War of the Races Ch. 26

Chapter 26- The Despoiling, pt 1

"Earth daughter..."

"Come to me..." A faint smoky voice whispered as Hlina woke up groggy from her dream.

The dream.

She had been walking into the cave again. Not the bathing cave in the village, and not the little cave where she grew up. No, this cave was dark and ominous. A fetid stench like a stagnant bog, an open privy, and a mass grave permeated the area surrounding it. It was far to the north and west. That much she always remembered. That and the walking. Passing by the little cave that had once been her home. Visiting her mother's grave. Stopping for the night and making camp at the old sight where she killed her mother's murderers. More walking the next day. Days of walking, and then coming upon her mother's people, the village where she was born. It seemed small and stagnate.

Dokkalfar women folk walked about the village completing daily tasks. Many in varying stages of pregnancy. They looked tired, none of them smiled. The luster for life that had been in her mother's eyes, even after their exile, before her death, was not present in any of these women's eyes. Their long ears drooped to their shoulders depressively.

Half-breed children ran around everywhere laughing, and playing while others argued and fought. A few were dark skinned like their mothers, but most were a lighter brown to almost white. Their eyes glimmered in shades that were of both alfari and human heritage. Ears ranged from long and pointed, drooping over slim shoulders, to short pointed ears that laid back against their heads, to rounded human ears.

The dokkalfar women's hair ranged in colors of pure white to golden-blonde, strawberry-red, and aspen-leaf green that always had a pale platinum sheen to it making it seem too vibrant to be natural. Of their half-breed children though, their hair ranged from their mother's alfari pastels to their father's human shades of blonde, red, brown, and black.

The children also ranged in age from infancy to their early twenties. For the most part the dokkalfar womenfolk ranged in height from four and a half feet tall to five and a half feet. They were slim of frame, slight of breast, wide of hip and thickly muscled from the buttocks down to ankles. The half-Alf girls resembled their mothers a great deal. A couple girls were as short and slim, but for the most part they were taller, standing five feet to six feet high.

Hlina herself was taller still by at least a couple of inches, she thought.

Many of the girls were broader in their shoulders, thicker chested, and most had breasts that would have been on par with Hlina's massive bosom in her previous life. They still had slim swooping waists, and wide hips and thick buttocks and legs.

Of the boys only the ones that looked the most like their mothers were short and slim, standing no taller than five feet tall. They also seemed to be the most angry and vicious. To a boy the lighter their skin the taller and more bulky they were built though they all seemed to retain the alfari athletic frame instead of their father's more square builds.

More than once Hlina saw one of the older boys slap, pummel, or beat what she could only imagine was their mothers or grandmothers. More than once she watched as a dokkalfar woman curled up on herself, laying on the ground, crying and wincing in pain as she tried to protect a gravid belly. As her dream continued it got worse. Of the young half-Alf girls, daughters of these human men and dokkalfar women, she saw more than a few that were already pregnant. They were barely old enough to be considered anything more than girls, and yet, here they were becoming mothers.

The human men she saw were all angry and violent, even more so than their sons who were following in their fathers' footsteps. What she saw, what she witnessed, what they did to the dokkalfar and their own daughters, it sickened her!

It was a nightmare!

Every time the dream came, it was a little different, and every time she reached the village she hurried past. The cave. The voice. That was what she sought. That was what she must find. North and west she ran from the village to a valley strewn with the bones of men. A hundred men or more. Still further north she ran until she found it.

The cave with the large black putrid maw.

——(!)——

Hlina gave a start as the memory of the dream lingered, and then she realized her arms were coiled around Chenoa's waist and her face was buried in soft furry breasts. Espowyes eventually got Chenoa's attention and won her heart and hand as a mate. It took a year after Espowyes came back to the village with Hlina as his mate before Chenoa realized he wasn't going to chase her around anymore. Once that happened she suddenly became interested.

Hlina moved her face back from Chenoa's large soft breasts and took a deep inhalation. Somehow Chenoa always smelled like wild flowers or lavender. It clung to her fur and Hlina enjoyed it immensely. Sliding her upper most hand down, since she was laying on her side between Chenoa and Espowyes, she rubbed the other woman's large round belly.

She remembered the night Espowyes took her back to his den on their marriage night. Of how he had gently taken her as his mate. She felt that she had been too young for children then, though she was a whole year older than when she had started dating Daniel's father. With every breeding she had hoped desperately that she wouldn't get pregnant, but it had been two years now and she was still childless. She was still young. She knew this. She still had plenty of time, but she was ready and now she was worried if she even could.

She was fifteen when she started dating Daniel's father as freshmen in high school. They dated all four years and well into college and were sexually active the whole time. She had been absolutely frantic about birth-control. At first for fear of getting pregnant so early while still in school, and then later because a child would have put a halt to all her dreams. Her goals. Daniel's father never thought about any of the consequences. If she didn't make him wear a condom he wouldn't. She never gave his reluctance much thought, at least not until after she was pregnant. She just thought all guys were like him, always eager to seed their lady. She was successful in rebuffing his eagerness until her twenty-first birthday.

Six years.

Six years!

One party. Too many drinks. Not enough to eat. Long hours juggling classes and part-time work, and four weeks later she found out she was pregnant. The night she told Daniel's father was the last night she ever saw him.

There were no such devices here in this world. No condoms. No pills. Nothing! And still she wasn't pregnant. After a year she went to the she-wolf foremothers and asked why she hadn't been gotten-with-child, and they steadfastly refused to answer except to say, "If the Moon Goddess wishes for you to have a litter of cubs, then you will conceive."

It still infuriated her! Combing her fingers through Chenoa's fur calmed her down. Down Chenoa's belly her fingers glided, then up to the waist, and over and down Chenoa's hip to her buttocks. Chenoa's eyes opened and she smiled. She could feel Chenoa wagging her tail. Chenoa's eyes were as crystal blue as fast moving glacial river water. Chenoa leaned in, and Hlina tilted her head up to receive a kiss.

Espowyes' roused from his slumber as his rough hands caressed her waist. She was sleeping between him and Chenoa with her back to him. His hands slid down to her hip and buttocks.

Chenoa's mouth peeled back and growled lustily as she pulled Hlina on top of her as she rolled onto her back. Hlina had to hold herself up on hands and knees while lavishing Chenoa with kisses.

Cool air stirred in their small abode as Espowyes moved behind Hlina. Arching her back so that her flat belly was touching Chenoa's larger, pregnant belly, Hlina sighed in mild disappointment that Chenoa would give birth within a few days. Her thoughts flew away on wings of excitement as Espowyes' clawed fingers dug into her soft round buttocks until he was just on the point of drawing blood. Gripping her cheeks tight, he spread her apart and pushed inside!

She sighed into Chenoa's mouth. He was so deep inside her now. She looked down into Chenoa's eyes, and with a satisfied smile she kissed her sister-wife. She had taken to this bisexual lifestyle a lot more readily than she ever would have imagined she could.

Their mouths were pulled apart by Espowyes

pulling her hips back to meet his mighty collisions. All too soon she felt a swelling inside her womb as he knotted her, and then warmth as he seeded her. Euphoria filled her up like a balloon. She felt like she would float away, and then she was being stretched out so thin. Her ballooning orgasm popped at her peak, but inside it was an explosion that ripped through her body. Destroying her. Recreating her. She howled joyously as that warmth, that joy, spread throughout her whole body!

It was mid-morning before she left to start her chores. She walked funny. She always walked funny after being bred. Soft chuckles from the other men and women followed in her wake. They weren't even discreet as they sniffed the air as she passed by. The men smelling her arousal, the women catching the scent of Espowyes' seed running down her thighs.

It was utterly humiliating!

The she-wolves didn't have such issues when they were bred by their mates, or at the least, they hid it better than she was able to if they did. To her, after breeding, she always felt like she still had the large gourd of a butternut squash still shoved up inside her.

Did the she-wolves feel the same sensation after breeding?

Walking in tender humiliation, her feet kicked out in wide crescents that exaggerated the sway of her broad hips. Her tenderness not letting her inner thighs touch. She looked like a woman walking with the long end of that imaginary butternut squash still sticking out between her thick thighs.

Making her way as quickly as she could manage to the bathing cave first, she wound her way around rock formations with natural hollows to a spigot and twisted. An ingenuitive blacksmith had rigged a large boiler over a fire pit to boil water. Turning one of several spigots as she resulted in hot water pumping out to the large natural basin making a perfect wading pool.

As soon as the bath was filled she disrobed. There wasn't really much to remove, a loincloth worn in the fashion her mother had worn, silver bracelets on each wrist, woven bracelets on each ankle encrusted with turquoise, and bird bone and citrine breastplate that was Espowyes' mother's marriage gift to her. The only item she didn't take off was her mother's waist chain, still wrapped around her neck like it had been the day Espowyes took her as his mate two years previous.

Slipping into the hot mineral water, she sighed exultantly as her aching vaginal muscles were soothed by the water's hot caress. Another sigh escaped her, a longer more contented sigh as the hot water soothed all the rest of her. Laying her head back on the cold stone rim, long curly black hair floated all around her as she let her mind go blank...

——(!)——

Hlina opened her eyes and found herself sitting on a large round stone deep within the earth. A cave she thought, but as she looked around the space was massive and there was no exit.

Wherever she was, the large open space surrounding her was easily of a scale with a stadium capable of seating fifty-thousand people. In its center, the only thing in the massive space was the large boulder she sat on. It looked like a large sphere with only two-fifths of its mass above the cavern floor. The cavern itself seemed to be lit by a yellowish light that became more orange and then red by the time it reached the floor. Other than that, she saw that she was naked, and more interestingly, the stone beneath her buttocks and thighs was very warm.

Looking down she saw that she was sitting cross-legged on the very center of the stone. Standing up, she turned in a complete circle as she examined her surroundings. When her circuit was complete there was a tall woman standing at the base of the stone that wasn't there when she started. She stood there unmoving except for dark brown eyes that looked up at her, examining her, weighing her. She suddenly felt self-conscious in her nudity even if the other woman didn't appear to be self-conscious at all in hers.

The other woman was of a height with Hlina and as dark of skin, the same long curly black hair, and the same dark brown eyes. The differences between them were small. The ears, Hlina's were long pointed alfari ears while the other woman's were rounded like a humans. Hlina was still slim while the other woman was pregnant. She was incredibly gravid, with a belly so large she must have been full term or more, and carrying multiples! And yet, she stood tall and straight backed like the weight of her burden was nothing at all. Lastly, the woman had hugely gravid breasts that hung low to rest on her belly that stood out from her chest like two massive, fat missiles pointing slightly towards each elbow and downward. However, despite her nudity and her pregnant state, she held herself with a queenly air. Her chin tilted up even with Hlina looming above her, and with an expectation that Hlina would come to her, not the other way around.

Hlina nodded to herself in acceptance and descended the slope of the boulder. As she approached she saw small rocks and earth moving in a slow swirl around the other woman's feet. She felt surprised, but also, somehow, it felt muted as if she shouldn't be surprised by what she saw at all. That what she was seeing was perfectly normal.

"Who are you? Where am I?" She asked as she came to a stop still on the boulder two steps away from the swirling earth and rocks.

"I am Gaia, daughter," The other woman answered.

Gesturing to the vast cavern around them she continued, "This place you are in is your soul. Your inner world. Your body, your real body, is laying back and dozing in the bath while your mind is in a heightened state of meditation."

"Why am I here?" She asked, shaking her head, not understanding.

Gaia smiled. It was a motherly smile. A smile Hlina remembered receiving from her mother on many occasions when she said or did something that made her mother proud. Gaia answered in a warm purr, "Why don't you come closer?"

"Why should I?" She replied immediately, her tone suspicious as she shook her head, "I don't know you."

Gaia nodded as if she expected the response and said, "It was I that led you toward playing your son's game. So that you might come to this land and be reunited. I am fond of mothers, you see."

She gestured to her own belly as she broke eye contact only to look down at her own gravid state before lifting gaze back up to Hlina's before continuing, "I empathize with them, with you. As for the reason why; many thousands of years ago I was awakened not by the Creator, but rather, by devices created through the unholy union of the Fallen's magic and Man's science. I was awakened, and then I was split asunder. It nearly destroyed me."

Gaia's voice fell away while remembering the pain of the past. When her eyes focused again she continued, "The pain of your loss drew me to you, but your loss was no greater than any other mother that has lost her child. No, rather, it was your son's transference to the Garden Realm that caused me to act."

She paused again, shaking her head at some unknown thought before she continued, "I felt his transference. It was that which caught my attention, but the Bifrost was incomplete, resulting in Daniel Reas Wells of Spirit, Power, and Soul being transferred while his body, a burned out husk, remained behind. I followed his spirit to its implantation in his father, a son of Lauma. I was present when conception took root in his mother, a daughter of Seline. So I came to you, a daughter of Midgard, and gave you the dream."

"You sent me the dream," Hlina said more to herself than as a question, "You knew I would follow my son here to this... Garden Realm?"

Gaia nodded, "I had hoped you would. I hoped that you wouldn't take your own life instead."

"Why?" Hlina asked, determination filling her voice, "Why would you do this for me?"

"Daniel Reas' birth cries were like thunder in my ears. However his cries were not the only ones I heard, but he is the greatest of you. The goddesses Lauma and Seline both have their representatives though only Seline Oracle is near Daniel now. There is no doubt though, both Oracles will bond themselves to your son, if they can, to their goddesses' benefit. So too will I, for my need is greater than theirs ever was or ever will be. To do so, I need you to be my Oracle," Gaia answered, but when Hlina only looked at her in confusion she explained, "I need an avatar, an anchor, to this world. Someone that I might bond with, and through whom I might create an unbreakable bond with my Champion."

"So you will possess me? Inhabit me? What then happens to me?" Hlina asked, her tone worried as she took a step backwards away from Gaia.

"Nothing happens to you, my daughter," Gaia answered reassuringly, "You are yourself. Only when I need to speak to the Champion will I exercise my will over you. There will be no memory of those moments, but when I have completed my task I will withdraw and you will be in control of your body once more."

"Who is this Champion you need to get in touch with?" Hlina asked.

"Why, I thought that much was obvious, it is none other than your son, of course," Gaia chuckled, "That is why I guided you to come to this world. I am considered a mother goddess, and who better to represent me and my interests than Daniel Reas' mother!"

"So I am just a tool to use to manipulate Daniel," Hlina declared indignantly.

"Of course not daughter," Gaia replied reassuringly, "I am not that type of person, and you would be a very poor tool of manipulation even if I were. Your love for and loyalty to your son would never allow you to be used in that way. Also, you look nothing like who you were in Midgard. Daniel Reas would not see his mother in you now."

"No!" Gaia nearly shouted as she shook her head adamantly. When her head shaking stopped she smiled as she continued, "Rather than manipulate I wish to persuade. I wish only to communicate with my Champion, and to do so I need an Oracle, and you are her."

"In exchange for being your Oracle, I get what?" Hlina asked, her tone neutral, her demeanor guarded.

"Aside from being reunited with your son?" Gaia replied softly, confidently, "You would be regarded as the equivalent of a High Priestess to those that worship me. Also, I will give you my blessing and a portion of my power."

Raising her gaze upward Gaia pointed as she continued, "Look."

Hlina did so and where she was sure there hadn't been anything but the top of the dome there were three spheres of energy. They hung suspended in a triangular pattern. The first a red fire ball angrily spouting small gouts of flame that would stretch out before curving back towards the ball just like it really was a sun. The second was blue and seemed to glisten like water. It's surface seemed to stir and ripple as if there was a constant wind blowing across it. The third, the last ball of energy completing the triangle, was a deep yellow-orange energy cocooned by a hard shell of pieces of earth tightly packed together but not uniform so that the energy within glowed through the cracks.

"What are those?" She asked in surprised awe. She could feel their power. Her body nearly vibrated in anticipation. When she concentrated on one for any length of time her womb started feeling warm and aroused, or her heart started beating rapidly, or her head felt fuzzy and euphoric.