, "Usually, you're the one dragging me to the cathedral."

The redhead heard a slow shuffling across the house before the lock clicked. The door opened slightly, and Tayla peered out through the crack. The woman's normally tidy hair looked as though she had just crawled out of bed. Her friend was wrapped in a blanket and appeared to still be in a housecoat beneath, despite it being late afternoon. But what caught the redhead's attention was the woman's eyes. She looked like she had been crying all day. As the acolyte stared, the woman sank to her knees and began sobbing.

The redhead pushed the door open and dropped to her knees in front of her friend. "Tayla, what's wrong? What happened?" she asked, wrapping her arms around the crying woman.

"He's gone, Maeli. He's dead," Tayla choked out before wailing into her friend's shoulder.

"Who? Braedun?" asked Maeli. Her friend's husband had barely been home a week before being sent east with one of the king's knights.

Tayla managed a nod before starting to cry harder.

"How do you know he's dead?"

Composing herself slightly, Tayla leaned back and opened a hand to reveal a necklace. She and Braedun put matching necklaces on each other during their wedding ceremony, the only difference being the color of the stones on the pendant. The woman had worn it ever since.

Maeli's blood ran cold when she saw the onyx gem on Tayla's pendant where a vibrant peridot once sat. During her pilgrimage to Lantaris, the acolyte had seen many of this same kind of necklace. They were sold by the church in pairs, and the gems could be changed with a little bit of magic to whatever color you wanted. They intended to let your lover back home know you were alive and well if you were out adventuring or doing missionary work. The jewelry was quite popular for that purpose.

When one of the people wearing the paired necklaces passed away, the gems on both turned black.

Tears welling up in her eyes, Maeli gathered her friend in her arms and began rocking her as the grieving woman started sobbing again.

Behind them on the street, someone who heard Tayla's wailing sought out a Mevarian city guard and brought them to the kneeling and crying women.

"Ladies, can I help you?" the man asked

Wiping away her tears, Maeli said, "Yes, Her husband was traveling in the company of one of our knights and is now dead. The High Priest and Knight-Captain need to be informed."